Ah, the tinker. What too many people think is pointless because “We already have Engineering”, or “Way to make a profession pointless”. Well to that I just have to say, “Grow up.”
You see, Engineering is a profession and it is meant to augment currently in play race/classes by providing a source of wacky, powerful, supportive abilities. Everything from teleporters to stat buffs, the ranged equivalent of whetstones/counter-weights, portable mailboxes, devices to entertain, resurrection, to any number of other abilities. What Engineering does not do is allow a mage to tank, a warrior to raid heal, or a diaper-gnome to be cool. It doesn’t provide the necessary functionality to perform as a full spec of a class.
So what would a Tinker look like as a class? Probably something akin to a Paladin, except the DPS spec would be ranged. You would have:
Battlemech: The Tinker would climb into their fully customizable Battlemech suit, and rush headlong into battle. Through electrostatic fields, overwhelming firepower, and self-repair, the Battlemech could stand against the mightiest of foes!
Gundamech: Between the AoE bombs, the high damage, single-target rail gun, the grenades, mini-vulcan, and let’s not forget the BFG9001, the Gundamech has the damage options that you need to turn that enemy into lots of smaller bits of enemy. And, let’s not forget that this form has a totally awesome, not-a-rip-off of the DH’s double-jump ability.
Medi-mech: With a healing spray-foam cannon for cone shaped healing, to grenades that explode with healing powder, to powered darts that inject healing potions, a life-force transfuser that takes health from nearby allies to heal a wounded ally, thus leveling out by percentage everyone in the targeted area, the Medi-mech comes equipped and ready to serve your battlefield needs.
All three specs would have Mech suits that they would immediately equip in battle (sort of like the Worgen transformation), and each of those suits could have hundreds of different designs. Outside of battle, the class could have a lot of engineering-like abilities, but without the need to acquire supplies. It would prove a useful way to prune the engineering profession of a lot of redundant/outdated recipes. There could also be Tinker only recipes in Engineering that would make the Class and Profession incredibly useful to pair together, such as a recipe that allows the Tinker’s mechs to have Instantaneous Transmission built right in - you know, the way a mage can teleport to cities - except this would lead to teleportation destinations around the world that are engineer only.
arguments about balance are the most realistic in fact, why shouldn’t we add ANOTHER class? because it will make every other class more unfun by proxy.
Eh, I wouldn’t be a fan of EVERY tinker spec revolving around Mechs that do different things based on your spec. That just sounds like Druid forms with a different skin.
Though I support Tinkers solely based on the fact that no class actually makes use of the huge amount of technology that exists in the Warcraft universe. We’ve got 12 different flavours of martial, magic and mixes of both, but none who use technology any more complicated than an occasional gun.
I read a “leak” (of course it’s complete BS but sometimes they’re at least fun to glance over) about Tinkers a few days back, and it actually sounded pretty good.
It’s not far off what you said, but the class revolves around a special interactive Backpack.
For the tank spec it would turn into a mecha-suit, I forgot the healer one, and for DPS it would turn into a robot companion.
It just sounds like something Blizz would do. Foreshadowing is something Blizz does quite a lot, and if Pocopoc isn’t a Tinker pet concept turned into a system then I’ll be damned.
But, I am on the side of not wanting a new class. Nor do I think we’ll be getting a Tinker in 10.0
As a Warlock, I have no idea what you’re talking about! We’ve not lost anything to a new class.
That kind of generalizing is defeatist. There’s not a maximum amount of fun that can be rationed out. Like, there’s no pull full of fun, and that’s all the fun there ever can be, and if you want to have a new class, you have to steal back some of the fun you gave away to the other classes to have enough for the new class. Fun is made by playing, not by work. New toys to play with are always more fun than old toys you’ve turned into a job.
Yeah, I’ll check in to see how much fun you’re having when Enh and ElE are once again the worst spec in the game.
Remember when you said balance isn’t a relevant factor? Here’s the bounty from the harvest you planted.
A class isn’t a toy. It’s a console.
The games you have to play on it are what changes.
I’d rather new and better games for my existing consoles than having to buy a new console just for 1 or 2 new exclusives.
I’d argue DH is a clear example that blizzard seems to have run out of innovation with the introduction of new classes. The closest thing I can see DH contributing to is…faster tanking? I guess, but even that is a massive stretch.
Eh, I’d argue that DH’s as a concept were always going to be pretty stretched because fundamentally most of their class fantasy is already covered by Rogues or Warlocks. Same reason on why I think Necromancers aren’t a great idea.
But Blizzard aren’t going to make a Legion expansion centered around Illidan and release Bards or Tinkers as a class, even if those classes have way more room for mechanical innovation.
I suppose we’ll see in the end, because I’m well aware even if I don’t like it a new class will probably still be added. They are incredibly marketable and increase sales considerably for an expansion, I’m just a bit skeptical and weary of the long term effects new classes end up having on the game.
I mean we’re gunna have balancing issues regardless. It’s not like Mages are a new class and they’ve been a balance issue for the better part of two decades at this point.
Even being salty about Demo having to be reworked to make room for DH’s, I think that new classes add significantly more as an expansion feature than new races or customization on existing races do.
That’s actually pretty close to what Tinkers should be. Here’s a basic idea of how they’d look in WoW. https://cdna.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/037/001/180/large/arthur-lorenz-tinkermodel-allviews.jpg?1619194404
I don’t like the idea of not getting to have cool things anymore because the dev team feels the need to reinvent the wheel every expansion and throw the balance into chaos once again.
That’s a them problem, not an us problem.
Are you really saying that, regardless of how many years WoW has left, the only thing we have to look forward to now is more borrowed power which throws the meta into chaos every single time?
the problem is it becomes an us problem when they don’t have the necessary resources for balance. Ideally they should be hiring more employee’s every time there is a new class in order to offset the time that will need to invested into it. But reality probably isn’t so nice.
