Engineering Changes in Patch 3.2
Posted by 
Heartbourne on Monday, June 29, 2009 - 30 Comments Tags: Auction House, bank, changes, dalaran, engineering, jumper cables, nitro boosts, patch 3.2, ptr, pyro rockets
Heartbourne on Monday, June 29, 2009 - 30 Comments Tags: Auction House, bank, changes, dalaran, engineering, jumper cables, nitro boosts, patch 3.2, ptr, pyro rockets 
I am now officially dropping Herbalism for Engineering. With this latest round of changes that will soon be reflected on the PTR, even if only a few of them make it to the live servers, there are so many cool benefits to Engineering over other professions - the way Engineering should be! Zarhym posted this on the forums today:
- Added a new Mind Amplification Dish attachment for helmets, allowing engineers to control other humanoid targets. Some restrictions apply: does not work in Arenas, dish sometimes reverses targets, unable to stack with other stat-improving head enchantments and makes your helmet look... stylish?
- Added a schematic for a Goblin Welding Beam that can heal friendly mechanical or vehicle units.
- Alarm-o-Bot functionality changed. Materials required reduced.
- Box of Bombs no longer requires an anvil.
- The Cobalt Frag Bomb now incapacitates enemies within a 3-yard radius. A short cast time was added, but they are usable while moving. This change applies to any Cobalt Frag Bombs already created. The existing recipe now makes 3 at a time.
- Engineers can now learn to create a portable Wormhole Generator for Northrend. The Wormhole allows them to travel to different locations in Northrend, although the locations are sometimes in dangerous places.
- Increased benefits from Hyperspeed Accelerators, Hand-Mounted Pyro Rocket and Reticulated Armor Webbing glove modifications.
- Increased the passive bonuses provided by Springy Arachnoweave, Flexweave Underlay and Nitro Boosts.
- Increased siege damage caused by Saronite Bombs and the Global Thermal Sapper Charge.
- Mote Extractor now has innate tracking for gas clouds while it is in your inventory. Tracking of gas clouds has been removed from goggles.
- A new repair bot has been added, and his name is Jeeves. He is the ultimate gentleman robot butler, able to perform all the mundane tasks of repairing, selling and buying junk for your entire raid. Additionally, he can open bank boxes for skilled engineers (350+). Jeeves is not destroyed when used, but due to pressing engagements, can only be summoned once an hour. The schematic for this handsome robot was said to be hidden within the parts of another robot – hoping to be found by an engineer one day.
- Nitro Boosts: Now have a 5-second duration.
- Potion Injectors now increase the amount gained by 25% when used by engineers. Quantity produced by recipes for Runic Healing and Mana Injectors has been increased.
- Reduced the materials needed to create all engineering Dragonlings, and reduced their cooldowns, although they still cannot be used in Arenas.
- Significantly reduced the cooldown on MOLL-E.
- The Spynocular belt attachment has been changed to a Frag Belt. The Frag Belt periodically produces a Cobalt Frag Bomb that can be used from the belt every 10 minutes (never runs out!).
- A Steam-Powered Auctioneer has been added to the Dalaran Like Clockwork engineering shop, allowing access to one's faction Auction House. The Steam-Powered Auctioneer was programmed with a superiority chip, and will only interact with Grand Master engineers.
- Transporter devices are no longer classified as trinkets and can be used directly from your inventory.
- The Ultrasafe Bullet Machine and Saronite Arrow Maker schematics have been simplified to create a full stack of the appropriate ammunition. No longer requires an anvil. Reduced the materials required to make this ammunition.
The biggest change is that Grand Master Engineers can access their faction's Auction House at the Dalaran Engineering shop "Like Clockwork". This is huge. Engineers no longer need to make their shopping lists before grabbing a portal to Orgrimmar or Ironforge and making sure their Hearthstone is up. Another great change is a reusable repair bot that also offers Engineers access to their bank on an hour-long cooldown. This is amazing - if you ever have gotten full bags and had to weigh what you want to destroy to get bag space, this is a godsend. The new Northrend Wormhole generators, as well as the ability to use these items without equipping them, gives Engineers such a huge boost in convenience that I just can't pass it up.
The Nitro-boosts and Pyro-Rockets are perhaps the best profession buff for rogues, and giving rogues wipe-prevention with vanish and jumper cables is sure to make me a group favorite. What do you think? Is this enough to put Engineering on par with other professions?
Reader Comments (30)
"Who cares if you can pop up a repair bot… Only worthless retards that don’t repair before raids even need those."
Spoken like someone who gets carried through raids once they're on farm.
Hint - people actually wipe more than 10x on progression content.
Reyson: not every profession needs to give you 40 more agility/str/crit rating/whatever.
It's possible to beat all content in the game without an ultimately trivial increase in stats.
Once my warrior gets the stam trinkets from Uld, I'm probably dropping JC for eng, since the trinket is the only thing that makes the prof worthwhile.
I'm not sure why you think you need a Dal AH. You mean you can't spare an alt at an Allaince AH (that can mail items to your toon instantly through the mail). Are you that impressed that you no longer have to spend the 30 copper per item to transfer items? Jeeves opening your bank is nice, but if you want to impress me, let Jeeves access the AH. I have 3 445+ engineers. I know I'm nerfing them by not taking a profession with usable buffs though. All i actually use from engineering is the mote extractor, the gadget teleport (though the Caverns of Time ports mean this simply saves me a few minutes when i need to go to the neutral AH), 2 more flying mounts, and the ability to make ammo and sell it at some profit over bars of saronite.
As for the repair bot comments. If you look at ulduar there are not many fight's where you use SS + resses to regain a wipe due to the teleporters. And at the start of the instance is the ogre to repair. It takes 2 sec to run past him and repair (even on FL +4 15 wipes the bot would be no need, on neither instance it would).
Naxx - repair venomspite,
Colloseum- Repair inside (unknown) or quickly outside at the tournament itself.
At places like EoE, VoA, Sarth you don't have easy repairs. but who needs them there. Repair bots where usefull during stuff like molten core. Where you had to summon in 1 player at a time and the most nearbye repair point was thorium point. THERE they came in handy. NOW they are just a little handy byproduct for the o-shit i forgot to repair at the ogre moment.
But even then a HS + summon is nearly just as quick
Jeeves is a Travelers Tundra with a 1hr CD. Seriously, you can repair in Ulduar and at the colosium already... its not like bringing a repair bot is offering anything that isn't already easy to access in 3.1 or 3.2... better luck in 3.3.