Guild Wars 2

I think it’s safe to say that six months out from the HoT launch, Medic Gyro could use a revision or two.

That’s not to say it’s entirely bad. In fact it has one of the best toolbelt skills of all the healing skills, with a super long water field that pulses protection and moves with you. It just would actually be nice if the Medic Gyro was a strong choice too, because over the past four years—including the influence of a $60 expansion—the engineer hasn’t moved beyond the Healing Turret aside from a few blips on the timeline when HGH elixir builds were top-tier.

Part of the issue is that the Healing Turret by design covers everything you need. Burst healing? Check. Regeneration? Check. Water field? Check. Condi cleanse? Check. It not only outperforms pretty much every single healing skill we have in every one of these categories, it does so offering the added utility of a blast finisher in any situation you’re not blasting water (i.e., stacking might). It’s been the de facto choice for PvE, PvP, and WvW for almost the entirety of this game’s existence for that reason. But rather than nerf the Healing Turret—as that would only further widen the gap between scrapper and non-scrapper builds—I think it’d be beneficial if ArenaNet would reconsider how the Medic Gyro could fill a niche the Healing Turret can’t fill instead.

On paper it appears that ArenaNet intended the Medic Gyro to be better suited for large scale situations. Between the mobile water field and the pulsing AoE heal, there’s a lot of utility in taking the Medic Gyro over the Healing Turret. Here’s the problem though: in WvW gyros get shredded almost instantly, and in raids you have druids taking care of almost all the healing needs for your group. In truth, there’s just no situation where the Medic Gyro really shines.

This identity crisis is further compounded by the fact that the AoE pulse field on the Medic Gyro actually diminishes its healing potential over time.

The Medic Gyro heals for 4510 with an 820 pulse heal that ticks 4 times while it is out—or a total of 7,790 returning health. Because the gyro itself stays out for 14 to do this, that essentially means you’re getting 7,790 over 34 seconds (including activation time), or 229 healing a second. Comparatively, if one were to detonate the Medic Gyro immediately, instead of keeping it out, you’re simply getting the 4510 every 20 seconds—or 225 healing a second.

Keeping the Medic Gyro out seems to be the better option, especially when that healing extends to your allies and not just yourself, but consider this: with Final Salvo being the optimal choice for gyro builds, it’s actually better just to detonate the Medic Gyro and not leave it out.

Rapid Regeneration ticks 380 healing a second when under the effects of super speed. I’m sure you can tell that this is substantially stronger healing per second than what you get out of a baseline Medic Gyro. Detonating a Medic Gyro gives you 6 total seconds of super speed, or 2280 healing tacked onto every Medic Gyro activation (after it’s destroyed). I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this.

With Final Salvo, holding out your Medic Gyro results in ~10K every 34 seconds. (294 healing/sec)

With Final Salvo, detonating your Medic Gyro results in ~6.5K every 20 seconds. (325 healing/sec)

So not only does holding out the Medic Gyro lack any real utility in the current state of the game because of damage saturation in WvW and druids in raids, mechanically the scrapper traitline places emphasis on detonating your Medic Gyro immediately and cycling super speed as much as possible versus keeping it out.

As for what can be done to remedy this, I think there’s two ideas I have in mind:

1. Rework the Medic Gyro so that it doesn’t just pulse heal, it also provides a beneficial boon that makes it worth keeping out (e.g., Resistance)

2. Rework the Medic Gyro so that it cleanses conditions every tick instead of a pulse heal. (Or both?)

Both of these decisions don’t affect the fact that blasting the gyro is better healing, but it makes you decide between extra healing or another, perhaps more situationally useful effect.

Wahoo!

Good post! I read everything you wrote and in general I agree, especially on the part about the CD. The cd extends if it’s alive, but the heal you recieve for that barely comes up for it.

The biggest issue with this is, that it only tics 4 times if you stand still. If you move around it sometimes only manages to heal 2-3 more times. That’s a general gyro issue it shares with purgy – it has to stand still to heal and has a very low range. Both horrible things.

The medic gyro has a protection field and is insta cast. That’s it’s big sell point. Also the ability to grant aoe super speed.

I don’t think it’s bad. It has it’s purpose. I only want it to heal more reliable and in a wider area. Increase the radius from 240 to 300 and remove the cast time of the gyro itself, after that, it’s perfect!

Greez!
- Ziggy

They need to increase the radius and make it cleanse a condi or two by itself so that it is at least on par w HT in terms of cleansing I agree for buffing it +1

I agree with the range but the condi cleanse wouldn’t make it on pair with the HT, it would simply be better than the HT. Protection, instant, moving waterfield, aoe, that’s enough. But the heal per sec must be more reliable and bigger yes.

Xyonon.3987:

it would simply be better than the HT.

That’s kind of the idea.

Nerf it to the ground with all the other ai minion crap that this game has. Have turret engis. spirit rangers and mm necros taught you nothing? Gameplay that comes from them being good is just not fun.

Sure you can make them stupidly op by removing all cast times, low cooldowns and giving them ridiculous stuff like moblie reflects and mobile protection waterfields. But the minion itsself will still be crap because the ai in this game is flawed from the ground up.

My vote goes to giving all gyros the same cast times and cooldowns as spirit weapons so we wont ever see them again.

Pride.1734:

kitten with salt and nonsense

What an idiot. What AI is needed for a sani gyro which just has to follow you? Can you please troll somewhere else?

Obviuosly one that can traverse terrain and actually follow the player.. gyros aren’t too hot at that. And what for? So that we can have spirit rangers 2.0? It may seem like trolling to you but i assure you my hate for ai realted specs in this game is quite sincere.

Pride.1734:

Obviuosly one that can traverse terrain and actually follow the player.. gyros aren’t too hot at that. And what for? So that we can have spirit rangers 2.0? It may seem like trolling to you but i assure you my hate for ai realted specs in this game is quite sincere.

Yes and nerfing into the ground is your solution. Well thankfully you are not a developer.

gyros pause for 2 sec when they reach you.
when they pause, they stop keeping up.

theyre fast enough to keep up you if arent using superspeed and mobility skills, but they need to be fast enough to catch up while using those skills.

in addition to needing to be able to catch up, medic gyro is detrimental to your survival when left out. the ticks need to be about 3x what they are in order to keep up with the hps provided by immediate detonation and standing in the superspeed field.

personally i find it ok that gyros try to walk around cliffs you jump off of, but its not ok that they dont tele to you when they cannot path to you. going the wrong direction is desirable for sneak gyro, as even an intuitive opponent can be juked by it. of course, disclaimer: i was also a fan of hammer 3 going thru the target because its kittening random as hell and i was better able to predict it than my opponents and take advantage of the chaos, and well.. now it doesnt do that.

i think all medic gyro needs to be optimal is have its heal pulse radius increased to 300-360 range

its hard to balance it because it has a fairly high heal scaling with healing power gear and healing traits it heals up to 1900 per pulse and i dont think i even had food nor heal runes when i tested it

I know this thread is about Medic Gyro and I totally agree that there should be a reason to keep it out and not detonate it right away. Much like Healing Turret should actually be a turret and not just a healing bomb.

There is a larger point though that I think this thread is missing, we have Medkit, Elixer H and AED in addition to HT and the Medic Gyro. At least you can have a conversation about Medic Gyro… the other three are just so bad no one even looks at them.

Rezzet.3614:

its hard to balance it because it has a fairly high heal scaling with healing power gear and healing traits it heals up to 1900 per pulse and i dont think i even had food nor heal runes when i tested it

afaik that’s a tooltip bug. not sure tough

No cast time to pulse and bigger radius and it’d be awesome!

Pride.1734:

Nerf it to the ground with all the other ai minion crap that this game has. Have turret engis. spirit rangers and mm necros taught you nothing? Gameplay that comes from them being good is just not fun.

I agree that AI builds don’t belong in GW2, but we’re stuck with them. I don’t think nerfing gyros is a step in the right direction, either. I’m tired of kit-centric builds on the engineer, and it’s frustrating that we don’t even use Scrapper in any serious PvE content.

For four years I’ve been mashing grenades, and for four years I’ve been blasting my Healing Turret. Some variety just for the sake of something different would be nice.

I just detonate it right after first pulse (which is quite reliable)
But yes I would like some sort of condi management but it’s difficult to balance due to us also have a cleanse gyro
I guess we should just have faster pulses and a non terrain restricted movement for the gyros
Or that it shadow step to yourself when it pulses

wait just a second……..

was i the only one who thought medic gyro was better then healing turrets when used properly?

ukuni.8745:

wait just a second……..

was i the only one who thought medic gyro was better then healing turrets when used properly?

No it’s now my primary healing skill after the casttime increase on turret

Speaking from a PvP perspective Medic Gyro is on paper for me a very good skill. In reality I find myself often in situations where the gyro dies too quick. I think it’s a shame that you often can’t get the real use out of the skill by having it up for a long time.
Is it bad? No. But can it use some help, definetly. I would love to be able to keep up MG and actually receive healing every 3s

ukuni.8745:

wait just a second……..

was i the only one who thought medic gyro was better then healing turrets when used properly?

Medic Gyro was never horrible and it has its uses, but in general it’s hard to let go of the condi cleanse and double water field on the healing turret, even with the nerfed cast time.

ukuni.8745:

wait just a second……..

was i the only one who thought medic gyro was better then healing turrets when used properly?

Except it’s not. I saved commenting on other aspects just because my post was getting extremely long, but the Healing Turret with Inventions basically gives you near permanent regeneration, which means near permanent +250 healing power—substantially empowering your Rapid Regeneration.

The problem with the Medic Gyro, is that the only regeneration you get out of it comes from Healing Amplifier, which means you want to detonate it immediately to maximize your returns for Final Salvo—creating further disincentive to keep it out.

Every aspect of the Healing Turret just snowballs into each other. It’s quite an amazing healing skill. I just wish the Medic Gyro actually offered something that made it worth taking over it versus just giving us a mobile water field for WvW.

hmm when youre in inventions you have perma regen with or without healing turret. health packs give 200% base uptime each, far more than enough to make up for not getting one exactly every 2 secs.

insanemaniac.2456:

hmm when youre in inventions you have perma regen with or without healing turret. health packs give 200% base uptime each, far more than enough to make up for not getting one exactly every 2 secs.

If other people aren’t picking them up in team fights, yes.

that is a weak if. if you arent picking them up, you either dont need them or you arent walking forward. obviously either situation can be true… idk is it an issue for you that other people are hogging your medpacks? frequently when i come out of a teamfight that i won / ran from, ill have ~30 secs of regen on me. using healing turret, of course. but having 30 secs of regen after the fight is over is unnecessary.

insanemaniac.2456:

that is a weak if. if you arent picking them up, you either dont need them or you arent walking forward. obviously either situation can be true… idk is it an issue for you that other people are hogging your medpacks? frequently when i come out of a teamfight that i won / ran from, ill have ~30 secs of regen on me. using healing turret, of course. but having 30 secs of regen after the fight is over is unnecessary.

I didn’t imply it was an issue. I was agreeing with you—though I guarantee almost all of that ~30 seconds of excess regen post-combat is coming from your Healing Turret and Regenerating Mist, not Bunker Down.

Between Alchemical Tinctures’ +20% boon duration and Healing Resonator’s +7 regen you can get 24 seconds of regen just activating both skills once. It’s completely insane.

I don’t particularly recommend doing it for obvious reasons, but you could easily maintain over a minute of regen—if it’s not stripped—just dropping and picking up the Healing Turret on CD. Is it unnecessary? I guess, but that’s not really the point of the discussion here. It just highlights how much stronger a healing skill the Healing Turret is compared to anything else; the sum of its parts greatly outweighs any other option and outclasses the Medic Gyro even though it requires a grandmaster trait to be remotely competitive and the Scrapper traitline to even be equipped. The opportunity cost is substantial, especially in PvE where Scrapper is beyond useless.

But I’m not here to ask that Elixir H, AED, or the Med Kit ever git gud. We’ve been requesting that for years and I think it’s a lost cause. I’m just here to further incentivize and provide value for a $60 expansion that was intended to steepen the depth of choice for our profession.

im not trying to start an argument, i just felt the need to point out that inventions already has perma regen without healing turret. i know regen is not the only justification for using healing turret over another heal, but it really doesnt even need to be a consideration!

i dont feel like the $60 expansion is working as intended to steepen the depth of choice for our profession either.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Xyonon.3987:

it would simply be better than the HT.

That’s kind of the idea.

dderpp
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insanemaniac.2456:

i know regen is not the only justification for using healing turret over another heal, but it really doesnt even need to be a consideration!

That’s why I skipped over talking about it in my OP. I just thought it was something else to add to the discussion to represent just how good the Healing Turret is: Bunker Down requires the pre-requisite of good crit chance to give close to the same amount of regen.

I also think that with the current meta with mesmers applying a dozen stacks of confusion on us, there are common instances where trying to forcefully proc Bunker Down would do more harm than good.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Except it’s not. I saved commenting on other aspects just because my post was getting extremely long, but the Healing Turret with Inventions basically gives you near permanent regeneration, which means near permanent +250 healing power—substantially empowering your Rapid Regeneration.

The problem with the Medic Gyro, is that the only regeneration you get out of it comes from Healing Amplifier, which means you want to detonate it immediately to maximize your returns for Final Salvo—creating further disincentive to keep it out.

Every aspect of the Healing Turret just snowballs into each other. It’s quite an amazing healing skill. I just wish the Medic Gyro actually offered something that made it worth taking over it versus just giving us a mobile water field for WvW.

Dinosaurs.8674:

Medic Gyro was never horrible and it has its uses, but in general it’s hard to let go of the condi cleanse and double water field on the healing turret, even with the nerfed cast time.

Zantmar.5406:

No it’s now my primary healing skill after the casttime increase on turret

i was serious guys i literally used medic gyro over healing turret like all the time since hot released.

it must just be my kittenty aussie ping that makes it so good in my eyes.

I use it all the times, its really great but all gyros could use a speed buff F1 is really great.

But I wont argue for some buffs

ukuni.8745:

i was serious guys i literally used medic gyro over healing turret like all the time since hot released.

it must just be my kittenty aussie ping that makes it so good in my eyes.

The Medic Gyro has a 4510 heal with a 820 ticking heal that ticks 4 times over its 14 second duration; this means it gives a total of 7790 health every 34 seconds (20s CD + 14s duration). With Final Salvo this jumps up to 2280+7790 healing every 34 seconds (or 296 a second). Detonating it immediately, instead of getting the tick heal, gives you 6790 every 20 seconds—or 339 a second.

Part of the purpose of this thread is to establish that issue: where there’s literally no advantage to keeping the gyro out, essentially rendering the entire play style pointless. But even detonating the gyro immediately doesn’t make it particularly shine.

The Healing Turret has a 5040 heal every 15 seconds when picked up or a 5040+1320 heal when blasted every 20 seconds—or 336 healing a second when picked up and 318 healing a second when detonated.

Therefore, the Healing Turret already matches and in some cases outperforms the Medic Gyro before you even consider the added advantages of the condi cleanse, the 2x water field access (both on shorter CDs), or that Final Salvo essentially forces you to root yourself.

It’s literally no contest. The Healing Turret even outperforms the Medic Gyro in its function of AoE/party healing, as only the engineer makes use of Final Salvo thanks to Rapid Regeneration, and the Healing Turret can be immediately blasted versus relying on it surviving in heavy situations.

The Medic Gyro only serves one purpose right now: and that’s having a “big” water field for WvW. But that’s simply not good enough reason to me. And rather than nerf the Healing Turret and put the core engi in a worse spot, the Medic Gyro needs either (1) a reworked heal so that keeping it out is actually worthwhile or (2) offer something the Healing Turret doesn’t like pulsing AoE Resistance.

As it stands right now, anyone who is swapping over to the Medic Gyro from the Healing Turret is just nerfing their sustain and their build. The only value it has is in large scale WvW situations where a long duration water field can help keep a zerg alive.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Your comparison is not 100% fair since you miss some points regarding the medic gyro:

• instant stability when casting: this is huge at least in sPvP.
• Super Speed actually does not only heal you with regeneration but also grant a 100% speed buff in combat. Don’t forget this!
• Lightning field with stun; to be fair this is minor since it does interrupt more or less random
• Protection from the toolbelt field.
• longer waterfield which can be used for the 2 leap finishers on hammer#3 AND a blast finisher (EG#5) which means 3 extra emergency heals.

I pick medic gyro over healing turret in sPvP. I don’t mind the missing condi remove so far since we have enougth with the alchemy trait line and EG.

That’s just my point of view and also just regarding sPvP. But you are right: there is simply no reason to not immediately detonate the gyro and also I won’t pick it over the HT without FS and RR trait.