Guild Wars 2

So plain and simple, are turrets a viable way to PvP in the game yet?

Nope… not even close.

I never use them and I never see them used outside of supply drop. The only things I see them useful for is exploding (thus pushing back with the right traits) and rifle turrets surprise shot (for spiking). Unfortunately, the former is outdone by guardians and other skill (such as shield’s and rifle’s push backs) and while the engineer spike can do a fair amount of damage, it sacrifices all defense, making the engineer WAY too easy of a target.

They are good in several specs to carry say, one of them in a utility slot (static discharge build primarily) and there is a niche bunker spec that can dominate mid in Kylo with a full turret build, but if you’re speaking in terms of full-turrets, that’s about it for sPvP. The CDs on them destroy any chance of taking a full set.

Turrets are almost never worth a utility slot in any aspect of the game. The only time I put one on my bar is when I want to mine the Rich Orichalcum node in Southsun Cove. I slot a thumper turret to distract the champion karka while I mine, and ditch it as soon as I make my escape. I would never bother with them at all in PvP or WvW.

I think the problem with turrets is that if they are powerful, they encourage lazy gameplay where you simply place the turrets and forget they are there. If they are weak, then no one uses them.

Solution: Make turrets more powerful, but make them require you to be more active. Maybe even control WHEN the turrets fire.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

I think the problem with turrets is that if they are powerful, they encourage lazy gameplay where you simply place the turrets and forget they are there. If they are weak, then no one uses them.

Solution: Make turrets more powerful, but make them require you to be more active. Maybe even control WHEN the turrets fire.

Popping something you don’t directly control but does damage for you is lazy gameplay? Don’t tell mesmers that, OOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHH

For real though, it would be nice to see turrets get some much needed love. I know when I first rolled my engi, it was the idea of turrets that drew me to the class. As far encouraging lazy gameplay, the trick is to make them viable without being too powerful. In my mind the player skill associated with turrets would be optimal placement and regular repairing with tool kit, similar to how it is in TF2, for instance. Sorry to get off subject OP, the answer is besides a very, very small percentage of niche builds, turrets are a mistake to bring with you.

arrownin.3128:

So plain and simple, are turrets a viable way to PvP in the game yet?

They’re not even viable in dungeons where light, periodic area damage is a factor. I have seen my healing turret destroyed less than a second or two of putting it down, and I was between 500 and 900 range from the fight. At their currently too low damage levels and too high cooldown lengths, they should be immune to all damage and have their total duration cut to about 12 seconds.

We only need 2 things to make them useful imo:
1) Let them fire at our current target
2) no cooldown when you pick it up

I’ve been messing around with all the utilities I never use, but I haven’t gotten to the turrets yet. So far I’ve found some success with everything I’ve tried, but if turrets are as bad as people say they are I’m in for a rough weekend of WvWvW.

Clip.6845:

We only need 2 things to make them useful imo:
1) Let them fire at our current target
2) no cooldown when you pick it up

This completely, or even a 5 second penalty for picking up and setting down and give us a pet bar and the ability to make them target stuff!

Right now turrets are basically weak immobile minions. The whole idea with turrets should be about area control with smart positioning. They should give turrets huge stat buffs accompanied by certain restrictions e.g. they can only shoot in a frontal cone.

Nope, and everything else got nerfed too.

Doesn’t entice you to come back?

Pity.

I think two things need to be added as traits for turrets.

1) A grandmaster trait that forces turrets to follow a targeted enemy. This is ONLY for enemies targeted by the engineer, not by the T icon (ctrl-T).

2) A master (or possibly a grandmaster) trait that increases the rate of fire of turrets or reduces the coolldown time of turret overcharge abilities. Either one would be a good trait to upgrade turrets.

ive long tought the gm turret trait in the inventions tree should grant the 5sec CD on pick ups, and increase RoF instead of what it does now.

pet bar abilities shouldnt even be a dream, they should have been part of the game design, and forget the lack luster F skills, leave kits as they are, and just make elixers tossable with different effects for self/ally/foe.

When I think of the Turrets, I think of these. Not that they would ever be this devastating, but we can have a wish list…

Ejiofor.4801:

When I think of the Turrets, I think of these. Not that they would ever be this devastating, but we can have a wish list…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elJ3t6AOPJc

Exactly what i expected when i heard they added turrets. I expected something closer to the turrets in torchlight with multiple shots happening at once like a gatling gun even the flame thrower turret is extremely slow. Then i play my ranger and the spirits can all follow me, but I play my engi and my turrets are not only always stationary they take massive damage and disappear immediately from AOEs. I remember another game title that had this issue and it got so bad for the players that they had to implement a 90% damage reduction on all pets from AOE attacks because people’s pets wouldn’t last but a couple of seconds and it destroyed gameplay on classes that relied on their pets.

I would love for these things to happen even tho I know they will prolly never do them I can still dream:

1. turrets become mobile follow me around, turn em into bots
2. rifle turret changed to gatling turret
3. flame turret given faster cast time
4. lightning turret (bot if motion is added)

I’d really bend over backwards if we could get:

1. homing or spider mines
2. the rifle be changed to either a sniper rifle or a shotgun but not a weird combo of both
3. stun breakers being given an immunity from stuns and immobilization for a short duration after using them across the board
4. 1 ability in grenades to be given an auto attack on land as an option, a faster flight time, and the grenades to explode on impact so enemies can’t just walk right thru them.
5. a 1-2handed hammer melee option

Turret build is trash, but taking 1 turret is very viable. Other than flame and rocket turret, all the other turrets are great in certain builds.

Well, when I made an Asura Enginner, I was expecting this kind of turrent:

When I heard about turrets i expected this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=9rU1-NGuXVM#t=26s

The abilities from the Arbiter tree on the torchlight Vanguisher class.
Flame Trap – Flame Turret
Flechette Trap – Rifle Turret
Devouring Trap – na
Shock Trap – Turret version of Discharge Trait

I was also expecting a Shock Grenade when i first heard about this class prelaunch before I was able to play in the beta.

I didn’t expect the turrets to behave exactly like these versions but I also didn’t expect them to be weaksauce like they are now. Very slow attacks with almost no damage even when traited and they can die in 2 seconds from AOE attacks. That’s just not cool man.

Part of what makes them so slow is you have to press an overload button after putting them down. I dunno about you but that kinda makes them less useful imo, I don’t have mine down all the time and they should pretty much regain their usefulness if they did their more powerful attacks right after placing them down. That’s what I’ve heard from other people too, that they don’t use them for basic attacks they need the bigger ones and it kinda makes sense. We don’t put down our healing turret for the regen we need the bigger heal and possibly the burst cond removal so of course that one would have to remain a button press for the explosion but the other ones the ones that cc and do damage should definitely just automatically auto fire at high speed or do the electric shock on the net turret etc.

As I recently learned from another member of these forums, turrets just might be “crutch” abilities, designed to help give something easy for newcomers to use until they become proficient in more advanced and capable abilities. In other words, perhaps turrets will never be viable in PvP by design.

Then why is Engineer the only class with a designated skill line that’s a “crutch”?

Minions and spirit weapons are no such thing when used properly.

Not to mention that most gadgets are hardly more useful than turrets – meaning we have two defunct skill lines that we have to contend with. Then we have the ever-popular elixirs of questionable value.

It’s no wonder you never see engineers in serious TPvP any longer.