Guild Wars 2

Okay, no secret at this point that I am completely fed-up with kits. So I am asking for advice on a decent turret build I can try out. I still don’t like the idea given the ridiculous number of bugs turrets have, and I still don’t believe for a moment that this upcoming update will do anything to actually fix turrets, but at this point I’ll try just about anything. Besides, I did often play an off-ritualist (meaning ritualist as a secondary profession) in the original game, and got a fair bit of use out of ritualist spirits. So with a turret engineer being the closest this game has to that I figured I’d try it.

Anyway, to anyone willing to offer a little advice I do have a few stipulations that I either cannot or will not change.

1; I use celestial armor. I won’t be changing that, I don’t care how cheap or easy it is to do so. I didn’t spend a month crafting celestial armor to not wear it.

2; I refuse to use the healing turret primarily as a blast finisher. I disagree completely with the notion that setting that turret only to blow it up a split second later is its intended use, and refuse on principle to make use of that tactic. A turret is supposed to be set up to provide a consistent tactical advantage at a given location, so I would be using turrets to actually use them, not just place > overcharge > detonate > repeat.

Beyond that, go nuts.

I’m personally fond of builds using net turret, rocket turret, and the rifle to juggle opponents. Generally, I take rifle turret as my last skill for a low-cd turret, but sometimes I trade it out for the additional CC of thumper turret. I generally like 0/x/30/x/10, with the only mandatory traits being the 3 turret traits in Inventions and the one in Tools. The rest of the points are allocated between Firearms (Offense) and Alchemy (Defense).

This build is very strong against anyone without access to stability, but Guardians and Warriors are typically difficult to beat.

A quick question about damage:

I’m looking over the wiki and I find that turret damage does not scale with our stats or weapons, no surprise there, but conditions applied by turrets do. Doesn’t this mean that, theoretically, a turret build would benefit more from gearing for condition damage than power? It seems to me, at only a cursory glance, that a flame turret and overcharged rifle turret being used with high condition damage would be a superior DPS build, especially when paired with pistols.

Arkham Creed.7358:

A quick question about damage:

I’m looking over the wiki and I find that turret damage does not scale with our stats or weapons, no surprise there, but conditions applied by turrets do. Doesn’t this mean that, theoretically, a turret build would benefit more from gearing for condition damage than power? It seems to me, at only a cursory glance, that a flame turret and overcharged rifle turret being used with high condition damage would be a superior DPS build, especially when paired with pistols.

I would have said something similar to Sylentir. And yea turrets benefit more from condition power but the imo a net turret and rocket are still as useful as flame/rifle. In case you haven’t noticed, rocket turret burns on every hit. On normal attacks. Its kind of like a long range flame turret in a way. I’m half and half on rifle turret since it only does bleed on overcharge and even then if leaked notes are true that will be turned into stacks of vulnerability. Net turret is all around useful and fun, one of the best turrets we have, even if it doesn’t do damage itself, it can guarantee damage from other skills.

Pistols aren’t that good for anything aside from using them while everything else is onto cooldown or for some control paired with Shield. FT, EG or Grenades for stacking bleeds if you go Condition.

Explosive 20 – Turrets that explode push back foes. That one is pretty fun, and it makes it seem like the developers want you to blow up your turrets (they blow up and knockback when getting destroyed as well).

Also if the situation requires it you can let it stand a little bit to distract mobs / use it otherwhise. Just overcharge / blow them up for the finishers / knockbacks at the correct time.

There ’s a build somewhere around this forum that incorporates Knockback-Turrets with Static Discharge. I found that pretty fun for PvP (and it ’s quite tanky as well).

just something i threw together. i seriously doubt its effectiveness because you know, turrets.

support turrets
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqelIqyWnpyuF2LJxIFMuzhekYQvYQFqroC5H-jwBBINBkWAkoGI5rIasFhFRjVPjIqWdDDA-e

if you’re tired of kits why don’t you run something like a SD rifle build or an hgh pistol/rifle build?

imaginary.6241:

Explosive 20 – Turrets that explode push back foes. That one is pretty fun, and it makes it seem like the developers want you to blow up your turrets (they blow up and knockback when getting destroyed as well).

On the contrary, I would consider that evidence that Arena Net doesn’t want turrets to be completely worthless at the point of destruction. Think about it; if you depend on turrets for whatever effect, such as CC or damage, and then they get destroyed you’re basically out of luck. However having said turrets deal damage and knockback foes on destruction would lessen the blow somewhat.

Perhaps it is just a simple case of perspective; the way I see it a given skill, like a turret, is primarily intended to be that skill. A turret is a turret, not a knockback bomb. I see additive or contextual effects like that and using the healing turret to exploit its own combo field to be extras, not the primary function of the skill. I mean honestly; if Arena Net wanted one of our healing skill options to be an AOE heal why not just give us an AOE heal instead of dressing it up as a turret?

As a longtime Turret-user (they’re pretty much the only skillset I use, aside from the odd Gadget):
My build is P/S; 20 (Incendiary Powder, Accelerant-Packed Turrets)/10 (Hair Trigger)/30 (Metal Plating, Reinforced Shield, Rifled Turret Barrels)/0/10 (Deployable Turrets), though I’ve also used Static Discharge, Speedy Gadgets (in conjunction with Throw Mine) and even switched the 10 points from Tools into Alchemy, Explosives or Firearms for other traits; I feel Deployable Turrets slows me down, but it can be useful, depending on the temperament and playstyle. I find 10 more points into Firearms for Coated Bullets is quite handy, for both extra Condition Damage and attack puncture; this is especially true with the issues Deployable Turrets bring to the table, namely the chance of wasting an Overcharge if you activate it before the Turret lands.

As for skills: In general, I use Healing Turret, Rifle Turret, Thumper Turret (largely for the stunbreak) and Rocket Turret. A Flame Turret could easily take the place of any, as long as losing Thumper’s toolbelt stunbreak doesn’t sting too sharply.

Reasons for P/S: Turrets, even if all focus on one target, are not particularly damaging, to put it simply, and so a bit of defense is called for. Pistol attacks never deal quite enough damage, but I’ve found Shield #4 and #5 to be excellent for both damage mitigation and counterattacking, at least in PvE; with P/P or Rifle, one relies on controlling the enemy to prevent them from striking, but with P/S, one can reflect punishing projectile volleys like those used by Attack Golems, trigger Healing Turret’s Water Field while creating some room, Interrupt chains of rapid melee hits and Daze (twice) enemies in a line. The additional defensive ability also allows a P/S user to stand fast in the area of their Turrets – at least, in PvE.

Arkham Creed.7358:

A quick question about damage:

I’m looking over the wiki and I find that turret damage does not scale with our stats or weapons, no surprise there, but conditions applied by turrets do. Doesn’t this mean that, theoretically, a turret build would benefit more from gearing for condition damage than power? It seems to me, at only a cursory glance, that a flame turret and overcharged rifle turret being used with high condition damage would be a superior DPS build, especially when paired with pistols.

Yeah.. turret are much better with condition setups. The only turrets that do meaningful pressure are: Net, & Rocket Turret. And seeing as Net Turret does not actually do damage, in any offensive Turret Build (in my opinion) is condition based, and has Rocket Turret. Extremely shallow depth of turret builds. Using Flame Turret ever is pretty.. impossible, and Rifle Turret is only used for it’s toolbelt ability.

2; I refuse to use the healing turret primarily as a blast finisher. I disagree completely with the notion that setting that turret only to blow it up a split second later is its intended use, and refuse on principle to make use of that tactic. A turret is supposed to be set up to provide a consistent tactical advantage at a given location, so I would be using turrets to actually use them, not just place > overcharge > detonate > repeat.

Beyond that, go nuts.

I respect your decision to use turrets to provide ongoing benefits.

But, sorry to say, if you’re going not going to pick your healing turret after overcharging for maximum efficacy, or blowing it up for maximum burst healing, it’s not a good option to take it. Your healing turret will die, and you will routinely either go 30 seconds without any healing, or, you are forced off your healing turret, making healing impossible. Take Medkit, if using Healing Turret violates your principles. Anet has made it impossible for players to play healing turret like other turrets are played (left out).

It’s like if I refused to use my dodge function because I disagree with it being in an MMO, in principle, then building a ton of vigor in my setup. Not the smartest.

With these things in mind… if you are actually still set on using celestial gear, here’s the all-purpose build I recommend to you.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQFAUl0pyVX3SbF1LJyIFdGjBqgdJSR+pffUwWPIA-jECBYjBhgAhEBI5rIasVhFRjVVjIqWZDzerIa1SBwkyI-w

Why?

• 2 Turrets, no kits. (Medkit doesn’t count) it’s a legitimate turret build.
• Has a Stunbreak.
• Has sufficient condition removal of 7 per minute + preloaded antidotes.
• Has power damage, healing, and condition damage to benefit properly from Celestial gear.
• Has killing power. Net spam & acid bomb, while rocket turret is going ham.

glhf

No kits? You have Elixir Gun, even mentioned in one of your damage combos O_O.

I think saying it’s “impossible for players to play healing turret like other turrets” is a bit… dramatic. You can certainly leave it out (make sure it’s behind you so it doesn’t die as easily) for permanent regeneration and a small heal and condition removal every 15s. There are others who have this morale aversion that Arkham does, and they play it this way.

I do agree it was designed to not play like other turrets, unintentionally or not that’s just how it works. Aside from any considerations for blast finishers, or cooldown reductions when picking it up, the dang thing heals when you place it! Why would there be a heal for placing it if we aren’t expected to… you know… place the thing all the time instead of just letting it sit there?

Thanks to everyone who has posted something thus far, I really appreciate it.

Interesting ideas being presented here, as well as a few things I worry about. The biggest concern I have is with the healing turret. I’d go into more detail about my feelings of that turret, but it would suffice to say my experiences as a healing spring ranger in the original Guild Wars (back before there was such a thing as skill combos) have conditioned me such that its low heal-over-time doesn’t bother me in the slightest. I’ve already spent years perfecting a play-style suitable to skills like that and how they work. My concern however is its base health, as I agree having it be destroyed would cause problems down the road.

Maybe if Arena Net ever buffs base turret health that wouldn’t be a problem, but I won’t hold my breath for that. Instead I have another question. Has anyone ever considered an elixir/turret build? I know that turrets cannot crit, and that certainly goes against what I’m used to (I rarely ever go without Elixir B on my skill bar), but never the less I find Elixir H to be a worthwhile healing skills, especially with the traits Fast Acting Elixirs and Cleansing Formula 409. It seems to me that the elixir skills wouldn’t have any effect on the turrets themselves, but perhaps using them to buff myself while the turrets aggro/control the mobs would be of some usefulness in PvE.

That’s a lot of traits being sucked up, leaving you for little to no choices beyond the elixir and turret related traits that you need for what you have slotted.

I agree that healing over time can be awesome. For anyone that played LOTRO I played a Warden. You don’t need direct chunks of healing to stay alive, not at all. The problem with leaving the Healing Turret out is that it gives the same generic regeneration boon that a hundred other skills can put out. You can’t really stack up on the over time effects with the turret, so it doesn’t quite work as well as you’d think which is why everyone blows it up. It’ll work, just not very well. At least it has a large area.

Adamantium.3682:

No kits? You have Elixir Gun, even mentioned in one of your damage combos O_O.

Yeah.. it is indeed a kit, but in the stunbreak category of that build. Take a thumper turret, take slick shoes, it really isn’t that big a deal. The challenge is getting something that has no kits, AND complements the Celestial gear.

Arkham Creed.7358:

It seems to me that the elixir skills wouldn’t have any effect on the turrets themselves, but perhaps using them to buff myself while the turrets aggro/control the mobs would be of some usefulness in PvE.

Speaking of which, are we looking for a PvE build or a PvP/WvW build?

But back to the discussion: the Oct 15th patch will be huge for turrets, at least in PvP and especially WvW. There’s no feeling in the world worse than seeing your net turret immobilize a gate. In PvE I can see that the turret shooting anything at all would be useful, and might even tag more mobs with no targeting control as they are currently.

Second: static discharge is a nice trait for turrets, since you’ll obviously get it twice for each utility. If I were building a PvE turret build, I would go rifle/rocket/thumper. Rifle turret you’d really have to use as a disposable turret, but rocket and thumper both do nice damage to mobs in an AoE. You mentioned you would like to have to position turrets, not just place-overcharge-detonate. I would imagine that you’d want your thumper turret next to you, your rocket turret behind you, and your rifle turret in the middle of the mobs to get the damage from detonation, as well as the double SD plus the damage from surprise shot. All in exactly zero seconds.

In PvP, if you’ve never run full zerker, full turrets with SD and knockback trait, you’re missing out. It might not be what you’re looking for, as you certainly have to make your turrets disposable and celestial gear would probably not be that great. But still. Do it.

Maybe don’t play engineer?

You don’t like kits or destroying turrets which are both core mechanics of the class and want to play using only one set of gear?

I’m thinking you might be better off playing ranger. AFAIK the spirit summons work in a similar way to turrets in that they provide benefits to area’s by providing buffs without having to blow them up. Plus healing spring is a water field healing area on a single press so you can feel happy that you’ve only pushed one button as Anet intended it to be used.

Making a build based mainly from turrets is going to be very frustrating to play outside of sPvP. Taking in to account that a lot of your stats are watered down from quantity rather than quality means that you will also be cutting out a lot of versatility from the class by tying yourself to one spot and doing low damage/healing.

Personally I haven’t tried this so might be completely wrong but I don’t really see how it would be fun or viable to play.

Okay, a little more information for those kind enough to help me out here.

Firstly, after playing around with them a bit, I greatly favor pistol/shield as my actual weapon set. The pistol is really a take-it-or-leave-it weapon, but unfortunately my only choice if I want to use the shield. I prefer the shield for its direct defense ability, CCing foes is fine and I certainly have no problem with that, but sometimes I find it more efficient to just block. Besides; I only ever used the rifle to “cheat” jumping puzzles.

Secondly, on the subject of just playing another character; I’m not much of an alt person, and I really don’t want all the time and effort I put into this character to go to waste. I insist on using celestial armor because I already have celestial armor and I don’t want that month of crafting (nor the real money I spent for the Aetherblade skins attached to said armor) to be wasted taking up space in my account bank. Furthermore I’ve already gotten my engineer to level eighty and am almost done with world completion, and have three different crafting professions at 400+ with him; I don’t want to just trash all that and start over.

I personally think that a Turret build is kinda useless, they have far to long of a cool down, cant be moved and are easily killed.

Compare that to Mesmer Phantasms that do more damage, lower cool downs, move AND have further uses with shatters and then you have Minion Master builds as well the EXACT same issues when you compare them to turrets – they move, deal greater damage, lower cool downs and have some great traits – poison field, necro healing, condition removal and such as well…

In PvP Turrets are quite awesome. 1k Hit with Knockback, 3 Times in a Row on an Stun-Warrior while your Conditions tick? Yes please.

In PvE – Meh. Nuff said.

imaginary.6241:

In PvP Turrets are quite awesome. 1k Hit with Knockback, 3 Times in a Row on an Stun-Warrior while your Conditions tick? Yes please.

In PvE – Meh. Nuff said.

Agreed. Due to all the talk of turrets lately (and the fact I change sPvP builds a lot) I have been playing sPvP with a turret build the past few days. It’s quite fun, sooooo much CC. I can also heal a LOT in a pinch by detonating all my turrets and using a Jump Shot.

Not competitive, but I don’t care it’s fun. I like to see how well I can do with fun builds in sPvP rather than just run the latest cheese.

Isn’t the self-repairing trait more or less useless, at needing 100 seconds to fully repair a turret?

My experience with turrets is that you should take Accelerant-Packed turrets. It doesn’t matter if you plan on detonating them or not. You have a choice to use them as knockback bombs when you need that. They also behave as bombs when the enemy destroys them. That surprise can either make or break a fight.

Carighan.6758:

Isn’t the self-repairing trait more or less useless, at needing 100 seconds to fully repair a turret?

Really? thats insane.

10% repair every 5 seconds seems fair enough. Considering the how low and how easily they are destroyed. My Engi Pistol Auto destroyed ALL from supply crate in like 5-10seconds AND i was dealing damage to the Engi hiding among them.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Carighan.6758:

Isn’t the self-repairing trait more or less useless, at needing 100 seconds to fully repair a turret?

Really? thats insane.

10% repair every 5 seconds seems fair enough. Considering the how low and how easily they are destroyed. My Engi Pistol Auto destroyed ALL from supply crate in like 5-10seconds AND i was dealing damage to the Engi hiding among them.

He ain’t kiddin’, that’s how the trait works. Great Major Master choice, huh?

Anymras.5729:

He ain’t kiddin’, that’s how the trait works. Great Major Master choice, huh?

They dont even stay up for 100seconds do they? O.o

They stay up for 300, uh, theoretically – 5 minutes x 60 seconds.

Realistically, you’re looking at maybe recovering 10% before they get demolished if they’re actually in a situation in which they need it.

Anymras.5729:

They stay up for 300, uh, theoretically – 5 minutes x 60 seconds.

Realistically, you’re looking at maybe recovering 10% before they get demolished if they’re actually in a situation in which they need it.

thats 300 if not in combat or fighting anything – like 10seconds if you are fighting ANYTHING.

This is my turret booster build;

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqelIqyansSVF17ICIF61dJ6RlRZO2HFs1DC-ToAgyCpI0SplTLjWStsaN+YKC

I usually use the Elixir gun in place of the Thumper but since you wanted more turrets I decided to go for Thumper. The build is all about stacking might with Napalm and your blast finishers whilst your turret burns things forever.
The Flame turret has a fast CD if it dies, it also produces a smoke field which you can blast into to escape or just blind people.

If you don’t want to stack might you can also blast into water fields for additional healing.

Another build I have is my burst build; http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQFAUlIqyVnty2F1LJy4DkW4D2HoH2lfNifKwWA-TkAg0CnI4SxljLDXSus1MoA

This one can burst Svanir or Chieftain from 100 – 0. Unfortunately you have to blow up the turrets to get the additional damage which means longer cooldowns.