Tinker Class: Something Only WoW can do?

Community General Discussion
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In my experience, there are so few RPGs that provide a fleshed out fantasy of using Guns, Gadgets, and Tech against your enemies.

And those that do have it, frequently don’t do it very well.

World of WarCraft on the other hand, already has the Assets in place for a unique and Compelling engineer fantasy… But it is currently going unused.

Engineers in Non-RPGs

The concept as playing as an “Engineer” is frequently handed off to First Person shooters, and often focused around providing a stationary aimbot to assist you in defense.

  • The Engineer from TF2: Who can build defensive sentries to defend, Teleport Allies, and Heal and Provide ammo to Allies.

  • The Engineer in Deep Rock Galactic: Capable of building turrets and distracting enemies. Along with Proximity mines and High Impact explosives.

  • Borderlands keeps thing very light on RPG Mechanics. But Borderlands 1 and 2 both have a Turret class that specializes in Area Denial, and Support.

Generally speaking, Outside of an RPG, Using Gadgets to fight almost always boils down to simple Area Denial. I Think WoW could use a similar theme to provide something significantly more Interesting

Engineers in other MMOs / RPGS

Of course I feel obligated to bring up Final Fantasy 14. Which does, in fact, provide a class that uses Technology and explosives. Machinist.

  • Machinist left me feeling severely underwhelmed. And genuinely disappointed in Square Enix’s portrayal of the Fantasy.

  • Machinist is Exclusively a ranged damage dealer, that relies almost entirely on a Single, entirely non-interactive pet. Like a Beast Master Hunter, if It had little-to-no ability interactions with your beasts.

  • The entire rotation of the class revolves around temporarily summoning your one pet. And that’s it. Absolutely forgettable.

Meanwhile There is also Guild Wars 2, Who’s Engineer Class is actually really interesting.

  • Capable of dropping several different kinds of turrets for Defense, damage, and buffs.

  • Uses a combination of Explosives, Mines, and Guns to do damage.

  • Makes you choose between Scrapper and Holosmith. both of which provide different takes of the “Engineer” Fantasy.

Unfortunately however. Guild Wars 2 is not really a PvE Focused MMO. It lacks a hard Tank/ Healer/ DPS role set up, and substantial PvE Progression. Its classes are designed more like MOBA Characters for PvP.

So I guess there’s Always Wildstar :rofl:

What can WoW do better?

WoW has the potential for much, much more. Even just looking at the Tinkers we encountered in BFA:

Ranged DPS: Using Several Turrets at once, Missiles, and Guns.
Tank: Using a Personal Mech suit to shrug off damage and shred enemies up close
Healer: Firing Healing bolts at allies and deploying Healbot, and Healing Grenades.

Just using this Template, A Tinker class could go above and beyond what other games have.

WoW’s unique universe Provides so much more than boring Knights and Castles, WoW’s next class should be something ONLY WoW can do well. We don’t need Necromancers or Bards, any game can have Necromancers or Bards.

Lets do something interesting. Something that is a part of WarCraft.

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Ok I’m not against tinkers but this is just incorrect :neutral_face:

Also, would tinkers be in a mech suit, or on their own with gadgets and gizmos?

Like I get the idea of tanking in a mech suit but it just seems odd to me. Maybe if it’s treated like bear form :thinking:

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Guild Wars 2!

Engineer!

Tons of tinker stuff right there. Lots more options than WoW has for classes…not saying that its a better game, at all. But they have options for classes ^^

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I’m not saying they couldn’t be good classes.
But they wouldn’t really be part of WarCraft.

They’d be a little… derivative. Not something that makes WoW special or unique.

Its a lot of fun, Unfortunately Guild Wars 2 doesn’t really have a PvE community.

I Imagine the Mech suit would be the Mainstay of a Tank specialization. Maybe the other specializations could use it as a defensive cooldown. Other than that the Ranged DPS and Healer should focus on Guns and bombs.

Also yes, Similar functionality to bear form. A Special form that changes your abilities to Melee and allows you to tank.

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blinks

looks at the guild she is in and the content they do

Really?

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And the pvp community in gw2 is so toxic it makes wow top rated pvpers and worldfirst raiders feel like my little pony.

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This is good to hear! But to be frank, the game is clearly designed to function around PvP, As I said, Moba-esque classes, and less focus on DPS/Tank/Healer roles.

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Guild Wars 2 has Engineers? There’s a big alchemy component to the class as well, with poisons etc.

Game has been slowly trying to trickle in the “trifecta” as well, with specs like the Scrapper who can act as both Tank or Healer, and Holo as DPS (at least in Fractals, GW2 raiding is kind of a joke anyway).

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You mean a Machinist in FFXIV?

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I’m not against tinkers. If they happen they happen, if not then whatever. They do have a unique fantasy at least. I think Blizz just never found a way to work it really into the story. That is they’ve always had other priorities and projects, and in the context of past expansions tinkers would have been random toss ins. They haven’t jumped out as obvious “we have to do this right now!” choices.

Maybe someday though! We shall see. But I’d hope they have a different class name. “Tinker” is kind of a lame name for a class, even though that’s what everyone calls it. It needs more pizzazz. :face_with_monocle:

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I’ve seen this idea pitched for WoW Tinkers too, a combination of the Tinker Hero unit, which was a Damage dealer and Tank. and the Alchemist Which was a Healer and Support in WarCraft 3.

A lot of cool Ideas come from WC3, Every Class in WoW comes from WC3.

Well, Like I pointed out, there’s been assets and effort behind the scenes, some of it is pretty concrete, but at this point it’s mostly just hope.

I agree. Something more practical like “Mechanic” “Technician” or “Engineer”

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YES YES AND YES
This sounds so epic! It really sounds like a fun class.

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Mechagon was their opportunity and they didn’t take it

I don’t really see anything like that happening ever again

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Not my Idea, It’s Blizzard’s idea. :wink:
These are just the Island expedition teams from Battle for Azeroth.

Blizzard straight up already designed the class, and just didn’t put it in game.

It’s not like they were gonna add a class in the middle of an Xpac. Maybe an Undermine expansion or something.

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Not really. Classes are expansion-level features, not patch ones. A class will never happen mid-expansion.

And the mechagnomes didn’t even join the Alliance until 8.3 at the end of BfA.

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We already have them, they’re called Engineers.

The problem is that professions are nowhere near as interesting as they could be.

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Wildstar had an Engineer class too iirc. It was a pet based, ranged tanking class and was a ton of fun!

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Eh… this is a stretch at best. The Profession makes 5 minute cooldown bombs and Mounts, and occasionally a battle res.

A Profession will never really be equal to a class, that would be impossible to balance. Keep professions and classes separate. It’s better for the game.

I wasn’t around to enjoy Wildstar when it actually existed, RIP.

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Pour one out for wildstar. If it had come out now i bet itd have a chance at least.

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Nope, tinker class would pretty much delete engineering proff and use systems from other classes we already have.

Robot creations: warlock demon copies
Robot suit: Druid bream form

There’s literally nothing unique they can do.