Guild Wars 2

http://www.tentonhammer.com/columns/persistent-worlds/arenanet-turrets-are-now-useless

They were glad turrets were now useless and that overnight, they had vanished from ranked play. What frustrates me so much about this attitude is that it’s entirely selfish as opposed to looking at the bigger picture of how a profession and its skills function. I regularly hear about how turret engineers and the fact they are AI controlled is unfair and yet a mesmer differs little in the sense that Phantasm’s are also AI controlled damage. The only difference being that a Phantasm’s damage is higher than any turret, lower in cooldown, can be shattered and you don’t sacrifice any utility for having them. Oh, and unlike a turret, they can follow you.

Has he been reading my posts? Can this guy just come here and high five me?

Nilix.2170:

They were glad turrets were now useless and that overnight, they had vanished from ranked play. What frustrates me so much about this attitude is that it’s entirely selfish as opposed to looking at the bigger picture of how a profession and its skills function. I regularly hear about how turret engineers and the fact they are AI controlled is unfair and yet a mesmer differs little in the sense that Phantasm’s are also AI controlled damage. The only difference being that a Phantasm’s damage is higher than any turret, lower in cooldown, can be shattered and you don’t sacrifice any utility for having them. Oh, and unlike a turret, they can follow you.

Has he been reading my posts? Can this guy just come here and high five me?

I haven’t, but I’d like to!

Oh, you wrote it! High Five! But you can definitely just go down all the posts I wrote about it. Or rather, just fish through the threads. You’ll undoubtedly see the conversation.

Nilix.2170:

They were glad turrets were now useless and that overnight, they had vanished from ranked play. What frustrates me so much about this attitude is that it’s entirely selfish as opposed to looking at the bigger picture of how a profession and its skills function. I regularly hear about how turret engineers and the fact they are AI controlled is unfair and yet a mesmer differs little in the sense that Phantasm’s are also AI controlled damage. The only difference being that a Phantasm’s damage is higher than any turret, lower in cooldown, can be shattered and you don’t sacrifice any utility for having them. Oh, and unlike a turret, they can follow you.

Has he been reading my posts? Can this guy just come here and high five me?

What the kitten is this guy rambaling about phantasms?
Did he even play mesmer to begin with?
Phantasms are extremely squishy, actually even more squishy than the current turret iteration. Phantasms will not move with you, but use their skills only on the target they got summoned upon. If that target dies, they despawn instantly, making it not possible to take them with you into the next fight.
Phantasms are nothing but short-lasting dps beacons that the mesmer has literally no control about, except which effect he gains by shattering them.
Clones do not even do any dmg. The only ones that have offensive capabilities are those from staff, because they spam the staff AA (for next to 0 dmg) but apply full-hitting conditions. They blow up from single attacks, take condis and again, can not be controlled further than to decide when, how & where to die.
If you want to kitten up mesmer-rotations, aoe-spam the area so their clones and phantasms have no chance to stay up. If your enemy runs clone-death, make sure to not be in melee to clones when they die.
Remember APT? It’s also not a good idea to be in melee when a turret goes down.

The last patch just got turrets in line with clones/phantasms, necro-minions, spirits and spirit weapons. What this guy is writing there in his post is nothing but another rambling about a easy-mode, OP spec being gone from the game.
But lets look into other builds that used turrets before. Are they impacted by this?

Decap with thumper. Nope, still a double knockback-beacon that lives long enough to get its knockbacks trough.
S/D with rifle turret. Nope, the toolbelt is untouched by the changes, and the turret itself still can be used as instant knock-back and blast-finisher.
S/D with rocket-turret. Nope, the overcharge still fires instantly, it still can be used as instant knockback & blast-finisher, and the toolbelt remained untouched
Nades with net-turret. Nope, net turret still fires instantly before it gets destroyed, getting his 2sec stun and immob trough. again, insta-knockback and blast-finsiher work like intended, as well as the toolbelt.
FT / FT – the high uptime of flame-turret this build required is definitively not possible anymore, but it lasts long enough to get the smokefield pulsing to its end, and the firefield on the TB is still awesome utility. So this received a nerf in burning uptime, still you get your awesome knockback and blast-finisher on low cd.
HT in all builds: the combo remains untouched and that’s waht made it awesome in the first place.
Supply-crate in all builds: all turrets die faster, but the immob from the net-turret still comes trough, as well as a couple of burning ticks. together with all the bandaids and 2sec aoe ranged stun, this skill is almost as awesome as before.

The only specs that got hit hard by this nerf are 2-3 turret specs. And it’s good that they are gone, imo. And since our other build-options just got influenced on minor proportions, literally nothing of value was lost.

Oh good another one of these. Cross class comparisons unless very similar usually aren’t good at making your point. You also conveniently left out all the downsides of Phantasms/Clones compared to turrets. Clones/Phantasms eat up cleave damage like a magnet in their quest to stay close to the target, and you can’t control their position so they are consistently line of sighted. Mesmers shatter skills are integral to a lot of playstyles, meaning just summoning a phantasm then never using your shatter skills again is a terribly ineffective way to play. Phantasms scale off the stats of the mesmer and don’t have nearly as many boosting traits as turrets, turrets have 7 major traits btw, phantasms have 4 majors(1 of which is never taken), 3 minors(and all of those minors are in Inspiration). So you can’t exactly build a bunker mesmer and expect your phantasms to do much damage. Phantasms and clones have always been susceptible to conditions, crits and crowd control so if you’re gonna compare them I’m surprised that was missed. Not to mention that most mesmers you run into won’t be running increased health for phantasms, so unlike turrets, phantasms will have around 3000 hp.

Illusions get basically mass-produced, though – weapon skills, even the autoattack, are able to create them. And i don’t even think there is anything with a cooldown above 25s (untraited), but i may just remember wrong about it.
Still, they’re basically made for the exact purpose of shattering them, so having many of them, while brittle, is perfectly logical. Having them sturdy and with long cooldowns would just be detrimental in that regard, you’re shattering them either way, thus you would just end up with less of them.

Turrets, on the other hand, need to be sturdy enough to be used as turrets, since they can’t control an area while they’re dead (and no, SD builds that use them as an overcharge with an added double toolbelt don’t use them as turrets).

Sure, turrets are not turrets anymore.
I mean, seriously:
Explain me how APT is not aoe-cc
Explain me how thumper is not a double aoe-cc, tripple even when blown up after the double knockback.
cc == crowd control
aoe-cc == area of effect crowd control.
explain me how a turret with APT is not controlling his area of effect upon death?

Necrotize.2974:

Oh good another one of these. Cross class comparisons unless very similar usually aren’t good at making your point. You also conveniently left out all the downsides of Phantasms/Clones compared to turrets. Clones/Phantasms eat up cleave damage like a magnet in their quest to stay close to the target, and you can’t control their position so they are consistently line of sighted. Mesmers shatter skills are integral to a lot of playstyles, meaning just summoning a phantasm then never using your shatter skills again is a terribly ineffective way to play. Phantasms scale off the stats of the mesmer and don’t have nearly as many boosting traits as turrets, turrets have 7 major traits btw, phantasms have 4 majors(1 of which is never taken), 3 minors(and all of those minors are in Inspiration). So you can’t exactly build a bunker mesmer and expect your phantasms to do much damage. Phantasms and clones have always been susceptible to conditions, crits and crowd control so if you’re gonna compare them I’m surprised that was missed. Not to mention that most mesmers you run into won’t be running increased health for phantasms, so unlike turrets, phantasms will have around 3000 hp.

The key difference is Phantasmal Berzerker has an 8 second cooldown, where as Rocket Turret has a 50 second one…

yea, and while the phantasmal berzerker is a weapon-skill, doing nothing but dmg, the rocket-turret is a utility-skill, coming with a homing knockback, a blast-finisher and an aoe-cc.
You do not serve your purpose well if you keep comparing apples with bananas.

Arantheal.7396:

Sure, turrets are not turrets anymore.
I mean, seriously:
Explain me how APT is not aoe-cc
Explain me how thumper is not a double aoe-cc, tripple even when blown up after the double knockback.
cc == crowd control
aoe-cc == area of effect crowd control.
explain me how a turret with APT is not controlling his area of effect upon death?

Explain to me how something that is dead is still a turret, and how it can control anything if it isn’t there anymore.
We have a description of what they’re supposed to do right in the profession page.
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/professions/engineer/
Tell me where static discharge or detonating them is ever mentioned.

You’re free to use them like that, just don’t pretend that’s their intended use.

“Explain to me how something that is dead is still a turret, and how it can control anything if it isn’t there anymore.”
With its toolbelt.

And you’re free to let them standing out, just don’t pretend that’s their intended use by citing a outdated source that is clearly not supported by the current design concept of the devs about turrets.
else we wouldn’t had have this nerf.
I already told you in the other threads that your point is weak, due to outdated sources, you even tried to defend yourself by stating that devs switch their paradigms all the time.
Yet you’re here, again, citing the same weak source.
Step away from your keyboard for a sec, take a deep breath and consider what you’re currently posting.

Arantheal.7396:

You do not serve your purpose well if you keep comparing apples with bananas.

That’s the point I’ve been trying to get across. Whenever someone says that turrets are in line with other summons like Phantasms, I have to point out these differences because the functionality, availability, and use between the two are completely different. If the idea is to make them similar to the others, why only bring the negatives?

The page of the profession on the official site is a “weak and outdated source”. Ok.
Guess this is where i’m supposed to laugh.

Devs may change balancing decisions, but they just don’t change the entire design of a group of utilities on a whim, and without being explicit with it.

Again, feel free to think and use them as overcharges with a detonation button, but don’t think that’s how we’re intended to use them, even if they’re more effective like that (due of some balancing decisions).

Love you Lewis. Well written as always mate.

I feel like at this point its just people being upset that a sub-optimal build isn’t overperforming anymore. I mean, think of it from a different perspective. Why isn’t banner warrior or glamour mesmer a strong option in pvp? Clearly this must been that banners and glamours are underpowered and need to be greatly buffed, right? Or maybe Anet didn’t intend for a person to run 4 banners/glamours and have an effective build. You can argue what engineers and turrets are “supposed” to do, but in the end Anet has the final say in what their vision or turrets are, and apparently triple turret bunkers were not in that vision.

As for cross class comparisons, phantasms are by far not the closest things to turrets. In fact it makes me wonder if you deliberately ignored other options to provide the most biased comparison. Spirits are far more similar(IMO) to turrets, and even upcoming changes draw some parallels. Yes these skills have differences, but lets look at the similarities.

Both are utility skills(which is important considering traits, cds, and effectiveness). Spirits when traited have 8k hp IIRC, much closer to turrets than phantasms’ 3k. Spirits are susceptible to conditions and crits, just like turrets now. In the upcoming changes, spirits will no longer be able to move, just like turrets, so positioning will be vital.

Like I said, cross class comparisons are usually very weak arguments unless there is a great deal of similarity between the builds. This comparison is no exception, I just wanted to make it clear that if you wanted to do a cross class comparison, phantasms are so different from turrets compared to other skill types that it really doesn’t make any point at all.

Necrotize.2974:

I feel like at this point its just people being upset that a sub-optimal build isn’t overperforming anymore. I mean, think of it from a different perspective. Why isn’t banner warrior or glamour mesmer a strong option in pvp? Clearly this must been that banners and glamours are underpowered and need to be greatly buffed, right? Or maybe Anet didn’t intend for a person to run 4 banners/glamours and have an effective build. You can argue what engineers and turrets are “supposed” to do, but in the end Anet has the final say in what their vision or turrets are, and apparently triple turret bunkers were not in that vision.

As for cross class comparisons, phantasms are by far not the closest things to turrets. In fact it makes me wonder if you deliberately ignored other options to provide the most biased comparison. Spirits are far more similar(IMO) to turrets, and even upcoming changes draw some parallels. Yes these skills have differences, but lets look at the similarities.

Both are utility skills(which is important considering traits, cds, and effectiveness). Spirits when traited have 8k hp IIRC, much closer to turrets than phantasms’ 3k. Spirits are susceptible to conditions and crits, just like turrets now. In the upcoming changes, spirits will no longer be able to move, just like turrets, so positioning will be vital.

Like I said, cross class comparisons are usually very weak arguments unless there is a great deal of similarity between the builds. This comparison is no exception, I just wanted to make it clear that if you wanted to do a cross class comparison, phantasms are so different from turrets compared to other skill types that it really doesn’t make any point at all.

PVP isn’t a min/max speed clear dungeon encounter and calling an excellent point holding build sub optimal is offensive to anyone who understands that holding points in a point capture PVP map is invaluable.

Ground acquisition is very important but you are rewarded for holding that ground in this system.

From an engineers perspective, you’re claiming that Cele rifle is optimal (or double or triple kit, or condi) which is highly subjective. From my perspective (which is also subjective) I consider those builds sub optimal as they cannot hold ground like turrets did.

Objectively speaking why were turrets nerfed in the first place if they weren’t in fact the best engineer build in PVP?

Because it was not.
Show me one successful, competitive team that did run turreteers.

The problems with turrets was the frustrating and dull game-play they did oppose on their enemies, the way too easy pug-farm and a way too high reward for way too low risk.
Don’t get me wrong, in direct comparison the reward itself was not that high, but since there was almost no risk tied to it, this build was considered broken by the community, and as of now, also by the devs.

The last thing that had a similar story to tell were spirit-rangers, which is why spirits got nerfed into the ground as well.

I know you don’t like it, but turreteer was never considered a serious build to beginn with since there was no real space to “play” this build. It was merely stacking broken utilities while hiding behind giant survivability, limiting both the engi and the player who goes against it in options.
The worst offender where they inability to receive conditions, and their inability to be crit’d on, which rendered any investment of precision, ferocity and condition-damage by attackers useless.
A skill, that is shutting down reasonable counterplay, from whole families of builds permanently, by its mere existence, is – in fact – a broken skill.

Arantheal.7396:

Because it was not.
Show me one successful, competitive team that did run turreteers.

The problems with turrets was the frustrating and dull game-play they did oppose on their enemies, the way too easy pug-farm and a way too high reward for way too low risk.
Don’t get me wrong, in direct comparison the reward itself was not that high, but since there was almost no risk tied to it, this build was considered broken by the community, and as of now, also by the devs.

The last thing that had a similar story to tell were spirit-rangers, which is why spirits got nerfed into the ground as well.

I know you don’t like it, but turreteer was never considered a serious build to beginn with since there was no real space to “play” this build. It was merely stacking broken utilities while hiding behind giant survivability, limiting both the engi and the player who goes against it in options.
The worst offender where they inability to receive conditions, and their inability to be crit’d on, which rendered any investment of precision, ferocity and condition-damage by attackers useless.
A skill, that is shutting down reasonable counterplay, from whole families of builds permanently, by its mere existence, is – in fact – a broken skill.

It seriously annoyed your serious builds enough to seriously whine about them being OP. As for no high ranking team running them, what rank even counts in this game? You mean tournament teams? Never bothered me if anyone else ran them, I did, and I was great with mine.

I played engineer one of the ways it was built to be played and some of us were good enough to beat all of your optimal builds, since the community never chose to concede that you’d lost a fair fight the profession lost 1 of it’s 3 core builds (which is what turrets were).

The reasonable counter play was killing the engineer who, because he ran turrets, possessed no stun breaks, no real condition clears, and could not escape via stealth or rocket boots.

Because the game isn’t just balanced around high end competitive pvp either. They also need to appeal to the newer players who might have little pvp experience. Turrets made it relatively easy for newer players to outright dominate other players around their skill level. In an uncoordinated hotjoin match, it is was very unlikely that a turret engineer would get uprooted. Anet determined that the reward for playing triple turret bunker was far too great for its risk and skill requirements, so they made it higher risk.

Prior to the nerf, turrets were the only type of summon(not counting banners since they deal no damage and frankly have almost no place in PvP due to their minor benefits) that couldn’t be crit or hit with conditions. Clones, phantasms, pets, spirits, summoned thieves, spirit weapons, elementals, and minions can all be crits and killed with conditions.

The fact that a build running almost no condi-clears, no stunbreaks and playing with only half their skills could be so effective kinda screams that there’s a balancing issue going on.

Arantheal.7396:

The problems with turrets was the frustrating and dull game-play they did oppose on their enemies, the way too easy pug-farm and a way too high reward for way too low risk.

So the problem is that it annoyed you? You support invalidating builds based on how much fun you have against them.

This is getting better and better.

RabbitUp.8294:

Arantheal.7396:

The problems with turrets was the frustrating and dull game-play they did oppose on their enemies, the way too easy pug-farm and a way too high reward for way too low risk.

So the problem is that it annoyed you? You support invalidating builds based on how much fun you have against them.

This is getting better and better.

Honestly goes both ways. Just because you liked turrets, they shouldn’t be nerfed in anyway? You support having unbalanced builds because its the one you like to play? Better get this info to the thief forums, I’m sure they’ll have a bunch to say on that note.

Aidenwolf.5964:

Arantheal.7396:

Because it was not.
Show me one successful, competitive team that did run turreteers.

The problems with turrets was the frustrating and dull game-play they did oppose on their enemies, the way too easy pug-farm and a way too high reward for way too low risk.
Don’t get me wrong, in direct comparison the reward itself was not that high, but since there was almost no risk tied to it, this build was considered broken by the community, and as of now, also by the devs.

The last thing that had a similar story to tell were spirit-rangers, which is why spirits got nerfed into the ground as well.

I know you don’t like it, but turreteer was never considered a serious build to beginn with since there was no real space to “play” this build. It was merely stacking broken utilities while hiding behind giant survivability, limiting both the engi and the player who goes against it in options.
The worst offender where they inability to receive conditions, and their inability to be crit’d on, which rendered any investment of precision, ferocity and condition-damage by attackers useless.
A skill, that is shutting down reasonable counterplay, from whole families of builds permanently, by its mere existence, is – in fact – a broken skill.

It seriously annoyed your serious builds enough to seriously whine about them being OP. As for no high ranking team running them, what rank even counts in this game? You mean tournament teams? Never bothered me if anyone else ran them, I did, and I was great with mine.

I played engineer one of the ways it was built to be played and some of us were good enough to beat all of your optimal builds, since the community never chose to concede that you’d lost a fair fight the profession lost 1 of it’s 3 core builds (which is what turrets were).

The reasonable counter play was killing the engineer who, because he ran turrets, possessed no stun breaks, no real condition clears, and could not escape via stealth or rocket boots.

Oh, now we go on with accusations of whining?
Want to hurt me a little? Then step up your game son, and at least do your homework properly.
Click on my name next to this post. The click on Read all messages. Jump ~6weeks back. And then use cites from my posts back then. Ironically you will not find whining, but actual berating on whiners.

But how does this fit together with my current responses to you, you ask? Simple: Turreteers are bad, and were profiting from exploitive advantages rather than actual player-skill. But they were very much killable. Still the Ape-house, that the PvP subforum is, had no better incentive as to whine and nerf all turrets, including those who are very well balanced, out of the game.
So back then I was worried that a nerf to turrets, specifically HT would mean a nerf to almost all engi builds, just because of a single build that forced a different playstyle on newbies.
So I went ahead and worked on getting knowledge out how to kill turreteers quite easily (since it is always quite easy if you get rid of the rocket-turret first / spam them ranged from off point, using proper LOS to potential other turrets). Sadly this was not enough to stop the rage-train so the whining was loud enough to spawn a nerf.
But since that nerf is live, no (for me)important builds are scratched by it, the harassment of engis in almost all matches stopped, and seeing a engi on the opposing team finally is a promise for a engaging fight. Most people, including me, do not play PvP to deal with AI solely. That’s what PvE is for. I want to fight the person on the other side of the line.
And turrets are not even unique to engineers, since you can find points littered with turrets, guarded by a single hambow or cele ele as well, while the engi caps the nearby buff, just because it really made no difference whatsoever if the turreteer was present in a 3v3 or not, as long as his turrets are up and he keeps their overcharges on cd.
Turrets were making the game less enjoyable, even tho dealing with the turreteer is and was easy to begin with. The only people you felt strong against were the ones in which category you belong: newbies. For the rest you were perceived as nothing but a nuisance or good reason to laugh.
Just ask yourself the following: How often has your MMR reached high enough levels to meet players / teams that were steamrolling you with ease? Didn’t it felt frustrating to be completely powerless in such a situation? Didn’t it felt unfair that your precious rocket-turret was destroyed all the time? It was your fault to distribute so much offensive potential to nothing but AI in the first place.
And in case you never experienced this scenario, you most likely were not even performing half as good as you want to represent yourself, so your MMR stayed low.

The only class/builds that can instantly kill turrets are classes that go full zerker. And as has been pointed out by people in numerous threads on numerous sub-forums: those builds sacrifice a lot of defensive capabilities to be able to hit that hard, so it balances out.

Thank you for righting this lewis. Ham handed witch hunt based balance decisions need to be called out.

Edit: To the above. If only glass builds could kill them it would be fine. But EVERY class in the game (including bloody BUNKER GUARDIANS) can clear the point in less than 20 seconds.

Hey, welcome to the Phantasm Mesmer, Mm necro, Spirit Guardian world! Even games with traditional tab targeting has standard pet AOE defenses, yet the game where EVERYTHING is an aoe/cleave has absolutely no checks… Seems legit.

The reason Phantasm>Turrets, is because turrets are stationary.

All that fun stuff about turrets is pretty much moot because you have to get your enemy to stop moving and stand beside your turrets without killing them. Its also hard to set up, as your turrets will be dead before any enemy gets within their range. Making them only useful as a CC/blast finisher, while in combat, in very specific circumstances. (like blocking a raise/finisher or decaping)

Engineer also doesn’t gain a lot of survivability from tool belt skills, which makes it almost impossible to justify using a turret over a weapon kit or utility skill, yet alone traiting for it. Engineer utility slots are also MUCH more important then other classes. With only one weapon set using more then one turret severely gimps you.

I don’t think anybody thought turrets were OP though, they were just annoying and had too significant of an effect in conquest mode. Mesmers are annoying too but they cant bunker points the same way.

Turrets unlike other builds were perfectly designed for conquest. The community considered them sub optimal builds because they actually don’t understand what optimal means. Did they need a reduction in damage? Sure, but a small one, not what was done.

Gern.2978:

The only class/builds that can instantly kill turrets are classes that go full zerker. And as has been pointed out by people in numerous threads on numerous sub-forums: those builds sacrifice a lot of defensive capabilities to be able to hit that hard, so it balances out.

I’m not entirely sure Medi Guardians sacrifice anything Amazing damage, condition clear, immunities and healing. Oh and they can teleport while trapping people inside inescapable bubbles. Awesome!

Medi-hammer (cele bruiser build) has 1 teleport, only teleporting you towards your target.
Medi-dps (zerker) does not come with the hammer (so no trap-circle) and again only utilizes Judge’s Intervention as teleport.
both teleports are on 36sec cd’s

The bruiser variant is very vulnerable to focused dps.
The zerker variant is even more vulnerable to focused dps.
They don’t trap you in a bubble, they trap you in a ring. The bubble (shield-skill. the do not utilize shield, they run focus) just pushes you back, and the ring is useless on slightly elevated terrain since you can simply jump out on the lower side.
As rifle engineer you also can use the self-knockback from OS to both break immobilize and escape the ring on flat terrain. Acid bomb jumps you over the ring, rocket-boots, while shortened significantly, also lets you escape the ring, gearshield-block lets you almost outlast the ring. If you additionally run shield you can chain #5 with gearshield to completely outlast the dps inside the ring…
The ring itself is on a 40sec cd…
s/d builds kite / shred them.
Power bombs/mines shred them.
Cele rifle shreds them.
Power / cele nades in general shred them.
Magnet-pull nullifies their main-heal.

The counterplay is real.

Do you start to compare (incorrect) apples with bananas again?

Arantheal.7396:

Medi-hammer (cele bruiser build) has 1 teleport, only teleporting you towards your target.
Medi-dps (zerker) does not come with the hammer (so no trap-circle) and again only utilizes Judge’s Intervention as teleport.
both teleports are on 36sec cd’s

The bruiser variant is very vulnerable to focused dps.
The zerker variant is even more vulnerable to focused dps.
They don’t trap you in a bubble, they trap you in a ring. The bubble (shield-skill. the do not utilize shield, they run focus) just pushes you back, and the ring is useless on slightly elevated terrain since you can simply jump out on the lower side.
As rifle engineer you also can use the self-knockback from OS to both break immobilize and escape the ring on flat terrain. Acid bomb jumps you over the ring, rocket-boots, while shortened significantly, also lets you escape the ring, gearshield-block lets you almost outlast the ring. If you additionally run shield you can chain #5 with gearshield to completely outlast the dps inside the ring…
The ring itself is on a 40sec cd…
s/d builds kite / shred them.
Power bombs/mines shred them.
Cele rifle shreds them.
Power / cele nades in general shred them.
Magnet-pull nullifies their main-heal.

The counterplay is real.

Do you start to compare (incorrect) apples with bananas again?

If we’re arguing over semantics, I’ll happily play.

I’m fully aware of the Medi Guardians strengths and weaknesses – I have one myself (you can see her here: http://goo.gl/M33XxH)

In a competitive environment, almost all Medi Guardians take a hammer. It has better CC, high spike damage thanks to Sigil Of Intelligence and is capable of ringing off a player – while teleporting – thanks to Ring Of Wards and Judge’s Intervention. Discussions on their cooldown is largely irrelevant in this matter as they vary depending on the Meditation.

Combined with the damage output from Scepter thanks to Sigil of Air and Fire, the Medi Guardian is capable of dealing enormous damage while still maintaining huge amounts of survivability:

Shelter = Provides a block and heal
Virtue Of Justice = Provides a blind
Virtue Of Resolve = Removes 3 conditions, heals and applies Regen
Virtue Of Courage = Provides a block, stability, protection and regeneration
Meditations = All heal for nearly 2,000 health. Two of those Meditations also remove conditions.
Renewed Focus = Provides invulnerability, heals you for nearly 2,000 health and resets all your Virtues.
Shield Of Wrath = A 4 second block
Ray Of Judgement = Provides regeneration and removes conditions

So yes, Medi Hammer Guardians are not only capable of dealing enormous damage (Shield Of Wrath + Aegis + Judges Intervention + Smite Condition) but they sacrifice very little survivability because of it. Careful management of your Meditations, Elite and Virtue’s can keep you alive for a frighteningly long period of time. I personally never have trouble against any Engineers and have never had my Ring fail when teleport bombing.

Is there counter play? Yes, of course. But that’s not what we’re talking about here. Gern was stating berzerker builds sacrifice a lot and that’s not true when it comes to Guardian’s.

Lewis Burnell.2493:

Arantheal.7396:

Medi-hammer (cele bruiser build) has 1 teleport, only teleporting you towards your target.
Medi-dps (zerker) does not come with the hammer (so no trap-circle) and again only utilizes Judge’s Intervention as teleport.
both teleports are on 36sec cd’s

The bruiser variant is very vulnerable to focused dps.
The zerker variant is even more vulnerable to focused dps.
They don’t trap you in a bubble, they trap you in a ring. The bubble (shield-skill. the do not utilize shield, they run focus) just pushes you back, and the ring is useless on slightly elevated terrain since you can simply jump out on the lower side.
As rifle engineer you also can use the self-knockback from OS to both break immobilize and escape the ring on flat terrain. Acid bomb jumps you over the ring, rocket-boots, while shortened significantly, also lets you escape the ring, gearshield-block lets you almost outlast the ring. If you additionally run shield you can chain #5 with gearshield to completely outlast the dps inside the ring…
The ring itself is on a 40sec cd…
s/d builds kite / shred them.
Power bombs/mines shred them.
Cele rifle shreds them.
Power / cele nades in general shred them.
Magnet-pull nullifies their main-heal.

The counterplay is real.

Do you start to compare (incorrect) apples with bananas again?

If we’re arguing over semantics, I’ll happily play.

I’m fully aware of the Medi Guardians strengths and weaknesses – I have one myself (you can see her here: http://goo.gl/M33XxH)

In a competitive environment, almost all Medi Guardians take a hammer. It has better CC, high spike damage thanks to Sigil Of Intelligence and is capable of ringing off a player – while teleporting – thanks to Ring Of Wards and Judge’s Intervention. Discussions on their cooldown is largely irrelevant in this matter as they vary depending on the Meditation.

Combined with the damage output from Scepter thanks to Sigil of Air and Fire, the Medi Guardian is capable of dealing enormous damage while still maintaining huge amounts of survivability:

Shelter = Provides a block and heal
Virtue Of Justice = Provides a blind
Virtue Of Resolve = Removes 3 conditions, heals and applies Regen
Virtue Of Courage = Provides a block, stability, protection and regeneration
Meditations = All heal for nearly 2,000 health. Two of those Meditations also remove conditions.
Renewed Focus = Provides invulnerability, heals you for nearly 2,000 health and resets all your Virtues.
Shield Of Wrath = A 4 second block
Ray Of Judgement = Provides regeneration and removes conditions

So yes, Medi Hammer Guardians are not only capable of dealing enormous damage (Shield Of Wrath + Aegis + Judges Intervention + Smite Condition) but they sacrifice very little survivability because of it. Careful management of your Meditations, Elite and Virtue’s can keep you alive for a frighteningly long period of time. I personally never have trouble against any Engineers and have never had my Ring fail when teleport bombing.

Is there counter play? Yes, of course. But that’s not what we’re talking about here. Gern was stating berzerker builds sacrifice a lot and that’s not true when it comes to Guardian’s.

/DropsMike

Lewis Burnell.2493:

Gern.2978:

The only class/builds that can instantly kill turrets are classes that go full zerker. And as has been pointed out by people in numerous threads on numerous sub-forums: those builds sacrifice a lot of defensive capabilities to be able to hit that hard, so it balances out.

I’m not entirely sure Medi Guardians sacrifice anything Amazing damage, condition clear, immunities and healing. Oh and they can teleport while trapping people inside inescapable bubbles. Awesome!

They DO sacrifice something: The ability to win fights 1v1.
They are guardians. That’s sacrifice enough. They bring only a handful of attacks, which are hard to evade or zip in and out of. They are incredibly strong at popping glass canons, but they just can’t chew through sturdier builds, because a lot of their constant dps is tied to slow, easily evaded attacks. If the initial burst doesn’t put them at an advantage, they will start slowly swinging their hammer around.
Their burst is amazing and hard to evade. But a d/d ele or cele rifle still has the edge when it comes to constantly putting out small chunks of reliable damage.

Considering how tanky a guardian can be, yes they are giving up loads of survivability.

And apart from being a heavy armor class, they bring not enough survivability to stand a prolonged fight on a point. Further, their burst is not high enough to down bruisers (like shout-warri, cele ele / engi). In fact, shoutbows and d/d eles are their hardcounter.

Ofc they did perform well against turreteers. Every Zerker, appart from thief did.
Are they more tanky than other Zerker builds? Yes. Virtues alone bring a 1up in tankyness to any guardian build, and with renewed focus every guardian build capitalizes on that.
But are they tanky enough to survive 1v1’s against bruisers? Usually not. In fact this build prefers to engage, burst and disengage if more defenders show up like every other Zerker does.
They bring aoe-condi clear and heal, therefore synergize well with bruisers on the point, but in a 1v1 vacuum their long cd’s break their necks often enough. In fact I never felt threatened by this build when I met it alone, but it amplifies a 2v2 or 3v3 significantly with the support it brings.

So yea, for mediocre dmg (compared to other zerkers) and good support, the medi hammer looses a lot of potential durability. Especially since you seem to run this build as well, I hope you’re very well aware of your role.
The solo gank spec with great dps is and stays the GS version. But because the ring is a awesome setup for a team-gank + the aoe-stab on virtue of Courage, medi hammer is considered the better build in tPvP.
Anyways, condi-engis still hard-counter both variants, because even tho you can clear a lot on paper, in reality engis apply condis – especially poison & burning- too fast for the long cd’s that VoR and CoP have.
Power engis have way to many burst for the limited amount of aegis and invulnerability you get, and – as usual – too much CC for guardians to handle with nothing but VoC.

@Aiden
I did not expect you to say anything anyways. It’s actually quite funny that you cheer for others’ arguments instead of making up your own mind.

@Arantheal.7396 just being silly and he did answer exactly as I would have. I consider guardians broken easy which is why I avoid playing one. They’re my only class that isn’t 80 and although I have PVP’d on mine, I despise the easy mode nature of them. Focus shielding, immunities, cleanses, OP party buffs, and monster heals even when full zerk.

I get that “pro” engineers never took turret engies seriously (unless we’d just killed you in which case the /s chat was always respectful) but that’s ok, I think celestial engineer is straight chedar cheese and that’s why I don’t run it.

Wait wait wait.
You complain about guardians and cele engis being easy mode, when – in fact – you were hiding behind turrets so you can farm noobs more easily?
I mean, it’s fine to over-exaggerate stuff with out of place adjectives, but do you at least understand what player-input it takes to let the cele rifle perform as good as it can be?

I don’t like cele rifle as well, because I rather burst or condi-bomb my targets, which is why I prefer s/d builds and 2kit condi, but I’m very well aware of what it takes to play a cele rifle effectively, and respect every engi who goes this route.

I really doubt that you’ve ever met a good cele rifle while turrets were still viable, since the build itself is available on multiple sources, and newbies like to stick to the meta in the beginning. Nothing wrong with that, since one must learn to become good, but do you seriously try to judge a build, based on the few newbies that you’ve met running it?

This is not elitism, since i actually like to help out new players who want to become better. But I despise turreteers, especially those kind of turreteers who rather cry after a nerfed, exploitive build to be brought back instead of moving on and looking for better builds to run. You know, while your fellow newbies currently train on cele rifle, s/d builds, condi 2kit or less popular but more fun builds, you sit here, together with this manuhel and lewis B guy and try to convince people that apples == bananas.
You are a echo of the past in your current mindset, and a rather hilarious one at that.

Arantheal.7396:

Wait wait wait.
You complain about guardians and cele engis being easy mode, when – in fact – you were hiding behind turrets so you can farm noobs more easily?
I mean, it’s fine to over-exaggerate stuff with out of place adjectives, but do you at least understand what player-input it takes to let the cele rifle perform as good as it can be?

I don’t like cele rifle as well, because I rather burst or condi-bomb my targets, which is why I prefer s/d builds and 2kit condi, but I’m very well aware of what it takes to play a cele rifle effectively, and respect every engi who goes this route.

I really doubt that you’ve ever met a good cele rifle while turrets were still viable, since the build itself is available on multiple sources, and newbies like to stick to the meta in the beginning. Nothing wrong with that, since one must learn to become good, but do you seriously try to judge a build, based on the few newbies that you’ve met running it?

This is not elitism, since i actually like to help out new players who want to become better. But I despise turreteers, especially those kind of turreteers who rather cry after a nerfed, exploitive build to be brought back instead of moving on and looking for better builds to run. You know, while your fellow newbies currently train on cele rifle, s/d builds, condi 2kit or less popular but more fun builds, you sit here, together with this manuhel and lewis B guy and try to convince people that apples == bananas.
You are a echo of the past in your current mindset, and a rather hilarious one at that.

You’re confusing me for a new player, I’ve been active since 3 days before launch, or a poor PVP player, which I most certainly am not. Turret engineers required a great amount of activity to kill while not being killed. Sure plenty of new players ran them as the skill floor was high, but I was elite with mine, not good.

It’s absolutely absurd to claim I didn’t face good players as I solo que ranked and won 60% of my matches which with the current MMR means I was always getting put against good players. I’ve played Cele rifle myself, as well as condi and even zerk SD but I chose to run turrets as I solo que and could never count on having a point holder on my team. Turrets were designed for capture PVP and were the optimal choice for players with skill to be able to hold off attacks on points.

What we gave up was:

1. Mobility
2. Condition Cleanses
3. Stealth or Escapes
4. Blocks

If a fight began we had no choice but to fight to the death. I fought bunker on points vs the horde of enemy players trying to kill me and steal our cap every match. If that’s not what you’d call PVP then ok.

I’ve killed Cele rifle engies you’d consider amazing.

Arantheal.7396:

Wait wait wait.
This is not elitism, since i actually like to help out new players who want to become better. But I despise turreteers, especially those kind of turreteers who rather cry after a nerfed, exploitive build to be brought back instead of moving on and looking for better builds to run. You know, while your fellow newbies currently train on cele rifle, s/d builds, condi 2kit or less popular but more fun builds, you sit here, together with this manuhel and lewis B guy and try to convince people that apples == bananas.
You are a echo of the past in your current mindset, and a rather hilarious one at that.

heh… It’s not like many players cry because “their” build was destroyed.
Many players, who complain didn’t even play turrets themselves. The catch here is: Turrets were a unique build and got scrapped without replacement, depriving the game, which is stuck in an extremely narrow meta already of yet another unique build.

It doesn’t matter, how complex, engaging or fun the build was. It was a unique build, and a build, which chewed up meta builds, while being weak against a lot of non-meta builds. But instead of giving a place to the build, they encouraged themselved by adding sentinel amulet to the game in february this year, Arena.Net decided to simply erase the build, so people go back to talking about how great the expansion will be rather than complaining about needing a brain to beat turrets.

You’re right, it’s not. That is called PvE in my book, as stated above.
Exactly because you have no choice but to give the enemy-team 5 points or get saved by your team. If they win a fight on another point, they start out-rotating you quite easily and then oppose 4v1-2’s for the rest of the match on you. And given that they run effective builds, knowing what to do with them, you will not have stood a chance, regardless what you try to make us believe.
Placing turrets and using an overcharge from time to time is not considered a high skill-ceiling.
And while the skill-floor for turreteers is ridiculously low, your build’s very nature stopped you from being considered anything higher than mediocre.
But yea, go around and slap your own shoulder, denying that you could have had higher win-ratings with cele rifle or at least condi 2kit, if your claims are true.
I can’t prove it, and honestly, I don’t care.

My point is that this build, while being mediocre at best on higher MMR ratings, was farming newbies left and right in lower MMR ratings since it was giving too much advantages for next to zero risk (or input), hence it rightfully got nerfed, and as you surely have noticed, engineers are suddenly a respected class again in sPvP, free from harassment, apart from people who still jump the “nerf cele” hypetrain, which is only indirectly targeted at engis anyways.
So, “mission accomplished” from my side, and applause to a-net.

naphack.9346:

Lewis Burnell.2493:

Gern.2978:

The only class/builds that can instantly kill turrets are classes that go full zerker. And as has been pointed out by people in numerous threads on numerous sub-forums: those builds sacrifice a lot of defensive capabilities to be able to hit that hard, so it balances out.

I’m not entirely sure Medi Guardians sacrifice anything Amazing damage, condition clear, immunities and healing. Oh and they can teleport while trapping people inside inescapable bubbles. Awesome!

They DO sacrifice something: The ability to win fights 1v1.
They are guardians. That’s sacrifice enough. They bring only a handful of attacks, which are hard to evade or zip in and out of. They are incredibly strong at popping glass canons, but they just can’t chew through sturdier builds, because a lot of their constant dps is tied to slow, easily evaded attacks. If the initial burst doesn’t put them at an advantage, they will start slowly swinging their hammer around.
Their burst is amazing and hard to evade. But a d/d ele or cele rifle still has the edge when it comes to constantly putting out small chunks of reliable damage.

What? What Medi Guardian can’t win a 1 on 1?

Lots of professions struggle to bring down bunker builds such as Celestial Elementalist or Shoutbow Warrior – that’s their job. Everything else is easy pickings for a Medi Guardian.

except that shoutbows and other cele builds are not bunkers, but bruisers, who come with equal medium offensive and defensive capabilities.
#Themoreyouknow

Arantheal.7396:

Oh, now we go on with accusations of whining?
Want to hurt me a little? Then step up your game son, and at least do your homework properly.
Click on my name next to this post. The click on Read all messages. Jump ~6weeks back. And then use cites from my posts back then. Ironically you will not find whining, but actual berating on whiners.

But how does this fit together with my current responses to you, you ask? Simple: Turreteers are bad, and were profiting from exploitive advantages rather than actual player-skill. But they were very much killable. Still the Ape-house, that the PvP subforum is, had no better incentive as to whine and nerf all turrets, including those who are very well balanced, out of the game.
So back then I was worried that a nerf to turrets, specifically HT would mean a nerf to almost all engi builds, just because of a single build that forced a different playstyle on newbies.
So I went ahead and worked on getting knowledge out how to kill turreteers quite easily (since it is always quite easy if you get rid of the rocket-turret first / spam them ranged from off point, using proper LOS to potential other turrets). Sadly this was not enough to stop the rage-train so the whining was loud enough to spawn a nerf.
But since that nerf is live, no (for me)important builds are scratched by it, the harassment of engis in almost all matches stopped, and seeing a engi on the opposing team finally is a promise for a engaging fight. Most people, including me, do not play PvP to deal with AI solely. That’s what PvE is for. I want to fight the person on the other side of the line.
And turrets are not even unique to engineers, since you can find points littered with turrets, guarded by a single hambow or cele ele as well, while the engi caps the nearby buff, just because it really made no difference whatsoever if the turreteer was present in a 3v3 or not, as long as his turrets are up and he keeps their overcharges on cd.
Turrets were making the game less enjoyable, even tho dealing with the turreteer is and was easy to begin with. The only people you felt strong against were the ones in which category you belong: newbies. For the rest you were perceived as nothing but a nuisance or good reason to laugh.
Just ask yourself the following: How often has your MMR reached high enough levels to meet players / teams that were steamrolling you with ease? Didn’t it felt frustrating to be completely powerless in such a situation? Didn’t it felt unfair that your precious rocket-turret was destroyed all the time? It was your fault to distribute so much offensive potential to nothing but AI in the first place.
And in case you never experienced this scenario, you most likely were not even performing half as good as you want to represent yourself, so your MMR stayed low.

Actually just saw this response so I’ll respond now.

I never said you. Sorry if you thought otherwise, I’ve never heard of you, met you, or had any issue to call you anything. My MMR is rather high and it’s impossible for you to have played this game any longer than I have, I’m also almost certainly your elder, so please refrain from the “son” comment (although I do understand you thought I’d insulted you). I said meta build players whined, which they certainly did, making turrets a serious enough build in My eyes.

All the best – Megamite

Born 09/1987.
Anyways, sorry for that rant then.

Arantheal.7396:

Born 09/1987.
Anyways, sorry for that rant then.

That was my freshman year

Arantheal.7396:

You’re right, it’s not. That is called PvE in my book, as stated above.
Exactly because you have no choice but to give the enemy-team 5 points or get saved by your team. If they win a fight on another point, they start out-rotating you quite easily and then oppose 4v1-2’s for the rest of the match on you. And given that they run effective builds, knowing what to do with them, you will not have stood a chance, regardless what you try to make us believe.
Placing turrets and using an overcharge from time to time is not considered a high skill-ceiling.
And while the skill-floor for turreteers is ridiculously low, your build’s very nature stopped you from being considered anything higher than mediocre.
But yea, go around and slap your own shoulder, denying that you could have had higher win-ratings with cele rifle or at least condi 2kit, if your claims are true.
I can’t prove it, and honestly, I don’t care.

My point is that this build, while being mediocre at best on higher MMR ratings, was farming newbies left and right in lower MMR ratings since it was giving too much advantages for next to zero risk (or input), hence it rightfully got nerfed, and as you surely have noticed, engineers are suddenly a respected class again in sPvP, free from harassment, apart from people who still jump the “nerf cele” hypetrain, which is only indirectly targeted at engis anyways.
So, “mission accomplished” from my side, and applause to a-net.

This makes no sense, you admit Turreteers are mediocre builds at best in PvP, but still you defend your position saying it got rightfully nerfed…

How are Turrets giving to much advantages over another build? A full turret build gives up kits and has to basicaly rely on a primary weapon with nerfed combat abilities. Turreteer builds have to sacrifice their damage and/or defense even further by giving up traits for their Turrets utility&sustainability instead. And in the end, you have something with mediocre surviability and damage at best with zero mobility. The only redeeming value is its potential crowd control but most of those are very situational at best and you can be a lot more effective with your kits CCs anyways…

Realy, if a couple of 548 (unmitigated) every 2sec or 1643 (unmitigated) every 4sec with some low burning tics left and right are to much for players to handle those people realy have to make a deep introspection of themselves and learn how to play.

Those who know at least a bit how to play are just laughing at Turret builds in PvE (I know you don’t care) and in WvW. Structured PvP Turret builds have never been strong and are hard countered in most scenarios, unless fighting noobs. So, how can A-net even consider nerfing an Engineer build which is already weaker in comparison to most builds for that same profession? It just makes no sense!

Yeah those turrets are hard to kill when you are a condition build, but that Engineer can’t do much against your conditions either. And power builds eat trough turrets, leaving the Engineer in a very vulnerable state for a long period of time.

I’ll admit the Turreteer gameplay could be a bit more active and I definitly would like to see ways to improve its design! But nerfing the crap out of those because of a loud minority isn’t the way to go, neither is it fixing the core issues noobs have in structured PvP.

A-net needs to consider a possible new, more active, Overcharges design and some form of reward for keeping turrets alive has to be instored to incent Turreteers to self-destruct turrets (for blast finishers) and cycle trough toolbelt skills. If they don’t do that, the root of the problem will remain. Also A-net needs to add more game types in structured PvP (like CTF, TDM, etc) to create more diverse role opportunities for players.

But realy man, saying mission accomplished and praising A-net for a borked job is just a big no for me!

Turrets were not viable on higher skill levels.
Turrets were OP in lower skill levels.
Since they contributed nothing to shape the meta, and further were nothing but a easy and frustrating-for-new-players pug farm, a-net removed them.
Was that simple enough for you?

Arantheal.7396:

Turrets were not viable on higher skill levels.
Turrets were OP in lower skill levels.
Since they contributed nothing to shape the meta, and further were nothing but a easy and frustrating-for-new-players pug farm, a-net removed them.
Was that simple enough for you?

They shouldn’t have been removed; they should have been reworked. This isn’t the fix that was needed.

You are right about what they did, and that’s the inherent issue with them right now. They need to be changed to something that makes them viable in all levels of play and all game modes (at least not be a burden) and at the same time not be OP; some change that puts their skill floor and ceiling right in line with other builds is needed.

Mini the issue is he doesn’t WANT them to be viable. Hes already stated he doesn’t see AI as a real build. Arguing with him over that fact is like trying to convince a creationist that there view of science isn’t real. (Excuse the comparison but the parallels are screaming at me)

As long as hes not willing to look outside his personal opinion and view point on the matter hew ill keep falling back to that point whenever you push his arguments. Never mind the fact that my minion mancer typically requires more actions per minute than any other build I have ever played in this game. (and ive played most classes and builds)

He does’t see it as a real build. A chunk of his argument is based on his personal opinion and not actual fact.

(An AI build IF REWORKED AND MADE PROPERLY can require just as much if not MORE input from the player. Infact when done properly thats exactly what it does. It was not done properly in the turret engineer’s case. Which is why it should have been reworked as has been stated by others MULTIPLE times in this thread)

Necrotize.2974:

RabbitUp.8294:

Arantheal.7396:

The problems with turrets was the frustrating and dull game-play they did oppose on their enemies, the way too easy pug-farm and a way too high reward for way too low risk.

So the problem is that it annoyed you? You support invalidating builds based on how much fun you have against them.

This is getting better and better.

Honestly goes both ways. Just because you liked turrets, they shouldn’t be nerfed in anyway? You support having unbalanced builds because its the one you like to play? Better get this info to the thief forums, I’m sure they’ll have a bunch to say on that note.

I did like turrets thematically, but I didn’t use them. Still, how much you like or dislike it should never be a reason to touch a build in a competitive game that takes itself seriously. Or are you telling me you would be ok if your build of choice was rendered invalid, not because it was necessarily overbearing, but because it made a vocal group unhappy?

My problem is the way this was handled, which I explained above. They effectively removed turrets from the game instead of trying to balance them. It would be the same as waking up one day and saying “thieves are too good, their skills now deal 1 damage”. It’s the principle I have a problem with, even if I find thieves annoying to play against.

About turrets specifically, the problems were more obvious than “they are too tough to kill”. Like it was already said, they should scale with the player’s stats. No skill, no matter how active or passive, player controlled or AI, should do the same amount of damage regardless of gear choices.

were I ever mentioning MM’s?
No.
Have I ever complained about mesmer clones?
No.
Have I ever complained about spirit weapons?
No.

So why do I dislike turrets then?
Because in opposition to the former 3, they are completely independent from the engi, both AI and stat-wise, therefore allow the engi to completely leave the node in case a 3v3 happens, and just keeps his overcharges going.
Turreteers – as players- were providing nothing into a fight other than being a turret spawn-node (extremely low dps, 1 cc, 1 immob, no support other than the standard HT). While all other minions have intricate mechanics build in them, interacting with the player, turrets had nothing but traits to enhance themselves. Even experimental turrets was not interacting with the engi properly since they would give their boons to whoever was in the area to that time, again making the engis presence unnecessary.
Clones can only be summoned on a target, while being shattered at various targets, providing different effects to the mesmer who used them / to the target they got shattered on.
Spirit weapons, while bringing nothing but direct attacks, were bound to the movement of the guardian, therefore requiring the player itself to position himself properly if he wants his AI to perform.
Minions increase life-force when they die, can cleanse condis off the necro who runs them and even reflect them back on attackers, together with the fact that they are also bound to the movement of the necro.

turrets are just standing there, targeting random things (unless the engi himself is present to attack something) and act completely independent if necessary.

So yea, a rework would be awesome, but not if they again end up as sturdy, automatically engaging, high dps node with zero interaction whatsoever.
And yes, there are ways to play actively and skillful with turret-orientated builds.
In fact there is a rather unpopular s/d build with utilizes TK and both rifle / rocket-turret, but only as knock-back beacon, blast-finisher, their toolbelts and for the homing kock-down of rocket-turret. This is a turreteer hybrid which actually features mobile and skillful use of turrets, on cost of a proper stun-breaker, but with frequent knock-backs in turn it’s one of the few turreteer builds that actually work quite decently in WvW as well.
And do you know what’s funny about it? It’s performance remains the same after the nerf. All the nerf did was punishing drop&forget gameplay with turrets, which is a very good thing in my opinion.

If you want to introduce a rework for making them more skillful in general, be my guest, there are enough topics to discuss these ideas, in fact I posted a couple of suggestions over the past few weeks myself.