Unoffical New Engie Weapon Discussion

D

Dreadmaker

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Alright guys, the update is quickly approaching, and there is going to be new cold, hard information coming about the weapons and concepts in very quickly for the next few days.

What is this thread for?​

This thread is for talking about the stuff WE ALREADY KNOW ABOUT. This means don't speculate about what would be neat, or what you think something means. Watersnake has provided us with a thread for just that reason over here.


This thread is for discussing facts and stating some opinions on them. This means all new weapons. Check back frequently!



So, let's kick things off with the new shotgun; let's talk about it's stats and the potential implications.

FRONTIER JUSTICE

  • 50% reduced clip size
  • No random crits
  • rewards 2 guaranteed crits for each sentry kill upon sentry destruction
  • rewards 1 guaranteed crit for sentry assist upon sentry destruction


That's pretty huge. 3 shot capacity, and 100% crits after one of your sentries dies, proportional to how successful the sentry was. This sounds to me like a pretty solid fix for turtling engies. This sounds very much like a battle engie solution.

Think about it: throw a sentry up in battle, run around as it kills people, and then, assuming it killed, say, 2 people, and assuming you're still in the thick of battle, you have a full clip of one-shots sitting in your gun. A fully crit shotgun blast at close range does 195 damage. Thus, you can, assuming you're close enough, 1 shot a lot of things before you drop.

It's also worth noting, however, that the effect likely dissipates on death. that means you're encouraged to be conservative. Also, potentially, if you have a very successful sentry, unless you're lucky, you won't fully get to use all of your crit buff.

For instance, say you got 10 kills with the gun (lots of places for it to happen offensively). You now have 20 crits to use, which equates to 7 clips of crit. If you're lucky, you might get them off, but you have to realize that the engie only has 125 health; not the most robust guy in the world. don't know how that will play out.

Regardless, I'm looking forward to dealing death with this thing; I think it's going to make a lot of rage happen in the player base, because it feels to me like a FaN, but worse because instead of 2 shots, it's typically one. Heavy/medic combo, if you catch them from behind, is just a full clip. 1 shot for the medic and 2 for the heavy.

Opinions? Let them fly! (remember, no speculation, just discussion based on fact.)
 
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TL:DR...again dread...

Actually I did read it but you are long winded... I think it's going to be an awesome upgrade, even for turtling engies. An engie camping the L or C point on BM and a spy comes up to sap it one shot kills it. It's going to be a great help for turtling and Offensive Engies alike!

I think Valve does a good job of, as a friend of mine put it, making the new weapons force you to learn how to use the original ones effectively. If you suck with a shotty then you will probably suck with the Frontier Justice. I'm excited.
 
I really do like this idea. It will be very fun to learn how to use and defeat!
 
KhaoticOrd3r said:
TL:DR...again dread...

Actually I did read it but you are long winded... I think it's going to be an awesome upgrade, even for turtling engies. An engie camping the L or C point on BM and a spy comes up to sap it one shot kills it. It's going to be a great help for turtling and Offensive Engies alike!

I think Valve does a good job of, as a friend of mine put it, making the new weapons force you to learn how to use the original ones effectively. If you suck with a shotty then you will probably suck with the Frontier Justice. I'm excited.
Click to expand...

Well, yes and no. One of your sentries has to die first, which means it'll only be effective for spy checking after he or someone else has blown up your gun, and that assumes that it actually killed people.

Worse, a wrench is just a good spy checker at close quarters, and for checking, I would hate to waste guaranteed crits on an ally when I'm turtling. I'd say this is probably more catered to offense, but I do see your point. good for helping the sentry do its job should you be overwhelmed.
 
So, the payload is cumulative, but isn't delivered till your sentry goes down?

I'd prefer having access to it as it builds up; often, if my sentry is destroyed I'm right there with it battling it out.

I guess if a demo does destroy my sentry, assuming it had a few kills, I'd have a better chance of extracting revenge.

This *kinda* feels like the Soldier's buff banner, giving you some control over crits.

I don't hate the idea of the Frontier Justice - we'll see how it performs in game.
 
This is gonna be sweet! I was wondering how Valve was gonna do with this update, and they are off to a great start.
 
I've got to say, the new gun seems to be over powered in my eyes, especially so for ninjaneers. Our sentries are disposable anyway, and mine almost always gets one or two kills before it gets taken out, which means I'll have crits. And I mean, as ninjaneer I have taken down full health and buffed heavies with just my shotty and my wrench (dancing around with shotty then wrenching when out of ammo, very similar to scout tactics), with this I wouldn't even need to switch over to my wrench, I could just run up and blast him in the face.

But I'll see how it works in game before delivering my final judgement.
 
Ducttape said:
I'd prefer having access to it as it builds up; often, if my sentry is destroyed I'm right there with it battling it out.
Click to expand...

I think this is precisely the type of behavior they're trying to disincentivize. Like I said in my engineer guide, sentries always have to be disposable; you're much more valuable, because you can build more. I'm not calling you out; I do this all the time too, trying to tank the sentry through an uber and dying. But, generally speaking, it's often the wrong thing to do.

Since I'm going to assume that the crits are like the demo's heads, and don't carry through death, it really encourages engies to up and run should bad things happen. I'm really interested to see what effect it has on the game; it might actually make the average tanking engie less potent, because they'll tend to run away more now.

Kevi, I think the limited ammo and the engie's low health make it not overpowered, but a fairly powerful upgrade to the current gun. I too have to reserve judgment until after I've used it, but it feels just about right to me.
 
I agree with Dreadmaker. I can't count how many times I've tried to put a sentry up on turbine in the middle and see it destroyed after getting a few kills. This way I would be able to get back the metal I used to build it by collecting the guns of recently shotgunned enemies.
 
guess i'm missing the point of an engineer. I thought the sentry was the whole reason to be an engineer. This feels like the focus is moving away from that. I know some of us will play battle engineer from time to time but the reason thats fun is because it is hard, not easy.

I look forward to mobile sentries and ideas like that. not reasons to want your sentry to get blown up

~D
 
I don't see why people keep emphasizing that the engie gets crits when the SG goes down, you get them when it's doing well also! Thats what I would focus on if you put up an SG in the right spot and it kills 2 people before going down that's 4 crit-shots and metal to rebuild or you have multiple crits built up when a team comes plowing through. I think it will be a pretty balances weapon because being a mobile engie sucks, but being able to adequately defend yourself and not pray for a random crit will be awesome.
 
Dragonhill said:
guess i'm missing the point of an engineer. I thought the sentry was the whole reason to be an engineer. This feels like the focus is moving away from that. I know some of us will play battle engineer from time to time but the reason thats fun is because it is hard, not easy.

I look forward to mobile sentries and ideas like that. not reasons to want your sentry to get blown up

~D
Click to expand...

I kinda agree with this, but look at the sniper update. It made the sniper be less of a camper and more of a mobile sniper, this change wasnt really a bad thing over all...or was it lol, the lamesman is one of the dumbest new weapons they made with the hitboxes all screwed and such I cant wait to see how these new weapons become OP.
 
It's done on a timer, guys.

There's a guy somewhere on SPUF who figured out the actual algorithm. He'd been calling out specific times people would get the wrench, and he was right.
 
Meh, who needs a golden wrench and who would craft all of their items looking for it *laughs at bobfath3r* I would rather have hats than a golden anything :P.
 
Let's not derail, folks.


I wanna shoot back at Dragonhill and Frisky: I have more engie hours than any other class, and I've written a guide on the subject; I would disagree pretty staunchly with this approach. Your sentry is never more valuable than the engineer, and therefore abandoning ship before it dies is a positive thing. This is a good reinforcement of that.

Engies, just like demos or snipers certainly are well equipped to camp, but on maps like Blackmesa, for instance, there's no way in hell you should be sitting on the last point whacking a sentry all game while your team is pushing. You should be up there and pushing with them, and this, I feel, is a great way to do it. Sentries on A are really useful for defending such a quick cap, and they only work if you're attentive, because of how vulnerable most sentries on A can be.

That gun is just extra firepower to not only kill enemies faster, but to draw fire away from your living, breathing teammates for a little longer, which is vital on the front lines. My opinion is that turtling engies generally don't help their team a whole lot, because many times, people will uber into known chokes to get them gone before they're a problem, if the team is coordinated enough. If it's a flanking or offensive sentry, it will catch people off guard and will almost be guaranteed more kills than a predictable sentry on defense. In the very least, that has been my experience, and In my opinion, you're contributing more to your team by supporting them at the front.

Here's my indicator for effective engineering: Are you surrounded by teammates huddling around your dispenser, or is it a ghost town? if you are mr. popular, it's probably because you have an awesome fall-back point where people can get ammo and health right on the front. That's not going to happen at the last point in Mesa if you aren't actively defending it, nor is it going to happen on any ctf map because the action, by default, moves away from it so fast.

Anyhow, I feel this makes it a very effective weapon, and one that I'll be using, certainly.


GENERAL EDIT: 45 wrenches as of this post; that means that we'll be learning some new things shortly. stay tuned!
 
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I like the idea of forcing a different kind of playing style into the limelight. A Sniper Rifle Sniper and a Huntsman Sniper play very differently, which is something I think the updates do well (usually :D). Targe/SwordorAxe Demos play way differently from a typical loadout Demo. I just like seeing new, unique playstyles encouraged that we can trade in and out as needed.
 
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