Guild Wars 2

So in the last three years of playing this game, I have never once played an Engi. While I did really love their turrets, I kept away from the profession.

Now I’m really starting to get into the engi and I was excited for the turrets still, only to find out that a lot of people don’t use them?

Why is that?

And are there still some good uses for them?

Because casuals what are too lazy to l2p cried out overnerf half your ago. You can still use them but not like source of damage but as source of perma reflect for example.

It was really sad. Turrets were designed to defend an area and that was exactly what they did! And where do we benefit from defending a specific area? PvP, everyone cried that turrets would be too strong and so they got nerfed. So they aren’t able to do the one thing they are supposed to do and what’s left is….. nothing…..

Turrets got all downsides like being unable to move, not able to crit, have a really slow attacking rate, are able to receive critical hits and conditions.

Which upsides of other minion types did they get? Nothing.
They can’t get boons, they can’t get healed except with tool kit which would make the engineer a sitting duck too, not just the turrets.

And the one point I laughed the most: Scrapper gave us another minion type (gyros), which have these upsides all other minions have and it is presented like a new amazing game mechanic.
“You will be able to give gyros boons and heal them!” yeahaaa…..

allow me to explain why no one uses them

AutoTool Installation trait got removed without this trait turrets lost the ability to heal over time
Deployable turrets got removed without this trait quick strategic positioning of turrets got removed
rifle turrets barrels got removed and rifled and rocket turret ranges got nerfed
thus turrets lost 50% damage and 50% range
metal plating got fused with the 4s bubbleshield trait as grandmaster , bubbleshields fail to activate at times and only block projectiles , most ranged attacks in this game arent projectiles and many ranged skills are ground aoe so the shields are useless 98% of the time even when they work
net turret got nerfed to 10s cd per net shot and immobilize reduced to 2s duration same goes for the overcharge
turrets became critable
turrets became vulnerable to condition damage

turrets did not recieve any damage or utility compensation with the nerf so they offer nothing at all

heck even after the condition damage rework flame turret still only applies 1 burning stack

Turrets got severely nerfed to the point of complete uselessness when they became fotm in pvp, and then they received another layer of nerfs on top of that with the removal of certain traits.

All they needed to do is have turrets inherit engi’s stats. It makes no sense for them to do the same damage and have the same survivability regardless of whether the engi himself is glass cannon or full tank.

They received no compensation, no buffs, no work was done on them to ensure they stay somewhat relevant. It’s like they specifically want them to be dead skills. And with gyros, I lost all my hope on anything happening. If they can’t make the pay-to-play gyros viable, there’s no chance the free turrets will ever become more than novelty skills and noob traps.

I remember the good old days when I first saw the engie reveal video. Its what got me interested in GW2 in the first place, putting down mines and turrets. But as per above, they nerfed turrets to the ground. No more fun with them.

letting your AI play for you in lieu of the player needing the necessary APM or mechanics to do so themselves was just bad design for pvp.

And instead of making them more active by changing how they worked, they decided to simply made them useless.

I still use them some in PvE and for RP/Concept builds. The turrets themselves could use a little work, but their toolbelt skills sometimes come in handy. Overall, they aren’t super powerful. I wouldn’t say they’re wholly useless, though.

Darknicrofia.2604:

letting your AI play for you in lieu of the player needing the necessary APM or mechanics to do so themselves was just bad design for pvp.

My Druid would like to speak with you.

Were they ever really alive?

They were viable in precisely one gimmicky role in one game mode, and I don’t recall them being even remotely viable anywhere else.

ArchonWing.9480:

Were they ever really alive?

They were viable in precisely one gimmicky role in one game mode, and I don’t recall them being even remotely viable anywhere else.

And even in that period there were many way to win against them ( for example with condi engi condi spam with nades … pull with magnet and so on …. or with staff ele , warrior .. and many others … they were viable only on low tier spvp ….

i still play a turret alt in unranked pvp for fun sometimes,
plonk them around a point and you have great damage, good sustain and a mountain of CC, obviously i wouldn’t try in ranked (though who knows, could work!?) but it does still work, they’re just a lot more vulnerable than they used to be.

While I disagree with turrets being “over nerfed” on most points, I do agree that they’re too situational to use most of the time.

The removal of Autotool Installation and cooldown increases were unnecessary. Damage nerfs and making them vulnerable to critical attacks/conditions were neccessary.

You won’t be able to use turrets as you’d probably like to but a couple of them still see use primarily for their toolbelt functions. Rifle Turret has a very short cooldown tolbelt skill which works well with a Static Discharge build. Thumper Turret has a decent stunbreak which can also be used for double/triple blasting Healing Turret’s water field and of course everyone uses Healing Turret still.

The rest don’t see much use but with a bit of creativity they can be a nice support. Just don’t expect to plant them and bunker down somewhere because those days have long since passed.

To answer your question: Turrets are effectively dead, yes. I think they need a small buff but again, most of the nerfs were justified. You shouldn’t be letting your AI play for you but at the same time, they shouldn’t be so ineffective that they become too situational to bother taking the majority of the time.

Turrets were supposed to help defend and control an area.
In their current state they aren’t able to do it at all – they die far too quickly.
And unlike other classes, the engineer hasn’t got a second weapon. So by using the utility slots on turrets, once they die you’re left with a single weapon and some toolbelts. That’s not viable.
So yeah, as turrets, they’re dead.
Again, what they needed was a rework of their mechanics that would make them more active. Not some quick and cheap survivability overnerf good only to appease a whining crowd.
They’re supposed to be standing still in an area and defend it and do it for a class that relies even too much on their utility slots, and they even lock the actual class mechanic while they do it (as you can’t use the proper toolbelt skill while they’re placed).
If they haven’t got a good enough uptime, they can’t do it. Be it via high defenses or low cooldowns, that’s needed for them to work as turrets.
But given that they even removed most of the traits and they gave us gyros, i guess they aren’t even planning of making them remotely useful.
If there is a table, then turrets are the chewing-gum sticked below.
Well hidden from view, and won’t budge out by themselves.

Turrets were never that great. The fact that they suffered nerfs amuses me. The first nerf they suffered was the nail in their coffin: They couldn’t apply conditions anymore. The bleeding from the gun turret (overcharge <3) and burning from the rocket turret is what made them at all useful for damage since the conditions used your stats rather than presets. Now?

Pft. You may as well just save the skill points (if only that were an option)!