Engineer is fine without bustling fungus.

[Emily Mewens]

I main Engie alot, and have found that its everyone else that forces the fungus reliance on him. It makes sense though. The fungus is godly for heals.. until you realize that the turrets draw agro and cause melee mobs to swarm them. Imps, Guardian Beetles, Ancient Lumarians to name a few, make it a pointless endeavor to try to use the turrets as a healing station. In fact, its detrimental to hide behind the turrets in your shield as the engie himself.

How should you play engi then? Abuse the knowledge that his turrets draw agro. Stack them with things that cause slow, and make them have the ability to slow as many things as possible by abusing Ukuleles ability to proc multiple enemies, or stack as many AOE type damage like gas and stickybombs. Add a Tesla on that, maybe a couple fungus and a few tougher times, and a tri-tipped dagger and you have some heavy damage coming in from those turrets alone, while tanking all the things you cant. And may Providence save them should you find N'Kuhanas Opinion.

The turrets arent made to defend you. Theyre made to be a distraction and to tank all the damage that the engie cant. Boss shows up? Slap them literally under the boss. Large swarm of mobs chasing you? plop down your turrets, line them with mines and get away to a safe distance to rain bombs on them.
In fact. id even go so far as to say that his shield is entirely useless mid to late game, unless greater wisps pop up as a boss, entirely because melee units just bypass it with no issue and always in a swarm. Its *not* safe to stand around, and the shield gives you a false sense of security thats always easily shattered when a fire elite beetle guardian sneaks up behind you and oneshots you.
I think it would have been better to have his missile barrage ability from 1 instead. Lets you keep moving, doesnt give you a reason to stand still in a tiny space that will definitely get you killed.

Going on more on movement, this is the one fatal flaw with the fungus. You have to stand still in a game that demands you keep moving or die. Its great for Turrets, because theyre designed to soak up the damage, but beyond this, its a pretty demanding task. Cautious Slugs are better in this respect.

Bottom line here is, if youre relying too much on a mad stack of bustling fungus, youre nerfing your overall potential damage by giving up other things for it, and making yourself entirely useless in the long run, all for something thats only going to get you and your team mates killed, or rely too much on it that they gimp themselves. Maybe next time try taking that tri-tipped dagger, gas, or stun grenade instead.

[Alreadyded]

The engineer isn't the main one who benefits from the fungus, its the turrets. They draw aggro, you drop them next to eachother with several stacks of fungus and the bear and they are extremely hard to kill since the healing from each turret stacks with eachother. You stack some damage dealers on top, and they are platforms of death. But without the fungus at higher difficulties they die WAY to fast, since they have a very slow natural regen.

[Sotanaht]

Originally posted by Alreadyded:

The engineer isn't the main one who benefits from the fungus, its the turrets. They draw aggro, you drop them next to eachother with several stacks of fungus and the bear and they are extremely hard to kill since the healing from each turret stacks with eachother. You stack some damage dealers on top, and they are platforms of death. But without the fungus at higher difficulties they die WAY to fast, since they have a very slow natural regen.

Exactly. They only really become healing stations in between fights or if you have a TON of fungus. Eventually the circle is big enough to cover the entire teleporter zone.

It's still nice to be able to pop in especially under the shield to heal a little bit when it's safe-ish. Also, you really shouldn't drop the turrets directly under the boss. Spread them out and make the boss chase the turrets, it buys time before they get destroyed.

[Blame]

[Emily Mewens]

Originally posted by Alreadyded:

The engineer isn't the main one who benefits from the fungus, its the turrets. They draw aggro, you drop them next to eachother with several stacks of fungus and the bear and they are extremely hard to kill since the healing from each turret stacks with eachother. You stack some damage dealers on top, and they are platforms of death. But without the fungus at higher difficulties they die WAY to fast, since they have a very slow natural regen.

yes except they are perfectly fine with 1 or 2 fungus, so long as you back em with a few bears. Theyre able to outheal anything that doesnt oneshot them, and by the time you get to the point that things are oneshotting your turrets, then fungus is entirely a moot point. and lets not even talk about replacing the shrooms with leeching seeds which can do just as good

[Illius]

"Engineer doesn't need fungus for the turrets"
"You should abuse the fact turrets draw aggro"

...That's literally WHY people take Fungus because it's a potent heal so THEY CAN DRAW AGGRO. Turrets do not walk so they ALWAYS have fungus which is a sizeable heal, especially when you double up with 2 side-by-side turrets.

[Ivara Ara]

For someone that mains engi you sure as hell know little about synergies and basic knowledge of the game..

Originally posted by Illius:

"Engineer doesn't need fungus for the turrets"
"You should abuse the fact turrets draw aggro"

...That's literally WHY people take Fungus because it's a potent heal so THEY CAN DRAW AGGRO. Turrets do not walk so they ALWAYS have fungus which is a sizeable heal, especially when you double up with 2 side-by-side turrets.

Hah yeah, this made me laugh quite a bit.

[Electric Meat]

You realize that leech seed is significantly inferior to fungus right? Since the turrets are stationary they will always get the fungus heal and if you overlap them then they get double the heal per tick. Even with 200% attack speed fungus will grossly outperform leech seed at a 1:1 stack comparison. Leech seed is literally only worthwhile on MUL-T and to a much lesser degree Commando and since Harvester's Scythe heals significantly more per hit and with how trivial it is to hit 100% crit rate even then leech is going to be outperformed. Unless you mean cautious slug in which case turrets will essentially never benefit from the healing effect. Plus the synergy between fungus and the item that spawns homing orbs (N'guru's Opinion or whatever) is unmatched.

Can you do runs without fungus? Yes. Should you choose literally any other healing item in the game if fungus is available as engie? Absolutely not because fungus will, mathematically, be the best bang for your buck.

[Xilo The Odd]

true the turrets draw aggro, but thats why you also make sure to find some stealth kits, they 0 out any aggro they have when hit hard enough. making them a safe space again for healing.

the healing from fungus can also proc the Opinion skulls, which is just useful all round.

unless your running transcendence on your engi, its better to grab as much regen in as many forms as possible as early as possible. turrets that survive longer are just better turrets.

[gachi is manly]

If you stack like 8 Fungus the circle is huge and you can easily jump through it while fighting to get a quick heal even if they're getting swarmed. The simple fact that Fungus constantly heals turrets even when they're taking damage makes it an asset for keeping them going.

[Xilo The Odd]

Originally posted by Lyle Ugleman:

If you stack like 8 Fungus the circle is huge and you can easily jump through it while fighting to get a quick heal even if they're getting swarmed. The simple fact that Fungus constantly heals turrets even when they're taking damage makes it an asset for keeping them going.

exactly, besides... name another hero that will be standing still late game, and i'll show you their tombstone.

[Traison]

Fungus + N'kuhana's Opinion + Rejuvenation Rack. Sure just like most items, nothing is mandatory, but this combo is absolutely broken.

[Nep Nep]

you claim to main engi but so much of what you have said is so stupid for somebody who claims to main engi to even say

fungus are one of the best items to give to the engi, for reasons everybody else has already said, how can you claim to main engi but say such nonsense that makes you look like you have no idea what you're talking about

[Sotanaht]

Originally posted by Emily Mewens:

Originally posted by Alreadyded:

The engineer isn't the main one who benefits from the fungus, its the turrets. They draw aggro, you drop them next to eachother with several stacks of fungus and the bear and they are extremely hard to kill since the healing from each turret stacks with eachother. You stack some damage dealers on top, and they are platforms of death. But without the fungus at higher difficulties they die WAY to fast, since they have a very slow natural regen.

yes except they are perfectly fine with 1 or 2 fungus, so long as you back em with a few bears. Theyre able to outheal anything that doesnt oneshot them, and by the time you get to the point that things are oneshotting your turrets, then fungus is entirely a moot point. and lets not even talk about replacing the shrooms with leeching seeds which can do just as good

Nothing actually one shots except maybe worms landing directly on the turrets (spread out your turrets yo). Most of the "one shots" in this game are actually damage over time effects or rapid attacks (like imp overloard), which it is entirely possible for the turrets to heal through, especially when they get full health every tick and have a few bears to avoid consecutive hits.

Dio's Best Friend is also an excellent item for engies because it revives turrets once-each for free. While most characters will only get the effect once and generally want to avoid needing it at all, the engi uses it constantly and increases his effective damage because of it.

[Spleens]

Dio's best friend = continuously self resurrecting turrets

[Neon Black Interactive]

So IMO the main upside to picking engi is that his early to mid game is so insane that you have more than enough time to essentially assemble the exodia of items combos. Sure eventually your turrets will get one shot by literally everything but the idea is by the time that happens your item combos will be so absurd that it won't even matter.

Personally I don't even play engi because I believe he's just a cheese strat that breaks the fundamentals of the game.