Engineering #1: The Basics

As three of my 10 characters are engineers with varying specialities, I like to think I’ve been around the profession for a little while. If I may, I’ll start with a walk-through on that which most thrills me in World of Warcraft.

Unlike blacksmithing, leatherworking or inscription, engineering can be quite an unpredictable trade. It mixes the crafting of weapons and armour with ventures in companion pets, teleporters and servant robots. There are explosives to shatter walls or bust open treasure chests, bullet refills and handy tools to save on inventory space. In short, engineering lends some fun new twists to your gameplay.

Why Should I Take Engineering?

If you are the type of player who chooses a profession either for its profitability or its benefit to your character class, engineering may not score particularly highly on any comparison chart. While its top-level schemata allow you to craft superior-level guns for warriors and hunters, there are many wild and wonderful gadgets to benefit any given class. It’s also a very greedy trade when it comes to gathering materials, and so might suit an ‘alt.’ or secondary character. Mining is the most common companion trade, but you’ll also have to rely on the aid of herbalists, skinners, tailors and alchemists in order to get by, which could mean many trips to the auction house.

I’m inclined to suggest engineering to any given class, as it’s arguably more fun than armour-crafting trades. Hunters and rogues do stand to benefit from a few of the more staple engineering gadgets, such as the guns and decoys, but there’s fun to be had in a bomb-wielding warlock, a paladin who can spawn combat pets or a priest who can supply healing and repairs. Play an engineer if you want to have fun with your trade and aren’t too bothered about bleeding the auction house dry.

What Sort of Gadgets Can I look Forward To?

Since he was introduced in the Argent Tournament patch, 3.2, most engineers were abuzz about Jeeves – a polite mecha-gnome butler who’s on call every hour to meet your repair, reagent and banking needs. The ability to swap gear in the middle of a glacier, empty your bags of useful items mid-instance or offer repairs to a raid group is a tempting one for many. So too are the thoroughly less useful, but still impressive, Mechano-hog and Flying Machines. These are the engineers’ profession-specific mounts, offering you an alternative to the tamed animal mounts which come as standard.

You may also wish to dabble in:

• ‘Tinkering’ – adding timed haste buffs, a sprint boost or bomb packages to an existing item of armour.
• Unique trinkets such as automatic damage shields, combat pet summons and flamethrowers.
• Guns and specialised bullets, of particular use to warriors, hunters and rogues.
• Explosives capable of stunning large crowds, adding area-of-effect damage and damaging PvP battleground fortifications.
• Vanity pets, from walking bomblets to clockwork robots.
• Decoys to buy a few seconds’ breathing space when out on quests – of use to almost any class.
• .. and many more gadgets there to enchance or open up new class abilities.

What Do I Need to Become an Engineer?

Ask any goblin that question and they’ll likely say, “a death wish”. The best practical step you can take to ensuring you stay a productive engineer is to learn Mining. Although they use materials pooled from many other disciplines, metal, stone and gems are what lay at the heart of all your gadgets. You will need cash, however, so expect to pull in a lot of quests or favours from friends and guild-mates. To take a simple example, here’s the materials list for a piece of engineer-only headgear:

• 1x Spellpower Goggles Xtreme [engineering]
• 4x Star Ruby [mining, jewelcrafting]
• 2x Enchanted Leather [skinning, leatherworking & enchanting]
• 8x Runecloth

You don’t escape this sort of item networking even at the endgame – schematics for gadgets like Jeeves call for Fused Wiring [jewelcrafting] and gems the likes of which only alchemists can procure. So I would suggest that a notepad is also a useful tool. Many a time I’ve had to write schemata out in a process, simply to ensure I have all the pieces to hand.