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Gunner vs. Buff Engi on Heavy Carronade

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The Cunning Linquist:
Is a gunner still necessary on a blenderfish, or is the heavy carronade now just another buff-engi gun?

Before the 1.4.5 patch, lochnagar was almost necessary on a heavy carronade so a gunner was a must.  With loch now nonviable on the carronade though, is taking a gunner really that helpful?  With a gunner, you obviously gain access to the two additional ammo types past charged and gunner stamina.  So therein lies two questions:

          1.  Are the additional ammo types helpful? 

          2.  Is gunner stamina helpful?

For the first question, I can see situations where heavy, incendiary, and heatsink all have their uses, but I'm not sure the advantages justify taking a gunner over an engi with charged.  For the second, I believe only the effects of stamina on vertical arcs are relevant (reload speed and horizontal arcs probably don't matter much).  However, if I'm understanding the wiki correctly, stamina adds +40% to vertical arcs, which is only an additional 4 degrees down and 8 degrees up (arcs are 10 down and 20 up initially).  These could be relevant for sure - rising into the face of a hwachafish for example - but how relevant?

As for taking a buff engi, there are two additional questions about benefits:

          3.  Is the effect of buffing the carronade relevant?

          4.  Do the added repair tools make a difference?

Charged already breaks a balloon in one clip, so does applying a buff to it really make that much of a difference?  It will obviously contribute towards armor break, but so does the ground so maybe that's not relevant.  Repair tools may or may not make a noticeable difference, that's past my predictive abilities.

Anyways, I'm caught somewhere in the middle of these two alternatives so I would really appreciate some community input.  Thanks in advance,

 - Cunning

Jamini:
Gunner stamina alone normally makes it worthwhile to have them on heavy guns, due to reload times. The ability to bring incendiary (to help keep the bloon down) and Heatsink (to go for extra disables per clip) is also useful. The third engineer's use varies depending on what the situation is.

The main advantage of a three-engineer crew is that you can have two repair engineers and a buff engineer.

-In a purely tanking scenario, two spanner-mallet engineerscan keep a ship from going down a little longer.
-In a scenario with a lot of fire, a third person who can suppress fires is very useful

-In a normal scenario, or one where you have an advantage, the gunner can reload much faster and still get a buff from your buff engie.
-The gunner is more versatile in what he can fire and how he can fire (So even when both engineers are repairing, he can use a secondary gun at optimum, assuming he has one or more viable ammo types for it)
-Gunners can give better arcs, including a bifecta on the goldfish.

So really, if you are doing well a gunner is a better choice. In a close or losing match, the extra repairs can save you.

DrTentacles:
There is no reason to take a gunner anymore. Lochnagar required stamina to aim quickly. Now that it is no longer viable, the arc advantage is negligible next to the DPS of Charged+Buff.

There is also very little reason to take a blenderfish anymore.

BlackenedPies:
The advantage of gunner is the extra arcs: 4 degrees down, 8 degrees up, and 20 degrees to the sides. Use stamina for reloads at range and when you don't need it for arcs. While incendiary is a good ammo in general on carro due to the 20 buckshot chances to start fire per shot, it shouldn't be used against balloons. There's no point in putting fire on a balloon when it's gonna break anyways, and incendiary shoots as slow as charged (-30% ROF). Incendiary can be good against armor/components, but charged is generally better

If you're confident about arcs then buff engi is the best choice. Spanner mallet buff gives you max repair on the front and hull. The mallet can save your gun against shatter weapons, and during reload they can tap the hull while the main engi focuses on engines. The effects of a buff engi on a fish are: starting combat with more ship buffs, higher dps and guaranteed heavy clip pops, better gun and hull repairs, more repair time for the main engi and higher survivability. If you and your crew are coordinated you can switch off the engi on the gun during combat in order to get ship rebuffs. If you want max close range dps you could have an engi bring heavy clip to preload at longer range and have the gungi switch to their charged for close

Triple engi ships are more complex but rewarding when done right. Gunners were used on Hcarro pre-stamina in competitive even when they were literally useless, but now with stamina and the Hcarro nerf I recommend most players use gunners. If you're confident with handling a fish try a buff engi

ZnC:
This thread again; it's been a while though. Gonna keep it short this time.

Gunner
-Stamina
-Charged + Incendiary rotation

Gun-gineer
-Mallet Spanner
-Better rebuild/repair
-Charged + Buff

Buff-gineer
-Wrench Buff
-Firefighting
-Charged + Buff

Many players underestimate how devastating Incendiary Carronade is on the enemy ship, especially when used with Charged. On a Goldfish I have a buff-gineer front, so the choice is either Gunner or Gun-gineer. Set it up however you prefer, I always go gunner though.

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