A thought on turrets and mobility

A thought on turrets and mobility

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Posted by: DanteZero.9736

DanteZero.9736

So recently, while running around in silverwastes on my engineer, I decided to try, once again, to run a turret focused build to see how things went. It didn’t go too well mostly because GW2’s combat is highly focused on mobility and being able to avoid damage completely by moving is a big deal.

That being said, even when traited, my turrets didn’t help too much. This made me think about how my GW1 ritualist’s spirit build was conceptually similar: placing immobile turrets with effects and attacks. However, the one thought that I kept going back to involved my ritualist using skills to reposition them—in other words, a sort-of semi mobility (can’t think of a better description).

I remember a long time ago that engineers were said to be mechanically similar to the ritualist in the form of turrets. However, the ritualist spirits back then could be repositioned one at a time in all game modes (draw spirit) or all at once in PvE only (summon spirits). Just being able to reposition the ritualist spirits at long range made running spirits very worthwhile due to the long cooldowns of most spirits. Basically, it allowed stationary turrets to become mobile on command.

This made me wonder, could turrets become more useful (AI and bugs aside) if they could be repositioned at range? After all, to run a full turret build, you have to sacrifice stunbreakers, kits, and every other utility skill type. With such a big drawback, shouldn’t running turrets mean you could make them mobile—at least reposition to your location like summon spirits/draw spirits once did?

A thought on turrets and mobility

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Posted by: digiowl.9620

digiowl.9620

Another thing was that you could use the skill again to summon a new spirit even if the old one was still in play. This would result in the old being unsummoned. Not the most effective way at moving them, but still a option. This because the cooldown of the summon skill started on use, not on spirit death.

End result was that you didn’t need to blow up or pick up. You just abandoned and summoned again at the next fight.

Then again, turrets are just a symptom the “designed for SPVP” illness that is plaguing GW2. the cooldowns are not tuned for the run and gun nature of PVE or WVW, but rather for SPVP capture point sieges.

If the silverwaste forts were more like capture points and less “keep this airhead NPC alive!” things may have been more interesting. But as it stands it is just another NPC escort event (where he will happily run right into a ball of griffs just to rez another NPC).

A thought on turrets and mobility

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Posted by: DanteZero.9736

DanteZero.9736

Another thing was that you could use the skill again to summon a new spirit even if the old one was still in play. This would result in the old being unsummoned. Not the most effective way at moving them, but still a option. This because the cooldown of the summon skill started on use, not on spirit death.

End result was that you didn’t need to blow up or pick up. You just abandoned and summoned again at the next fight.

That’s because the spirits back then had duration timers. GW2’s turrets and necro minions don’t have timers (unless it was the necro’s jagged minions). I do admit, having no duration timers on turrets and most necro minions in GW2 is really nice, but I don’t think turret repositioning should be a trade off.

Then again, turrets are just a symptom the “designed for SPVP” illness that is plaguing GW2. the cooldowns are not tuned for the run and gun nature of PVE or WVW, but rather for SPVP capture point sieges.

If the silverwaste forts were more like capture points and less “keep this airhead NPC alive!” things may have been more interesting. But as it stands it is just another NPC escort event (where he will happily run right into a ball of griffs just to rez another NPC).

You mean the lack of splitting between PvE and PvP like in GW1 which caused balance headaches for the devs but made things more enjoyable for me because the skills were, for the most part, useful and didn’t follow too closely to PvP rules (can’t say the same for other players). Of course, this took years for the patches to drop, but I think it went very well—except some of them were released after GW2’s release. Sheesh.

The point I’m trying to make is that I’d like to see some form of turret repositioning in GW2 to return. The thought of being able to reposition turrets can, in my opinion, add a lot of strategic value and any sort of buff to turrets is always welcome.

A thought on turrets and mobility

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Posted by: Anymras.5729

Anymras.5729

Turrets do have five-minute timers, and if they were able to be chained (because of cooldown starting when they were placed, for example), I don’t think there’d be much complaint about making them shorter.

A thought on turrets and mobility

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Posted by: digiowl.9620

digiowl.9620

A timer that was put in because an enterprising SPVP engineer could bunker a point and then run off with the team and make due on weapon skills only.

Not that it matters much in PVE, because either the turret survives the fight and has to be abandoned/blown up/grabbed, or it gets trashed in seconds.

My thinking in the past is that when we grab a turret we should be given a “boon” that allow us to instantly deploy that turret again (with the health it had when grabbed). While carried like that the option to blow the turret up should remain on the belt, and doing so would produce a explosion centered on the engineer.

A thought on turrets and mobility

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Posted by: Arantheal.7396

Arantheal.7396

that boon must be really short, else engis would be able to drop all turrets, pick them up and face-bomb people with constant insta-cast cc’s (if traited) and damage.
I already can imagine engis shouting alaahu akbar while suicide bombing the kitten out of people xD

Engineer is love, Engineer is life.

A thought on turrets and mobility

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Posted by: digiowl.9620

digiowl.9620

I forgot to say that doing such a detonation would set the turret deployment skill to its full cooldown, just as if the turret had been blown up while out.

The primary idea is that you should be able to bring your turrets with you without having to deal with overly long cooldowns (if you take care of them) but without turning the engineer into yet another zoo.

A thought on turrets and mobility

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Posted by: Creld.8702

Creld.8702

Honestly, digi’s ideas aren’t bad as they are. Going suicide bomber mode would be funny, but it could only be done on the turret cool downs, since turret cooldown starts when destroyed.

Just being able to pick up and move your turrets would be a huge boon, however, there is the possibility that it would make turret engies too strong. Currently the best way to fight a turret engy is range him down, forcing him to engage you outside the turret nest or die to steady poke. The ability to pick up and move his nest to you roaming turreteers a thing, where they cap a point with turrets, let them heal with autotool, and then head to the next point. That being said, all it would take is a bit lower health on turrets to make them more easily destroyed in exchange for being mobile, at least in pvp. Pve, turrets likely would remain unused as they can’t survive many attacks as is, meaning any lower health would make them completely worthless in that game mode. Turret challenges are real guys.

Asura Engineer- Aelara Fole

A thought on turrets and mobility

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Posted by: Arantheal.7396

Arantheal.7396

turrets are fun in certain fractal instabilities. (especially the one where hits stack massive loads of some weird retal-buff on you).
Turrets are immune to it, so spam them and make a coffee while they clean the mobs for you (low dmg – therefore long run, yes, but the most hilarious thing if done by 5 engis xD )

Engineer is love, Engineer is life.