Engineering Overview: Perks, Tools, & Schematics
The Engineering profession is focused on crafting tinkers, gadgets, and bombs that provide lots of fun and useful utility in any type of content. Engineering uses materials that are collected via Mining, so you will need to have a character with that profession if you want to avoid purchasing all of your materials from the Auction House.
What You Get From Engineering
Engineering offers a lot of unique utility far beyond what you can get from any other profession in World of Warcraft. As far as endgame stats go, the main perk you get from this profession is through Synapse Springs, a special glove enchantment that provides a significant primary stat buff on a one-minute cooldown. There are some other unique tinkers that require Engineering, and lots of gadgets and other items that can only be used by Engineers.
Tinkers
Here are the unique enchantments, or tinkers, that can be applied to your gear with Engineering in Mists of Pandaria.
| Tinker | Slot | Materials |
| Goblin Glider | Back | – Tinker’s Kit x1 |
| Incendiary Fireworks Launcher | Hands | – Tinker’s Kit x1 |
| Phase Fingers | Hands | – Tinker’s Kit x1 |
| Synapse Springs | Hands | – Tinker’s Kit x1 |
| Watergliding Jets | Waist | – Tinker’s Kit x1 |
Each of these enchantments can be applied with a Tinker’s Kit, which is crafted from the following materials:
- Ghost Iron Bolts x2
- Ghost Iron Bar x3 for each
- High-Explosive Gunpowder x2
- Ghost Iron Bar x1 for each
- Windwool Cloth x2
Goggles
Engineers can create and equip Epic goggles for the Head slot which can be fitted with special cogwheels.
| Item | Stat | Type | Materials |
| Agile Retinal Armor | Agility | Leather | – Living Steel x6 – Primal Diamond x1 – Ghost Iron Bolts x6 |
| Camouflage Retinal Armor | Intellect | Leather | – Living Steel x6 – River’s Heart x1 – Ghost Iron Bolts x6 |
| Deadly Retinal Armor | Agility | – Living Steel x6 – Wild Jade x1 – Ghost Iron Bolts x6 |
|
| Energized Retinal Armor | Intellect | – Living Steel x6 – River’s Heart x1 – Ghost Iron Bolts x6 |
|
| Lightweight Retinal Armor | Intellect | Cloth | – Living Steel x6 – River’s Heart x1 – Ghost Iron Bolts x6 |
| Reinforced Retinal Armor | Strength | Plate | – Living Steel x6 – Ghost Iron Bolts x12 |
| Specialized Retinal Armor | Intellect | Plate | – Living Steel x6 – Sun’s Radiance x1 – Ghost Iron Bolts x6 |
Trinket
Engineers can craft Ghost Iron Dragonling, a special trinket that can be fitted with 3 cogwheels, allowing you to add 3 secondary stats of your choice to it. Its proc summons a Ghost Iron Dragonling that deals some damage. To craft it, you’ll need 8x Ghost Iron Bolts, 4x High-Explosive Gunpowder, and 12x Windwool Cloth.
Cogwheels
Cogwheels are unique gem-like items that can only go in a cogwheel socket, which only exist in Engineering goggles and Dragonling trinkets.
| Cogwheel | Stat | Materials |
| Flashing Tinker’s Gear | Parry | – Ghost Iron Bar x2 |
| Fractured Tinker’s Gear | Mastery | – Ghost Iron Bar x2 |
| Precise Tinker’s Gear | Expertise | – Ghost Iron Bar x2 |
| Quick Tinker’s Gear | Haste | – Ghost Iron Bar x2 |
| Rigid Tinker’s Gear | Hit | – Ghost Iron Bar x2 |
| Smooth Tinker’s Gear | Critical Strike | – Ghost Iron Bar x2 |
| Sparkling Tinker’s Gear | Spirit | – Ghost Iron Bar x2 |
| Subtle Tinker’s Gear | Dodge | – Ghost Iron Bar x2 |
Gadgets
Blingtron 4000 is an item that can only be used by Engineers. It summons an NPC of the same name who offers a quest that can be completed once per day to get a Blingtron 4000 Gift Package, which has a chance to contain a number of fun or useful items including Engineering mounts and pets, gems, vanity items, and consumables.
Mists of Pandaria brings a new teleportation device for Engineering, Wormhole Generator: Pandaria. This item randomly teleports you to one of nine locations in Pandaria. There is also Wormhole Generator: Northrend and a couple of teleporters that are tied to your specialization.
Engineers can craft Thermal Anvil, an item which can be set down anywhere to act as an Anvil for Blacksmithing or a Forge for Smelting.
In addition to the Epic goggles listed above, there are some new utility goggles as well. Mist-Piercing Goggles allow you to see and loot additional nodes for Herbalism and Mining in Pandaria. There are also some lower-level goggles that can still be useful, including Catseye Ultra Goggles.
Engineers can also craft fireworks, which are fun consumable items that anyone can use.
Guns & Scopes
Two new guns can be crafted with Engineering in Mists of Pandaria:
You can also craft two new scopes, which are used to augment ranged weapons like an enchantment:
Bombs
Engineers can create explosives that can be used to deal extra damage or for crowd control or utility. Mists of Pandaria added some new ones:
- G91 Landshark provides some AoE damage, and doesn’t require Engineering to use, so you can sell or trade these to other players.
- Locksmith’s Powderkeg will let you open any lock that requires less than 450 Lockpicking skill.
Mounts
Engineers are able to build some new mounts in Mists of Pandaria:
- Sky Golem: This mount is not added until the last phase of the expansion. It allows non-Druids to pick herbs while flying.
- Geosynchronous World Spinner: Requires Gnomish Engineering.
- Depleted-Kyparium Rocket: Requires Goblin Engineering.
There are also lower-level Engineering mounts that are still very relevant.
Pets
Mists of Pandaria brings some new pets to the game for Engineers, in addition to those that you could craft at lower levels:
- Mechanical Pandaren Dragonling
- Pierre (added in the last patch of the expansion)
- Rascal-Bot (added in the last patch of the expansion)
- Lil’ Bling (added in the last patch of the expansion)
Materials & Components
Engineering is the most complex of the crafting professions, typically requiring you to craft subcomponents to be used as materials for the final item. There are a few new components that you’ll be crafting in Mists of Pandaria in order to create all of the schematics above.
- Ghost Iron Bolts
- High-Explosive Gunpowder
- Jard’s Peculiar Energy Source (added in the final patch of the expansion)
Tools
Most Engineering schematics require specific tools to craft. These tools are not used up in the crafting process, but you will need to have them in your bags. Most of them are made with Engineering. If you have a Gnomish Army Knife, it replaces the other basic tools.
- Blacksmith Hammer
- Sold by Trade Supplies, Engineering Supplies, and Blacksmithing Supplies vendors.
- Arclight Spanner
- Crafted at 50 Engineering skill from 6x Copper Bar.
- Gyromatic Micro-Adjustor
- Crafted at 175 Engineering skill from 4x Steel Bar.
- Gnomish Army Knife
- Crafted at 435 Engineering skill from 1x Blacksmith Hammer, 1x Mining Pick, 1x Skinning Knife, and 10x Saronite Bar.
Engineering Bags
Engineering Bags are larger than other bags, but can only contain items that have been crafted with Engineering (along with a few miscellaneous Engineering supplies, such as elementals).
- Heavy Toolbox: Sold by Bag Vendors in major cities.
- “Carriage – Maddy” High Tech Bag: Sold by Dawn Radue, the Bag Merchant in Stormwind City.
- Fel Iron Toolbox: Made with Engineering. Schematic sold by Engineering Supplies vendors in The Exodar and Silvermoon City as well as Wind Trader Lathrai in Shattrath.
- Titanium Toolbox: Made with Engineering. Schematic sold by Bryan Landers in Dalaran and Fizzix Blastbolt in Icecrown.
- Elementium Toolbox: Made with Engineering. Taught by Engineering Trainers.
Mining Bags can also be useful to store your raw ore, metal, and stone, and Gem Bags can be useful if you’re using a lot of gems.
Racial Bonuses
Gnomes have the racial passive ability Engineering Specialization, which increases your Engineering skill by 15 points. This is very useful while leveling as it allows you to craft schematics much earlier than you would otherwise be able to, but it serves no purpose once you have reached the maximum skill level.
Engineering Specializations
The Goblin and Gnomish Engineering specializations have been in the game since the beginning, and remain relevant in Mists of Pandaria. There are only a couple of differences between the two specializations in this expansion: the mount you can craft and the teleporters you can use.
Learning a specialization is a simple matter of visiting your trainer and picking up the appropriate quest, then turning in the requested Engineering items.
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I've been playing World of Warcraft on and off since vanilla, usually as a healer or caster and often as a guild leader. I play both retail and classic. I also love RPGs, sandboxes, and sims.