Guild Wars 2

Hi. I’m not the best player in the world, but lately in solo Q, I’ve been having trouble with some engineer specs and since I don’t have anymore character slots to make one and mess around with it, I thought I’d ask you guys for ways to counter Engineers. Particularly engineers that use turrets or supply crate in 1v1. While I’m not saying that those builds/elite are imbalanced, I feel like I might not be handling my approach to them the right way.

Anyway the classes/specs I usually play these days are: glkittenter mesmer (GS and either staff or sword/torch), Condition necro (0/6/4/0/4), and regen-condition tank spirit ranger (0/2/6/6/0) with Axe/dagger and Sword/torch. I seem to have the most luck with condition necro if I don’t get CCed and I can blow my boon corruption on the engi. With mesmer I can boonstrip, but since I’m paper, I can’t stay near the turret radius for too long and kiting doesn’t work since the Engi just sits on the point/cannon/treb. On ranger, I remember fighting a turret engi 1v1 yesterday that dropped a supply crate and my health barstarted depleting quite rapidly, so I just ran away. I fought another one without supply crate that had finished off a teammate but was low on health so I downed him right away and due to the stomp interrupts, by the time I finished him most of my health was gone.

Anyway what strategies and tactics would you suggest for these classes and builds to use against turret specs and engineers in general? Since I’ve had some trouble in the past fighting bursty power rangers too but I don’t see them as often.

Anyway, thanks Engis!

Against Turrets, specifically, I’d recommend ranged AoE – Turrets can’t move, they don’t take conditions, they’ve got a reputation for fragility and will either be underwhelming (if not traited) or most of the skillbar (if traited, as they are a heavy investment). Some Engineers might place Turrets far apart, to prevent them from being destroyed by a ranged AoE barrage; this means that the Turrets will not be able to cover each other perfectly, which should allow them to be picked off somewhat easier.
Add to this whole situation the long cooldowns of said Turrets and most of their associated Toolbelts, and…well, a Turret Engineer without their Turrets is far less of a foe.
It’s also worth noting that, depending on the ‘breed’ of the Turret Engineer, they are most likely to either have high-damage, boon-dispensing Turrets, or explosive Turrets with short-term reflective domes. The former category is tanky, as a result of the traits required being Grandmasters in survivability-stat trees, and from the sound of it, that’s what you’ve been fighting. This also makes Healing Turret’s drop-and-pop AoE heal more powerful, which can greatly contribute to the survivability of the build, although it’s a fairly common heal for the Engineer in general.

Don’t try to burst the Engineer themselves; think of it like a staged boss fight.
Stage 1: Destroy the Turrets while avoiding the boss’ attacks.
Stage 2: Beat on the boss while they’re vulnerable. Try to inflict as many Conditions as possible, along with Poison. You want to clog their Healing Turret’s overcharge cleanse and reduce how much healing they get when the cooldown finishes.
Stage X: Repeat.

Against Engineers in general: Engineers have limited condition removal, and are vulnerable to CC. Use these to your advantage – just because we’re good at condition blasting or CCing, don’t assume we’re good at dealing with the same.

I don’t play a turret Engi, but I’ve fought a few.

You should be able to beat them with any of your classes as we, as a class, are really weak against conditions on any build. Kill the turrets. If they’re spread out, you can take them out one at a time out of range of the other turrets. The Engi will either be forced to reposition or lose the turret.

If they’re all bunched together, you can take them out with AOE (not sure how for Ranger though). If you see him drop a Heal turret, try to Stun and prevent the overcharge. Doing this messes up the overcharge timing (preventing the extra heal, condi removal, and Blast heal) and really ruins an Engineer’s day.

Don’t try to fight him in the middle of all his turrets. If you have Stability (Rampage As One), you can ignore the Net Turret and go for the Rifle/Rocket. Send your pet in first to soak up the damage.

Okay this advice is helpful. Although on Ranger I typically use a Settler’s amulet so I wouldn’t be able to do much damage to the turrets as I have minimum power and only some condition damage… so in that case would it be better to focus the Engi himself? Like do a torch throw into bonfire serpent’s strike combo before switchng to axe/dagger to use axe 2/3 and dagger 4’s poison/evade? And I usually use nature spirit instead of rampage as one, but I could test it out instead.

Then for mesmer might be okay as long as I try to stay max range with GS and hope I could get mindwracks off before the turrets destroy the clones from GS 2 and 4.

With condi necro I might be able to destroy the turrets if I go carrion and staff auto cleave them down from max range.. but Idk if this is a viable option.. but with SoS and corrupt boon I should be able to condi burst the engi if I can land everything but I’d have to practice it.

It’s never a good idea to engage a turret Engi with all his turrets up. 99% of them are bunkers, and all their damage comes from turrets. . You’d have better luck being patient with taking the turrets out and letting the Engi come to you. His turrets aren’t going anywhere. As a Ranger, you have enough evades and regen to safely take a turret out and retreat back for the other one. Just hope he hasn’t called for help by then.

How do you kill my engi? bring 2 friends xd but seriously you shouldn’t really be engaging a turret engi solo on those classes. Glassy mesmer is ok if you are dang good but geneally not worth your time.

You would have an easier time if you ran celest ele staff, s/x or dd. Bomb kit engi, Med guard or variours no condi warrior specs.

vincecontix.1264:

How do you kill my engi? bring 2 friends xd but seriously you shouldn’t be engaging a turret engi solo.

Oh, yeah, definitely a good point. 1v1.5 isn’t quite in your favor. 2v1.5 is.

Hello frands! Vee Wee here, #1 Engi NA and world first rank 80!

Slaying a thilly turret Engineer is pretty simple! Like all Engis they have very little condition clear! Their one stunbreak can only be used if they sacrifice knockbacks/protection uptime! They have no way to mitigate damage (Blocks, Invuln, Blink away). They are absolutely useless vs Stability! They have zero mobility and cannot fight off point because their cooldowns are too long and turrets are stationary!! Use this information and slay them! They are very easy kills and contribute nothing to the team!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

I like how this guy still thinks turreteers run with 3(4) turrets and no stunbreakers / condi-clear / mobility whatsoever xD

His tips work against turret-tards, tho. Also engis still lack sufficient means of stability, so cc-chaining is your best shot against turreteers with a brain.

Treble.1563:

If they’re all bunched together, you can take them out with AOE (not sure how for Ranger though). If you see him drop a Heal turret, try to Stun and prevent the overcharge. Doing this messes up the overcharge timing (preventing the extra heal, condi removal, and Blast heal) and really ruins an Engineer’s day.

overcharge is off the global cd and the only way it gets prevented is lag or bad button spamming, theres really nothing you can do as an opponent

Positioning is an overlooked technique.

To play it safe, try gorilla tactics! Find an advantageous position with a pillar/wall to hide behind when eliminatin threats. Even only doing this for several seconds while spraying at the Engineer and their turrets will buy you enough time to avoid the majority of the potentially damaging Turret Overcharge mechanics.

Also, while aiming for the Engineer, strafe around the point and align the turrets between you and your target. This will allow you to pepper the engineers turrets while applying pressure to be engineer himself. All the while dodging the turrets fire and causing them to swivel around while tracking you thus greatly reducing the Turrets DPS.

Mechanics that pierce/cleave or AOE make this strategy truly shine.

AOE the turret engis.

Jump on the ranged ones and keep mobile to dodge nades and bombs.

Run like hell from the static discharge ones.

Turret engineers are meant to be good at bunking down a place, so they should get advantage for 1v1s in a reasonable radius.

Ele meteor shower from staff can really screw up a turret engineer, although I don’t see too many eles running staff, but I do see them!

Most cases you don’t have to fight if you want to , just go contest another point, when you can 2v1 you can take down turret eng pretty easily if you have enough aoes