Engineers! A must read. Fix Engineering /sign

This is a large compilation for all engineers to look at and add to this profession that is in desperate need of attention. We are lacking in almost all aspects of a "profession", it does not give use viability in pvp/pve/making money/or gathering... So what is Engineer good for? I think thats the question I hope Blizzard gives an answer to.

The rest of the post will be a compilation of past comments from the beta forums and live forums.

Please post your thoughts/comments/suggestions; try to keep it civil. Thank you.

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" Engineering is severely lacking. Both in the usefulness of its craftables (not to mention class-oriented) and the amount of craftable items. I''m seeing patterns and plans and recipes for some very useful new items for other professions, that range all along the skill spectrum. Engineers get half a page of new stuff from our trainers, which can have 10-15 skill point gaps, and most of it is just making parts for either things. Then theres the abundance of new buyable patterns/plans/recipes/designs from numerous factions and turnins, while engineering once again gets nothing. Add on top of that almost every crafted armor peice is cloth/leather, couldn''t there at least be an option to change it to plate? As a paladin I keep finding engineering lacking more and more. Guns, Ammo, Scopes? nope. Jumper cables? nope. Cloth/leather armor? not really.

We need new stuff, a lot of it, and some decent reputation reward schematics. Desperately. Without the usefulness of Gnomish Teleporting to gadgetzan anymore, I''''m really finding it hard to think of a reason to keep it except for highly overcostly bombs."

~Etherell

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" Well, in my oppinion, since Blacksmithing can create BoP epics for armor and melee weapon slots, and since Engineering, which used to be the trinket profession, is being replaced in that respect by jewelcrafting, and because Engineering is traditionally the gun profession, we should have BoP epic ranged weapons.

I think that a gun with good DPS and good melee and ranged stats (Crit, Hit, AP, agi, some combination) that would be attractive for Rogues, Hunters, and Warriors would be appropriate.

But that of course would leave 6 whole classes out! So of course, they should also add something like an Adamantite Pulse Channeling Rod with nice caster stats. And of course, Felsteel Machined Libram with an effect that would help any spec of paladin in some way, as well as Living Khorium Idol and Intricate Whirring Totem for our druid and shaman friends.

All BoP of course.

This would make Engineering as attractive as endgame Blacksmithing (which, BTW, should have more BoE epic recipes introduced) and possibly worth the grind for skill. "

~Danneskjold

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"Engineering is so repulsive I haven''t even bothered to pick it up.

I am finding more and more the only thing I use engineering for is to teleport to Gadget for Ahn''Qiraj... and now for Cavern of Times.

And that''s about it. They nerfed the mind control helm and the rocket helm. Where are the gnomish toys? I dont know... I think Alchemy, Enchanting and Jewelcrafting are far better. I am also deeply annoyed that Jewelcraft took many things that I believe Engineers should of had.

Maybe engineers might be useful again if they added siege weapons... (remember how in Alterac Valley only engineers can do the quest to control the Mechs thingies? I wouldn''t mind more things like that).

Enchanters get enchanter-only buffs and trinkets, what do engineers get? I suppose engineers might be moderately more useful if we got upgrades to old stuff... like reflectors, I wouldn''t mind level 70 versions of those."

~Starfi
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"Some cons i''ve found so far :
-Can''t use bombs/grenades in Arena(s).
-Zapthrottle Mote Extractor should give primal instead of motes, because A) they are hard to find and B) they are not worth much when you can easily farm them off mobs. Maybe make the clouds in other zones not just the swamp area.
-Not many new items. Mostly just a few bombs/grenades and guns. I ask for a little more variety, I don''t think this would be difficult to achive.
-Some items have a VERY long casting time. For instance the Goblin Rocket launcher.. It takes five seconds to cast and does 960 to 1440 damage and stuns them for 3 sec. I think this is a great idea, but its casting time takes forever and a day in my opinion. Has anyone created this item? Is it usable in Arena(s)? Are any Engineering items usable in Arena(s)?

Pros:
-Some cool new PvE items (Mana Potion Injector : Use: Restores 1800 to 3000 mana. ) I''d really like to see one that restores HP also. (1800 to 3000).
-Zapthrottle Mote Extractor, intersting idea, we may finally have a farming ability, however it usefulness is lacking. Why have this item when the motes are easily farmed? Maybe have these give us Primal instead of motes? And we can reduce the primal into motes if needed/wanted.

Please feel free to add some pros and or cons if you see some points left uncovered... Looking at my list I think the Cons out weight the Pros at this current moment in time. I''d really like to see a boost in Engineering. Thanks again for all the comments, we have some really creative ideas on here. "

~Stabbypanda

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"I''m at 352 right now, with no other way to level than Felsteel Stabilizers, Khorium Power Cores, or Hardeneed Adamantite tubes. Needless to say, these are extremely expensive. I used up about 200 Adamantite, and likely about 400 fel iron bars to get to where I am, and I see no real benefit at all.

The bombs barely do more damage than Thorium Grenades, and stun for the same amount of time as an Iron Grenade.

The gadgets are almost non existant.

Zapthrottle Mote Extractor, I thought that would be cool, but it took 40 motes of life to make, and I was only ever able to find one cloud to extract from, giving me 4 motes of life.

Engineering is pretty terrible right now, and if it''s not alot better in about a month, I''m going to drop it and go herb / alch on live, before the game is released."

~Kelgan
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" I''m another Engineer who is very disappointed by what is on offer in BC. Unless I see substantial improvement I''ll probably drop it for Mining/Jewelcrafting (like everybody else!) or Herbalism/Alchemy which I see as far more useful professions.

Blizzard, what happened to Engineering?

History as I see it:

1. Engineering was designed to be a profession with powerful items and trinkets which gave limited abilities to classes that lacked them. These powerful items were balanced by long cooldowns, chance of failing or worse, they could backfire causing the user harm.
Engineering gave limited ranged attacks for Paladins, Mind control for non-priests, Resurrection for non-healers and the like.
This was the reason many people keen on PvP chose this profession. It gave them limited abilities that their class would not normally possess.

2. Engineering had fun toys. Exploding sheep anybody? Gnomish shrink ray. These new bots that battle each other. The odd trinket and the like.

3. Engineering had explosives. Limited AoE & stun effects for those without it.

4. Engineering has scopes, guns & shells. Engineering was the only profession able to make enhancements for ranged weapons.

5. Engineering had two streams, Gnomish and Goblin. I assume these were designed to create a sub-market and as many engineering items require skill in Engineering to use and so could not be sold to the general population.

 

Problems:

1 With the Burning Crusade there are few new reasons to want Engineering.

2 There is no reason to gain faction to access Engineering schematics, unlike most other professions.

3 There is no market between Gnomish and Goblin engineers.

3 Fun toys get boring after a while.

4 Explosives are too weak, or too expensive to be viable.

6 Guns made by engineers are often only useable by Hunters and then are easily replaced by other items.

7 There is no reason to keep engineering once the game matures and you are kitted out.

 

Possible Solutions:

1 Add many compelling new items! (This is a big ask I know) Some items which are to be produced regularly like explosives or shells, but which are more useful than either of those. Add some items which are not going to be made often but could be used situationally over a longer period of time. Carefully re-balance other items. For example XL Jumper Cables have been nerfed too much and are now little more than a toy to save your rezzers mana after a wipe. Add a new transporter to someplace in the Outlands. Give Engineers more tricks which are for Engineers-only. Other players have had some great ideas in this forum!

2 Add some compelling new items to faction vendors - even if one is only a vanity pet! Just add something!

3 Design a few items which encourage regular trade between Goblin and Gnomish engineers. (I''ve only ever made XL Jumper Cables for Gnomish engineers)

4 No real solution. Every profession gets old after a while. Get over it players! :P (Well perhaps some toys could be seasonal I guess?)

5 Review the materials required for explosives. Perhaps design a PvE encounter in which explosives are really helpful? (Like some people use Flash Bombs on Arlokk)

6 Add guns which are useful for more than only levelling Hunters. Make some designed as ranged trinkets for Warriors and Rogues. Make some BoE and some require Engineering. Perhaps even make one for Hunters which requires Engineering to use, but has a unique property which would make it not be quickly replaced?

7 Add compelling, epic items which has regular use but which don''t require any materials obtained from raiding. Like a Shifting Cloak, Hide of the Wild or Lionheart Helm. Perhaps two, one for Goblin and one for Gnomish. Perhaps they could be BoE but require engineering to use."

~Staruss

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"I had something written out, but the guy who designed engineering also designed the [session timeout->eat your post] aspect of these forums. So that is now gone forever.

Long story short. Give us more stuff. When you take away the different colors of the smoke flares, the engineering parts (huge scam that makes it look like we have more than we do), and the guns which hardly anyone uses or sells... we don''t have much left.

I''m currently looking forward to the mailboxes for raids, the mote extractor in-case I find more than 1 gas cloud per day, and the fighting robot pets for pokemon-esque fun. Worth a profession slot? Magic eightball says: "Probably Not."

-Buff our usefulness to other people. Right now we can drop repair bots. Thats about it.
-Buff our gathering ability (mote extractor is a neat idea, keep heading in that direction.) See the suggestion elsewhere on this forum for the gathering bot (NCP that skins/herbs/mines, but he''s on a long cooldown.) and consider if it isn''t overpowered because engineering is so severely underpowered right now.
-Consider chilling out with the guns, or at least not counting them when balancing engineering content when they are either useless, don''t sell, or only ever get used by 0-3 classes.
-Allow us to recharge the potion injectors. Buff these, since we need buffing.
-Socket our craftable 375 epic hats! Why can''t we socket these items?

Also, more of a bug fix...

-Make sure all engineering related items can go into our toolbox. I''ve heard people saying some items that should obviously go inside it do not."

~Onijinn

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-------------------------GREAT IDEA---------------------------------
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-------------------------Thanks Warla--------------------------------
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"" I''m a goblin engineer on retail for the past 2 years.
I must say engineering really lacks lately and having played my toon on Burning Crusade beta didnt really thrill me much....

Heres an example of what a engineer should be able to build:

"Biznicks Harvest Bot 9000"
It works like a regular non Combat pet looking cute and follows you around. It has a special purpose though.

Every 20 minutes hes able to perform a harvest job which he does by itself as soon as hes in range.
If theres a mine node nearby he goes and mines the first layer (so he does the same what a miner does but just once... then hes on 20 mins cooldown again.)

If theres a herb nearby and his harvest cooldown is up. He goes to the plant and picks it. The hes back on the 20 mins cooldown.

If theres a slayed beast lying on the ground and his cooldown is up.. He goes and skins it. Then goes back on the 20 mins cooldown.

That way engineers have a slim chance of getting some leather / ore and herbs. Since the bot is on a cooldown you wont get much and propably not even a stack a day but at least it''ll be something useful other than crappy flares or overpriced bombs.

Or guns and bullets that only hunter need.

Please consider my suggestion and implement the "Biznicks Harvest Bot 9000"

/signed

Warla"

~Warla

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I thought that was a fabulous response by Warla, very creative and something that could bring Engineering back to life.

We engineers need:

1. Craftable armor/weapons/trinkets - Just because we can make some expensive, lackluster guns easily replaced by five man dungeons and some wonderful "combat" pets doesn''t mean we''re satisfied. Why can''t we make unique weapons with a "use" feature that will increase attack/casting speed, increase damage, or cause some sort of wacky and fun effect?

2. Faction patterns - It was hard getting to friendly with the CE to get that flare pattern, and it was so worth it. Now I can toss a fart joke on the ground anywhere but major cities where it might actually be fun.

3. Epic items - The best we have are blue and require engineering to use. This means other engineers can make their own and this leads me to...

4. Money - We can''t sell anything we make. This would be fine if those items gave me some sort of advantage, but they really don''t. Alot of the requirements are just plain stupid. Why would it require engineering knowhow to put on some goggles or a belt? I''d like to see the requirements removed from the injectors, then maybe we could get some cash by saving people bag space.

EDIT: 5. Motes - Give that worthless mote extractor some use and add more mote nodes around Outlands. This way we could farm all types of motes (Fire from Blade''s Edge, Shadow/Mana from Netherstorm, etc.) and maybe make some money. We could also make blasting powder this way too since Motes of Fire are so rare..."

~Croos

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-----------------------------Popular Idea----------------------------------

" I really think engineering should gravitate towards enchanting - instead of every item in the game being a trinket, they should be an enchant that adds a Use: function to an item (call it a module, maybe?). This would keep it relevant to high end players, as they may choose to put rockets on each new set of boots.

Cloaking device and parachute could go on cloaks.
A grenade launcher as a gun module - Fires grenades at the target. Uses the scope slot.
Make an upgradeable shield and gun, like Blacksmithing gets. Require enginnering to use them, so engineers don''t ditch the profession when they finish it.

Make these module abilities usable by non-engineers, but require engineering to install (like a counterweight).
Have Gnomish engineers see a boost to the module''s success rate, and goblin engineers a boost to the module''s power. Also have the module''s effect scale with engineering skill, if applicable. Maybe not a whole lot, but a little - like an extra 25% to bomb damage with 300 engineering, or maybe a couple seconds added to the cloaking device.

Engineering items, like goggles and construction helms should remain engineer-only, to preserve our swank look.

And the coup-de-grace?
Gnomish engineers can make a biplane flying mount at 70.
Goblin engineers can make a rocket-car with wings.

THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is engineering."

~Brendel

unless theres a drastic change of direction with engineering, theres simply not enough perks to warrant passing on the new bop goodies from the other tradeskills.

what do we get:

-unusable bombs
-guns/ammos/scope, only targetting 3 classes, guns are easily replaced in 5mans
-socketless headpieces, not good enough to skip on meta slot
-chicken/rocket trinket, chicken is a bigger tidal charm, rocket has no possible use in pvp unless you are fighting blind drooling childs
-port trinkets, only goblin one is close to useful, and its only saving you a 3-4min flight, not like outland is huge
-mail/repair bots, not really someone that powers YOU up, just needed for raids, ill let an officier bite the bullet and summon those.
-shield belt, about the only good thing so far
-pot dispenser, same cooldown as pots, wtd were they thinking
-mote collector, if you can find enough gas patches to break even from just making the thing, its nothing short of a miracle

a 4k shield for 8sec is supposed to be worth raid level weapons and ring enchants? im guessing crack is either very cheap down in cali, or the guys balancing professions are very rich cause theres no way this is balanced.

if engineering doesnt get a big, no, huge, buff before release, well all gonna be better off switching to the good tradeskills, or just get two gatherings to gouge the prices for those who do."

~Fayes

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" WTB Craftable epic flying mount.

Tonks and smoke flares are cute and all... but if we''re going to be a useless profession, we could at least get a discount on our flying mounts. I''d be willing the trade the epic helmets that no one is going to equip for this item that I think every engineer would make.

Engineering needs a review. If you check the public forums, people are saying the same thing there too."

~Flaya
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" The two things they could add to get me to keep engineering:

1) BOP Upgradable Guns, akin to the Blacksmithing ones.
2) Mote extractor works on elemental corpses.

This would give engineers both a personal boost (previous Engineering only items don''t compare to any of the self-only rewards the other professions have had added), and a good money-making product, something engineering has always lacked.

 

I agree, Mote extractor would be nice.
Schematic: Sockets <----(come on does this not make sense?)

What i would really love is schematics to make Sockets that are Bind on Equip and usable by everyone. This would really improve the Engineering Profession. We should also have High Level Engineers be the only Profession to be able to apply Sockets to gear. Goblin & Gnomish could have different trees with differing socket types. If they don''t want to go this way how about Engineering only Sockets with specialized set bonus or stats.

I have every single recipe in Live and so far I am not really looking forward to BC Engineering save for one schematic. The crit scope for Hunters, due to the fact that I am a Hunter. Compared to the other professions we really have a pathetic line of gadgets at our disposal.

We seriously need a review of Engineering and its future."

~Wukauli
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" am guessing (or hoping ... whichever sounds better to you) engineering is not done at BC. The amount and usefullness of items other professions currently have going to skill lvl 375 simply outshines engineering. I have always wondered why blacksmithing, leatherworking, and tailoring are able to make epic armors / weapons, but not engineering? However, I must confess Goblin Rocket Helmet (love this one for PvP) and bombs have their usefullness. Nevertheless, even Fel Iron Bomb and Adamantite Grenades have nothing new to them at all except for increased damage. There seems to be lack of originality in these new schematics unlike Arcane Bomb. I wonder if engineering was never meant to be more than an accessory type of profession."

~Ashira

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" Engineering.... it once was a great profession. I''ve been an Engineer from Day 1, but things have never looked so bleak for Engineering before. I''m on the edge of dropping Engineering all together on Live, and going to skill up Tailoring and Enchanting instead. There still have not been any improvements to Engineering, and I doubt that there will be any when TBC goes live.

The rocket launcher has more problems then just that 5 second casting time. If you take any damage at all while casting it, you are interrupted completely. The only use I get out of it now is the +45 Stamina it gives me at all times, not worth taking up an entire profession..."

~Topaz
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" Forums ate my long post I had, so I''ll summarize.

Ideas:

New epic schematics (think back to the ones out of MC, only make them not immediately obsolete)
Parachutes (remember the parachute cloak?)
New crafted pets, BoE and BoP (Tiny Walking Bomb, how I love thee)
Upgraded versions of old favorites (explosive sheep/tonks, cloaking device, harm prevention belt, other things that have had a effectiveness cap on them)
Boots that allow you to walk on water (make them activated or passive, whichever floats your corpse :P)
A crafted flying mount (I don''t care how impossible the mats nor how nigh unnattainable the schematic, we need a gyrocopter)
A device that CC''s us in order to remove debuffs (banish/poly/sleep.....but not stun due to second wind, also make it not breakable by damage or unclickable so it can''t be used without SOME kind of downside)

Fixes:

Lower the cast time on the Goblin Rocket Launcher (3 seconds would NOT be gamebreaking at all)
Add more Mote Clouds (Life from Zangarmarsh and Mana from Netherstorm are not enough to make that extractor worth crafting)
Make the Mega Sapper Charge not do more damage to us than them (Especially if it''s going to be both resistable AND able to crit)

To me, engineering has always been about how many extremely situational toys you can have on you at all times. It fits my playstyle and makes the game more enjoyable. The lack of random stuff for me to craft between 300 and 375 has got me vexed. Keep the suggestions coming. "

~Vieselando
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Great Idea by Vieselando.

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