Engineering...Follow

#1 The Death Ray vs the Dragon gun: the death ray seems so cool, yet when you factor in the dammage it (Always) dose to you it dose not take long before you realise you are not dealing with as "Cool" of a item as you once thought. I guess if you were a pally, or other low DPS class the ray has some places where it would shine, yet overall it is not that great of a item. The dragon gun looks even worse at a first glance, but looks can be deciving. as long as you have 5 targets, the Dragon gun will out dammage the deathray, My record for the Dragon gun is 19 targets, the total dammage on that shot was 12350 HP between all my targets, it would take 6 realy good shots with a death ray to get that kind of DPS. unlike the death ray, the dragon gun is not a garuenteed dammage to the user....

#2 The boots, both specs make rocket boots, key diffrence is that the goblin ones dont reuqire engenering so they can be sold at a larget rate than the gnomish boots.

#3 while some of these are irrlivant due to BoE status, i list them anywho.
Gnomish Shrink Ray vs Goblin Mining Helmet/Goblin Construction Helmet(because not all folks can use the minin helm) OK theese both suck, the shrink ray is better, but it is a matter of just getting one, my goblin eneneer uses a shrink ray.

#4 Gnomish Net-o-Matic Projector VS Goblin Mortar Heck they both stop runners, one just dose it by killing the target, the net-o-matic sounds better, but with falure rate the mortar wins, but.... they are both BoE so it dose not matter.

#5 Lil' Smoky VS Pet Bombling, while i love Lil Smokies glasses, the bombling is way cuter.

#6 Gnomish Harm Prevention Belt vs Goblin Sapper Charge there are way better sheilds in the game(AB) and they dont have falure rates, yet the single tic hellfire that is the saper charge remains usefull through DM and ZG, yet bot still BOE

#7 Gnomish Battle Chicken VS Goblin Bomb Dispenser the chicken holds more of a laugh factor, but bottom line is that in the end a bomb dispencer dose more dammage, and faster. This is a win for the Goblin folks.

#8 Gnomish Mind Control Cap(nerfed today, no longer useable on in combat targets)vs Goblin Rocket Helmet . Heck the rocket helm owned the mc hat way before they nerfed the MC hat. pushing goblin as a better chocie again.

#9 Gnomish Cloaking Device Vs The Big One, so the trade off is a less than a lesser invis pot(because thats what the cloking devce is) vs the bomb with the bigest blast radius in the game. think this one is clear who wins.

Drum roll please......
#10 World Enlarger(totaly useless consumable)VS Goblin Jumper Cables XL(more reliable than the basic ones)

looking at the 10 diffrences between the spec it is eazy to see that the "Toys" of gnomish spec are mosty novilty(the nerfing MC helmet sure did'nt help) while the goblin tools "really do some damage and can be helpful" Hey wait, thats what you said you wanted. So, do yourself a favor and stop wanting the grass on the other side of the fence and embrace your spec and enjoy it. it is by far the "More DPS" route of the two.

1. Death Ray versus Dragon Gun:
Death Ray is my preference. Dragon Gun is good for people without AoE... but it can fail at a critical moment, set you on fire, and fear you for a few seconds. Ouch. Not cool. With a Death Ray, you know what you're getting: damage to yourself, and more to the enemy. There are fun things to do with this: a Paladin can make himself invincible and then cast it, for no damage to himself. Plus, the Death Ray can do a TON of single-target damage (my highest crit, on my level 46 Gnomish engineer warlock, is around 1.9k. A great finisher move, especially since you can just bandage after ^_^ Also, Warlocks have AoEs, and thus little use for a Dragon Gun).

Personally, I face single targets more often than groups. Also, many enemies have fire resistance, potentially reducing the goblin gun's damage.

2. Boots: These are almost equal, IMO.
Gnome: 30 minute cooldown and an engineering requirement. Ick. The backfire for this is that you stop getting the movement boost before the 20 seconds are up, OR you run around randomly.
Goblin: 5 minute cooldown and no engineering requirement (woo-hoo!). The backfire is that they blow up (damage is bad!), the boots are destroyed (you always lose the rocket fuel >_<), and you need to be an engineer to remake them.

I personally would choose Goblin on these... actually, I would probably use neither, but if I HAD to choose, this would go to goblin. Dang.

3. Shrink Ray: You already admitted it wins :-D

4. Net versus mortar: The main thing here is that when the mortar messes up, you get MAJOR PAIN :-P. When the net messes up, you get stuck. The mortar blows you sky high for fire and fall damage, I believe. I might be thinking of bronze mortars for the fall damage. Hmmm. One person in the mortar's item page said he got hit for 9k fire damage when it backfired on him ^_^

Since net-o-matic has the same cooldown (10 seconds), won't hurt you when it backfires, and roots the person for longer... I say net-o-matic wins.

5. Pets: Up to personal choice.

...

Who am I kidding? Bombling rocks.

6. Sapper Charge is better, but the harm prevention belt actually always works... when you get banished, you are invincible, and thus taking no damage :-P. It's good until higher levels... the protection really needs to scale up with level >_>. Sapper Charge is also insanely good at lower levels, but it does hurt you, so keep that in mind.

7. Chicken vs. Bomb: I think the bomb wins because it is AoE damage, BUT! the chicken also has its uses. It is level 46, I think, so for a lower level character... w00t! It does decent damage (15-75 per hit, 1.5 second attack, and it lasts for 1m 30s), it can fury to attack twice as fast, and it TAUNTS! This makes it a decent semi-tank item... every half an hour.

8. Helms: Goblin wins. MC cap is good if you get the drop on an enemy and they don't see you coming, though :-P

9. Yeah, this is no real contest, they are two completely different items. The Big One has a high component cost, which is one thing to keep in mind... but the cloaking device has an insane cooldown. And you are wrong about the effect of the cloaking device; it is true invisibility, not lesser. You literally disappear (you aren't even considered "stealth", so increased stealth detection items and effects do not help!). You can't use it in battle, though. But if you see someone running at you... POOF! You're gone :-D

Two different items... you can't really consider them next to each other.

10. World enlarger lowers your aggro radius, which is nice. Jumper XL work more often, but they can obviously still feel. However, the price of these are average of 39 gold, while the normal ones are 5 gold. Ouch. Once again, completely different categories.

I say they are more of less equal (obviously, hehe :-P). I like devices and effects more. I guess the idea is... goblin will make you use more materials, and gnome will make you use fewer potions (but have much longer cooldowns :-P).

On the plus side, now that every item has a different and separate cooldown (since 1.11), you can cycle through your fun effect trinkets more often! Hurray!

Different strokes for different folks; I agree with Capitolg that Goblin is good... I just like Gnomish better for my own gaming.