Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Engineering - Not For The Min/Max'ers

Everyone says that the Engineering profession is weak, needs buffing, yadda yadda yadda. Consider this:

  • The Hand-Mounted Pyro Rocket is instant cast, one minute cooldown, and can be fired at (30 yard?) range to deal ~1150 fire damage. Great for firing at an opponent as you engage at the beginning of an arena match, or to harass a kiting opponent.
  • The Nitro-Boosts for boots is a five two second duration run speed increaser with a five minute cooldown. Who needs Intercept or Death Grip? Click your heels together and you'll be 30 yards from here in a blink!
  • The Sonic Booster is a stamina trinket with an AP-boosting proc. Great for entry-level arena!
  • Saronite Bombs are grenades that can cause siege damage. If those pesky clothies keep hopping in the drivers seat of siege tanks, grab your bombs and blow up the walls of Wintergrasp Keep yourself!
  • Charged Titanium Specs give you stealth detection and a nice amount of stamina/strength, which are three things that a PvP'ing ret paladin loves.
Engineering may not be the best profession for min/max'ing your gear in PvE, but it sure is handy in PvP! Sure, you won't be using most of this stuff in a raid, or even a 5-man, but for battlegrounds, arena, and Wintergrasp, I'd argue that Engineering is, in the nomenclature of the medium, "teh secks." Clutch rocket-boots usage can turn an arena match. Seeing/unstealthing a stealthed rogue before he saps you can really mess up an opponent's game plan. Or, my favorite, launching a pyro-rocket at a mage who just rooted you and blinked away with a little more than 20% HP, lighting up your Hammer of Wrath button for a quick finishing blow.

Don't write the tinkers off! We've got some cards up our sleeves that, when leveraged properly, might be qualititatively better than two extra gem sockets or some ring enchants.

Bottom line is this: the community is right, Engineering isn't strong from a min/max standpoint. However, it does bring to the table a few tricks, tools, and toys that cannot be found anywhere else. They are unique, situationally useful, and can grant the engineer the element of surprise (whoa, how'd that ret paladin end up 30 yards away? Or hit me with fire damage? WTF?) or quickly turn the tide of battle (how the f!@$ did he just see me in stealth?). You'd rather have those two extra gem sockets than two extra cooldowns? Fine, enjoy your extra points of strength - next arena season, we'll be back to matches where the team that runs out of cooldowns first loses, and I'm going to have a few extra.

E4AE concedes the point that Engineering stinks for PvE, but based upon the above, contends that Engineering is a great choice of profession for PvP providing the user knows how to employ his techie tools properly.

EDIT: As of 1/20/09, the Nitro-Boosts are a 2 second duration. The above post has been edited.
EDIT2: Lady Jess correctly informed me that the Noise Machine is the SP trinket, and the Sonic Booster is the AP trinket. I edited the above accordingly.

9 comments:

Dann Smith said...

The Nitro-Boosts for boots is a TWO* second duration. As of today :'(

Shwitz44 said...

Son of a biatch. Thanks for the heads-up, Aerophilia, I'll edit my post accordingly.

Anonymous said...

You forgot the Gnomish Ligntning Generator! http://www.wowhead.com/?item=41121

I've had crits close to 5k damage with that thing. In patch 3.0.8, it's supposed to be instant cast and 1 minute cooldown, which is a huge improvement. There's nothing quite as thrilling as being rooted by someone with 3k health, seeing them run away and killing them with a bolt of ligntning from a ret paladin!

Shwitz44 said...

@Rorik
I hadn't used my Gnomish Lightning Generator, didn't think it was terribly useful? 5K you say? Do you know if it scales with spell power?

I might need to play with that a bit...

Anonymous said...

Question: I was reading your 3.0 Ret FAQ as I worked on my Ret gear (I'm Prot by avocation). In it you suggested enchanting for STR. Are there a bunch of STR enchants out there that I'm not aware of? I haven't seen any in Wrath.

Thanks!

Fedaykin98

Shwitz44 said...

@Fedaykin
Answer: There are not, but there are AP enchants (so as they are widely useful to many specs). I will update the FAQ accordingly, that was an oversight on my part. Thanks Fedaykin!

Lady Jess said...

The Noise machine is a SP boost, the Sonic Booster is the AP one:)

Shwitz44 said...

@Lady Jess
This is why I hate not having free access to Wowhead at work. Thanks for the QC, Jess!

Dann Smith said...

btw Josh the Gnomish Lightning Generator is allot of fun & can really pack a punch.

I love Engineering & have been one for the last 3 years. Unfortunetly it is not that useful as a tank, sure the goggles are good but they are easily replaceable in early raiding content where they should be the bread and butter of helms atm.
I dropped rocket boots after yesterdays nerf in favor of Stam/Run Speed. Hopefully they will be bringing out some new goggles with the new instances or I may be rerolling after I make my Choppa. :'(