Project Lore

It's Nerf & Then Lots Of QQ Blizzard Poster Bornakk announced a new nerf to the engineering profession, although it is not the main focus of the nerf.  According to Bornakk, items with Stealth Detection were being used in unintended ways - way past their ilvl in many cases - in an effort to get an advantage, or equal footing, inside the Arenas.  Rather than try and rebalance the offending items, Blizzard has nerfed any and all items with a hint of stealth detection on them. If you have been participating in the Arenas while sporting anything but Ultra-Spectropic Detection Goggles or an engineering helm, then you will still posses some stealth detection.  The catch is that it isn't enough stealth detection to justify what you lose for equipping the item anymore.  The former item is no longer usable in Arenas, while the latter group has had their detection removed entirely, a choice that has engineers up in arms.  One passionate tinkerer exclaimed, "would you PLEASE just remove the profession."  And if you didn't hit the link up top, the changes have already been implemented.  A tooltip update is incoming as part of the next minor patch. My main is a rogue engineer so I am actually on both sides of the camp.  From a rogue standpoint, we are almost ecstatic because we can now sneak in for our openers with a lower chance of being seen.  Of course, rogue battles versus humans and their pesky passive stealth detection racial ability will still annoy us, especially rogue versus human rogue.  As an engineer, the nerf lowers the profession's utility further.  The helm that was crafted specifically for the Arena (or early raiding) is now useless with no inkling of an incoming buff to make up for its loss. I'm not going to go on a QQ rant over a single item though, especially since I don't Arena enough on Solidsamm to care.  Instead, I will QQ over the professions in general.  Let's not try to make professions all homogeneous like we did with raid buffing, as some players in the thread are suggesting.  In my opinion, each profession should offer their own special utility.  Blacksmiths can make their own gem slots, jewelcrafters have their rings, leatherworkers had their drums, etc. To me, engineering has always been about fun items, the Battle Chicken, the Harvest Reaper, the ROFLCopters.  We still have some of that but it's much less prevalent.  Wrath removed our collection of amusing gizmos and replaced them with recipes that are a requirement for all Arena engineers.  Essentially changing the role for an engineer from 'humorous accessory user' to that of a 'stealth detector.'  Now that role-changing item has been removed, and you wonder why we freak out?  You can't give someone candy and then take it away, not even if they get in your van. Which side are you on, or do you not PvP enough to care about the discussion one way or another?

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