With the release of Warhammer Online's 1.4 patch, I decided to retool my RR70 Engineer, Tirew. The career itself did not see major changes, but with the new renown system came a free respec. So how has 1.4 affected my Engineer?
The big Engineer change was the addition of Improvised Upgrades. When near my deployed turret, I will get a 20% damage increase. It actually builds up to that and will decay if you move too far away. So far, I really am not too impressed with it. That topic deserves its own post though.
With the RvR Personality Pack came access to new dyes. As you can see above, I went with Desert Yellow and Calthan Brown. I just could not find a way to make many of the other new colors work for me. They were just too bright for my tastes, and the new black was too dark.
I also switched my Mastery spec to this one. Before 1.4, I had been playing around with a high-crit Rifle based spec. Now I am back to a Grenade spec with Bugmans Best thrown in for some healing renown. It is just really hard to make a case for the Rifle tree since Physical damage is a lot more mitigated than Corporeal.
On to my Gear and Renown loadout! The build in the prior link matches my paper doll, except for the +160 Ballistic Skill tactic. My equipment has remained mostly the same, except the addition of the . I still have a while to go before I can use Sovereign.
I did pick up the new renown ability: Efficiency II. When fired, this ability gives me 15 seconds of free casts (0 AP). I really like to pop this, then Unshakable Focus (+100% damage for 10 seconds) and then just do as much damage as I can. It works well for the most part. I also picked up Futile Strikes 2, which lowers my chance to be critically hit down to around 0% (Not showing correctly on the Depot).
I'm still having fun with him, and the new renown gains are really helping me catch up.
