A sleeper gold pick!

Consumables and gadgets

Engineers get access to a ton of consumable items to craft in the form of various explosives. These are generally very strong giving large aoe damage and even stuns or incapicatates. They can typically only be used by other engineers, but they are strong. There are also a ton of utility items in the form of trinkets and gear like the rocket helmet and teleporters. These also typically require engineering to use.

Engineering is gigaprofitable

Contrary to popular belief about classic engineering it is actually a FANTASTIC goldmaking profession, and Forever buffs it. A lot of people think that since only other engineers can use the consumables and the gear that there is no market to sell into, as anyone could craft the same items. But crafting the items is very time consuming, as they typically require one or more intermediate materials. Many players don’t have time and will happily buy a stack of sappers before heading into raid. I sold a TON of sapper charges in classic and expect to do so again.

Consumables are king

Consumables are the bread and butter of goldmaking with engineering and there is a massive change on this side in Forever. A ton of new recipes allow you to craft grenades and dynamites that can be used by non-engineers. They typically require more materials than their engineer only counterparts, but this is a goldmine opportunity.

You can also craft ammunition for hunters, which was a very good goldmaker for me in classic. They go through a ton of ammo through normal gameplay so this is great.

Top recipes from classic where Thorium grenades, sapper charges, repair bots and thorium shells.

Trinkets and gear options

There are quite a few trinkets and utility gear options to craft, but overall the sale rates arent massive. There is a new epic gun, which could see some movement, as well as some new charge based nitro boosts that can be used by everyone. This could see some nice sales.

For the other gear it is mostly utility items usable by engineers that have easy to get recipes. This means that usually there’s not much profit there as crafting a one off item is something more players are willing to do than doing a stack of sappers for every raid night. That being said I did make quite a bit of gold in classic selling the goblin rocket helmet, so the items that require a specific specialization to craft, but not to use can be sold for profit.

Notable new recipes

Sandpaper is a very interesting new item as it is a reagent used in other professions crafted BoP gear. As it’s only crafted by engineers and used by non-engineers it has very good potential. Lastly we have the batteries! A new consumable used to recharge a manual crowd pummeler from Gnomeregan. The Crowd Pummeler was the BiS weapon for feral, so we might see some nice demand for the batteries as farming some gold to buy the batteries is a lot less annoying than endlessly farming Gnomeregan for more pummelers.

Which specialization?

For goldmaking purposes goblin is the only choice, unless blizzard nerfs sapper charges. Goblin sapper charges are by far the best engineering consumables in the game, and you need goblin engineering to craft them. There are some trinkets on the gnomish side that can sell for a profit, but the raw sale rate of sapper charges makes goblin a no-brainer.

Overall verdict

Engineering is a really good goldmaking profession, assuming grenades and other consumables stay as strong as they were in classic. The goldmaking potential is primarily at level 60 though, so there’s no rush to level it early. For the leveling journey the overall impact is a lot lower as far as profit potential goes.