Is engineering a must-have?

I've seen a LOT of engy pallies, and the FRD looks omgwtfbbqlol sweet if i can ever get one, or a recipie...

But I've been savaged before with some other characters. Leatherworking - omg what a waste. Jewellery - i should have seen the glut of jcs bringing prices down. Alchemy isn't super interesting, just harvest herbs and sell them for more than the potions they create

My theory now is to take money making skills (herbs/mining + skinning) and just buy anything I need.

Engineering has always interested me with the stun grenades and "bonus gear" like the rocket boots and death ray and all these other goodies.

Has anyone done a cost-benefit analysis of it?

Is it useful to level? (Currently 52)

Engineering is by far the cheapest of all the professions to level. By FAR. You can get away with using virtually no expensive materials if you're smart about how you do it - step one is to ignore every engineering guide out there. Engineering guides tackle engineering from the point of view that 'it's only worth making if you can sell it on the auctionhouse or DE it'. This coud not possibly be further from the truth. There are dozens of guides that suggest awful things like 'make 15 adamantite rifles'. Making one basically blows your entire curve of profit, let alone 15. These guides skip over, say, Frost Grenades for example, because Frost Grenades are A) consumable and B) take a primal as one of the base mat costs. What they ignore is the 20 gold you spend on one primal water gives you 20 or so combines. The other mat costs are negligible. I probably spent less than a thousand gold leveling my engineering, whereas I spent about 2500-3500 gold worth of materials leveling my shaman's leatherworking skill. I also didn't get half the mileage out of leatherworking that I have engineering.

Engineering as a profession is great. It's awesome for PVP and it's awesome for PVE. Even if you're only doing it for the goggles and the mount it's worth the grind. As a paladin you could genuinely use any of the three pairs of goggles at 70 as well, or all of them if you respec a lot. And the goggle mat costs are surprisingly cheap - under 250 gold a pair if you buy smart. Considering they're tier5 equivelant, you can do pretty well for yourself.

If you really want to make money, though, go Herbalism/Skinning. Herbs have the highest demand of any trade good in the game, and skins are expensive because most leatherworkers drop skinning at 70 to pick up a gear profession since leatherworking provides very little for them at the cap. They're not constantly making kits and drums, so they drop the profession and buy skins when they absolutely have to. The girlfriend did this and ended up with the money for her epic flyer the day she hit 70.

edit; also, the rocket launcher is really nice five man tanking gear when you want to shed avoidance but have a dodgy healer. Plus, it's an amazing pulling tool when you really don't want avengers to bring a second group.
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Gathering professions until you are 70. Enchanting is also viable for DEing and selling

Switch to what your want when you hit 70.

The fact is, with Curtana I am not even bothering to level any skill up (umm, except for First Aid) as I am crashing through the levels. Then I will quest grind for my normal flying mount, THEN choose a profession I'll settle on. Most likely Engineering/Mining until I get an alt up for that (thinking Rogue for skinning/mining).

I won't be sidetracked with levelling ANYTHING until my reroll pally is 70.

dunk
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Aggramar EU

Khaz'goroth Oceanic

sparti, it's quite likely guides ignore frost grenades because they weren't even in the game initially - they added them a couple of patches after tbc launched. i think the same patch that introduced them also majorly reduced the material requirements to make bullets and all the various parts (bolts, stabilizers, frames etc) that you need several dozen of to make other things to skill up. back at TBC launch levelling from around 330 to 375 was horrifically expensive unless you were a gnome (especially with all the new blacksmiths buying/farming ore for mooncleavers).

sadly i was already 350ish before i found out that as a goblin engg i could level from <200 to 375 just by reloading my goblin mortal over and over, for basically one night's farming solid stone in blasted lands.
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The original Level 70 Lore-stalker
Level 70 Hunter - Eredar (retired)

im a serious fan of engineering for tankadins.

the goggles alone make it very viable ( you would easily spend 1500g for a t5 equal helm if it was boe)

the rocket launcher is nice IF you can maintain uncrush with it in use ( even moreso with the furies card)

the smoke bombs are nice in raids for setting locations and explaining strats for those not serious enough to read before the raid.

the rest of the stuff is kinda cruddy but still fun to toy about with..

now that we have engineering flying mounts it wont be too long imo before someone does the wow version of "apocolypes now"

AIR CAV!!!
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I'm currently doing mining/skinnning on my paladin while leveling, and then I'm going to switch at 70 to engineering, dropping skinning for it. Along the way I'm collecting the materials to powerlevel it all the way up so the day I hit 70 I'll probably spend a few hours pulling everything out of my bank to level it.

I'll have to take your advice Sparti. I had been using the guide posted on the official forums as a guideline for materials, but I guess at work tomorrow I'll go through and make up my own list. I've still got around a month and a half at the pace I'm going though, so I've got time. If you want, I'll post it when I'm done.

I just dropped Blacksmithing for Engineering. (One of the harder decisions I've made, since I first took Blacksmithing on release day about 2 hours after the server went live and had never changed away from it.)

1. Flying Mount is The. Coolest. Thing. EVAR.

2. Goblin Rocket Launcher. Commander's badge from Netherwing rep has the same stam buff, but it won't let you single-target pull.

3. Goggles are ridiculously easy to make, given how good they are.

4. There's a lot of gear that can be made at max engineering that has no level requirement but is intended for level 68-70s. For example, my Level 55 Hunter has had, for the last 3 levels, the Foreman's Reinforced Helmet (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=23839) which is stupidly, ridiculously overpowered for a level 50-55. The only reason I don't have her her goggles yet is because I can't figure out a way to get her a Primal Nether.

Seriously consider Engineering. It's easy enough to level, and the benefits are great.

Oh, almost forgot. Your goggles will let you track gas clouds. While they're currently broken, it's been confirmed that they're broken and are being fixed in 2.3.2. Gas clouds are an engineering-only spawn that allows them to, with the use of a tool, extract 3-5 Motes of Air/Water/Shadow/Mana, depending on Zone. 12-14 Primals per hour is not unheard of, though that's pretty much top of the range with no competition.
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to answer your question: no
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Tanked: Midnight + Attunman, Maiden, Big Bad Wolf, Prince, Illhoof

No one's even mentioned the reason I love engineering (specifically gnomish), which is the teleporters. Having two different "hearthstones" back into the Outlands is very convenient, and a Kalimdor port, and specifically the Gadget port, makes getting to CoT instances a hell of a lot quicker (for everyone, if two people have the portal or there's a mage bound in Gadget).

Another great reason is seaforium. The Outlands style sea-4 takes dirt cheap mats (4 fel iron bars and 2 elemental blasting powder, which comes from 2 motes of earth and one of fire), creates two per combine, and you never have to sadly pass by a locked chest in an instance because you don't have a rogue.

Also, fireworks (the good kind via the Lunar Festival patterns) are a ton of fun.
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No.

I've been very happy with enchanting and jewelcrafting.

Jewelcrafting provides an income stream, a number of useful BoP trinkets and a number of useful BoP gems.

Enchanting provides an income stream, and gives you BoP ring enchants.

That's not to say that engineering is not also an excellent choice for a paladin, but it's not a must-have.
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It is not a must have.

Ask yourself, "how much do I want a helm that I will not replace until I am in Black Temple?" That's really what it comes down to.
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armory | youtube | stuff

I just dropped smithing for it. Those goggles, teleports, bombs, flying machines, rocket launcher, and repair bots are too cool. I cannot believe I held out this long lol.

BTW Invisusira, I love the fact that, (with the exceptions of those shoudlers and TF) all your gear is obtainable in Heroics and 10 mans.

That's all I wanna do and it's gonna rock when I get rolling.

P.S.

Get engineering.
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OK...

Looks like the general consensus is to get engineering. I'll have a play around with the guides and see what the most efficient levelling is.

My main - 70 warlock alchemist - brings in enough cash that I don't have to worry about a secondary income stream for my pally. I just have to worry about spiffy tools.

Lucky I already have mining.