Guild Wars 2

I would like to say that the following is MY opinion and my own.
Some may agree and some may disagree and this will create the basis of a discussion.
This is also my first post, I do apologise for typos (Grammar kittens) and for what I have not read that may have already been covered.

First off be grateful to Anet for releasing content every 2 weeks, that is more than any MMO so we know they are working hard.
Balances are always needed so do not demand a change, if it is broken put down the time to explain your reasoning and if it is, it will be fixed…eventually

Now, let’s get started.

Why we as Engineer should stop comparing.
-Illusions and Phantasms are the core of mesmers, they are what makes the mesmer a mesmer.
-Illusions are short cooldown and single target burst (Not accounting for AoE damage)
-Minions are what make necromancers necro
-Minions are long cooldown allies that will follow you anywhere (even in death “Again”)
Their damage is mediocre at best from seeing my brother’s Necro (I do not have a necro) but they are meat shields

Following that reasoning, Turrets should be unique to engineers and there is nothing similar in the game.
I do not want my turret to be single use then boom(Remember folks, these are my opinions) but turrets need some change

Why I believe turrets need a major redesign.
-Guild wars 2 is a highly mobile game hence why mobility and dodge managements are important in PvP
-Nothing in the game is static except for turrets
-Not enough health to warrant being static
-In usual PvE turret will only be effective for the first shot against small targets before you have to pick it up again or blow it up
Against bosses with AoE…need I say more here?
-There are more… I am not listing them all

Now there are counter arguments for each of these the most used one will be:
“Place them well”
I agree good placement will be key to playing turrets but not in their current state.
Why?
Let’s start in PvE: Good placement usually means out of reach. Now out of reach of Bosses will usually mean the turret won’t be in reach of the boss either.
Against small regular mobs placement does not really matter.
Now in PvP and WvW: Any competent player if he sees an Engi bunkered behind turrets will either AoE or flat out not engage (Unless you are a Warrior/Guardian, then power to you!)
And frankly if you are running turrets in sPvP you are asking to get destroyed and picked on (Here I mean full utility turrets)

I can’t objectively offer solutions to the problems as I main an Engi with over 1200 hours on it and not once have I had a turrets build (Not saying I did not try)
but changes that should not be made are:
-Increase turret range to over 1200
-Buff damage to the point of being equal to another player
Pretty sure they were not the answer for Anet anyways.

Continue below

Some changes that I thought of: (Healing turrets may be excluded)
- Fix the bugs...there are too many of them
- Make the ground targeting turrets drop down able to stun in the traits like the elite.
i.e. Stun for 1 sec if it hits with that small radius with a internal cooldown of 15 - 20 sec to prevent spamming
- Rocket turret new toolbelt is nice looking but at max range who are you going to hit? You need some insane foresight to land it (3-4 sec to land? I did not count)
- Alternative to above, change a trait where droping a turret down would create an effect similar to Kit refinement.
i.e. Flame turrets gives might or creates a fire field?
That would provide turrets with some support
- Give us a way to make the immobile, mobile
i.e. If you pick up a dropped turret it should be a significant reduction to cool down (Healing turret is fine)...We went to pick it back up and not hit F1-F4 (15 sec sounds good?)
If it blows up, our fault as long as it can take at least 1 AoE from bosses
- Overcharge effect seem "meeehh", given it is a second skill on top of another one
My thoughts, make it pack a punch but be 1 time trigger (Next shot) and then a long cool down so now we will have to think before using it.
But triggering it reset the shot timer so we know we got it off.
- Make turrets viable for all builds (Knight, Berseker, Carrion, etc), aka Condition and Pure damage
- No traits to lower the cool down of turrets?
- Turret traits need to be reworked or changed, see above for ideas or insert your own.
- There are more I am sure so include yours!

How to actually fix the turrets, I honestly do not know. How do you balance a unique mechanic with no base line (Trial and error is my best bet)
I may have missed major points and that it natural. I wrote this on a whim.

Feel free to pitch in some ideas. We can make things happen...Hopefully
I am trying to be a objective as possible without saying "Hey make Engi OP"

Let do a detailed analysis of where turrets/Engis are so Anet can make informed decisions on what is the next major issue.
Lets all help our dedicated Engi community!

"Coming together is a beginning.
Keeping together is progress.
Working together is success."
- Henry Ford

Lets make this happen

Cheers to all
~Cxash

The problem is that they apparently made for good point defense in SPVP when spread out so that AOE can’t take them all. They then end up with the enemy either having to go for the engineer and hope he can survive the turret damage, or go for the turrets and allow the engineer to slap them around.

One thought i had elsewhere was that rather than have the pickup just be a cooldown reduction, how about the turrets become a kind of charge (like say the mesmer mantras). While the engineer holds such a charge he can instantly deploy the turret again, or use the toolbelt detonate to create a blast at his location.

Perhaps there could even be a chance of some effect happening, perhaps with the right trait selected, given certain conditions and depending on the turrets carried.

This would allow a engineer to grab a turret and go, and gain a choice between holding the turret or dropping it again when arriving somewhere else.

Right now, at least in PVE, you are better of just blowing the turret up as the reduced cooldown do not cover the extra hassle of actually going over and grabbing the turret in the first place (unless you’re standing right next to it, but then that just expose it to AOEs).

My ideas for balance:

1. Turrets should be boosted to have higher HP.
– I feel around 15k hp for a normal turret such as rifle turret
– 25k for thumper

2. Turrets need mobility, but they shouldnt be over the top
– Perhaps place global cooldown on the overcharge skills
– When picking a turret up, the skill cooldown should be on around 10-15 seconds
– Increase all turret cooldowns to about 45-60 seconds

3. Make them scale
– Reduce power and condition damage of turrets by 15%
– If engineer is gear specced full “power” damage ~ 30% more normal damage
– If engineer is gear specced full “condition” damage ~ 30% more condition damage
– If engineer is gear specced primary “toughness” ~ 20% more armour
– If engineer is gear specced primary “vitality” ~ 20% more health

1. Instead of overcharging a turret they have a single shot ability which aims for the target of the Engineer with a fairly low cooldown, e.g. Rifle Turret shots a single shot that cripples, the Flame Turret creates a smoke field where the Engineer is aiming, and the Net Turret shots a net that stuns etc. Engineers need more control over their turrets.

2. Picking a turret up should greatly decrease their cooldown, e.g. down to 15 seconds for every turret; that should mostly fix the mobility issue.

3. In PvE Metal Plating could greatly decrease the damage done to them by AoE in addition to the normal damage reduction.

4. Make them scale with your equipment.

You know what?

I think we should stop trying to balance Turrets. Not forever, but just until they’re actually functioning properly, so we actually know what a working Turret looks like and how it performs.
Every single time they change Turret balance, it breaks something else – so maybe they should fix what’s broken, and then try to balance them.

Even attempts to balance end up obfuscated by bugs – the new Rifle Turret Overcharge, for example? If you use the workaround, with its attendant exploit, it can reach up to 8 stacks of Vulnerability, though it really stabilizes at 7, and proceed to fire several more times than intended while the Vulnerability is active, giving an inaccurate impression of the true effectiveness of the change as it pertains to the Rifle Turret.
If you don’t, it only applies 3 stacks, giving, again, an inaccurate impression of the true effectiveness.

Rocket Turret’s also being affected by an issue that causes a version of Rocket Turret that did not receive the direct damage buff, but did lose Burning, to be used when Rifled Turret Barrels is active, so it’s impossible to really tell how effective it is at its new apparent purpose of ‘massive direct damage.’

Anymras.5729:

Rocket Turret’s also being affected by an issue that causes a version of Rocket Turret that did not receive the direct damage buff, but did lose Burning, to be used when Rifled Turret Barrels is active, so it’s impossible to really tell how effective it is at its new apparent purpose of ‘massive direct damage.’

Ugh, sounds like either spaghetti code or a bloated database.

meaning that rather than applying trait related changes in some mathematical way, each combination of traits have their very own related turrets. Meaning that for every turret that is changed you have to go over the whole code, or database, and find every variant of said turret for every possible trait combo there is.

Unless i am totally off the wall here, there is potentially 25 different variants for each turret. Or 175 different turrets in total.

On my Game Bug forum thread, somebody said there were 4 or 5; 1 is what’s supposed to be there, 2 is what’s there for one second after placement (which is unaffected by downleveling and traits alike, and is the version that must be overcharged for the Rifle Turret’s overcharge to function…closer to properly), 3 is Deployable, and 4 is Supply Crate Turrets.
The theoretical 5 would be the unique version that Rocket Turret with Rifled Turret Barrels belonged to, where it’s between the stripping of Burning and the addition of more damage; essentially, it’s half-patched.
Pretty sure 4 is still more than necessary, and I’m pretty sure a bit of clever work could get it down to as few as 2, if Supply Crates really need to be a separate version, or 1, if they decided not to require that.

One way or another, Turrets are evidently bafflingly difficult to do anything with, code-wise.

Well, u can increase turret range, to 1500 I believe? And speaking of Viability, I run dungeons all day, I use the Grenade Kit, Rifle Turret(bleedstack) and rocket turret.I do very decent DPS, I can pre plan and set my turrets to where theyl survive. Now on spider AoE which doesn’t even have to hit the turrets to destroy them is getting old. and in CoE where Subj Alpha or w.e insta kills my turrets when I pop them, which is too, getting old.
But u CAN use turrets effectively, u just cant rely on them to do all the work.
They are, what I call, a engineers support DPS. designed to support ur DPS not do it for you.
Destroying Turrets or Picking them up = same cooldown? Definetly needs fixing
And AoE survivability shouldbe worked on but, damage whise, im perfectly happy with my turrets.

Anymras.5729:

On my Game Bug forum thread, somebody said there were 4 or 5; 1 is what’s supposed to be there, 2 is what’s there for one second after placement (which is unaffected by downleveling and traits alike, and is the version that must be overcharged for the Rifle Turret’s overcharge to function…closer to properly), 3 is Deployable, and 4 is Supply Crate Turrets.

I was going by the thinking that each combination of traits (and perhaps untraited, now that i think about it) would have its own complete entry in the database or code.

Meaning that to change one trait would involve changing every variant where that trait is involved.

My basis for all this is how seemingly any slotted skills touched by a trait change “flips” the moment said trait is chosen. Never mind that for a long time one of the necromancer wells had the wrong icon showing when wells were traited for ground targeted placement.

The best things they could do for engineer turret are:
1. Improve the cooldown reduction caused by picking up turrets (it doesn’t even feel close to 25% reduction, I honestly think it’s bugged).
2.Combined the self repairing turrets and 33% damage reduction traits into one (the self repair is miniscule at best and really isn’t worth picking up)
3.Make the mortar into an automated turret. (currently it’s one of the worst elites in the game).