Incineratation Blast- This power is great for getting rid of armor and health and can be very useful overall and will act as the primary offensive power for the engineer. This should be one of the first powers you upgrade as it will compensate for the lack of available firepower outside of using heavy weapons. Both level 4 variants of this power are good and I recommend you should make your choice according to your play style.

Cyro Blast- I have not found this power to be very useful as it doesn't freeze many things and a squad member can use it more effectively use it then you can. I would not even consider using it until the latter levels because there and much better powers your well earned xp should go towards.

Overload- I wouldn't recommend upgrading this all the way to soon as it is more of a situational power but it is good to have this power at rank 2 or 3 for most of the game as many enemies in the game will have shields or will be geth/mechs. Upgrade later because there are more useful powers you should focus on upgrading first, but this is definitely a key power for the engineer to have.

Combat Drone- A very useful power not because of it's offensive capabilities, but because of it's tactical potential, and is a key power to engineers. This little guy can be a game changer because it provides a distraction, which can be the difference between life and death because the few seconds that that heavy mech wastes shooting at it can be time used to run away or to do some damage. I use the attack drone level 4 variant because I found it does more damage that way and last a little longer then the explosive drone variant which only dislodges an enemy from cover and stuns them.

AI Hacking- A less useful power in my opinion because it is very situational and you are often much better off having a squad member, (Tali or Legion), do the dirty work for you as they are more specialized squad members.

I've never been Engineer, since I usually play Infiltrator, so I haven't used all of these powers. I'll throw in my half-assed opinions though! B3

I can say that I totally use Incinerate a lot. My favorite thing is arcing that bitch right around a corner. It's mighty wonderful.

Overload, yeah, I usually have Garrus do my Overloading for me, and yeah, it's pretty situational.

Never used Cryo Blast or Combat Drone.

AI Hacking has been useful for me, despite its situational-ness. There are a fair amount of mechs and Geth in the game. Also, I use AI Hacking a lot like Combat Drone is used, as a distraction. It's also super helpful when a mech's about to bust your balls after you've just knocked out his shields and armor. Just, bam, hack that shit, and you've just bought yourself a few seconds to recharge. Pretty sweet.

Also, I use Neural Shock quite a bit. It has a very fast recharge, so it's pretty nice just for stunning people at short range when you need to get them to stop firing at your face. Admittedly, I get a little sick pleasure in watching them writhe helplessly in pain.

Also, welcome to the forum! (A tad late, my apologies, but I was a bit distracted by E3.)

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I agree about Cryo Blast. I found I only used it because I wanted the core engineer tool-set. It should be a really useful power but I found that it took too long to freeze enemies, especially husks, who after being frozen still have enough time to continue running and swiping before being immobilized.

Combat Drone is a little gem of a power. I took shotgun as my bonus weapon talent, a decision that I don't believe would work without the drone. The extremely short cooldown time of Combat Drone and a timely use of Geth Shield Boost saw me through a toe-to-toe battle with a Geth Hunter on insanity.

Seriously, I died more times on my Infiltrator playthrough than I did with Engineer. I wasn't expecting the class to be so fun but it really is a good all-rounder and way more fun than it's biotic counterpart, the Adept.

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Had to be me. Someone else might have gotten it wrong.

I've been playing a lot with Mordin, which I don't usually do since he dies so effing much. However, he's hilarious to have around, so it makes it worth it.

I realized that the Cryo Blast is really effective when used with Incinerate. He'll hit them with a Cryo, and I'll hit them with an Incinerate, and BAM, that guy's dead as every dead thing that ever died.

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The trouble I'm finding with both Cryo Blast and Cryo Ammo is that for a few moments after they impact the affected enemy is invulnerable to both Pull and Shockwave.

I've been enjoying snap-freezing an enemy, using Jack's Pull followed by Thane's Warp to shatter the poor bugger in mid-air. Unfortunately, I have to wait until the freeze animation concludes before I can use this combo. I only play on insanity so those extra moments can sometimes cost me dearly.

Tonight I took Jack on Mordin's loyalty mission to Cryo Blast, Pull and Incinerate my way through. Shockwave (a piss poor power on anything except husks or clustered enemies imo) didn't seem to have any effect on frozen targets unless they are just getting up from prone.

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Had to be me. Someone else might have gotten it wrong.