Guild Wars 2

Lately I’ve been advocating turret based builds along with Fairtex and a few others. After dozens of tPvP matches I can confidently say that with thoughtful play a variety of turret based builds can be very potent. My only regret is that my experience is anecdotal as I have no video capturing software. So first, the bad: Turrets do have trouble against opponents who take the time to pick them apart before engaging you, and the builds generally have problems vs. heavy conditions. The good: If you’re bunkering for your team on the close point you will rarely encounter the latter, but you always stand a chance of facing careful players and ranged players.

Here’s the Tool Kit and Turrets build I have arrived at after many hours of play (over 200 matches with turrets):

http://tinyurl.com/bm73mca

I chose the Tool Kit for several key reasons:
*Confusion stacking
*Block
*Pull
*Vulnerability stacks
*And the rarely needed, but still welcome, turret repair

Why the build is effective:
High number of conditions applied very rapidly
Several ways to attack and defend
Unpredictability

I’ve decided on Sitting Duck over knee shot due to the three immobilizes I can drop in rapid succession. Here’s how my opener usually goes:

*Magnet Pull
*Pry Bar
*Static Shot (swapping to pistols triggers Sigil of Geomancy for a massive bleed)
*Net Attack
*Net Turret + Overcharge
*Glue Shot
*Blowtorch, etc
(It’s important to keep moving after landing Pry Bar. Pay attention to your positioning and don’t stray outside of the control point, you don’t need much room)

My opponent is bleeding, confused, burning, and has 15 stacks of Vulnerability on them all within a couple of seconds. This aggressive opener catches many players off their guard. I had a ranger casually stroll up to my point and start pelting me. My Rocket Turret caused him to waste a dodge roll and as he was coming out of it I opened up on him. He was down in under 10 seconds with very little time to react.

Okay, so that’s one specific instance, but this became the norm for the majority of my 1v1 encounters. In an 1vX situation I recommend quickly assessing the weakest target (to the best of your ability) and focus on them while relying on Box of Nails, Glue Shot, and Gear Shield to help you avoid/ignore other attackers. This build won’t keep you up against 3 opponents for long, especially if there are certain professions in the mix, but then again, many builds won’t. That’s what your teammates are for.

Still no stun breaker? Yes—there is no stun breaker in this build. This forces me into a much more active play style; putting pressure on an enemy to force them to blow all of their defensive cooldowns as quickly as possible. If you’re used to bunkering in a passive punching bag sort of way, you will have a lot of adjusting to do to play this build to its full potential. If I do get hit with a massive burst due to a stun I have ways to recover or weather the storm.

Automated Medical Response works wonders with the Healing Turret allowing for back to back activation when my health is getting low, and Low Health Response System stacks duration with Healing Turret’s regeneration and Regenerating Mist tool belt skill to help mitigate condition damage. When I reach 25% health I gain 10 seconds of Regeneration, I drink an Elixir S, and my Healing Turret cooldown is refreshed. I count to 2, Lay my Healing Turret down and detonate it as soon as Elixir S expires. This is essentially a fight reset. Transmute adds another layer of protection against conditions. All of this doesn’t even take into account the up-time on Protection afforded by my runes and traits. I would almost rather have this defensive boon than any other we can get as Engineers.

If you have any questions at all no matter how general or specific, I would be glad to answer them.

Thanks for reading.

(This space reserved for further discussion)

Note: For underwater combat I would use: Elixir H, Rifle Turret, Net Turret, Rocket Turret, Supply Crate. The reason being is that staying in melee range is very difficult without a gap closer built into the Tool Kit. I chose Elixir H because Healing Turret doesn’t work under water, and Med Kit’s heal is on the tool belt making it unavailable if Automated Response Kicks in.

That build sounds quite evil. I give this one a try and give my opinion after in done testing

Yay for engineer!

Looks fun, just yesterday I bought a good condition set of gear so I could try my turret build. I may take some pointers from this one, thanks for sharing.

This is the sort of build I’ve been testing with as well.
it has some of the good, the bad and the ugly.

First of the ugly: I hate creating an effective turret build just because the traits are so scattered.
No matter what you do, you always lose out on something important…

If you use the toolkit, than it’s less important that you can deploy the turrets from far. You can have them right at you and repair them as you fight with the tool kit.
but than again: using the toolkit so much and not having the Power Wrench trait is a bit of a waste too.
When they manage to aoe or kill your turrets, at least they knockback with a good damage portion too.
Accelerant-packed turrets seems the most usefull trait in the build to me.

Sitting Duck is great in this set up!
The vulnerability stacks up pretty high, and seeing how Tool Kit hits hard with it (and applies it too) you get pretty big hits.
Not to mention that the rocket turret has a large damage portion as white ‘power’ damage. That too hits harder and harder while keeping burns up.

You spend quite a few points on your own defenses, which seems needed since turrets can hit hard and all, but it’s dangerous to rely on their targeting to keep you alive!
This too is an issue: turrets eat trait points as it is, but than you still end up defenseless.

Now for the good:
overcharging both turrets is a hell of a lot cc. Your opponent will hate you for it!
They get stunned, knocked down, stunned again… while being immobilized, pulled, crippled and what not.
And the damage is big, like really big.

I like using this build with the shield.
The ranged daze is fun, as well as the pushback in case you get in trouble meleeing.
If I do, than I go for the Reinforced Shield trait.
The blowtorch is awesome as usual of course, but rocket turret itself can keep the burns up (if it’s alive…).
In this build the glue shot is another 5 stacks of vulnerability, so that one becomes more offensive in use.
Both p/p as p/s can have it’s uses in this fighting style I think.

The bad?
Rocket turret still has 50 second cooldown.
Turrets die like nothing if taking damage.
5 min timer resets the full cooldown.
Turrets basically are stupid.

I think this one is a LOT of fun.
but in zerg fights, turrets just go woof for me… they die and if lucky the knockback did something.
And if you’re seiging something in WvW, deployable turrets is almost a must. To put them on the walls and such.
But for any fight smaller than those: this build is hilarious, it really is!

Very nice looking, I will have to try this tonight. I also run a turret build with condition damage (I don’t think too many people know that turrets condition damage/duration is based on your own stats). I run the same runes + jewelry although I use smoldering on one pistol. Basically with the rocket turret you have 99% burning uptime, which is nice. However I triple turret it (Rocket (sometimes flame), net, rifle (sometimes switch out for throw mine or rocket boots)) But I am now intrigued to see how much more damage I can get with the extra stacks of confusion and the extra defense from the traits in alchemy seem very nice for more self survival (something by current build is somewhat missing). Thanks for sharing! Turrets all the way!

Thanks for posting this. I just started some PvP and I am trying out different builds. Will have to try this.

Glad to help.

Hey Chaba. I think you attacked me at the beach last night.

Mmmmmmmmm…. maybe

You said something like “I didn’t expect that.”

Hehe. It was my first night doing sPvP with two different builds I never played before; not familiar with the maps at all.