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Insider Trader: Engineering -- The Final Stretch

Lisa Poisso
Updated ·6 min read

Insider Trader is your inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.

Today's special issue of Insider Trader is all about business. Your profession? Engineer. Your goal? Engineering (375) and a Turbo-Charged Flying Machine. We'll show you how to get there as quickly and painlessly as possible. Link over to our favorite 0-300 leveling guides, and then mull over our collection of tips for the final stretch from 300 to 375.

Before you begin, consider this: As with "recommended" powerleveling paths in all professions, your mileage may vary according to your individual server's current pricing and demand for both the materials you need for crafting and the products you create as you go. A non-traditional path to 375 may just be the ticket, depending on what's hot and what's not.

No matter how you choose to get there, it's never too soon to start collecting your Flying Machine mats and getting ready to take flight in style. Prepare for liftoff!



Let's get the ball rolling with a review of the power leveling guides that cover the early skill-ups.

The home stretch
Now, let's dig in. From 300 on out, the Best of the Best in power leveling guides is the plan from Highlander of EU-Terenas. With a tip of the hat to Highlander's research, we'll review the highlights here.

  • 300 - 310 Make more materials. Highlander helpfully observes that simply making the materials you'll need for the home stretch is sufficient to net you at least 10 points. Start with 40 Fel Iron Casings, 60 Handful of Fel Iron Bolts and 45 Elemental Blasting Powder.

  • 310 - 320 Make 10 Fel Iron Bombs Each: 1 Fel Iron Casing (3 Fel Iron Bars), 2 Handful of Fel Iron Bolts (1 Fel Iron Bar), 1 Elemental Blasting Powder (1 Mote of Fire, 1 Mote of Earth)

  • 320 - 335 Make 15 Fel Iron Muskets Each: 2 Thorium Tubes (12 Thorium Bars), 3 Fel Iron Casings (9 Fel Iron Bars), 4 Handful of Fel Iron Bolts (4 Fel Iron Bars)

  • 335 - 350 Make 25 White Smoke Flares Each: 1 Netherweave Cloth, 1 Elemental Blasting Powder (1 Mote of Fire, 1 Mote of Earth)

  • 350 - 355 Make 15 Hardened Adamantite Tubes Each: 3 Hardened Adamantite Bars. You'll use these for making Khorium Scopes. If your leveling plan doesn't include Khorium Scopes or Felsteel Boomsticks, skill up with Adamantite Rifles instead.

  • 355 - 360 Make 5 Felsteel Stabilizers Each: 2 Felsteel Bars.The recipe for this one is sold in limited supply by Qiff in Area 52, Netherstorm.

Preferred Plan

  • 360 - 375 Make 15 Khorium Scopes Each: 1 Hardened Adamantite Tube (3 Hardened Adamantite Bars), 4 Khorium Bars, 2 Dawnstones. The recipe is a low-rate drop from Sunfury Bowmen in Netherstorm.

Alternative Plans

  • 360 - 375 Make 15 Felsteel Boomsticks Each: 1 Hardened Adamantite Tubes (3 Hardened Adamantite Bars), 4 Felsteel Stabilizers, 4 Handful of Fel Iron Bolts. The recipe is a low-rate drop from Doomforge Engineers in Forge Camp Anger in Blade's Edge Mountains.

  • 360 - 375 Make 15 Hyper-Vision Goggles Each: 4 Heavy Knothide Leather, 2 Khorium Bars, 2 Nightseye, 2 Large Prismatic Shards. This recipe is a low-rate drop from Mo'arg Weaponsmiths in Legion Hold in Shadowmoon Valley.

  • 360 - 375 Make around 25 Adamantite Rifles Each: 2 Thorium Tubes, 2 Adamantite Frames, 4 Handful of Fel Iron Bolts. These go green at 370, so bad luck could put you making a lot of these rifles for the points you need.

Highlander's estimated shopping list:

  • 255 Fel Iron Bars

  • 10 Felsteel Bars

  • 35 Motes of Fire

  • 35 Motes of Earth

  • 60 Khorium Bars

  • 45 Hardened Adamantite Bars

  • 30 Dawnstones

  • 25 Netherweave Cloth

  • 180 Thorium Bars

Variations on a theme
To scope or not to scope? Most engineers swear by grinding in Netherstorm for the Khorium Scope recipe. But if farming is just not your thing, don't be afraid to stick with Adamantite Rifles. Yes, they'll go green on you, but a fairly light materials list keeps the project affordable.

In the early 300s, you may want to keep making Elemental Blasting Powder just as long as you can – 20 points or even more – since the materials are fairly inexpensive. You could also make Fel Iron Bolts for future engineering projects. If there's a market for them on your server, try Fel Iron Shells.

White Smoke Flares are the cheap leveling tool for the 335-to-350 stretch, but you can try Adamantite Shells if you'd prefer something you can sell. (Your market may vary, of course.)

It's possible to work all the way from 350 to 375 on Felsteel Stabilizers, Hardened Adamantite Tubes or Khorium Power Cores. If recouping some funds is still a goal, Khorium Power Cores or Adamantite Rifles are probably your best sales value.

Insider Trader tip: If you're working on an orange recipe that should give you a skill point every time you make it – but it doesn't give you a point – stop what you're doing. I repeat, don't try again just to be sure! You're most likely experiencing an add-on issue. Log off, delete your WDB and WTF folders, log back in and try again.

It used to be that goblin engineers could get skill-ups from reloading their Goblin Mortars – yes, even after they went grey, and yes, even though they would backfire rather frequently, thus killing the hapless student engineer. This bug was fixed back in patch 2.1, so don't get overexcited if you come across this outdated tip.

If you're a gnome and you're dead-set on maxing your engineering skill all the way to 390 (gnomes get +15 to engineering as a racial bonus), you've got a little extra work to do. Crafting an epic helm will get you at least one of those points. After that, your choices are limited in a practical way to two options: the world-drop Ornate Khorium Rifle recipe will give you a good 10 points, while Karazhan raiders can aim for the BoP recipe for the Stabilized Eternium Scope.

Last but not least: If the epic flyer is your goal, you really only need to get to 374. The last point will come from the basic flying machine that you have to make before producing the epic version – a sweet ending to your journey into flight!

Insider Trader's Lisa Poisso is a writer and editor and, sadly, does not have the energy to powerlevel another profession (although she does think the new engineering mount is ... well, downright nifty).