Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer/Character Customization/Engineer

Engineers are support specialists that focus on setting up ambushes and providing support fire, often through the use of a variety of enemy-distracting drones, decoys, and turrets. They excel at destroying enemy tech. Engineers tend to place an emphasis on power usage and the creation of Tech Bursts.

Human Engineer
Humans joined the galactic community after discovering a Prothean data cache on Mars in 2148. Their devotion to understanding and adapting to modern warfare left the staid Council races stunned. Humanity's persistence and unflappable spirit has taken them further than anyone in the galaxy could have imagined.

Human engineers are support specialists that set up ambushes, provide fire support, and destroy enemy tech. Their value is not lost on an ally when a battlefield is cleared of turrets.

Player Notes
Combat Drones are exceptionally useful at halting the advance of Brutes and Banshees. If one is destroyed, simply deploy another and the enemy will continue trying to fight it rather than you.
 * General Notes
 * The Combat Drone is useful for its ability to draw fire away from team mates (even if only for a brief period) and causing a little stress in the enemies' ranks. If there is nothing to target or it's the end of a wave, it is the sort of power you might as well use since it will move toward enemies and you can recover before the enemies arrive.
 * Counter-intuitively, it may be wise to reset the powers of a Human Engineer so that you skip the Drone altogether to focus on maxing the Overload, Incinerate, Fitness, and Alliance Training skill trees. By doing this one can get 20% extra weapon damage, and 35% power damage, as well as a few extra capacity points. This tactic allows Incinerate to devastate armour and health, while Overload fills in the gap of dealing with shields and barriers. Combined together, a Human Engineer can be very versatile and capable of taking on almost any enemy single-handedly.
 * Because Engineers are a power-focused class, one should keep their loadout as light as possible. At 200% recharge speed, you can potentially fire off Overloads and Incinerates every 2 seconds, causing utter havoc against enemies of any kind. A good weapon combination to equip is a Carnifex X, and a Disciple X or Hornet X. This combination with power damage and capacity maxed out, gives 160-165% recharge speed or even 200% when using the Decrease Weight rank 6 evolution in Alliance Training. Then outfit the Piercing and Barrel mod with the Carnifex, and you can eliminate the Engineer's biggest problem which is armor-plated Reapers, or Cerberus Guardians. Combine the powers with this and you have a character with pretty much all bases covered.
 * The Human Engineer can single-handedly create Tech Bursts and flame explosions, through the use of Overload and Incinerate.
 * If you are power focused, you can ignore the last rank of alliance training, to upgrade your combat drone, which will be very useful when fighting heavy units. The human engineer has less health en shields than the salarian engineer, but with the combat drone he will draw the enemy fire away.
 * It's effective to pair with a salarian infiltrator.
 * The geth pulse rifle and avenger will have 0,50 units of weight when level 10. The human engineer has 0,60 units bonus weight with alliance training rank 4. So the human engineer will be able to carry an assault rifle, with still 200% recharge. (this applies for many power-based classes)
 * When equipped with Disruptor Ammo, the Engineer can spam a barrage of Tech Bursts by simply shooting the enemies before unleashing Overload.
 * Cerberus
 * When dealing with a Guardian, release a Combat Drone behind him. The Guardian will turn towards the new threat, showing his sensitive side to your sights. Should you have the Neural Shock evolution of Overload, unleash it on the distracted Guardian to make him drop his shield.
 * High levels of Overload can wipe out Phantom barriers quickly, making them much easier to take out. If they are doing acrobatics, wait for them to stop before you fire an Overload on them; otherwise it will do less damage.
 * A piercing weapon, or a Piercing Mod is recommended so that you can take on Guardians regardless of their shields, and the Atlases take more damage from your shots.
 * Reapers
 * Because most enemies are armored or have only health, Incinerate is extremely useful here. Overload can expose Banshees and Marauders to a burning from Incinerate. All in all, this can be an Engineer's best enemy to engage due to the enemies' weakness to Incinerate.
 * Geth
 * Overload is indispensible against geth troops as all foes other than the basic Geth Trooper have shields. Geth Troopers and man-sized geth that have had their shields removed can also be stunned for a short while.
 * Overload or Incinerate on a Geth Pyro with a damaged tank will detonate the tank immediately.
 * Overload and Incinerate together will devastate shielding with Tech Bursts: this is a deadly combo when used on Geth Primes since a single burst can strip most of a Prime's shields in one go, even on Gold. This way the pyro will have a big chance of exploding, by flame explosion, tech burst or tank explosion.

Quarian Engineer
Quarians have spent centuries at perpetual salvage and ship repair--the survival of their species depends on this technical expertise.

Quarian engineers are elite support specialists with a talent for setting up ambushes and providing cover fire through the use of turrets. Their technical wizardry makes them crucial contributors on the battlefield.

Player Notes

 * General Notes
 * Female Quarian Engineers are a little more focused on dealing with armored and unarmoured foes. They are less effective against barriers and shields, but using a weapon effective against the two will make you much more effective. If using the Sentry Turret, it's best to focus on damage per second abilities, i.e. the flamethrower, armor-piercing rounds, and endurance. If you find the turret to be a little too fragile, weak, or just useless, consider maxing the other four skills. By combining Cryo Blast with Incinerate (and the Frozen Damage evolution at rank 6 on Incinerate), you can inflict huge damage to frozen enemies and armoured enemies.


 * Cerberus
 * Cerberus enemies are mostly shielded, but Cryo Blast will still slow enemies down by 15% or 35%. It also makes them vulnerable to taking double damage from Incinerate with the Rank 6 Evolution Freeze Damage, as with all enemies. Those that are shielded should ideally be tackled with a team mate with Overload, Energy Drain, or a powerful anti-shields/barrier weapon like the Reegar Carbine. Against Atlases the Cryo Blast-Incinerate combo is extremely deadly since it allows for over 1000 damage to be inflicted with just one Incinerate. The turret is a simple fire, forget, and hope it kills as many as possible strategy. On higher difficulties, this is very difficult.


 * Reapers
 * Reapers are the ideal enemy for Quarian Engineers. With only two enemies with extra layers of protection (Marauders and Banshees) it is very easy to snap-freeze the unprotected, or chill and slow the others. Because the enemies cannot to dodge (except for Marauders) Cryo Blast is very effective. Incinerate is also deadly on its own, but together they pretty much lock enemies down in a more permanent fashion. Only Banshees are a real nuisance because they are heavily protected by barriers, and a very high amount of armour. Their teleport ability also acts as dodging tactic for your bullets and powers, causing a great deal of stress, but if you pair up with somebody with Overload, the Barriers can be brought down quickly, while the Armor can be Incinerated. Brutes are a pain, but are slow, cannot dodge attacks, and are highly vulnerable to Incinerate and powerful-but-slow weapons.


 * Geth
 * Geth are possibly the most difficult of all the forces, since every enemy (with the exception of the Geth Trooper) has some kind of shielding which prevents snap-freezing. Since most Geth are shielded, it would be highly recommended to abandon the Quarian Engineer and instead go for one of the other types of Engineer. While Cryo Blast does slow enemies down and can be comboed with Incinerate, the amount of times you will be stunned outside of cover by Geth makes it very difficult to fire off powers against them. The only real enemies that Incinerate is effective against are Geth Pyros and Geth Primes, but they need their shields stripped first. Consider using a human or geth Engineer instead.

Salarian Engineer
Salarians have a high-speed metabolism that allows them to function on just one hour of sleep a day. They also process information much faster than other sentient races.

Salarian engineers specialize in providing long-range cover fire and debuffing targets. These agile combatants are deadly and difficult to detect on the battlefield, particularly once they bring their decoy ability into play.

Player Notes

 * General Notes
 * The main strength of Salarian Engineers is their ability to draw enemy fire. Their Decoys are capable of withstanding huge amounts of damage, often allowing their squad to take care of business.
 * Energy Drain makes a Salarian Engineer even more difficult to kill, allowing them to siphon the shields and barriers of organic enemies or drain the energy from synthetics.
 * If Incinerate is also invested in, it also provides a very good means of destroying armor and health too. Considering many armored units are synthetics, this makes them very powerful without Incinerate, allowing for an investment into durability or weapon damage.
 * The Salarian Engineer and Geth Engineer are a good combo. The Geth can spam overload and heal with his turret, while the Salarian has Incinerate and Energy Drain. The Decoy can also distract the enemy.
 * By ignoring the last Salarian Operative rank, you can rank your Decoy to rank 3, still getting the maximum out of your powers, and the use of the Decoy.


 * Cerberus
 * Most enemies have shielding. This provides an ample opportunity to leech off enemies like a vampire. Done correctly with a low weight loadout a salarian is almost invincible.
 * Being able to gain 40% damage reduction, and 50-100% shields for every use more often than not, salarians could be used almost like a charging krogan.
 * If Incinerate is employed, it should be used against enemies that are unprotected or Atlases.
 * Aside from that, gear yourself for survival, put a Piercing Mod on a powerful sidearm like the Carnifex, and you are all set.


 * Reapers
 * Reapers are a real pain for salarian Engineers. Since they are more geared for dealing with shielded enemies, it is almost impossible to use anything other than the Decoy effectively - which will also be destroyed very quickly due to the aggressive nature of the Reapers.
 * Incinerate can be used to great effect, but considering its usefulness is outweighed by Energy Drain more often than not, it is recommended to avoid this type of Engineeer and consider a Quarian or Human Engineer instead.


 * Geth
 * The Salarian Engineer is ideal for facing geth. Energy Drain skill affects geth regardless of their protection, health, armor or shielding. This makes geth extremely vulnerable to salarians of either class.
 * Decoy will deter the enemy from firing openly on them while they continue to sap away the geth's energy. A little caution never hurts though, since most geth are capable of stunning their foes on attack. The stuns will disrupt all actions including rolling or taking cover, so stay in cover to negate this effect.

Geth Engineer
The geth are a humanoid race of networked AIs that were created by the quarians 300 years ago as tools of labor and war. Having since won their freedom from their creators, the geth have proven they are able to reason, analyze situations, and deploy tactics as well as any organic race so long as they remain networked with other geth.

Geth engineers are elite support specialists. Unique perception systems give geth an unsurpassed understanding of the battlefield.

Player Notes

 * General Notes
 * Geth Engineers are very fragile without shields or during Hunter Mode, but used correctly, are extremely lethal against enemies with shields/barriers or other geth.
 * Overload can allow them to inflict over 800 damage per use to shields/barriers or synthetics and Hunter Mode makes them capable of casting these Overloads at break-neck speeds and inflict over 900 damage. This is especially apparent when combined with the Hunter Mode's Rank 4 Power Recharge evolution and Rank 5 Power Damage evolution. Damage can be pushed even higher using gear and/or power amplifiers, allowing for over 1300 damage to be inflicted in one use. This makes geth unmatched for tech power damage.
 * The geth's "light" melee strike is actually slower in execution than the "heavy" shield pulse, which is also capable of doing more damage, to multiple enemies, so it is generally better to use the shield pulse.
 * Note that keeping the melee button held will cause you to continuously send out pulses until you run out of shields.


 * The geth engineer is the one that comes the closest to a medic. As the only one with a healing device, he should use that ability.
 * When paired with the salarian engineer, there will be a lot of tech bursts and flame explosions.
 * Because you can't do combo explosions alone, it's best to make your overload chain reaction overload, this way you can stun a lot of enemies.
 * The last rank of networked AI, will make you able to carry a more heavy assault rifle (at a high level, otherwises, just an assault rifle) or a sniper rifle. This way you can stun the enemy with your overload, and get some headshots.


 * Cerberus
 * Their Overloads are lethal against the shielding of Cerberus troops, with only Guardians needing a Piercing mod, or weapon. Against Atlases multiple overloads are required, but the shields can be stripped at an unbelievable rate, with only the Reegar Carbine beating its rate of draining.
 * Because Hunter Mode halves shielding, caution is advised. Consider using a turret near your location, but in a position where it will be very difficult to hit and subsequently destroy.
 * Reapers
 * Geth Engineers suffer against Reapers. Lacking any real anti-armor/health powers like Incinerate, or Cryo Blast, one would be best using guns, especially those suited to dealing with armor.
 * It is recommendable to evolve the Flamethrower evolution of Geth Turret to provide a better chance against armored targets and to provide a distraction against the aggressive enemy style.
 * Overload is, none the less, good against Marauders and especially Banshees, where their barriers are very strong. Despite this, opt for a Human, or Quarian female engineer instead.
 * The weakness of Overload against Reapers can be mitigated by taking the Neural Shock upgrade and one or both of the chain upgrades, which makes it useful as a crowd control power against unarmored enemies.
 * Weapons with piercing mods are also very useful against armored enemies, to make up for the weakness of Overload against them.


 * Geth
 * Geth Engineers are deadly against geth. Since geth are synthetic and all enemies have shielding (except basic troopers), Overload works absolute miracles here. Being able to destroy the strongest of shields in just 1 or 2 Overloads, even Prime shielding will quickly deteriorate. Combine that with an anti-armor weapon, and you have the ultimate Geth hunting combo.
 * If one needs a second anti-shield weapon, the Reegar Carbine fills that role, and a close quarters role very nicely.

Quarian Male Engineer
Quarians have spent centuries at perpetual salvage and ship repair--the survival of their species depends on this technical expertise.

Quarian engineers are elite support specialists with a talent for setting up ambushes and providing cover fire through the use of turrets. Their technical wizardry makes them crucial contributors on the battlefield.

Player Notes

 * General Notes
 * Quarian Male Engineers are more directly suited for dealing with shields than their female counterparts. Their Arc Grenades do not operate on a cooldown, so anywhere from 1-9 grenades can be thrown at once, the latter numbers will annihilate any shielding from even the strongest and most durable of enemies. This power pretty much eliminates the need for Incinerate, but grenades need to be kept topped up to maintain combat-effectiveness. Because one can forego Incinerate (the only other power aside from Tactical Scan), one can take a moderate level of weight and still maintain a pretty good level of Scan usage. By going for this approach one can equip a powerful, but heavy weapon such as a Revenant, or Widow, or Claymore and still be very effective.
 * Because Arc Grenade deals triple damage to shields and barriers, the Armor Damage evolution is a viable option for dealing with Banshees, Geth Primes, Pyros, and Brutes.
 * The Quarian Male Engineer can reliably set up Tech Bursts on its own when using area evolutions of Incinerate and Arc Grenade.
 * The Quarian Male Engineer can be a very potent support character when using the Movement Speed and the Area Scan evolutions. Area Scan will reveal all enemies within a very large radius of the enemy scanned, which can reveal cloaked enemies like Phantoms and Hunters.  It can also be used "blind", where one does not target an enemy.  This can be useful if a smokescreen is set up.
 * Equipping a Falcon with Disruptor Ammo is a reliable way to prime and detonate Tech Bursts when throwing Arc Grenades, especially if the Electrical Damage evolution is taken. The area-of-effect damage that the Falcon deals will help set up and trigger Tech Bursts across multiple enemies.


 * Cerberus
 * Grenades will very quickly tear through initial enemies or drastically weaken Atlas Mechs. Tactical scans can weaken Atlases even further and make them even more vulnerable to a pounding. This also works with Phantoms, which can greatly decrease their movement speed which is their main trait. Combine that with Cryo Ammo, or Cryo Blast from other players, it can bring Phantoms to an almost complete stand-still.


 * Reapers
 * A little less effective against Reapers but certainly not rubbish against them, there is little need to spam Grenades against basic troops since most of them will die in just one shot from a more powerful gun. Against Banshees, let rip with the Grenades and the Barriers will fall in seconds. Because most of the Reapers are either armored or lack protection, Incinerate would be slightly more useful here, but ultimately it is a matter of choice whether you wish to keep the Male Quarian to combat the Reapers.
 * Tactical Scan may be useful in weakening and slowing the advance of Brutes and Banshees, who are most dangerous at closer ranges.


 * Geth
 * Spam grenades: geth are extremely susceptible to Arc Grenades and one can take out entire armies of geth single-handedly. The only real threats are as always the Geth Primes, and Geth Hunters. When out of grenades, try to restock when you can, otherwise use your weapons to take out the stragglers or other enemies. Aside from that, the first chance you get, spam the living daylights out of the Grenade button.

N7 Demolisher Engineer
These soldiers are the go-anywhere, fight-anything special forces of the Alliance that were trained at the Interplanetary Combatives Academy in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. They had to survive combat situations "in an admirable and effective fashion" to receive the N7 rank. Many N7s now train other species in anti-Reaper asymmetric warfare.

The Demolisher uses grenades to attack at range and to terrorize the battlefield. Demolishers can also create a supply pylon that stocks allies with an unending reserve of grenades and thermal reloads.

Player Notes

 * General Notes
 * The Demolisher has two grenade powers, but they both draw from the same pool. Using a Homing Grenade will also deplete your supply of Arc Grenades, and vice versa. Remember to resupply frequently.
 * This also applies to your grenade count bonuses from powers. For instance, having both grenade powers at rank 2 will give you two extra grenades. Along with the Demolisher passive skill, extra grenades from equipment should not be necessary. However if one does go for said equipment, one can throw dozens of grenades within 15-20 seconds, allowing for total obliteration of frontal forces, and significant or even fatal damage to the ones behind too.
 * Supply Pylon is the Demolisher's only rechargable power. The base charge time is relatively long, and the power does not usually need to be used repeatedly. This allows for the use of heavier weapons with few ill effects.
 * Homing Grenades travel relatively slowly, so they should be used mostly on tougher enemies that aren't likely to be killed before it can arrive.
 * On a general comparison, Homing Grenades have a small impact radius but deal more damage than Arc Grenades, which cover a wider area.
 * The Demolisher's heavy melee is a blunt omni-tool punch which explodes on contact. While this attack is relatively weak, it is capable of knocking down enemies and push them away slightly, acting much like a Concussive Shot.
 * Having a sniper rifle can allow a player to "ammo-dump-camp;" throwing grenades from a safe distance and refilling them reliably while sniping enemies.
 * Throwing an Arc Grenade followed by a Homing Grenade unleashes a powerful Tech Burst on the enemy.
 * Supply Pylon can be recast to instantly grant grenades and thermal clips.
 * Cerberus
 * Homing Grenades can be quite effective against phantoms, as they might still be in the explosion radius after dodging.
 * They also prove rather effective against Guardians, as they tend to drop down from above and bypass the shield entirely.
 * Reapers
 * Clearing out Cannibals should be your number one job with the Demolisher. Use your gun or grenades to kill a Cannibal, and wait for the rest to begin feeding on it. Dropping a Homing Grenade on this pile will eliminate most, if not all, of them.
 * Arc Grenades are very effective at clearing out swarms of husks or swarmers.
 * Homing Grenades are also effective against the slow-moving Ravagers, with the added bonus of wiping out recently spawned swarmers aswell.
 * Geth
 * Geth, and other synthetics, are weak to Arc Grenades. A wise move would be to set up a supply pylon in a defensible well-covered position, and keep up a steady stream of grenades. A damage-optimized grenade will kill Geth troopers in one hit, and at the very least do noticeable damage to the Hunters and Rocket Troopers. Clearing out the weaker enemies single-handedly will leave the rest of the squad free to bring down the more durable Pyros and Primes. It is advisable to use Disruptor Ammo on your weapon, as this will increase your chances of setting off a tech burst.