Engineer stats?

[Silverio]

Hello. Im trying to play as an engineer but, when I look for builds I'm starting to feel a little bit confused.

Do you need Strength or focus? Always appears as "core" the skill 'emberquake' but sometimes based on strength and others on focus (fire damage).

What kind of stats do you need?

[Tiomasta]

You can do Engineer with either Str+Dex or pure Focus. But Emberquake works the best if you do pure Focus and use elemental melee weapons for it (which are very common later).

This is because Emberquake unusually does both weapon-based damage and flat damage. Flat damage always scales with Focus, and weapon-based damage can be raised by putting either Strength or Focus to boost your weapon (in the same rate for both Strength and Focus, with the catch being that Strength helps all the damage from your weapon while Focus only helps the weapon damage that is elemental). So you're boosting the base damage of both parts of Emberquake if you pick Focus and use an elemental weapon. And Focus also gives a little bonus to max mana.

If a skill deals only flat damage, then it obviously only wants Focus (and may even have reduced crit chance inheritance; pure Focus is even better than Focus+Dex). If a skill deals only weapon-based damage, then Strength and Focus can raise it in the same rate, but Strength also gives a crit damage multiplier on top of it, so Strength can help its damage more. (But Emberquake also does flat damage, so Emberquake is strongest with Focus)

Also, you never put Vit in this game unless you want the higher shield block chance it gives, its other bonuses are surprisingly crap. You get actual defenses from equipment (+HP is the best stat, stack a bunch of it, +Armor and +Vit aren't as good).
Also, 1H+shields aren't actually as important as people might say for Engineers, because an obscure mechanic thing is that while you have Forcefield on, you don't even roll for blocks, it always drains the Forcefield anyway, so 2Handing as Engineer is totally legit. And the 1H+shield passive the Engineer has is actually very terrible, it's as if the stat it gives (+X Physical Damage, exactly like a weapon gem) works several steps later in the damage calculation than it's supposed to, it sucks. It shows an increase in weapon DPS in the character page but this kind of bonus does not increase the base power of DPS-based skills.

[Silverio]

So, if I want to be a "DPS enginneer" I need to put my points in strength+dex or pure focus, is that correct?

[Leoland]

Id say boost focus. it makes you less equipment reliant. If you can manage to stay out of harms way you can rely on forcefield for def and focus for dmg while running trough the game basically naked. As you gain focus, your emberquakes will benefit more from + cast speed than they will dps.
Late-game The added base mana makes your base regen very strong which lets you focus more sockets towards MOAR damage or staying alive. (% dmg res + raw HP).

IMHO engineer is almost always better PURE focus.

[Tiomasta]

Originally posted by Silverio:

So, if I want to be a "DPS enginneer" I need to put my points in strength+dex or pure focus, is that correct?

Yes. But that's the setup for every class, either Str+Dex or pureFoc depending on your skill build. (Again, Emberquake works with both but works better with pureFoc)

your emberquakes will benefit more from + cast speed than they will dps.

Emberquake has a minor cooldown about the same length as its animation, actually, so it doesn't recast faster by stacking +CastSpeed.

[Silverio]

Thanks for the responses. I was playing with strength+vit engineer in elite. I think I need to rebuild a lot of things.

Still is funny to play with a class so versatile and different

[Leoland]

your emberquakes will benefit more from + cast speed than they will dps.

Emberquake has a minor cooldown about the same length as its animation, actually, so it doesn't recast faster by stacking +CastSpeed. [/quote]

Just checked this and you are right, EQ has a hard 1sec CD. in 12 seconds i cast exactly 12 EQ's with +53% cast speed I got 12 as well (over 10 tests twice i managed to squeeze in a 13th, but this is likely an error human or otherwise)
Cast time is STILL a lovely stat though. cutting time out of the animation allows you to cast and run much smoother. however it is definitively NOT a dps increase.

[Man-eater Chicken (PANAMA)]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0up5Iu--0XY this build is sick first time seen something like this i gona try it one of this days

[h311w4rd3n]

is this build tanky enough right now im at the final boss of act 1 and my damage is just about scratching him , grant regent , im kiting a lot smashing them, my points are all over the place , so i would probably need to respec him
earlier i got one shotted by chilhoof, but a bit of kiting helped me thorugh
so is there a build where we can man fight bosses?
how would your put your stats and skills?
i had this idea of using a sword and shield and a 2h weapon switching between them intermittenly
but im getting more nd more reliant on the 2h weapon now
not to mention im around level 20 and most of my points were spent on strength and dex and some on vitality and little on focus , which i guess i need to reset :/
any input would be helpull
PS i love this game