I had a day off from work this week to relax so I finally had a chance to check out all of the new Engineering Tinkering “Enchants”. I had a skill of 390 (Gnome FTW) going into Beta so it only took 10 easy skillups to get into range to make these. I will have seperate comments on each, and a summary at the end.
Flexweave Underlay
This works well for the fact that you don’t have to swap in your Parachute Cloak all of the time (at the sacrifice of using a cape of your current level). There is a lot of vertical ground to be covered in Northrend, and you will actually get a lot of use out of this in Howling Fjord and Dragonblight. Its cheap to make so you may as well put it on at least one cape, if not more (if nothing else you can turn any cape you want into your old Parachute Cloak, so you can actually have a decent level cape with stats that slows your fall). Overall fairly useful and the one-minute cooldown ensures you can use it a lot. The parachute graphic you get as you fall is great as well.
Belt-Clipped Spynoculars
Not much to say here other than it has its uses, although it is mainly for being able to track gas clouds without having to rely on your goggles. It gets the job done, although most Engineers have several ways already to get the “zoom-in” effect.
Personal Electromagnetic Pulse Generator
What this does exactly is stun all mechanical creatures within a 10-yard radius from you for 3 seconds. That is actually fairly helpful, considering it is only on a one-minute cooldown. Several zones have many mechanical enemies so it will be worth it to put this on a belt as you level up. Just keep it in your bags and whip it out when you need it. Suprisingly useful considering I thought it would be very limited.
Hand-Mounted Pyro Rocket
The first thing I’ll say about this is holy crap it has a big range. I’m talking like 60 yards. I was suprised at that. I can shoot things from far enough away that I can shoot the rocket, and then shoot the oncoming mob with my 2.70 speed gun before it gets into melee range. Thats really far. It has no cast-time, although it does eat a global-cool down. The rocket’s cool down is one minute, so you can use it often. I plan on having this on every one of my gloves from 70-79 as I level. I’ll keep one around at 80 as well, but that is when losing a ‘traditional” enchant for stats will start to have a greater impact. Very fun, and useful (but not more useful than a regular enchant).
Hyperspeed Accelerators
I can see where Blizzard is going with this, but it just isn’t enough to justify this over other enchants. Ironically, I think that a caster would benefit much more from the temporary haste than a melee class does – that isn’t really a bad thing, but I just thought I would point that out. To be more useful for melee, it either needs to last longer than 8 seconds, or have a shorter cooldown, otherwise regular enchants like STR or AP will yeild more damage output in the same time (and not eat a GCD to activate). Fairly dissapointing.
Nitro Boosts
A Northrend version of an old favourite. Like the Pyro-Rocket, I plan on sticking these on all of my boots as I level from 70-79, but at 80 they will bow out for other enchants. Also, the 5 minute cooldown is a bit long, it could easily do with 3 and be balanced. Great for mobility and emergencies for leveling…but will be forgotten at 80 other than a higher stat version of a novelty item Engineers already have.
— Summary —
While the tinkering effects are fun and somewhat useful depending on what class/spec you are, tinkering does not compete with traditional enchants. They will be used as players level from 70-79 as they are cheap enough to put on lots of pieces of gear as you level up, but at 80 they will suffer the same fate as other fun toys Engineers have already – they will be destined to sit in bags and used very infrequently for a laugh. They are easy enough to slap into all of your gear as you level up due to cheap crafting costs, but most items you will put these on wouldn’t have received a traditional enchant for that very reason – you will soon replace these items. In this case, the only reason the Engineering ones are getting used at all is because of the low cost – not because of their actual effects.
There also seems to be a double-standard in regards to Engineering Tinkering. Blacksmiths can add a socket to many items and still benefit from a regular enchant on the same item. Given that the Engineering Tinkering effects are not very “powerful” is it wrong to assume the same could be done for them? It has been tested that using the Pyro-rocket every minute on the minute increases DPS by 19….that isn’t a lot. I bet you could get a similar number out of adding a STR or AP gem in a socket. So why do Blacksmiths get to benefit in this way and Engineers don’t?
I like the direction Blizzard is going with the tinkering and I hope to see more of them in the months to come, but I want compelling reasons to use them for more than just “fun while leveing up and replacing gear often”.
Thoughts?
EDIT: I spell gud.
