Engineers: Grounded Plasma Shield or Nitro Boosts?

For tanking.

Honestly, I'm torn. About halfway through Wrath, I switched out the 22 stamina to feet for Nitro Boosts and never looked back. The speed bump is so good.

On the other hand, 18k absorb is pretty damn good, and gives an extra cooldown to cycle through on a cooldown-intensive fight. The misfires, however, suck ass, almost as much as the Plasma Shield standard function is good. I have only had the shield misfire once, and it was the AoE taunt misfire, but I don't use it as much as I probably should.

Both of these abilities are really strong, which is why it's a tough choice. There have been quite a few moments in combat when I go for the Nitro Boosts at a critical moment... and then realize that I don't have them anymore. Is it worth giving up the absorb, though? So hard to say...

Opinions from other Tankgineers out there?

Boots have too high of a failure rate to be used as a tank. I've also banned their use on Nef by everyone, since getting shot up into the air will kill you with the debuff you get if you try to hide on the pillars.

I personally use the cardboard assassin for some fights (add tanking on Mal, Nef). Given tinkers lock each other out for a minute and I use gloves on CD, I don't know that I'd consider the plasma shield a "reliable" CD.

Also, given the possible failures of the plasma shield I don't know that I'd ever use the plasma shield for content that matters.

The more I think about the incessant shitting on engineering the more I'm leaning towards just dumping it for blacksmithing. Again.

I use the cardboard assassin. I find it suitably beneficial even as bosses are untauntable.

Digren wrote:I use the cardboard assassin. I find it suitably beneficial even as bosses are untauntable.

When do you use it? Adds on Maloriak, or something?

fuzzygeek wrote:Boots have too high of a failure rate to be used as a tank. I've also banned their use on Nef by everyone, since getting shot up into the air will kill you with the debuff you get if you try to hide on the pillars.

I personally use the cardboard assassin for some fights (add tanking on Mal, Nef). Given tinkers lock each other out for a minute and I use gloves on CD, I don't know that I'd consider the plasma shield a "reliable" CD.

Also, given the possible failures of the plasma shield I don't know that I'd ever use the plasma shield for content that matters.

The more I think about the incessant shitting on engineering the more I'm leaning towards just dumping it for blacksmithing. Again.

Does the assassin fully distract enemies for 15 seconds, or does it take X amount of damage and then die? EDIT: NM, looked it up.

Also, the shield and the glove armor cooldowns are not linked. You can pop both at the same time if you wish to do so.

Has the failure rate on boots gone up overall? I know it skyrocketed when Cataclysm hit and we started leveling up, but I thought that the public outcry convinced Blizzard to return the failure rate to the previous low rates?

Ardrhyst wrote:Has the failure rate on boots gone up overall? I know it skyrocketed when Cataclysm hit and we started leveling up, but I thought that the public outcry convinced Blizzard to return the failure rate to the previous low rates?

They did not revert the nerf. I've not re-tinkered boosts since the original heroic grind, but two weeks ago we had two people killed on Nef due to failures, and I routinely see people hitting the ceiling during trash. The penalty for boot failure is catastrophic enough that I will not use it.

100% increased crit chance on plasma shield is reason enough for me to never use it, not to mention the stun effect as well -- none of the negative effects are worth the pittance absorbed.

fuzzygeek wrote:

Ardrhyst wrote:Has the failure rate on boots gone up overall? I know it skyrocketed when Cataclysm hit and we started leveling up, but I thought that the public outcry convinced Blizzard to return the failure rate to the previous low rates?

They did not revert the nerf. I've not re-tinkered boosts since the original heroic grind, but two weeks ago we had two people killed on Nef due to failures, and I routinely see people hitting the ceiling during trash. The penalty for boot failure is catastrophic enough that I will not use it.

100% increased crit chance on plasma shield is reason enough for me to never use it, not to mention the stun effect as well -- none of the negative effects are worth the pittance absorbed.

From what I have come to understand, there were two nerfs to boosts, one of which has been reverted and one of which that has not:

1. The failure rate increases every level over 80, to a staggeringly high failure rate at 85. This change was reverted back to the original, now static, failure rate.
2. Whereas Nitro Boosts used to be unable to fail in raids, now they can. This is still in effect, which is why we see so comparatively many failures now; most of the time we were using Nitro Boosts in Wrath, it was in a situation where they couldn't misfire.

I still can't see the usefulness of Cardboard Assassin outweighing the usefulness of the shield, even with the possible negative effects. As I said, I've used the shield many dozens of times and have only seen one misfire. Even when you get a misfire, you still have a one in three chance of it not mattering.

In 75% of raid boss fights, Cardboard Assassin does absolutely nothing. Woot? Even on the fights with adds, how good is it? On Maloriak, you can kite a near infinite number of dorks with a single frost patch. On Nefarian, the dummy will hold the adds in place, making it more likely that a badly timed shadowspark will rain on your parade. What else are you using them for?

Suppose this thread has gone in an entirely different direction than intended.

Yeah, none of these things are that amazing, hence my leaning back towards dumping engineering for blacksmithing, again.

There's a timer for fire on Nef, so that can be worked around.

Isn't it great that eng is the only profession that gives you things with negative side effects?

Ardrhyst wrote:From what I have come to understand, there were two nerfs to boosts, one of which has been reverted and one of which that has not:

1. The failure rate increases every level over 80, to a staggeringly high failure rate at 85. This change was reverted back to the original, now static, failure rate.
2. Whereas Nitro Boosts used to be unable to fail in raids, now they can. This is still in effect, which is why we see so comparatively many failures now; most of the time we were using Nitro Boosts in Wrath, it was in a situation where they couldn't misfire.

I still can't see the usefulness of Cardboard Assassin outweighing the usefulness of the shield, even with the possible negative effects. As I said, I've used the shield many dozens of times and have only seen one misfire. Even when you get a misfire, you still have a one in three chance of it not mattering.

In 75% of raid boss fights, Cardboard Assassin does absolutely nothing. Woot? Even on the fights with adds, how good is it? On Maloriak, you can kite a near infinite number of dorks with a single frost patch. On Nefarian, the dummy will hold the adds in place, making it more likely that a badly timed shadowspark will rain on your parade. What else are you using them for?

Suppose this thread has gone in an entirely different direction than intended.

With the plasma shield or nitro boost there is a good chance you are going to wipe your raid if they were to backfire; if you are ok with that then use one of them. With cardboard assassin that will never happen.

i decided to remove the plasma shield from my belt and put the nitro boosts on not so i can sprint in boss fights but so i can sprint on corpse runs etc

after one nights raiding im removing them for the cardboard assasin

popped them twice on atramede with the plan that ill pop them at the last second i can possibly kite the fire beam then if they back fire hes gotta be stunned anyway and if they dont great i can kite him a lil longer

first time was great! that plus swiftness pot plus body and soul atramedes never had a chance!
second time i flew way way way up into the air (im sure they increased the height they send you) no biggy he got stunned and i gracefully parachuted back to earth!

later on fighting cho'gall i forgot that i had /use 10 macroed into my ardent defender i popped that on phase 2 chogall when hes at about 3% i fly up into the air dropping aggro chogall proceeds to massacre my raid group and i fall to my death...then i realized what happened and changed my ardent defender macro!

wish they would make it so our profession works engineering has always been the fun profession! but there is nothing fun about causing wipes which all of our belt tinkers except the cardboard assassin can do! and our assassin cant even tank raid bosses anymore!


and i seam to remember reading that the carboard assasin has a 1 minute CD on the PTR at the moment can anyone confirm?
hopefully this is the beginning of some fixes for our tinkers!

I have been considering dumping engineering for a while now.

- Dalaran no longer being the main 'hang out' and Blizzard implementing an auction house here anyway.
- Annoyingly high fail rates on rocket boots. Makes it useless when raiding.
- Not very high but deadly if proced failure of plasma shield. Even if that button only has a 1% failure rate, wiping the raid due to main tank death isn't worth 18k absorb every 5 minutes.
- Cardboard assassin being near useless in raids apart from tanking a hit or two from adds? Barely worth it.
- The craftable epic helms, for which I have no use after getting a better helm while raiding.
- I have no use for electrostatic condenser as I do not have a gathering profession.
- I am bad and can't seem to earn any money from Engineering

That leaves me with 1500 armor /12 secs =
300 average armor, if you don't use it on-cooldown it is obviously less
Jeeves (for which I only use for repairs, as everything I need fits in my inventory nicely) - Scrapbots do the repairs just fine.
MOLL-E (which I rarely use anyway, plus it has a 2hour cooldown)
Rarely use parachute as BoP is just easier

These bonuses seem horrible compared to the stat bonuses to stamina or mastery from other professions.
Am I forgetting any of the other advantages of engineering in my QQ rant that may actually make me reconsider ditching this? Given that I am a prot pally (never use my offspec) who doesn't do anything other than raid.

Never dump a profession due to flavor of the patch. Everything has gone up and down. Dump it because you don't enjoy it any more.

Will they release anything else for engineering in Cata? Maybe not. Will there be new helms every patch along with epic cogwheels? Very possible. Will they un-nerf some of the on-use stuff? Maybe.

This has less to do with flavor and more with straight utility. Engineering just doesn't have it for raiding paladin tanks. I'm waiting to see if they do something about it in 4.1, but if they don't I'm going back to BS.

When most of the "flavor" items of your profession have a chance of wiping the raid, then it might not be worth keeping.

Would my non-raidtanking characters keep engineering? Sure. But the only characters I play anymore are tanks, and they're all raid ready. I haven't even bothered to level my bear's engineering because I see no future in it at this time.

Engineering has been a poor choice for a raiding profession for most of its lifetime. It got a nice bump in WotLK, but I think the fact that so many people rerolled engineering specifically for H LK caused Blizzard to knee jerk and nerf it back down to a sub-par level.

It's still excellent for casters and decent for physical DPS, the tanking bonus just needs a bit of a bump.

Tektos wrote:The craftable epic helms, for which I have no use after getting a better helm while raiding.
- I have no use for electrostatic condenser as I do not have a gathering profession.

This is where it comes down to for me. I'd actually drop BS for Eng IF I had a gathering prof, but I'm JC, BS, so the goggles along are not enough reason.. Eng/Mining will stay on my hunter for a long time.

Rethinking a bit here...

I could drop BS for Eng IF they provide an upgrade path for the goggles. Not gonna make a change until we see that. This is mainly because I'm not likely to do any raiding on the pally besides BH.

halabar wrote:Rethinking a bit here...

I could drop BS for Eng IF they provide an upgrade path for the goggles. Not gonna make a change until we see that. This is mainly because I'm not likely to do any raiding on the pally besides BH.

They don't need to do an upgrade path for goggles. "OP" engineer-only gems would work just as well. Ok, that would effectively be the same as an upgrade path, and probably possibly a bit too good for the newly dinged engineer in, say a year from now.

yappo wrote:They don't need to do an upgrade path for goggles. "OP" engineer-only gems would work just as well. Ok, that would effectively be the same as an upgrade path, and probably possibly a bit too good for the newly dinged engineer in, say a year from now.

On the flip side, a friend's l80 alt is running around with an epic alchemy trinket.

Just sayin'.

WTB info about Eng so I know whether to re-drain my bank account leveling BS.

yappo wrote:

halabar wrote:Rethinking a bit here...

I could drop BS for Eng IF they provide an upgrade path for the goggles. Not gonna make a change until we see that. This is mainly because I'm not likely to do any raiding on the pally besides BH.

They don't need to do an upgrade path for goggles. "OP" engineer-only gems would work just as well. Ok, that would effectively be the same as an upgrade path, and probably possibly a bit too good for the newly dinged engineer in, say a year from now.

They'd have to make cogwheels with stat + stamina + armor, which I don't think they'd ever do as they'd be overpowered for cloth /leather wearers in PVP. I'd rather see new goggles with stamina and armor, and new or updated cogwheels with stats.

Heck, make it so the new goggles have a bonus that says "increase the value of installed cogwheels by 5%". That way the cogwheels scale automatically and only new goggles need drop.

Digren wrote:
Heck, make it so the new goggles have a bonus that says "increase the value of installed cogwheels by 5%". That way the cogwheels scale automatically and only new goggles need drop.

I think the bolded part is key, as the cogwheels basically replace the current 'green' status on the other helms, we just get to chose what those stats are, but those #s will also go up each tier making the cogwheels a worse option, even if the new goggles have a str and stam increase.

I definitely hope they have some kind of upgrade path, otherwise an interesting game feature (imo) is useless after the 1st tier.

Shathus wrote:

Digren wrote:
Heck, make it so the new goggles have a bonus that says "increase the value of installed cogwheels by 5%". That way the cogwheels scale automatically and only new goggles need drop.

I think the bolded part is key, as the cogwheels basically replace the current 'green' status on the other helms, we just get to chose what those stats are, but those #s will also go up each tier making the cogwheels a worse option, even if the new goggles have a str and stam increase.

I definitely hope they have some kind of upgrade path, otherwise an interesting game feature (imo) is useless after the 1st tier.

Of course, if they go the sunwell route and make the patterns drop in the next tier of content, I hope the're BOE, or it will effectively lock me out of them anyway. Have to see what they do.

But if there is an upgrade path that's available to me, I might drop JC for Eng, I'm so sick of the price wars there.