Yeah if you are bad. If you do the numbers and use all your enchants and bombs (1 minute CD, don't trigger GCD, brilliant for AoE) they come out ahead. If you just want a passive +damage then yes engineering is terrible.

How terrible of Blizzard to make a bonus that requires effort to use and can give massive boosts if used appropriate to the situation. Shame on them.

I'll admit that the dps ones can be decent, but engineers have absolutely nothing for tanking and healing, 2% threat and 10 parry > 800 armor, and nothing aimed at healing at all.

@theraptor - I really disagree. As a Holy Pally in PvE then I don't see any of the engineering benefits that are worth having, certainly that compare to the 38 incremental spell power that the other professions now have. Actually giving up the 23 haste to get 18 sp is a slight downgrade but slowfall probably makes it even; not near an incremental 18; certainly not +38. The last pawn values I saw on EJ had 1 haste as about 5/6 of a SP, so if the +18 were 19 or twenty you would break even, still leaving you 38 less spellpower than an enchanter, bS, LW, scribe, etc.

Some things are opinions, but the math for PvE healers is clear. I guess if Blizzard were going to make engineering viable, they would have done it by or long before 3.2, so I guess it is time for blacksmithing.

@Avis

You obviously do not tank

Arms is the worst enchant ever for tanking. 800 armor is MILES above it sir!

@theraptor

The problem is your math, even if correct, depends on 2 things.

1. Spending the resources/gold for a steady stream of bombs on every encounter, every fight, every raid.

2. And this is the important one. You did the math for a specific class/spec. Some classes get a nice dps boost from haste. Some classes get an average boost from haste. Some classes get an ABYSMAL boost from haste. One class/spec, elemental shaman (which my engi happens to be) gets 0 practical dps benefit from haste unless it comes in signficiantly large increments. Haste was just a truly awful cheap way out on engi's perk for pve dpsers. It benefits some classes yes, but other classes not so much. None of the other professions seem to punish you for having a specfic class or spec in terms of the perk.

And mages get nothing from mining.

@Balius

Mining, herbalism, and skinning are all collecting professions and while you do get something, it is very restrictive what you get compared to other "creating" professions.

However, Since mages are floor mats more often than not ;-) , I'd say that the extra stamina is definately more than nothing.

Really- a self-heal, +crit, +stamina- while not necessarily the best thing one could ask for in all cases these are all helpful things to have regardless of what way you look at it.

I just wish they would have given us something we actually could sell... -_-

@edgar

You mean you haven't tried jacking up ammo prices yet? How about selling scopes that cost 40g to make for 200g? Engineers on my server have been pulling that garbage since BC, and it continues to this day.

I know this is said every time this debate comes up, but honestly, why does every thing have to be equal in this game. Engineering, to me, is far superior to any other profession simply because it's the most fun. If you are that concerned over min/maxing, then shouldn't you be a BS & JC or whatever the latest craze is?

I didn't pickup engineering because I wanted a few more DPS at endgame, I picked it up and leveled it completely because it's a blast to have. I love my pyro rocket and my nitro boosts, and my gnomish lightning generator...even if they do have limited use.

I agree with Pop. You don't become an Engineer to get the best of the best enhancements, you do it for the overall benefit. While leveling, Engineering gave my Rogue some abilities from nearly every other class. They didn't always work, but it was great when they did. Plus, it's fun.

Also, some people do get benefits from Engineering. Especially if you use macros to tie abilities together. For example, I don't use the standard Slice and Dice button. Instead, I have my Hyperspeed Accelerators tied to SnD. That way, when the gloves are ready, they get activated when I cast SnD. I used to do the same with the Lightning Generator. It's all about using the abilities you have.

@Popesicle

I'd be inclined to agree with you if the fun gadget love hadn't completely disappeared in Wrath. As a gnomish engineer, I have the following "new" to wrath in the fun gadget category.

1. A motorcycle that anyone, engineer or not, can own. It also requires 12,000g in non-negotiable vendor mats in addition to the farmable mats, placing it squarely in the "I have time to farm massive amounts of gold." category.

2. A belt tinker that stuns a few trash mobs in 1 or 2 encounters. Don't even try to bring up the other tinkers such as parachutes. They existed before, and blizzard pulled the incredibly stupid move of requiring that they take up the permanent enchant slot instead of giving them their own "slot".

3. Gnomish X-Ray specs....not anywhere near as fun as they may or may not sound.

4. As of the last patch, the flashlight. An incredibly inferior trinket statwise that creates a beam of light identical to many other items in the game available to anyone.

And that's it. What has a lot of engineers bitter is that BC and Wrath did indeed, have fun new flavor gadgets.

...in the collectible card game.

Robot Chicken, Rocket Mount (Which just screams goblin engineer version of the engineer flying mount), weather machine, disco machine, party grenades...etc, etc. All of them scream "these should be engineering items". And way better than the scraps that have scarcely been thrown engineers way.

Engineering wrath = crap on gadgets, -and- crap on buffs. So we've gotten a profession that now does for us almost nothing. My flying mount from BC is the one and only reason I haven't dumped it.

As for "why must all professions be equal"?

Because life isn't fair, and that's why we play games. ^_^

In all seriousness, the reason is the limited profession slots. If we were allowed to learn as many professions as we cared to spend the time and gold on, it'd be a different story. If picking up a new profession were a cheap or simple matter, again, it'd be a different story. But for a lot of us, this is something we've spent a great deal of time and money on, and "rerolling" our profs would both require more significant money and time, but...

and this is an important bit...

Also require us to lose everything we attained before. Like my previously mentioned engi mount. It requires high level engineering to -use-. That means if I leave engi behind, i can never use it again unless I once again pick up and level engineering.

In the end, blizzard must face this expectation because they created it themselves with the release of Wrath when they gave nearly all of the professions a comparable and significant self-buff and then left engineering out of that. In terms of player dissatisfaction with the state of engi and its lack of said buffs, they have noone to blame but themselves.

I do agree with you to an extent. I feel like the profession has so much more potential but I am still (probably overly) optimistic about what they will do with it.

I certainly would love to have more gadgets and better toys that are level appropriate like we used to have too. I just think that if my goal was to increase my DPS, or my stamina or whatever stat I needed, through my profession-only skills, I wouldn't have chosen Engineering to begin with. I have it on my PvP toon which is a mage, so the Noise Machine, the Hand Rocket, Nitro Boosts and the GLG have been very useful to me. I just recently hit 80 though, so it will surely all be replaced by better trinkets and enchants...but its still fun to use. And having that extra instant-cast spell at my disposal has saved me more than once so far.

And the mounts are still some of the best in the game, even if one happens to be BoE. I have only crafted one Mechano-Hog so far, and that wasn't even for my engineer, it was for my achievement whore of a main. :)