Character Guide - Engineer!

Hi everyone,

This guide series aims to cover each of the characters in the game. For this guide, I am going to cover Engineer. I will add a bit more information to these guides after I have completed all of the guides.

This following link was used for plenty of information in this guide: https://plantsvszombies.fandom.com/wiki/Engineer_(PvZ:_BfN). The rest of the information you will find in this guide is of my own information, and you can refer to this link if you want more detail about the Engineer.

Overview of the Character

Engineer is a Support character on the Zombies faction that supports the team and improves firepower against enemies, and he has 125 health. Your sprinting also provides unique advantages, such as giving allies directly behind you a small speed boost and making you immune to being eaten.

Primary Weapon

Primary Weapon: Concrete Launcher. It is a weapon that fires exploding bursts of concrete that are able to bounce around from objects before they explode. It will explode if they make contact with an enemy, and is able to deal direct and splash damage. Each burst of concrete deals 38 damage for direct hits and 25 damage for splash damage. It has a medium fire rate and the maximum default ammo capacity is 10.

Abilities

Bullhorn Swarm: This ability will deploy multiple bullhorns which linger in an area after they are thrown out, and you can control where you want them to go by aiming them. Any enemy that is hit by the bullhorn will be stunned for a really short time, however they can be affected by multiple bullhorns at once, improving the time that they are stunned for. The bullhorns will home in relentlessly on nearby enemies once they have been deployed, so you are more likely to make use of all the bullhorn stuns. Some enemy abilities can be cancelled by stunning them with the bullhorns. These bullhorns will expire on their own after some time. You could deploy your bullhorns into a group of enemies to stun them momentarily and to make your enemies easier to hit and vanquish for you and your allies, for a short time. The bullhorns have 10 health each and your enemies can destroy them.

Bullhorn Swarm Character Upgrades:

• Reinforced (2 upgrade points): Your bullhorns have greatly improved health, with a new maximum health of 25 each (instead of the usual 10 health that they have). Additionally, when you deploy the bullhorns, if they stun an enemy immediately, your Heavy Helper will heal for 25 health. If your bullhorns have a significant health increase, your enemies will be less likely to destroy them before being stunned, and trying to take out the bullhorns will become more tedious for your enemies. This is made even better as your enemies will probably be trying to escape the bullhorns if they are being chased by them instead of trying to destroy the bullhorns.
• Dispersion (3 upgrade points): Your Bullhorn Swarm now covers a larger area compared to normal, expanding the range that your bullhorns will continue to be effective. You can place your bullhorns in areas to deter enemies from entering certain areas or when there are multiple enemies around that are not too grouped up and this upgrade will provide additional coverage. You could use the bullhorns in corridors and your enemies will need to retreat or get stunned, making it much easier for you and allies to vanquish those enemies. This upgrade has its uses, so use the improved range of coverage to stun more enemies and more often.

Heavy Helper: This ability creates a turret sentry which can attack enemies on its own, as well as buffing you and allies that are near this sentry turret with a 25% boost in fire rate, as well as restoring ammo at a frequent rate. Placing this where multiple allies are grouping will be useful for improving damage output of your team greatly, as the faster fire rate and the lack of a need to reload will improve the rate that you can deal damage, as well as the turret being able to attack nearby enemies. The sentry turret 100 health and has extremely good aim, so placing this close to where enemies will generally be heading is useful for reducing their health. The cooldown of your Heavy Helper starts again if it gets destroyed, so you should try and replace it every so often so you do not have to wait longer to place it down. Using this ability again while a Heavy Helper is active will remove the first one and will reset its health to full, this could be useful to do in some circumstances, and to prevent starting the cooldown again.

Heavy Helper Character Upgrades:

• Signal Amp (3 upgrade points): The range that you and your allies will recieve the fire rate and ammo restoration buffs from the Heavy Helper is increased by about 25%, allowing you to spread out and move around without losing the buffs, and it not limiting your movement as much in order to receive these buffs. You may be able to make use of the improved buffs by hiding your Heavy Helper around corners so it will be protected and attacking in a place where you can spot and shoot your enemies. If you place it in a fairly open, but somewhat covered location, you will be able to keep moving around constantly with your allies without losing these benefits.
• Progress Report (3 upgrade points): Your Heavy Helper will reveal enemies to you when it deals damage to those enemies, which will last 6 seconds and will allow you to see your enemies through any walls and to see their health as well. This effect will normally be easy to achieve as your Heavy Helper will constantly shoot enemies that it can see and it is unlikely to miss due to how accurate it is. Use the revealing features that this upgrade provides to track where your enemies are going and whether you should try and vanquish them based on their health. This effect will not apply to allies, only you, although you could communicate this on your team and use these tracking features to your advantage as necessary.

Double Time: This ability deploys a pad that provides a movement speed boost to you or any ally that steps on it for about 2.5 seconds, so you can use this to improve the rate that you and your allies will get back into the fight. Place it somewhere useful where your team can find it and try not to place it near where enemies will be, as they can destroy it. The Double Time will never disappear on its own, unless you place another one or an enemy destroys it. As there is no limit to how many times you and your allies can make use from this speed boost, aim to place it in areas where it will be useful. If you have a Double Time recharged, you could use it to get yourself of that situation, but once you get another one, try to place where you and your allies can get plenty of use from the speed boost, generally where your allies can see it and where enemies are less likely to be, such as near where your team spawns.

Double Time Character Upgrades:

• Rally the Troops (2 upgrade points): The cooldown of all of your abilities will be reduced by 6 seconds each time an ally uses Double Time. Use this to use your abilities more often and become more supportive. If you want your allies to step on this more often, try and place in an area where your allies will often use your Double Time, such as near your spawn in an area that is easily noticed and your allies will generally go past, or near objectives that you and your allies will generally linger. You do not benefit from this effect by using your own Double Time, and there is a 2 second cooldown before you can benefit from this effect again, so if multiple allies use it in rapid succession, this effect will only trigger once for this time.
• Turbo Charge (2 upgrade points): The movement speed boost that you and your allies recieve by using Double Time will be increased to 3.5 seconds for each use (instead of the normal 2.5 seconds). Using the Double Time will additionally provide a knockback aura buff to you and allies for a short time, improving knockback that enemies will take from affected allies and you if you are affected. The improved duration of speed boost will make it much easier for you and your allies to back into a fight or out of a battle if at low health, and use the knockback to push your enemies out of an area or objective. To get even more use from this upgrade, place it in a convenient location or somewhere where it will be used often.

Exclusive Character Upgrades

The exclusive character upgrades for Engineer are as follows:

Seismic (2 upgrade points): While using your Jackhammer, which is your sprint, you knock enemies away from you that you make contact with. This does not deal damage, but you can knock your enemies around and away from each other while sprinting. This upgrade requires you to be sprinting on your Jackhammer, but you may be able to push enemies away from their team or even into a pit or hazard where they will get instantly vanquished. You do not normally have knockback, but if you use this upgrade and you see an opportunity where it will be useful, charge at them on your Jackhammer and knock them away. This knockback can cancel some enemy abilities, so use this knowledge to your advantage as well.

Hydraulics (2 upgrade points): Your jump height while on your Jackhammer, which is used by sprinting, is increased by 50%, which you can use to evade attacks or get up to higher vantage points that you would normally not be able to achieve. You do not normally have an improved jump height, but if you use this upgrade, you can reach heights that you have not reached before, allowing you to attack your enemies from a higher vantage point. While you do require the Jackhammer to provide the improved height, use it when you want to take advantage of this effect. You may be able to evade attacks and escape a battle if you need to, keep jumping away as you go and try to move to side to side for better escape chances. Bouncy house.

Rubber (2 upgrade points): Your Concrete Launcher shots will bounce more times before they will explode, unless they hit an enemy in which case it will explode anyway. The Concrete Launcher will now bounce up to 8 times before exploding on their own, so use this effect to your advantage by staying out of sight of your enemies and shoot into the areas where enemies are coming from. Because of all of the bouncing of your attacks, it is more likely that you will hit enemies with your shots. Your shots may bounce more unpredictably due to the consistent bouncing, so try and use this to your advantage against your enemies. Overall, you should be more likely to hit enemies with the extra bounces as the shots will last longer before detonating.

Breakthrough (3 upgrade points): The velocity or projectile speed of your Concrete Launcher will be improved, which effectively improves your range as your shots will travel further before landing on the ground or an object. You can take advantage of this effect by attacking from further ranges or shooting your shots at a high angle to hit your enemies unpredictably. You can actually make use of your improved velocity to attack your enemies without giving them much of a chance to react, your shots will hit fast and hard, and your enemies will be less likely to dodge them. You can use the bouncing feature of your Concrete Launcher attacks along with this upgrade to bounce them around the place, especially in a small corridor where it will basically be impossible for your enemies to avoid.

Usefulness in Situations

General

More effective when with allies and against enemies from further ranges, due to being effective with team support and being able to attack your enemies from further ranges without much danger.

Reviving Allies

• Shoot your Concrete Launcher at enemies you can see for cover fire while reviving, or shoot it around the place to possibly deal damage to some enemies.
• Use your Bullhorn Swarm before you start a revive to stun some enemies around you.
• Activate your Heavy Helper before beginning a revive for bonus cover fire, to improve your fire rate and to continuously restore ammo.
• Place a Double Time just before reviving so you can move around in the revive circle more quickly and to give a speed boost to you and your ally after reviving them.

If you use the Super Savior upgrade (1 point), you are able to activate your abilities and jump during a revive, allowing you to also:

• Constantly jump around during the revive to reduce the chance of being hit by enemies.
• Activate Bullhorn Swarm at any time during the revive to stun enemies harassing you.
• Place your Heavy Helper at any time while reviving for the additional cover fire and other buffs.
• Activate your Double Time during the revive at some point to prepare a speed boost for you and your ally.

If you use the Revive Reward upgrade (2 points), you will take 10% less damage while reviving an ally, and you will gain 75 health, which can provide you with overhealth, which will assist you while reviving.

Contesting the Objective

• Use your Concrete Launcher to bounce shots around and get plenty of hits on your enemies.
• Your Bullhorn Swarm can be used to stun enemies and make them easier to vanquish by you and your allies for a short time.
• Place your Heavy Helper. It cannot contest on its own, but it provides additional firepower, and it can improve the fire rate and continuously restore ammo for you and your team.
• Drop a Double Time near or in the objective to bring you and allies back to the objective more quickly, or to improve movement speed in the objective to reduce chances of you and allies being hit.

When Abilities are Negated

• You can continue shooting your Concrete Launcher, as you may hit enemies randomly, or attack enemies that are close to you with it.
• Activate your Bullhorn Swarm in the direction that you will be heading before collecting an item to give your enemies a harder time attacking you.
• Place your Heavy Helper before collecting an item as the additional firepower it will provide may make it easier to vanquish enemies.
• You can drop a Double Time at your location just before you collect an item to give yourself a temporary speed boost which can be greatly helpful.

Tips

• Your Concrete Launcher can be used for additional damage against your enemies. Due to the fact that the shots bounce before exploding, you can shoot your shots from unexpected angles and hit your enemies quite often. Aim for direct hits where possible for additional damage.
• You are more effective when you work with your allies, so try and stay close to your allies where you can, as it will improve how effective you can be with your attacks and abilities, improving your supportive nature and it should reduce your chances of getting vanquished.
• Use Bullhorn Swarm to stun groups of enemies and make it easier for you and your allies to vanquish the affected enemies. Stunned enemies cannot attack or use abilities, so use the opportunity while the enemies are stunned to attack.
• Your Heavy Helper can be placed where lots of allies are lingering at. You can hide your Heavy Helper behind a corner, but allow yourself and allies to shoot your enemies while getting the buffs and hiding the sentry turret, or use the Heavy Helper itself for additional firepower.
• Place your Double Time in locations where you and your allies can get lots of use from it. As the speed boost can be triggered whenever, it can be used to bring you and allies back into fights faster and possibly for escape opportunities if you find the need to do so.

These are my Engineer tips. Thanks for reading!

@TheSprinter85