Guild Wars 2

“Alchemy: Experimental Turrets – Turrets apply boons based in a 600 raidus around them every 10 seconds. Thumper turrets: 3 seconds of protection. Net turret: 10s of swiftness. Rifle turret – 5s of fury. Healing turret – 3s of vigor. Rocket turret – 3s of retaliation; Flame turret – 3 stack of might for 10s.”

I’ve read most people gripe about the upcoming nerfs to engineer. I can understand some, I can’t understand others. Only thing I’ve ever wanted was for turrets to be a more viable options in dungeons. This new Grandmaster trait in Alchemy makes me happy. Anybody else think that turrets will be more viable for PvE play in the upcoming feature patch?

I, for one, think that turrets will be certainly more viable in PvE play with this upcoming patch. The issue I have with Experimental Turrets is that it’s a trait located in a trait line that has absolutely nothing to do with turrets up until the Grandmaster level, thereby making it impossible to get every turret-related trait in a single build.

Maybe that’s the trade – off for it being a great trait. . . if we were able to get every turret related trait into one build, it would probably be way too OP.

The complaint I keep hearing about not being able to get EVERY turret trait is unsound. You shouldn’t be able to get all of them in one build; having it this way means we can have multiple kinds of turret builds, rather than a single all-encompassing one that anyone who wants to use turrets would need. You can have different focuses and play-styles between turret builds.
Besides, at the moment getting as much support for turrets as possible is great, since they have the potential to provide an alternative to those ugly kits. You know, if they scaled with stats and didn’t die so easy, and always go on a huge recharge when you pick them up to move them…

“You know, if they scaled with stats and didn’t die so easy, and always go on a huge recharge when you pick them up”

EXACTLY! I remember so long ago whispers about Engineer giving us aspects of play we loved about the Ritualist class . . . i.e. Spirits . . .

Hope the devs are feelin’ us

Kinda liking the trait. Its something that turrets should have had from the start but better a trait than nothing. As for being in the Alchemy line again I’m okay with. Gives another reason to spec 30 into alchemy that isn’t HGH related (never been a fan of AR). Hoping that it works with supply crate’s turrets, since combined with elite supplies you’ll have fury, might, swiftness and vigor dropped as well + other boons from any other turrets you have.

Probably give a 10/0/30/30/0 turret setup a try post patch.

Grimwolf.7163:

The complaint I keep hearing about not being able to get EVERY turret trait is unsound. You shouldn’t be able to get all of them in one build; having it this way means we can have multiple kinds of turret builds, rather than a single all-encompassing one that anyone who wants to use turrets would need. You can have different focuses and play-styles between turret builds.
Besides, at the moment getting as much support for turrets as possible is great, since they have the potential to provide an alternative to those ugly kits. You know, if they scaled with stats and didn’t die so easy, and always go on a huge recharge when you pick them up to move them…

In all honesty, I don’t have that much of a problem with not having access to every turret trait at once. Not to sound combative, and just thinking aloud, I’m able to access every trait possible for gadgets at once. Why can’t the same be said for turrets? What sets them so drastically apart that they have traits in no less than four of our trait lines, while gadget traits are, to my knowledge, located only in one trait line?

I’ve tried an all gadget-trait build. It just sucked SO hard. . . My guess is the devs figure it’s okay to have all the gadgets trait in one line since they are so underpowered. An engi with all turrets and SOME turret-related traits VS an engi with all gadgets and ALL gadget-related traits isn’t much of a match up, I think the turret engi would dance a jig all over the gadget engi.

Zen.9137:

I’ve tried an all gadget-trait build. It just sucked SO hard. . . My guess is the devs figure it’s okay to have all the gadgets trait in one line since they are so underpowered. An engi with all turrets and SOME turret-related traits VS an engi with all gadgets and ALL gadget-related traits isn’t much of a match up, I think the turret engi would dance a jig all over the gadget engi.

That depends. A gadget Engie has distance. A Turret Engie controls an area. A gadget would have good burst as well, turret engie has CC. I’d really like to see how a turret vs a Gadget would work to be honest.

Dirame.8521:

Zen.9137:

I’ve tried an all gadget-trait build. It just sucked SO hard. . . My guess is the devs figure it’s okay to have all the gadgets trait in one line since they are so underpowered. An engi with all turrets and SOME turret-related traits VS an engi with all gadgets and ALL gadget-related traits isn’t much of a match up, I think the turret engi would dance a jig all over the gadget engi.

That depends. A gadget Engie has distance. A Turret Engie controls an area. A gadget would have good burst as well, turret engie has CC. I’d really like to see how a turret vs a Gadget would work to be honest.

“Tools – Gadgeteer – gadgets grant additional boons upon use. Boon vary based on the gadget being used – AED – 3s of retaliation, Personal Battering Ram – 5s of fury; Rocket Boots – 4s of Vigor; Slick Shoes – 8s of regeneration; Throw mine – 6s of aegis; Utility Goggles 5 stacks of might for 8 seconds.”

This grandmaster trait might make gadgets more viable in my opinion I’m excited to give it a try. I never thought of the burst potential of an all gadget build. Perhaps it would be a draw?

Can’t see this trait being very useful for the most part, the turret itself will in most cases be getting blown up almost the instant it is put down – you’re likely to only get 1 cast of any of these boons at best before your turret skill is on cooldown. This is especially true in dungeons, fractals and any kind of vaguely challenging content

Turret cooldowns are quite long considering the duration of these boons. Keep in mind that general boon duration via runes is seemingly being nerfed in the upcoming patch as well.

The exception to all of this is probably rifle turret – assuming you take this GM trait along with runes of altruism and always pick up your turret as soon as you deploy it:
-Rifle turret cooldown 20s – when picked up, 16 secs. 7 seconds of fury generated with altruism runes and 30 points in alchemy.
-Altruism runes – cooldown 15 seconds. 7 seconds of fury generated as per above. You could trigger this with either heal turret or medkit, probably doesn’t make much difference provided again you always pick the turret up.

This would give you roughly 93% fury uptime for your party, not considering cast times and stuff.

If you took elixir gun and bombkit in your other slots, and ran pistol shield, you could keep up 12 stacks of might or so along with the fury above which isn’t too bad although as usual you’d be quite a busybody.

Zen.9137:

Dirame.8521:

Zen.9137:

I’ve tried an all gadget-trait build. It just sucked SO hard. . . My guess is the devs figure it’s okay to have all the gadgets trait in one line since they are so underpowered. An engi with all turrets and SOME turret-related traits VS an engi with all gadgets and ALL gadget-related traits isn’t much of a match up, I think the turret engi would dance a jig all over the gadget engi.

That depends. A gadget Engie has distance. A Turret Engie controls an area. A gadget would have good burst as well, turret engie has CC. I’d really like to see how a turret vs a Gadget would work to be honest.

“Tools – Gadgeteer – gadgets grant additional boons upon use. Boon vary based on the gadget being used – AED – 3s of retaliation, Personal Battering Ram – 5s of fury; Rocket Boots – 4s of Vigor; Slick Shoes – 8s of regeneration; Throw mine – 6s of aegis; Utility Goggles 5 stacks of might for 8 seconds.”

This grandmaster trait might make gadgets more viable in my opinion I’m excited to give it a try. I never thought of the burst potential of an all gadget build. Perhaps it would be a draw?

The turret engie has the advantage. If you grab Net, Rocket and Thumper and the Gadget Engie were to take PBR, Analyze and Rocket boots, the Turret Engie might be able to out CC the gadget engie to win. The Gadget Engie will have to burn 2 cooldowns just to break out of a successful Net turret overcharge which would end up being the downfall of the turret engie.

Grimwolf.7163:

The complaint I keep hearing about not being able to get EVERY turret trait is unsound. You shouldn’t be able to get all of them in one build; having it this way means we can have multiple kinds of turret builds, rather than a single all-encompassing one that anyone who wants to use turrets would need. You can have different focuses and play-styles between turret builds.
Besides, at the moment getting as much support for turrets as possible is great, since they have the potential to provide an alternative to those ugly kits. You know, if they scaled with stats and didn’t die so easy, and always go on a huge recharge when you pick them up to move them…

You make a good point. While I do have an issue with not being able to get all the turret traits, the far bigger problem is how this trait in particular is such an outlier. It’s in a line with literally nothing else for turrets. You can’t choose to make your turrets give out boons while also boosting them in other ways. It’s 30 points for 1 trait. That’s the worst part to me.

10/0/30/30/0

If nothing else changes that would get you all turret traits.

Though i don’t think all are necessary, they could end up quite viable. Or at least make your turrets tougher, and more beneficial to use.

They might intend it to be more of a supporting/damage build. As you can bring the heal kit, for example, or wrench kit to further support your team.

For instance if i took my supply crate + rifle turret + flamethrower + another turret/flamethrower/elixer gun + heal kit, add in traits for turrets and other support from alchemy, you’d be able to focus on healing/support/field control/surviving while your turrets deal damage.

I’m fairly excited, gives me a reason to finish getting my 60 engineer to 80. I put him pdf for my guardian, Mesmer, and warrior. Now it’s his time to shake off the dust.

Heck yeah. Look into that build. +dmg per boon, elixer gun/flamethrower dmg boost, etc…

I just hope that, like the tool belt utilities, they account for the fact my engineer is a sylvari and has MORE turrets!

After all, I’d be happy to see that “alternative build options” doesn’t just mean, “more ways to do damage”.

Us support/heal lovers feel left out in this world. ;_;

As a turret Engineer, I love this trait. Free boons just for using turrets? Heck yah. Boon support is definitely a major weak point for Turret engineers and this will fix that deficit nicely. And it works much better for an actual turret user than the other new turret trait, since that one encourages you to place a turret than pick it back up / explode it after the shield goes down so you can get the shield more often, where this one actually rewards keeping turrets active all the time, which is what a turret build wants already.

But the placement is just terrible. The Alchemy line has almost nothing to offer turrets. The minor Alchemy traits are decent, especially Energy Conversion, though running just turrets won’t get you THAT many boons, so its not quite as good as it could be if you were running Elixirs or something. And as far as the Majors go, if you’re running a full utility bar of turrets, over half of the Alchemy traits are useless (any that buff elixirs or other utilities). And the few that aren’t completely useless aren’t all that impressive.

Furthermore, Alchemy is a defensive traitline. And if you want to run Experimental turrets and the “main” turret traitline (Inventions, also a defensive traitline) you’re very pigeonholed into a defensive build. Which means you’re basically relying completely on your turrets for damage, which isn’t very good IMO. I find that using turrets as supplemental damage on a mostly offensive build is the better way to go.

Electro.4173:

As a turret Engineer, I love this trait. Free boons just for using turrets? Heck yah. Boon support is definitely a major weak point for Turret engineers and this will fix that deficit nicely. And it works much better for an actual turret user than the other new turret trait, since that one encourages you to place a turret than pick it back up / explode it after the shield goes down so you can get the shield more often, where this one actually rewards keeping turrets active all the time, which is what a turret build wants already.

But the placement is just terrible. The Alchemy line has almost nothing to offer turrets. The minor Alchemy traits are decent, especially Energy Conversion, though running just turrets won’t get you THAT many boons, so its not quite as good as it could be if you were running Elixirs or something. And as far as the Majors go, if you’re running a full utility bar of turrets, over half of the Alchemy traits are useless (any that buff elixirs or other utilities). And the few that aren’t completely useless aren’t all that impressive.

Furthermore, Alchemy is a defensive traitline. And if you want to run Experimental turrets and the “main” turret traitline (Inventions, also a defensive traitline) you’re very pigeonholed into a defensive build. Which means you’re basically relying completely on your turrets for damage, which isn’t very good IMO. I find that using turrets as supplemental damage on a mostly offensive build is the better way to go.

This pretty much nails my opinion. I will, I think, be trying to sort of…break the defensive mold, though, after the 15th; Dual Pistols, Healing/Rifle/Flame/Thumper Turrets, Experimental and Fortified Turrets, with the traits that convert Toughness/Vitality into Power/Condition Damage.
Might be able to do some damage, especially given a consistent source of Fury and Might, with Thumper’s Protection to keep me up alongside Healing Turret’s regen and Vigor.

Awsome trait PVE maybe and probably even WVW/PVP wise. Turrets will be comming i think, but then again its also because all out other choises got the nerf hammer so badle we dont have that much choice left :/

Boon turrets+shield turrets gonna be awesome in wvw

xhierophantx.7415:

10/0/30/30/0

If nothing else changes that would get you all turret traits.

No it won’t. Deployable Turrets.