Guild Wars 2

Hey there folks,

I just hit 80 with my new Engi and really started liking this prof after some getting used to. Now I’m trying to learn how to usefully employ her in competitive scenarios. While the diversity with fields + blasts, cc and good dmg is fine, there are some mechanics which just feel… clunky.

So, today I want to ask everyone here for some help.
The main point which is struggle with is the healing turret (mainly looking at PvE now, but the same can probably be applied to PvP). My problems:

- water fields are awesome. Yet, why isn’t the water field on turret use (not toolbelt, that ones fine) instant? Whenever you activate, you have to wait for the “spinning motion” of the turret to restart before the field activates, which can take about 2s. This just feels so clunky in actual gameplay. Not that having to pair your heal with blasts would be enough, no, you also have to watch closely for the animation to start, which lead to quite some wasted blasts for me today (but that might be lack of training).

- next thing, turret is deployed (and I’m waiting for the field to activate), some mob like 10m away does some random AoE and then… turret gone. Is it just me, or is the hitbox of HT pretty screwed? Whats wrong with that? Not even to speak of aggro caused by turrets.

So, I dont know, but having to wait 0 to 2 seconds for the heal to activate and the non existing survivability of HT makes it hard for me to use to its full potential.
Dont get me wrong, IF I can make it work, it’s great. But… yeah.

Now, what do you do? I’d be glad for some advice how to use it more effectively.

(What I thought about was just to build the turret and insta activate/blast it if need be, but that would totally waste the regeneration.)

If you spam the heal button, it will give you the water field immediately. You have to trigger the active before it starts its spin cycle.

Encanis.4031:

YES

Encanis.4031:

but that would totally waste the regeneration.)

YES (and u don’t need that kitten)

I agree that getting overcharged effects on turrets immediately after overcharging would be great, but until that is implemented there are still some “tricks” to bypass this shortcoming of the Healing Turret.

As stated above immediately overcharging the turret after dropping it will get you the overcharge effect right away with the water field and all the fun. You can combo this with detonating the turret which will blast it and provide extra AoE heal on top of that. If you need more heal you can add extra blast finishers into the 3s window when water field is up like Shield #4, Elixir Gun #4, etc.

I made a animated gif just to demonstrate engineer’s ability to use a lot of blast finishers in a window of single Healing Turret overcharge. It is more or less for demonstration only as you won’t run the exact utilities most of the time and requires preparation. It also shows that you can get the water field almost immediately after dropping the Healing Turret.

Leaving Healing Turret “alive” for a longer period of time is not done that often. Usually only during static fights nonspread fights without AoE when damage received is low and you are basically stacking regeneration and overcharging for smaller heals.

In most situations: when on move or need a big heal you are using the drop -> overcharge -> blast (most of the time) / pickup (don’t need much heal, wants shorted cooldown).

So, you all suggest to just insta-use it with 1-3 blasts as a ~20s cd (group) heal.

Mhm. So the “original” idea of turrets standing around and buffing cannot be effectively applied in realistic scenarios? Thats kind of… huh. Bad designed.

edit
that gif is really well done, ty ^^
how many blasts is that? 7, 8?

Encanis.4031:

So, you both suggest to just insta-use it with 1-3 blasts as a ~20s cd (group) heal.

Mhm. So the “original” idea of turrets standing around and buffing cannot be effectively applied in realistic scenarios? Thats kind of… huh. Bad designed.

Yes, turrets are very weak in most situations and have lot of bugs associated to them making them even weaker than they should be when traited. People are complaning all the time about them and I hope developers are well aware and are going to do something with it in the span of next few years.

Fortunately Healing Turret is very very strong even without having it up for a long period of time and yes – in 95% of the scenarios you would much rather just use it for burst than let it stay.

Encanis.4031:

that gif is really well done, ty ^^
how many blasts is that? 7, 8?

Thank you. I wanted to learn how to make animated gifs from game, so it was a little exercise.

It is 7 blast finishers – 3 from Thumper Turret (overcharge, blast, toolbelt), Healing Turret (blast), Big Ol’ Bomb, Shield #4, Rocket Boots. Also extra Healing Turret toolbelt because I didn’t want to miss blasts and spammed keys (read “to maximize healing”).

Mkay, thanks.

No wonder I failed to make it work while trying to let it stand around for the reg boon and an occasional water field to blast.

So, in the end, the main aspect of mastering engineer gameplay is to decide what to spend the blast finishers on. Heal, might, stealth, retal… xD
Could be fun

Encanis.4031:

So, in the end, the main aspect of mastering engineer gameplay is to decide what to spend the blast finishers on. Heal, might, stealth, retal… xD
Could be fun

Yeah, engineer has a ton of blast finishers and a lot of combo field types so one of the important aspects is learn to use combos well. Other aspect is being a GW2 version of the virtuoso piano players especially when running multi-kit setups and having a lot of experience to “feel” when to use which of the ton of skills you have available in most builds.

Just watch more experienced engineers play when running 2-3 kit setups – it is a league on its own (Teldo, SirKoroshi, Wolfineer, etc).

Agree too with spam heal and let it explode. It’s by far the best burst heal. If you need less heal however you can just drop it, use it and pick it up again for a short CD heal with condi cleanse. I rarely do that since I like the water splash

In general just use fire field for might. Use the heal turret, big old bomb, fire bomb, wait till it explodes, boom the turret and use shield 4 aswell elixier gun 4 or any other finishers. So you share 12 stacks might for 20+ sec.

If you need heal, use water fields instead, also a good option.

Sometimes you need a long stealth, you can get up to 12 sec stealth with that combination too, the probelm is IF you hit something with it you will break your own stealth. So it’s often a good idea for example to ress somone, to drop a smoke bomb, use shield 4 and / or turret and explode it to safely ress him/her.

Xyonon.3987:

Sometimes you need a long stealth, you can get up to 12 sec stealth with that combination too, the probelm is IF you hit something with it you will break your own stealth. So it’s often a good idea for example to ress somone, to drop a smoke bomb, use shield 4 and / or turret and explode it to safely ress him/her.

+ELIXIR S TOOLBELT AND POTENT ELIXIRS.

Yes forgot about that one. For skipping just swap in the Elixier S, however in combat it’s just useful against hard enemies. Maybe against Mai for stealth against cannon. The actual Elixier S is a long CD invulnerability. In normal combat you won’t need it, since some blast finishers are simply better.

You should press “Caps Lock” once – then edit your post …

actually i’m using it alot, cuase i don’t need to wait, make blasts etc.
when i need to run from some dangerous place, i toss it and got 6s of stealth without any chance to hit somebody or loose it.
and when i was making blast serias, after all the blasts i just swapped bomb kit to elixir s to get toolbelt s down.