Risk of Rain 2 Engineer Guide

In this Risk of Rain 2 Engineer guide, I am going to be showing you how to play the turret character Engineer so well you will be getting god runs every time. Fungus lords unite!

For those interested, Engineer was ranked at the very top of our recent Risk of Rain 2 character tier list. If you want to see why or want an excuse to hate me, go check it out.

Anyway, here is the Engineer guide you came to see. Sit back and enjoy future Engi’s.

Other Posts:

• Loader Guide
• Acrid Guide
• Risk of Rain 2 Monsoon Guide

Why Engineer is a God in Risk of Rain 2

• Turrets copy his items.
• Turrets shoot things for you.
• Turrets can take enemy aggro.
• Turrets can do your homework (ok maybe not).
• Bubble Shield is the best “oh shit” button in RoR2.
• Turrets.

I’ll elaborate on these many many benefits of using Engineer later in this guide. For now, keep in mind that in Risk of Rain 2 there is no better solo character in the game than Engineer and no cooler cat than the man with a turret.

Engineer’s Skills

The Engineer comes with a unique skill set that sets him apart from his inferior counterparts.

• Bouncing Grenades (his attack)
• Mines (his alt attack)
• Bubble Shield (his utility skill)
• Turrets (his unique skill)

Bouncing Grenades

Let’s start with the Engineer’s attack ability.

The bouncing grenades are meh in terms of damage and half the time you will forget you even have this ability. Without attack speed, it feels like you are shooting nerf bullets in slow motion, but with attack speed, it feels like faster nerf bullets. So there is that.

In all fairness, they aren’t completely terrible (except against anything in the air). You can sprint while charging up the attack, something only a few other Risk of Rain characters have. It is simple to do, just hold the ability (left-click PC overlords) and then use the sprint button as you are charging it. Remember to point it at an enemy.

Notably, this ability also has a 1.0 proc coefficient. For those who have no clue what this means, check out the proc section of my Risk of Rain 2 guide. This stuff is essential to understand, even if you are playing my favorite (brain dead) survivor.

So what did we learn children? Keep sprinting while charging his attack, his attacks are kind of poop, and they have a 1.0 proc coefficient.

Mines

The Engineer’s mines, much like his normal attack, are low damage but numerous. Thankfully, he can hold up to 10 at a time and have 4 on the ground at once (they explode if there are more than 4). How you use them is key.

Most of the time you want to turtle in your shield and once enough enemies have clumped up around you, toss all the mines you can at once, hopefully halting the beetle epidemic that plagues you.

These things also stick to everything. EVERYTHING. Players, your turrets, your shield, enemies, even drones. My personal favorite way to use them is to throw them on top of bosses’ heads, giving them an explosive Kippah. Just a thought.

Engineer’s Bubble Shield

This little ability makes the Engineer a true s’ mores eating camper. Where most Risk of Rain 2 characters get a movement ability, Engineer gets an impenetrable shield that lasts for a whopping 15 seconds.

By the way, when I said impenetrable, I meant it. Your attacks don’t even go through, they just bounce off it (or stick). Most people would see this as a detriment, however, it is actually a benefit, you can use the shield to bounce grenades off of and kill those annoying lesser wisps. Trickshot baby.

Engineer’s Turrets

The Engineer’s turrets are the main reason you are interested in playing Engineer. Let’s be real.

These things are extremely strong for two reasons. One, they copy all of the items you have, therefore tripling the effectiveness of any item, and second, they can do your job for you (kill things) while you go collect items.

When just starting out, the turrets are pretty lackluster. They don’t do tremendous damage and do so slowly (notice a pattern?), but just one or two decent items can turn the turrets into merciless killing (or healing) machines. Check the build section for more info.

Keep in mind that you can only have two turrets out at once, and placing more will replace the first turret you placed. You can hold two charges, and each charge takes 30 seconds to cool down, so make sure you aren’t wasting them, as they are your primary source of damage.

The next sections will deal with gameplay tips on playing Engineer in Risk of Rain 2 and the perfect items for an Engineer.

Mobile Turrets vs. Stationary Turrets

There are two types of turrets that the Engineer can choose from. The Gauss turret (stationary) and the Carbonizer (mobile).

For newer players, it might sound like a good idea to get a mobile turret. After all, they can follow you and won’t die to mushroom AOE’s. Sadly, the mobile turrets have been infamously broken (as in they don’t work) on console, and lackluster at best on PC.

One of the main issues is the range. The mobile turrets can’t shoot very far. This makes one of the Engineer’s worst traits (no easy way of dealing with flying enemies) even more severe. Pair that with the fact that you get rid of the best combo in Risk of Rain 2, bustling fungus + Engi, and you end up with a choice that hurts rather than helps.

That being said, there are a few good Risk of Rain 2 mods, that can improve your turrets and give you some QOL. Modded mobile turrets can often be better.

Food for thought.

How to Play Engineer in Risk of Rain 2

A quick two-second guide on how to play Engineer:

• Place a turret down
• Go find the teleporter/chests
• Place another turret down near the teleporter
• Open a chest or two
• Place another turret at the teleporter
• Kill the boss
• Repeat on next stage

Obviously there is some nuance here so I will explain further.

The first thing to note is that you want to place only one turret down at the start. Turrets only have two charges and 30 seconds between each charge, making it hard to move them around with you if you just spam them whenever they are up. Instead, try to always have one turret charge ready.

While this turret is down, go find chests and the teleporter as quickly as possible. In RoR2, time is incredibly important, especially at harder difficulties, as one of the slower characters (slowest maybe?) you need to divide and conquer, aka turrets kill you run.

Eventually, enemies will stop spawning around the old turret and you will have to place a new one to get more kills. This is because enemies spawn around players, not turrets, which is why we don’t put two down at a time.

Preferably, you would put this turret next to the teleporter so you can save a charge while still opening chests. Otherwise, you will have to wait another 30 seconds to place a turret by the teleporter and as I said before, time is precious.

Regardless of what you do, you will need to put both turrets at the teleporter to kill the boss. I recommend having, at minimum, one charge still available before starting the fight. Certain bosses, like the Imp, can kill your turrets extremely quickly and if you don’t have another charge ready, you will have to fight it without your strongest asset available. That’s a big no-no.

As for your other abilities, you can use them at your discretion. I personally use my shield on my turrets at the very beginning and then run away from them so the boss aggroes me and my turrets can do as much damage as possible. Mines can be used for burst damage in the fight or to clear out the smaller waves of enemies that spawn with the boss.

And that is all there is to playing Engineer in Risk of Rain 2. He may have turrets but the general gist of gameplay is the same, run around shooting enemies without dying.

Next up is the perfect Engineer build. These are items that make it so easy to play Engineer you don’t even have to be at the screen.

Perfect Engineer Build

Most of the other characters have their own “god builds” but Engineer has an extremely unique one that no other class can use. That build is the bustling fungus N’kuhana build.

The bustling fungus is an item that only shines when Engineer has it. Because his turrets share his items, and because his turrets are immobile, the bustling fungus is always active.

For those of you who don’t know what the bustling fungus does, simply put, it creates an AOE of healing if you stand still for 2 seconds. Both the healing and the AOE grow with the more stacks of fungus you have.

Now, N’kuhana is a legendary item that will spawn skulls that deal damage based on the healing you (or your turrets) have received. The skull will shoot out at 10% total life healed for 250% damage of that total life.

You can likely see why this is so strong. Fungus heals for 4.5% of your total health a second with an increase of 2.25% every stack of fungus. The fungus AOE can overlap so at one stack of fungus you could have 13.5% total healing per second (both you and your turrets overlapping the AOE) and because the turrets share your items, the N’kuhana skulls will spawn from each one of you. In layman terms, one stack of fungus can create 3 skulls a second.

So that is the Engineer’s wet dream. However, there are other items that the Engineer loves to have as well. The next section focuses on all of the items the Engineer wants to look out for.

Best Items for Engineer

Here are the best items for the Engineer in Risk of Rain 2:

• Dio’s Best Friend: Your turrets get one free rez with this item and they don’t consume yours.
• Bustling fungus: Read the above section.
• N’kuhana: Read above.
• Tesla Coil: Will shock enemies nearby.
• Old Guiltoine: Kills elites when they reach a certain HP threshold.
• Hardlight Afterburner: Gives your shield a 100% uptime because of the extra 2 charges it gives and the CD reduction.
• Bandolier: Enemies have a chance to spawn an ammo box that resets CD’s. Useful for both your shield and turrets.
• Rose buckler: Reduces damage while sprinting. You should always be sprinting.
• Energy Drink: Makes you faster while sprinting. You should always be sprinting.
• Red Whip: Makes you faster out of combat. Sucks on everyone but sucks less on you because your turrets are normally the ones shooting things.

There are plenty of other items that the Engineer likes, such as the Lens Crafter Glasses and whatnot, but every character likes those so this list is more focused on Engineer specific item combos.

For the Survivors of the Void DLC, many new items have been released that are GREAT for Engi. Keep in mind this is a paid DLC (p2w xD) but well worth it. Here are some good items for an Engi build:

• Plasma Shrimp – Converts ATGs
• Polylute – Replaces Ukulele
• Egocentrism – lunar item
• Lysate Cell – replaces fuel cells and gives you an extra turret!

Anyway, that is the end of this Engineer guide for Risk of Rain 2. Hopefully, this guide helped you to play Engineer better!