History Characters / TeamFortress2TheEngineer

[[caption-width-right:300:''"[[GadgeteerGenius I told ya don't touch that darn thing]]!"'']]

The Engineer is a soft-spoken and amiable Texan cowboy with [[OmnidisciplinaryScientist 11 [=Ph.Ds=]]], hailing from [[SouthernFriedGenius Bee Cave]], UsefulNotes/{{Texas}}. He appears to be the nicest and most well-educated member of the team, to the point where his domination taunts sound more like good-natured ribbing than anything. It has been noted, however, that going by the ''stereotypes'' that the game uses for its characters, those same good-natured southerners are said to be putting on a facade of pleasantries and are ready at any moment to blow a stranger's head off with a shotgun for trespassing or grab their torches and pitchforks in a display of southern hospitality. Never forget that this is the very same good-natured southerner who sawed his own hand off to test the experimental Gunslinger. Never forget he has claimed quite a lot of tech to be his own design when it's actually his grandfather's. And never forget that Mann Co. always hires the lowest bidder. He may seem nice, but the Engineer is a weapons-based MadScientist with a penchant for skipping straight to the live testing.\\

** The Engineer Update gave him the ability to pickup and move his buildings, making his playstyle potentially far less stagnant, and able to move with the objective without needing to destroy his buildings.

* BalanceBuff: Before Meet Your Match, Level 1 teleporters cost 125 metal to make. The update made them much cheaper at only 50 metal, with the buffed Eureka Effect further reducing this price to a measly 25 metal[[note]] and the Eureka Effect brings the metal needed per upgrade down to 100 metal.[[/note]].

* BalanceBuff: Before Meet Your Match, Level 1 teleporters cost 125 metal to make. The update made them much cheaper at only 50 metal, with the buffed Eureka Effect further reducing this price to a measly 25 metal, and only needing 100 metal per upgrade.

* BalanceBuff: Before Meet Your Match, Level 1 teleporters cost 125 metal to make. The update made them much cheaper at only 50 metal, with the buffed Eureka Effect further reducing this price to a measly 25 metal.

-->'''"Hey look, buddy. I'm an engineer, and that means I solve problems. But not problems like "What is beauty?", because that would fall within the purview of your conundrums of philosophy... I solve practical problems."''

->"Like this heavy caliber, tripod-mounted, little ol' number designed by me... built by me... and you'd best hope... ''[[ImpliedDeathThreat not pointed at you]]''."

->Voiced by: Grant Goodeve (in-game), Nolan North (''Expiration Date'') (English), Jose Antequera (Spanish), Alexander Gruzdev (Russian), Dieter Memel (German)

* ArtificialLimbs: The Engineer has two weapons that take the form of prosthetics — the Gunslinger and the Short Circuit, both of which replace his right hand. It's common assumption that the Engineer cut off his own hand in order to install the Gunslinger.

* DiminishingReturnsForBalance: Subverted ''and'' played straight depending on the context. On offense, a team made up of mostly Engineers can only afford to claim stake on half the map (their half) and not have much firepower to actually push forward with, letting the enemy team just wait patiently for the round timer to hit zero. On defense though, the sheer amount of Sentry Guns punting even multiple Uber-charged attackers around like paper in the wind can make it a frustratingly effective strategy during a defender's last stand. Doubly so if the Engineers are communicating and helping maintain each other's Sentry Nests and not just looking out for themselves.

* GlassCannon:

* GogglesDoNothing: He wears them like regular sunglasses, rather than for welding, and they do nothing for the player.

* RocketJump: Equipping the Wrangler and having a Level 3 Sentry at hand allows the Engineer to fire its rockets right at himself, jump at the right time and gain some serious air time. [[AwesomeButImpractical It's devastating to your health pool and you likely won't survive the fall]], but on certain maps, you can make a safe landing on rooftops or high ground, sneak your way to spots normally hard or impossible for the Engineer to reach, if while at the brink of death. With the Rescue Ranger in your loadout, you can also haul your buildings along for the ride if you're feeling crafty.

->Voiced by: Grant Goodeve (in-game), Nolan North (''Expiration Date'') (English), Jose Antequera (Spanish), Alexander Gruzdev (Russian)

** Sentry Jumping is one option in the Engineer's arsenal that sounds cool on paper: by using a fully-levelled sentry with rockets and The Wrangler, it's possible to allow Engineer to RocketJump onto areas he might not normally reach, allowing him to set up in unconventional spots (either by rebuilding them from scratch or by collecting them with the Rescue Ranger), potentially setting up a nest that's very difficult to break and almost unreachable by Spies. Unfortunately, this requires you set up an entire level 3 sentry, work with a very particular loadout, and take a lot of self-damage that you can't shrug off as easily as the Soldier can, costing you ''a lot'' of time and resources and making it hard to realistically do in most games. On top of that, not all areas that the Engineer can access on foot are places where you can put down sentries, almost always specifically ''because'' putting your sentries there would be too unfair for the enemy team.

* AwesomeButImpractical: The Pomson 6000, which can drain Übercharge and Cloak meter from victims, in exchange for lower damage and reduced clip size. Theoretically, it should be a game-changer for Engineer to deprive his two main counters of the resources they need to wreck his buildings, but in practice, the lower damage and slow projectiles of the Pomson make it useless for defending himself, and the short range of the drain effect only really kicks in when you're at a distance when Engineer's normal Shotgun would two-shot kill a victim anyway -- ie., drain 100% of a Medic's charge or make Spy unable to sap buildings for longer.

** Sentry Jumping requires knowledge of where to jump ''to'' to set up a Sentry position that's very difficult to break and almost unreachable by Spies. On top of that, you're also forcing yourself into a specific loadout that is near-useless if your Sentry does get destroyed. There's also Sentry Jumping with ''Mini-Sentries'', which lack the full-sized Sentry's rockets, which puts you at greater risk of dying, as you'll inadvertently hurt yourself a lot.

** The Short Circuit's alt-fire allows for Engineers to vaporize enemy projectiles -- including explosives, one of his biggest weaknesses -- but at a hefty 65 metal cost per shot, giving him up to three shots before he runs dry. Unless they have steady access to metal, this means that players will need to be greatly judicious with when and where to actually use it, but the sheer power of destroying any number of incoming rockets and grenades can be more effective in saving your buildings than swinging your wrench, and can provide valuable windows to make an aggressive push or retaliation.

** He was the last class to receive a weapon set, well over '''two years''' after weapon sets were introduced, and he didn't receive any new weapons in the Über Update. He's tied with the Medic for having the least amount of weapons out of all the classes. Admittedly, Valve have tried to design and implement some weapons for him, but the Engineer more so than any other class runs the risk of breaking the game in two if his weapons change too much. A good example is the DummiedOut [[https://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Repair_Node Repair Node]] that would heal buildings while Engie was off fighting away from his nest. As expected, this slowed down gameplay and was scrapped.

* RangedEmergencyWeapon: His pistol is implicitly designed to work like this, being a secondary weapon that provides less raw personal firepower than his primary shotgun and ''especially'' his sentries. Also, where the Scout's pistol has a limited ammo reserve that only allows for three full clips before he needs to restock, the Engineer's pistol has [[MoreDakka a whopping 200 reserve ammo]], which when combined with his frequency for collecting metal all but ensures in practice he'll never run out of it, suggesting it to be even more of a disposable backup option. [[BoringButPractical It's still perfectly reliable in a pinch,]] pairs surprisingly well with some unlocks, (especially the Widowmaker, which uses metal supply as ammo and can leave you without primary ammo after a few missed shots), and it comes with the added benefit of having better mid-range accuracy than a shotgun.

-->''My eleventh PhD is in Applied Ass-Kicking!''

->''"The Engineer is [[{{Pun}} engi-here]]."''

* BadassBaritone: Maybe not as much at launch, but Grant Goodeve tends to use a noticeably deeper voice for lines added in later updates.

* SentryGun: Engineer can build these, and they're his primary kill-earner. It starts out as a single gun, upgrades to double chainguns, and then a further upgrade gives it ''rockets''.