XiD
07-09-2010, 04:44 PM
The Engineer Patch
Tons of cool stuff came with the engineer patch. After spending some time with the new gear, I thought I'd write a post about it. Highlights include his new items and the ability to pick up and re-deploy items you've already built up.
Movable Gear
This is big. All of your buildings can now be picked up and redeployed elsewhere. Right click while standing next to and facing a building, and the eng will pick it up. While you carry something, the engineer moves slower, and cannot switch to any weapon until the building is dropped (this includes switching to your PDA to build something else, or destroy one of your buildings).
When re-deployed (left click to drop it as normal, as if you were building it originally), the building will again display the build animation for the building. The good news, though, is when it is finished building again, it will be whatever level of upgrade you had it at before! This means you can build a level3 sentry right outside your spawn, and move it to a more effective location, without having to risk building a level1 in a dangerous area and upgrading it there.
Note, however, that a level3 sentry will show all 3 animations while building: the original, level1 sentry build animation (which you can speed up by wrenching it), the level 2 upgrade animation (cannot speed up), and the level 3 upgrade animation (also cannot be skipped). Note that the other buildings only suffer the original build time, and then are immediately at level 3 (or whatever you upgraded them to).
Furthermore, when you pick up the building, its health is saved as well. That is, when you redeploy it, it is dropped with whatever health you picked it up as - so you can't pick up and drop a hurt sentry for a metal-free repair. You still have to repair it yourself.
This development has created some very interesting engineer strategies, especially "leapfrogging" multiple level3 sentries past each other offensively, or grabbing a level3 and running away with it when it is under heavy pressure and you won't be able to repair it for whatever reason. It also allows for better teleporter/dispensor movement for when the front lines shift.
The Weapon Unlocks
The Southern Hospitality
The southern hospitality is a wrench replacement. You take 20% more fire damage, and don't get any more random wrench crits. However, your attack applies a bleed to your target, which does some pretty impressive damage, as well as foils spies. A great addition as it makes you decide between pyro protection vs spy protection.
The Wrangler
Possibly the most fun unlock available in all of TF2. You control your sentry with a joystick, manually aiming and firing with your sentry. While controlled, your sentry takes 66% less damage, shoots bullets 2x as fast, and shoots rockets 33% faster. And the sentry has no maximum range - you can snipe across the map with this puppy! This makes your sentry a juggernaut. However, aiming the sentry isn't the easiest thing in the world - and it's a little hard to describe in text. Essentially, you stand near your sentry, and it aims with a laser. Where you look, your sentry aims. However, you aren't looking through the sentry from a first person perspective - the camera is still focused on the engineer's perspective. This is probably why they buffed the sentry so much while you control it - aiming it consistently is not the easiest thing in the world, and it leaves you vulnerable. You can, however, continue to run around and maneuver while you control the sentry.
This sounds mighty powerful, and it is, but there are downsides. The drawback is that when you stop using the Wrangler, be it by you dying while controlling it, or you stop using it manually (switch weapons), your sentry will be inactive for 3 full seconds - it won't fire or attack anything during this time. This means that you are a prime suspect for backstab + sap combinations, or you can get in trouble if you get flanked and your sentry can't support you with the person attacking you. Other players can heal your uber sentry, but it appears they don't resupply its ammo back - a balancing factor Valve implemented for sure. Related, this is really the first time where your sentry gun's ammo supply really becomes a hindrance - if you lay on your MG fire button for too long, you find yourself out of bullets in a hurry. This means you, and only you, must stop using the sentry (3 seconds of down time) and wrench it for more ammo. I haven't tested it enough to solidify this fact, but I am pretty sure this is how it works.
Overpowered or not, this unlock is one hella fun thing to use.
The Gunslinger
The gunslinger is Valve's answer to making offensive engineering really work. The gunslinger is interesting: it replaces your pistol, and changes your built sentries into Mini-Sentries. I'll steal the wiki's entry for the Gunslinger as it sums it up nicely:
"The Gunslinger is an unlockable Wrench replacement for the Engineer. It is part of the Engineer Update and was announced on Day 4.
The Gunslinger appears as a robotic fist. It allows the Engineer to perform a combo attack, in which the third strike with the fist becomes an automatic critical hit. The Gunslinger also gives the Engineer an extra 25 max health, boosting his max up to 150 and making him a considerably more offensive class.
Using the Gunslinger allows the Engineer to build Combat Mini-Sentry Guns instead of the standard Sentry Gun. These Mini-sentries only take 2.5 seconds to build, and cost only 100 metal each, but cannot be upgraded or repaired, and only deals half of a normal level 1 Sentry Gun's damage. Despite not being repairable, Mini-sentries may still have ammo resupplied to them.
Taunting with the Gunslinger will make the Engineer's robotic hand turn into a spinning cutter that stuns and kills. "
One thing the wiki leaves out is that when you deploy a mini-sentry, it starts with full health, versus the zero-health climb that the normal sentry goes through while building.
The combo attack is pretty cool, actually. With 150 hp you have enough to tank a direct rocket and a bad shotgun shot, so you have an opportunity to kill some of the tougher classes. You do have to hit all three swings (not missing a swing in between) to get a combo attack, but the guaranteed crit will probably kill the player by the time you hit them a third time.
You might be asking yourself...how can the gunslinger really be used effectively? The answer lies partly with how you use the mini sentries, and partly using it in tandem with the next unlock I will discuss next. Mini sentries are great for the temporary sentry push: drop it down, it has full health, and in 2.5 seconds you have a working level 1 sentry. The half damage l1 might seem useless, especially combined with the fact that you can't repair the sentry. However, it normally racks up at least a kill or two before it dies, which is important. It not only gives your team some more breathing room to push out, but it counts towards "revenge kills" for the next unlock. It is also useful when you have heavy pressure on the game objective (the cart is about to reach the end point, the final CP is being pressured heavy, the flag is near the enemy base, etc) and you need some instant defense. Whereas you'd drop a very vulnerable level1 normally, you can now drop a full health mini sentry that will be up and ready in 2.5 seconds with no input from you, the engineer - versus a wrenched 5 seconds for our original level1 sentry.
Frontier Justice
Frontier Justice is a new shotgun for the engineer. It comes with only half the clip size (thats only 3 shots before you have to reload!) but comes with an interesting "revenge" mechanic.
Every time your sentry kills a player, its kill number increases by one. When your sentry dies, be it an enemy blowing it up, or you exploding it manually, the number of kills it had at that point is transferred to your "revenge" counter. The revenge counter looks a lot like the Eyelander's Head counter. This revenge counter means your shotgun gets guaranteed crits until the counter runs out - one crit per revenge counter. The best part is they don't expire, and they are additive - one sentry kills 5, and dies, your revenge count is 5. you build another sentry, it kills another 5 players, and it dies, your revenge count is now 10. And you would then have your next 10 shotgun shots be crits - kritzkrieg-glowing weapon and all.
This weapon, combined with the gunslinger, makes for a very interesting offensive engineer strategy: drop your mini sentry, get a kill or two, kill the mini-sentry/it dies, move up with your guaranteed crits, drop another mini sentry, repeat. Could be a very effective strategy - time will tell.
Finally, there is a guitar, but I don't know about it or have it yet, so I can't really comment on it.
Tons of cool stuff came with the engineer patch. After spending some time with the new gear, I thought I'd write a post about it. Highlights include his new items and the ability to pick up and re-deploy items you've already built up.
Movable Gear
This is big. All of your buildings can now be picked up and redeployed elsewhere. Right click while standing next to and facing a building, and the eng will pick it up. While you carry something, the engineer moves slower, and cannot switch to any weapon until the building is dropped (this includes switching to your PDA to build something else, or destroy one of your buildings).
When re-deployed (left click to drop it as normal, as if you were building it originally), the building will again display the build animation for the building. The good news, though, is when it is finished building again, it will be whatever level of upgrade you had it at before! This means you can build a level3 sentry right outside your spawn, and move it to a more effective location, without having to risk building a level1 in a dangerous area and upgrading it there.
Note, however, that a level3 sentry will show all 3 animations while building: the original, level1 sentry build animation (which you can speed up by wrenching it), the level 2 upgrade animation (cannot speed up), and the level 3 upgrade animation (also cannot be skipped). Note that the other buildings only suffer the original build time, and then are immediately at level 3 (or whatever you upgraded them to).
Furthermore, when you pick up the building, its health is saved as well. That is, when you redeploy it, it is dropped with whatever health you picked it up as - so you can't pick up and drop a hurt sentry for a metal-free repair. You still have to repair it yourself.
This development has created some very interesting engineer strategies, especially "leapfrogging" multiple level3 sentries past each other offensively, or grabbing a level3 and running away with it when it is under heavy pressure and you won't be able to repair it for whatever reason. It also allows for better teleporter/dispensor movement for when the front lines shift.
The Weapon Unlocks
The Southern Hospitality
The southern hospitality is a wrench replacement. You take 20% more fire damage, and don't get any more random wrench crits. However, your attack applies a bleed to your target, which does some pretty impressive damage, as well as foils spies. A great addition as it makes you decide between pyro protection vs spy protection.
The Wrangler
Possibly the most fun unlock available in all of TF2. You control your sentry with a joystick, manually aiming and firing with your sentry. While controlled, your sentry takes 66% less damage, shoots bullets 2x as fast, and shoots rockets 33% faster. And the sentry has no maximum range - you can snipe across the map with this puppy! This makes your sentry a juggernaut. However, aiming the sentry isn't the easiest thing in the world - and it's a little hard to describe in text. Essentially, you stand near your sentry, and it aims with a laser. Where you look, your sentry aims. However, you aren't looking through the sentry from a first person perspective - the camera is still focused on the engineer's perspective. This is probably why they buffed the sentry so much while you control it - aiming it consistently is not the easiest thing in the world, and it leaves you vulnerable. You can, however, continue to run around and maneuver while you control the sentry.
This sounds mighty powerful, and it is, but there are downsides. The drawback is that when you stop using the Wrangler, be it by you dying while controlling it, or you stop using it manually (switch weapons), your sentry will be inactive for 3 full seconds - it won't fire or attack anything during this time. This means that you are a prime suspect for backstab + sap combinations, or you can get in trouble if you get flanked and your sentry can't support you with the person attacking you. Other players can heal your uber sentry, but it appears they don't resupply its ammo back - a balancing factor Valve implemented for sure. Related, this is really the first time where your sentry gun's ammo supply really becomes a hindrance - if you lay on your MG fire button for too long, you find yourself out of bullets in a hurry. This means you, and only you, must stop using the sentry (3 seconds of down time) and wrench it for more ammo. I haven't tested it enough to solidify this fact, but I am pretty sure this is how it works.
Overpowered or not, this unlock is one hella fun thing to use.
The Gunslinger
The gunslinger is Valve's answer to making offensive engineering really work. The gunslinger is interesting: it replaces your pistol, and changes your built sentries into Mini-Sentries. I'll steal the wiki's entry for the Gunslinger as it sums it up nicely:
"The Gunslinger is an unlockable Wrench replacement for the Engineer. It is part of the Engineer Update and was announced on Day 4.
The Gunslinger appears as a robotic fist. It allows the Engineer to perform a combo attack, in which the third strike with the fist becomes an automatic critical hit. The Gunslinger also gives the Engineer an extra 25 max health, boosting his max up to 150 and making him a considerably more offensive class.
Using the Gunslinger allows the Engineer to build Combat Mini-Sentry Guns instead of the standard Sentry Gun. These Mini-sentries only take 2.5 seconds to build, and cost only 100 metal each, but cannot be upgraded or repaired, and only deals half of a normal level 1 Sentry Gun's damage. Despite not being repairable, Mini-sentries may still have ammo resupplied to them.
Taunting with the Gunslinger will make the Engineer's robotic hand turn into a spinning cutter that stuns and kills. "
One thing the wiki leaves out is that when you deploy a mini-sentry, it starts with full health, versus the zero-health climb that the normal sentry goes through while building.
The combo attack is pretty cool, actually. With 150 hp you have enough to tank a direct rocket and a bad shotgun shot, so you have an opportunity to kill some of the tougher classes. You do have to hit all three swings (not missing a swing in between) to get a combo attack, but the guaranteed crit will probably kill the player by the time you hit them a third time.
You might be asking yourself...how can the gunslinger really be used effectively? The answer lies partly with how you use the mini sentries, and partly using it in tandem with the next unlock I will discuss next. Mini sentries are great for the temporary sentry push: drop it down, it has full health, and in 2.5 seconds you have a working level 1 sentry. The half damage l1 might seem useless, especially combined with the fact that you can't repair the sentry. However, it normally racks up at least a kill or two before it dies, which is important. It not only gives your team some more breathing room to push out, but it counts towards "revenge kills" for the next unlock. It is also useful when you have heavy pressure on the game objective (the cart is about to reach the end point, the final CP is being pressured heavy, the flag is near the enemy base, etc) and you need some instant defense. Whereas you'd drop a very vulnerable level1 normally, you can now drop a full health mini sentry that will be up and ready in 2.5 seconds with no input from you, the engineer - versus a wrenched 5 seconds for our original level1 sentry.
Frontier Justice
Frontier Justice is a new shotgun for the engineer. It comes with only half the clip size (thats only 3 shots before you have to reload!) but comes with an interesting "revenge" mechanic.
Every time your sentry kills a player, its kill number increases by one. When your sentry dies, be it an enemy blowing it up, or you exploding it manually, the number of kills it had at that point is transferred to your "revenge" counter. The revenge counter looks a lot like the Eyelander's Head counter. This revenge counter means your shotgun gets guaranteed crits until the counter runs out - one crit per revenge counter. The best part is they don't expire, and they are additive - one sentry kills 5, and dies, your revenge count is 5. you build another sentry, it kills another 5 players, and it dies, your revenge count is now 10. And you would then have your next 10 shotgun shots be crits - kritzkrieg-glowing weapon and all.
This weapon, combined with the gunslinger, makes for a very interesting offensive engineer strategy: drop your mini sentry, get a kill or two, kill the mini-sentry/it dies, move up with your guaranteed crits, drop another mini sentry, repeat. Could be a very effective strategy - time will tell.
Finally, there is a guitar, but I don't know about it or have it yet, so I can't really comment on it.