Engineering 4.0.6

[LavCat]

Yes, I know it's in the patch notes, but why, o why Blizzard did you have to nerf my poor parachute cloak? I've known for years that the parachute cloak was overpowered, but couldn't you have just left it alone? Don't you have better things to do? I suppose I should be grateful that it now takes far less time to reach the ground.

You thought I wouldn't notice that you changed the sound of the turbocharged flying machine but I did.

Why no love for engineering? Herbalists got a nice stealth boost to the spawn rate of Heartblossom, and perhaps other herbs as well. (Of course an equally likely explaination for the increased amount of herbs is that other herbalists are using parachute cloaks.)

[shoju]

We are Engineers. We are not allowed to have nice things.

[NiteFox]

We are Engineers. We are not allowed to have nice things.

Leatherworkers with useless drums, riding crops, and the lack of an ammo pouch market would like a word with you.

[shoju]

Right, but you have gear that you can sell. And leg kits. And more gear.

I can sell overpriced guns that no one wants, and a mechanical rabbit that even fewer people want.

[LavCat]

We are Engineers. We are not allowed to have nice things.

Leatherworkers with useless drums, riding crops, and the lack of an ammo pouch market would like a word with you.

Ah, but people need those ammo pouches in which to store their Adamantite Shells! Oh, wait...

[shoju]

Or the iceblade arrows!

Oh right... they took that pattern out of the game.... Yeah, good thing I rushed out to get both the arrorw and bullet pattern on that one...

[Taelas]

Uh, Engineering is not exactly hurting for cash. Get an Electrostatic Condenser to go with your Mining (or Herbalism, if that's your thing) and you get basically free Volatile Air (which sells for ~20g a pop as the most expensive Volatile, at least on my server). Before you exclaim "but that's mining!" -- you need Engineering for the Electrostatic Condenser to work.

I have gotten maybe 60k gold mostly through Mining throughout Cataclysm so far. (I also levelled my paladin from 80 to 85 strictly through Mining.)

[shoju]

What about the people who don't have a gathering prof to go with their engineering? I know people in guild who are ENG/Tailor, ENG/BS, ENG/ENchanting.

Giving Engineering a "Money Maker" that needs to be paired with another gathering profession is not a true money maker. This is why people want clouds back.

I mean, Alchemists aren't required to have Herbalism to make gold. They can pair Alchemy with any other profession and it makes gold independantly. The same goes for Every other profession.

[LavCat]

Uh, Engineering is not exactly hurting for cash. Get an Electrostatic Condenser to go with your Mining (or Herbalism, if that's your thing) and you get basically free Volatile Air (which sells for ~20g a pop as the most expensive Volatile, at least on my server). Before you exclaim "but that's mining!" -- you need Engineering for the Electrostatic Condenser to work.

I have gotten maybe 60k gold mostly through Mining throughout Cataclysm so far. (I also levelled my paladin from 80 to 85 strictly through Mining.)

Tonight I decided to go herbing before they hotfix herbs again. I got 88 Volatile Air for 106 stacks of herbs. Not exactly a high drop rate. But I did get over a level of exp for my trouble.

I too leveled my paladin with mining, but did some quests along the way.

[LavCat]

What about the people who don't have a gathering prof to go with their engineering? I know people in guild who are ENG/Tailor, ENG/BS, ENG/ENchanting.

Let's see: my priest is engineer/tailor, my warrior is engineer/BS, my mage is engineer/enchanter, my warlock is engineer/alchemist, my DK is engineer/scribe, my druid is engineer/LW, my shaman is engineer/JC. Did I forget any?

My paladin, rogue, and hunters are the gatherers.

[shoju]

My
Paladin(horde): Mining / ENG. I have thought about making the switch to BS or JC instead of mining, but I was waiting until my DK had max mining so that I still had a miner
Paladin(Horde #2): ENG/Enchant.
Paladin(Alliance): Mining/Smithing
Priest: ENG / Alch
Shaman: Skin/LW
DK: Mining / Enchant
Hunter: Herb / Inscription
Warrior(low level): Herb / Alch
Mage: Enchant / JC.

Scopes *could* be worth some gold if you didn't just train the best one, and need to use it level the prof. So many people made scopes. I still have ~6-8 sitting in my personal GB that I can't even sell at half the cost of the mats.

The Ranged weapons (bow mainly) looked like a good money maker until they decided to make it a blue. Now that it is a blue, it is a joke of a weapon, as no one will go with the more expensive mats for the blue bow over the blue gun, assuming that they even go for a gun instead of just running heroics. In the time since Cata dropped, I have sold 1 gun on the AH, made 1 gun for a guildie, and I have a bow and gun in my personal GB rotting away.

The Pets! OH MAN THE PETS! I don't know how it is for goblin ENG's with their super awesome personal world destroyer, but The mechanical rabbit is another more expensive to make than what I can sell it for. By taking the mats and making the rabbit, I have devalued the investment by ~50%.

Jr Engineer goggles. I made a pair for my alts to run around with before they get a real helm. These do not sell.

Helms. BoP. No money there.

There is just nothing for us to make cash on. I'm not asking for a cash cow prof like Alch or JC. The consumable market is always going to be more lucrative. But can we for once get something that isn't flooded by all ENG's who have to make it to skill off of, and actually make gold on?

[Taelas]

What about the people who don't have a gathering prof to go with their engineering? I know people in guild who are ENG/Tailor, ENG/BS, ENG/ENchanting.

Giving Engineering a "Money Maker" that needs to be paired with another gathering profession is not a true money maker. This is why people want clouds back.

I mean, Alchemists aren't required to have Herbalism to make gold. They can pair Alchemy with any other profession and it makes gold independantly. The same goes for Every other profession.

Engineering cannot buy materials and turn a profit that way, no. But profits are pretty thin if you're hunting the margins between the cost of the materials and the price of the finished products.

You're not going to get much of a profit out of selling your ability to craft things, either, unless your specific patterns are extremely rare.

If you want to earn money through professions, you need gathering professions.

Engineering has made more money for me than JCing has, by the way. Volatile Air sells extremely well.

[shoju]

I make money hand over fist buying ore, crushing ore, xmuting metas. I don't crush any of the ore I have been mining, as I'm prepping to level BS on my main. I simply buy it, Crush it, xmute it, Sell it.

I have been turning ~100% profit margins.

[Taelas]

Uh, Engineering is not exactly hurting for cash. Get an Electrostatic Condenser to go with your Mining (or Herbalism, if that's your thing) and you get basically free Volatile Air (which sells for ~20g a pop as the most expensive Volatile, at least on my server). Before you exclaim "but that's mining!" -- you need Engineering for the Electrostatic Condenser to work.

I have gotten maybe 60k gold mostly through Mining throughout Cataclysm so far. (I also levelled my paladin from 80 to 85 strictly through Mining.)

Tonight I decided to go herbing before they hotfix herbs again. I got 88 Volatile Air for 106 stacks of herbs. Not exactly a high drop rate. But I did get over a level of exp for my trouble.

I too leveled my paladin with mining, but did some quests along the way.

Yeah, that sounds about right. That's ~1800 gold, at the lowest price I've seen Volatile Air.

I don't see the problem?

[Taelas]

I make money hand over fist buying ore, crushing ore, xmuting metas. I don't crush any of the ore I have been mining, as I'm prepping to level BS on my main. I simply buy it, Crush it, xmute it, Sell it.

I have been turning ~100% profit margins.

The fact that you make money does not mean that the guys who sell you the ore doesn't make more.

Let's say I prospect 1,000 ore. Each of the uncommon gems has roughly 18% drop chance per 5 ore prospected. That gives me ~36 of each gem, roughly. That's 12 meta gems. Each meta gem sells for ~500g, if it's one of the new ones, at least on my server. That's 6k gold.

20 elementium ore is 70 gold on my server. To get 1,000 ore, I need to get 50 stacks. 50 x 70 = 3500g.

If I were to do this (quite aside from the fact that I'd need to harass my brother to transmute for me, as I don't have an alchemy toon), I would make 2500 gold, plus ~10 (5% chance) of each rare gem. Most cut gems are worth around 40 gold at the moment for me, with reds being the top seller at around 100 gold. Let's say 60g per gem, times 10, times six. That's another 3600 gold, assuming I can get them sold.

It's not a bad profit, but the guy who mined 1000 ore to sell me probably also sold a lot of volatiles, which range from 12g-25g at times (assuming he's an engineer). Call it an average 18g. If he got more than 50 of each volatile, which I definitely get every time I mine around 1000 ore, he made more money than me -- where I would make ~6100g, he'd make ~7100g (3500g for the ore, 3600g for the volatiles).

Then again, I've probably spent quite a bit less time than he did. Still, I don't see it as the better option. I can turn my brain off while mining. I cannot turn it off while prospecting and transmuting.

[LavCat]

[quote='Taelas' pid='184863' dateline='1297404334']Tonight I decided to go herbing before they hotfix herbs again. I got 88 Volatile Air for 106 stacks of herbs. Not exactly a high drop rate. But I did get over a level of exp for my trouble.

I too leveled my paladin with mining, but did some quests along the way.

Yeah, that sounds about right. That's ~1800 gold, at the lowest price I've seen Volatile Air.

I don't see the problem?

I don't get to sell any. I have a blacksmith, alchemist, and something like eleven engineers to feed.

My objection to the direction Blizzard is taking engineering is not the lack of profit. I never expected engineering to bring in much gold. My objection is that they are again nerfing the slight edge engineering gave in PvP. The Parachute Cloak is now essentially useless. Any time Blizzard finds an item they have created that is actually useful in PvP (engineering or not) they take it away. Recall stealth detection as a stat on goggles other than Catseye? Remember the Tidal Charm? How about Skull of Impending Doom?

I thought the recent problem with the Parachute Cloak was a bug, which is why I posted in this forum. Then I found it in the patch notes.

I wouldn't mind so much if they gave a high level item to replace a nerfed low level item, but to my knowledge there is no equivalent to the former Parachute Cloak.

[shoju]

The problems go hand in hand really.

Engineering is routinely beat around because of its pvp applications, and edge that it held over other professions. Currently, it has no "edge" over other professions, but has the drawback of not making gold in a profitable manner on its own.

I find Engineering to be just like the paladin class really. Something incredibly cool in game, that sadly blizzard can't find a way to balance even when they try something new almost every single expac, and multiple times during expacs.

And Here I am, and engineering paladin.

[Taelas]

Funny, I like having an Engineering paladin.

[shoju]

I like it too, I think it just shows the masochists in the paladin ranks

[LavCat]

I like it too, I think it just shows the masochists in the paladin ranks

Well, yes, my main character has always been an engineering paladin. Shall we switch the discussion to bubble/hearth?