Guild Wars 2

A Turret Engineer, yeah, I know; for this I apologize in advance, but real Engineers use Turrets, practice area denial and harass the enemy.

We aren’t fast strikers; we are bulwarks, trappers and gauntlet creators.

Sure, ANet hasn’t really designed them for this, but regardless, I know what’s right even when its wrong.

But that’s what I want my Engineer to be when he grows up.

He’s only 33 at the moment with only one trait point to his name.

And I really hate kits, I despise the clunky nature of their design.

I envision an Engineer to be more Warhammer and less Mad Bomber:

http://warhammeronline.wikia.com/wiki/Engineer

Oh well, one can dream.

I had that dream, too. Less ‘lunatic drunk with an alchemy lab,’ less ‘walking Ghostbusters!/TF2 reference,’ more ‘engineering.’

…of course, Turrets currently kind of suck (except as a starter sPvP spec), and so do Gadgets. Doesn’t make them less fun to use, and if you like them, use them.

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

This is your game! You spent money on it! Play what you enjoy! Just know that the build does terribly against anyone even remotely competent and performs even worse in the PvE area! If you don’t care about that then who cares! If you do care about that, however, then Vee Wee recommends learning to cycle between your kits and weapon!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

If you actually played Warhammer Online, then you’ll recognise that Turrets in WO were not in fact, area control but as part of a DPS spike. Turrets were dropped in the enemy’s face, then CC from other skills were used to keep them there for more shots.

In GW2, the opposite is true; turrets being CC machines with APT and Thumper, Rocket or Net Turret having repeatable control whilst the Engineer himself runs through the Rifle mainhand skills. Not to discount the damage of Rocket Turret, of course – that thing does a lot of damage – but I would say that Engineers in GW2 have in fact made full Turret Engineers a better “bulwark, trapper, and gauntlet creator” than WO.

Unfortunately, fighting against a Turret Engineer 1v1 is the epitome of anti-fun without long range cleave or Stability.

The problem with Turrets is that they have been stuck in this limbo between long term summons (as in MM necro) and disposable boosts (as in Mesmer). The current trait design favours the long-term summon; whilst the actual turret skills (Detonate, Turret Toolbelts, Overcharges) favour disposable boosts.

Turrets need a lot of work to improve their counterplay and active play. I strongly believe in making:

• Rocket Turret simply having no autoattack at all and instead a GTAOE skill that launches the rocket with a cooldown. This might increase the skill floor somewhat. The latest change to add auto-tracking to Rocket Turret OC really didn’t make the spec any more to fight against.
• Thumper Turret needs a better telegraph to its AOE launch. Perhaps recycling the Cave Troll AOE Knockdown windup ground effect would help; or the Elementalist Churning Earth Windup. It could autoattack for all I care; the Launch is what is problematic because it’s very difficult to distinguish Overcharged Turrets in the maelstrom of particle effects.
• Net Turret can contribute to the stunlock combo which makes builds running it a potent 1v1 spec; yet utterly useless in 1vX or even 2vX. A way to improve its 1vX+ prospects is to take away its autoattack, again, to make it a skillshot like another Rifle 2. Only this time, the Immobilising projectile pierces. There should be no Stun component because Immob+Stun is impossible to fight against in all but bunker builds.
• Rifle Turret and Flame Turret aren’t used that often in Turret bunker builds, and their damage is fine. To keep up the active play requirement, simply remove the autoattack and replace it with their OC skills with a cooldown. Flame Turret’s attack skill in this context would generate the smoke field and fire the flame burst.

Afterwards, Traits should be reworked to remove the passive survival – they’re problematic because they’ll only ever be too strong or too weak – and concentrate on active survival:

• For example, making Fortified Turrets repeat the reflect bubble with every turret attack skill but with lower uptime (2 seconds per attack skill, for example).
• Making a new GM that teleports Turrets and heals them to the Engineer’s current location (replaces Detonation chainskill) whilst still generating a blast effect. As a caveat, Turret Cooldowns could be increased by 10-20% to make them less abusable with APT.

The traits Autotool Installation and Metal Plating should be replaced with:

• Detonating a Turret repairs your other Turrets
• Using a Turret’s attack skill reduces the attack skill cooldowns of your other Turrets by 5% (up to 20%)

Now you have a build that requires a lot of active play and pet management; whilst having inherent opportunity costs:

• Fortified Turrets vs the new teleporting GM – teamfight utility vs dueling longevity
• Disposable turrets vs being able to trait for long term summons that require more management
• Experimental Turrets should be reworked to proc their boons only on attack skill activation.

There should also be some thought paid to the potential of Deployable Turrets with the reworked design. It might actually pay to take the trait now with the new GM.

As a final addition, mobility can be introduced to the Turret Engineer by adding a Teleportal Turret (not actually a Turret but part of the Turret skill type) – a Shadow Trap like utility (but reusable) with a long (40+ seconds) Cooldown and a caveat (both ends can only be placed within 900 units of each other). The attack skill is instead replaced with a Teleportal Exit chain skill that chains into “use Teleportal” with a 20 second CD. Comboing it with Deployable Turrets now allows Engineer to make the same port/shadowstep plays with a twist – yet the counterplay is there as only 1 of 2 exits needs to be destroyed to remove that from the Engineer.

You’ll play your Wiley Coyote, and you’ll like it!
WHERE ARE MY ROCKET SKATES!?

Weeeeeeeeeee!

Kuldebar.1897:

A Turret Engineer, yeah, I know; for this I apologize in advance, but real Engineers use Turrets, practice area denial and harass the enemy.

We aren’t fast strikers; we are bulwarks, trappers and gauntlet creators.

Sure, ANet hasn’t really designed them for this, but regardless, I know what’s right even when its wrong.

But that’s what I want my Engineer to be when he grows up.

He’s only 33 at the moment with only one trait point to his name.

And I really hate kits, I despise the clunky nature of their design.

I envision an Engineer to be more Warhammer and less Mad Bomber:

http://warhammeronline.wikia.com/wiki/Engineer

Oh well, one can dream.

I played exclusivly engi in WHO 2 years and engi here is in fantastic state compare to that one:-) We were literaly only 4 engis on max pvp rank in whole game that how bad that class was designed and balanced – only true masochists played it.
Turrets there was just and only for build and destroy knockdown completly useless other way here you can use them in many ways – as damage, control, reflect and also in pure offensive SD builds for example.
Kits are great its just practice give them a chance:-)

Rozbuska.5263:

Kuldebar.1897:

A Turret Engineer, yeah, I know; for this I apologize in advance, but real Engineers use Turrets, practice area denial and harass the enemy.

We aren’t fast strikers; we are bulwarks, trappers and gauntlet creators.

Sure, ANet hasn’t really designed them for this, but regardless, I know what’s right even when its wrong.

But that’s what I want my Engineer to be when he grows up.

He’s only 33 at the moment with only one trait point to his name.

And I really hate kits, I despise the clunky nature of their design.

I envision an Engineer to be more Warhammer and less Mad Bomber:

http://warhammeronline.wikia.com/wiki/Engineer

Oh well, one can dream.

I played exclusivly engi in WHO 2 years and engi here is in fantastic state compare to that one:-) We were literaly only 4 engis on max pvp rank in whole game that how bad that class was designed and balanced – only true masochists played it.
Turrets there was just and only for build and destroy knockdown completly useless other way here you can use them in many ways – as damage, control, reflect and also in pure offensive SD builds for example.
Kits are great its just practice give them a chance:-)

Having given Kits a chance, I actually liked them less than when I was just going ‘Ugh, I don’t like how reliant we are on them.’ Dropping so many skills felt spammy, and compared to Turrets, kit-use is easy-mode for PvE.

well im highly starting to consider stopping using the bomb and nade kits

Our issue is obvious all our moves have 360 aoe range. Whats the results? well it seems ranger practicaly destroy our class on every level as our best builds are close combat styles bunkering styles and or stuff relying on staying in a vague 360 radius circle while ranger can basicaly snipe for massive damage from affar. Bomb kit still is viable in pvp but the moment a LB ranger steps in our builds looks prety dumb. At this point if turret are spaced out i guess they can actualy take better on a longbow ranger then our bombs would.