Engineering a better... engineering

Engineering is my favorite profession in WoW. There are several reasons for this, but perhaps the biggest is that I love anachronisms in fantasy. Other than magic and fictional settings, anachronism is a way to reinforce the fantasy of it all. And Warcraft is full of anachronisms. You can take your futuristic trans-dimensional blue alien from a society based in crystal spires and togas into a cave and fight deformed cave men, or fly around in an enormous helicopter/battleship built by tiny green- and pink-haired nuclear physicists fighting a medieval army of the dead that also happens to have a mad scientist in techno-goggles working with them.

The problem with engineering (and it's not entirely alone in this) is that Blizzard isn't quite sure what its meat and potatoes should be. What do I mean by "meat and potatoes?" Well, every profession has a quick answer for "what does this one make?" Blacksmithing makes plate armor and weapons. Jewelcrafting makes gems for sockets and jewelry (go figure.) Enchanting makes enchantments.

So what does engineering make? Well, the answer might have been "ranged weapons and ammo," back in the day, but with ammo gone as of Cataclysm and ranged weapons going hunter-only come Mists (not that they were all that widespread before) that seems like an awfully narrow use for a profession. Maybe more accurate to today's engineering is that it makes "toys and convenience items." However, it seems wrong that a profession should focus primarily on things that don't actually help your character become more powerful when others do.

Engineering was once considered the trinket profession. In recent expansions, that's been given over much more to Jewelcrafting. I think it's time engineering take it back. Jewelcrafting already has rings, necklaces, and of course gems, making it one of the two universal "crap, I need to do some stuff to this item in order to make it good enough to equip" professions (admittedly, tailoring and leatherworking get in on this a bit for pants, and blacksmithing for belts - though in the latter case it's only to get another gem socket.)

Trinkets are a funny thing, as they are usually the pieces of gear with the most unusual effects (other than legendary weapons,) but ultimately they tend to give us fairly straightforward bonuses, either on-demand, or automatically. They range from "attack for a few seconds to ramp this up and you'll get a pretty hefty dodge bonus" to "click to activate a robotic attack chicken!"

Engineering in WoW is basically the profession of unpredictability. Hell, it's the profession most commonly associated with each faction's most comic-relief-oriented playable race (and also each faction's smallest. Do the people at Blizzard just find small things hilarious? Seriously, the Draenei, the Tauren, the Worgen, the Orcs - all fairly serious or solemn races. But as soon as you start dipping down into Dwarf territory things start to get ridiculous.) The problem with unpredictability is that a huge amount of effort by players is put in to reduce unpredictability. Dps seeks hit and expertise to make sure their attacks land before they really worry about the power of those attacks. Tanks make sure they're taking damage as consistently as possible to keep the healers from having a heart attack. So having, say, a tinker on your belt that usually provides a modest damage-absorption shield but sometimes makes you guaranteed to take critical strikes is not exactly something you want to risk a raid boss attempt on.

This is why I think Engineering should be primarily concerned with trinket-making. While we like things predictable, we also have lots of fun with procs. It's a nice treat when Landslide goes off and you get a small but significant-over-the-long-term damage boost. Practically every spec has procs that change up what would otherwise be a set rotation.

And trinkets don't all have to be procs either. There are the License to Slay-type trinkets, for example, that ramp up a bonus, or the activated ones that have cool, unusual effects.

Obviously I think they could still have their old territories: the fun teleporters and gadgets (I literally have never remembered to use my Looterang. It's not even soulbound yet, but it's an awesome idea.) They could even still provide ranged weapons and scopes - though I would seriously de-emphasize those given their restriction to a single class.

The next issue is the profession bonuses. Making cool stuff is always fun, but ultimately you can just pay someone who has the profession to make that stuff for you (they seem to have de-emphasized Bind on Pickup recipes as of late.) Nowadays, most professions have a granted boost in one form or another. Scribes have extra-powerful shoulder enchants (with the added bonus of having one less rep to grind.) Blacksmiths can add sockets to their bracers and gloves. Jewelcrafters can equip a set number of extra-powerful gems.

Ultimately these bonuses are meant to grant you the same net benefit, but through different means. Theoretically, the Engineering version of this is Tinkers, but these are seriously flawed. Most tinkers place your trinkets on cooldown (at least for a short time, as if you used the other trinket) and there is no equivalent tanking Tinker (the tiny armor boost for Quickflip Deflection Plates is pretty underwhelming.)

One of the really cool ideas when they were first talking about Cataclysm was the existence of Cogwheels and Steampumps. The latter never came about at all, but the initial idea was that you would be able to craft, using Engineering-like components, special gems that would go into Cogwheel slots. On live, these wound up being only in the 359 Engineering goggles, and you didn't actually make them, but rather traded other engineering-made items for them from a vendor. Really, the most frustrating thing about these is that now that most people are getting 378 helmets or higher, either from the HoT heroics or Raid Finder, or actual raiding, there's no reason to ever buy Cogwheels again.

So: Let's break it down. What do I want to see out of Engineering in the future:

• A new emphasis on trinket-making, possibly giving us new recipes to keep up with new tiers of content, like the armor-makers and Jewelcrafters do.
• Keep the flavor of making fun gadgets, but don't penalize us by making the rest of the profession utterly anemic.
• Careful design of Tinkers to make them equal in quality to the bonuses provided by other professions OR
• A new version of the Cogwheel system, perhaps allowing us to add sockets to, say, our helmets and chests which we then fill with Cogwheels we make ourselves.
• More fun toys for other professions so that Blizzard doesn't feel like they have to keep us nerfed to prevent everyone from switching to Engineering. Flying Carpets and Magic Lamps are good examples (and oddly 1001 Arabian Nights-themed.