Zeromatter
01-29-2010, 05:48 PM
http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/images/heroes/122/icon_128.jpg
Engineer
Primary Attribute: Agility
Strength: 22 + 2.3
Agility: 20 + 2.3
Intelligence: 19 + 1.8
Attack Range: 500
Base Damage: 37 - 50
Movement Speed: 295
Armor: 3.60
I) Introduction
II) Abilities and Analysis
III) Skill and Item Builds
IV) General Strategy
V) Conclusion AKA: TL;DR
I) Introduction
Back in the glory days of Engineer (read: the first few weeks he was patched in), he played like a not-so-hard carry. He hit hard. His turret hit just as hard, but somewhere along the lines of five times as fast as him. Then came the nerf bat. In its wake was a barely capable hero, left only the basic gimmicks in which to make his mark in the game. Seeing the error of their ways, S2 re-patched in some of the Engineering goodness, allowing Engineer to be what I term a support carry. Similar to Andromeda, Engineer's role is not to take every single kill and come out of the woods with four rapiers and an aegis. (Four Doombringers and a Token of Life, for those who prefer HoN terms). Instead, he is to assist the team and, through proper use, assist the team to victory.
This guide is designed for someone who is competent at the game and wishes to gain a deeper understanding on how Engineer works. Basic knowledge is assumed, such as last-hitting, denying, creep pulling, warding, and team dynamic.
II) Abilities and Analysis
Q) The Keg
http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/images/heroes/122/ability1_128.jpg
Range: 1000
Radius 200
Mana Cost: 80/100/120/140
Cooldown: 14 seconds (13/12/11/10)
Throws a keg at target location, impacting after a 1 second delay. Enemy units in radius take 100/150/200/250 Magic damage, are stunned for 1.25/1.5/1.75/2 seconds, and are pushed 250 units away from the impact point. For each point in Tinker, the cooldown of The Keg is reduced by 1 second. At 4/4 Tinker, the cooldown is 10 seconds. In addition, all trees are destroyed in the blast radius.
The order of operations for the Keg are as follows: All enemies caught in the blast radius are pushed 250 units with respect to the origin, then the X second stun is applied.
Analysis: This is the bread and butter of Engineer. Master the Keg and you master the hero. This ability is one of the strongest stuns in the game, having not only a ridiculous cast range, but also being an AoE spell in addition to doing a knock-back.
To go more in depth, let's first take a look at the cast range of the spell. 1000 units is a very long range. In the picture below, the target is the red dot, Engineer standing where he was when he threw the keg.
http://img716.imageshack.us/img716/1745/kegcastrange.jpg
Keep in mind that this throw was on a straight line. Various shenanigans can be done around corners, up cliffs, down cliffs, in the forest, or even on ramps. You can throw into the fog of war, so even if you do not have a clear vision of your enemy, you can take a shot in the dark and pray for something.
The second component of the Keg is the knockback. Any units caught in the blast radius (200 units) will be thrown back 250 units with respect to the origin of the explosion. A few sample pictures of the knockback radius, as well as the blast radius, are shown below.
http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/6504/250range.jpg
The size of the blast radius, as well as a lump of creeps about to get Kegged.
http://img251.imageshack.us/img251/2976/beforeexplosion.jpg
The result of the Keg, throwing each Sapling 250(ish) units away from the center.
http://img716.imageshack.us/img716/1535/afterexplosion.jpg
As you can tell, the most obvious use for this spell is to catch fleeing enemies. Throwing the Keg right in front of a fleeing enemy will not only push them back towards you, but will also stun. A more seldom seen use is to initiate. If enemy heroes are clumped together, throwing a Keg in the middle can send one hero flying towards you, while the rest of his team is sent flying in the other direction. Isolating one hero for 500 units + 2 seconds of stun can easily reduce a 5v5 fight to a 4v5.
Another use for the Keg, one not commonly used, is to propel the Engineer himself. Should he be caught in the blast radius, the Engineer will also be moved 250 units with respect to the center. The uses for this are not entirely obvious, but sometimes it can be the difference between life and death. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZABXCl92kY) The self-knockback that the Keg does to the Engineer does NOT ignore pathing. In other words, it cannot be used to scale cliffs or other impassable terrain.
The last thing one needs to take into account when using the Keg is the projectile travel time. The Keg itself is not an instant cast spell. There is a delay as the Keg actually flies to the target spot. Obviously, the further away the target is from the Engineer, the longer it will take to reach. In addition, should the Keg be cast point-blank at the Engineer's feet, it still is not instant. The Keg will fly up in the air, and there will be a slight travel time. This can be used to your advantage against enemies with channeling spells. Electrician, Devourer, Succubus, Panda, etc, all have abilities that root you in place making you an easy target. If you manage to get off a Keg at your feet before you are stunned, you may be able to break yourself out of it.
No guide can tell you how to time the Keg perfectly, and it would be silly to try and explain such an action via text. The only advice to be offered is to play the Engineer and get a feel for the timing of the Keg. There is a way to know when you're doing it wrong, however. If your target is not stunned, rooted, or otherwise standing in place and not going to move, you should never aim at their feet. That is the law of the Keg.
W) Steam Turret
http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/images/heroes/122/ability2_128.jpg
Range: 400
Mana Cost: 100
Cast Time: 1.0 Seconds
Cooldown: 30 Seconds
Creates a Steam Turret at the target position that does 12 to 14/18 to 22/27 to 33/37 to 43 Physical Damage each shot in a three shot burst. Only the first attack in the burst may trigger on-attack events.
The turret has 500/550/600/650 range and has 7/10/13/16 mana. The turret takes 1 mana per attack. It takes 4 hits for Heroes and Bosses to kill the Turret, 8 hits from creeps.
All of the Engineer's modifiers apply to the turret except for Life Steal. Damage from items is reduced by 80% and then added to the turret's base damage. The turret is immune to all health and mana regen and cannot be placed within 100 units of a tree.
The turret has two skills. Q will shut it down, reducing the sight radius to 100 and slowly restoring its mana. W will toggle the auto-attack target modifier between enemy heroes only, and all targets (Defaulted to only enemy heroes).
Analysis: This is Engineer's weakest skill. Once a powerhouse, it has now been reduced to little more than a free ward at level 1. True, late game the turret can potentially do a lot of damage, but rarely do games last so long that the turret is the end-all-be-all that Engineer can cast.
Usually taken at level 1, it reduces the need to ward the rune spot for the first few minutes of the game. It also saves lives in pubs.
http://img716.imageshack.us/img716/3620/badward.jpghttp://img521.imageshack.us/img521/1888/wardingbotpartduex.jpg
When warding both top and bottom rune, it is important to make sure your turret is on HOLD. If it is not, it will shoot enemy heroes coming to the rune. Since it takes only 5 hits to kill, and rewards 60 something gold, it's not worth losing both a ward and giving up free gold to your opponents. Even though it is on a cliff, the path finding allows melee heroes to climb up and kill it.
http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/5815/wardingbot.jpghttp://img138.imageshack.us/img138/1008/wardingbot2.jpg
The hardest ward spot in the game. If for some reason you cannot turret-ward the bottom rune using the top cliff (for some odd reason), this may be a viable location. The first picture shows where your confirmation order needs to appear to create the turret, the second picture shows the final result. It is hard to explain in words, and even harder to do in-game. It is not suggested to attempt this. But hey, you can always get good at it and impress pubs.
Aside from the free ward, the turret does have some use. Should you be ganking (And really, you should), you can set up the turret in a possible escape location beforehand. That way, if your enemy should choose to leave by that method, they'll be getting shot in the face the whole time. One common mistake that many Engineers do is use the turret while chasing. The only time you should ever use a turret during chasing is to block off possible escape routes. Otherwise, the combination of petty damage with the long cast time means that you could just potentially orb-walk the enemy down instead.
http://img246.imageshack.us/img246/2726/blockbot2.jpghttp://img716.imageshack.us/img716/7273/blockbot1.jpg
Blocking the juke spots at the bottom Legion tower. Proper blocking here can turn a tower dive by the enemy into a killing zone for you.
http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/7654/blocktoplane2.jpghttp://img524.imageshack.us/img524/3730/blocktoplane1.jpg
Blocking the common juke spots at top. The northern paths seem to be impossible to block.
http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/5330/blocktoprunev.jpg
The pro block just below top rune. This is an extremely hard block to pull off normally, let alone in the heat of battle. If you can set this up in anticipation of a fight, it cuts off one of the most common escapes at top rune, leaving only the jungle of jukiness to contend with. Not to mention, anyone relying on the (horrible) path finding algorithms will be completely thrown off by this block and will generally end up taking a very roundabout way in order to get to their destination.
The turret is also useful for pushes. Keep in mind that the turret is automatically set to only attack enemy heroes. To allow it to auto-target anything, make sure to select it and hit 'w' once. (Or alternatively click its second skill.) Note that the turret has a fairly hefty cooldown. If your team is planning on pushing multiple towers (Or even rax), you should save it for the last one on your list.
The last use for the turret is during team fights. When a clash is ongoing (Or you know one is about to happen soon), you should drop your turret. The turret does suck, but every little bit helps. Late game, when you have luxury items in addition to core items (See: four rapiers and an aegis), drop the turret and go make a sandwich.
E) Tinker
http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/images/heroes/122/ability3_128.jpg
Range: 450
Mana Cost: 25
Cooldown: 15 Seconds
Passively decreases the cooldown and mana cost of The Keg by 1 second per level.
Buffs / Debuffs Mechanical Units in the following ways depending on if they are friendly or hostile:
Towers:
+ or - 10/20/30/40 Attack Speed
+ or - 3/5/7/9 Armor
Siege:
+ or - 10/20/30/40 Attack Speed
+ or - 20%/40%/60%/80% Damage
-66% Damage Taken (if friendly)
If used on an enemy siege, it is destroyed after the debuff expires and deals 50/75/100/125 Magic Damage in a 600 radius.
Turret:
+ 10/20/30/40 Damage
+25% HP healed every second. Cannot heal if it has been damaged by a Hero or Boss in the past 2 seconds. Analysis: This skill is, for all intents and purposes, the peanut butter to the Keg's jelly. These two skills are what gives the Engineer the lofty title of support carry. The tooltip itself is daunting, wordy, and overall very complicated to read. In a nutshell, this skill lets the Engineer push towers, defend towers, solo ancients from a very early level, and overall just be a baller. The most obvious use for Tinker is that of pushing. A Tinkered tower is just sitting meat, even regular melee creeps hit it hard.
A less obvious use for this skill is increasing the damage that friendly towers do early game. Obviously if there's a five man push coming mid you would buff the tower, but most players do not think about it early game. If your opponents decide to tower dive for a kill, you can Tinker the tower while juking in the woods. (Also blocking with your turret) This means that the tower, which already hits hard, hits harder and faster, which may be just enough to save your life.
You can also do drive-bys with Tinker. If you're just popping into a lane to gank or something, hit up an enemy catapult with it. Siege weapons generally take a long time to die, and unless you're retarded and use it on a catapult with red life surrounded by four waves of mega creeps, it should last 15 seconds, die, and reward you with gold. It costs 25 mana to do this, and it provides a nice chunk of income if used regularly.
One more use is to completely nullify Vindicator's harassing technique. If he puts his mana draining DoT on you, simply Tinker the nearest anything. You'll win the mana war.
The last, and most interesting, use for Tinker is to turn your turret into a beastly tank. Spamming Tinker on your turret allows it to tank a variety of things, such as enemy towers and ancients. From level 2.
R) Energy Field
http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/images/heroes/122/ability4_128.jpg
Radius: 475
Cast Range: Point blank
Cast Time: 1 Second
Mana Cost: 200
Cooldown 90/75/60
Places a gadget at the Engineer's location that lasts 6/9/12 seconds, takes 5 hits to kill, and creates an Energy Field in a 475 radius around itself.
Any enemy who enters or exits the Energy Field is dispelled, takes 100 damage, and Energy Field is applied to them for 2 seconds. While inside the bounds of the Energy Field, they take 3/5/7% of their max health per second in Magic damage. (Maxes out at 18%/45%/84% of health)
Analysis: Obviously, this is an extremely powerful spell. Any enemy foolish enough to stand in this field for 12 seconds is reduced to 16% health. But the real gem is the effect that happens when an enemy enters or exits the field. A 2 second silence and perplex (cannot use items) is applied as well as a purge effect, slowing and dispelling most buffs. Something to take note of is that it anything protected by Jeraziah's Protective Charm or a Shrunken Head will not be affected by the field, nor will any of their buffs be stripped. The entirety of the field is rather large, as pictured below.
http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/4452/ultiradius.jpg
One thing to note is that upon spawning the energy field, any enemy units caught in the blue beams upon initial creation will be hit with the silence + purge. Thus, the goal is to not only get a majority of enemies inside the field, but also to silence and purge as many as you can. One more piece of knowledge is that any enemies blinking or wave-forming (leaps, jumps, or otherwise any moves moving your hero alongside normal pathing rules) will be hit with the silence + purge. This is especially devastating to blink-initiators.
A good way to use the Energy Field is against stealthed enemies. If you come across someone that stealths (either innately or via items), you can drop the field around them. This gives them two choices: Either stay inside the field and eat %-based damage, or leave the field and get purged. This purging will remove their stealth buff, allowing your team to attack them.
The obvious use is to drop it every team fight, or when ganked as a possible escape method. The not so obvious use is as a mobile defensive platform. Upon pushing into a tower, a pre-emptive field can cause the other team to be extremely wary of approaching. Despite the importance of, say, the tower protecting their rax, any attempt to initiate on your team, or even approach, will be nullified by the two second silence. Remember that in general, Energy Field has a very short cooldown. More often than not, it will be up when you need it.
III) Skills and Item Builds
The standard skill build, one that has proven to support the preferred play style of the Support Carry Engineer is:
Level 1: Keg
Level 2: Tinker
Level 3: Keg
Level 4: Tinker
Level 5: Keg
Level 6: Energy Field
Level 7: Keg
Level 8: Tinker
Level 9: Tinker
Level 10: Turret
Level 11: Energy Field
Level 12: Turret
Level 13: Turret
Level 14: Turret
Level 15: Attribute Bonus
Level 16: Energy Field
Keg and Tinker are maxed out first in order to provide Engineer with his two most useful skills. By level 9, he is fully capable of not only ganking with abandon, but also pushing down towers after killing the enemies in the lane.
An alternate build would involve delaying on maxing out Tinker for getting one level of Turret early on. This build would suit a game where no one decided to buy wards, thus earning you the duty of ward bi*ch.
Item Builds
One caveat, when taking into account this item build: I am assuming you can hit kegs with over 90% accuracy. Engineer does have an okay strength gain, meaning you will have some HP over others, but lacks escapes. The most reliable escape he has is the keg, and properly utilized kegs will keep you alive in situations where a miss may not.
Starting Items:
There are various starting items, all depending on how your teammates decide to play. Seeing as you are not the carry, per se, there should be no problem with you buying the courier. In this situation, you would start off with:
:Courier: Monkey Courier: 200g
:RunesOfTheBlight: Runes of the Blight x6: 180g
:MinorTotem: Minor Totem x 3: 159g
:ManaPotion: Mana Potion x1: 50g
Total: 589g
OR
:RunesOfTheBlight: Runes of the Blight x6: 180g
:MinorTotem: Minor Totem x 4: 212g
:PretendersCrown: Pretender's Crown x1: 185g
Total: 577g
This build, like all builds, is subject to change. If you're not particularly confidant you can land your kegs, you may want to swap out a Minor Totem for another Mana Potion. If you're completely confident you will not take any damage during the laning phase, feel free to only start with 3 Runes of the Blight. Starting items, in general, are up to the player themselves. Do what you feel comfortable with.
Tier 1 Core
:EnhancedMarchers: Ghost Marchers 1500g
:PowerSupply: Power Supply: 500g (Taking into account the prior purchased Minor Totems)
Total: 2000g
Engineer has a horrid base damage and it doesn't get better with time. Ghost Marchers increases his last hitting ability by a large chunk, as well as providing a large burst to speed. Power Supply keeps him in mana for the laning and ganking phase of the game, allowing him to chuck Keg after Keg. Another alternative would be to purchase a bottle.
Variants: Sometimes Engineer is just laning against terrible opponents for Power Supply use. Arachna will simply orb walk you down, rarely ever casting a spell. Rampage will sit there with his fourteen passive abilities and do nothing for you. In cases like these, a Power Supply may not be enough. Instead of upgrading to a Power Supply, you could simply leave it as a Mana Battery and get a Ring of Teacher instead. Not only does this increase your own mana regeneration, but also that of your laning partner (It also increases Engineer's terrible base damage by a smidge).
Tier 2 Core
Here's where it gets tricky. There are four items here that should be picked depending on the circumstances of the game.
:AssassinShroud: Assassin's Shroud: 3400g
:Thunderclaw: Thunderclaw: 3000g
:NullfireBlade: Nullfire Blade: 3300g
:ShamansHeaddress: Shaman's Headdress: 2050g
:VoidTalisman: Void Talisman 1500g
Obviously, certain items work in certain situations. The enemy team have a Jeraziah, Hellbringer, or a Hammerstorm? A Nullfire Blade should be your pick to deal with them. A lot of nukers? Protect your face with a Headdress. Assassin's Shroud, in general, is not a good pick. But there are just some games where you need to be invisible. A very situational item, and probably should be the least picked on that list. And lastly you have the Thunderclaw, your goto item for most games.
Void Talisman is a special case. There are times where it's absolutely needed (Hello, Deadwood!), and it will help tremendously late game. A Tinkered turret by itself will kill everything, it's only weakness is that it dies when Engineer does. Making Engineer, the weak link in that equation, immune to other carries goes a long way to victory.
Tier 1 Luxury
You find yourself with a surplus of gold, what to do?
:ChargedHammer: Charged Hammer: 2500g (Assuming you already have the Thunderclaw)
:SavageMace: Savage Mace: 5400g
:WhisperingHelm: Whispering Helm: 1850g
:Portalkey: Portal Key: 2150g
:VoidTalisman: Void Talisman 1500g
All of these are good choices. If you find yourself having a surplus of gold, chances are you've made it to the stage of the game where you transition from being a support carry to a full fledged carry. All of these items (Save the lifesteal) transfer well to your turret, allowing you to unleash double fury on your enemies. Whispering Helm is there so that you can compete with other melee carries who would undoubtedly have lifesteal by now. Portal Key is on there because who doesn't like to blink?
Void Talisman is listed once more, because it's such a versatile item. If you find yourself getting out-carried, I would suggest getting it.
Tier 2 Luxury
At this point, you're literally sitting right outside their fountain with your turret.
:Doombringer: Doom Bringer x4: 24,800g
:HarkonsBlade: Harkon's Blade: 4875g
Why not?
Engineer
Primary Attribute: Agility
Strength: 22 + 2.3
Agility: 20 + 2.3
Intelligence: 19 + 1.8
Attack Range: 500
Base Damage: 37 - 50
Movement Speed: 295
Armor: 3.60
I) Introduction
II) Abilities and Analysis
III) Skill and Item Builds
IV) General Strategy
V) Conclusion AKA: TL;DR
I) Introduction
Back in the glory days of Engineer (read: the first few weeks he was patched in), he played like a not-so-hard carry. He hit hard. His turret hit just as hard, but somewhere along the lines of five times as fast as him. Then came the nerf bat. In its wake was a barely capable hero, left only the basic gimmicks in which to make his mark in the game. Seeing the error of their ways, S2 re-patched in some of the Engineering goodness, allowing Engineer to be what I term a support carry. Similar to Andromeda, Engineer's role is not to take every single kill and come out of the woods with four rapiers and an aegis. (Four Doombringers and a Token of Life, for those who prefer HoN terms). Instead, he is to assist the team and, through proper use, assist the team to victory.
This guide is designed for someone who is competent at the game and wishes to gain a deeper understanding on how Engineer works. Basic knowledge is assumed, such as last-hitting, denying, creep pulling, warding, and team dynamic.
II) Abilities and Analysis
Q) The Keg
http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/images/heroes/122/ability1_128.jpg
Range: 1000
Radius 200
Mana Cost: 80/100/120/140
Cooldown: 14 seconds (13/12/11/10)
Throws a keg at target location, impacting after a 1 second delay. Enemy units in radius take 100/150/200/250 Magic damage, are stunned for 1.25/1.5/1.75/2 seconds, and are pushed 250 units away from the impact point. For each point in Tinker, the cooldown of The Keg is reduced by 1 second. At 4/4 Tinker, the cooldown is 10 seconds. In addition, all trees are destroyed in the blast radius.
The order of operations for the Keg are as follows: All enemies caught in the blast radius are pushed 250 units with respect to the origin, then the X second stun is applied.
Analysis: This is the bread and butter of Engineer. Master the Keg and you master the hero. This ability is one of the strongest stuns in the game, having not only a ridiculous cast range, but also being an AoE spell in addition to doing a knock-back.
To go more in depth, let's first take a look at the cast range of the spell. 1000 units is a very long range. In the picture below, the target is the red dot, Engineer standing where he was when he threw the keg.
http://img716.imageshack.us/img716/1745/kegcastrange.jpg
Keep in mind that this throw was on a straight line. Various shenanigans can be done around corners, up cliffs, down cliffs, in the forest, or even on ramps. You can throw into the fog of war, so even if you do not have a clear vision of your enemy, you can take a shot in the dark and pray for something.
The second component of the Keg is the knockback. Any units caught in the blast radius (200 units) will be thrown back 250 units with respect to the origin of the explosion. A few sample pictures of the knockback radius, as well as the blast radius, are shown below.
http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/6504/250range.jpg
The size of the blast radius, as well as a lump of creeps about to get Kegged.
http://img251.imageshack.us/img251/2976/beforeexplosion.jpg
The result of the Keg, throwing each Sapling 250(ish) units away from the center.
http://img716.imageshack.us/img716/1535/afterexplosion.jpg
As you can tell, the most obvious use for this spell is to catch fleeing enemies. Throwing the Keg right in front of a fleeing enemy will not only push them back towards you, but will also stun. A more seldom seen use is to initiate. If enemy heroes are clumped together, throwing a Keg in the middle can send one hero flying towards you, while the rest of his team is sent flying in the other direction. Isolating one hero for 500 units + 2 seconds of stun can easily reduce a 5v5 fight to a 4v5.
Another use for the Keg, one not commonly used, is to propel the Engineer himself. Should he be caught in the blast radius, the Engineer will also be moved 250 units with respect to the center. The uses for this are not entirely obvious, but sometimes it can be the difference between life and death. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZABXCl92kY) The self-knockback that the Keg does to the Engineer does NOT ignore pathing. In other words, it cannot be used to scale cliffs or other impassable terrain.
The last thing one needs to take into account when using the Keg is the projectile travel time. The Keg itself is not an instant cast spell. There is a delay as the Keg actually flies to the target spot. Obviously, the further away the target is from the Engineer, the longer it will take to reach. In addition, should the Keg be cast point-blank at the Engineer's feet, it still is not instant. The Keg will fly up in the air, and there will be a slight travel time. This can be used to your advantage against enemies with channeling spells. Electrician, Devourer, Succubus, Panda, etc, all have abilities that root you in place making you an easy target. If you manage to get off a Keg at your feet before you are stunned, you may be able to break yourself out of it.
No guide can tell you how to time the Keg perfectly, and it would be silly to try and explain such an action via text. The only advice to be offered is to play the Engineer and get a feel for the timing of the Keg. There is a way to know when you're doing it wrong, however. If your target is not stunned, rooted, or otherwise standing in place and not going to move, you should never aim at their feet. That is the law of the Keg.
W) Steam Turret
http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/images/heroes/122/ability2_128.jpg
Range: 400
Mana Cost: 100
Cast Time: 1.0 Seconds
Cooldown: 30 Seconds
Creates a Steam Turret at the target position that does 12 to 14/18 to 22/27 to 33/37 to 43 Physical Damage each shot in a three shot burst. Only the first attack in the burst may trigger on-attack events.
The turret has 500/550/600/650 range and has 7/10/13/16 mana. The turret takes 1 mana per attack. It takes 4 hits for Heroes and Bosses to kill the Turret, 8 hits from creeps.
All of the Engineer's modifiers apply to the turret except for Life Steal. Damage from items is reduced by 80% and then added to the turret's base damage. The turret is immune to all health and mana regen and cannot be placed within 100 units of a tree.
The turret has two skills. Q will shut it down, reducing the sight radius to 100 and slowly restoring its mana. W will toggle the auto-attack target modifier between enemy heroes only, and all targets (Defaulted to only enemy heroes).
Analysis: This is Engineer's weakest skill. Once a powerhouse, it has now been reduced to little more than a free ward at level 1. True, late game the turret can potentially do a lot of damage, but rarely do games last so long that the turret is the end-all-be-all that Engineer can cast.
Usually taken at level 1, it reduces the need to ward the rune spot for the first few minutes of the game. It also saves lives in pubs.
http://img716.imageshack.us/img716/3620/badward.jpghttp://img521.imageshack.us/img521/1888/wardingbotpartduex.jpg
When warding both top and bottom rune, it is important to make sure your turret is on HOLD. If it is not, it will shoot enemy heroes coming to the rune. Since it takes only 5 hits to kill, and rewards 60 something gold, it's not worth losing both a ward and giving up free gold to your opponents. Even though it is on a cliff, the path finding allows melee heroes to climb up and kill it.
http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/5815/wardingbot.jpghttp://img138.imageshack.us/img138/1008/wardingbot2.jpg
The hardest ward spot in the game. If for some reason you cannot turret-ward the bottom rune using the top cliff (for some odd reason), this may be a viable location. The first picture shows where your confirmation order needs to appear to create the turret, the second picture shows the final result. It is hard to explain in words, and even harder to do in-game. It is not suggested to attempt this. But hey, you can always get good at it and impress pubs.
Aside from the free ward, the turret does have some use. Should you be ganking (And really, you should), you can set up the turret in a possible escape location beforehand. That way, if your enemy should choose to leave by that method, they'll be getting shot in the face the whole time. One common mistake that many Engineers do is use the turret while chasing. The only time you should ever use a turret during chasing is to block off possible escape routes. Otherwise, the combination of petty damage with the long cast time means that you could just potentially orb-walk the enemy down instead.
http://img246.imageshack.us/img246/2726/blockbot2.jpghttp://img716.imageshack.us/img716/7273/blockbot1.jpg
Blocking the juke spots at the bottom Legion tower. Proper blocking here can turn a tower dive by the enemy into a killing zone for you.
http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/7654/blocktoplane2.jpghttp://img524.imageshack.us/img524/3730/blocktoplane1.jpg
Blocking the common juke spots at top. The northern paths seem to be impossible to block.
http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/5330/blocktoprunev.jpg
The pro block just below top rune. This is an extremely hard block to pull off normally, let alone in the heat of battle. If you can set this up in anticipation of a fight, it cuts off one of the most common escapes at top rune, leaving only the jungle of jukiness to contend with. Not to mention, anyone relying on the (horrible) path finding algorithms will be completely thrown off by this block and will generally end up taking a very roundabout way in order to get to their destination.
The turret is also useful for pushes. Keep in mind that the turret is automatically set to only attack enemy heroes. To allow it to auto-target anything, make sure to select it and hit 'w' once. (Or alternatively click its second skill.) Note that the turret has a fairly hefty cooldown. If your team is planning on pushing multiple towers (Or even rax), you should save it for the last one on your list.
The last use for the turret is during team fights. When a clash is ongoing (Or you know one is about to happen soon), you should drop your turret. The turret does suck, but every little bit helps. Late game, when you have luxury items in addition to core items (See: four rapiers and an aegis), drop the turret and go make a sandwich.
E) Tinker
http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/images/heroes/122/ability3_128.jpg
Range: 450
Mana Cost: 25
Cooldown: 15 Seconds
Passively decreases the cooldown and mana cost of The Keg by 1 second per level.
Buffs / Debuffs Mechanical Units in the following ways depending on if they are friendly or hostile:
Towers:
+ or - 10/20/30/40 Attack Speed
+ or - 3/5/7/9 Armor
Siege:
+ or - 10/20/30/40 Attack Speed
+ or - 20%/40%/60%/80% Damage
-66% Damage Taken (if friendly)
If used on an enemy siege, it is destroyed after the debuff expires and deals 50/75/100/125 Magic Damage in a 600 radius.
Turret:
+ 10/20/30/40 Damage
+25% HP healed every second. Cannot heal if it has been damaged by a Hero or Boss in the past 2 seconds. Analysis: This skill is, for all intents and purposes, the peanut butter to the Keg's jelly. These two skills are what gives the Engineer the lofty title of support carry. The tooltip itself is daunting, wordy, and overall very complicated to read. In a nutshell, this skill lets the Engineer push towers, defend towers, solo ancients from a very early level, and overall just be a baller. The most obvious use for Tinker is that of pushing. A Tinkered tower is just sitting meat, even regular melee creeps hit it hard.
A less obvious use for this skill is increasing the damage that friendly towers do early game. Obviously if there's a five man push coming mid you would buff the tower, but most players do not think about it early game. If your opponents decide to tower dive for a kill, you can Tinker the tower while juking in the woods. (Also blocking with your turret) This means that the tower, which already hits hard, hits harder and faster, which may be just enough to save your life.
You can also do drive-bys with Tinker. If you're just popping into a lane to gank or something, hit up an enemy catapult with it. Siege weapons generally take a long time to die, and unless you're retarded and use it on a catapult with red life surrounded by four waves of mega creeps, it should last 15 seconds, die, and reward you with gold. It costs 25 mana to do this, and it provides a nice chunk of income if used regularly.
One more use is to completely nullify Vindicator's harassing technique. If he puts his mana draining DoT on you, simply Tinker the nearest anything. You'll win the mana war.
The last, and most interesting, use for Tinker is to turn your turret into a beastly tank. Spamming Tinker on your turret allows it to tank a variety of things, such as enemy towers and ancients. From level 2.
R) Energy Field
http://www.heroesofnewerth.com/images/heroes/122/ability4_128.jpg
Radius: 475
Cast Range: Point blank
Cast Time: 1 Second
Mana Cost: 200
Cooldown 90/75/60
Places a gadget at the Engineer's location that lasts 6/9/12 seconds, takes 5 hits to kill, and creates an Energy Field in a 475 radius around itself.
Any enemy who enters or exits the Energy Field is dispelled, takes 100 damage, and Energy Field is applied to them for 2 seconds. While inside the bounds of the Energy Field, they take 3/5/7% of their max health per second in Magic damage. (Maxes out at 18%/45%/84% of health)
Analysis: Obviously, this is an extremely powerful spell. Any enemy foolish enough to stand in this field for 12 seconds is reduced to 16% health. But the real gem is the effect that happens when an enemy enters or exits the field. A 2 second silence and perplex (cannot use items) is applied as well as a purge effect, slowing and dispelling most buffs. Something to take note of is that it anything protected by Jeraziah's Protective Charm or a Shrunken Head will not be affected by the field, nor will any of their buffs be stripped. The entirety of the field is rather large, as pictured below.
http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/4452/ultiradius.jpg
One thing to note is that upon spawning the energy field, any enemy units caught in the blue beams upon initial creation will be hit with the silence + purge. Thus, the goal is to not only get a majority of enemies inside the field, but also to silence and purge as many as you can. One more piece of knowledge is that any enemies blinking or wave-forming (leaps, jumps, or otherwise any moves moving your hero alongside normal pathing rules) will be hit with the silence + purge. This is especially devastating to blink-initiators.
A good way to use the Energy Field is against stealthed enemies. If you come across someone that stealths (either innately or via items), you can drop the field around them. This gives them two choices: Either stay inside the field and eat %-based damage, or leave the field and get purged. This purging will remove their stealth buff, allowing your team to attack them.
The obvious use is to drop it every team fight, or when ganked as a possible escape method. The not so obvious use is as a mobile defensive platform. Upon pushing into a tower, a pre-emptive field can cause the other team to be extremely wary of approaching. Despite the importance of, say, the tower protecting their rax, any attempt to initiate on your team, or even approach, will be nullified by the two second silence. Remember that in general, Energy Field has a very short cooldown. More often than not, it will be up when you need it.
III) Skills and Item Builds
The standard skill build, one that has proven to support the preferred play style of the Support Carry Engineer is:
Level 1: Keg
Level 2: Tinker
Level 3: Keg
Level 4: Tinker
Level 5: Keg
Level 6: Energy Field
Level 7: Keg
Level 8: Tinker
Level 9: Tinker
Level 10: Turret
Level 11: Energy Field
Level 12: Turret
Level 13: Turret
Level 14: Turret
Level 15: Attribute Bonus
Level 16: Energy Field
Keg and Tinker are maxed out first in order to provide Engineer with his two most useful skills. By level 9, he is fully capable of not only ganking with abandon, but also pushing down towers after killing the enemies in the lane.
An alternate build would involve delaying on maxing out Tinker for getting one level of Turret early on. This build would suit a game where no one decided to buy wards, thus earning you the duty of ward bi*ch.
Item Builds
One caveat, when taking into account this item build: I am assuming you can hit kegs with over 90% accuracy. Engineer does have an okay strength gain, meaning you will have some HP over others, but lacks escapes. The most reliable escape he has is the keg, and properly utilized kegs will keep you alive in situations where a miss may not.
Starting Items:
There are various starting items, all depending on how your teammates decide to play. Seeing as you are not the carry, per se, there should be no problem with you buying the courier. In this situation, you would start off with:
:Courier: Monkey Courier: 200g
:RunesOfTheBlight: Runes of the Blight x6: 180g
:MinorTotem: Minor Totem x 3: 159g
:ManaPotion: Mana Potion x1: 50g
Total: 589g
OR
:RunesOfTheBlight: Runes of the Blight x6: 180g
:MinorTotem: Minor Totem x 4: 212g
:PretendersCrown: Pretender's Crown x1: 185g
Total: 577g
This build, like all builds, is subject to change. If you're not particularly confidant you can land your kegs, you may want to swap out a Minor Totem for another Mana Potion. If you're completely confident you will not take any damage during the laning phase, feel free to only start with 3 Runes of the Blight. Starting items, in general, are up to the player themselves. Do what you feel comfortable with.
Tier 1 Core
:EnhancedMarchers: Ghost Marchers 1500g
:PowerSupply: Power Supply: 500g (Taking into account the prior purchased Minor Totems)
Total: 2000g
Engineer has a horrid base damage and it doesn't get better with time. Ghost Marchers increases his last hitting ability by a large chunk, as well as providing a large burst to speed. Power Supply keeps him in mana for the laning and ganking phase of the game, allowing him to chuck Keg after Keg. Another alternative would be to purchase a bottle.
Variants: Sometimes Engineer is just laning against terrible opponents for Power Supply use. Arachna will simply orb walk you down, rarely ever casting a spell. Rampage will sit there with his fourteen passive abilities and do nothing for you. In cases like these, a Power Supply may not be enough. Instead of upgrading to a Power Supply, you could simply leave it as a Mana Battery and get a Ring of Teacher instead. Not only does this increase your own mana regeneration, but also that of your laning partner (It also increases Engineer's terrible base damage by a smidge).
Tier 2 Core
Here's where it gets tricky. There are four items here that should be picked depending on the circumstances of the game.
:AssassinShroud: Assassin's Shroud: 3400g
:Thunderclaw: Thunderclaw: 3000g
:NullfireBlade: Nullfire Blade: 3300g
:ShamansHeaddress: Shaman's Headdress: 2050g
:VoidTalisman: Void Talisman 1500g
Obviously, certain items work in certain situations. The enemy team have a Jeraziah, Hellbringer, or a Hammerstorm? A Nullfire Blade should be your pick to deal with them. A lot of nukers? Protect your face with a Headdress. Assassin's Shroud, in general, is not a good pick. But there are just some games where you need to be invisible. A very situational item, and probably should be the least picked on that list. And lastly you have the Thunderclaw, your goto item for most games.
Void Talisman is a special case. There are times where it's absolutely needed (Hello, Deadwood!), and it will help tremendously late game. A Tinkered turret by itself will kill everything, it's only weakness is that it dies when Engineer does. Making Engineer, the weak link in that equation, immune to other carries goes a long way to victory.
Tier 1 Luxury
You find yourself with a surplus of gold, what to do?
:ChargedHammer: Charged Hammer: 2500g (Assuming you already have the Thunderclaw)
:SavageMace: Savage Mace: 5400g
:WhisperingHelm: Whispering Helm: 1850g
:Portalkey: Portal Key: 2150g
:VoidTalisman: Void Talisman 1500g
All of these are good choices. If you find yourself having a surplus of gold, chances are you've made it to the stage of the game where you transition from being a support carry to a full fledged carry. All of these items (Save the lifesteal) transfer well to your turret, allowing you to unleash double fury on your enemies. Whispering Helm is there so that you can compete with other melee carries who would undoubtedly have lifesteal by now. Portal Key is on there because who doesn't like to blink?
Void Talisman is listed once more, because it's such a versatile item. If you find yourself getting out-carried, I would suggest getting it.
Tier 2 Luxury
At this point, you're literally sitting right outside their fountain with your turret.
:Doombringer: Doom Bringer x4: 24,800g
:HarkonsBlade: Harkon's Blade: 4875g
Why not?