So now that we've covered what should have been the simplest comparison between the two realms, let's move on to something a little more complex. Yes, I know there's still at least one "this should be really simple" comparison left with rogues versus thieves, and arguably guardians and paladins could fall into this category as well. However I have to line someone up to do those posts, so they'll be ready when their corresponding "expert" gets off their butt and writes it. Solannis/Solagar is taking his time researching guardians (I think he's just pouting about the whole name/race change, but don't tell him I said anything). As for rogues, Takkal's not a very experienced writer, so I'll have to work with him on that one. In the meantime though, I do have someone that's done their homework.
Like I mentioned in our "we're not dead!" post, Medeleth has actually been the main person pushing for our move to Tyria. He's been putting in the bulk of his time these days into researching the world and hooking up everyone on the team with all of the pertinent information for their preferred professions. Now I could say that he's just a fan of the world or that he's finally taking an active interest in team business, but I'm not an idiot. I read his initial notes and I discovered his ulterior motives. Well, ulterior is probably giving it too much credit since half of that first memo he gave me could be paraphrased as "I can be an engineer instead of a warlock! Screw this magical nonsense, I wanna live here!" So without further ado, here's Med to tell all of you about engineers in Tyria:
First off, I was not that overly exuberant in my initial reports. It was simply a pleasant surprise to find a world that treats engineering as more than a mere hobby one does on the side to acquire a flying machine or a pair of goggles.
Care to clarify for everyone what you mean by "mere hobby"?
Certainly. As you're well aware, I think of myself first and foremost as an engineer. Given the choice, I would prefer to solve problems through the proper application of science. Well, and explosives. Regardless, my options for this method of problem solving have always been limited. The bombs I made had the potential to take out a foe, but for whatever reason, the laws that govern Azeroth dictate that I can only use one bomb every minute. I had other options for dealing damage with engineering, but those had similar cooldowns (if not longer). If I wanted to defeat an enemy of similar power through engineering alone, assuming that they never healed, such a battle would take about a half hour, if not longer. In addition, all of these tools required a significant investment of capital and resources to develop. As such, not only were my tools woefully inadequate for the tasks I was attempting, I was paying a premium for the privilege of failing at said tasks. This would be the primary reason I've spent the bulk of the last few years practicing as a warlock during tasks I've performed for our company. My warlock abilities got the job done, but I've never felt the sense of satisfaction from casting an Immolate like I have from making a mechanohog.
Okay, so what makes Tyria different? What makes you think that you'll be taken seriously as a professional engineer there when you've been less than successful back in Azeroth?
Numerous reasons, but I'll start from the beginning. For Tyrians engineering is not treated as a sidejob one does when they've got some downtime between running dungeons. In Tyria engineering is on par with professions like warrior and elementalist and one is expected to put in the same degree of dedication, if not more, to our craft as they would into learning your warrior abilities or a elementalist's spells. As a full-fledged profession, engineering has the same defining characteristics as any other profession: weapon selections, armor options, and combat skills.
Weapon selection are fairly basic and fit the profession: rifle, pistol and a shield, or dual-wielding pistols. This part actually covers one of the other issues I've always had with Azerothian engineering. Over the years I've made numerous rifles to advance my skills as an engineer. Some of these we've found a use for with different members of the team. However, the bulk of those weapons have either found their way to Matheion for disenchanting or to a vendor so they could be sold for a mere pittance. I'm not sure what was more insulting: the fact that I couldn't use the weapons that I designed, or the fact that there were so many of my fellow engineers working on their own skills that the effective assembly line they'd formed had devalued our inventions to the point where the finished product was worth less than its components.
You're preaching to the choir, Med. I'm a blacksmith - I'm used to basically throwing away gold for the sake of perfecting my techniques.
Yes, I know that you can sympathize with that particular problem, but you don't identify yourself first and foremost as a blacksmith. It's a point of pride for you, just like your Chef title, but you don't introduce yourself to others as Ragar, the blacksmith.
Point taken. So your weapons include firearms and a shield. We already talked earlier about how weapons dictate most of our skills in Tyria. Any details on your available skills?
Indeed, we'll start with the rifle. First you have Hip Shot, a fairly basic attack but one you can perform while on the move. There's Net Shot which is fairly self-explanatory: you shoot a net at your target. Blunderbuss is a bit more interesting; it's a shot meant to cause your target to bleed (well, more so than any wound typically does), but it's more effective at close range. This seems like it's somewhat counter-intuitive given that rifles are normally considered a long range weapon. However your other two skills include Overcharged Shot (an attack that knocks back both you and your opponent) and Jump Shot (you launch yourself to a target location and actually deal damage to enemies near your landing zone). When you look at these five skills as a whole, you start to see potential synergy. An approaching enemy could be immobilized with a Net Shot with Hip Shots until he gets too close. At that point you could use Blunderbuss for the maximized bleeding effect, Overcharged Shot to knock both of you back, then Net Shot him to start the cycle over again. Should your opponent then decide that he'd rather not stick around, you could combine Jump Shot and Net Shot to prevent his escape.
It's like Heroic Leap, but useful
Dual-wielding pistols is another option. While it's lacking a lot of the distance control options of using a rifle, it does still have Glue Shot for that basic immobilize effect. What it lacks in control however, it makes up for in damaging effects. Explosive Shot is a basic attack that explodes on impact with a target. Dart Volley fires a poisonous dart at the target. Static Shot is a lightning attack which includes a blinding effect. Finally there's Flamethrower, which operates similar to Blunderbuss in the "more damage the closer the target is" effect, but it's fire instead of bleeding.
The pistol/shield option is fairly similar to dual-wielding pistols, but you're trading Glue Shot and Flamethrower for Absorb (you can absorb a projectile from an enemy for use against them later) or Deploy Ballistic Barrier (place a static barrier to intercept enemy projectiles). If you're in a situation where projectiles are a major concern, then the shield option's there. Personally I have a hard time choosing that over the mobility options of the rifle or dual-pistol's Flamethrower skill, but it's there if you need it. Well, assuming you don't want to use the actual Flamethrower at your disposal.
Wait, *actual* Flamethrower? As in more than one?
Indeed, and now we're getting to the good part. You know the various non-weapon skills you covered in your warrior post?
Yes, utility, healing, and elite skills. For warriors we can choose from options like shouts, banners, and stances to support our weapon skills.
That is correct: your utility skills *support* your weapon skills. As an engineer, my utility skills *become* my weapon skills. Let's start with the categories our utility skills far into: weapon kits, backpack kits, and turrets.
Weapon kits are essentially additional weapon sets we can switch to during battle in addition to the normal two sets everyone can swap between. There are a few different options here, but my personal favorite is the Flamethrower Kit. When activated, my weapon skills are replaced with five new skills. Flame Jet allows you to spray multiple enemies with fire while on the move. Flame Blast fires a ball of plasma towards your enemies that will explode upon impact. Air Blast not only interrupts enemy casts, but also knocks them back and deflects projectiles. Napalm creates a flame wall that will burn and blind your foes. Finally, Backdraft will pull your opponents towards you, setting them up for your other attacks.
Backpack kits for the most part operate like weapon kits and replace your weapon skills with new backpack-related abilities. A Grenade Kit, for example, gives you a regular grenade attack in addition to a variety of grenades that cause status effects. However, some backpack kits don't replace your weapon skills. The Med Kit gives you the option of dropping medical packs that can heal your allies if they should run over them. In this case, you could have a rifle out and in between shots, you could use your Med Kit to drop a medical pack for someone, then immediately go back to shooting.
Turrets are closer to the Med Kit in operation in that they won't replace your weapon skills. Instead you simply drop your turret on the ground and go back to doing whatever you were up to before. However while the medical packs are single-use (your ally picks them up and now it's gone), the turret has a little more presence on the battlefield. Once used, it stays on the battlefield for a while and does its specific task. A Rifle Turret is pretty self-explanatory: it shoots whatever is in range. Other options include the Flame Turret, Thumper Turret, and the Healing Turret.
Would've traded that worthless imp for one of these turrets in a heartbeat
So the Healing Turret would give you a healing utility skill in addition to your self-healing skill?
Not quite. The Healing Turret would actually take the place of your self-healing skill. Your choice there would be between the turret, the Med Kit, and Elixir H.
Okay, so if the turret can heal you, I suppose that implies that you could heal yourself by running over your own medical packs from the Med Kit.
I cannot confirm that, but my instincts say no simply because of the Tool Belt.
What does a belt have to do with healing?
The Tool Belt is an engineer specific trait, kind of like adrenaline is for you warriors. The Tool Belt gives us the option of overcharging our kits.
So you won't miss out on all of that exploding from your Goblin Engineering days?
Very funny, but no. Basically it gives engineers a cooldown option to get an extra feature out of our kits. In the case of the Med Kit, you get a self-healing option. Grenade Kits can be overcharged for a grenade barrage. If I were using a Mine Kit and had a bunch of mines set up, I could use the overcharge to set them all off. Finally, I could overcharge a turret to get a more powerful attack (e.g. Rifle Turret would fire off a burst attack while the Thumper Turret would knock down nearby foes in addition to doing damage to them).
So to summarize, your profession's going from "a neat little hobby" to making you a full fledged Gnomish Army Knife in combat. That about cover it?
You're cutting out a lot of the nuance and emphasis, but yes, that describes the situation in layman's terms. However that doesn't quite cover the potential the new improved engineer has. A novice engineer could just grab a rifle and happily fire away at his foes. A true master however will be making use of all tools at his disposal.
Let's say that I'm using a rifle, Med Kit, Mine Kit, Flamethrower Kit, and a Thumper Turret; there's also the elite skill, but I'm missing information for those other than the Elixir Kit and that's not part of this example. Now with this loadout, we'll say that I'm getting ready to fight a group of enemies. Rather than just using my rifle right away, I could set up for the fight by placing mines and a Thumper Turret in between myself and my foes. Next I could start the pull either with a Hip Shot or, in the case of one target being a bigger threat than the others, a Net Shot to stagger him behind the rest of the group. Now that the group's heading my way, I can continue firing away while they run through the mines and the AoE from the turret. Once they start to get close though, I can switch to the flamethrower for AoE damage. Between the mines, turret, and flamethrower, this should be enough to handle the weaker parts of the pull. That just leaves the foe I immobilized and any potential survivors of the AoE assault. If I need to finish off the survivors, I could use Net Shot again and go back to AoE work. Once that's finished, I can switch over to the Rifle and use the rotation I mentioned earlier to take them down.
This is only one example of the potential of the engineer profession. I could go on about potential battle scenarios for pages, but this should set the tone for what's possible. Hopefully I've managed to properly convey the exact reasons for my excitement about moving to Tyria in this post.
I think you covered the matter fairly well. Thanks for your time, Med. If you come up with anything else that needs a post, let me know.
That should just about cover the engineer profession. That's two down, six to go. Time to start persuading the rest of the team to get to writing. See you next time.
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