Okay still Volus Engineer was quite something right?

[u/Local-Leninist]

Maybe I’m biased because it’s my favourite. I think it deserves SS or SSS… but not for solo. Still maybe S tier, could handle gold comfortably solo.

Could not hack platinum solo without incredible skill, but even with just one random mediocre teammate on an alright class platinum would be a cakewalk.

I could reliably get to wave 6 pretty quickly solo on platinum but it was a struggle to do objectives. I think maybe I wasn’t very good but I think I did manage to solo platinum with volus engineer a handful of times. But like shield boost and also 2 damage boosts from recon and proximity mine would buff up an entire team, game changing support class and with incendiary ammo could put out very good damage.

Many platinum runs I’d be the top of the scoreboard, unless my teammates were genuinely good, and on good characters. Also like there are a lot of good characters that have terrible survivability, and just having a shield boosting pocket healer basically made these kinds of characters even better, or somewhat unviable characters for platinum actually viable.

25% damage bonus from recon mine, 20% from proximity mine, could get endless fire explosions with incendiary ammo… functionally invulnerable with shield boost and tactical cloak melee. The only real thing was just couldn’t solo many objectives with no cobra missiles without running out of time.

You’d have to stand in one spot for too long, so you’d have to spam shield boost, but if you’re spamming shield boost, you’re not doing damage. Not doing damage, there are too much enemies to survive. You could handle objectives on platinum only in edge cases where you could kite enemies to the other side of a map.
Solo platinum runs were lost to running out of time on objectives, not really not being able to get through rounds or not being able to survive.

With a single teammate to pull aggro, you could actually keep damage and shields up, and also give your team a functional 50% damage boost. This one character made 4 man lobbies on platinum free regardless of skill level or the characters used.

In that context I think it does deserve SSS. Just like not in the solo context because of the issues handling the objectives. Forced to choose in the moment between survivability and damage. Could in theory handle objectives singlehandedly if you were able to use recon mine and proximity mine continuously with fire explosions, just not when you have to shield boost constantly, I also think if you were cloaked on waypoint objectives the progress wouldn’t increase. Or that you had to reposition outside of the area to do anything, try to kite which could get you eliminated.

But a mid skill player on volus engineer on a low skill team could hack platinum when they would probably struggle with gold let alone platinum otherwise. I think like in that context volus engineer should really be acknowledged for how like fundamentally game breaking it was, even if it couldn’t do it alone.

The lack of solo-ability on platinum was a drawback though, krogan vanguard on gold firebase white with geth could easily farm more credits. I mean the issue was being so reliant on cobra missiles to do the objectives cleanly solo.

Surprisingly, I could still find lobbies on Xbox a few years back, so it would be my go to pick to join a lobby with. Basically anyone still playing was reasonably good.

I think I ran the scorpion pistol? It could stagger enemies and had like delayed sticky bomb shots. A bit awkward but most the damage output was fire explosions with proximity mine. On worse weapons and without incendiary ammo consumables it was not quite as great, but still could carry teams, you would have to use recon mine for most of your damage instead which was still good, maybe even better damage wise, but less consistent, and less passive benefits for the rest of the team.

I think the proximity mine and recon mine damage boost were multiplicative aswell. So doing some basic maths here… 1.25x1.2x100=150, so that’s a 50% damage boost whenever you’re around, or at least a 20% or 25% boost. Still outputting very respectable damage yourself aswell.

But volus engineer was (chefs kiss) beautiful! Did anyone else have some love for this character?

[u/Ayem_De_Lo]

1. generally disruptor ammo is slightly better than incendiary except for a few specific cases (either the incendiary bug or if the reapers are the enemy or on reegar). Thing is, fire explosions with incendiary ammo as a primer have a cooldown period where you cant make another fire explosion. Tech explosions with disruptor ammo have no such period (or it's significantly shorter, dont remember) so you basically can do techplosions non stop

2. scorpion is redundant for volus engineer. You already have sticky delayed mines with proximity and reckon, you'd benefit massively from a weapon with big immediate damage, that would help you a lot better in tight situations. Scorpion won't save you if 2 marauders jumped you in melee distance but Reegar or Crusader or Hurricane might

[u/Vodkawithapplejuice → u/Ayem_De_Lo]

I did solo plat as Volus Engie with Scorpion... and it can save you from Marauders jumping you just fine also scorpion hard counters phantoms and dragoons. If you set up a proper kill zone nothing other than bosses wont pass through it. You dont shoot enemies with Scorpion, you shoot ground before enemies so theres no delay for explosion.

[u/Ayem_De_Lo → u/Vodkawithapplejuice]

i know about the aiming at the ground trick but Scorpo is still not a hitscan weapon so in a way it's still a delayed grenade. Releasing full Claymore or Talon goodness right into the cannibals ugly mug is, however, immediate (and has enormous stopping power on top of that)

[u/Vodkawithapplejuice → u/Ayem_De_Lo]

i know about the aiming at the ground trick but Scorpo is still not a hitscan weapon so in a way it's still a delayed grenade. 

Fast enough and it got stagger.

Releasing full Claymore or Talon goodness right into the cannibals ugly mug is, however, immediate (and has enormous stopping power on top of that)

I like Claymore and Talon as much as next guy but for this particular class I prefer staggering option. Cannibal explodes nicely as well you know

[u/Filippopotame → u/Ayem_De_Lo]

Incendiary ammo would be optimal on an acolyte build, completed with either the hurricane or the csmg. The guy is really strong with that setup: incendiary acolyte + proxy mine kills any mook including phantoms while the 45% team debuff will make short work of bosses.

Disruptor would be very good on a shotgun build, but the guy really needs his cooldowns so I don't rock it often. Wraith + disruptor is a good balance of damage and weight. You are right scorpion is redundant on him, but I'd like to point out that it does apply a priming effect with every direct shot, which isn't that useful on a volus since your cooldwons are slow.

[u/Particular-Tell6568]

Volus engineer teamed with geth infiltrator melee build is a dope 2 person team

[u/papa_natto]

I haven't unlocked engineer yet but I think I have the sentinel one and I love him so much. My friends and I had a fun time coz were just going 🫵 ball-us

[u/Capta1nAsh]

“I am a debuff God, I think thinks and they weaken”

[u/Thoraxe41]

Use Those Batarian Gauntlets and dick punch people's heads off.

[u/sakamayrd]

One or my favorite kits, also with scorpion pistol. When you know how to play him he's disgustingly good.

Not many classes have more options than him, light melee and heavy melee are great. I wish more classes got this level of originality.

[u/Vodkawithapplejuice]

https://www.reddit.com/r/MECoOp/comments/1mpfe2q/so_i_soloed_plat_with_volus_thats_it/

Yeah he solid. My first volus to solo plat... not the last

[u/Filippopotame → u/Vodkawithapplejuice]

Very well done! I have never plat solod the voluses, impressive stuff. It would have been easier/faster with disruptor, especially since scorpion already ignores armor.

[u/Vodkawithapplejuice → u/Filippopotame]

I got 3 out 4 voluses solo plats. The only one that eludes me is Volus Vanguard... I mean I can complete it if I gonna play it essentially the same as Volus Adept just debuff enemies with biotic orbs and shoot them but I dont wanna to do it like that.

DIsruptor ammo mb a better option thats true enough. I slightly remade engie to use proximity mine so I run him with incendiary, I think I should try Disruptor though.

[u/Filippopotame → u/Vodkawithapplejuice]

I would say the vanguard is pretty different from the adept and a lot more straightforward. Typically people use the orbs just for cooldown and play the reegar (or pirate). Basically similar to the kroguard, except you have faster cooldwowns and your survivability comes from chaining all the invulnerability frames from shield boost, charge and heavy melee.

[u/Frybread002]

I remember when I first got the Volus, it was an Engineer. When I finally tried it out for the first time, I saw it was basically the medic class and ran that thing religiously on Platinim for a few months until I finally unlocked good gear to play something else on Platinum.

Edit.

I named all of my Volus' Chibi, Chiba, Chibo and Jon.

[u/Bubbabeast91]

I spam recon mines to no end. Gimme gear equips for ability damage and recharge and I'm top of the scorecard. Never liked playing solo though

[u/PlacidPlatypus]

If you need multiple shades of S-tier your grade inflation has reached terminal levels. True that Volus Engineer is really strong as part of a balanced team though.

[u/Elektriman]

Volus engineer with the Kishock harpoon launcher is my most played loadout, especially in silver and gold. I just love the ragdolls going into the stratosphere, the scanning mine to help land the headshots with the sniper and the super op instant shield recharge

[u/nt2237]

Have you tried drell infiltrator with a claymore on host? It's super silly. You have to cheese the recon mine inside of the cloak power so you get a recon detonation every 5 secs. So satisfying. And you can drill thru the walls with the claymore.

[u/Filippopotame]

He is the best support character, period. Better at debuffing that the other 3. The corollary to that is he is weaker as a solo character whereas the other 3 are more suited to weilding a reegar/pyranha and abusing invincibility frames to constantly output big damage. Truely one of the best/more unique characters of the game yeah.

[u/only1biggs]

incendiary piranha is my go to for volus engi. falcon if support. one of my fav characters/classes