[Latto]

Hey, it's Latto, your local veteran robot building, item chucking dumb ass (I was the one that suggested the original Good Materials B') ). I was excited about the Engineer revamp but after playing it (I'm a Destiny Engineer right now) let's just say they are still pretty... bad. There are several glaring problems:

Many of their skills do next to nothing for the skill points invested:

Robots only get 2 stat points per level.
This is... okay... albeit bland and also practically useless for Medibot.

Repair and Bashfix get lowered FP costs.
Bashfix gets 10 FP reduced. Repair gets 2 FP reduced per skillpoint which is simply atrocious since it does absolutely nothing else for the point investment.

Upgrade skills get duration increases.
While this is okay for Flamethrower/Grenade Launcher, Jetpack and Electro shield both have 3 turn cooldowns after using their active abilities. This essentially makes the duration increase AWFUL since you would need at least 3 skill points to grant someone a second usage of their active abilities (also since Electro shield's shield effect duration is based on the actual skill's level and not the upgrade level it makes it even less efficient to put points into the upgrade skill.)

Gun skills (and as a result, their upgrade skills,) are mediocre.
Flamethrower and Grenade Launcher are just... meh. If you have a gun equipped you don't get access to bashfix and vice versa. Their scalings are average and unfavorable (being based off of fire attack means you need strength... which guns don't scale off of.) Grenade launcher needs to be a high rank to be of any sort of significant use and explosive art's damage bonus doesn't work on its upgrade skill (meaning your 6 momentum robot will be sacrificing a move or attack to deal a whopping 20 damage.)

Costs to Reward Value

Let's face it: Engineers use a lot of time and resources to not do much at all.

Upgrading your robots takes FP and momentum while barely boosting their (see above.)

Collecting scrap, bashfix, repair and overload basically require you to be in melee range (see: middle of the enemy team.) This isn't very good for you - especially if: you're squishy, your opponent has AoEs, you need to split up your robots, you want metal aegis to actually attack things without being glued to your hip, etc.

Explosive Art is a good skill but bombs are intensely resource consuming as a source of damage (HIDDEN VIOLETS ARE A RARE COMMODITY.) Also another case of dumping skill points into a very niche area (I think I'm the only person in the game that actually uses bombs.) Good luck using them against people with fire resist/absorb. More bomb recipes when?! (I'VE BEEN WAITING MONTHS FOR DIFFERENT TYPES OF BOMBS)

50 FP for slow, not very effective robots

- Medibot: Low combat stats; single range item delivery and potion sickness limits healing; only one of each item can be used per summon

- Turret: Mediocre combat stats (10 luck at rank 5? it has trouble hitting arena combatants); mediocre damage, hard to effectively use bullet spray; extremely short range with bad movement and only 6 momentum means positioning is hard and severely lowers damage output

- Metal Aegis: I don't know if this is a bug but Reflector refuses to work against almost EVERYTHING. Libegrande, AoE spells, Wind Slasher, people shooting targeted attacks straight at you - these all go straight through it. The only thing I've seen it successfully reflect so far is Demon Drool. This basically makes it only useful as a tankier turret bot.

tl;dr + other miscellaneous issues/notes

Stat scaling for skills is all over the place (str for gun skills? gui for a healing skill with no other skills that scale of GUI?! but you also need a decently sized FP pool?!?!!)

You get the bare minimum for what you pay for in terms of skill points

Lots of momentum/fp used for negligible gain

Upgrade skills are so bad, Mercala please help them they are so sad only she could love them

Robots are better but still incredibly flawed
*
Supposed to be a class thematically focused around building things/using gadgets/being resourceful and shrewd but functions more like a watered down summoner.

Idon'tknow,I'mbadattl;drsandbetteratlongessays

Suggestions:

Make robots more customizable. Maybe a special menu for engineers where you can craft for/equip items on the robot as a sort of "upgrade?" These could add things like +1 momentum or +1 attack range (think equippable Mechanation discs in SL1), etc or possibly just allow them to equip existing weapons/armor.

For example, for already existing weapons/armor:

Deploy: Turret
R1 Learn Skill
R2 50 FP, +2 to All Machine Stats, Body Slot unlocked
R3 50 FP, +2 to All Machine Stats, Legs Slot unlocked
R4 50 FP, +2 to All Machine Stats, Accessory Slot unlocked
R5 50 FP, +2 to All Machine Stats, Weapon Slot unlocked
Rarity Equippable up to Rank + Engineer Level / 10 (10* item equippable at level 50 engineer with R5 Deploy:Turret]

For Medbots, perhaps ranking up could give an item delivery range increase/movement speed increase/item belt size increase, etc instead and the special tab could allow you to change its equipped items (this would also make crafting more meaningful as a large majority of potions are unused.)

Why is it called an upgrade if all it does is toss someone a jet pack once every few rounds? Make upgrades do what they're named: upgrade! Make upgrade skills have a status level, and by stacking repeated upgrades, improve the power/functionality of the existing skill.

For example:
Upgrade (Grenade Launcher): Gives an ally the ability to use Grenade Launcher for x Rounds. Use it on someone with the Grenade Launcher skill to improve it! The launcher gains extra range equal to UL / 2, along with a R * 1% additional scaled weapon attack rating for each LV. (Max: 6 UL)

Upgrade (Jetpack): Gives an ally the ability to use Jetpack for x Rounds. Use it on someone with the Jetpack skill to improve it! The jetpack costs UL * 2 less FP to use. At UL 4, the character is able to hover with the Jetpack. Upon using it, they become airborne, and all attacks for that round become airborne compatible. At UL 6, the skill gains a 1 turn cooldown reduction (Max: 6 UL)

Upgrade (Electro Shield): Gives an ally the ability to use Electro Shield for x Rounds. Use it on someone with the Electro Shield skill to improve it! Electro shield grants UL * 1.5 magic/physical resistance, At UL 6, upon discharging the Electro Shield, damaged enemies are inflicted with Interference for 2 rounds. (Max: 6 UL)

Upgrade (Flamethrower): Gives an ally the ability to use Flamethrower for x Rounds. Use it on someone with the Flamethrower skill to improve it! Flamethrower gains an additional UL * 5% weapon attack scaling. At UL 4 the flames become even hotter, granting additional burn chance equal to UL * 5. At UL 6, burn duration increases by 1 and grants an extra additional 5% weapon attack and burn infliction chance if used within melee range.

This would enforce the idea that Engineers are a class that builds things and if given sufficient time, can come up with all bunches of neat stuff!

Make GUI actually useful for Engineer. Pure Genius is a sad passive . Suggested skill/passive ideas include:

- Additional % Gui scaling to traps based on rank
- Additional max FP/reduced cost to Engineer skills/fp recovery based on Gui
- Range increase to repair/bashfix/overload/salvage based on Gui
- Gui scaling to grenade launcher/flamethrower
- Gui based stat scaling to robots (the disc/equipment slot idea can replace the current rank based bonus stat scaling?)
- Bonus class points based on Gui! (they have so many skills and so little skill points... especially if these ideas get implemented.)
- Item belt size increased based on Gui!

Etc.

Engineer exclusive crafting tab.
please i love crafting so much i just want to use my item belt and throw crap at people after spending all my murai and resources crafting i miss magic arrows and rune mage and berry traps dev pls bless this smol child it can cost 5000 murai per consumable i don't care have mercy on me pls

[Ranylyn]

While I understand where you're coming from, I would like to provide some counterpoints:

- Effects that don't scale well with additional ranks are up to you to determine what they're worth. I leave a lot of skills at rank 1 on numerous classes for various reasons, like keeping FP costs down on a skill that gets more expensive, and so on. Not every skill needs to be completely balanced at a glance, and more gimmicky builds can and do occasionally decide it's worth it to sink the SP.

- I fail to see why the universal stat scaling system should be ignored to change from Fire Attack to Acid attack (Str to Gui) just because the weapon they belong to doesn't scale with Str. This is literally the exact same as arguing that Sear needs to scale with Will because dedicated Mages don't generally want as much Str as a dedicated warrior - an argument that has come up numerous times since the GR, and always gets laughed off because it holds very little water due to the variety in possible builds and how not every evoker needs every spell. If this is frustrating, might I suggest using a mutated weapon with Str scaling? I personally use a gun narcus (And before anyone goes "0/10 too much fire, Special Attack 1 and Skills allow working around that.) and would greatly appreciate not needing to scrap the entire character due to completely going against the systems already used fairly universally in the game already.

- The prevalence of a single "god stat" completely neuters different builds. Your ideas of a ton of various ways to make everything scale with Guile would just mean all Engineers go 50-80 Gui for extreme benefits. Bonus CLASS points? Bonus ITEM slots? Short range skills having longer range based on Guile? I'm sorry, but not a single one of these is even remotely an option, especially when Engineers already have the most item slots, benefit greatly from Destiny (With bots based on Class Level) and also have Dagger Dance/ Bashfix, making them viable Dagger/Axe users and not only gunners.


We really need to take the focus away from (quite frankly bullshit) Guile benefits, and look at the skills themselves.

[Latto]

- The thing is that almost /all/ the skills that engineers have currently have very bad scalings for their point value. It feels like everything outside of passives/overclock/electroshield is just putting points in because "there's no better option." Even then, those skills come with risks to use functionally (high cooldown on electro shield, requires getting hit to actually be effective. Overclock leaves no scrap behind and sets an action limit on your robots.) Also, for many other classes skills have stat scalings that make them scale even while being left at one point. Out of all of Engineer's abilities only /3/ have stat scaling. Out of those 3, Grenade Launcher has to be high level for it to be effective because its scalings are so damn low. Flamethrower is equally as bad as the burn level is based on rank, and the scalings are also subpar at 1 point. Only repair is servicable at 1 point because it scales off of 2x gui and because leveling it up for -2 fp cost is so bad that you shouldn't even think about it.

- I didn't say change the fire attack to acid attack anywhere in the post? The thing is that even in terms of scalings, Flamethrower is on the lower end of damage for elemental autohits and not very good for putting points in (limited range, very niche use aka melting ice tiles, burn chance is based on your status infliction instead of an independent modifier.) Another thing for Mages is that there are many tomes that scale off strength whereas you /have/ to mutate something into a gun for it to actually scale off of strength (except for firthrower which does the EXACT SAME THING AS FLAMETHROWER PRETTY MUCH.) Why should you be forced to mutate an item or use one specific item only to match the scalings? No other class has attack skills that scale so unfavorably for their weapons.

- Those were just suggestions (and also at the very bottom because they're the least desirable options. I'd rather have the upgrade + cool robot enhancements.) Literally only one skill in Engineer benefits from Guile (see: Repair.) Both this and pure genius were changed from skill scalings into guile scalings when it would have made more sense to keep the skill scalings for Engineer's gun skills.

Also, I'm currently a destiny Engineer. Bots at 60+ are still awful. Shine Knights and regular summons outperform them in every single way without forcing you to Destiny. Medbots have 40+ wil for some reason when they don't even use skills and lack almost everything else except celerity (this makes them pretty useless after you use their amazing 1 of each item supply)? Turret has 10 luck that doesn't improve. A level 62 robot with 57 skill and 10 luck and a handgun as a main weapon isn't exactly what you call great for locking yourself out of every other non-rogue class.

[Exxy]

Although there are a lot of points to respond on, I'll try keeping my reply short (for the sake of time and me probably needing sleep at the time i'm posting this, maybe if I can remember after waking up I'll throw more counterpoints here):

-The robots are not meant to be comparable to Player Characters, there's a reason why you think they're weak in this regard but they are still worth it.
-Even as a crit-based Monk I have relative difficulty hitting Arena Combatants with crits unless I'm stacking all possibilities (when you said Luck I assumed you meant criting, not actual Hit procs).

I realize this won't sit well with you but I think you're taking too much of what Engineer does good for granted. Yes, they're no end-all-be-all class but I don't believe they're in an inherently bad position; we're making steps at least.

[Ranylyn]

- I didn't say change the fire attack to acid attack anywhere in the post? The thing is that even in terms of scalings, Flamethrower is on the lower end of damage for elemental autohits and not very good for putting points in (limited range, very niche use aka melting ice tiles, burn chance is based on your status infliction instead of an independent modifier.) Another thing for Mages is that there are many tomes that scale off strength whereas you /have/ to mutate something into a gun for it to actually scale off of strength (except for firthrower which does the EXACT SAME THING AS FLAMETHROWER PRETTY MUCH.) Why should you be forced to mutate an item or use one specific item only to match the scalings? No other class has attack skills that scale so unfavorably for their weapons.

- Gui scaling to grenade launcher/flamethrower

So... not replacing the Fire Attack... but... ADDING extra GUI scaling IN ADDITION TO the Weapon Scaling + Fire attack, then? I'm sorry, but I don't believe anyone would be crazy enough to suggest weapon scaling + 2 different stats on top of it. Hence I came to the only logical conflusion: REPLACING the fire attack with GUI, which is Acid Attack.

Regardless, many engineers are in fact dagger dancers or whatnot. Most engineers won't carry Flamethrower or Grenade Launcher at all, and honestly, the only reason I see to make them have any kind of GUI scaling is because of Pure Genius. Why do I say this? Because *most* guns (There's a few exceptions like the Hold Upper, I believe) also don't scale on GUI, so your entire argument about weapon scaling just completely falls apart. Unless you wanted to use Upgrade: Flamethrower on yourself (According to Dev, the upgrade skill bypasses a need for a Gun; I have yet to test this.) and use it with a dagger for maximum GUI shenanigans. And let's get real, here: if this means you can use Flamethrower with an axe (Engineer DOES get Bashfix, after all) then there's equal merit to keeping it with the Fire Attack scaling as there is in changing it to GUI.

[Latto]

Guuuurl, like I said. The whole Gui scaling thing is the least favored option. You're being fixated on this idea that I want to forgo elemental attack!!! Oh my Huggosea one stat for everything!! *I don't care if it doesn't get implemented at all* in favor of the other suggestions.

And, like that's the point. "Engineers are fine! They don't use Engineer skills at all and forgo using them for regular rogue skills instead!" Most engineers don't carry Grenade Launcher or Flamethrower because... they're bad... with bad scalings... and upgrading robots or frankly anyone with them means you have to put points into them since the upgrade skills are based off of them... which is wasting points... and for other people, wasting momentum and FP during their turn when they can use better skills BECAUSE THE SKILLS ARE BAD WHICH IS WHAT I'VE BEEN TRYING TO SAY ( ' A ' )///// If you wanted to be a good dagger user.. go Void Assassin. Axe user? Soldier class. Destinying Engineer only gives your bots like 10 extra stats to their average base stats and as stated, you're not using any of your other skills anyway.

You can't just go "Oh, most Engineers are dagger users!" and just dismiss their only attack skills. Look at Engineer as a standalone class, no sub class. Their skills /just don't synergize./ You shouldn't have to go through all this extra convoluted work just to use the SKILLS ALREADY GIVEN TO YOU. Mages can equip a tome of their respective scaling to cast the elements they want. Soldiers can equip and axe and voila! Axe skills. Fencers? Spear or sword take your pick.

Also, most importantly for me, from a role play perspective... Engineers being all strength, no Guile or Skill is uh... Upgrade skills not actually really feeling like upgrading, machines being binary, hitting your gun harder to make your flamethrower stronger... Roleplay wise it's just...?!

I honestly don't mind Engineers having no stat scaling on their skils IF their upgrade skills actually were useful or if machines were customizable with craftable parts (pls both.) But as it is right now... nobody is using their skills, their robots are just glorified electro shield punching bags, and their gun skills require them to whack them with their arms to do more damage. The rework left Engineers in the exact same place as before: a class (along with monk) that people really only use for very niche uses (hello 3 extra tanks with incognito)/for RP purposes (I'm the latter to the grave.)