strike engi: how to do it right?

[Violet-n-Red]

I mean is there absolute-ultimate build for killall in PvE?

if none, then it would be good to know does this will prevent me of dying too often?
another one, quite similar, just relocated few skillpoints and get in attention that i'll use weaponz n armour for skill boosting(there's might be 1 pair of guns for strikes, 1 for done n 1 for bots. or 1:0:2, or 0:1:2. smth like that. )
i've searched awhile on HGG forums, there's alot of info, but I haven't been satisfied with it, it's hard to sort things out there: people just telling that ,for example, molotov is best, but strikes with synergies theoretically much more powerfull. then that bomber with ghoststrike is weak, and taking tacstance, rapidfire n beacon instead one bot(wich will surely be buffed thru armor enchants) or one tells that nanobots r useless, when other swears it's can be a bosskiller etc.

wanna get stiker with average tank-drone and some non-recasting bots(i usually get lost if there's more than ten skills to choose from in a middle of combat ).

oh, and about drone: stats???!!! it's likely strength, then stam, then will n acc, right?

also, some people tells that engi can haz three bots at once. and planner tells that one of the bots r not da bot. 

[Geministar]

Ultimate build? Probably to peoples' tastes, but all of the Striker builds will be similar.

Here is the build I would use as a baseline.

I say baseline, because I don't know what weapons you'll be carrying or what augs you'll have put on them, so just get things to that area. Note that I'm assuming you'll have a +1 Engineer Skills helm.

Note2: Hastebot 3 is all you'll need since you'll find two single hand weapons with Hastebot 3 on them, plus the helm, keep them on swap so that you switch to them whenever you enter an area and you'll make a 10/10 Hastebot.

Because the Engineer doesn't get Multishot, their Strikes are more powerful than the MM's; they get weapon elemental strength effects, criticals, the synergies seem more powerful, and best of all, the +splash area mods in your weapons will effect the strike AoE.

IMHO, the best skill in the game is Smackdown. It does a lot of damage and it has a HUGE stun strength (that will stun even bosses like Moloch for a time, but more importantly, his summons will be locked up). When you are power leveling, if you do that sort of thing, you'll be the most valuable member of the team that is doing the "First room SH only, speed runs!" PUGs. You'll zone, throw in the Smackdown, and everyones' exp bars will start visibly moving up, rinse-n-repeat. Napalm is good too, don't get me wrong, it just doesn't have the crowd control aspect that Smackdown has, and really, when you are in a room filled with dangerous foes, stunning them all is the best damn thing since sliced bread...as a matter of fact, I think they have officially declared that Sliced Bread has lost its crown of excellence to Smackdown. Shock and Awe is *useless*, never use it, just get it for the AoE synergy.

Drone --> typical little tanker. Like with HGL, give it the Hell mode Wirt's Leg, so that it is forced to go melee range with the boss/foe, and then sit back and do your thing. If you got spare points, put them into Master Engy. Up until you get to the higher levels, you might consider giving your drone Moyer's, since that seems like a good match for it (low feed requirements).

Bots --> Hastebot, as mentioned above, to 3. Rocket bot, it's a nice opening salvo, plus with Hastebot, you pretty much can spam spawning the Rb and then Molotov at will, which is not too bad, although in a long fight I usually prefer to let it spit rockets at the target occasionally instead of feeding the boss a steady diet of the Molotov inferno...but, that's just me. Spiderbot is the new toy, and it is pretty effective/fun.

Quick Buttons you should use, in order of importance;

1. Smackdown
2. Napalm
3. Molotov
4. Rocketbot
5. Repair Drone
6. Construct Drone
7. Spiderbot
8. Beacon
9. Escape
0. Tactical Stance

With a modern mouse (thumb buttons & wheel button), you should be fine.

Open with Smackdown. Throw on a Beacon, do a TS, start firing on targets. If anything is left alive, throw out Napalm, and follow up with a Molotov Assault or Spiderbot depending on your preference. Escape is your OS skill, but you won't need it often. Alternatively, you could drop a point in Phase Grenade, let your Drone gather the mobs, toss the grenade and then follow up with a Molotov or Napalm...it's all effective.

[Bryan]

I was thinking of trying out a droneless build,sounds like very reduced solo capabilities but a whole lot of points saved.I'd have to rely on an actual tank (got a RL friend in mind ) for SH and any serious grinding at higher levels but it seems like a fun build to try out. ^^
About the peg leg.Just out of curiosity,would a bladesaw/bladefrenzy be effective to that end as well?They do have much higher feeds than a peg leg (duh) but they do deal more than decent damage.Wondering how well they'd work with the drone's AI,has anyone tried this out?

[sydewayz]

the base line for a strike engi is simple ... 21or 18 points in strikes. i reccomend hard pointing the strikes to max in order to use a jins and get the crit bonus from an eyes of the maverick with out having to pay a ton of palla.. i find that i rarely ever use molotov thanks to the massive strike range provided by +splash mods.... inhibiotors will save you many times solo ... and personally i prefer to have beacon for when i solo. being droneless u need to kill lots of mobs at one and quickly plus it gets u over that dmg hump when u are soloing hell. even with max beacon and enuogh en escape to make it effective i find that i still have 13 points left over spiders do good dmg but people complain a ton about them. thats a personal decision if u arent gonna use spiders then dump it in molotov i suppose for the ignite. those are jsut a few suggestions ... but remeber since engi strikes quit u will be competing with mms for gear

[Vuxacha]

http://www.hellgateaus.net/planner/#Engineer,55,50,1,000010007771131430000742210400200,000000000000000

would be my build...

maverick helm (no +1 engi skills unless you're super lucky)
2 chrome bottlers with 3 fuels 1 tech slot and nice affixes (splash radius, +dmg, ccm, crit damage, crit, etc etc) all affect engi strikes. Basically I'd follow a crit mm's gear.

you won't be using weapons with +xx strike and the other affixes unless, again, you're really lucky.

Mods will be things like splash radius etc, same as the affixes.

I think the max is 17 or 18 % on a fuel, and 22% for the weapon. thats +44% from the weapons, +108 or 102 from the mods. 152/146%

+ the like 54%? that shock and awe gives.

as you can see you can afford to lose some splash radius for more damage in the mods, however if you can get dual mods (ie +splash radius/+ damage...

Just my opinion, what I've recently respecced my engi too (though my builds different, you wanted a drnoe so I left points in that...) Just make sure your strikes are maxed...

And all this is completely useless for a mm. =)

[kuukkeli]

The question in the topic is the one I'm pondering right now too. There are few things I'm quite convinced already but I still have lots of points undecided (and I'm maybe in need of another respec but not sure about that).

Strikes: I'm in the same boat with sydewayz, strikes should be 7/7/7. You want the synergies and you want the extra damage because you will do majority of your killing with Smackdown and Napalm Strike. Also I'm still not into +1 all skills helmets so I'd max them with hard points (they have enormous feeds and getting one that doesn't suck otherwise is incredibly hard).

Bots: Only bot you need is Haste Bot so 3/1/4 to that line is a must. Everything else is optional.

Drone: I'm still trying to decide if I go droneless or with a minimal/medium tanking drone. In parties you don't need drone and it's far from mandatory even when soloing but I'm not fully convinced that  there are anything that's needed more. The worst part with drone is that you don't have enough weapon switches unless you happen to have two +3 Contruct Drone / +3 Master Engineer / +3 Haste Bot guns. That means you either have to use sub-par drone or carry extra guns in your bag and switch them manually upon entering zone. Regardless such a drone would use 11 to 15 skill points.

The Rest: Again agreeing with sydewayz, I'd max Beacon (4 might be enough if you're absolutely sure that you're going to use Hurricane's 100% of the time when not tossing strikes) and get at least 1 point in Escape.

That means my base is http://www.hellgateaus.net/planner/#Engineer,55,50,1,00001000777a131400000000000000000,000000000000000. There's 16 skill points unspent (without spending real money). If you take the drone it uses majority of them. If you don't then I'm still a bit undecided what to suggest.

I currently have Spider Mine but I don't find myself using it that much (won't consider speccing out of it before doing real boss runs with my engi though). I've been thinking about Molotov too but with strikes I couldn't be spamming it so it would be just another "oh shit" button (with incredibly bad path finding I might add) and I'm quite certain that Escape is enough. So basically I don't know what to do with those 16 points 

[sydewayz]

sorry for the crappy typing skills just a few other thoughts .... things you really want to take in to considerations on a strike engi build. if you decide to use rocket bot an molotov as a fill in (not necessary imo) you are going to want to look for +minion dmg and max your pet dmg expertise, same if you decide to use the remaining points in spider mines. About the spiders. i currently have them spec'd and the have thier pros and cons, the biggest con being that ppl complain about the animation and the bot deploy sound. pros : massive dmg, can be cast under shock, great for kiting. Beacon is kind of two fold. if u are going to go pet dmg route nothing like increasing ur squadron of murder bots dmg by 80% sa well as your own . the one severe draw back to the strike engi build is power consumption. to combat this i do two things. dual hu's main line, jins for strike switch. the logic behind this is the power regen on the hu's beacon strike spiders so on and so forth eat energy like a fat man at a wedding cake trade show, two the increased use rate of tac skills in addition to haste bot means u will be tossing that next strike before the first one has finished. at this point i also suggest the power regen expertise. if you are going to max five expertise. cruelty(dmg), surgical percision(crit), tranquility(power regen), the rest are build dependent ie leadership if u go for the bot dmg other wise affliction and toughness. being decked out in mm crit gear means u are squishy, however dropping strikes the size of upper manhattan means u are less so than the mm esp with smackdown as the go to strike. as far as hurris, they would be harder to find/ make but im currently trying to find hus with 3% crit augd to em or the z-83, the other thing to think about here is boss runs. for bosses like moloch, desi berial u dont need the raduis except for the initial strike that clears the trash adds. other than that. u want you best crit when u use strikes on a boss. the z with the inherent 5% is looking really sexy for that throw in some plus crit and ccm mods. and u have a recipe for dmg that us purely insane. any way i hope this helps. as far as i go it was kinda trial and error so i will be looking for a retrainer in the near future. to get rid of my points i wasted in bomber and molotov ... a friend of mine who plays a similar build brought up the possibility of using concusive crash ... while i like the idea im not sure of the stun str on this attack if any one can help me out on that it would be greatly appreciated

[Violet-n-Red]

and how about equipment? i mean, what aug on armor n weapons, what endgame uniques(sets, mythics)?
splash, shiled pene and increase str? or crits with acc? or combinations of both, maybe something other..

[Geministar]

About the peg leg.Just out of curiosity,would a bladesaw/bladefrenzy be effective to that end as well?They do have much higher feeds than a peg leg (duh) but they do deal more than decent damage.Wondering how well they'd work with the drone's AI,has anyone tried this out?

The reason for the leg isn't to do damage, but to provide armor to build upon. The skills you take (Master Engineer, and any augs to your gear), give a bonus to the armor, if you have a XXX armor Wirt's Leg, then those bonuses are amplified. Realistically, no matter what item you give your drone at higher levels, nothing they can equip will be much use in providing useful damage. I'm not even sure that in Hell mode that the drone could put out enough damage to overcome the heal rate (unless they are poisoned) of the mobs. Also, the drone has a tendency (not always, just whenever it seems to have a weapon equipped), to stay at a distance from the mobs, thus drawing the mobs towards you and putting you in danger. Without a weapon, I think that the drone defaults to using its electrical attack, which is a short range attack and will bring the drone in close to the mobs and away from you.

[Bryan]

I do know the whole concept of equipping the leg,along with a Yahtel's Fist (+175 armor) and a few enchants on each it's more than a tank drone can ask for.
Was just asking cause bladesaws/bladefrenzies are close range weapons and theoretically they should also force the drone into melee range,while allowing it to do some damage as well.A clean unique "Shortcutter" bladesaw has a damage of 151-170/sec with a constant RoF and it's only lv13,with 19 acc,25 str and 7 will feeds.If the drone can function well with it it could be fun to try out,no? 
I'd give it a go myself but my current engi is droneless so far,so it's not really an option till I'm done with this one. =/

[Geministar]

and how about equipment? i mean, what aug on armor n weapons, what endgame uniques(sets, mythics)?
splash, shiled pene and increase str? or crits with acc? or combinations of both, maybe something other..

For gear, it really depends on if you are going with a drone and heading in the Rocketbot+Molotov direction...

+minion armor & +minion hp will be desirable for a drone build, because you can build a 'true' tank for solo'ing and for dmg mitigation in groups. In conjunction with Master Engineer and Construct Drone, these buffs will make your drone damn tough to bring down.

+minion dmg & +ignite is going to be useful for Molotov

+tactical use rate is going to be useful for everything, especially Strikes, but Hastebot is going to probably be all the help you need there.

+Will will (no pun intended) be beneficial to spamming strikes and Molotovs.

Shield pen is always useful, and in conjunction with Strikes is going to be very useful endgame and boss hunting.

+elemental strength/dmg is not necessarily a must, because Smackdown gives such a strong buff with it's synergy, but it can't hurt and will be nice with Molotov.

--------------------
Personally (since I build to my spec above), I look for minion buffs first, then I look for feed:benefit ratios specifically trying to buff my attributes for low cost (+aa can be soooo expensive). Also, I'm all completely in the +1 skills helms, because with a wide-skill set like I play, it is worth nearly 40 skill points...let me repeat that, 38 SKILLPOINTS, so whatever the feed is on that helm, I'll find a way to put it on. Let me explain that 38 skillpoints, btw. For a small example, let's say I want a build with 7/7 Smackdown, 7/7 Napalm, & 7/7 Shock-n-Awe, 4/x Inhibitors, 2/x Concussive, 10/10 Hastebot, which is will require 37 skillpoints (btw, I know you only need 3 inhib & 1 conc, but just follow along here). I build to; 6/7, 6/7, 6/7, 3/x, 1/x, 9/10 and spend  31 skillpoints, but I have the benefit of 37 skillpoints (6 points saved) and those 6 points I didn't have to use I can use elsewhere, which is are also buffed by my helm. In other words, the helm has a cummulative effect.

[Geministar]

Continuing on (I had a meeting to attend to);

The helm buffs every skill you have points in or that your gear provides for you. Thus, you are able to invest more lightly in all skills while spreading around your 'saved' skillpoints in other skills and also receive even more buffs to your skills. Basically, I don't see how *any* class or build can do without a +1 skill helm if they wish to optimize their build(s), because if they take a skill to 7/7, they essentially wasted 2 skillpoints (+1 on 7/7 is still 7/7, and the one spent to go from 6/7 to 7/7 is no longer available). Try a build on the planner with both a +1 skill helm considered and then another without, you'll quickly conclude that the +1 skill item is the most important piece of equipment in the game. Not to mention, if you go through the game doing all of the side quests as well as the main, you'll build up quite a number of additional attribute points and even after 55, each rank gives attribute points as well, so meeting feed requirements should eventually be something you can overcome regardless.

BTW, anyone considering a Summoner...+1 summoner skill augs on Masters, +1 skill on helm = +3 all skills...holy crap, you can do a lot with that situation!

[sydewayz]

the differnce on the plus one is for a strike engi to be at its most effective you need a +1 engi skills Eyes of the Maverick, if u can get your hands on a plain EotM with max dmg u take that in stead because of the crit. its more imporant to a strike engi build than Plus one imo.

[kuukkeli]

@Geministar

I just disagree on the helm. Majority of builds don't benefit from spreading their points instead of just focusing to few skills. In most cases the +1 skills helm is otherwise inferior to other options (and in most cases the other abilities available on a helm are more important than little spread on your skills). The stat points in the end aren't as splendid as you say either.

I don't use +1 skill helm on any of my characters and I don't plan to do so (my guardian has Keeper of the North Star but I'm quite sure I'll replace it with better shield at some point). Six extra skill points compared to HGL (or seven as the lvl 1 skill is no longer pre-determined) have diminished the value of +1 helms a lot in my opinion.

[stylen]

+1 helm gonna cost you ALOT for your feeds so I'm not using it.  Also I'm using max haste bot (pure 100% dps).