Guild Wars 2

To start, since turrets have never really had a place in PvE or WvW, we will limit the balance concerns of this conversation to PvP. Also please note that any changes suggested will not apply to Healing Turret or Supply Crate, as I feel even with the changes those skills are still in a decent spot.

Also, any attempt to derail this thread with derogatory comments will be reported and, hopefully, promptly removed.

Finally, please try to remain constructive when replying. I am looking for unbiased conversations that can be backed up by legitimate data and not personal opinions.

So, everyone seems to be in agreement that the Turret Engineer build needed to be nerfed in some way that prevented the Engineer from simply dropping turrets and spamming rifle attacks while achieving moderate results.

What was in disagreement was the way this nerf was implemented. However, we all know that Anet does not have a great track record for reverting nerfs, however bad they may be. Therefore, for the purpose of this discussion I am accepting the nerfs that were made and not expecting that to change anytime in the near future.

I am however, expecting Anet to implement a change to turrets to compensate for the severe damage that has been done. The damage I speak of, is of course the fact that now turrets can be destroyed within seconds of being deployed with no effort. This is no exaggeration and has been tested and confirmed multiple times by numerous people testing the effects of the changes. Some suggest a player now needs to simply “play smarter” and be more strategic with their turret locations. However, the simple fact is that no matter where you place the turret, it will die in seconds to nothing but ranged auto attack damage. This leaves the Engineer down another utility slot. To those that feel this is in line with other AI in the game, there are a few facts you need to consider first…

• Turrets can not move.
• Turrets can not receive boons at this time.
• Turrets can not critically hit another player.
• Turrets can not be healed outside of trait or Toolkit mechanics.
• Turrets take up a utility slot.*
• Turret cooldowns range anywhere from 20 to 50 seconds.
  *(Engineers rely heavily on their utility skills due to the fact that they lack a secondary weapon and their class mechanic is tied directly to which utility skills are chosen.)

So with this information, we can see that if an Engineer were to take 3 turrets as his utilities, an enemy could keep all 3 of his utilities on constant cooldown simply by taking a couple of seconds to auto attack the turret. This leaves the Engineer with 1 weapon and his Tool Belt skills. Those Tool Belt skills may consist of…

• Rumble
• Throw Napalm
• Surprise Shot
• Net Attack
• Rocket
  With the exception of Surprise Shot, all these skills have a base 35 to 40 second recharge, and mostly produce minimal effects.

With the current state turrets have been left in, they cannot survive if left out against any semi-competent player that knows how easy they are to destroy. This limits us to utilizing turrets much in the same way Healing Turret is currently utilized; placing the turret, overcharging, then either immediately detonating or picking the turret back up. However, the current cooldowns on our turrets are much too long for the benefits gained by using them in this manner.

So my proposal is to adjust turret cooldowns. Adjusting the cooldown of the turrets could make them worth taking as a utility for the overcharge effects at least. This is by no means a solution! This would however be a quick fix (Anet seems to like those) that could help remedy the destruction caused by their last quick fix. I remember reading they were also considering allowing boons to affect turrets, but honestly I feel any fix that allows the Engineer to go back to placing his turrets down and leaving them will just cause more outrage. With a cooldown reduction on turret skills, the Engineer could still use turrets effectively without allowing such a passive play style.

Now, my proposed cooldown reduction coul be implemented in a few ways…

• [Easiest Fix] Reduce the base cooldown of the turrets.
  This allows the Engineer bring his turret out more often and lessens the penalty of allowing his turret to be destroyed/detonated.

• [Better Fix] Give a greater cooldown reduction to turrets that are picked up.
  This could promote a more active and involved play style, punishing the Engineer for allowing his turrets to be destroyed or taking advantage of the Detonate effects, while rewarding him for monitoring the health of his turret and picking it back up before it is destroyed. This also provides more counter-play since the Engineer needs to be in melee range to pick his turret back up, and he can be cc’d away from it.

• [Optional Fix] Reduce the cooldowns of the turret Tool Belt abilities.
  This would give the Engineer access to more frequent use of his class mechanic while waiting on turret cooldowns, but this fix could yield minimal results and cause more issues due to certain traits tied to Tool Belt skills such as Adrenalin PumP and Static Discharge.

• [Best Fix – Proposed by Runeblade.7514] Give turrets a significantly low duration, somewhere around 5 seconds. Then make it stronger, and make it invulnerable.
  This suggestion allows turrets to work like turrets, though within a limited time frame. This will cause the turret to behave more like a normal utility, should be easier to balance, and find uses in all game modes without being OP.

So, tell me what you guys think. Sorry for the long post, but in many of the turret conversations I’ve seen I’ve noticed many people seriously lack knowledge of how Turret Engies, or Engineers in general, really work. I would like to hear whether these changes sound feasible or even necessary, or even if there are better ways to implement a simple quick fix solution. Just please do not go too far off topic with Turret changes. This thread is just focusing on a simple change much like the one implemented that caused all this damage.

Here’s the thing….

We can use toolbelt skills —> deploy turrets --> overcharge + pick-up/detonate, repeat. If we pick up our turrets, they have a 25% reduced cooldown. You end up cycling through 3 types of skills: toolbelt, deploy, overcharge.

The cooldowns are long on individual skills because you’re not supposed to drop your turrets and stop paying attention to them, nor are you supposed to just use the toolbelt skills without ever deploying the turrets.

If you’re finding that your turrets are dying too quickly (I’m not), stop putting them in the middle of the capture point (except for thumper, which tanks just fine). You can also use the Deployable Turrets trait to put turrets in a wide radius around the capture point/put them on ledges, etc with zero effort. You don’t even need metal plating or fortified turret traits since no one will run around killing 3+ turrets while you attack them. You can also leave turrets on point and melee with toolkit to both repair and dps in melee.

Edit: After some thought, I like the OPs ideas, but I think they might be a tad OP, especially with Healing Turret.

Kharr.5746:

Here’s the thing….

We can use toolbelt skills —> deploy turrets --> overcharge + pick-up/detonate, repeat. If we pick up our turrets, they have a 25% reduced cooldown. You end up cycling through 3 types of skills: toolbelt, deploy, overcharge.

The cooldowns are long on individual skills because you’re not supposed to drop your turrets and stop paying attention to them, nor are you supposed to just use the toolbelt skills without ever deploying the turrets.

If you’re finding that your turrets are dying too quickly (I’m not), stop putting them in the middle of the capture point (except for thumper, which tanks just fine). You can also use the Deployable Turrets trait to put turrets in a wide radius around the capture point/put them on ledges, etc with zero effort. You don’t even need metal plating or fortified turret traits since no one will run around killing 3+ turrets while you attack them. You can also leave turrets on point and melee with toolkit to both repair and dps in melee.

Edit: After some thought, I like the OPs ideas, but I think they might be a tad OP, especially with Healing Turret.

As for the frailty of the turrets, I can guarantee you that I can eliminate any turret you place in any location in a matter of seconds from 1500 range with my Grenade Kit. The only situation in which turrets now survive is when bad players ignore them.

And I understand your concern of a cooldown reduction becoming OP, but I don’t feel as though that would necessarily be that case if only the cooldown on pick-up was reduced. Especially since this play style can be countered by CC. And of course as mentioned, I have no intentions of any of these changes being applied to Healing Turret nor Supply Crate.

A braindead build should not be viable. I suggeest they just replace the turrets with something else instead of just being there as useless utilities.

No matter how u balance them, the AI build always reward ultimate passive play. AI builds should not be viable in PvP unless COMPLETLY reworked . And even if they rework them, u shouldnt be able to take the tankiest amulet and put decent damage out.

Please try to stay on topic and provide constructive feedback devoid of biased personal opinions. Those that have violated these requests have been likewise reported.

Also, for the record, I never farm PvP ladder since it holds no meanings nor rewards and I play a Static Discharge Engineer. Sorry if I have burst anyone’s bubble. :-/

glock.6590:

A braindead build should not be viable. I suggeest they just replace the turrets with something else instead of just being there as useless utilities.

No matter how u balance them, the AI build always reward ultimate passive play. AI builds should not be viable in PvP unless COMPLETLY reworked . And even if they rework them, u shouldnt be able to take the tankiest amulet and put decent damage out.

I’m not sure if you took the time to actually read my post. If you had, you’d notice the suggestion is to make turrets a utility worth taking, without returning the Turret Engi to it’s previous “braindead” state. You’d also notice that I have acknowledge turrets need a complete rework as this is not meant to be a final solution, but rather a simple fix much like the the intended fix that destroyed the turrets. Please try to be a little more constructive in future post and let’s focus a bit more on the topic being discussed here rather than AI in general and long term drastic changes.

it isnt just “biased personal opinion” when we have threads by different people pop up every single day with the same qq about how turrets arent fun to fight against. it isnt just “biased personal opinion” when tournament organizers start banning a build because it doesnt properly represent the skill that the organizers feel the competitors should display, and entrants dont complain.

if all you wanna do with a thread title like this is bait people into saying “no turrets got what was coming” so you can report them for being off topic, this thread might as well be locked.

insanemaniac.2456:

it isnt just “biased personal opinion” when we have threads by different people pop up every single day with the same qq about how turrets arent fun to fight against. it isnt just “biased personal opinion” when tournament organizers start banning a build because it doesnt properly represent the skill that the organizers feel the competitors should display, and entrants dont complain.

if all you wanna do with a thread title like this is bait people into saying “no turrets got what was coming” so you can report them for being off topic, this thread might as well be locked.

Did you read the original post at all or jump down to the bottom and decided to derail the thread with an argument that is completely off topic?

Yes, nobody liked the pre-nerf Turret Engineer. Yes, this nerf has destroyed Turret Engineer, and for that everyone is happy. Yes, this nerf also obliterated an entire line of Utilities, and for that there has been much controversy.

However, this discussion is soley to discuss the options of making turret utilities somewhat worth taking in a build without reincarnating the Turret Engineer or going into extensive discussions on how to completely rework / replace turret utilities.

And yes, making comments about how you don’t want turrets to ever be balanced or useful because you hate them and they were cheesy and you were traumatized is the very definition of a biased personal opinion that detracts from this constructive conversation. The fact that so many people do that on these forums does not make it any less biased. Sorry.

I can agree with much of what you have said shaogin.

But is it realistic to assume even a top level engineer can successfully rescue a low health turret in there current state?

I have a friend who has used turrets since the first day of the game. It’s simply the build hes enjoyed the first. And I would say hes probably as close to an expert on the build as anyone whose played any build in this game CAN be.

Hes flat out stated to me that turrets don’t even last long enough for him to try to defend with a ranged cc effect such as rifle 4 or toolkit pull. They simply don’t live long enough for that cast time to go off.

Can we really say that the (pickup recharge) change you suggested would help?

Honestly as long as there vulnerable to crits I can’t see how thats possible. Conditions I can deal with but there current weakness to crits takes it to a whole nother level.

Maybe if they had only changed the condition aspect. So that condition heavy classes would be able to reliably control/weaken them long enough to destroy them seeing as how condi classes were the only builds truly countered by turrets.

But your right in that we can’t expect Anet to revert the changes. Frankly. I simply don’t have faith anymore that Anet can admit when they have gone to far. And I fully expect that they will leave turrets in a completely dead state for another two years.

With that in mind. I’d have to think that since (In my experience and my opinion and the opinion of my friends only) turrets simply CAN’T be retrieved or defended in time in a realistic view of gameplay. Reducing there base cooldown instead of there pickup cooldown is the better option.

With the way they are now. I CAN’T trust my combat decisions in a low chance that I might be able to salvage a key aspect of my build.

(especially when I can run a FAR less risky build like cele engi or shoutbow. Where im always going to get the effectiveness I desire out of my build.)

pvp = player vs player not player vs pet

i don’t think that passive builds should be promoted in pvp (that includes turret engis); it doesn’t do any good to pvp community because
- people who play turret build have no motivation to improve
- people who play against turrets just have extremely frustrating experience due to engi mechanics and how absurdly rewarding the build is if you take input into account

i am all up for diversity but i think the focus should be somewhere else than pets and passive gameplay

I think Josh said they would be playing around with letting turrets get boons applied to them but they were watching how it all played out 1st. Ill post the link where I read this info. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Proposed-Changes-for-Engineer-Turrets/page/14#post5020647

Cynz.9437:

pvp = player vs player not player vs pet

i don’t think that passive builds should be promoted in pvp (that includes turret engis); it doesn’t do any good to pvp community because
- people who play turret build have no motivation to improve
- people who play against turrets just have extremely frustrating experience due to engi mechanics and how absurdly rewarding the build is if you take input into account

i am all up for diversity but i think the focus should be somewhere else than pets and passive gameplay

If you want to discuss whether AI is good or bad please do so elsewhere. This discussion is limited to the balance of Engineer’s utility turrets.

Zoso.8279:

I think Josh said they would be playing around with letting turrets get boons applied to them but they were watching how it all played out 1st. Ill post the link where I read this info. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Proposed-Changes-for-Engineer-Turrets/page/14#post5020647

Yeah I saw that. I’m just not sure it would solve much. If anything it could make turrets survive a bit longer. But if turrets survive long, then nerf=pointless and we’re back to people complaining. I don’t know, what do you think?

Shaogin.2679:

If you want to discuss whether AI is good or bad please do so elsewhere. This discussion is limited to the balance of Engineer’s utility turrets.

…
ai is fundamentally intertwined with the balance of turrets.

o.o;

insanemaniac.2456:

Shaogin.2679:

If you want to discuss whether AI is good or bad please do so elsewhere. This discussion is limited to the balance of Engineer’s utility turrets.

…
ai is fundamentally intertwined with the balance of turrets.

o.o;

But this isn’t about whether you think it should exist or not and where it should or shouldn’t exist. It does exist. This thread is simply to discuss fixing something that is broken, but not to the extent to where turret engis will be a thing again. Please at least take the time to read the original post before posting your replies.

Shaogin.2679:

Zoso.8279:

I think Josh said they would be playing around with letting turrets get boons applied to them but they were watching how it all played out 1st. Ill post the link where I read this info. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Proposed-Changes-for-Engineer-Turrets/page/14#post5020647

Yeah I saw that. I’m just not sure it would solve much. If anything it could make turrets survive a bit longer. But if turrets survive long, then nerf=pointless and we’re back to people complaining. I don’t know, what do you think?

Idk I’ve only 1v1 a turret engi once so far since the patch (mostly play middle of the night Eastern time) and I won but didn’t destroy any of his turrets to win since he was forced to place them properly and not stack them all in one spot. Its a tough question because I honestly didn’t think turrets were that deadly before patch (id pew pew them with power ranger so ended them quick) just very easy to play but they did counter a lot of builds my necro included. I almost never could 1v1 them with my necro before so I did feel the weakness but really only because of turret placement. If turrets get boons maybe its the middle ground where they are forced to still place them correctly but will be a bit more deadly with crit chance and all other boons that they can receive. Conclusion IDK lol. I don’t envy the devs when they have to figure out whats balanced and what isn’t.

Shaogin.2679:

insanemaniac.2456:

Shaogin.2679:

If you want to discuss whether AI is good or bad please do so elsewhere. This discussion is limited to the balance of Engineer’s utility turrets.

…
ai is fundamentally intertwined with the balance of turrets.

o.o;

But this isn’t about whether you think it should exist or not and where it should or shouldn’t exist. It does exist. This thread is simply to discuss fixing something that is broken, but not to the extent to where turret engis will be a thing again. Please at least take the time to read the original post before posting your replies.

your OP is pretty much garbo. i realized that halfway through the thread proposing the changes, when i asked if there would be some kind of hit point compensation for turrets suddenly taking 50% more power damage and unbalanced amounts of condi damage. i thought a little about what i said and came to the conclusion that i dont want this build to be playable, because its unfun to play against. so i stopped looking for some kind of response that maybe anet wouldnt just nuke the build.

you dont have to think like me, but do you like to fight against turret engis? or were you always playing one, and just pinballing each other when you fought against one (cuz that sounds kinda fun)?

i hope for a complete overhaul in the future. and not some stopgap measure thats likely to bring back cancerous play patterns, except a little weaker.

insanemaniac.2456:

Shaogin.2679:

insanemaniac.2456:

Shaogin.2679:

If you want to discuss whether AI is good or bad please do so elsewhere. This discussion is limited to the balance of Engineer’s utility turrets.

…
ai is fundamentally intertwined with the balance of turrets.

o.o;

But this isn’t about whether you think it should exist or not and where it should or shouldn’t exist. It does exist. This thread is simply to discuss fixing something that is broken, but not to the extent to where turret engis will be a thing again. Please at least take the time to read the original post before posting your replies.

your OP is pretty much garbo. i realized that halfway through the thread proposing the changes, when i asked if there would be some kind of hit point compensation for turrets suddenly taking 50% more power damage and unbalanced amounts of condi damage. i thought a little about what i said and came to the conclusion that i dont want this build to be playable, because its unfun to play against. so i stopped looking for some kind of response that maybe anet wouldnt just nuke the build.

you dont have to think like me, but do you like to fight against turret engis? or were you always playing one, and just pinballing each other when you fought against one (cuz that sounds kinda fun)?

i hope for a complete overhaul in the future. and not some stopgap measure thats likely to bring back cancerous play patterns, except a little weaker.

The Turret Engineer can’t exist if his turrets are too easy to destroy, because his turrets need to stay out to do what they do. So increasing hit points or turret survival is bad and goes directly against what this last patch accomplished.

But what of those that do not play turret Engineers. Are we supposed to just allow an entire line of utility choices go to waste just because we are terrified of the thought of a Turret Engineer existing again? Are we really going to let fear and irrational decisions govern the balance is dished out?

Increasing the cooldown reduction provided when a Turret is picked up means that nothing changes for those Engineers that leave their turrets out and ignore them. But for the Engineer that monitors his turret’s health (and again you can kill 1 in seconds) and times it’s use wisely, he might be able to actually make use of the turret, even as a standalone utility in a non-turret build.

You won’t be fighting AI, you’ll be fighting the Engineer making active decisions. It can be countered with a simple CC followed by auto-attacking the turret for 2 seconds to destroy it before the Engineer can get back in range to pick it up, thus placing the turret back on that full 20-50 second cooldown.

This change encourages more active play, makes turrets a more viable option for a utility slot without bringing back the turret engi, and it can be easily countered.

So, having debunked all your points, can you see that this isn’t going to cause a turret engi cancer relapse? I mean really, the only comments i’ve seen that are against this proposal so far normally are along the lines of “I hate turret engineer so, no” and seem to want to keep turrets in an unplayable state simply out of spite.

And again, no, I play a Static Discharge Engineer. Do you really think I had a good time fighting Turret Engineers. But boy, it was satisfying to kill one.

Im fine with the changes, turrets have been way to tanky for lots of specs due to their condi/crit immunity. You know, theres a toolkit for repairing turrets, but with the former sustain of turrets it just was never needed. I dont see a single reason why turret engis should not need the tools anet gives them to handle their turrets. Maybe the repair effect could be increased a little, but turrets shouldnt be a very effective build anyway.

Its by far the lowest risk build, it doesnt even participate on the game for real. Run to a point, bunker it and never ever rotate nodes, like ANY other spec have to. Damage is dealt by AI that does not scale with your stats, so just run the most tankiest amulet available. This was straight brainless and should be low risk, low reward.

The only way to balance them that comes to my mind, is by balancing the repair effect of toolkit. So turreteers have to make discisions, like placing turrets on the node to hold it while repairing, or place them outside for better sustain, with the drawback to leave the node for repairing them. If this would be balanced in a proper way, i could think of turrets beeing a usefull and fun way to play.

Heres an idea
1: Turrets are now duration based 10-20 sec
2: Turrets can now crit
3: Turrets will channel constant attacks (numbers can be adjusted)
4: Overcharging will create a large blast and reduce the cd of the turret by 25% no blast finisher as well as an effect based on the turret type
5: Detonating a turret is still a blast finisher but will not reduce cd
6: Picking up a turret removed

Shaogin.2679:

insanemaniac.2456:

Shaogin.2679:

insanemaniac.2456:

Shaogin.2679:

If you want to discuss whether AI is good or bad please do so elsewhere. This discussion is limited to the balance of Engineer’s utility turrets.

…
ai is fundamentally intertwined with the balance of turrets.

o.o;

But this isn’t about whether you think it should exist or not and where it should or shouldn’t exist. It does exist. This thread is simply to discuss fixing something that is broken, but not to the extent to where turret engis will be a thing again. Please at least take the time to read the original post before posting your replies.

your OP is pretty much garbo. i realized that halfway through the thread proposing the changes, when i asked if there would be some kind of hit point compensation for turrets suddenly taking 50% more power damage and unbalanced amounts of condi damage. i thought a little about what i said and came to the conclusion that i dont want this build to be playable, because its unfun to play against. so i stopped looking for some kind of response that maybe anet wouldnt just nuke the build.

you dont have to think like me, but do you like to fight against turret engis? or were you always playing one, and just pinballing each other when you fought against one (cuz that sounds kinda fun)?

i hope for a complete overhaul in the future. and not some stopgap measure thats likely to bring back cancerous play patterns, except a little weaker.

The Turret Engineer can’t exist if his turrets are too easy to destroy, because his turrets need to stay out to do what they do. So increasing hit points or turret survival is bad and goes directly against what this last patch accomplished.

But what of those that do not play turret Engineers. Are we supposed to just allow an entire line of utility choices go to waste just because we are terrified of the thought of a Turret Engineer existing again? Are we really going to let fear and irrational decisions govern the balance is dished out?

Increasing the cooldown reduction provided when a Turret is picked up means that nothing changes for those Engineers that leave their turrets out and ignore them. But for the Engineer that monitors his turret’s health (and again you can kill 1 in seconds) and times it’s use wisely, he might be able to actually make use of the turret, even as a standalone utility in a non-turret build.

You won’t be fighting AI, you’ll be fighting the Engineer making active decisions. It can be countered with a simple CC followed by auto-attacking the turret for 2 seconds to destroy it before the Engineer can get back in range to pick it up, thus placing the turret back on that full 20-50 second cooldown.

This change encourages more active play, makes turrets a more viable option for a utility slot without bringing back the turret engi, and it can be easily countered.

So, having debunked all your points, can you see that this isn’t going to cause a turret engi cancer relapse? I mean really, the only comments i’ve seen that are against this proposal so far normally are along the lines of “I hate turret engineer so, no” and seem to want to keep turrets in an unplayable state simply out of spite.

And again, no, I play a Static Discharge Engineer. Do you really think I had a good time fighting Turret Engineers. But boy, it was satisfying to kill one.

you didnt debunk anything. youre just deluding yourself — you think youre fighting a player and not a player and his ai just because you suggest making his ai come back faster if you decide to look at the ai funny. its the same old kitten with a little more risk and a little higher skillcap when the play patterns are to blame as much as the noskill. ai isnt fun to fight against when its strong. thats what pve is for. not pvp.

as i said, i hope for a complete overhaul in the future. i dont like having 2 bad sets of utilities.

My fix is to give Turrets a significantly low duration, Somewhere around 5 seconds. Then make it stronger, and make it invulnerable.

• This will make it PvE/WvW friendly.
• This will make it great for mixed builds.
• Fortified turret will make it possible to have a full turret build.

More here.

This will remove the passive playstyle that many people dislike.

Shadelang.3012:

Maybe if they had only changed the condition aspect. So that condition heavy classes would be able to reliably control/weaken them long enough to destroy them seeing as how condi classes were the only builds truly countered by turrets.

Are you mad?
Condi classes were the number one counter to turreteers.
You don’t need to destroy the turrets if you can just walk onto the point and watch the engineer keel over. Both trapper rangers and condi engis were capable of doing this without problems.
Necromancers had problems 1v1 against turreteers, but that wasn’t because turrets were too strong, honestly, it was because necromancers currently are in a borderline unplayable state.

The only builds, which had problems against turreteers were all those celestial builds and their lookalike, the meditation guardians. The power of those healy, spammy, tanky builds was too low to affect the turrets, which were immune to crits, while their condis were’t potent enough to burn through 27k health. Now any celestial build can just walk up to a turret, slap it once and watch it go down from the combination of a crit and a random condition proc.
Also thieves, but that was more due to turrets having instant reactions to shadow steps and stealth, while being immune to blinds… And thieves have problems going up against any engineer, making a single engineer build more vulnerable to thieves by allowing turrets to be affected by blind won’t fix the fundamental problem here.

So no. Unless you count celestial builds as condi classes, turreteers were never strong against any condi build. The whole build has one way to cleanse two conditions and one way to get rid of movement-impairing conditions.
A ranger can just play cat-and mouse on point, because the engineer can’t use overcharged shot without risking to be stuck in an entangle for an eternity. Of course, bad rangers open the fight with entangle, get blown out by an overcharged shot and then complain on the forums.
The few trapper rangers, I encountered when playing turreteer always melted me on point… I have never seen 27k health go down so fast. That was the few trappers, which despite literally every matchup featuring multiple shoutbows still dared to bring a trapper.

naphack.9346:

Shadelang.3012:

Maybe if they had only changed the condition aspect. So that condition heavy classes would be able to reliably control/weaken them long enough to destroy them seeing as how condi classes were the only builds truly countered by turrets.

Are you mad?
Condi classes were the number one counter to turreteers.
You don’t need to destroy the turrets if you can just walk onto the point and watch the engineer keel over. Both trapper rangers and condi engis were capable of doing this without problems.
Necromancers had problems 1v1 against turreteers, but that wasn’t because turrets were too strong, honestly, it was because necromancers currently are in a borderline unplayable state.

The only builds, which had problems against turreteers were all those celestial builds and their lookalike, the meditation guardians. The power of those healy, spammy, tanky builds was too low to affect the turrets, which were immune to crits, while their condis were’t potent enough to burn through 27k health. Now any celestial build can just walk up to a turret, slap it once and watch it go down from the combination of a crit and a random condition proc.
Also thieves, but that was more due to turrets having instant reactions to shadow steps and stealth, while being immune to blinds… And thieves have problems going up against any engineer, making a single engineer build more vulnerable to thieves by allowing turrets to be affected by blind won’t fix the fundamental problem here.

So no. Unless you count celestial builds as condi classes, turreteers were never strong against any condi build. The whole build has one way to cleanse two conditions and one way to get rid of movement-impairing conditions.
A ranger can just play cat-and mouse on point, because the engineer can’t use overcharged shot without risking to be stuck in an entangle for an eternity. Of course, bad rangers open the fight with entangle, get blown out by an overcharged shot and then complain on the forums.
The few trapper rangers, I encountered when playing turreteer always melted me on point… I have never seen 27k health go down so fast. That was the few trappers, which despite literally every matchup featuring multiple shoutbows still dared to bring a trapper.

So trappers have been a hard counter because you liked to take a bath inside their traps? This isnt a hard counter, this is just no smart play by engi. Even turret engis dont have to stand on point at all costs, you know?

Also cele engi have been way better to kill turret engis than condi ones, because cele engi was able to kill rocket/rifle turret, instead to condi ones. If the turret engi was played by a descent player, chances for condi engi been very bad.
There simply wasnt a way to survive all that cc over long time(sentinal amulett), without killing at least rocket turret. Condi engis couldnt, or couldnt do it fast enough to even justify their attack.

If theres been a hard counter, i would say berserk staff ele.

Mister Fluffkin.7358:

naphack.9346:

Shadelang.3012:

Maybe if they had only changed the condition aspect. So that condition heavy classes would be able to reliably control/weaken them long enough to destroy them seeing as how condi classes were the only builds truly countered by turrets.

Are you mad?
Condi classes were the number one counter to turreteers.
You don’t need to destroy the turrets if you can just walk onto the point and watch the engineer keel over. Both trapper rangers and condi engis were capable of doing this without problems.
Necromancers had problems 1v1 against turreteers, but that wasn’t because turrets were too strong, honestly, it was because necromancers currently are in a borderline unplayable state.

The only builds, which had problems against turreteers were all those celestial builds and their lookalike, the meditation guardians. The power of those healy, spammy, tanky builds was too low to affect the turrets, which were immune to crits, while their condis were’t potent enough to burn through 27k health. Now any celestial build can just walk up to a turret, slap it once and watch it go down from the combination of a crit and a random condition proc.
Also thieves, but that was more due to turrets having instant reactions to shadow steps and stealth, while being immune to blinds… And thieves have problems going up against any engineer, making a single engineer build more vulnerable to thieves by allowing turrets to be affected by blind won’t fix the fundamental problem here.

So no. Unless you count celestial builds as condi classes, turreteers were never strong against any condi build. The whole build has one way to cleanse two conditions and one way to get rid of movement-impairing conditions.
A ranger can just play cat-and mouse on point, because the engineer can’t use overcharged shot without risking to be stuck in an entangle for an eternity. Of course, bad rangers open the fight with entangle, get blown out by an overcharged shot and then complain on the forums.
The few trapper rangers, I encountered when playing turreteer always melted me on point… I have never seen 27k health go down so fast. That was the few trappers, which despite literally every matchup featuring multiple shoutbows still dared to bring a trapper.

So trappers have been a hard counter because you liked to take a bath inside their traps? This isnt a hard counter, this is just no smart play by engi. Even turret engis dont have to stand on point at all costs, you know?

Also cele engi have been way better to kill turret engis than condi ones, because cele engi was able to kill rocket/rifle turret, instead to condi ones. If the turret engi was played by a descent player, chances for condi engi been very bad.
There simply wasnt a way to survive all that cc over long time(sentinal amulett), without killing at least rocket turret. Condi engis couldnt, or couldnt do it fast enough to even justify their attack.

If theres been a hard counter, i would say berserk staff ele.

Hahaha im glad someone atleast thought for a second that maybe I was talking about the turrets themselves and not the engi himself. Yes. When I made my post earlier I was refering to the inability of condi players eliminate turrets. Cele builds were quite able to kill turrets as they wished through the power aspect of there build. It was just a little bit slower than a pure power build such as a GS or hammer warrior. Meaning turrets were resistant to the cele meta (which is the entire reason why many people played it I might add. Some people hated the cele meta and turret engi was pretty much the only engi build that was resistant enough to the spread of damage types to be able to act through them)

As such I agree with the shift to allowing them to take condi damage. (I disagree with crit damage however it was an unnecessary nerf seeing as how they were ALREADY weak to power damage and immunity to crits would have let them still have the slightest chance of fighting even a bad cele ele. Now cele builds can roll there faces on the keyboard and win against them just as they accused turret engis of doing. oh happy day.)

Especially if eventually anet does decide to allow turrets to be affected by boons. This would enable us…HOPEFULLY, to eventually gain the resistance boon as a method of actively protecting them. Since everyone SAID they wanted turrets to require more active play (of course what they said and what they meant are too different things apparently. What started off as “Make them require more active play” turned into “It doesn’t have the right to exist!”)

Mister Fluffkin.7358:

The only way to balance them that comes to my mind, is by balancing the repair effect of toolkit. So turreteers have to make discisions, like placing turrets on the node to hold it while repairing, or place them outside for better sustain, with the drawback to leave the node for repairing them. If this would be balanced in a proper way, i could think of turrets beeing a usefull and fun way to play.

The only problem I see with this is that I’ve always seen the Toolkit as a way to repair turrets outside of combat. The Toolkit repair effects have never been worthwhile for sustaining a turret in combat, especially now, and to buff the repair effect would just have the Engineer camping on top of his turrets all the time. Just seems like it would be an ineffective and boring play style.

Frightlight.3796:

Heres an idea
1: Turrets are now duration based 10-20 sec
2: Turrets can now crit
3: Turrets will channel constant attacks (numbers can be adjusted)
4: Overcharging will create a large blast and reduce the cd of the turret by 25% no blast finisher as well as an effect based on the turret type
5: Detonating a turret is still a blast finisher but will not reduce cd
6: Picking up a turret removed

I don’t know, this seems like it would just create another lazy play style for the Engineer again. Low-risk high-reward type deal.

insanemaniac.2456:

you didnt debunk anything. youre just deluding yourself — you think youre fighting a player and not a player and his ai just because you suggest making his ai come back faster if you decide to look at the ai funny. its the same old kitten with a little more risk and a little higher skillcap when the play patterns are to blame as much as the noskill. ai isnt fun to fight against when its strong. thats what pve is for. not pvp.

as i said, i hope for a complete overhaul in the future. i dont like having 2 bad sets of utilities.

I’m sorry but you obviously have a deep hatred for any AI at all that is preventing you from legitimately contributing to this discussion. At this point it is going to be a waste of my time to continue this discussion with you.

runeblade.7514:

My fix is to give Turrets a significantly low duration, Somewhere around 5 seconds. Then make it stronger, and make it invulnerable.

• This will make it PvE/WvW friendly.
• This will make it great for mixed builds.
• Fortified turret will make it possible to have a full turret build.

More here.

This will remove the passive playstyle that many people dislike.

I’ve got to say, this is the best alternate solution I have seen yet. The only downside being is that it would require an extensive rework of most of the turret traits, which I do not see Anet committing to. However, this is possibly one of the best things they could do for turrets. Thank you, I’ll follow you on your linked thread.

naphack.9346:

-snip-

I’m sorry guys, you’ll have to excuse naphack. Though he will on occasion bring up decent points about Celestial builds, everything he says literally stems from his hatred of the Celestial Amulet, so he goes a bit overboard on that subject sometime. ;P

Shadelang.3012:

What started off as “Make them require more active play” turned into “It doesn’t have the right to exist!”

I feel ya here, and this is what bothers me the most here. Due to the Turret build and variations of it having ever existed, players seem to have formed a mob dedicated to making sure that turrets are never again a viable utility option.

Are you guys really that lazy and you wanna play while just standing on point and let your turrets do all the work?

And to the OP, if you are playing solo q, it still depends on the enemy comp, not all comps will have that 5 man AOE blaster/AOE condi group that will wreck turrets.

Realtalk tho, Engies are still strong on their turrets.

Shaogin.2679:

runeblade.7514:

My fix is to give Turrets a significantly low duration, Somewhere around 5 seconds. Then make it stronger, and make it invulnerable.

• This will make it PvE/WvW friendly.
• This will make it great for mixed builds.
• Fortified turret will make it possible to have a full turret build.

More here.

This will remove the passive playstyle that many people dislike.

I’ve got to say, this is the best alternate solution I have seen yet. The only downside being is that it would require an extensive rework of most of the turret traits, which I do not see Anet committing to. However, this is possibly one of the best things they could do for turrets. Thank you, I’ll follow you on your linked thread.

I don’t see many extensive rework to be that complicated.

• Turret last 5 seconds. Solution: reduce duration from 5 minutes to 5 seconds. Turrets already blow up when duration ends.
• Invulnerability- Give turrets the invulnerability buff
• Some Turrets projectile animation just need to be changed. But not extensive enough to not do it.

Shaogin.2679:

I’m sorry but you obviously have a deep hatred for any AI at all that is preventing you from legitimately contributing to this discussion. At this point it is going to be a waste of my time to continue this discussion with you.

i think youll find that hatred in a lot of the pvp crowd. you deeming my contributions illegitimate does not make them any less common. we play pvp to pit our brains against other brains. ai currently cannot compete with a human brain. it is inferior. it has to be given significant handicaps to compete, and that doesnt make it fun to fight against in a pvp setting. you might want to look to pve if you want to fight ai.

insanemaniac.2456:

-snip- more ai hate unrelated to thread -snip-

runeblade.7514:

Shaogin.2679:

runeblade.7514:

My fix is to give Turrets a significantly low duration, Somewhere around 5 seconds. Then make it stronger, and make it invulnerable.

• This will make it PvE/WvW friendly.
• This will make it great for mixed builds.
• Fortified turret will make it possible to have a full turret build.

More here.

This will remove the passive playstyle that many people dislike.

I’ve got to say, this is the best alternate solution I have seen yet. The only downside being is that it would require an extensive rework of most of the turret traits, which I do not see Anet committing to. However, this is possibly one of the best things they could do for turrets. Thank you, I’ll follow you on your linked thread.

I don’t see many extensive rework to be that complicated.

• Turret last 5 seconds. Solution: reduce duration from 5 minutes to 5 seconds. Turrets already blow up when duration ends.
• Invulnerability- Give turrets the invulnerability buff
• Some Turrets projectile animation just need to be changed. But not extensive enough to not do it.

Changing the turrets would be easy sure, I’m referring to the traits.

Actually, I retract my statement. Looking at the new traits for HoT, those traits would still work with this new proposed design. Maybe some minor tweaking to Experimental Turrets, but overall fine. I’ll add it to my list of proposed changes.

StickerHappy.8052:

Are you guys really that lazy and you wanna play while just standing on point and let your turrets do all the work?

And to the OP, if you are playing solo q, it still depends on the enemy comp, not all comps will have that 5 man AOE blaster/AOE condi group that will wreck turrets.

Realtalk tho, Engies are still strong on their turrets.

umm, that is not how that build worked. If your suggesting that the turrets alone did all the work that killed you each time?

There is no need to inaccurately accuse players of being “lazy”. If you really thing the turrets do all the work on their own, what does that suggest about your skill?

Overcharges are required. Good placement, and active play from the engineer with CC and weapons skills.

coglin.1867:

StickerHappy.8052:

Are you guys really that lazy and you wanna play while just standing on point and let your turrets do all the work?

And to the OP, if you are playing solo q, it still depends on the enemy comp, not all comps will have that 5 man AOE blaster/AOE condi group that will wreck turrets.

Realtalk tho, Engies are still strong on their turrets.

umm, that is not how that build worked. If your suggesting that the turrets alone did all the work that killed you each time?

There is no need to inaccurately accuse players of being “lazy”. If you really thing the turrets do all the work on their own, what does that suggest about your skill?

Overcharges are required. Good placement, and active play from the engineer with CC and weapons skills.

killed me each time? Lol. I barely have any problems with turrets, so stop accusing too will ya?

That is the point, We are talking about conquest, killing the turrets (pre nerf) and the engie takes a lot of time. So what does that mean? Yes! They keep racking points on that node, before you get to kill them.

And guess what? that is the whole point of conquest, which makes facing a turret engie frustrating.

But if you ask me 1 is okay, the problem is, people tend to stack multiple turret engies in a single team, so they are effectively holding 2-3 points (again the whole point of conquest)

This has nothing to do with getting killed by them, the whole point is losing a game because you can’t cap points, even if you do, still takes a lot of effort.

Yes you are right, overcharges are needed, etc. but even without playing actively, turret engies still manage to hold the point well, so why is that?

maybe it took you a lot of time. I just generally pulled them out of turret range myself, or quickly took out any turrets I felt problematic.

They didn’t kill you? Well, if you say so. So what is your issue then? Your complaining that a bunker style build is not easy to kill? Isn’t that the point?

FYI, do not imply everyone in this thread is “lazy” then act offended when one of those posters in this thread suggest your an easy kill.

Personally, I liked the changes. In my opinion, no object in the game, anywhere, should be impervious to a players entire investment in a stat such as condition damage or precision.

coglin.1867:

maybe it took you a lot of time. I just generally pulled them out of turret range myself, or quickly took out any turrets I felt problematic.

They didn’t kill you? Well, if you say so. So what is your issue then? Your complaining that a bunker style build is not easy to kill? Isn’t that the point?

FYI, do not imply everyone in this thread is “lazy” then act offended when one of those posters in this thread suggest your an easy kill.

Personally, I liked the changes. In my opinion, no object in the game, anywhere, should be impervious to a players entire investment in a stat such as conation damage or precision.

I think even turret engineers would agree with you to that extent. I think whats desired is a way to obtain the previous level of effectiveness with more effort. I.E. having the ability to produce the same kind of pressure they used to yet requiring more micro management. ATM…it just isn’t possible to sustain ANY realistic pressure.

coglin.1867:

maybe it took you a lot of time. I just generally pulled them out of turret range myself, or quickly took out any turrets I felt problematic.

They didn’t kill you? Well, if you say so. So what is your issue then? Your complaining that a bunker style build is not easy to kill? Isn’t that the point?

FYI, do not imply everyone in this thread is “lazy” then act offended when one of those posters in this thread suggest your an easy kill.

Personally, I liked the changes. In my opinion, no object in the game, anywhere, should be impervious to a players entire investment in a stat such as condition damage or precision.

What do you mean “you”?

You mean all those people who asked for nerfs on turret engie?

Sounds legit.

I do not believe that PvP mean “player vs AI”.

Turrets, and any kind of stationary pet/turret/mine/spirit (GW1) only promotes skilless play.

Hence, I think the Engi Turret build (aka: Cancer build) should be pushed away from PvP entirely.
Do w/e you want with PvE since mobs do not care, but remove passive skills like turrets from PvP.

Let’s get back on track please. It doesn’t matter what anyone thinks of the old turret engi, or whether you like or dislike ai. Please continue that conversation in one of the many threads already doing so.

This is about an entire line of utilities being hit too hard by the nerf, to the point where they are now innefective. Under no circumstances do I think the nerf should be undone nor do I encourage ai builds. But fact is, these utilities exist, and there is no reason for them to be left in a useless state. Some great suggestions have been made to fix this without bringing back the dreaded turret engi, and so feedback on these suggestions or suggestions of your own are what we are looking for.

Well op who are you to say turret engi is not balanced in pvp? Considering the effort req to play turret engi I think its balanced. My on beef is that these were not limited to pvp only.

vince. As opposed to the effort required to play shoutbow? Or the effort it used to take most thieves to kill longbow rangers before they got buffed?

I can think of quite a few builds in the past that could be played at a very similar minimal skill level requirement for the reward they produced. Decap engis come to mind. THEORETICALLY high skill cap but the actual skill required was abysmally low.

Many of those builds were tactically nerfed. not strategically nuked.

^

Yeah i totally agree, mesmers and rangers should never have a place in pvp ever!

Never!

AtoBoss.2906:

Wait.
So simply putting it.
YOU want turrets to be somewhat viable again?
- AI builds should never be viable in tpvp.
End of Story.
Not sure how you wanna be constructive when it simply boils down to, turrets should never be viable in tpvp.
Maybe get good and learn to press more than 6 buttons.
Or maybe use your brain and pick your fights more wisely. I bet you still expect to never die at mid with your turrets hahaha.

GET GOOD.

Just pointing this out. The turret engineers use the same number of keys as most other professions. The weapon skills on 1-5, the heal, and the overcharge effect for the turrets on 7-9, and occasionally their elite skill. Plus the toolbelt skills to compensate for a lack of a weapon swap.

Furthermore the idea that AI shouldn’t exist in competitive play is purely your opinion. There are plenty of ways to implement AI into a PVP format to make them difficult to succeed with but rewarding to play. If you think otherwise I’d kindly point you in the direction of every real time strategy game to ever exist. It’s literally pure AI being directed by a human player, and it’s some of the most intellectually stimulating PVP you’ll find in a video game.

For action oriented video games like GW2 the main goal is the same. To make the use of AI effective only when the necessary amount of micromanagement is applied. Turret engineers as they were didn’t have this as their turrets were stationary and largely self sufficient. It can, however, be improved so that there’s more thinking involved in the use of the turrets. Lessening the tankiness of the turrets was a good move, it was just taken way too far. Turrets ideally should last under AoE pressure for at least 15-20 seconds and only melt the way they do now when focused for 5-10 seconds or so, giving the engineer a chance to react to what’s happening so the engineer can actively pick up and relocate the turret out of harm’s way or defend the turret with crowd control skills. The last part is the most important. The engineer should be constantly vigilant over the health bars of the turrets and ready to jump in when needed. Self repairing turrets also shouldn’t be a thing. Wear and tear should be something the engineer worries about, causing them to bring their toolkit to repair the turrets between fights. This would create a bit of a risk as an engineer would be more vulnerable between fights.

I’d also personally change the way the engineer picks up turrets. Instead of putting them on a shorter cooldown I’d have them function like another kit, replacing your weapon skills with turret-based skills where you, say, clobber someone by slapping them with the turret. Then when you place the turret again it’ll have the same health as it did when you picked it up. So if you see your rocket turret being hammered you’d run to it, pick it up, smack the opponent with the turret for a knock down, then run off to replace it in a more secure location. I’d probably have the turret skills on long cooldowns so you’re not inclined to just use turrets like actual kits, but rather as emergency maneuvers to keep the turrets alive. This isn’t necessary to make turrets more active, I just think it’d create a really fun and amusing playstyle.

Then you can lessen the strength of overcharges but give them shorter cooldowns and balance them around the constant application of the overcharge effects so that when the turrets are down the engineer is still contributing to what the turrets are doing.

That’s really all you need to do to make turrets more active. Just because the damage is coming from an AI doesn’t mean it’s the AI beating you if the player behind the turrets is the reason the AI is able to do it’s job at all.

Since we’re talking about micromanagement, i would like to point out my idea for a micromanagement-based turret design.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Suggestion-A-turret-design-change

I’m also kind of curious if Anet has some plan with turrets themselves. I’m sure we all saw the video of the Hammer Engineer with the flying turrets surrounding him.

That may go a way to explain the slap dash nature of the nerf… Why bother trying hard when someone else is…

I really hope so. Thematically, they define the Engineer in my mind.

At this point I feel the best solution is to just redesign the turrets to work as short duration turrets immune to damage and reduce the cooldowns a bit to match the utility they bring.