Guild Wars 2

Currently, the Healing Turret is used in one of two ways (burst heal):

• Drop -> Overcharge -> Pick Up
• Drop -> Overcharge -> Detonate

With very rare exceptions, it’s not used as a Turret (leaving it up). I’ll post one of the main problems of leaving the Healing Turret up and a possible solution.

The problem is related to the cooldown of the Healing Turret when it’s picked up, destroyed or detonated. I show this problem on this video: link.

After watching this video, I’ll consider a situation while having 0 healing power, as it’s bugged on the Healing Turret anyways (link). This situation is what could happen if the Healing Turret is left up in contrast to using it as burst heal.

First consider the amount healed by the Healing Turret:

• Drop: 2520
• Overcharge: 2520
• Regeneration: 130 per second
• Water field blast finisher: 1320

Now consider the two uses of the Healing Turret. We consider the total amount healed per use, the time to recharge including the time to drop, pick up and detonate and the heal per second considering it’s used repeatedly as soon as the cooldown is up.

Drop -> Overcharge -> Pick Up

• Total heal: 5040
• Cooldown: 16 seconds
• Heal per second: 315

Drop -> Overcharge -> Detonate

• Total heal: 6360
• Cooldown: 21 seconds
• Heal per second: 302

Now say the Healing Turret is left up and Overcharged every 15 seconds.

• Total heal: 4470 (not including drop as it happens only once)
• Cooldown: 15 seconds
• Heal per second: 298

So considering this, the player already has no incentive to leave the Healing Turret up as his heal will be worse in general than both uses of burst heal.

Now we consider the situation that happens in the video. The player takes the risk of leaving the Healing Turret up. But just like in the video, it’s destroyed precisely as the Overcharge was about to come up (or it came up but did not trigger yet waiting for the next pulse).

• Total heal: 6990
• Cooldown: 36 seconds
• Heal per second: 194

As can be seen, there is no incentive for the player to have the Healing Turret used as a turret and be left up. Just leaving it up and he is getting a worse heal than normal. In case it’s destroyed, then it can become much much worse.

My proposed fix is that the cooldown of the healing turret be based on the last time the turret was either dropped or overcharged.

• If the player has dropped or overcharged the turret 0 seconds ago, then picking it up will have a recharge of 15 seconds and detonating it will have a recharge of 20 seconds.
• If the player has dropped or overcharged the turret 10 seconds ago, then picking it up will have a recharge of 5 seconds and detonating it will have a recharge of 10 seconds.
• If the player has dropped or overcharged the turret 17 seconds ago, then picking it up will have a recharge of 0 seconds and detonating it will have a recharge of 3 seconds.
• If the player has dropped or overcharged the turret 30 seconds ago, then picking it up will have a recharge of 0 seconds and detonating it will have a recharge of 0 seconds.

Fair. Wouldn’t punish the way it’s currently used, and would give it more ways that it can be used.

Imho, the problem is quite more simple: turrets don’t survive at all when placed for more than a couple seconds. Especially when against bosses, that is, when those heals would be more needed.
But that’s something in common between all turrets. Along with the bugs.
Before they try to balance the turrets, they should fix all the bugs – and there are over 20 of them. Then we can talk about balancing. Because trying to balance something that doesn’t even work as intended risks to bring unbalanced effects if bugs are fixed later.

The only way I think they’ll ever make healing turret a real “turret” is to have it provide a unique healing field while deployed instead of applying AoE regeneration. That is, it would function similar to how well of blood functions. Right now, it is simply a glorified water bomb. However, I do think it kind of works nicely the way it does now, it just isn’t a real “turret”.

However, if they’re just going to leave it as it is, they should make the turret overcharge automatically on deployment rather than requiring the player to activate it manually. There is NO point in not overcharging the turret immediately and then either picking it up or detonating it, so requiring the player the manually overcharge it every time is just tedious and annoying, in addition to making the skill more vulnerable to lag.

I actually like the current Healing Turret design; because it is possibly the best heal in the entire game, untraited. (Outside of Healing Signet for Warrior but that is off topic)

It’s difficult to interrupt, offers cleansing and group utility, and is both a Field and Finisher in the 1 skill. I’ll not forget the days then HT was picked only because the other skills had not been unlocked in PVE/WVW, because of the buggy, 10 second delay and 60 second CD Cleansing Burst and Regenerative Mist.

I’d rather that Healing Turret not return to those days. I also don’t get why people are so hung up on wanting to make Healing Turret an actual, emplaceable Turret. Have Phantasm mesmers, Minion necromancers and Spirit rangers taught you nothing? Passive AI based gameplay is frustrating to play against, and you can bet that the same complaints will fly the way of the Engineer.

In fact, I’d actually argue the opposite to the general tone of the discussion here (Turrets should be long term, emplaceable objects providing area control) and actually argue that Healing Turret’s current design is working as intended. That is, it is a:

• Very short term emplaced object (I’d actually argue that the HT’s current health is too high – The Overcharge is guaranteed to go off before the Turret is destroyed)
• It is short cooldown and therefore, highly disposable.
• There is some manual finagling required, as it is, and as it should be, for all Engineer utilities. Automatic Overcharging simply dumbs down Healing Turret.

• If anything, I would decrease the cooldowns of all other Engineer Turrets to be closer to that of Healing Turret and decrease turret health to further emphasise this disposability, whilst improving on the Overcharge chain skills to provide more utility from Combo Fields and the bugginess of Turret targeting. The toolbelt skills should then be vastly improved in utility to compensate short Turret uptime

• Engineer Traits should then be reworked to put more utility from passive crit procs into 2 things that Turrets are strong at: proccing Blast Finishers, and offering strong CC. Inflicting Bleeding or Cripple from Blasting a combo field with a Turret, for example, or Immobilising a target when a Turret is detonated or destroyed.

I’d argue the Healing Turret is one of the best designed skills in the game as it currently is as you have so many options with it.

Extra heal needed? Blast it
Need to heal teammates? Sure
Fighting a heavy condi user? Pick it up for reduced cooldown
Need to res an ally? Blast it into a Smoke field while stomping.

Please don’t change what isn’t broken (like all the other turrets are).

Takes my Hide in the Shadow and I will have your Healing Turret as it is now.

Get the kitten away from my healing turret. It’s currently the best designed and one of the most effective healing skills in the game since it actually requires you to use your brain and rewards you for it. Out of all skills this one needs exactly zero changes.

Healing Turret is fine, if not one of the best designed skills in the game. The versatility it provides players, from condition removal, to party healing, to even stealth, are all very in line with the versatility engineer should be about.

Guys, this is GW2, not TF2. Don’t make my precious Healing Turret into a dispenser, like that crappy new Ranger heal.

Kain Francois.4328:

Healing Turret is fine, if not one of the best designed skills in the game.

I don’t believe this is true. Currently, you need to both drop and overcharge the turret to use it the “proper” way, which is both tedious and unnecessary. Not overcharging the turret before picking it up or detonating it is absolutely pointless (less healing, locking out tool belt skill), and the only reason players are required to do this is that the healing turret was meant to conform with the already problematic design behind turrets. Ideally, it should just overcharge immediately since that is what everyone will do with it anyways.

Additionally, it’s incredibly counterintuitive as a skill because the implication behind the skill is that you deploy the turret and leave it deployed to provide some effect (like other turrets). People who have seen how it is to be used don’t have this problem, but such a method is not obvious to new players, nor is it directly demonstrated to them (via in game tutorial or tooltips) that the “water bomb” is the most optimal way to use the turret. In fact, the design of the skill implies a completely different mode of usage (i.e. keeping it deployed), thus the design of the skill is not perfect by any means.

Now I’m not directly advocating that they change healing turret, I think it actually works fine as it is. But if they are going to leave it as it is, they need to make changes such as automatic overcharge or completely changing in game descriptions so that people understand what they’re supposed to be doing with it. Or perhaps remove it’s status as a turret and just make it into a “water bomb” healing skill that does the same thing but doesn’t pretend to be a turret.

If they want it to be an actual “turret”, then it completely fails in that regard. I believe it was Jonathan Sharp on State of the Game that commented that the changes made to healing turret (I think that was back in April or May) would provide incentive to keep the turret deployed to provide support for allies. There was even a discussion as to whether or not the turret’s health was high enough to not simply be destroyed in 2 seconds by enemies. However, all that was completely irrelevant because no one uses it that way, nor does the design of the skill provide any incentive for people to use it as a “turret” instead of a “water bomb”.

So while I think it actually works fine as it is, it completely fails at what it was intended to be.I’m guessing the devs will probably keep it how it is, but then they need to clean some things up with it.

Placing and keeping a Turret placed, which would make sense for a Turret, would only be used if Healing turret is completely reworked.

Adds a passive healing effect to the Engineer potent enough the Engineer wants to stick around to it. Small effect to allies. It also needs to be more durable, no cooldown when picked up but a cooldown when killed.

So like a Healing Signet, only with an actual counter and it requires skill to use.

Manuhell.2759:

Imho, the problem is quite more simple: turrets don’t survive at all when placed for more than a couple seconds. Especially when against bosses, that is, when those heals would be more needed.
But that’s something in common between all turrets. Along with the bugs.
Before they try to balance the turrets, they should fix all the bugs – and there are over 20 of them. Then we can talk about balancing. Because trying to balance something that doesn’t even work as intended risks to bring unbalanced effects if bugs are fixed later.

Turret cooldowns has been the target of complaints by engineers also. I believe this change should be made to all turrets, even if the bugs are removed and their survivability is buffed.

Yamsandjams.3267:

The only way I think they’ll ever make healing turret a real “turret” is to have it provide a unique healing field while deployed instead of applying AoE regeneration. That is, it would function similar to how well of blood functions. Right now, it is simply a glorified water bomb. However, I do think it kind of works nicely the way it does now, it just isn’t a real “turret”.

However, if they’re just going to leave it as it is, they should make the turret overcharge automatically on deployment rather than requiring the player to activate it manually. There is NO point in not overcharging the turret immediately and then either picking it up or detonating it, so requiring the player the manually overcharge it every time is just tedious and annoying, in addition to making the skill more vulnerable to lag.

I completely agree on having the Healing Turret automatically overcharge. I have been asking for this for a while, even for other turrets as well. In previous posts, since some people complained, I’ve changed my stance to ask for two skills per turret. One automatically overcharges on drop and the other does not for those who find a reason to use it this way.

And I have already suffered greatly from using the healing turret during laggy times and not be able to overcharge the turret on the first pulse. All I got was a very lowsy 2520 heal on a 21 second cooldown (it was more as I lagged the detonation as well and the cooldown resets at detonation). So even considering just the 21 second cooldown, I healed for 120 health per second. Worse than just having regeneration up.

Honestly i can’t figure out why they put in the detonate and overcharge, never mind making the cooldown start only upon removal of the turret from play (could be a limitation with the game engine, as other skills that have a “trigger” skill seems to have a similar cooldown behavior).

Detonate gets in the way of the turret related tool belt skill, meaning the player have to pick between detonate and said skill.

And overcharge seems like micromanagement, especially when it do not trigger instantly (As such ANet could just as well have made every X attack from the turret be a overcharge).

The only rationale that comes to mind is that turret engineers are to bunker (in the most direct sense) up a SPVP capture point. Deploying turrets, maybe mortar, and possibly equipping the tool kit for turret maintenance.

That is all fine and rosy for SPVP, where it makes sense. But that also makes turrets painfully static in PVE and WVW.

Leaving up the turret, even with a good amount of healing power, is hardly going to outperform the alternative uses FOR YOURSELF. AoE healing, however, can easily be higher this way.
It’s not common to find a situation where you can deploy the turret for AoE healing/cleansing without it being destroyed by cleave damage or AoE rain, as it’s not common to run dungeons (where it’s more likely to happen) with high healing power, but the option well deservers a not really painful extra click.

If anything, cleansing burst should be an instant effect that also nullifies the next regular pulse, with the regeneration component decreased to 3-4 seconds.
This way, bursting an already deployed turrent would be far more reliable.

It does feel rather silly that turrets are generally better when they’re not around. (Either stronger toolbelt skills, or just the balance like with heal turret, where it is simply more profitable to pick it up or explode it.)

Another thing that feels a bit off about the healing turret is the short duration of the water field. While a skilled engineer can pull off quite a few blast finishers in that short window, allies typically don’t. Since they have to spot it first, and then use their combofinisher. And since combo’s are the most clear example of awesome teamwork, I feel that it should be easier to combo with another players healing turret.

So I propose a different solution:

Lower the recharge on the overcharge skill so that it can be used more often. (This should make it more rewarding to keep the turret) And make the waterfield last a bit longer. Perhaps take the waterfield away from the toolbelt skill if this would make the turret too powerful.