Engineering has failed. But should it have?

Gameplay Professions
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Hello!
Today I’d like to discuss the current state that Engineering is in, why it has gotten this way, and how I believe it could flourish.

Currently!
As it stands, a lot of people are using engineering in a competitive scene. Most notably for the Battle Rez it offers. Some of the bombs have a use in PVP and world content, but are not usable in instanced PVE content (none of them I have tried anyway). Weapons, Scopes and Ammo (For hunter only). (Which almost everyone wants the Leatherworking Crossbow, recipe is learnt from Specialization, where the Engi one drops in the raid.) The goggles are in a Tier slot, making them “unusable” for some people (This counts for a lot of crafted gear, but if you then look at leather classes, the Flaring Cowl is an incredibly strong embellishment). The Wrist’s are fine a full weight on one stat, great. The main selling point is the Tinker Socket. If only the tinkers were usable (other than the Arclight Vital Correctors). The drawback and cooldown make all of the tinkers an incredible disappointment to what should be a fun, and interesting profession.

Tinkers are where I think the profession fails the most. These could be fun enhancements for all.
The Arclight Vital Correctors can catastrophically fail, killing you, and leaving you with two dead.
The Breath of Neltharion channels for 6 seconds, leaving you unable to do anything else. Which for most classes works out at a dps loss, unless you’re looking at 8+ mobs.
Planar Displacer failling would put you in quite the sticky situation, along with them triggering the combat potion cooldown, this could end your mythic keystone immediately.
The issues go on.
“Just put points in the specialization to stop the make them work better” should not be the answer, when you’re trying to sell wrists with tinker sockets (that anyone can use) as their main focus point.

Why did it get this way? There has been many balance discussions across professions, and engineering has always been at the bottom. At some point between Wrath and Cata, if I remember correctly, every main raider required engineering, to throw bombs, so many bombs. So Blizzard changed the cooldown of bombs to be shared with potions, to make it feel less mandatory. The same reason they removed the buff scrolls from Inscription. You could still use the explosives, but raw stats always gives better results, so why would you. Balance has always been the issue, because we don’t want another scenario where everyone is feels engineering is mandatory again.

So what do you do?

The tinkers were such a fun idea while I was looking through them, “Oooh a fire breath”, “Oh sweet free invis pot on a 10m timer” etc. But they’re not worth the down sides.
I would love to see a version where Engineers can add a tinker socket to any set of wrists (that would allow for two on Engi made wrists), and also tinkers that are passive, stat increases, random damage procs, size reductions, etc. These don’t need to be broken. It’s just another enchant, but they shouldn’t feel like a burden to use.

Many thanks for listening to my rant.

Mákapaka

1 Like
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Tldr please I ain’t reading all of that

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At the moment Engineer and Alchemy are the only professions that have any combat bonuses.

If they buff it more, players would feel compelled to drop their professions and pick engineering.

It’s a DPS increase for an undergeared player in 4-5 mobs scenario. Also a good healer DPS cooldown at moments when the group doesn’t need healing.
So it has its uses.

You can put points in safety initially, and make gold from selling tinker that go in the bracers instead of selling the bracers.

If you want to make gold crafting the bracers and having the safety, you would have to farm knowledge points for weeks unfortunately.

I would also love to see more tinkers added, specially that two popular ones don’t provide with any bonus as a druid (I already have Combat res and stealth).

I don’t think passive would fit the theme though. But defensive ability like an absorb shield, or a utility like an AOE stun with or AOE silence

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I don’t know why bombs don’t work in m+ and raids, if they already share cooldown with potions. It makes the entire bomb specialization pretty useless unless it is for world PVP (which, let’s be honest, is very niche). Really wish they were functional in dungeons at least, both for gathering scrap and doing more damage as a healer without spending potions (otherwise, what’s the point of having engineering anyway). Engineering feels very underwhelming this expansion honestly. =/

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There was an exploit with saronite bombs in Wrath on LK.

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lol? every other effect on crafted item is nothing?

It’s a pile of rubbish: a weak channeled aoe cone with a 10 min cd, chanche to fail and that takes of a second stat which is way more worthy.

that is the first valid thing you said. yes, more tinkers but no if they come at the expense of something else.

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That happened 15 years ago though, if that’s the reason then they might as well just remove engineering from the game.

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That was why they did it.

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You don’t need to be a leatherworker, Blacksmith, tailor to benefit form bonuses on their crafted items.

However, as engineer, you get reduced chance of tinker failing on bracers that ONLY engineers benefit from. Also another tinker slot on head that only engineers can use.

As Alchemist you get reduced damage from toxic potions and phials, and also getting healed when using combat pots. These are bonuses that ONLY alchemist get.

Now can you please tell me what bonuses do other professions have? A 418 item with embellishment and custom stats? I can ask a crafter to craft it for me. I don’t need to have the profession.

An undergeared player won’t benefit as much from a power potion. So it’s a benefit.
A healer also won’t do 500K-800K increases damage over 6 secs with a power potion.

This is why I said it’s good for healers and undergeared players.

The chance to fail is actually very low (like 4-5% or so) if you are an engineer. Can be reduced to zero if you use the tinker that guarantees success.

1 Like
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Again, you’re talking like people are actually using tinkers. Spoiler: they’re not.

Un undergeared player wont spend several thousand gold to have crafted an item that has no benefit in the long term, so no, not even undergeared players use tinkers.
Not even engineers like myself.
The supposed bonus of the tinker is nowere near worth the hassle of potential failures, lots of spec point to dump in there to reduce it and the lack of a more balanced stats.

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Spolier: they are.
I craft/recraft at least 4-5 engineering bracers/goggles everyday for random players on my realm. Also the rank 3 combat res tinker sells for about 10K gold in my realm’s AH. I have seen several streamers use it.
Take a look at raider.io. See what bracers the top ranked M+ players who don’t play a class with combat res are using. Most are using engineering bracers.

So it does get used, especially after the recent buffs.

You dump a lot of knowledge points only if you need to make gold from the profession. If you just want the combat bonuses, 40 points are enough (10 Points in mechanical mind, 30 in Mechanical mind - inventions). The first 40 points are very easy to acquire. The other 2 perks that reduce the failure chance are not needed if you use a Calibrated Safety Switch.

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