Guild Wars 2

Hail,WINgineers.
After rifling through the forums,i’ve seen that Engineer community still mourns turrets while acknowleding that it has been broken before it got “fixed”.

So instead of just simply adjusting all the mathematics about the stats i’ve decided to tinker about turrets a little bit,rather on the side how to adapt and change them.
We all know that AI controlled minions are a bane of existence for many players,they aggro stuff with stupid manuevers,get stuck,die the quickest and most horrid of deaths when they are needed the most etc.

It seems that turrets as they are cannot be salvaged.
So lend me your ears (or in this case,eyes) and tell me what you think of.

First and foremost,Rifle Turret.
The thing itself is really not enough,just standing there and shooting only to get cleaved to high hell.

Instead of RT;Skirmish Bot.

Imagine a rifle on tank threads that instead of chasing the enemy,runs away from it.
Rifle Turret has a range of 1000.
So will Skirmish Bot and it will try to maintain that range.
For an example,whenever a hostile enters the 700 range,it will back away to 850.
Ive left a 150 tick difference so the turret can cover the area even if the enemy moves a lot.
If the enemy gets too far away it will move towards enemy until it reaches the threshold of 850.

New fashion should bring new names i believe.
New skill:Chew’em Up!

Attack speed of turret doubles/triples depending on the mercy of the developers if this thread gets noticed.

With Experimental Turrets trait the Skirmish Bot gets piercing shots with the secondary skill that grants it attack speed.
This way,theres a chance for the said Skirmish Bot to get into zerging meta as it will keep sniping from a safe distance.

Rocket Turret as it was brought forth some serious firepower.
I have no idea in mind for the mobility behaviour but i think it should maintain maximum range as rifle turret does.

For a new skill idea:Artillery Assault.
Getting a reflective dome with the ET trait,it will saturate a ground-targeted area with a hail of rockets,creating a combo field.

Thumper Turret as Rocket Turret is was a sufficent and effective one.
Its tanky nature and CC capabilites have been pretty tough.
But still,lack of mobility is a total set back for turrets as they get sniped from a GS Mesmer or any Ranger in general.
They should be deployed instantly when a fight occurs instead of a stay-and-wait type of bunkering behaviour to hold a point.

Another idea is tank threads.
Thumper Turret -if this thread succeeds,may be called Thumper Drone- chases the enemy down until reaches melee range and begins attacking.Pretty straightforward.

For a new skill:Breach and Clear.
Thumper Drone charges forward,knocking the enemy of their feet as did the Thumper Turret. ET trait should give the drone access to stealth,vanishing out of sight moments before it charges.
Something that bulky should be slow,so giving it a chance to conceal itself shouldnt be so out-of-place.

Net Turret should stay as it is,except mobile.

For a new skill:Electrified Net.
Shooting an electrified net,the turret not only immobilizes the enemy but also dazes them.
With the ET trait,the Net Turret will fire an overcharged net,randomly zapping targets around the target,dazing them momentarily.

For the last one,I dont really know if this should be changed but since i already begun,the elite skill;

E.M.P.-Engineer’s Murder Platform.

After a brief set-up cast,the Engineer will set up a weapon platform.Which sits idle if unmanned.
Engineer will maintain its access to his summoned minion’s secondary skills.
The turret will act as a kit,completely changing the skill set and will be immobile with a range of 1500 and will have a decent blend of defensive and offensive skills.

Turrets as an idea is a bit uncreative.
We are the psychopatic anarchists of Tyria,not the ones that should give out a heroic pose on a pile of corpses,rather the type of guy who lets out a flamboyat “Good morning everyone!” to his terrified enemies as the camera pans to the charred,poisoned,hollowed out corpse that belongs to the first of said terrified group who dare took his chance against him.

We need toys of destruction that have been made creatively cruel and cruelly creative.

Idle turrets that shoot around however,is a bit too old fashioned.

We just had a specialization specializing in mobile robots. Lets try keep them distinct. Of course i would like to see a massive rework to the very fundamentals of turrets, but the mobile minions/robots are taken for now.

Besides the idea i think is that turrets should serve as artillery pieces (think 25pounders and what have you in CoH) and not robots, something i think should be embraced instead of moved (literally) away from.

Something that allows engineers to designate rocket strikes of various kinds while near their rocket turret for example, meaning that they still serve to give the engineer superior firepower while near his “base” (imagine doing a creeping barrage while defending in wvw).

Actually,that would be pretty bad@ss.

I found the core weakness of turrets to be their immobility as someone can disengage casually,snipe the turrets down then come back and kill you while all your utility is wasted for nothing.

It’s kind of sad that a whole style of play gets decimated because it can be scrapped as an idea for a new sub-class.
They took away the turrets from engi,gave them to Scrapper.

Personally I’d like turrets to stay as stationary entities since that is their most recognizable trait. Instead, remove the AI part.

A simple change could be to make them automatically use their overcharge when placed down and have the majority of the turrets usefulness frontloaded so that when they die, they have still done something. Since there are no AI, your target when casting the turret is the one they will continue to fire at. Turrets would only last 15 sec and have their cooldown started once placed down (the explode turret option could be moved down to the utility bar so the toolbelts are never hidden).

Rifle turret:

• Singel target range based skill
• Unloads 12 shots towards it’s target for 3 sec applying vulnerability
• Once done with the unload, it will fire at normal rate until it is destroyed or it’s time run out.

Rocket turret:

• Ground targeted skill
• Fires multiple rockets up in a curve towards the ground targeted location over 5 sec.
• Once done it will continue to fire at a slower rate (once every 3-4 sec) to the target location.

Healing Turret/Thumper turret

• Will use their normal overcharge ability instantly once placed (no waiting for firerate ticks) and continue with a weaker version once a while afterwards.

Turrets should not be mobile but should fortify a location thus if more then one turret is in a location they should buff the others. Giving more health more fortification and more health if used within a certain distance. Their elite trait should also kick a reflect field off on every over charge of that turret not just when placed. As it is placing turrets together just ends up making them die fast with aoe instead of fortifying the location.

I think Are.1326 ’s ideas are very solid, we should let turrets have an initial burst before becoming the obsolete version it is right now.