Guild Wars 2

Hey guys,
I’ve been trying out turrets, but I noticed no one else is using them. Are they really ANY good at all? Why or why not?

They are good, though (unlike people think) they require quite a lot of active play and thinking. I’ve tested them in team queue for some time, had no trouble at all as close capped/far assaulter. No one can win you in 1v1 most of the time, 1v2 is fine as long you see them on time. Moving the team fight to you might be the problem, but it’s on your team to prevent that. I am speaking as the maker of (currently) the most effective turret build, and top 50 (maximum rank7) in team queue EU.

Untraited, absolutely not. Don’t even bother unlocking them.

With their traits… Well, I’ve yet to really use them much while traited, though I intend to focus almost exclusively on them once I do. (Can blame the new garbage trait system for having not gotten around to it yet.) Theoretically, the traits can make them into some incredibly handy support tools. Can hurl them at range, create reflection bubbles extremely often, give boons to the entire team at reasonably decent uptime, and/or can use them to create knockback. Not all at once, one of those traits will always have to be sacrificed, but it’s still a nice haul of supportive abilities.

In addition to those, they’ll always provide a nice “spike” of Blast Finishers, and the Healing Turret’s permanent Regeneration can be pretty nice, not to mention its Overcharge. Healing Turret’s the main one that’s pretty darn handy even without traiting for it.

So, in supportive roles, they can (probably/hopefully) shine. If you’re wanting them for offense, I’d say that’s a very, very bad idea unless your intent is to still use them as support tools, knocking enemies around to give you openings. Defense, well… It’s more of an active defense than a passive defense. You can’t lay them down and expect them to do anything to defend an area; a glass cannon Dagger/Dagger Elementalist could likely run through a field of turrets spread the perfect distance to all hit at the same time while maximizing the distance that Elementalist would have to run, and still only get them down to maybe 75% at best. They are weak, weak, weak. But their traits bring some very neat functionality.

As Toolbox is saying speced they are great… unspeced they are going to be nothing more then a bit of utility.

There are interesting ways to spec them that are not really obvious. Of course there are the a handful of grandamaster traits… and the stuff in inventions.

My favorite way to use them though is to take Accel Packed Turrets + throw turret. I have no intention of leaving them out to do dmg. I use them as thrown knockbacks / blast finishers. If it wasn’t for out tool belt I wouldn’t bother. Most of the turrets though have nice tool belt skills. (rifle is instant cast burst… flame is a fire combo field… thumper is a blast as well as a stun break… rocket turret tool belt is high dmg.) I love the flame turret for its general utility speced like that… I can toss it and activate the aoe blind… and then detonate for a knockback interupt… + gives me a fire field with out having to use bomb kit, and the turret can help me stealth if needed. Its a great utility turret I find.

The new reflect trait can also be a great option…. if you roll the deployment of 2-3 turrets you can stand in a reflect field for a good amount of the time.

I know it took me a long time to find any love for them. I am still not a fan of dropping things and bunkering down… I can’t stand any of our other heals anymore, I’m attached to the heal turret and its water field. You can also use the flame turret to gain stealth which when you manage to pull it off at just the right time, is an engi high.

Napzor.8275:

They are good, though (unlike people think) they require quite a lot of active play and thinking. I’ve tested them in team queue for some time, had no trouble at all as close capped/far assaulter. No one can win you in 1v1 most of the time, 1v2 is fine as long you see them on time. Moving the team fight to you might be the problem, but it’s on your team to prevent that. I am speaking as the maker of (currently) the most effective turret build, and top 50 (maximum rank7) in team queue EU.

But what is the most effective turret build?

I’ve been playing Engineer since launch, and only now, with the new Grandmaster Trait, have I started experimenting with turrets. As with any class, I would argue that there is no “best build” for a class, you will get a varying degree of answers if you are looking for “most effective.”

I find the most effective use (for me), comes from using the turret boon trait Experimental Turrets, and using my turrets to supplement what my build does (might stacking, Rifle Turret giving me Fury). The added DPS is welcome, but I by no means depend on them. On the plus side, it makes Supply Crate a whole lot more fun.

What i described above is a PvE build, but for WvW you will have a harder time making them work. There is just too much room for your opponents to move around, and often times too much AoE spam for your turrets to survive for very long. I have not tried turrets in PvP so I cannot weigh on that one.

Best of luck, hope I was able to provide some insight!

Turrets are excellent! The proper use of which will really help you be a better Engineer

As as example, if you have thumper turret (my favorite since it has a stun breaker), rocket turret. You have 5 knockbacks (traited APT), and 4 blast finishers. Meaning if you put down a healing turret, you can detonate your two turrets for an extra 6k healing on TOP of the healing turret itself.

Or you can use those blast finishers with fire bomb for 12 stacks of might, OR the same thing with smoke bomb for 12s of stealth, which can be very useful with toolkit on Skyhammer.

I can obliterate glass cannon builds before they have the ability to do anything. Rifle, Grenade kit, Rocket Turret, Thumper turret. You can unload a sick amount of DPS while they’re immobilized.

EX… Overcharge thumper turret.. Net shot, Grenade Barrage, Tool belt Rocket, Then overcharge shot, jump shot. Anyone that doesn’t have large amounts of toughness will either be dead, or close to it. Save a knock back for a heal interrupt and you wont run into a build that you can’t compete with.

Just a few weeks ago i was running a Burning build where incendiary powder was doing 6k Damage, and flameblast over 9k without might. Problem with condition builds is that every tournament player has plenty of condition removal, and there are some builds you will just never defeat.

I’ve been playing since release in sPvP almost exclusively, and this is so far my favorite build. No Gimmicks, no easily evadable cheap bursts. Straight up high damage, high CC build.

EDIT – My current build: http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=VW70;2cPVg0W6NTFx0;9;4TJ;0J49A58;551-SN;4H7W3H7W35X

Domo.2894:

Napzor.8275:

They are good, though (unlike people think) they require quite a lot of active play and thinking. I’ve tested them in team queue for some time, had no trouble at all as close capped/far assaulter. No one can win you in 1v1 most of the time, 1v2 is fine as long you see them on time. Moving the team fight to you might be the problem, but it’s on your team to prevent that. I am speaking as the maker of (currently) the most effective turret build, and top 50 (maximum rank7) in team queue EU.

But what is the most effective turret build?

I am also curious about this, as someone who prefers Turrets over any other skillset available to the Engineer.

Judous.5781:

Turrets are excellent! The proper use of which will really help you be a better Engineer

As as example, if you have thumper turret (my favorite since it has a stun breaker), rocket turret. You have 5 knockbacks (traited APT), and 4 blast finishers. Meaning if you put down a healing turret, you can detonate your two turrets for an extra 6k healing on TOP of the healing turret itself.

Or you can use those blast finishers with fire bomb for 12 stacks of might, OR the same thing with smoke bomb for 12s of stealth, which can be very useful with toolkit on Skyhammer.

I can obliterate glass cannon builds before they have the ability to do anything. Rifle, Grenade kit, Rocket Turret, Thumper turret. You can unload a sick amount of DPS while they’re immobilized.

EX… Overcharge thumper turret.. Net shot, Grenade Barrage, Tool belt Rocket, Then overcharge shot, jump shot. Anyone that doesn’t have large amounts of toughness will either be dead, or close to it. Save a knock back for a heal interrupt and you wont run into a build that you can’t compete with.

Just a few weeks ago i was running a Burning build where incendiary powder was doing 6k Damage, and flameblast over 9k without might. Problem with condition builds is that every tournament player has plenty of condition removal, and there are some builds you will just never defeat.

I’ve been playing since release in sPvP almost exclusively, and this is so far my favorite build. No Gimmicks, no easily evadable cheap bursts. Straight up high damage, high CC build.

EDIT – My current build: http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=VW70;2cPVg0W6NTFx0;9;4TJ;0J49A58;551-SN;4H7W3H7W35X

This helps so much. Thanks a TON

Speaking from a pve perspective, no turrets are not good.
If you’re really looking for a turret build (or at least a build that utilises a turret), here’s something I just made up.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdMQJAqelUUpmqlYxPLseNSaBNq0I6Qulc/5GEgnC-TxRGABA8AAGS5XCnAg20DAy+DAq+jUKBBA-e
It’s still an explosive orientated build, but with a side of rifle fury boon dispenser turret.

Accelerant-packed turrets are a blast.

Really? I’m seeing a lot of turrets being used since the patch. Granted, most have been Supply Drop, but turrets really spam the map. Between that, minions, and illusions, the maps are a mess. I think we might even see a nerf coming like minions had.

Domo.2894:

Napzor.8275:

They are good, though (unlike people think) they require quite a lot of active play and thinking. I’ve tested them in team queue for some time, had no trouble at all as close capped/far assaulter. No one can win you in 1v1 most of the time, 1v2 is fine as long you see them on time. Moving the team fight to you might be the problem, but it’s on your team to prevent that. I am speaking as the maker of (currently) the most effective turret build, and top 50 (maximum rank7) in team queue EU.

But what is the most effective turret build?

Depending on the role that you play, various builds come in handy. Though, from my experience, other classes can fill the same roles better then you, except for when you play a far assaulter with this build http://intothemists.com/guides/3674-naps_turreteer_1v1. Though, it’s just my opinion, nothing set in stone.

Until you reach Level 80 and unlock the whole GM minor and major traits, turrets are very useful. Even after reaching max lvl turrets still do a good job, at least in Open PvE. All events where waves of mobs have to be defeated the turrets will hit 95% of them. When they start firing it’s also a hint for other players from which direction the mobs are approaching.
Until you reach Level 36 though the turrets are very fragile and can be destroyed easily. Try to place them either somewhere above on roofs or rocks to make it harder or impossible for enemies to reach them, or place them far away from each other to not lose all of them when mobs aoe melee one of them.

Slotting another weapon kit along with turrets is an option, if I do so I mainly use the bomb kit as it suits me the most, and although it requires melee range I prefer it over the tool-kit, as it’s aoe too – or I slot a third dmg turret instead. For the purpose of kiting champs the rifle, rocket and flamethrower turrets are very useful, I use Pistol+Shield while strafing. I also play a Mesmer and it seems that regarding aggro the turrets are treated more like clones than phantasms, which results in the Engineer having the aggro most of the time unlike the Mesmer, who pretty fast loses the aggro to summoned phants. The turrets are also very handy when running through a bunch of mobs like in a cave or mine or tunnel without the intention to fight them, as they will focus the turrets while the Engineer can run out of range.

2/0/6/6/0 (turrets explode) or 0/0/6/6/2 (turrets are throwable) or 4/3/6/1/0 (Inc. Powder, either reduced cd on Pistol or increased range and the buffs at 75% HP) or 2/3/6/1/2 are all viable builds.

In PvE, no. Turrets are borderline wasteful in PvE, and your traits are best spent elsewhere. They aren’t worth the sacrifice in personal damage and their health and toughness, even when traited, will not save them from being one-shot against end-game mobs.

In SPvP, they are useful for low ranks. In higher ranks, players know that turrets are easily destroyed and once that happens, a large chunk of your build is shut down.