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Engineer
Primary Attribute: Agility
Strength: 22 (+2.3)
Agility: 20 (+2.3)
Intelligence: 19 (+1.8)
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I.) Introduction
II.) Abilities
III.) Skill Builds
IV.) Item Builds
V.) Good Allies
VI.) Replays
VII.) Conclusion
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I.) Introduction: Engineer is an Agility hero that has not only has a great AOE stun and an exceptional Ultimate, but also has the ability to make towers as wimpy as neutral creeps. I fell in love with him during 1.62, and once 1.63 came out with all of its glorious changes to tinker, I decided to write a guide for Engineer, because the only one I saw for him were incredibly outdated, and it bothered me. Now as some of you may recall, when Engineer was first introduced, all you had to do was farm charged hammer, cast your turret, tinker it, and then your team would win. Well since then, many things have changed. My guide will not follow the typical Carrying Engineer that has been ingrained in so many fellow HoNers. Instead, I will try to focus on his power in downing towers and initating fights. So without further ado, lets go straight to the....
II.) Abilities: Like many heroes, Engineer has abilities. Here I will try not only to show the basics for each ability, but also give an analysis of each skill.
THE KEG
Never going into battle without a full keg of Ale, the Engineer also knows that it can be used as a powerful explosive in a pinch. When heaved into a battle, it stuns and damages enemies where it lands. He drinks this stuff.
Range: 1000
Radius: 200
Mana Cost: 80/100/120/140
Cooldown: 14 Seconds
Throws a keg at target locatoin, 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.
If the Engineer is in the blast radius, he too will be knocked back, but won't be stunned.
Analysis: Oh how I love this ability, from the concept to the impact animation (and of course the stun, damage, and knockback are a plus). My rantings aside however, this is a ridiculously powerful stun if aimed right, the downside being it is incredibly difficult to aim it right in a lot of scenarios. But before I get into that, I want to stress the importance of just HOW key it is to get off a good keg. It can easily be the difference between getting one or two kills, or getting you or an ally killed. One scenario that I've been in before was pushing an opponent the wrong way with a keg, which caused our wretched hag, that blinked in, to miss with her ultimate. The person that she missed with her ulti then went on to kill her about 10 seconds thereafter. Needless to say, she was a bit upset.
STEAM TURRET
The Steam Turret, built piece by piece, is bonded to the Engineer himself. He is able to control it from anywhere and it gains any items the Engineer has when it's created, yet dies if he does.
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.
Analysis: I feel ashamed. As an engineer, I should love the Steam Turret. It should feel like my cherished child. But to be honest, I just feel like it is incredibly over rated. That said, turret is amazing to skill at level 1 and place it on a vantage point near the rune to serve as not only a ward, but a ward that can deal some pretty scary damage for the first rune. I do use it in the early game as well-- throwing it down right after a keg to ensure that the enemy doesn't escape with his HP in the red, but the turret is definitely past its glory days of Charged Hammer + Tinker = Annihilation. That said, however, I still feel like it can do some pretty respectable damage in the mid game without a charged hammer, savage mace, etc.
TINKER
The Engineer can easily manipulate the inner workings of any Mechanical unit or Tower, Tinkering with them to either increase or decrease their function while he continues to work on them.
Range: 450
Mana Cost: 25
Cooldown: 15 Seconds
Passively decreases the cooldown and mana cost of The Keg by 7%/14%/21%/28%
Passively lowers the base attack time of Steam Turret by 15%/20%/25%/30%
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 (Split between the 3 shots)
+25% HP healed every second. Cannot heal if it has been damaged by a Hero or Boss in the past 2 seconds.
Analysis: I can't stress enough how much I absolutely love this ability. One point in it allows you to get guaranteed kills on siege weapons. It reduces the mana cost of your keg to 101 (down from 140), and makes it a 10 second cooldown (down from 14). Also, it passively reduces the base attack time of your turret from 1.7 seconds to 1.2 seconds, while using the skill on your turret increases its damage by 13 damage per shot (for a total of 40 damage for each "burst" from the turret). The best part of this ability, however, is the tower debuff. It literally makes NM towers less of a threat than EM towers (at rank 4, possibly even rank 3). Here is a slight comparison of a non-tinkered enemy tower and a tinkered one.
T1 Tower Normal: 1 attack per second and 18 Armor (51.9%)
T1 Tower Tinkered: .588 attacks per second (tower attacks 70% slower) and 9 Armor (35.1%) (tower takes 35% more damage)
T2 Tower Normal: 1.053 attacks per second and 18 armor (51.9%)
T2 Tower Tinkered: .625 attacks per second (tower attacks 68% slower) and 9 armor (35.1%) (tower takes 35% more damage)
T3 Tower Normal: 1.053 attacks per second and 25 armor (60%)
T3 Tower Tinkered: .625 attacks per second (tower attacks 68% slower) and 16 armor (49%) (tower takes 28% more damage)
T4 Tower Normal: 1.053 attacks per second and 30 armor (64.3%)
T4 Tower Tinkered: .625 attacks per second (tower attacks 68% slower) and 21 armor (55.8%) (tower takes 24% more damage)
**IT SHOULD ALSO BE NOTED THAT: when tinkering your turret, it is able to tank a tower indefinitely (the turret heals to full hp before getting hit by the tower again). However, if a hero starts attacking the turret, it will crumple easily. (So thus, this is a situational application, but important to be aware of)
Energy Field
Deploying his patented Energy Field Double-Magnetic Modulator v3.0, the Engineer can guarantee that any enemies who enter or exit the active field are purged of all buffs and then silenced and perplexed for a short time.
Range: 0 (placed at engineer's feet)
Cast Time: 1 Second
Mana Cost: 200
Cooldown: 90/75/60 Seconds
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.
Analysis: This ultimate has a very mediocre rank 1, in my opinion, but it's power increases exponentially with each point you place in it. It can do monstrous damage, and any heroes that try and flee from said monstrous damage will be silenced, unable to use items, and move very slowly for 2 seconds after leaving (or entering) the field. This skill is best paired with a Keg to do even more damage and stun hero's inside the field, which will prevent them from attacking your ultimate, as well as keeping them inside of it longer. Additionally, you can use your Keg to knock heroes right back inside of your electric field if they try and escape it. One last thing: it should be noted that with rank 3 Energy Field, there is only a 48 second downtime between when your ult dies and when you can use it again.
III.) Skill Builds: Engineer is fairly flexible when it comes to skill builds. In my opinion, there are 2 main skill builds to consider.
Skill Build #1 (My personal Favorite):
Level 1: Steam Turret / The Keg
Level 2: The Keg /Steam Turret
Level 3: The Keg
Level 4: Tinker
Level 5: The Keg
Level 6: Tinker
Level 7: The Keg
Level 8: Tinker
Level 9: Tinker
Level 10: Energy Field
Level 11: Energy Field
Level 12: Steam Turret
Level 13: Steam Turret
Level 14: Steam Turret
Level 15: Attribute Bonus
Level 16: Energy Field
When to consider this build: When you are going for a more push oriented strategy. Tinker rank 4 makes incredibly short work of towers, provided you have any sort of support. I generally prefer getting steam turret first over Keg because it ensures that the opponent won't get to close to the rune (especially if you put it on the legion plateau near the ramp to bottom rune when playing as Hellbourne)
Skill Build #2:
Level 1: Steam Turret / The Keg
Level 2: The Keg / Steam Turret
Level 3: The Keg
Level 4: Tinker
Level 5: The Keg
Level 6: Steam Turret / Energy Field
Level 7: The Keg
Level 8: Steam Turret
Level 9: Steam Turret
Level 10: Energy Field / Steam Turret
Level 11: Energy Field
Level 12: Tinker
Level 13: Tinker
Level 14: Tinker
Level 15: Attribute Bonus
Level 16: Energy Field
When to consider this build: When you are going for a more aggressive / gank oriented strategy. One rank of tinker is acquired at rank 4 so you can easily kill siege weapons. Energy field can be replaced with steam turret for more ganking power, but less lane harassment.
Skill Build #3 (For the hell of it):
Level 1: Steam Turret / The Keg
Level 2: The Keg / Steam Turret
Level 3: Steam Turret
Level 4: The Keg
Level 5: Steam Turret
Level 6:Energy Field
Level 7: Steam Turret
Level 8: The Keg
Level 9: The Keg
Level 10:Tinker
Level 11: Energy Field
Level 12: Tinker
Level 13: Tinker
Level 14: Tinker
Level 15: Attribute Bonus
Level 16: Energy Field
When to consider this build: If you want your turret to do absurd amounts of damage.
IV.) Item Builds:
Starting Items:
x2
x4
This is the item build I prefer the most. If you fear you may need more regen and/or won't be able to harass with keg much, swap the 2 mana pots for another set of blighted runes. Either way, it's not a huge deal because if you ever need more mana pots or runes of blight, you have a courier to ferry them to you.However, if someone on your team has already bought a courrier, feel free to replace 1 Minor Totem with a Mana Battery.
After That:
The order for these 3 items isn't tremendously important, though I wouldn't recommend getting boots first.
And Then:
Portal key is incredible on Engineer. Port in, drop your ult, and then throw a keg. Try to hit as many heroes as possible (you don't want them instantly focusing down your energy field), or any escaping heroes, or any heroes that you barely missed with your ult to knock them into it. After that, lay down a turret and tinker it (provided that there isn't a tower that you need to tinker). When the ult is almost done you'll be able to throw another keg to finish off any stragglers or stun anyone attempting to escape.
As for the boots, I've always been a fan of Plated Greaves. They provide a great deal of survivability to not only you, but your team as well. Steamboots aren't a bad choice either, but you sacrifice speed and a decent buff for your team for more attack speed (and a bit more str, but your EHP will still be roughly the same, if not worse, with the +7 armor and -10 damage that Plated Greaves gives to not only you, but your entire team). However, if someone else on your team is going to get Plated Greaves, then feel free to grab Steamboots. Enhanced Marchers are only useful for if you're playing as a carry, in my opinion. Generally if you want the phased effect to chase down a runner and hit them with your keg, they'll be waiting for you to toss your keg, and more than likely dodge it. I have nothing against getting Post Haste either, but they are fairly expensive.
And Once You Have Gotten Those:
Yup, good ol' Puzzlebox. I absolutely love this item. It gives you some more survivability, and helps out engineer's incredibly pathetic mana pool. Also, the level 3 minions absolutely mow through tinkered towers (and they're amazing outside of they're pushing potential as well. Mana burn, haste aura, 600 damage AOE when the melee one dies, True Sight, hot damn).
I'm not sure if I want to consider Shrunken Head as a necessary item, but magic immunity is always a great thing.
And yes, you can also constantly buy Wards of Sight now (if you weren't already, engineer makes a decent ward *****, but I like to wait until after I get my portal key because its such a strong item on him). It can allow whoever the previous ward ***** was to get a Kuldra's Sheepstick or Staff of the Masters, or anything else really. Though, if that person is fine with still buying wards, you can move on to some more beefy items.
Game still going on?:
Get a Charged Hammer and mow down everything alongside your turret!Or if your team doesn't need any more help obliterating creep waves, Savage Mace will also give you and your turret some very nice damage output. (If you do get a Charged Hammer, don't neglect the buff that you can cast on an ally! In my opinion, it's great for casting on yourself right before you blink in).
I'm not really sure what else to put here, though. I guess a Diffusal might not be a bad choice if for whatever reason your team still needs purging and doesn't have one yet. It would probably also be wise to replace your plated greaves with post haste after you get a charged hammer so you can easily push / counterpush.
Other options to consider:
Assassin's shroud is moreso if you want to play as a carry, since it provides a decent chunk of +damage as well as some attack speed, and will still give you a form of initiation with your ult. In my opinion, portal key is still a better choice though.
Frostfield plate will provide you with additional survivability, a pretty solid aura, some more mana, and a nuke that will also keep enemies inside of your ultimate even longer.
Even after the nerf to ranged heroes, Helm of the Black Legion can still provide some nice surviviability in the mid game, and can be gotten after your portal key or after you've gotten your boots upgraded.
Brutalizer is for you risk takers that want to chain stun someone with the combination of you + your turret.
V.) Good Allies:
Laning Partners:
Basically anyone that has an "easy" stun, so then you can throw your keg in the optimal position (or in deadwoods case, a damn nice slow which will allow you to oakbolt + root + keg). I threw pharaoh in here as more of a gimmick thing, but if you can manage to isolate someone with a well placed keg to position pharaoh for an amazing hellfire, it can be devestating.
Team Allies:
Basically anyone that can make short work of creepwaves (Tempest, Soulstealer, Demented Shaman, Jereziah) or has abilities that make them great at tower killing (Tempest, Pollywog Priest, Ophellia, Defiler). Additionally, if you and Tempest manage to get a well coordinated meteor + elemental void + energy field it is horrendously devastating. Meteor + Energy Field alone is 120% of their max health in magic damage (assuming for whatever reason they decide to stand in both for the entire duration). Demented Shaman and Jereziah, especially, are good for ensuring you don't instantly die when you initiate with your ult.
VI.) Replays:
For now I'll just put two of my most recent Engineer replays from my other account here. They aren't necessarily the best games I've played though (hardly had a chance to ever use my ult, but I do get off some pretty nice Kegs in both games. Shameless self promotion, etc etc)
First Replay (Match ID = 21051977)
Second Replay (Match ID = 21056657)
Third Replay (Match ID = 24929356) -- This is a replay from Brenni. While he maxes out turret first, something which I'm not much a fan of (and I felt like there were some key times where he could have tinkered a tower but didn't). This game does show the strength of the turret. But the MAIN reason why I uploaded this replay is because the usage of ults in this game is phenomenal. Obviously it's not the highest level game, but hey, neither are mine. But most importantly, it's obligatory that I post this replay because it features an Engineer annihilation :P
VII.) Conclusion:
Engineer is a very underrated hero for how well rounded he is, in my opinion. He has a great initiating ultimate, an amazing stun, decent damage in conjunction with his turret, and the ability to turn towers into puddy. He also has a good amount of diversity in his skill build in play style. I'm open to any sort of suggestions for other builds / strategies for engineer, but please try and keep the discussion constructive, and try not to turn it into a flame war. Final words: Play as Engineer, Rock Face, make people rage quit. GLHF.
Last edited by BAIRD; 02-04-2010 at 01:54 AM.
Reserved and such.
I also like Savage mace as an alternative to Brutalizer (even though long stuns are nice; they have a 15% less chance to proc on ranged heroes.).
ALSO something fun is Force Staff (:TabletOfCommand
Last edited by nikoPSK; 01-14-2010 at 06:48 PM.
i never really understood portal key on engineer
true, you get better positioning of the ult, but once you port in, wouldnt the enmy team rip you to shreds? meaning it automatically becomes 4v5
When is a door not a door?
When it's ajar!
its called being an initiator. your teammates are supposed to follow up afterwards. just like behemoth or magmus or pharoah, or maliken. you blink in and/or use your skills to initiate. if your teammates don't do anything, you're going to die, and die fast.Originally Posted by StoveStove
I like the guide, but I don't think it is worth it to waste money on wards/courier especially since engi still does have quite a lot of carry potential. he can be considered a semi-carry. so like someone said, vanguard on him gives him all the survivability needed for early/mid game for tower pushing and initiation. blink. and then from then, since engi is a great farmer as well, with his turret, i think it would be better to build towards your charged/savage mace. and since he is an agi hero, his armor is already great, so i believe treads would be better, especially since the attack speed is better late game.
Hmmm, all of those seem like solid arguments imo. I've updated the guide accordingly. TY for the feedback
Refresher Viablility?
The ult isn't mana intensive so you don't need mana items for the double ult and it stacks.
I have returned
They either take a large amount of DoT and focus you or try and get out & become purged+silenced. Your allies should arrive quickly anyway, 1250 isn't that large of a distance to travel for your allies
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Look for my highlighted text (important information) and grey text (interesting but not required information).
Amazing guide, Same way i play him ^^
Heh, I actually wasn't aware that his ult's could stack. I spose it would be an alright choice if you're in a game that you're already completely dominating, but I feel like the gold would be better spent on a charged hammer or savage mace.
"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."
Is this new? Do you have to channel your tinker on the siege to make this work?
some what new and you don't have to channel tinker at all any more.
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even on TOWERS?
Siege being catapults and ballistas. Back when tinker was a channel, you would only have to channel it for 2 seconds to kill a siege weapon.
Edit-- to clarify: No, tinker does not kill a tower after the debuff expires :P that would be just slightly OP
Last edited by BAIRD; 01-14-2010 at 11:25 PM.
no I mean, the tinker debuff works on towers without you having to channel it
Like you cast tinker on the tower
and then the tower's debuffed, and you can shoot it?
Last edited by LetsBFriends; 01-14-2010 at 11:42 PM.
Yup
umm.. i cant download the replay
and can you explain the playstyle
can you attach it ?
Last edited by SachieL_; 01-15-2010 at 04:35 AM.
=/ Can't seem to get the replay files to want to attach. Just gives me a generic error message. Perhaps they are too large? Or Invalid filetype, or something. Regardless, hopefully replay downloading will stop being so finicky soon. As for play style, I'm a person that loves push-centric plays over gank-centric plays. You don't want to be hyper aggressive as engineer, but there are some key times where keg can be used to save an allies life, or score an easy kill. In the early game, if a hero is still standing around when his creepwave is about to die and yours is still high in saturation (or there's one that will be there in a couple seconds) have hammerstorm stun them, and then position your keg so it knocks them into the creep wave so they get wacked a good number of times by them, lay down a turret as well and it will almost always be a guaranteed kill. You need to have good, as well as quick, decision making and precision as engineer (which applies to nearly every initiation hero), but even more so with engineer because of Keg's mechanics.
Match ID: 21529554
I went a very different build managed to get
Alchemist Bones, Ghost Marchers, 1 Halberd, and a Doombringer in 26 minutes.
pebbles intentionally denied me while i was neutraling -.-
what do u think about a carry engine now?
:P I think judging by your opponents that game, you could have been any hero and made a divine rapier to carry your team. I'll admit though, skilling your ultimate right away proved to be handy, but only because the opposing team was incredibly reckless.
While I'll definitely agree that HOTBL got nerfed big time, it still provides a good chunk of survivability, which Engineer needs for initiation. Frostbrand is alright, but with the combination of his stun and the slow (or pseudo-entrapment) from his ulti, I feel like getting one is a bit redundant. As for the phase boots, I don't feel as if they're necessary because engi already has a pretty solid attack animation. Steamboots can also help a bit with last hitting as well, but I never felt my damage was weak enough to justify getting phase boots for last hitting.
Last edited by BAIRD; 01-15-2010 at 09:49 PM.
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