To preface, I have been playing since launch. My first toon to ever raid in was a sniper, and it being full of explosions and fun things I chose engineer as my advanced class spec. no hybrids, just pure engineer. Now in the past, currently, and seeming forever engineering marked as the black sheep of snipers. It makes up the smallest group of snipers (you will find that out after playing for a little bit). Over the past years I have had to learn other skill trees, because if you inform your ops leader that you are engineering when you get into content, if you don't immediately express your ability to switch and not play engineering you are likely to be booted. I don't know if this has just been me, or if this has been universal, the groan that comes after telling someone you are engi. It has received the short end of the shaft the entire time I've played it, and as the only reason it was ever parsing high was because of a nearly impossible to raid with mechanic of wall-banging. I have been told by many many people throughout my experiences in the game that it is non-viable as a spec and have had to not use it. Maybe I am jaded through these experiences, but honestly it seems to be a huge part as to why most people play other specs. It just doesn't do as 'well'. It simply doesn't have the capabilities of the other specs, and this is how it is viewed. It can be brought into maybe two fights currently simply because otherwise it doesn't fit in, yet you can find marksman and virulence throughout raid groups because of what they have. but there is this stigma against engineering that makes people not want to touch it with a ten foot pole. (or maybe Im just crazy , you never know) If possible I would appreciate any player's ideas on ways to make it more 'viable' and or discussion on the topic.

what level are you currently? the heroic in black hole wasn't that hard at level 50 to solo/two man and at 55 became practically a joke. if you are 60 you can walk through most of it.

I entirely agree with you on that. the main problem is that since they introduced the scatter bombs they have just continually nerfed it down until it has already hit this point. in 3.0 when I saw that frag grenade would give railgun I was excited, but only to then read up that it was only it's main target and it had a similar issue where it could only hit normal and weak enemies as well as the main target. So far all they've done is decrease our aoe abilities. os before the nerf in engi was something to be feared. but now they have already weakened our role to offensive uselessness, so imo it would only be fair to give us back grenades. put it in the engineer's belt since that one was about frag grenades in the past (and grenades hitting things at lower levels is also nice). it would be nice as since rolling gave us such a boon if we could get any of it back via another move, so that we stay more relevant.

to begin, concealment is a single target dps, and it wouldn't really feel right for it to have the additional targets taking damage, in my own opinion. Lightning uses their affliction (the dot I'm assuming you mean, if I'm wrong, I apologize in advance) to get automatic crits, as well as is able to refresh it with two moves. this dot has boons already in hand. looking from a parsing perspective, in concealment poison damage from dart (i believe i am reading this right, again where I make mistakes correct me) it deals approximately 11-12% of total damage ( http://parsely.io/parser/view/50404/1 ) then in lightening the affliction takes up like 11% of the total damage ( http://parsely.io/parser/view/40603/1 ) . now lets look at engineering both electrified railgun and poisoned take up around 6-7% of total dps individually( http://parsely.io/parser/view/46240/2 ). what does this show? I mean look at them, they are all against dummies. but when you look into bosses in hm, Interestingly enough i found an even greater disparity between the other two compared to the engineering. (all were against ul as sadly parsley has no charts of engi going beyond that currently in hm (imo that is sad as the commanders is such an aoe fight)) so lets look at these parses. first in concealment - poisoned(corrosive dart)/poisoned(tech) together deals about 14.5%(7.2 and 5.5) of the dps here (a relatively big chunk trust me, you'll see) http://parsely.io/parser/view/44586/8 second in lightening - affliction makes up about 7% of total damage in that fight. http://parsely.io/parser/view/3928/16 third in engineering - electrified deals a total of 2.2 and dart like 2%(see how small they are in this fight?) http://parsely.io/parser/view/21038/18 So if I have properly gotten my point across, engineering, the aoe dot spec, known and made for aoe plus dots, has the two dots not taking up very much total dps. What I am trying to say is that it would be nice if one of these abilities (preferably railgun as virulence already has spreading of poisoned darts also as it looks cooler imo) would/could spread, allowing for them to be more useful in the whole aoe thing. also making engineering better at aoe. but also not going to lie, concealment's entire lack of any aoe(that is actually helpful/not finicky) sucks and a way to increase that would be nice, but i am pretty sure they do not want to deal with their single target having less damage. I mean, does this make any sense? or am I just crazy?? Ive played engi since launch and love it, and this question about there not being dot spreading has crossed my mind many times.

not going to lie if they made it so that fragmentation grenade hit multiple targets and spread whatever stack of electrified railgun on main target to multiple targets that would be nice. if they made it so that plasma probe spread electrified railgun or just put it up with every few ticks, that would be nice. If they made it so that explosive probe would hit multiple targets (as it is an explosive probe) that would be fairly cool (but not as nice as it would lead to issues where you don't want to damage some targets). If orbital strike gave a dot/stacks of electrified railgun, that would be nice (and give a good reason to use it more). if there was a weak dot on targets that leave plasma probe, that would be nice (for high mobility things like where tanks move boss out of your circle). If you haven't noticed, Ive mentioned electrified railgun so many times in this post. that is because it really does so little damage in most parses, and honestly isn't that great, that it would be nice if we could have the possibility to get it on more than one target. Engineering is an aoe dot spec so why can't the aoes spread the dots? why?

Research Contributor: Be a key player in Czerka's development of new products by simply providing attendance and feedback. A wide variety of species and genetic traits needed. No experience required! 1. I am a cunning and resourceful ex-member of the disbanded imperial intelligence. My goals with the Czerka Corporation to bring about the evolution of technology. 2. I have singlehandedly ended the Hutt Crisis on Makeb, I brought the fall of imperial key republic figures throughout the star systems, and double-crossed the republic SIS as an imperial agent. 3.the achievement of all of the above was reached by ruthlessly fighting my way to the top and around scheming fools in charge. Success has been a top priority and must be achieved for the sake of the greatest good, knowledge and power. 4. if employed, the direction of the "moral compass" will be seen as second in importance to the task at hand, regardless of said task. 5. In said situation, I would set the blame of the disaster on my colleague, immediately following the realization that the esteemed colleague is a failure, I would then save the day and achieve both the glory and an improved position within the corporation.

I had the same idea! i think that this would be awesome!

Could you possibly add legacy species home planets or areas on planets only available to the people with a character that is level 50 with a species? I personally would find it interesting if, upon hitting 50 your character could go to his/her respective home world, such as if you level a 50 human you can go to a special level 50 area of Coruscant whether you are an imp or a rep, or if you have a sith pure-blood, you can go to a special level 50 area of Korriban only available to those with that species and it would be open to the republic through legacy species like a pure-blood jedi or smuggler, or the planet Scilla for the chiss, and Rattatak open for the rattataki, or Alpheridies for the miraluka, or for the Mirialans, mirial, or ryloth for the twi'leks . I think that this would be a very interesting thing to have added to the game giving access to legacy species characters to the imp/rep side letting them see their home worlds even if it is on the opposite faction. It would be nice to be able to see more of the character's past from where they are from and to see the planet. I know this would be a lot of new things, and it would not be easy to do, but it would add some depth to legacy species and to the individual character. Call me a dreamer, but i would like to play this add-on to the legacy and species program in an update sooner than later