Guild Wars 2

Hey all,

So Anet is trying to make turrets better and the forums are trending with turret suggestions. I enjoy creating interesting builds, and I recently decided to try some WvW rather than just tournaments. I wanted to make the net turret a central part of the build. Here’s a list of simple observations:

1. Immobilize is very strong—I used 30 points in explosives and pizza, meaning even in a power build, every net hit for a 5 second immobilize. That is powerful, even at the expense of so much additional damage or condition removal I could have had. Sure, the turret died easily, but it was worth the risk for the reward of landing a potentially fight-ending immobilize.
2. Turrets always shoot at the closest target, whether that’s a minion, a clone, a wolf, or a thief. Fun fact: when fighting another engineer, net turret will target closest turret the engineer drops from supply crate.
3. Turrets continuously fire at gates when in range. I was hoping to use my net turret to control the area in front of a keep or tower. Unfortunately, the gate was not harmed by the immobilize.
4. Turrets have no concept of LoS. As an experiment, I attempted to set a trap for a lone mesmer I predicted would be coming through a stone arch to gank me while I was soloing the SE supply camp in a nearly-deserted borderland. I was correct—the mesmer came exactly where I thought he would. Unfortunately, the turret fired as the mesmer came within 900 units on the other side of the wall. Ambush failed.

tl;dr—Net turret is already great in some situations, it just doesn’t work when fighting near mobs, objectives, archways, mesmers, necros, rangers, or rock dogs.

As for general turret buffs? If I were Anet, I would use mesmer phantasms as the model for turret balance. Phantasms are already very similar to turrets in that they can’t move from fight to fight and have a fairly slow rate of fire. However, they have some things that turrets do not have: they’re built into weapon slots, target your own target, and scale with your damage. I recommend that turrets function the same way, or, if they need to continue to cost a utility slot, they be made noticeably stronger than phantasms to make up for it. For example, they could have the same damage/health but also retain the blast finisher and knockback trait.

I largely rolled an engineer because turrets sounded cool. Imagine my disappointment.

To clarify, over the last few weeks tweaking my net turret WvW build, I’ve always enjoyed it and felt net turret was really strong. There are just too many situations where it does no good at all to justify the situations where it works really well.

oooh mind sharing your net turret build? I imagine its a great skill for roaming.

Well it’s not that great yet. I’m hoping to test it further with condi nades instead of power. I had originally wanted to use the rifle for the huge single-target control, so that I could set up my toolbelt net and net turret. That works pretty well for lockdown. As I said, though, it has nothing on professions with minions/pets/clones, which is about 60% of WvW (that’s 5% rangers, 5% necros, 50% mesmers).

If you want to give it a try, it’s 30/0/10/30/0, knights/zerkers gear, rifle, elixir S, grenades, net turret, and supply crate. I needed to use grenades because they apply conditions fast enough to “cover” the immobilize. That left one utility for a stunbreak and condition cleansing (I took 409 even though my only elixir was elixir S).

In the near future, I’m hoping to try this build with the standard 30/10/0/30/0 condi nades setup. That would give less single-target control but more ability to deal with pet/kiting professions. It would also let me take better advantage of the condition duration bonuses. It would also let me fall back to the standard condi nades playstyle against professions that are immune to net turret (mostly mesmers).

Plus, pistols, handheld flamethrower, grenades, and nets would pretty much make my engineer Boba Fett. Just wish we were still a metal armor profession!

NevirSayDie.6235:

Hey all,

So Anet is trying to make turrets better and the forums are trending with turret suggestions. I enjoy creating interesting builds, and I recently decided to try some WvW rather than just tournaments. I wanted to make the net turret a central part of the build. Here’s a list of simple observations:

1. Immobilize is very strong—I used 30 points in explosives and pizza, meaning even in a power build, every net hit for a 5 second immobilize. That is powerful, even at the expense of so much additional damage or condition removal I could have had. Sure, the turret died easily, but it was worth the risk for the reward of landing a potentially fight-ending immobilize.

There is also food with -40% condition duration and runes with -%condi duration as well.

So, i don’t see a problem at all. If someone sacs food buff slot for longer condi, you can do the same to make it shorter. If not then it’s your decision.

PS

“you” as in player in general, not you precisely.

Killyox.3950:

There is also food with -40% condition duration and runes with -%condi duration as well.

So, i don’t see a problem at all. If someone sacs food buff slot for longer condi, you can do the same to make it shorter. If not then it’s your decision.

PS

“you” as in player in general, not you precisely.

Definitely, I agree 100%. The point of the post was the huge limitations of turrets in general due to ineffective LoS, lack of targeting, and issues with uselessly shooting gates. I wanted to begin by pointing out that the skill should be a very powerful lockdown (5 second immobilize is huge), but in reality it’s only worth having in a small handful of situations.

I roll with a “Crippler” Build in WvW…and my Net Turret, along with my Heal Turret, are the centerpieces

(just copy and paste in another tab. Y’all know the drill )

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQFAUlIqyVX7SyF1LJxIFdW0hUkYBDqgd/og+0F;TcAKjMGJMyakzIpRjBA

I have an Ascended Koss on Koss Backpiece, and a Lost Seal of Usoku(because, as we all know, P/V/T in WvW is king!). Jewelry consists of a mix of Knights and Chrysocola with Soldier’s Crests.

With my Net Turret, That’s 5 stacks of Vulnerabilty right there. Add Analyze and you got 15. Net(from Toolbelt), plus Net Shot from Rifle with Analyze then Net Turret…25 Stacks of Vulnerability. Add the Accelerant Packed Turrets trait, and play pinball with your enemies! It’s really funny

Also I use the Heal Turret almost exclusively now. I’ve been able to get the timing down to create a Water Finisher for AREA HEAL when it’s needed. I know that Med Kit is preferred by some, but I like ‘mining’ my area with turrets. Get too close, and the Knockback is nice, if only for a moment.

I use Magnet to keep people in range of my point defense build. I want them to stick around, instead of runnning away.

^ I have to agree that Sitting Duck is a very nice trait to have alongside Netshot and Net Turret.

I use Net Turret with my Gadget SD build and its the one time I’ve found PBR to be very usefull.
The idea being that you do a reverse rotation of the usual.
So PBR or Overcharged Shot then Net Turret as they are lying on the ground, this will ensure you land the Net and get the Vulnerability stacks and set you up for a Jump Shot.
Also Magnet pull then drop Net Turret works very well.

CriSPeH.8512:

^ I have to agree that Sitting Duck is a very nice trait to have alongside Netshot and Net Turret.

I use Net Turret with my Gadget SD build and its the one time I’ve found PBR to be very usefull.
The idea being that you do a reverse rotation of the usual.
So PBR or Overcharged Shot then Net Turret as they are lying on the ground, this will ensure you land the Net and get the Vulnerability stacks and set you up for a Jump Shot.
Also Magnet pull then drop Net Turret works very well.

Right, I originally wanted a power build to set up the toolbelt net and net turret with rifle. I took protection on crit rather than sitting duck because I found myself having to enter some odd positions to get the net off in a useful way, and I was rarely able to land it early in a fight. When everything worked, I rarely had trouble doing enough dps to take down the target. I hadn’t thought of using it in a SD build because of the high recharge on net shot. Would you have to run without condition cleanses or stunbreakers then? I mostly chose grenades to cover the immobilize condition really well (each grenade skill lands 2-3 conditions), which has worked out great so far in the situations where turrets work.

Right now I’m re-gearing for p/p, nades, nets, and I’m thinking med kit and elixir S again. I’m excited, p/p is a strong weaponset by itself and landing that immobilize should still seal the deal. It will just be harder to land the nets without the rifle. I should be able to switch to bombkit or toolkit much easier for taking camps and 1v1ing pet professions, respectively. Net turret is already great for 1v1ing non-pet professions, it just failed badly in certain situations, so I think it will be great to be able to swap it out and still be just as effective. Wish tourneys gave loot so I would actually be able to re-gear after playing since launch…

Whenever I find myself in a wierd build that doesnt have good condition cleansing I try to see if I can at least work in Medkit. Than I take the food that has 100% to remove condition on heal skill. Think its Poultry Soup or something.

Usually I can make due with those 2 just have to be careful.

I think SD is a nice all around dmg enhancer and also AoE tag, it is put to best use with low CD TB skills so it can be spammed but ppl tend to also go GC with tht and use it more like an instant nuke in which case low CDs don’t really matter unless you are fighting multiple ppl solo.

In small grp fights its been fun for me to do 2 step CCs to enemies tht your allies are focusing on. Like Overcharge Shot+Net Shot or Magnet Pull+Net Turret and PBR+TB Net, so this along with kiting whoever is attacking you with Box of Nails and Jump Shot escapes (or glue shot for pistolas) and you will do a good job controlling the fight.
For me it usually ends up really annoying players into focusing on me which is a huge advantage to get ppl to shift focus, if you have good allies around you they will get alot of free hits in with you around and you will pass around alot of vulnerability.

Thing is CC Engineer loses alot in big fights since CC doesnt damage much and you will give up alot of survivability in utilities. You can still be useful but more just as another member running in circles and dropping w/e you have when you can, in which case SD comes in handy to tag more foos.

1v1 can be tough but for me it got easier when I just decided to sort of play defense and try and hit them with a combo and knock them away, like Net shot ->Jumpshot ->Blunderbuss->Overcharged Shot
Then kind of kite them for a little bit and dodge
then
Net Shot(TB if needs be)->PBR
kite again.

You can always try and get extra attacks in here or their and I had the most success with 1v1 by playing a little defensive to get them to show you their tricks and try and space enough time inbetween my 2-3 step combos so that I always have one open or close by. Once you wittle them down enough or they make a mistake drop Supply Crate and head in to finish them off.
You have to be a little more cautious with CC heavy builds since they don’t leave you much bite to match your bark.