Friday, September 3, 2010

Why I Like Engineering So Much

Why Is Engineering Good?


While many people tend to assume engineering is mainly just for making fun gizmos and for low level PvP twinks, I highly disagree. Engineering is by far my most favorite profession because in addition to being fun, engineering is very convenient and allows the engineer to do many things that are unique to the profession. Let me go over a list of some of the great things about engineers.

1) Jeeves - The robot Jeeves allows repairing, vendoring, and purchasing anywhere for anyone nearby. Engineers can also access their character's bank through Jeeves. He lasts 10 minutes and his cooldown was recently shorted to just 1 hour. With the bank access it allows me to store my 2nd gear set in the bank instead of carrying it and allows the dumping of goods into the bank when my bags are getting filled.
2) Wormhole Generator - Your very own port machine. The cooldown is 4 hours, but the ability to port yourself to Borean Tundra, Howling Fjord, Scholazar Basin, Icecrown, or Storm Peaks is so nice. You can port to Scholazar to grab another Oracle Egg or to get to Wintergrasp quickly. The Storm Peaks spot drops you right by the Ulduar area for quicker stone summons. I use this portal maker very often. It really saves a lot of time.
3) Dimensional Ripper / Ultra Safe Transporters - Goblin Engineers get a portal on a 4 hour cooldown to Area 52 and another to Everlook. Gnomish Engineers get the transporters to Toshley's Station and Gadzetan. Again this is awesome for porting around if you are not a mage. And even Mages can't port to these places. Main benefit is for grabbing pets/recipes off of the neutral Auction House. Also comes in handy when flying around gathering recipes to flip as well as offering shortcuts when completing holiday achievements that take you all over the globe.
4) Zapthrottle Mote Extractor - Ever been exploring and seen those globes floating near the ground in Outlands or Northrend? Those are gas clouds that are harvestable by engineers only. Easy source of motes and crystalized forms of eternals. There are clouds for each element.
5) Moll-E - Who doesn't like a portable mailbox? Drop a Mailbox down next to you that last for 10 minutes. Recently shortened the cooldown to only 2 hours. So many uses for this, from being able to mail excess materials or items from anywhere to using your own mailbox for faster Libram turn ins in the DM Library while you work on your Insane Title.
6) Titanium Toolboxes - While these are usable by anyone, did you know all the stuff you can put into there?
7) Goblin Jumper Cables, Gnomish Army Knife, etc. - Having the ability for a chance to rezz a party member is great, especially when you rezz the only healer.

8) Dalaran Auction House Access - GM Engineers get to use the auction house in the Dalaran Engineering Shop. This is even better once you realize it is next to a mailbox, the forge, Frozo the Frozen Orb Trader, and the Leatherworking vendor that swaps Heavy Borean Leather for Arctic Furs. So an engineer can make a easy quick buck just going outside the shop and swapping the newly bought frozen orbs for the higher priced eternals and/or making arctic furs.

9) Vehicles - Engineers can create Copters and Choppers for mounts and profits.

10) Vanity Pets - Mechanical Squirrel Box, Tranquil Mechanical Yeti, Lil' Smoky, Pet Bombling, & Lifelike Mechanical Toad are all great items to craft and sell for profits.

11) Gear attachments - The Hand Mounted Pyro Rocket is great for added DPS and also has an insanely long range for pulling mobs from far away. Excellent for paladins and deathknights becasue the range on this thing is crazy! The cobalt bomb dispenser that attaches to your belt is in addition to an eternal belt buckle. The parachute added to a cloak is best in slot enchant for some classes and you can never go wrong having a parachute to save you. I use this thing mroe than you would expect.
12) Potion Injectors - These are a nice bonus. You can turn 20 mana or healing potions (Runic or Super) into an injector which stacks 20 potions, but with 2 added benefits. They now will store in your titanium toolbox, freeing up bag space, and engineers using them get an extra +25% effect, which is great considering you can only use one potion per combat nowadays. This is sweet for PvP too.

13) Fun Toys - From World Enlargers, to Poultryizers, to Arcane Bombs, the engineering profession does have a lot of fun and cool gizmos. The Rocket Boots are great in PvP. IF you get the recipe for Cluster Launchers from the Lunar Festival Vendor you can craft more cluster launchers to allow the use of the Lunar Rockets that give the AoE Health Buff year round, so you aren't stuck with a stack of rockets when the holiday ends. I like to toss one down at the graveyard in Warsong Gulch since they last a full 30 minutes. Its a nice extra buff in PvP.

14) Skinning Robots - Engineers can "skin" robot type mobs for bars, gears, vendor trash, pre-cursor craftables, and machine parts. Some raid bosses drop titansteel bars and motorcycle parts when skinned.

15) Cataclysm Love - Engineers appear to be getting some long overdue love when cataclysm hits. It appears that we will be able to have item slots that allow engineering only "gems" to be socketed, much like the bonuses that other professions got in WotLK. About time!

Engineering Gems (Hydraulic Pump Socket Only)

Flashing Hydraulic Pump +132 Parry Rating

Precise Hydraulic Pump +132 Expertise Rating

Rigid Hydraulic Pump +132 Hit Rating

Sparkling Hydraulic Pump +132 Spirit

Engineering Gems (Cogwheel Socket Only)

Fractured Cogwheel +132 Mastery Rating

Quick Cogwheel +132 Haste Rating

Smooth Cogwheel +132 Critical Strike Rating

Subtle Cogwheel +132 Dodge Rating


So don't simply dismiss the engineering profession as just for fun. We have some very nice benefits for the auctioneer as well. There are plenty of items to sell from pets, to ammo, to mounts, to quest required craftables. All in all engineering can be a fun and profitable profession as well as adding a ton of convenience in portable mailboxes, banks, and portals.

Happy Hunting!

3 comments:

  1. Totaly agree with the post, escpecaly the part about the pets. I just started playing the AH and on my server There is zero/close to zero competition on the Pet bombling/lil'smokey/mechincal yeti market. I earned 5k in 1 week just with those 3 items.

    So if your looking for a good market to control go check those 3 items out :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I initially loved engineering but then got very disillusioned since I did not PvP. In particular, engineering was clearly a bad choice for raiders. Worse still for healers (no rocket is of interest to a healer). But for Holy Pally, it was even worse. I had the JB3000 head back when I thought 5000g for a pattern was a lot. And I leveled my *second* toon and got a plate healing head from Nax before healing goggles were even added to the game. How could Bliz have overlooked that???

    WotLK pre-Jeeves was clearly the low point of the profession. Cata seems like a breath of fresh air. and I am hopeful.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Healers take the best in slot Haste Cooldown onto Gloves, Hyperspeed Accelerators, Not the Rocket.

    ReplyDelete

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