That’s why they should be expensive (or limited to how many you can carry or even craft each week)to craft or have hard cast times on them. So they aren’t always a no brainer, keep in mind engineering used to be great for PvP and now useless for everything. Blizzard has a habit of leaving things behind to rot as they chase new ideas and I’d really rather they stop that and fix what they have.
Of course other professions would get upgraded as well to keep up with engineering if it was made good again.
That’s kind of the issue presently with the classes though. A lot of them just do not make sense. End of the day, a lot of people got into WoW because it followed Warcraft 3 back when the game had a far less patchwork story and prior to it’s absurd worship of Lovecraft.
I think Tinker would be a good symbolism to players that they haven’t forgotten their Warcraft roots, it would increase the interest in some races a lot of people just kind of write off.
If I’m going to be dealing with a new class, I’d rather it be a tinker than what they’d probably make now which would be something Old God focused, probably have a lot of ability and theme overlap with Shadow Priest which would mean Shadow Priest is losing half its kit. Tinker to me feels like a solid reminder that this is still Warcraft. Not “Warcraft x Lovecraft fanfiction” which is what most of this current story feels to be with no signs of stopping soon.
Also, Tinker is probably the only class possibility they still have that doesn’t share an absurd overlap with an existing class, has a truly unique and interesting identity, and has multiple ways they could take the class. Whereas let’s take the second most popular class demand, Dark Ranger. Dark Ranger would share significant overlap with hunters, and either old shadow priests (like actual Shadow Priest, not Void Lord Acolyte Shadow Priest we have had since Legion) or affliction warlocks. You couldn’t do much with that. You would probably get a spec that focused more on the debuffs of their arrows, one that focused less on that and more on the arrow so basically a hunter without a pet, then I have no idea for the third spec. Dark Ranger is horribly binary and they couldn’t make it into an actual class in the game while simultaneously doing the class archetype justice and keeping a balanced game.
While it would be cool to play on their subterfuge elements and stealthing around aspects, I think rogues have been ripped off enough. It’s bad enough that of the 3 classes we’ve gotten since launch two of them have been leather wearer melee dps classes that are highly mobile and stun. Rogue losing some of its mobility when monk came out so monk could be the new mobile leather wearer with their rolls, zen teleport, dragon kick, etc. Then both monks and rogues got their mobility dialed back to make room for demon hunter which was now the new highly mobile melee dps leather wearer. Then for some reason demon hunters also stole warlock metamorphosis which yeah, was a demon hunter ability in WC3 but it feels so bad to make that fit well with demo lock, leave it in for 4 expansions then just remove it because a new kid gets that toy now. “I’ve sacrificed everything, what have you given?!” Apparently half my kit so you could have a class you 3 button monkey.
With a tinker, you could easily get 3 specs just from the WC3 hero and their 4 abilities. A tank spec using their ultimate which put them into a literal tank and made them into one. A ranged dps by using a series of cluster rockets and clockwork goblins that attacked and exploded, and a healer by using basic alchemy, not healing magic. In fact they could even add interest by making it not an actual healer but a support healer. Meaning it can heal enough to do dungeons sure, but it will never have the throughput of healers, but it will bring with it substantial buffs. Imagine shooting your rogue with a potion that heals them a bit and gives them a ton of haste like you just shot them up with pure adrenaline. Which coincidentally, fits goblin lore quite well.
Its useless at everything because a Profession shouldn’t be that strong.
Professions should give you Raid and utility benefits, consuables and such.
None of the professions provide you with damage abilities, because that isn’t what professions should be
A Tinker class would be a great way to have Bombs, Turrets and Rockets as the core focus of a class. It would be an awesome fantasy for both PvP and PvE. And more importantly, if you make it a CLASS then you won’t be forcing other classes to use abilities that don’t fit them.
YES YES YES. This is better than I could’ve put it.
Tinkers are completely unlike existing classes.
Nobody would be FORCED to use engineering unless it was outright broken and they’re mythic raiding which isn’t what I said.
Engineering items made to require engineering, blacksmithing weapons like stormherald coming back to entice people into blacksmithing.
Tailors…I don’t know, warm socks.
The point is, if tinkers come then engineering dies, I’m sorry but I can’t agree with tinkers as a class.
Professions are varied and all have the potential to compete with each other with unique profession locked rewards to encourage people to pursue them. As I said before engineering would get buffed along with everything else so it doesn’t stand out.
Both of these are entirely Wrong.
There is a hilariously bad min-maxing community in Wow.
If Engineering is good, people will feel obligated to use it.
And A New Class will not kill a profession.
Think of it this way.
Make Engineering an ACTUAL PROFESSION
Step 1. Give Engineering a Focus on Utility tools. Engineering should get a new set of Item Ehancements, Incaps, Glider kits, Jeeves, Battle Res, EVERY EXPANSION.
Every Profession gets new fun tools every Expac, and Engineers are still using gliders from WoD.
Step 2. Tinkers should use Intellect Guns, and Hunters should use Agility Guns. Engineers should be able to craft both. BoE.
Step 3. Engineers should be able to Craft ranged weapon attachments that provide every kind of Secondary Stat. Because currently Engineering can only make weapons for 2 specializations of a single class.
Step 4. Give Engineering it’s own list of cosmetic items to make. Transmog, Mounts, ETC.
Then Engineering would be a proper Profession with its own utilities and strengths.
It would even bring Jeeves and a Brez to groups.
If they choose engineering then they don’t get something like stormherald 2 electric boogaloo and miss out on amazing blacksmithing weaponry, really it was extremely good. Or whatever else the other professions could bring, these people have always existed in the game and always will, even now they drive themselves insane and burn themselves out with the current systems, I wouldn’t let these poor souls worry me, they’ll wear themselves out no matter what you do.
As for the rest of your post, keep in mind first aid is now in tailoring, every warrior and rogue that spent years working on first aid and relying on it in PvP to stay alive now lost it if they weren’t a tailor. I fully expect blizzard to release tinkers with engineering rolled into them as a feature to sell an expansion out of desperation.
IF they resisted this urge when releasing tinkers then yes your ideas for what they could both offer are reasonable and offers engineers a way of making money each expansion rather than being a pointless gold sink as it is now while expanding on the engineer fantasy further with tinkering.
First aid was removed because it was so near-to-useless that it was irrelevant.
Engineering is unique in that it does still provides unique benefits that no other profession does. Jeeves, Gliders, Ranged Weapons, ETC. Or in other words, Engineering isn’t useless. Only it’s pitiful bombs are useless.
Engineering will never be a damage dealer ever again, it just wont.
Engineering would be GREAT if they focused it on utility items and ranged weapons.
And simultaneously added a new ranged weapon using class to the game.
According to the NPCs we saw in BFA. All 3 specializations of Tinker would use Guns. Ranged DPS, Healer, and Tank.
Is this in your imagination that this is happening or something? Professions haven’t been important ever since MoP when they nerf batted everything because people minmaxed professions in Cataclysm. Recent moves by Blizzard have further cemented the idea that professions are never going to matter in this game again. They’re so petrified from Cataclysm that they would rather every profession be absolutely worthless except Alchemy for flasks and potions than buff them to relevance because players are going to pick tradeskills that benefit them the most.
Bottom line, you’ll never see tradeskills matter or be relevant to your character ever again because Blizzard cares more about people feeling obligated to go blacksmithing because that mace is really good than you feeling happy with your tradeskills.
What do I think?
I have no Idea what they’ll use. They could use Warglaives for all I know.
But Blizzard already designed Tinkers. 3 specs.
Ranged DPS, With a Gun.
Ranged Healer, With a gun.
and Ranged Tank, with a Gun, but also uses a Shredder, so it’s still Melee, just with a gun statstick.
The goblin starting zone is cool too.
And Tinkers are Iconic as Hell, Just like every hero unit in WC3.
Every single class is based on a Hero Unit.
that’s why every single class stands out amongst the others, they all have awesome abilities that show off how cool they are.
Metamorphosis, Avenging Wrath, Summon Infernal, Tranquility. ETC. ETC.
I guess you missed the word POTENTIAL, we have no idea what they’re considering because they barely communicate to us, you can look at BFA or legionor WoD if you want as examples of why professions are dead but these guys flip flop all the time. Its almost impossible to know for sure what they’ll do in the next expansion, except for more E-sports, count on more E-sports coverage.
I guess you missed Cataclysm and MoP then if you think professions have any potential anymore.
It won’t be involving professions at all. You’ll get new boring and basic crafts but you’ll never see gear that has any staying power. Look at TBC right now actually where the blacksmithing mace for rogues that went BS is their best in slot going into tier 5 and fully upgraded is like top 3 BiS weapon available. Spellfire, Frozen Shadowweave, Primal Mooncloth, Spellstrike gear are all REALLY powerful from tailoring. If that was retail Blizzard would be in meltdown and Dragonmaw would be removed the following Tuesday or severely gutted because it makes too compelling of an argument to go blacksmithing.
They even outright had to state epic engineering goggles would not be in the game on launch because that alone was deciding if a lot of people were staying Engineering. Or that they nerfed LW drums because they didn’t want guilds making people go Leatherworking the way they did Engineering in Classic.
You’re free to be negative and give up hope on professions but I won’t.
I believe the current team needs…some new people and if the new job listings are anything to go by, a lot of people have begun to leave for whatever reason they may have. I remain hopeful that just like blizzard once said they understood rating shouldn’t be attached to gearscore/ilvl for PvP gear and then flippity flopped on that in this expansion. That they will get new people who look at the game where its begun to rot and decay and once again do a u-turn and change things around.
I kind of think the “Tinker Class” is just the “Engineering Profession”, I’ve never really mained an engineer profession, tried it but it became too expensive to level up on an alt I hardly play. There are many neat things you can make, but each expansion to me only seems like a handful of usefulness.