Long War Class Builds - Engineer

There are so many good ways to build an Engineer, but all of them feel like a painful compromise.

Other than just blowing stuff up, the Engineer can excel in several other useful roles. He can drop dense smoke or throw battle scanners, but not both. He can be a psi tank, or help with captures, but not both. He can be a pack mule and carry extra equipment, but at significant cost. This is perhaps the hardest class tree to prune into a single favorite build. I choose to make a single compromise, foregoing Dense Smoke, which I grab with my Medic. This allows the Engineer to maximize cover destruction and carrying capacity. For me that’s more than enough.

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• Sapper

• Smoke & Mirrors

• Repair

• Battle Scanner

• Packmaster

• Bombard

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Sapper

Without sapper your grenades will fail to destroy cover at some point, and you will be sorry you didn’t take Sapper. After researching Alien Grenades, this ability becomes less valuable, but still very good.

Alternatives: Holo-Targeting or Smoke Grenade

Holo-Targeting doesn’t really make sense on the Engineer. This is not a shooter class.

Smoke Grenade is a great ability that is made even better by Smoke & Mirrors and Dense Smoke. Turning down Smoke Grenade and Dense smoke is perhaps the hardest call in my class builds. I’ve tried to make it work. Really hard in fact. The Dense smoke engineer must sacrifice battle scanner and an equipment slot, to be as good as the Medic in this capacity. That leaves the engineer with less grenades, and having to choose between explosive grenades or chem grenades or the arc thrower. There is just no way to squeeze all of these very important duties into a single soldier. Instead, you can take 2 engineers in your squad (common when trying to capture aliens), or take a Medic with Smoke Grenade and Dense Smoke, which is what I do.

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Smoke & Mirrors

I grab this ability because it enhances both chem grenades, and battlescanners. While its fine to use the Medic to acidify capture targets, Engineers can throw chem grenades much further, and so they are better suited for this role in the late game.

Alternatives: Ranger or HEAT Warheads

Ranger doesn’t really make sense on the Engineer. This is not a shooter class.

I used to take HEAT Warheads on half my Engineers, and found that it combines very well with Mayhem to wreck robots. It is more powerful than you would expect in the late game, and useful against irritating drones and seekers early in the campaign.

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Repair

Repair is great for your quality of life. Long War is still a game, right? We are trying to have fun here. I grab Repair on all of my Engineers, even though it is not necessary, because I hate missing the stun, and then having to set up the capture all over again on the next mission. With Repair I will frequently capture multiple enemies in a single mission, speeding up research, making money, and saving myself a bunch of trouble. If you are trying to optimize your squads, taking Will to Survive on elite Engineers makes sense.

Alternatives: Will to Survive or Suppression

Will to Survive is great, especially for tank builds. The engineer can be a tank, but its not really what the class is about, and my MECs end up drawing most of the fire.

Suppression is usually not as important as throwing a grenade, though still useful.

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Battle Scanner

Here is what I wrote about Battle Scanner on the Scout build:

Battle scanners are quite useful in many tricky situations. During battles they allow soldiers with squadsight to target enemies that are beyond visual range, and help locate dangerous aliens that are running around loose. Any pod that is spotted with a battle scanner will continue to be tracked until it is activated. On terror missions you can use battle scanners to get eyes on inactive pods which keeps them from killing civilians. On the alien base assault, battle scanners are extremely useful in handling itchy trigger tentacle.

All of this is even more true for the Engineer as they can carry up to 4 Battle Scanners.

Alternatives: Dense Smoke or Mayhem

Dense Smoke is just as good as Battle Scanner when paired with other abilities that allow the Engineer to carry 4+ smoke grenades. Instead, I use Medics to throw Dense Smoke, and that allows the Engineer to focus on other roles.

Mayhem is a great ability, but extra damage is just not as important as the recon provided by battle scanners.

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Packmaster

This will add extra charges to various equipment, making the Engineer a true pack mule. Packmaster is great on every mission, and incredible on the longest and hardest missions.

Alternatives: Extra Conditioning or HEAT Ammo

Extra Conditioning is a great ability that is a must grab if you are building a tank engineer, but less important otherwise.

HEAT Ammo doesn’t really make sense on the Engineer. This is not a shooter class.

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Bombard

This is a fantastic ability that works with every kind of grenade. It allows your Engineer to lob chem grenades on that Sectopod, or break cover on that pod of Muton Elites, without moving forward. In the late game it becomes much more difficult to approach the enemy safely. In part this is because many enemies go on overwatch during activation (Floaters, Cyberdiscs, Mechtoids, Heavy Floaters, Sectopods), but also because pods increase in size, and so activating additional pods becomes that much more dangerous. Bombard is an easy pick at this rank as it allows the Engineer to fulfill the primary role of grenadier from a safer distance.

Alternatives: Tandem Warheads or Fire Rocket

Tandem Warheads is very good, but more damage is not nearly as important as getting the grenade to the target.

Fire Rocket is great as well, but its only one rocket, whereas the Engineer will likely have 6 grenades to toss; each of those becomes almost as good as a rocket with the Bombard ability.

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