Engineering

Engineering is a primary crafting profession that can create many useful, unique and amazing items, as well as junk (but often explosive junk!). Engineers can create helpful items for generally all classes to be used in PvE or PvP. To counterbalance this usefulness, most items crafted by engineering require engineering skill to use, and many of these items come with a chance for unexpected backfires with often hilarious results. Hunters in particular see much use for engineered guns and scopes.

Engineering profession recipes are known as schematics. Some notable engineer-crafted items are: There are also several engineer-only enhancers to gloves, belts, and cloaks (including a well known parachute cloak enhancement).
 * Jeeves, providing repair services to everyone and bank access to the engineer.
 * MOLL-E, allowing the engineer to summon a portable mailbox they or any ally can use.
 * Blingtron 5000, who grants one free gift per day per account to whoever speaks with him.
 * Gnomish Army Knife, allowing a chance of resurrecting a player on a long cooldown.
 * Mekgineer's Chopper/Mechano-Hog, an epic ground mount with an extra seat.

Grand Master Engineers have access to an auction house of their own faction in Dalaran by visiting or  in the engineer shop Like Clockwork. (Each of these NPCs are visible only to members of that faction.)

For the Alliance faction, Gnomes benefit from a +15 racial bonus to their Engineering skill.

Official overview
''Engineers take advantage of their inventiveness to create an immense (and occasionally random) variety of helpful items. By tinkering ceaselessly, and tolerating malfunctions and misfires, an engineer can make utterly unique objects: sight-enhancing goggles, potent guns, robot pets, mechanical mounts, and even more unusual trinkets. Successful engineers use their inventions to solve problems and make life easier, faster, and better for themselves and their companions.

''The majority of Engineering schematics can be manufactured anywhere, provided you've already obtained the diverse materials necessary for their creation.

''It's not uncommon for Engineers to also specialize in Mining - the metals and ores they procure serve as building materials for their inventions.

''As you progress in your studies as an Engineer, you'll be given an opportunity to choose a specialization. After completing a unique quest, you can specialize in either Goblin or Gnomish schools of engineering. Each school specializes in crafting unique items, some of which aren't available to the opposing style of craftsmanship.''

Training as an Engineer
Engineering is taught by various engineering trainers located throughout the world. Prospective engineers must be at least level 5. Initial training costs, granting the Apprentice level with a potential skill of 75 and access to a few starting engineering schematics. More schematics can be learned from trainers or found throughout the world as the engineer raises their skill level.

The following are the required levels and potential skill of each stage of the profession:

† Kul Tiran and Zandalari proficiency is only available after purchasing the expansion Battle for Azeroth.

Advancing as an Engineer
Crafting items is the only way to progress through the stages. Plans will appear as one of four colors in the profession window, with a certain chance for a skill up (gaining a point):
 * Orange: Will always skill up. When indicated (with a number and up arrow to the right of the recipe name), recipe will skill up by the shown number for each craft.
 * Yellow: Will almost always skill up.
 * Green: Will sometimes skill up.
 * Grey: Will never skill up.

As engineering skill increases, plans will eventually change from orange to yellow, yellow to green and green to grey. Only by finding higher skill schematics can one continue to progress through the profession. Approximately every 5-10 points, new schematics will become available to learn from the trainers. Alternatively, schematics can be looted from corpses, given as quest rewards, or can be purchased either from vendors or from the auction house. All schematics have a requisite engineering skill to be able to be learned and crafted. Additionally, some schematics cannot be gotten until you have a certain reputation standing with a given faction.

Schematics usually require the use of some additional item, which will need to be in your inventory or equipped. Each schematic will show what it requires. This may include:
 * Arclight Spanner
 * Blacksmith Hammer
 * Gyromatic Micro-Adjustor

You may also be required to use an anvil. Anvils can be found throughout the world, particularly in civilized areas such as cities near a forge or Blacksmithing Trainers. At high level, engineers can create their own Thermal Anvils to use or sell.

Companion Skills
By far the best option for your second primary profession is mining. The vast majority of the materials you need for Engineering recipes are acquired through mining. The only other profession that might be mildly beneficial is skinning, since a small number of engineering recipes use leather.

Note: If you have an alt with the Mining profession (such as a blacksmith), and that character can pass materials to your engineer, then the jewelcrafting profession would be a good secondary profession. This is primarily because most engineering items only require skill in engineering and are not level dependent, and the engineering skill can be rapidly advanced by making blasting powder, dynamite, and bombs for personal use. Thus, low-level characters can equip themselves with powerful engineering gear, making leveling faster and easier. This also gives such engineers a distinct advantage in low level battlegrounds (such as Warsong Gulch) as they will be far better equipped than comparable non-engineers. Jewelcrafting can then be used with the same basic materials to craft early rings, amulets, and trinkets - making the character with this combination even more powerful. In addition, jewelcrafting allows prospecting raw minerals to produce gems, which are used quite extensively in engineering schematics.

Specialization
Engineering has the opportunity to specialize in two fields. At skill level 200 an engineer can choose to specialize in Gnomish or Goblin Engineering. The main difference between both sides is the location of their respective teleporters and the ability of their trinkets. Some items require a specific specialization to use, while other items are crafted by one specialization but are usable by any engineer. Fortunately, most recipes that are crafted by one Specialization can be used by both.

Some specialization recipe comparisons
For more information, read the respective pages for Gnomish and Goblin Engineering.

All in all, both Engineering disciplines are useful and fun. Some believe various Engineering gadgets, such as the Goblin Rocket Launcher or Gnomish Poultryizer, are excellent for use in PvP given their crowd control potential and stamina boost. That being said, many people don't take Engineering until they reach max level and have ample gold saved because of the fairly steep expense involved in leveling it.

Switching specializations
You can drop your current specialization by opening the profession tab in your spellbook and unlearning Gnomish/Goblin Engineering. Learn another specialization from the engineering trainer in either Orgrimmar or Stormwind:
 * Horde: Roxxik in Orgrimmar.
 * Alliance: Lilliam Sparkspindle in Stormwind.

Also of note:
 * You don't need to complete the quests associated with your new spec.
 * You can only create items from the specialization you currently have. You'll lose specialization specific recipes for the other faction unless you switch back. This only lets you use the recipes for one faction at a time depending on your specialization.

Enchantments
Engineer enchantments, also known as tinkers, are unique gear enchantments that may be used alongside regular enchantments. Glove enchants generally provide a throughput bonus and do not have any backfire effects. Belt enchants are utility-based and can sometimes backfire for adverse effects, or simply fizzle out.

Cogwheels
Engineers are able to trade crafted goods for cogwheels that can only be placed into certain engineering crafted helms.

Mounts
Engineers are able to create two engineer-only mounts, in addition to the Mekgineer's Chopper / Mechano-Hog which is BoE and can be often be sold for a profit.

The Flying Machine and the Turbo-Charged Flying Machine have a minimum engineering skill requirement to learn and fly, and are made with engineering. Keep in mind that if you drop engineering after making the mounts, they will no longer be usable unless you pick up engineering again and get it to the mount's required engineering skill level.

Teleports
Engineers can make several teleportation devices that require engineering skill to operate. Which teleportation devices you can craft depend on your specialization.
 * Gnomish Engineers can craft teleports to Gadgetzan in Tanaris and outside Toshley's Station in Blades Edge Mountains.
 * Goblin Engineers can craft teleports to Everlook in Winterspring and Area 52 in Netherstorm.
 * All engineers can craft a teleport to several locations in Northrend and Pandaria.

Goggles
Engineers can craft goggles as head-slot items. These often have unique looks and offer decent stats for their level.

Guns
An engineer can make several different types of Guns, however some are Bind on Pickup and bind to the engineer - thus making them for all intents and purposes an Engineering-only weapon. Some of these guns, like the Mark "S" Boomstick, require expensive mats to create. This should be kept in mind if your engineer is a class that cannot use guns, or before crafting any gun to send to an alt which can use guns.

Miscellaneous Devices
Engineers specialize in items only they can use, with effects ranging from novelty to highly practical. Some engineer-only devices include:
 * Goblin Jumper Cables: brings an ally back to life, maybe!
 * Gnomish Battle Chicken: Summon a battle chicken to fight for you for 1.5 minutes or until destroyed. Gnomish engineers only.
 * Goblin Rocket Boots: Either makes you run fast or blows you up. Goblin engineers only.
 * Snowmaster 9000: Allows engineer to create snowballs any time of year.
 * Loot-A-Rang: Corpse with loot too far to reach? Use a Loot-A-Rang and nab it the lazy way!

Engineers in Warcraft

 * Tinker
 * Steam warrior
 * Sapper
 * Bombardier
 * Techslayer
 * Techno mage