Engineer Strategy Dicussion

[Sammy B. T.]

To all of you hardcore engineers who like bringing mallet/spanner/buff, and that you'll just let my parts that are on fire break then repair it and it'll be just rainbows and unicorns, especially without telling me, just quit it.

You know who you are.

Maybe you should bring an extinguisher as a captain?

[RearAdmiralZill]

Tried that. The hull isn't generally close to any helm, and the balloon would die by other means. My engie would be glued to the hull. Not ideal to say the least.

[Helmic]

Haven't played today's patch yet, but I've always hated surprise buff hammers on my main engineer.  I remember arguing recently with a level 8 engineer that went mallet/spanner/buff on the top deck of a Galleon.  I wanted top as I had gone mallet/spanner/chem spray and that buff hammer would be a lot more useful on the guns and turning engines.  He claims there won't be a fire upstairs, and sure enough within two seconds the balloon had caught fire and I had to haul my ass all the way up there to extinguish it.  Needless to say the ship died shortly after as I was constantly fighting fires while the other engineer tried to steal repairs on the hull.

There's just so little reason for the main engineer to bring a buff hammer when the stuff he would be buffing lasts so long anyways.  It's just easier for the off-engineer to buff things on ocassion and keep the guns buffed.  They're not going to run out until the component gets destroyed, and once components start dying you're not likely to make nearly as much use of that buff hammer as you would an extinguisher.  You're not going to get that hull buffed back up if it's going up and down rapidly, but you are likely going to have to deal with fires in the split second before they kill the armor.

It's just wasting manpower, if (when) a fire breaks out and the main engineer doesn't have an extinguisher, that means the other engineer has to stop what he's doing to fix it for him.  That's time wasted in transit, that's extra damage from the fire that has to be repaired.

Now, I can understand it working in some situations, namely those where you just don't expect there to be any fires period or you're in a situation where you need the engines ALWAYS buffed and they're too far away from your gungineers to rely on them.  On my ships, though, I prefer my crew to be as self-sufficient as possible.  The less you demand of others, the more they can focus on their own jobs and do them well.

[Machiavelliest]

There's just so little reason for the main engineer to bring a buff hammer when the stuff he would be buffing lasts so long anyways.

Fair point.  I did my pipe wrench/buff/extinguisher combo on a Spire, Squid, and Goldfish, by happenstance, so it happened to work well for me.  Obviously bringing main engineer as a buffer on a Pyramidion, for example, would be a bad decision.

I use pipe wrench/buff/extinguisher since I can't stand not bringing an extinguisher of some sort.  Fire degrades component performance, eventually destroys components, and basically dicks everything up.  I'm pretty firm on if you're going to bring a buff, bring a pipe wrench, except maybe on a Squid.

[RearAdmiralZill]

Obviously bringing main engineer as a buffer on a Pyramidion, for example, would be a bad decision.

This isn't true. I've had a main engie on pyra do very well as a buffer. It's actually perhaps the only boat it works on. Pro's and con's to each, but with the current meta of gat/flak, any additional armor that gatling has to go through is going to give you an edge.

[HamsterIV]

I had a crazy idea that I haven't tried yet. What if the captain brought the buff kit? This is of course assuming you have an engineer or gunner who won't fly you into a wall. The 1st mate (who is not a pilot) could steer the ship during the initial phase of the game when not much is happening While this is happening the captain gets the hull and main guns within one tick of buffed. When combat is joined the captain tops off the buffs then returns to the helm.

[Shinkurex]

I had a crazy idea that I haven't tried yet. What if the captain brought the buff kit? This is of course assuming you have an engineer or gunner who won't fly you into a wall. The 1st mate (who is not a pilot) could steer the ship during the initial phase of the game when not much is happening While this is happening the captain gets the hull and main guns within one tick of buffed. When combat is joined the captain tops off the buffs then returns to the helm.

I've been thinking about that as well... It's worth a shot

[JaceBoojah]

Because the Pyra is now harder to maneuver I am now adapting my crew style to squeeze every possible horse out of this triangle.

Main engy:
Mallet, spanner, chem
priority order is hull, engines, shooting side guns
(nothing different here)

Gungineer:
Wrench, Chem, Buff (if there are no enemy carronades)
Mallet, Spanner, Chem (if there are enemy carronades)
Priority order is balloon, Lift side front Gat, buff balloon and own gun.

Float Engy:
Mallet, Spanner, Buff
Priority order is engines, hull when its red, front right Flak.
This engy will spend MOST his time at the engines, will stay with the balloon while we are being blended, and if the timings right, will only be at the flak when the enemy's hull is down.

Bonuses from this set up:
Maneuverability-
Because of cool down times there is a limit to how much moonshine you can use.
This set up will let me trash the engines with moonshine and phoenix claw to the absolute max possible while the engines are buffed continuously.
The balloon will be buffed non-stop.

Safety-
Hull buff
Close by second engy for hull rebuild
more escaping power than ANY other pyra
Almost immune to Hwacha.  (My engies will be VERY used to engines being damaged.)

Negatives:
Gat fire will not be %100 uninterrupted (balloon damage beyond what can be fixed at reloads)
the Flak fire timing will be complicated but I believe the flak should never be shot at anything but an armorless hull.(will not start that argument here)
this is advanced teamwork that you cannot get most random players to do or even agree to.

[Urz]

Haven't played today's patch yet, but I've always hated surprise buff hammers on my main engineer.  I remember arguing recently with a level 8 engineer that went mallet/spanner/buff on the top deck of a Galleon.  I wanted top as I had gone mallet/spanner/chem spray and that buff hammer would be a lot more useful on the guns and turning engines.  He claims there won't be a fire upstairs, and sure enough within two seconds the balloon had caught fire and I had to haul my ass all the way up there to extinguish it.  Needless to say the ship died shortly after as I was constantly fighting fires while the other engineer tried to steal repairs on the hull.

That was me. You ragequit about 20 seconds into the game without communicating your concern; the ship certainly hadn't died at that point.

[Helmic]

Except it did.  And I did communicate it.  Loudly.  Repeatedly.  To which you told me to fuck off.  So I decided it wasn't worth the trouble.

[Urz]

You said nothing while we were in the lobby. We got in, you noticed I had a buff hammer, and told me to get below deck. I said I was fine on hull, to which you replied "fuck this" and left. The balloon possibly had one stack of flame on it.

Since everyone seems to be on the anti-buffmain train, I'll try to clarify some of my reasoning. One misconception is that if something is on fire, you need to drop what you're doing and put it out. This is rarely the case, if the balloon or hull have a few stacks it's generally fine to let them burn for a bit. On the Galleon, for instance, I feel it's much more important to have the fire tool downstairs, where fire damage has a much faster impact on the effectiveness of guns and turning engines.

Hull brings more situations where you have pockets of "downtime": while it's on mallet cool-down. Again using the Galleon as the example, the lower deck engineer is not going to have as many opportunities to keep those components charged. Time-critical balloon buffs I foresee becoming relevant with the decreased effectiveness of hydro.

Hull buffs after rebuild are also very useful for staying alive. There are many factors which will lead to subsequent incoming volleys being less effective: changes in terrain positioning, falling out of arc, damaging their guns, better cool-down timing, teammates assisting, etc. Hull buff out of rebuild is a straight 30% heal which bypasses cool-downs. I've often found it the deciding factor between surviving and not.

There are pros and cons to each side, but it seems there's a general lack of understanding of certain (effective) buffing styles.

[RearAdmiralZill]

I know what you're trying to do with it, but you will never convince me that you not having spray/extinguish is ok or more effective than wrench/buff/spray or extinguish. There are too many guns that cause fire on their own, and that's just free compounding dps, forcing you to come back and repair through the fire instead of stopping the dps there. You force the other engie to prioritize fire more, which also isn't ideal.

Fire is this extra thing that needs to be taken care of before it increases into a component break. No it doesn't have to be immediately, like one stack on a gun. The gunner can repair during reload till it gets doused. You repairing through it or letting it pop, followed by rebuilding it, cannot possibly be more effective than stopping it. Sure the buff will save you in a few occasions, but you can do it with a pipe wrench just fine. I would think you would have more unfavorable situations with one guy putting out fires vs two, when both variations are still buffing.

[Urz]

The pipe wrench is significantly less efficient for hull tanking. I'm kind of surprised you would even suggest that.

[Helmic]

It's certainly more effective than mallet/spanner/buff as even a level 2 fire will outstrip any extra repairs per second you're getting out of a mallet.  Again, that balloon caught a high level fire and broke before I could reach it to extinguish it, followed shortly by our death, that'd be painful on any ship but on a Galleon especially you're relying on the bottom deck engineer to take the longest route in the game to extinguish the balloon for you.  The balloon is weak to fire damage, it's going to catch fire more than just about any other component.

You're just being a dick to that other engineer when you go for something like that unannounced when simply taking the bottom deck and just buffing the hull during lulls in action would be SO much more effective, especially when you can buff the guns as well.  They might go down due to a fire, but it's much easier and safer to rebuild a gun rather than something more critical like a hull or balloon.  The galleon just isn't a good ship for mallet/spanner/buff period, it's so vulnerable to fire as it is so unless the ship's going triple engineer there's just too much to lose by not bringing an extinguisher.  Maybe the gunner could bring one, but then you don't have any help whatsoever with repairs and you're responsible for six components that have a tendency to take damage simultaneously.  Two pipe wrenches in two people's hands are going to do more for overall repairs than one person with a mallet and spanner.

[RearAdmiralZill]

The pipe wrench is significantly less efficient for hull tanking. I'm kind of surprised you would even suggest that.

And taking your toolkit makes you as an engineer less efficient because you simply neglect a very damaging component to the game. I don't expect you as a buffer to camp the hull. You're running around buffing components that give me an edge over the enemy in engagements, so we have a higher chance of survivability vs raw repair.