WoW Classic engineering guide - craft your way through Vanilla

The launch of the official WoW Classic servers is upon us, and there will be many old, well-known questions brought back to the discussion within World of Warcraft community. Which class should I pick? Which profession is the best? Which race? What specialization is the most useful for Paladin? Should I go for PvE or PvP? 

If you were asking yourself which profession is the best in the end game, we might have the answer. 

What is Engineering in WoW Classic?

Wow Classic Engineering is a crafting profession allowing you to create certain items from materials using recipes and templates. You can consider it a sort of techno-mechanical answer to the Alchemy.

What's worth mentioning is that Engineering is the most combat-affecting profession of all, mainly due to the ability to craft all sorts of bombs, dynamites, grenades, and battle pets. And even though Alchemy potions and flasks are also useful in a direct fight, it doesn't have as much influence as Engineering.

The variety of items it provides is huge:

Gear: Force Reactive Disk being the best example here, as you cannot find it anywhere else, you can only craft it with engineering. It is widely used by tanks even in high-end dungeons and raids due to its value in clearing hordes of trash mobs.

Explosives - pretty much self-explanatory. A good, powerful bomb will always have its application in both PvE and PvP.

Pets - every hit someone else is taking for you is already an advantage. And having a pet, which can also deal damage, is priceless. This is why Hunters and Warlocks are the best in leveling.

PvP Trinkets - all sorts of reflectors are also priceless. An ability to reflect a spell will always be useful in PvP.

Additional Hearthstones - Dimensional Ripper - Everlook and Ultrasafe Transporter: Gadgetzan are pseudo-Hearthstones, allowing you to move throughout the world quickly. And no gold can buy time.

Gadgets - some are useful like Field Repair Bot 74A (allows to repair items), some are just for fun like Fireworks.

As mentioned before it requires materials, so it is a common practice to pair it with Mining.

Engineering can fill a lot of gaps in certain classes toolset. No pet? Make Lil Smoky. No reliable AoE damage? Craft a bomb. No crowd control? Get your stun grenades. This is what makes Engineering an excellent choice for end game activities, especially PvP.

At skill level 200 and character level 30 you can choose a specialization - Goblin or Gnomish Engineering. Once chosen, it cannot be swapped to the other one even after resetting skill progress in Engineering. As it was said many times - you have to plan everything ahead in Vanilla.

Gnomish Engineering 

When your character reaches level 30, and you have 200 Engineering skill, you can get a quest "Gnome Engineering" from many Engineering trainers all over the Azeroth. This will lead to Tinkmaster Overspark in Ironforge for Alliance or Oglethorpe Obnoticus in Stranglethorn Vale's Booty Bay for Horde.

As soon as the quest is finished, another quest is available - Show Your Work. To finish it player needs 6 Mithril Tubes, Advanced Target Dummy, and an Accurate Scope. It doesn't matter how the player gets it. Completing the quest will grant the player Gnomish Engineering spec along with Gnome Engineer Membership Card. The membership will allow you to learn schematics available exclusively from Gnomish Engineering Trainer. It lasts for 336 hours of playing time and can be renewed via the "Membership Card Renewal" quest.

Gnomish Engineering tends to be more sophisticated and creativity-oriented. Usage of each item can have more application than just straight forward blow something up. Gnomes are generally more subtle and creative in this department.

Gnomish Engineering is more utility-focused with lots of Bind on Equip items, with the most notable being:

- Gnomish Death Ray - charges over time using the player's life force to send a direct burst of energy at the enemy. The instruction says: "Death or Serious Injury may result from the use of this device"

- Gnomish Shrink Ray - the target gets shrunk which results in attack power reduced by 250 (if nothing goes wrong),

- Gnomish Battle Chicken - creates a Battle Chicken, that will charge to fight for you and battle your foes for a duration or until destruction,

- Gnomish Mind Control Cap - if everything goes right, allows you to control the mind of humanoid for 20 seconds with a 30 minutes cooldown,

- Gnomish Net-o-Matic Projector - if it doesn't backfire, the net should capture the enemy for 10 seconds.

- Ultrasafe Transporter: Gadgetzan - teleports the player to Gadgetzan safely. Or at least the instruction says it's safe,

- Gnomish Rocket Boots - significant run speed increase,

- Gnomish Harm Prevention Belt - upon using gives a shield that absorbs 500 incoming damage for the next 10 minutes; have side effects,

- Lil' Smoky - allows you to summon and dismiss a robot.

All of these can be used with great success in both PvE and PvP.

Goblin Engineering

Well, Goblins are definitely less subtle and sophisticated than Gnomes. Safe to say it is more BOOM-oriented. Goblin Engineering offers you more firepower, and less utility. But isn't firepower a kind of utility in a sense?

The path to learning Goblin Engineering is similar to the Gnomish counterpart. When you reach level 30 on your character as well as Engineering skill level 200, you will be able to get the quest "Goblin Engineering" from many trainers throughout the Azeroth. They will lead you to Nixx Sprocketspring in Gadgetzan (Tanaris), who will give you "The Pledge of Secrecy" quest. It is quite simple, nothing of a big deal. 

Once you complete the quest, you will be granted the possibility to go for the "Show Your Work" quest. It requires you to bring 20 Big Iron Bombs, 20 Solid Dynamites and 5 Explosive Sheep. The way you get them is totally on you. Turning it in, will grant you Goblin Engineering specialization along with Goblin Engineer Membership Card, which works just the same as its Gnomish counterpart.

Most important items would be:

- Goblin Sapper Charge - upon using triggers an explosion that deals 450-750 Fire damage to nearby foes and 375-625 damage to the caster. The most honest one, as it says it will hurt you right away,

- Goblin Rocket Fuel - used to power Goblin Engineers creations,

- Goblin Rocket Helmet - it is charging the enemy, knocking it silly for a duration, as well as stunning the caster,

- Goblin Bomb Dispenser - creates mobile bomb charing at the enemy dealing 315-385 Fire damage,

- The Big One - deals 340-460 Fire damage, stunning targets within 10 yards radius,

- Dimensional Ripper - Everlook - teleports a character to Everlook in Winterspring. Sometimes. Sometimes it doesn't,

- Goblin Rocket Boots - significant run speed increase (with a risk of explosion),

- Goblin Jumper Cables - sometimes can revive a dead player. Can be used out of combat only,

- Pet Bombling - allows you to summon a bomb pet.

Why level Engineering in Vanilla?

Engineering is considered by many players, one of the best and useful endgame professions in Vanilla. The number of possibilities and utilities it can provide is astonishing and breathtaking. It offers and allows you to kind of cheat your class by "creating" abilities exclusive for other classes (like AoE CC Tauren War Stomp covered by a stun grenade or Rogue specific stealth).

It is pretty wanted in PvE, as some tools can aid you with threat management, AoE trash mobs clearing and summoning robo-pet to the tank.

However, it is PvP, where Engineering thrives. Items it allows you to craft can add a lot of utility into PvP battles. This said if you are aiming for PvP, and going Warrior or Rogue, Engineering should be your go-to profession. 

Why not level Engineering?

For many players, this is not the best gold making profession. The reason being is that if Engineering tools are to be relevant, they require a lot of gold themselves with little to no potential return.

Most of the players advise creating a gold making alt. Also, you can create an engineering alt, but overall, it is less efficient time-wise and gold-wise.

This being said if you're going Engineering on your main, be prepared for poverty.

The best races for Engineering

Actually, the headline should go as "The best race for Engineering". There is no discussion among the community about the topic, as there can be only one ultimate engineer in Vanilla.

Gnome.

Gnomes as the only race in Classic WoW have anything that serves the purpose of tinkering. Their racial trait gives them a +15 bonus Engineering. It's not much, but after all, Gnome will reach specific useful schematics 15 points earlier, than any other race. Also, +15 bonus will allow them to use certain schematics available from 240 skill points while being still an Expert (default 225 skill). It does huge work in mid-level PvP battlegrounds, as Gnomes can use more advanced gadgets exceeding their level bracket.

The best class for Engineering

In Classic WoW, you had to plan everything ahead. Race, class, professions - all of it had to be determined before creating a character. 

Why?

Simply put, everything was harder, less available, more challenging, and more expensive than it is now. In the early game just as the World of Warcraft was released, you could have played whatever you like. It didn't really matter. But later on, if you wanted to be relevant in the world of Azeroth, you had to have all the advantage you could possibly achieve.

Being the best tank required going for Warrior, which meant painful grinding (or power leveling).

End game PvP was an excellent place for Rogues to be, and Gnome with Escape Artist make fantastic Rogue.

Farming as a Druid was even better if you chose Tauren with his Herbalism bonus.

Paladin for PvE was better to be Human, and for PvP - Dwarf.

Engineering can cover up some of the class weaknesses. Hunter and Warlock classes are the best in solo PvE thanks to their pets. Guess what? You can craft a pet with either Gnomish or Goblin Engineering.

Just behind Warlocks and Hunters are Mages because of AoE damage and insta-clearing trash mobs. You can also create AoE bombs if you are skilled enough in Engineering.

Then we have Priest. Their sustain makes them the most efficient levellers, although not the fastest. You can make up for it with some Engineering items (however they will be not as powerful as those of Alchemy profession).

Druids can travel fast before getting a mount. You can close the class-gap a little with certain items, like Goblin Rocket Boots (if they decide not to explode and hurt you).

The shaman has decent sustain but unreliable damage. A bomb or two can help greatly. Besides, as he's mana hungry, one good grenade can buy him enough time for some mana to regen.

Every class can benefit from Engineering, but some items may require high enough Engineering skill to use or equip. Many items worn in the 'head' slot are cloth armor, which can be freely used by all clothies - Priests, Mages, and Warlocks. This profession also allows you to craft scopes, guns, and ammo, which is extremely useful for Hunters. Range attack provided by grenades and dynamite works excellent for Paladins.

PvP Gnome Rogue

We'd like to highlight this one because, in our opinion, this is where Engineering combined with Gnome racial traits really shines. Gnomes are naturally good Rogues - having a lot of Crowd Control rogue abilities in combination with CC evasion (Escape Artist), is dangerous beyond measure.

If you add some cool toys and gadgets into the fray, you will receive a pretty unstoppable mix. Also, toys can help Rogue with leveling, which is not that great for this class.

Gnomes have +15 bonus to Engineering, which allows them to reach certain mastery earlier in levels than other races. This opens up a potential for twinking and wreaking havoc in mid-levels PvP. 

How to get to max Engineering in WoW Classic?

All professions in WoW Classic share the same pattern. To skill them up, you need to perform certain activities specific for the profession. And so for Herbalism, you need to gather herbs, for Mining you have to mine ores and for Fishing you got to, well, fish.

The activities have different levels of difficulty, which determine the chance of skilling up.

- orange - 100% chance,

- yellow - frequent, 

- green - infrequent,

- gray - none.

Over time the game will understand that you are getting better and better, so the difficulty level will increase accordingly. And so once yellow activities will become green, and green ones will be gray.

Also, there are thresholds on the way, which require a skill trainer to go over.

Apprentice 

- skill level range: 1-50.

- requirements: level 1. 

- trainer - any major city.

Journeyman 

- skill level range: 50-125,

- requirements: 50 skill, level 10, 

- trainer: any major city.

Expert

- skill level range: 125-200, 

- requirements: 125 skill, level 20, 

- Trainer: Springspindle Fizzlegear for Alliance (Tinker Town in Ironforge) and Roxxik for Horde (Valley of Honor in Orgrimmar).

Artisan

- skill level range: 200+, 

- requirements: 200 skill, level 35, 

- Trainer: Buzzek Bracketswing (Gadgetzan in Tanaris).

Engineering leveling guide - from 1 to 300

As was mentioned you will need some materials in order to craft some items. The way you obtain those materials doesn’t matter. The most efficient way requires:

- Bronze Bar > 55,

- Coarse Blasting Powder > 20,

- Coarse Stone - > 20,

- Copper Bar > 44,

- Copper Tube > 10,

- Dense Stone > 20,

- Handful of Copper Bolts > 10,

- Heavy Blasting Powder > 50,

- Heavy Leather > 25,

- Heavy Stone > 20,

- Iron Bar > 15,

- Mageweave Cloth > 5,

- Mithril Bar > 90,

- Mithril Casing > 20,

- Rough Stone > 39,

- Runecloth > 30,

- Silver Bar > 10,

- Silver Contact > 15,

- Solid Blasting Powder > 50,

- Solid Stone > 28,

- Steel Bar > 4,

- Thorium Bar > 150,

- Unstable Trigger > 10,

- Wool Cloth > 5.

We would be more than happy to give you just exact amount of gold you need to prepare for this training, but the values are constantly changing, so there is no point to it. 

Activities you need to perform are:

1-75 leveling guide table

75-150 leveling guide table

150-225 leveling guide table

225-300 leveling guide table

These are minimum values. It is recommended to have more of those, just in case. For example, creating Dense Blasting Powder 20 times or Gyromatic Micro-Adjustor once sometimes somehow may not be enough to skill up.

As you can see from the tables, some items we've been creating earlier were useful later on, e. g. Solid Blasting Powder is used to create Unstable Triggers, and these are required to create Hi-Explosive Bomb. This way, you conserve some money and time.

Of course, you can go through all 300 levels doing random things that have a chance of granting you a skill point. This guide was made for you to guide you through Engineering in the most time, and gold efficient manner. 

The best Engineering items in WoW Classic

The array of tools, bombs, trinkets, and gadgets you can craft with Engineering is wide as the Amazon River. An attempt to list and describe all of them would take a lot of time, and time is the scarcest resource in WoW Classic. So we'll break down the most notable items.

PvE

Every raid or dungeon party can make use of good Engineering stuff. Especially reflectors which are highly demanded during the hardest encounters, or bombs helping players with AoE clearing mobs. 

- Mechanical Dragonling - available from level 30, can significantly help slow leveling classes like Warriors or Paladins to pull more effectively,

- Flame Deflector - don't go to Molten Core or dragon raids without it, as you will get burn.

- Hyper-Radiant Flame Reflector - priceless in confrontation with the ones mentioned above. Although fire-casting bosses usually have high Fire resistances, still not taking damage from a spell is worth it. You will find it useful when fighting Ragnaros, Onyxia, or dragons in Blackwing Lair.

- Goblin Sapper Charge - we've already mentioned this device, as it's exceptional at clearing large groups of mobs during raids/dungeons. 

- Arcanite Dragonling/Gnomish Battle Chicken - helps in terms of DPS and threat management, specifically during boss pull.

- Field Repair Bot 74A - free repair. Can save you some reviving time in an instance.

- Goblin Jumper Cables - works similarly to Repair Bot, but on players. Bringing back someone with Resurrect can bring back the whole party.

PvP

This is where Engineering tools really shine. Many classes are destined to battle against other players, which have slight flaws. Each flaw can be covered by some sophisticated toy. Especially aforementioned Gnome Rogues. Well trained and geared Gnomish Rogue can make a huge difference as he was at least a couple of levels ahead of everybody.

- Gnomish Cloaking Device - allows a player to disappear. Just like Rogues.

- Goblin Sapper Charge - its damage can help you clear trash mobs as well as trash enemy players. Useful especially in scenarios, where enemies are stacked close together, like turtling in Alterac Valley.

- Gnomish Net-o-Matic Projector - CC is priceless in PvP. 

- Goblin Rocket Boots - a burst of speed can help you big time for example in Warsong Gulch capture the flag matchup.

- Goblin Rocket Helmet - must have in PvP. Automatically gives you numbers advantage in any scenario. 

- Gnomish Mind Control Cap - gives you even better numbers advantage, as it turns enemy players against them.

- Gnomish Death Ray - offers a high burst of damage. Like Mage-high. 

- World Enlarger - combined with Noggenfogger Elixir can make your character so small, that it's really easy to overlook you. Especially if you're Gnome. 

- Thorium Grenade - high-end PvP explosive. Deals Fire damage and stuns targets within 3 yards radius. And as we said, CC is priceless in PvP.

- Major Recombobulator - dispels any polymorph effects on an ally and restores some HP and mana. CC is priceless in PvP (didn't we say it already?), so a way to counter it is also valuable.

- Arcane bomb - we will not repeat ourselves. Arcane bomb outside of huge damage it deals, also silences enemies for 5 seconds. Imagine landing it on a group of healers. Game over.

- Reflectors - any item, that can send a spell back to the caster with a full effect will always find applications in PvP, where Mages and Warlocks wreak Havoc. 

Summary

Whether you are new to Vanilla and you want to know a thing or two about Engineering, or you are a veteran and you could teach us about the game - you can find useful information here. If you ever find yourself asking which WoW Classic profession you should go for, you will never regret choosing Engineering. It brings a lot of utility and fun.

Enjoying our guides? We have plenty of those. Be sure to check them out and leave comments on our Facebook website and Twitter.

FAQ

What is Engineering in WoW Classic?

It is the primary crafting profession, which allows your character to create useful items from materials.

Where can I learn Engineering in Vanilla?

From skill level 1 to 150 you will find a trainer in every big city in Azeroth. 

For Expert level, you have to search for either Springspindle Fizzlegear in Tinker Town (Alliance) or Roxxik in Valley of Honor in Orgrimmar (Horde).

Buzzrek Bracketswing is your teacher if you want further progress. You can visit him at Gadgetzan in Tanaris.

Is Engineering good in WoW Classic?

Some say it's the best.

It is useful in both PvP and PvE, so works great as an endgame profession. If this is your target, you can go for it.

But if you aim for leveling, farming gold or boosting, other choices are better.

What is the best race for Engineering?

Gnome. Period.

Gnomes have racial trait +15 Engineering. No other race have anything that would help with this profession.

Is Engineering good for gold making?

Nope. It's rather other way around - gold is needed for Engineering.

What is the best class for Engineering in Vanilla?

Every class can benefit from Engineering creations, and in such complex game, as WoW Classic is, nothing is clear-cut.

However we'd advise you to go for this profession on your main endgame character and create gold making alt, since these two don't go together. With Engineering gold is a commodity in short supply.

Should I choose Gnomish or Goblin Engineering?

Should you choose blonde or redhead? 

Seriously, the choice is strictly personal. Gnomish Engineering is more about fooling your opponents, while Goblin specialization is about blowing them up. You can base your choice on the class and race you picked, as Engineering can give you pretty much anything that you lack - mobility, damage, crowd control etc.