WildStar Engineer Basics Guide

WildStar Engineer Basics Guide by Quillixx

Engineer Leveling

The content posted here is an overview to assist players that are new to WildStar, or leveling for the first time.  The focus of this post is for a quick reference for those that are looking for basic information.

The Class

• Weapon:
  • Launcher

• Gear:
  • Heavy Armor

• Stat Focus:
  • DPS or PvP – Finesse > Brutality : Moxie
  • Tank Leveling – Tech > Insight : Grit
  • Tank Instances – Insight : Grit > Tech

During your leveling career as DPS or PvP, Finesse will grant more DPS, point for point, versus focusing on Brutality or Moxie as a stat priority.  For the Tank in all of us, if you plan on leveling with a Support build, you will want to place extra priority on Tech to bolster damage output to assist with leveling speed.  For tanking instances such as Adventures or Dungeons, focusing on avoidance will allow the Engineer to become more hearty, while allowing your group to focus on destroying the content.  Engineers only need enough Tech to hold agro when tanking group content.

Layered Content

In WildStar, layered content is amazing, but can also cause some frustration.  When players stray from the typical questing path and gain levels by focusing on PvP, Dungeons, or Adventures… they can find themselves lost on where they should go in order to find level appropriate content.  Below is a breakdown of level ranges for each of the zones to help guide those that run into such situations.

Also indicated below are the default starting zones for each race after leaving the Ark Ship.  Read the ‘Alternate Starting Zones‘ section in the post below if you want to learn how to change your starting zone.

Zones

• Ark Ship
  • 1-3
• Crimson Isle (Chua & Draken), Levian Bay (Cassian & Mechari) : Everstar Grove (Aurin & Mordesh), Northern Wilds (Granok & Human)
  • 3-6
• Deradune, Ellevar : Algoroc, Celestion
  • 6-14
• CAPITAL: Illium : Thayde
  • 14-50
• Auroria : Galeras
  • 14-24
• Whitevale
  • 24-32
• Farside
  • 29-32
• Wilderrun
  • 32-40
• Malgrave
  • 40-44
• Southern Grimvault
  • 44-47
• Western Grimvault
  • 47-50
• Crimson Badlands
  • 49-50

WildStar Adventures

• Level 15 : Riot in the Void (Dominion)
• Level 15 : The Hycrest Insurrection (Exile)
• Level 25 : War of the Wilds
• Level 30 : The Siege of Tempest Refuge
• Level 40 : Crimelords of Whitevale
• Level 45 : The Malgrave Trail

WildStar Dungeons

• Level 20 : Ruins of Kel Vorath
• Level 20 : Stormtalon’s Lair
• Level 35 : Skullcano
• Level 50 : Sanctum of the Swordmaiden

General WildStar Game Mechanics

Alternate Starter Zones

The initial progression style of the game is the same for both Exile and Dominion.  After you complete the level 1-3 areas, you are tasked with heading to Nexus.  The quest you’re given takes the player to the next zone based on their race.  Two races of one faction go to Starter Zone A, while the other two races go to Starter Zone B.  Based on race selection, this can cause you and your friends to be split up until converging on your Capital City around level 14.  Many players don’t know this, but you can choose the starter zone you wish to go to.

After turning in the quest which levels your character to 3, and provides a weapon upgrade, you are given one final quest, to head down to Nexus.  There is 1 action you must complete before you can choose an alternate travel method: talk to your race’s major character.  After speaking with your faction’s major character you do not need to interact with the console or object next to them.  You are free to go to any of the other races’ console or object, and interact with it to take their means of transportation down to Nexus.  This is useful if you want to keep your group of friends together for the next 10 levels, or if you prefer a different starter zone sequence than the default one for your race.

AMPs

AMPs can be received any number of ways.  Reputation vendors throughout the world will have different AMPs that can be purchased after becoming Popular (8000 rep).  Some quests will give AMP choices.  Below is a quick fact list to help you understand how to get AMPs.  If you’re looking where to find a specific AMP, check out the Engineer AMP Location thread.

• All AMPs, including PvP vendor AMPs, drop from world drops.
• All AMPs, including PvP vendor AMPs, drop from Satchels of Scavenged Supplies reward chests received from challenges.
• You can get 0-2 AMPs per Satchel, and they are random across all classes.
• Challenge rewards level 6-35 drop Tier 2 AMPs from Satchels.
• Challenge rewards level 36+ drop Tier 3 AMPs from Satchels.
• All challenges have a 30 minute cooldown, and can be repeated.
• AMPs from world drops or Satchels of Scavenged Supplies are not BOP.  They can be mailed to friends or alts, traded, or sold on the AH.
• Reputation vendors, PvP Vendors, and quests are BOP, and are there to facilitate a means of getting AMPs, but are not required.

Challenges

All challenges have a 30 min cooldown timer.  For all new challenges that you haven’t successfully completed at least once, if you fail you can retry them instantly.  Be warned, if you fail a challenge that you’ve already completed once, you must wait the 30 mins before trying again.  The great thing about redoing challenges is that the Satchel of Scavenged Supplies will drop AMPs and the Chest of Crafting Components will drop runes and fragments.  You can do the challenge the first time through for gear that will help with leveling, and then do the challenge again to try to get random AMPs or runes.  The Explorer path as a little known side perk, in that they receive additional challenges that are on the same 30 min cooldown.  One thing that is really beneficial, is setting up a series of neighbors that all have challenges on their plugs.  You can do a circuit of your house and your friends houses to get all sorts of items by redoing the challenges.

Costumes

How to change your costume has been updated in the new UI.  There are 2 actions you must perform.  First, you must go to the Dye Vendor in your Faction’s Capital City.  You can customize your outfit from that UI screen.  After you have your costume setup, you can switch between costume sets, or no costume, by clicking on your character sheet.  There is a costume button right below the implant slot.

Directional Dash VS Double Tap

This is a UI control for how your keys will function when you wish to dash.  Directional Dash assigns a specific keybind to dash, and uses which ever direction you’re currently moving as the direction you will dash towards.  Moving forward when hitting your Dash keybind will cause your character to dash forward.  Double Tap causes your character to dash in the direction for which directional key you pressed twice.  Hit Strafe Right twice in a row, and your character will dash to the right.  For my personal preference, Directional Dash adds more control, and doesn’t unintentionally use up dash counters.  Double Tap is the default, and easiest to use, but can cause players to dash inadvertently when moving around, or on jumping puzzles, which can be problematic.

Elder Gems

Once at level 50, your experience bar becomes your Elder Point bar.  As you kill things that would give a LEVEL 50 character experience, you gain ‘Elder Points’ instead.  After your bar fills up (takes 75K Elder Points), you gain 1 Elder Gem.  This can continue to happen throughout the week.  The cap for Elder Gems, acquired through Elder Points, is locked at 140 per week, and is on the same weekly reset timer as raids.  A system outside of Elder Points should be in place at launch which will allow for earning Elder Gems in other means than just Elder Points.  These alternate means are not capped at the same 140 Gems per week.

LFG Tool

The LFG Tool can be a bit confusing for some people on how it works.  Queuing is fairly straight forward, simply choose the role and activity type, and hit the Queue button.  Depending on how you joined your group, the LFG can be a bit confusing however.

For this example, let’s say you’re already queued for a dungeon, but notice someone in chat is looking for one more player to join their group.  You send a quick message and receive a normal group invite, and everything is good so far.  The first thing you need to do, is leave your LFG Queue (this is not automatic, hopefully the new UI automates this).  Anyone in the group that is currently queued for anything, prevents the group leader from queuing your group for the dungeon.  After your group is queued for your dungeon, you will receive a popup asking for the role you will be providing.  Once everyone checks in, you are given a popup to zone into the instance, no matter your current location.  One thing players don’t know is, the LFG Tool has buttons that update depending on your current situation.  Once you are inside the dungeon, the button changes to Leave Instance.  Once your dungeon is completed, you don’t need to interact with the portal to leave, you can open the LFG tool and simply click the button.

Let’s change the scenario just a little bit, and you notice someone is looking for one more player for their dungeon that they have already started, perhaps they had someone disconnect and need a replacement.  You receive a normal group invite, but now what?  Nothing happens and you need to get to the dungeon… but how do you do that?  There are no UI triggers that cover this, but the LFG Tool’s button updates to Join Instance.  All you have to do is open the LFG Tool and click the button.  It will zone you into the instance, no matter where you are currently located.

Lockout Timers

Raid lockout timers are currently set to 1 week, and reset on Tuesdays (not finalized, CRB is discussing options ATM for when reset day/time will occur).  You are locked to a raid ID after killing a boss or mini-boss.  The lockout for all other instances such as Adventures and Dungeons, is set to 10 per hour.  Should the need arise, you can reset your instance by having your group exit the instance, and the group leader typing /resetinstance.

Mentoring

Mentoring is the act of a higher level player lowering their effective level down to a lower level player’s current level.  This means if you played all night after the head start released and got ahead of your friends like the leveling animal you are, and you want to group up with them when they finally wake up and log in again, you can.  Simply form your group as normal, R-click on the player in the group window, and select Mentor.  This will drop your health, stats, and effective level to theirs.  This also means you will now earn EXP from mobs that you may have outleveled and otherwise wouldn’t have gotten EXP from.  Do to mentoring, they will now give you EXP at your new and improved lower level.  If you leave a given proximity from your friend, change zones, or they enter a quest phase that you’ve already completed, you will receive a warning letting you know mentoring will be disabled until you return to the proper proximity.

Also note that all dungeons and adventures use the mentoring system when entered via the LFG tool.  If you are level 50, and run a normal STL or KV dungeon, your effective level is lowered to 20.  However, you can enter dungeons physically, and choose not to be lowered to the level of the dungeon.

Phasing

Phasing is the term used where multiple copies of the same zone are spawned to handle large amounts of players.  Phasing does exist in WildStar, but is primarily utilized in the starter zones.  You can navigate the phases and group up with your friends by understanding the UI options.  After creating your group, all of the members of the group can R-click on the group UI and select ‘Teleport to Leader’.  Most people mistake this to be a port mechanic where you will be taken to your group leader’s location; that’s not what this does.  It simply warps you to the same phase as your group leader.  You must be in the same zone in order for this to work.  For solo players that find themselves in over populated areas, you can often times change your phase by logging out to the character select screen, waiting 5-10 seconds, and then log back in.

Raid Attunement

Added with the last patch were raid attunement items that are required in order to zone into the Raid Dungeons.  These can be found on the Elder Gem Vendor.  The item has no stats and is meant to sit in your bag while you complete the dozen or so IMBUEMENT quests on it.  The IMBUEMENT quests are too long to list out, but have the player running Veteran Dungeons and Adventures, doing silver or gold medal runs, some world quests, etc.  Once all of the IMBUEMENT quests are completed, the attunement is completed and you will be able to zone into the Raid Dungeon.

SHIFT Keybinding

The default keybind for Sprint, is Shift.  While Shift is bound to Sprint, you cannot use Shift as a modifier on other keybinds, such as Shift-Z, Shift-X, etc.  You must first UNBIND, or REBIND Sprint to another keybinding.  Then Shift will become available as a modifier.  This is a bit confusing for newer players.  If your typical MMO keybinds regularly use Shift, it can be done.

Stances and Focus

All 3 classes which have the support role of tank, have stances.  Engineers have a DPS and Tanking stance.  Stalkers have a DPS, Balanced, and Tanking Stance, And finally, Warriors have a DPS and Tanking stance.  Some newer players are not familiar with this and often times overlook the UI functionality.  Stances can be changed by clicking the arrow above your innate ability.

All 3 classes which have the support role of healer, have focus.  Focus is a resource mechanic which most support abilities consume as part of their casting cost.  This means healers cannot cast heals indefinitely.  There are mechanics in game that passively regenerate focus, along with each healer class receiving an active ability that regenerates a high amount of focus.

Weaponsmithing Support Weapons

I little known fact, is how to create Support Weapons as a Weaponsmith.  When looking over the stats of weapons available in your recipe list, you will quickly notice that all weapons are listed with more Assault Power than Support Power.  However, the stats you place on the weapon, will determine if Assault Power or Support Power will be the primary stat.

If you place higher Assault ‘STATS’ on a weapon, such as Finesse or Brutality on a Heavy Gun, then the Assault Power and Support Power will remain the same as indicated on the original tooltip.  However, if you place higher Support ‘STATS’ on a weapon, such as Tech on a Heavy Gun, the Support Power and Assault Power stats will trade values.  This means your stat allocation you put on the weapons you craft will determine if the weapon have a higher final value of Assault Power or Support Power as its primary stat.