Engineering discussion thread

[Sharma]

Rifle DPS spec? cliche. Healing spec? boring. Melee/Stealth spec? If I want to play Rogue I'll re-install WoW.

This thread is for Engineering discussion, for those who want to bring the pain through cold heartless disposable probes. I look at the Engineering tree and I see a lot of massive AoE damage potential. Being that this game is focused on the 'epic' gameplay experience which is primarily achieved through the vast majority of fights being against mob packs, I see nothing but domination for Engineers in both PvE and PvP.

 

Here I've gone and laid out my anticipated level 50 skill tree -

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#400bcMZbIMbRRrRbsZh.1

7/31/3

 

There's a lot of great abilities in the Engineering tree and most are obvious to take, so it might be easier to discuss why I chose not to train certain skills, in favor of the others, also because I don't want to type an even more giant wall of text right now. I may make the thread more comprehensive if it actually gets anywhere near popular.

 

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Engineering Tree (skills I didn't train)

 

Engineer's Tool Belt - Reduces cooldown of Flash Bang (15 sec) and Fragmentation Grenade (3 sec).

I'm still debating this one. Flash bang is still 45 seconds, down from 60, which is still a pretty long time and by itself isn't worth investing for PvE (for PvP build, yes, take this skill!). And the Frag grenade cooldown is reduced by 3 seconds, originally 6, down to 3 seconds total which at first glance seems pretty good. But then I think with all of the other abilities I'll be using in my rotation I figure I won't need or want or be able to use frag grenade every 3 seconds, though i'm NOT confident in this line of thinking, but right now the default 6 sec cooldown seems good enough.

 

Vitality Serum - Increases total Endurance by 4%.

I've always been a bigger fan of damage reduction rather than increased health pool. The only time 4% extra health comes in handy is when I only have 4% health left before I die. Also this is an ability that can be directly compensated with gear and in some ways player skill (need more health? don't get hit!)

 

Calculated Pursuit - Allows use of 1 snipe after exiting cover.

When thinking about this ability you have to ask yourself in what situations would you leave cover when in combat? reposition? running away? A free snipe while repositioning would be nice, but it's not like snipe is our only out-of-cover move. And if I really want to snipe on the move I don't see why I can't just re-enter cover really quick to get a snipe off. This skill is maybe only a slight DPS increase and is too situational for my liking.

 

Augmented Shields - Increases Shield Probe damage absorption by 30%

I don't have Shield Probe yet but from what I read, and I may be wrong, Shield Probe only carries a chance to absorb damage, and it's base damage absorption is already around 50%, I think? Good enough for me to not spend points on it to make it better.

 

 

Non-Engineering tree skills (the hard part)

After putting 31 points in Engineering tree, unless we want to dump the rest of our skill points in the less-than-desirable engineering skills, our remaining options are few, yet very difficult and subjective in correctly choosing. Here it's mainly a matter of personal preference but I'll go over the skills I did choose and why.

 

Marksmanship Tree

 

Steady Shots - Increases damage of Snipe, Series of Shots and Cull by 6%

Bread and butter damage abilities. We'll use them a lot, so the more damage the better.

Marksmanship - Increases ranged and tech accuracy by 3%

There's really no SWTOR theory crafting yet, but if 'accuracy' is like WoW's 'hit', then 1% increase in accuracy directly translates to 1% increase in total DPS. 1 shot missed is 1 shot of 0 damage, so unless the task to max out accuracy through gear is near trivial than I see this as being a very necessary skill.

Ballistic Dampers - 30% damage reduction for 3 hits after taking cover.

Static 30% off 3 hits, so if hit 3 times for the same amount of damage it basically means you only take damage from 2 of the 3 hits. I really like it for the fact it's also a PASSIVE ability, no energy or activation needed, it happens on it's own every time you enter cover.

 

Leathality Tree

 

Lethality - Increases ranged and tech critical chance by 6%.

We are the AoE kings. Experimental Explosives from the Engineering tree which increases all AoE critical damage by 30% makes this skill a must.

 

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The unknowns of Engineering -

Not trying to theorycraft yet, but how different do you think our solo PvE rotation will be from a raid boss rotation? I'm wondering how useful and/or efficient our AoE abilities are in prolonged 1v1 fights. Will the other two Sniper trees dominate endgame raiding or will we remain competitive post-level 50? I feel more confident about PvP especially warzones and group combat. The ability of an Engineer to be a powerhouse leveling build seems undeniable to me, and it seems likely that raid trash mobs will consist of trash packs much like non-raid content, but it's that 1v1 that's really an unknown right now and is bugging my brain

 

also Engineer spec Snipers make yourselves heard, where you at!? post some more skill specs and let's talk probe.

 

"Engineers - We Probe You"

Edited December 15, 2011 by Sharma

[Kozor]

Good build, I was planning to do almost the same (only putting 1 point in Heavy Shot for PvP utility).

 

Engineer increased mobility and AoE are its main selling points.

Edited December 14, 2011 by Kozor

[Sharma]

Yea I originally had a point in Heavy Shot actually, but like you said it seems to be more of a PvP skill than anything. I'd rather take Inventive Interrogation Techniques for its 30% slow which is useful in PvP AND PvE. Gives more firing time against melee attackers, and slows mobs down when I need to make a run for it. Plus Heavy Shot requires you use Ambush, a 2.5 sec cast time against a target that's at 10 meters away or closer but probably already in your face.

[Karaokelove]

It would be nice to know some of the numbers involved in these skills. For instance, how much base damage will my 3 Cluster Bombs do as opposed to as opposed to a single Snipe? And I really want to know if the Plasma Drone is worth it. After all, I'm having to spend 5 skills points on skills I don't necessarily want in order to pick it up. By not taking the Plasma Drone on my Engineer build, I open up enough points to allow my Ambush to ignore 20% armor and pick up the awesome Diversion ability.

 

Overall, though, I really like your build. You made some very valid points that actually affected my decision to pick up and drop a few skills. I feel like the Engineer build is going to be really underplayed. It seems like the IA class is definitely picking up in popularity, but I think most people will migrate to the reliable long-range damage of the Sniper AC. I'm currently torn between the Marksmanship and Engineering builds, mainly due to the information void.

Edited December 15, 2011 by Karaokelove

[GANGLETRONN]

I find myself torn on the subject of 1v1 as engineer : /

 

Spec looks really good, I guess my only concern is whether or not snipe will be still really

that important. Because the talent Stroke Of Genius has 2/2 for 100% chance after activating cover pulse to get one instant snipe. Assuming this is PVP we would use cover pulse every time it is off CD 30secs however if no one is on us we will be saving it. That makes me want to take Engineers toolbelt to get 45 sec Flashbang and 3 Sec Frag grenade

 

Either you get ONE SNIPE in 30-40 seconds or you get a CC in 45 seconds and faster nades for kiting... all depends on snipe damage i guess.. what do u guys think??

 

 

For pve u can sit in cover and activate cover pulse and get your free snipe but then that is using an extra global cooldown but flashbang is useless against raid bosses.

[Ikkeditnavn]

I know how you feel karaoke. Until the time comes, I will assume that more energy will trump the end Engineering talents. Thus my plan will be something like this bastard build.

 

I freely admit that it isn't a known spec as such, but I have heard good things about it from testers that reached 50 and ran Ops. The main benefit is the boost to Snipe in both trees and the energy bonus from both tree in Imperial Methodology and Sniper's Nest. Also it is pretty strong in AoE and personally i dropped a point in Lethality for EMP Discharge, that one I can't be sure about due to the crit value from other talents, but the combination of Vital Regulators and the resetting of Adrenaline Probe I give it the benefit of doubt.

Edited December 15, 2011 by Ikkeditnavn

[Karaokelove]

So I’m looking over the basic IA skill tree at http://www.torhead.com/class/bUpD92O and running some numbers. In the below paragraphs, when I consider the damage value of a skill, I’m assuming it is hitting maximum damage with no critical hit. I’m also assuming that the character has maxed out any damage-related skills related to the attack. For instance, Experimental Explosives yields 30% bonus damage to AoE attacks, so any AoE attack I mention will include that bonus. When I have more time tomorrow I might try to base the numbers on average damage instead of max. But anyway, here we go…

 

First let’s look at Snipe, the primary tool of the Marksman, and Explosive Probe, a primary tool of the Engineer. Snipe + Steady Shots + Followthrough + Rapid Fire = 9896.3 damage. That is pretty much the most amount of damage a Marksman can get out of Snipe without a critical hit. Explosive Probe + Explosive Engineering + Cluster Bombs + Imperial Methodology = 8705 damage. So when it comes to dealing with single targets, the Marksman has a slight damage advantage (though technically Followthrough is a separate attack). Though don’t forget that the Explosive Probe has the added benefit of knocking the target to the ground.

 

Now for AoE. The Marksman has basically no way to augment his AoE damage, capping his Frag Grenade out at around 1813. The Engineer, on the other hand, can do Frag Grenade + Explosive Engineering for 2085 damage, which isn’t a huge difference, but with Engineer’s Tool Belt he can halve the recharge time, effectively doubling his damage potential as compared to the Marksman. Also, that difference of 272 damage quickly becomes a difference of 1360 damage when applied to the max of 5 targets the grenade can affect. What’s more, the skills that augment the Frag Grenade will also augment Orbital Strike and Plasma Drone.

 

As far as I can tell, it seems that the Engineer outclasses the Marksman by a pretty huge margin. Even when facing a single opponent the difference in damage is fairly insignificant, and most of the attacks the Engineer will focus on result in knocked-down or slowed opponents. I’d have to say, based on my research, that the Engineer will be the way to go.

 

Please feel free to correct me if I’ve made any mistakes. Honestly, I was a little rushed when working on this. I will try to get some more details tomorrow. Thanks for reading!

Edited December 15, 2011 by Karaokelove

[Bacle]

I know how you feel karaoke. Until the time comes, I will assume that more energy will trump the end Engineering talents. Thus my plan will be something like this bastard build.

 

I freely admit that it isn't a known spec as such, but I have heard good things about it from testers that reached 50 and ran Ops. The main benefit is the boost to Snipe in both trees and the energy bonus from both tree in Imperial Methodology and Sniper's Nest. Also it is pretty strong in AoE and personally i dropped a point in Lethality for EMP Discharge, that one I can't be sure about due to the crit value from other talents, but the combination of Vital Regulators and the resetting of Adrenaline Probe I give it the benefit of doubt.

 

You need to take one point off between the eyes in marksman & put that point into Lethality in Lethality.

[Ikkeditnavn]

Heh... yes. Can't believe I missed that one. 2% for two abilities compared to 2% for everything.

[Theomachist]

I would probably use this spec myself for full engineer:

http://db.darthhater.com/skill_calc/imperial_agent/sniper/#::f2ef18ef3ef9ef3e2f3e6fe8

 

I get calculated pursuit for possible movement fights so you can hit cover pulse>move>cast instant snipe>re-enter cover when you can. I get tool belt because it's the only choice at that point that has more damage (even though it will only be on trash), and I get precision ambush because it does hit hard enough to want to use it on cd and the other options don't raise damage.

 

If plasma probe does suck I would probably use this spec:

http://db.darthhater.com/skill_calc/imperial_agent/sniper/#::f2ef18efefe2fefe2f2e2f4ef3de2fe2fe2fe4f

 

Snap shot/calculated pursuit combo will be good for movement fights, but I'm not sure if going this far into the MM tree is worth the loss of electrified railgun, since i don't know how much damage it will do, if electrified railgun ends up being really good, then we'll be better off staying full engineer. I'm not sure if energy overrides is better than between the eyes though.

Edited December 15, 2011 by Theomachist

[Ikkeditnavn]

In the below paragraphs, when I consider the damage value of a skill, I’m assuming it is hitting maximum damage with no critical hit.

 

Just going to rip at you a little here, all friendly stuff.

 

So my point is that while I'm not really capable of going and running the numbers right now, your method is perhaps slightly skewed. You did right in not considering crits (though there might be a slight difference of crits in the trees, for a quick baseline comparison it is perfectly alright), however going by top-end damage things can get out of hand quickly. Say we have two abilities, one does 1-100 damage and the other does 60 flat, they have the same activation and the same talents affecting them. Over time the second will do more damage, but your study will favour the first (the true comparison would be 50.5 vs 60).

 

I'm not going to assume that we have such a case here, but it is worthy of consideration for future reference. The correct way is not that much harder though, merely (high+low)/2.

[Karaokelove]

Just going to rip at you a little here, all friendly stuff.

 

So my point is that while I'm not really capable of going and running the numbers right now, your method is perhaps slightly skewed. You did right in not considering crits (though there might be a slight difference of crits in the trees, for a quick baseline comparison it is perfectly alright), however going by top-end damage things can get out of hand quickly. Say we have two abilities, one does 1-100 damage and the other does 60 flat, they have the same activation and the same talents affecting them. Over time the second will do more damage, but your study will favour the first (the true comparison would be 50.5 vs 60).

 

I'm not going to assume that we have such a case here, but it is worthy of consideration for future reference. The correct way is not that much harder though, merely (high+low)/2.

 

I agree completely. I was very much rushed tonight and barely had time to do what little I did get done. If I have time tomorrow I'm going to change everything to represent average result, as opposed to max damage results.

[EasternWind]

 

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Engineering Tree (skills I didn't train)

 

Engineer's Tool Belt - Reduces cooldown of Flash Bang (15 sec) and Fragmentation Grenade (3 sec).

This one I was torn between taking or not. Flash bang is still 45 seconds, down from 60, which is still a pretty long time and by itself isn't worth investing in. But the Frag grenade cooldown is reduced by 3 seconds, originally 6, down to 3 seconds total which at first glance seems pretty good. But then I think with all of the other abilities I'll be using in my rotation I figure I won't need or want to use frag grenade every 3 seconds, so the default 6 sec cooldown is good enough.

 

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"Engineers - We Probe You"

 

I would like to make a case for tool belt, especially in a pvp build.

Flashbang is an extremely useful ability both against multiple attackers and single targets.

You can preload a explosive probe>corrosive dart> interdroid before the tick from dart breaks the stagger on your main target, As an aoe class, Frag Gren is a really really good bread and butter skill,especially all the improvements you get for it; at lvl 25 it was criting for an avg of 2200 dmg, non crit was around 1000-1200ish(can't really remember). and with a 3second cd it's pretty much spammable between auto blast attacks.

[EasternWind]

So I’m looking over the basic IA skill tree at http://www.torhead.com/class/bUpD92O and running some numbers. In the below paragraphs, when I consider the damage value of a skill, I’m assuming it is hitting maximum damage with no critical hit. I’m also assuming that the character has maxed out any damage-related skills related to the attack. For instance, Experimental Explosives yields 30% bonus damage to AoE attacks, so any AoE attack I mention will include that bonus. When I have more time tomorrow I might try to base the numbers on average damage instead of max. But anyway, here we go…

 

First let’s look at Snipe, the primary tool of the Marksman, and Explosive Probe, a primary tool of the Engineer. Snipe + Steady Shots + Followthrough + Rapid Fire = 9896.3 damage. That is pretty much the most amount of damage a Marksman can get out of Snipe without a critical hit. Explosive Probe + Explosive Engineering + Cluster Bombs + Imperial Methodology = 8705 damage. So when it comes to dealing with single targets, the Marksman has a slight damage advantage (though technically Followthrough is a separate attack). Though don’t forget that the Explosive Probe has the added benefit of knocking the target to the ground.

 

Now for AoE. The Marksman has basically no way to augment his AoE damage, capping his Frag Grenade out at around 1813. The Engineer, on the other hand, can do Frag Grenade + Explosive Engineering for 2085 damage, which isn’t a huge difference, but with Engineer’s Tool Belt he can halve the recharge time, effectively doubling his damage potential as compared to the Marksman. Also, that difference of 272 damage quickly becomes a difference of 1360 damage when applied to the max of 5 targets the grenade can affect. What’s more, the skills that augment the Frag Grenade will also augment Orbital Strike and Plasma Drone.

 

As far as I can tell, it seems that the Engineer outclasses the Marksman by a pretty huge margin. Even when facing a single opponent the difference in damage is fairly insignificant, and most of the attacks the Engineer will focus on result in knocked-down or slowed opponents. I’d have to say, based on my research, that the Engineer will be the way to go.

 

Please feel free to correct me if I’ve made any mistakes. Honestly, I was a little rushed when working on this. I will try to get some more details tomorrow. Thanks for reading!

 

IMO marks has better frontloaded damage, Engineering has better sustained damage once all dots are on the target. So essentially they start behind, then ramp up dramatically.

[Karaokelove]

One thing I need to figure out is the actual damage of Plasma Probe and Orbital Strike. Their descriptions read "does # damage OVER # seconds" which makes it sound like "#" is the amount of damage done divided by the number of seconds the effect is active. This would make both abilities basically useless, which leads me to believe they mean to say "does # damage per second for # of seconds". That had better be the case, or else I'll be respecing to ignore Plasma Drone and the many skills I plan on leveling in order to obtain it.

[Karaokelove]

(here is my original post but with Average damage values instead of Max damage values)

 

So I’m looking over the basic IA skill tree at http://www.torhead.com/class/bUpD92O and running some numbers. In the below paragraphs I consider the damage value of a skill with no critical hit. I’m also assuming that the character has done the average damage of any damage-related skills related to the attack. For instance, Experimental Explosives yields 30% bonus damage to AoE attacks, so any AoE attack I mention will include that bonus. So here we go…

 

First let’s look at Snipe, the primary tool of the Marksman, and Explosive Probe, a primary tool of the Engineer. Snipe + Steady Shots + Followthrough + Rapid Fire = 9579.9 damage. That is a fairly standard representation of what a Marksman can get out of Snipe without a critical hit. Explosive Probe + Explosive Engineering + Cluster Bombs + Imperial Methodology = 7612.43 damage. So when it comes to dealing with single targets, the Marksman has the damage advantage by approximately 1967.47 damage (though technically Followthrough is a separate attack). Though don’t forget that the Explosive Probe has the added benefit of knocking the target to the ground.

 

Now for AoE. The Marksman has basically no way to augment his AoE damage, capping his Frag Grenade out at around 1637.5. The Engineer, on the other hand, can do Frag Grenade + Explosive Engineering for 1883.13 damage, which isn’t a huge difference, but with Engineer’s Tool Belt he can halve the recharge time, effectively doubling his damage potential as compared to the Marksman. Also, that difference of 143.16 damage quickly becomes a difference of 1228.15 damage when applied to the max of 5 targets the grenade can affect. What’s more, the skills that augment the Frag Grenade will also augment Orbital Strike and Plasma Drone.

 

As far as I can tell, it seems that the Engineer outclasses the Marksman by a pretty huge margin. Even when facing a single opponent the difference in damage is fairly insignificant, and most of the attacks the Engineer will focus on result in knocked-down or slowed opponents. I’d have to say, based on my research, that the Engineer will be the way to go.

 

Please feel free to correct me if I’ve made any mistakes. Honestly, I was a little rushed when working on this. I will try to get some more details tomorrow. Thanks for reading!

Edited December 15, 2011 by Karaokelove

[EasternWind]

One thing I need to figure out is the actual damage of Plasma Probe and Orbital Strike. Their descriptions read "does # damage OVER # seconds" which makes it sound like "#" is the amount of damage done divided by the number of seconds the effect is active. This would make both abilities basically useless, which leads me to believe they mean to say "does # damage per second for # of seconds". That had better be the case, or else I'll be respecing to ignore Plasma Drone and the many skills I plan on leveling in order to obtain it.

 

Another negative to both is abilities is that they are stationary and only do damage to a targeted area, awesome for pve. Pvp, not so much, hence why people were looking at corrosive gren as an alternative. what I don't like is the filler talents specifically needed to place before you even get plasma probe compared to same points spent in lethality.

 

At this point everything is pure conjecture until we get some numbers crunched and I will be doing that once I get access.... on a smuggler.... since republic is so outnumbered on pvp servers.

[Infalliable]

Another negative to both is abilities is that they are stationary and only do damage to a targeted area, awesome for pve. Pvp, not so much, hence why people were looking at corrosive gren as an alternative. what I don't like is the filler talents specifically needed to place before you even get plasma probe compared to same points spent in lethality.

 

People always say this about the "stationary" AOEs. It's really not true.

 

1.) You're primarily a sit in cover and fire class. You don't move much (as marksman or engineering) and are tough to knock out of cover. So melee characters have to come to you, and therefore they're forced to sit in one location, in the AOE to attack you.

 

2.) PvP is mostly objective based via the warzones. You know where people are going to go. They MUST click on the objectives and wait there for the X seconds it takes to "activate" the objective. If they don't do this, their team can't win. Damage interrupts them from doing this. Therefore, periodic damage is good, and the fixed location is actually a bonus. This is mostly applicable to Void Star and Alderaan, Hutt ball is a little tougher to employ these skills but there is a large number of choke points.

 

Now, for open world PvP I'm in agreement that those powers aren't great but so far (even in beta) there wasn't an overwhelming amount of open world PvP. It takes some time for enough people to get to the appropriate levels so that the open world stuff can become viable and competitive.

 

Calculated Pursuit - Allows use of 1 snipe after exiting cover.

When thinking about this ability you have to ask yourself in what situations would you leave cover when in combat? reposition? running away? A free snipe while repositioning would be nice, but it's not like snipe is our only out-of-cover move. And if I really want to snipe on the move I don't see why I can't just re-enter cover really quick to get a snipe off. This skill is maybe only a slight DPS increase and is too situational for my liking.

 

There is a power that gives bonus defense for leaving cover (I think it's ballistic dampeners, but am not somewhere I can check). It's commonly picked up so you can cover hop to give yourself some added survivability. This would mesh well with it. But as you implied, there are probably better alternatives.

Edited December 15, 2011 by Infalliable

[Karaokelove]

After much deliberation, I believe this is the build that I'm going with. It was mostly an easy choice, with the exception of agonizing over putting 2 point into Lethality or Inventive Interrogation Techniques. In the end I went with Lethality because I felt like the increased potential to crit my opponent outweighed the ability to slow them by 30%. If you have any arguments in favor of IIT, though, I'm all ears.

 

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#400McMZrIMbRobRrsZh.1

Edited December 15, 2011 by Karaokelove

[tanis_]

After much deliberation, I believe this is the build that I'm going with. It was mostly an easy choice, with the exception of agonizing over putting 2 point into Lethality or Inventive Interrogation Techniques. In the end I went with Lethality because I felt like the increased potential to crit my opponent outweighed the ability to slow them by 30%. If you have any arguments in favor of IIT, though, I'm all ears.

 

http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#400McMZrIMbRobRrsZh.1

 

Looks pretty good to me. It might be worth dropping Cover Screen for Steady Shots depending on how often you use Snipe and Series of Shots, but you'll probably know the answer to that by the time you finish up the Engineering tree anyway.

[Karaokelove]

Looks pretty good to me. It might be worth dropping Cover Screen for Steady Shots depending on how often you use Snipe and Series of Shots, but you'll probably know the answer to that by the time you finish up the Engineering tree anyway.

 

Yeah, I had to think that one over a bit. My reasoning for going with Cover Screen is that, currently, Take Cover is an instant ability with a 1-sec cooldown, so a viable tactic would seem to be entering, leaving, and re-entering cover before firing your first shot to initiate combat, thus starting out with the increased defense for 5 seconds of combat. I know that's not really it's intended use, but it works for me. Mathematically, if that extra 20% defense allows me to get off even 1 extra Frag, then it has more than made up for the 6% Snipe damage I'm missing out on.

 

Also, between Cover Screen, Augmented Shields, Deployed Shields, and Ballistic Dampers I'm expecting to be able to take a hit or 2 while I nuke my opponent to pieces.

 

(This is all assuming that tactic works. If it doesn't then those points are going straight into Steady Shots.)

Edited December 15, 2011 by Karaokelove

[Sharma]

I would like to make a case for tool belt, especially in a pvp build.

Flashbang is an extremely useful ability both against multiple attackers and single targets.

You can preload a explosive probe>corrosive dart> interdroid before the tick from dart breaks the stagger on your main target, As an aoe class, Frag Gren is a really really good bread and butter skill,especially all the improvements you get for it; at lvl 25 it was criting for an avg of 2200 dmg, non crit was around 1000-1200ish(can't really remember). and with a 3second cd it's pretty much spammable between auto blast attacks.

 

You make a good point, and I actually edited my original post to say I'm still debating this one even more. I can agree that in a PvP situation the 45 sec flashbang CD is much more desirable. But in PvE the problem with flashbang is that it's only useable within 10m, so as an opener it's not very viable and if you have a group or companion tank you're hardly ever going to use it.

 

Now the concern I have about using a 3 sec CD frag grenade is its energy cost. With Efficient Engineering (reduce energy of plasma/inter/exp probe by 4. for 16 energy total), frag grenade becomes one of our more expensive AoE abilities.

 

Assuming we're in a situation where we are trying to maintain 5 energy/sec regen throughout a fight we'll be using rifle shot quite a bit and when we finally do want to use energy we have three 16 energy cost probes to choose from - granted they do have longer cooldowns but their usefulness is undeniable - interrogation probe with EMP Discharge for free plasma/exp probe. exp probe for additional cluster bombs. plasma probe i think we need more real world info before making too many judgements on. But between keeping shatter shot and corrosive dart up on a target and trying to maintain 5 energy/sec regen I really can't see using frag grenade more than 6 seconds.

 

In a situation where we are just blowing energy as fast as possible, like in very short fights, a 3 second frag grenade would be much more useful and would definitely take precedence over other skills.

 

So I suppose it depends on your playstyle. Personally even in short fights where I'm just questing with my companion I prefer to maintain 5 energy / sec regen just save on downtime and go into the next fight very quickly with max energy. So for me personally I still don't think I would benefit from 3 sec spam grenades and I can spend those 2 skill points elsewhere. However if you prefer spending energy quickly then definitely go for that skill. And maybe after more playtime with frag grenade and the other higher level skills (once I get them), if it really is worth it to use more often than 6 seconds I might change my mind about it.

Edited December 15, 2011 by Sharma

[Sharma]

Something curious I noted while reviewing the skill Electrified Railgun:

 

Series of Shots has a 100% chance when dealing damage to electrify the target, dealing 98 elemental damage over 4 seconds. Stacks up to 4 times

 

And I thought this sounds like an awesome skill at making Engineers viable in longer raid boss fights, where the longer we keep up a stack of 4 the better our overall DPS. But 4 seconds is a very short amount of time, so I'm wondering if the amount of time also stacks, say up to 16 seconds and refreshes every time Series of Shot gets used.

But then I looked up Series of Shots and saw Cooldown: 15 seconds

 

How are you suppose to get any stacks when the cooldown is longer than the DoT??

Surely the database websites are wrong or outdated and the tooltips ingame are different. Right? Anyone know more about this?

Edited December 15, 2011 by Sharma

[Karaokelove]

Something curious I noted while reviewing the skill Electrified Railgun:

 

Series of Shots has a 100% chance when dealing damage to electrify the target, dealing 98 elemental damage over 4 seconds. Stacks up to 4 times

 

And I thought this sounds like an awesome skill at making Engineers viable in longer raid boss fights, where the longer we keep up a stack of 4 the better our overall DPS. But 4 seconds is a very short amount of time, so I'm wondering if the amount of time also stacks, say up to 16 seconds and refreshes every time Series of Shot gets used.

But then I looked up Series of Shots and saw Cooldown: 15 seconds

 

How are you suppose to get any stacks when the cooldown is longer than the DoT??

Surely the database websites are wrong or outdated and the tooltips ingame are different. Right? Anyone know more about this?

 

I have been wondering that same thing. The only thing I could think of is if you had the Marksman skills that allowed an instant refresh of Series of Shots, but it's impossible to have those skills together, so I'm at a loss.

 

Regarding your views on Engineer's Tool Belt, you do make very valid points. The only thing I can say, though, is that the probes only damage a single target, while the Frags are your primary source of AoE. I believe this makes them important enough to warrant the 3-sec cooldown. It also looks like Frag costs the same as Snipe, Explosive Probe, and Interrogation Probe (all cost 20). The big difference is that a single Frag has the potential to do an average of 9416 damage when facing a group of 5 enemies. Even against 2 enemies it does an average of 3766.25. Sure Snipe does an average of 5165 to a single opponent, but you have to be in cover and deal with the charge-up time. Overall, I think the Frag is worth the energy cost and the skill points to get it down to a 3-sec cool-down.

[StealthNerf]

This is a good engineering guide: http://swtorsniper.blogspot.com/2011/12/07-engineering.html

 

And this is my build: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#400bcMZrIMboRbRrsZh.1

 

I'm focusing on being a defensive duelist that can hunker down and blast melee that come to try and take points.

 

My thinking is you can't go wrong if you focus on complimentary skills. If every skill you pick also is used at the same time as at least one other skill, then it'll be a decent build.