A paranoid person's guide to playing Engineer
Posted: Thu Jul 28, 2011 4:59 pm
Let me be the first to say, I am not anywhere near the best engineer, not on these servers or anywhere else.
I do have quite a bit of playtime, however, and have a few tips I'd like to share with anyone interested.
First off a couple divisions which I find affect play style greatly:
Nesting/tanking engineer versus free ranging engineer (do you sit with your sentry and gear, or do you let it do it's thing and go shoot people?)
Mini sentries versus full blown sentries (these are not used in the same way, and effective use is much different)
Wrangler versus no wrangler (I personally hardly ever use one, for reasons I will go into more below)
Now let's get to it.
First off, depending on the map, which of your buildings is most important will change.
On a map with fewer health/ammo pickups the dispenser is the king, and should be your first priority to upgrade and save.
On a map with long distances involved, particularly with large teams and/or faster respawn times (like you will find on TV 1, 2, 6, 7, your teleporter is important.
Finally when you're having issues being flanked, or need to deny an area or approach to an enemy team that's where the sentry gun shines.
Building placement is another matter, do you want to keep the building safe, or do you want to go for big reward big risk?
Generally speaking, the more important a building is in the current situation, the less you should risk it by putting it somewhere dangerous.
However Teleporters should still be sending people someplace useful and Dispensers should still be somewhere your teammates can access them without spending too much time not shooting the other team.
Dispensers tend to work well in corners or behind cover nearer to the "front" or where the majority of the action is taking place. Teleporters should be well enough back that they're not in line of sight to enemies at the "front", again use cover to hide/protect them.
Sentry placement falls into three categories (in my mind): ambush, defensive, and offensive.
Defensive sentries are placed to take advantage of map cover, limited enemy sight lines, and good field of fire. Typically they are placed at corners or behind low cover where they are protected from some incoming fire, but still have good visibility on enemies. Unless you plan to be wrangling all the time it's important to pay attention to the firing range of the sentry. Make sure that there are as few areas as possible outside it's range and within line of sight. Conversely you want to keep any major approaches right at the edge of line of sight, as sentries don't suffer damage falloff and exert a good amount of "push" on anyone attempting to close with them. The further your sentry is from enemies, the harder it is for them to hurt -with the exception of snipers-.
Offensive sentries are ones dropped into an area of fighting to provide support. A sentry set up to cover a control point that the other team owns would fall under this category. Expect your sentry to die, frequently, if you do this. However having a gun adding firepower to your team can make a huge difference. Here is actually a situation where having a wrangler can help, since you can expect your sentry to take a lot of fire. Be careful though, if you wrangle you become the main target for the enemy team, and if you die your sentry is as good as destroyed with the 3second downtime. You will also not be able to shoot at enemies yourself, and the sentry will not be able to use it's auto-targeting capacity on highly mobile opponents (scouts, pyros, jumpers, random spies).
Ambush sentries are sentries placed so that an enemy does not see them before getting shot. Typical placements are in corners, or behind walls with a field of fire towards your team's territory. Here the main idea is that the sentry will kill or severely injure an enemy before they even know it's there. As such your sentry should be positioned to fire on an enemy from behind or the side if possible, and have cover concealing it from any enemy that it can't shoot. A trick I've found for this type of sentry is to angle the front of the gun away from where you expect enemies to come, so that it will take extra time to lock onto them. This can cause the enemy to be further from cover when the sentry begins firing on them, and thus make kills more likely. It's best to not rebuild a destroyed ambush sentry in the same spot, as the strength of this type of placement is in the surprise.
Mini-sentries excel in the ambush and offensive roles with their smaller size and quicker setup time. Defensive mini sentries can also be used to prevent scouts from having free access to an area, though don't expect them to do much to any heavier class, or even stop a scout necessarily. Ambush/defensively placed mini sentries can also be used as a sort of tripwire to alert you that someone is attempting to enter an area.
Full sentries can be used in any of these roles, though ambush is slightly harder as they take longer to build and upgrade. If placing a full sentry in an ambush position be ready to move it after a few kills to prevent it being destroyed once the other team wises up to it's position.
General sentry positioning tips: walls behind a sentry make it easier to hit with rolling pills, stickybombs, and rockets. If possible have a flat area behind the sentry. Having your sentry next to an external corner (ie at the outside corner of a building) works well to protect it from the side wile giving it a good field of fire and allowing misses to pass by without dealing blast damage.
If you plan to sit on/near your sentry then make sure there's a safe area nearby with good cover, especially be on the lookout for any corner you can stand in to keep spies from coming up behind you. Warning: spies can stand on top of your head and drop down behind you for a backstab when you move, check on top of your head occasionally.
Dispensers can be the lifeline of your team on certain maps, they are also your lifeline for a steady supply of metal to upgrade/rebuild your other buildings. As such there are two main ways they are positioned: team support and personal support.
Team support dispensers are placed so that your teammates can access them easily, preferably while still firing at the enemy. Good places here are immediately around corners that your team is holding at or assaulting from. They can also be placed behind cover in contested areas to provide the same effect if actual walls aren't available. Having a dispenser like this up also encourages your team-mates to cluster around it, providing a strong-point, or focus of attention for your team.
Personal support dispensers are generally used by engineers who are "turtling" and are placed very close to the sentry so that the engineer can be healed and have his metal refilled while at the same time repairing/wrangling/de-sapping his sentry. This typically leads to hard to kill sentries, that when killed also take the engineer, dispenser, and sometimes teleporter with them. They make very tempting spy and uber targets, as well as tempting targets for soldiers and demos.
Teleporters do more than just get your team-mates to the front faster. They guide your team-mates to a location of your choosing. They allow you, the engineer, to cause a constant stream of team-mates to appear in a location chosen by you. I cannot stress enough how powerful an ability this is, especially in servers with low amounts of team-work. If you want your team to use a side-path instead of a main path, just set up a porter there. Conversely never set up a teleporter you don't want your team going through, especially if the entrance is by your spawn. I have seen entire defenses wrecked because the engineer put up a teleporter behind the enemy lines for spies to use, and then was left without any team-mates to defend the objective. Never count on anyone listening to you when you say "don't use the porter".
I do have quite a bit of playtime, however, and have a few tips I'd like to share with anyone interested.
First off a couple divisions which I find affect play style greatly:
Nesting/tanking engineer versus free ranging engineer (do you sit with your sentry and gear, or do you let it do it's thing and go shoot people?)
Mini sentries versus full blown sentries (these are not used in the same way, and effective use is much different)
Wrangler versus no wrangler (I personally hardly ever use one, for reasons I will go into more below)
Now let's get to it.
First off, depending on the map, which of your buildings is most important will change.
On a map with fewer health/ammo pickups the dispenser is the king, and should be your first priority to upgrade and save.
On a map with long distances involved, particularly with large teams and/or faster respawn times (like you will find on TV 1, 2, 6, 7, your teleporter is important.
Finally when you're having issues being flanked, or need to deny an area or approach to an enemy team that's where the sentry gun shines.
Building placement is another matter, do you want to keep the building safe, or do you want to go for big reward big risk?
Generally speaking, the more important a building is in the current situation, the less you should risk it by putting it somewhere dangerous.
However Teleporters should still be sending people someplace useful and Dispensers should still be somewhere your teammates can access them without spending too much time not shooting the other team.
Dispensers tend to work well in corners or behind cover nearer to the "front" or where the majority of the action is taking place. Teleporters should be well enough back that they're not in line of sight to enemies at the "front", again use cover to hide/protect them.
Sentry placement falls into three categories (in my mind): ambush, defensive, and offensive.
Defensive sentries are placed to take advantage of map cover, limited enemy sight lines, and good field of fire. Typically they are placed at corners or behind low cover where they are protected from some incoming fire, but still have good visibility on enemies. Unless you plan to be wrangling all the time it's important to pay attention to the firing range of the sentry. Make sure that there are as few areas as possible outside it's range and within line of sight. Conversely you want to keep any major approaches right at the edge of line of sight, as sentries don't suffer damage falloff and exert a good amount of "push" on anyone attempting to close with them. The further your sentry is from enemies, the harder it is for them to hurt -with the exception of snipers-.
Offensive sentries are ones dropped into an area of fighting to provide support. A sentry set up to cover a control point that the other team owns would fall under this category. Expect your sentry to die, frequently, if you do this. However having a gun adding firepower to your team can make a huge difference. Here is actually a situation where having a wrangler can help, since you can expect your sentry to take a lot of fire. Be careful though, if you wrangle you become the main target for the enemy team, and if you die your sentry is as good as destroyed with the 3second downtime. You will also not be able to shoot at enemies yourself, and the sentry will not be able to use it's auto-targeting capacity on highly mobile opponents (scouts, pyros, jumpers, random spies).
Ambush sentries are sentries placed so that an enemy does not see them before getting shot. Typical placements are in corners, or behind walls with a field of fire towards your team's territory. Here the main idea is that the sentry will kill or severely injure an enemy before they even know it's there. As such your sentry should be positioned to fire on an enemy from behind or the side if possible, and have cover concealing it from any enemy that it can't shoot. A trick I've found for this type of sentry is to angle the front of the gun away from where you expect enemies to come, so that it will take extra time to lock onto them. This can cause the enemy to be further from cover when the sentry begins firing on them, and thus make kills more likely. It's best to not rebuild a destroyed ambush sentry in the same spot, as the strength of this type of placement is in the surprise.
Mini-sentries excel in the ambush and offensive roles with their smaller size and quicker setup time. Defensive mini sentries can also be used to prevent scouts from having free access to an area, though don't expect them to do much to any heavier class, or even stop a scout necessarily. Ambush/defensively placed mini sentries can also be used as a sort of tripwire to alert you that someone is attempting to enter an area.
Full sentries can be used in any of these roles, though ambush is slightly harder as they take longer to build and upgrade. If placing a full sentry in an ambush position be ready to move it after a few kills to prevent it being destroyed once the other team wises up to it's position.
General sentry positioning tips: walls behind a sentry make it easier to hit with rolling pills, stickybombs, and rockets. If possible have a flat area behind the sentry. Having your sentry next to an external corner (ie at the outside corner of a building) works well to protect it from the side wile giving it a good field of fire and allowing misses to pass by without dealing blast damage.
If you plan to sit on/near your sentry then make sure there's a safe area nearby with good cover, especially be on the lookout for any corner you can stand in to keep spies from coming up behind you. Warning: spies can stand on top of your head and drop down behind you for a backstab when you move, check on top of your head occasionally.
Dispensers can be the lifeline of your team on certain maps, they are also your lifeline for a steady supply of metal to upgrade/rebuild your other buildings. As such there are two main ways they are positioned: team support and personal support.
Team support dispensers are placed so that your teammates can access them easily, preferably while still firing at the enemy. Good places here are immediately around corners that your team is holding at or assaulting from. They can also be placed behind cover in contested areas to provide the same effect if actual walls aren't available. Having a dispenser like this up also encourages your team-mates to cluster around it, providing a strong-point, or focus of attention for your team.
Personal support dispensers are generally used by engineers who are "turtling" and are placed very close to the sentry so that the engineer can be healed and have his metal refilled while at the same time repairing/wrangling/de-sapping his sentry. This typically leads to hard to kill sentries, that when killed also take the engineer, dispenser, and sometimes teleporter with them. They make very tempting spy and uber targets, as well as tempting targets for soldiers and demos.
Teleporters do more than just get your team-mates to the front faster. They guide your team-mates to a location of your choosing. They allow you, the engineer, to cause a constant stream of team-mates to appear in a location chosen by you. I cannot stress enough how powerful an ability this is, especially in servers with low amounts of team-work. If you want your team to use a side-path instead of a main path, just set up a porter there. Conversely never set up a teleporter you don't want your team going through, especially if the entrance is by your spawn. I have seen entire defenses wrecked because the engineer put up a teleporter behind the enemy lines for spies to use, and then was left without any team-mates to defend the objective. Never count on anyone listening to you when you say "don't use the porter".