Guild Wars 2

Is there any situation where you gain something by not stacking blast finishers and blowing it up?

sure, perma regen while it’s there, vigor if playing a turret build with boons, and 2.5k heal 2 conditions removed every 15 seconds, + someone can break it and it goes on a full cd.

But if I deploy and blow it up, alone it heals 5k, removes 2 conds and blast finishes with itself, gives some seconds of regen, even a knockback if traited and goes on a 20s cooldown.

Is there something I’m missing or is healing turret quite useless at being a turret?

its aoe regen and vigor almost constantly, can save it as a blast finisher in a fire field for extra stacks of might too.

In a few situations, sure you keep the HT up.
Generally, you blow it up if you don’t want to save the blast finishers.

You can also deploy it, activate Cleansing Burst and immediately pick it up again.
That way you get a “portable” ~16s condition remove and slightly more healing over time compared to blowing it up.

I’ve found healing turret to be good for rezzing allies. The turret doesn’t overwrite your current action, so you can spam the cleanse while doing other things.

Particularly in grawl fractal. When I have to rez someone, I’ll pop the turret down, and have it constantly healing/cleansing me while I rez.

There’s extremely little incentive in leaving it deployed. It’s not really a turret, it’s just a glorified water bomb.

The only reason I leave it deployed now is if I’m using the new experimental turrets trait, which allows for higher party vigor uptime. Even then though, there’s many situations in which popping the thing is better, especially since you can always drop supply crate to get your vigor if you really need it that bad.

DesertRose.2031:

You can also deploy it, activate Cleansing Burst and immediately pick it up again.
That way you get a “portable” 15-16s condition remove and slightly more healing over time compared to blowing it up.

Thanks for this one.

4 seconds can make a lot of difference when it comes to conditions and both parts of the turrets heal every 15.5s This will certainly come to use.

I will often blast the water field with everything BUT the turret detonate and then pick it up to get a faster reset. It just depends on speed and what I need more.
It is much harder to quickly hit other blast finishers and often it comes down to things like will I need the Shield 4 or Egun acid for another purpose.

Just keep in mind that picking it up also removes the water field, whereas detonating the turret leaves the water field there for the full 3 seconds. Thus if you’re doing a coordinated team blast, you should either wait 3 seconds before picking it up, or just pop the thing.

tried putting mine behind things in PVE still the same result. Those walls do nothing to block attacks that are ranged they just go right through and hit the thing anyways. It’s like not only do they want it to be useless as a regen machine but they want it to explode constantly no matter what you do. Oh and isn’t it fun when you have the elite version that you CAN’T Overload?!?? sigh smh

The healing turret… man. I dont know why you give that poor thing so much kitten. Its probably the most helpfull turret you can have (as non turret engineer). Since the patch it got a smaller hitbox and if you trait it right you got a shield bubble with it and\or vigor. I invested not really much into anything turret related and i still need to ask myself HOW i managed to play without it. If set up aoe regen, aoe condi clean, aoe healing AND as neat little bonus another aoe regen from the toolbelt ability and its all practically in your heal skill slot (if you use it). Seriosly… this thing is a mighty fine healer. Needless to say that you can also nuke it while you are stunned or knocked on the floor. And if you trait some explosives you can even literally use it to nuke the enemie while healing yourself. If you use the turret to its fullest potential its cooldown is fair aswell. I mean come on what more do you want?

Basaltface.2786:

The healing turret... man. I dont know why you give that poor thing so much kitten. Its probably the most helpfull turret you can have (as non turret engineer). Since the patch it got a smaller hitbox and if you trait it right you got a shield bubble with it and\or vigor. I invested not really much into anything turret related and i still need to ask myself HOW i managed to play without it. If set up aoe regen, aoe condi clean, aoe healing AND as neat little bonus another aoe regen from the toolbelt ability and its all practically in your heal skill slot (if you use it). Seriosly... this thing is a mighty fine healer. Needless to say that you can also nuke it while you are stunned or knocked on the floor. And if you trait some explosives you can even literally use it to nuke the enemie while healing yourself. If you use the turret to its fullest potential its cooldown is fair aswell. I mean come on what more do you want?

No one is saying the skill is bad. Like you said, it’s arguably the best all-around healing skill engineers have.

It is, however, in my opinion, one of the most poorly designed skills in the game. It is healing "turret", yet the optimal way to use it is to not treat it like a turret. Letting is sit out there and spin its regen around, "skillfully" timing the overcharge when needed, and making it something worth defending all sound nice on paper, but none of those are the proper way to use the skill. You set it out, use the overcharge immediately, then either pick it up or pop it in the water field. If you use it like it was actually designed to be used, you can seriously compromise your ability to heal yourself and your allies.

The other turrets generally have incentive to be left out. They’ll deal damage, CC the opponent, or give you other types of combo fields. But the healing turret has no true incentive to leave deployed. It’s perhaps a better option if you’re using experimental turrets since it can give party vigor. But even then, you are sacrificing healing potential.

It’s also extremely confusing to new players. I’ve seen various people while leveling who drop the turret before engaging a pack of mobs, and then kiting them back towards the turret so the thing can keep apply its regen. They’re doing exactly what the skill is telling them to do, but they don’t realize that it’s simply more optimal to use it as a simple burst heal skill instead of leaving it out and potentially having it broken by some mob.

In fact, I believe I remember there being a discussion on the State of the Game steam with Jonathan Sharp about the changes they made to the healing turret that made it into its current form. It was all about how the new turret would work great as a persistent source of healing that you would want to have deployed while besieging a tower, and how the health of the turret is possibly a bit to low, and how about enemies would possibly want to prioritize the turret in order to remove the group healing source, and so forth... Well, none of that ever came into play at all. It’s because the optimal way to use the turret is to not use it as a turret. That’s why I call it a glorified water bomb.

So yeah, good heal skill, poor design. If they want to make it be worthwhile as an actual turret, they’d have to change how it works. However, I think people would actually dislike that since it might make the healing "turret" an overall less effective healing skill... although maybe if a few of the other ones were buffed a bit *COUGH*A.E.D.*COUGH*, then it wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

Yam:

If there was one thing I would change about the HT it would be the oddity that picking up the turret removes a water field but blowing it up does not.

But alas. . . .

There were some (fake?) patch notes a while back that mentioned reducing turret cooldowns by 50% when picked up instead of 25%, but also rebalancing turret cooldowns around this.
I think if the HT cooldown was increased to 30 seconds, but remained at 15sec when picked up, there would be more incentive to leave the turret out. Other profession group heals have similar long-ish cooldowns (Healing Spring, 30 sec; Well of Blood, 40 sec). Of course, users could still place, overcharge, and pickup, but there would be less incentive to detonate the turret except in emergencies, and thus more value in leaving it out.

So, I think increasing cooldown to 30 sec. (but keep at 15 when picked up) would help a lot. And fix the healing power scaling of the overcharge, but that’s another issue. And maybe change the metal plating trait to 50% damage reduction and/or increase turret health. Yes, I main an engie, and I think increasing HT cooldown to 30 sec (still 15 when picked up) is valid because HT is one of the best, if not the best heal skill in the game.

Yamsandjams.3267:

Basaltface.2786:

The healing turret… man. I dont know why you give that poor thing so much kitten. Its probably the most helpfull turret you can have (as non turret engineer). Since the patch it got a smaller hitbox and if you trait it right you got a shield bubble with it and\or vigor. I invested not really much into anything turret related and i still need to ask myself HOW i managed to play without it. If set up aoe regen, aoe condi clean, aoe healing AND as neat little bonus another aoe regen from the toolbelt ability and its all practically in your heal skill slot (if you use it). Seriosly… this thing is a mighty fine healer. Needless to say that you can also nuke it while you are stunned or knocked on the floor. And if you trait some explosives you can even literally use it to nuke the enemie while healing yourself. If you use the turret to its fullest potential its cooldown is fair aswell. I mean come on what more do you want?

No one is saying the skill is bad. Like you said, it’s arguably the best all-around healing skill engineers have.

It is, however, in my opinion, one of the most poorly designed skills in the game. It is healing “turret”, yet the optimal way to use it is to not treat it like a turret. Letting is sit out there and spin its regen around, “skillfully” timing the overcharge when needed, and making it something worth defending all sound nice on paper, but none of those are the proper way to use the skill. You set it out, use the overcharge immediately, then either pick it up or pop it in the water field. If you use it like it was actually designed to be used, you can seriously compromise your ability to heal yourself and your allies.

The other turrets generally have incentive to be left out. They’ll deal damage, CC the opponent, or give you other types of combo fields. But the healing turret has no true incentive to leave deployed. It’s perhaps a better option if you’re using experimental turrets since it can give party vigor. But even then, you are sacrificing healing potential.

It’s also extremely confusing to new players. I’ve seen various people while leveling who drop the turret before engaging a pack of mobs, and then kiting them back towards the turret so the thing can keep apply its regen. They’re doing exactly what the skill is telling them to do, but they don’t realize that it’s simply more optimal to use it as a simple burst heal skill instead of leaving it out and potentially having it broken by some mob.

In fact, I believe I remember there being a discussion on the State of the Game steam with Jonathan Sharp about the changes they made to the healing turret that made it into its current form. It was all about how the new turret would work great as a persistent source of healing that you would want to have deployed while besieging a tower, and how the health of the turret is possibly a bit to low, and how about enemies would possibly want to prioritize the turret in order to remove the group healing source, and so forth… Well, none of that ever came into play at all. It’s because the optimal way to use the turret is to not use it as a turret. That’s why I call it a glorified water bomb.

So yeah, good heal skill, poor design. If they want to make it be worthwhile as an actual turret, they’d have to change how it works. However, I think people would actually dislike that since it might make the healing “turret” an overall less effective healing skill… although maybe if a few of the other ones were buffed a bit *COUGH*A.E.D.COUGH, then it wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

Yea i see your point but actually i find myself “preparing” the turret if i expect an in coming horde… like for example AC dungeon. Since the patch ya cant stack anymore for the spider queen hence why i really just put the turret a little bit away from the queen and leave it standing, fight in its field and if the spider queen immobilises me (or anybody of my group) i just “overheat” it and done is the condi issue. I really dont use any traits to improve turrets cause besides the healer i dont really bother with them… BUT i do need to say that the healer can handle quite some abuse and can be left alone for a while without any issues. In fact it only happened ONCE in the 3 runs i did today that the queen actually decided to bother with the turret… cant say the same for the small ones but they couldnt even take half of its health down before we where done. The only times i really hate to leave the healer standing somewhere is at bosses or enemies with very strong attacks (like for example the asura fractal ogre and fire shaman). These guys will certainly destroy it when you dont want them to do it. Well to come to a point.. yea healer turret is a water bomb at many situations but put some trust into the little fellar.. he can deal with a lot

Basaltface.2786:

Yamsandjams.3267:

Basaltface.2786:

The healing turret… man. I dont know why you give that poor thing so much kitten. Its probably the most helpfull turret you can have (as non turret engineer). Since the patch it got a smaller hitbox and if you trait it right you got a shield bubble with it and\or vigor. I invested not really much into anything turret related and i still need to ask myself HOW i managed to play without it. If set up aoe regen, aoe condi clean, aoe healing AND as neat little bonus another aoe regen from the toolbelt ability and its all practically in your heal skill slot (if you use it). Seriosly… this thing is a mighty fine healer. Needless to say that you can also nuke it while you are stunned or knocked on the floor. And if you trait some explosives you can even literally use it to nuke the enemie while healing yourself. If you use the turret to its fullest potential its cooldown is fair aswell. I mean come on what more do you want?

No one is saying the skill is bad. Like you said, it’s arguably the best all-around healing skill engineers have.

It is, however, in my opinion, one of the most poorly designed skills in the game. It is healing “turret”, yet the optimal way to use it is to not treat it like a turret. Letting is sit out there and spin its regen around, “skillfully” timing the overcharge when needed, and making it something worth defending all sound nice on paper, but none of those are the proper way to use the skill. You set it out, use the overcharge immediately, then either pick it up or pop it in the water field. If you use it like it was actually designed to be used, you can seriously compromise your ability to heal yourself and your allies.

The other turrets generally have incentive to be left out. They’ll deal damage, CC the opponent, or give you other types of combo fields. But the healing turret has no true incentive to leave deployed. It’s perhaps a better option if you’re using experimental turrets since it can give party vigor. But even then, you are sacrificing healing potential.

It’s also extremely confusing to new players. I’ve seen various people while leveling who drop the turret before engaging a pack of mobs, and then kiting them back towards the turret so the thing can keep apply its regen. They’re doing exactly what the skill is telling them to do, but they don’t realize that it’s simply more optimal to use it as a simple burst heal skill instead of leaving it out and potentially having it broken by some mob.

In fact, I believe I remember there being a discussion on the State of the Game steam with Jonathan Sharp about the changes they made to the healing turret that made it into its current form. It was all about how the new turret would work great as a persistent source of healing that you would want to have deployed while besieging a tower, and how the health of the turret is possibly a bit to low, and how about enemies would possibly want to prioritize the turret in order to remove the group healing source, and so forth… Well, none of that ever came into play at all. It’s because the optimal way to use the turret is to not use it as a turret. That’s why I call it a glorified water bomb.

So yeah, good heal skill, poor design. If they want to make it be worthwhile as an actual turret, they’d have to change how it works. However, I think people would actually dislike that since it might make the healing “turret” an overall less effective healing skill… although maybe if a few of the other ones were buffed a bit *COUGH*A.E.D.COUGH, then it wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

Yea i see your point but actually i find myself “preparing” the turret if i expect an in coming horde… like for example AC dungeon. Since the patch ya cant stack anymore for the spider queen hence why i really just put the turret a little bit away from the queen and leave it standing, fight in its field and if the spider queen immobilises me (or anybody of my group) i just “overheat” it and done is the condi issue. I really dont use any traits to improve turrets cause besides the healer i dont really bother with them… BUT i do need to say that the healer can handle quite some abuse and can be left alone for a while without any issues. In fact it only happened ONCE in the 3 runs i did today that the queen actually decided to bother with the turret… cant say the same for the small ones but they couldnt even take half of its health down before we where done. The only times i really hate to leave the healer standing somewhere is at bosses or enemies with very strong attacks (like for example the asura fractal ogre and fire shaman). These guys will certainly destroy it when you dont want them to do it. Well to come to a point.. yea healer turret is a water bomb at many situations but put some trust into the little fellar.. he can deal with a lot

Absolutely agree

(Moved my message here) I absolutely agree with everything 1 post above. I’ve demonstrated in multiple threads how the turrets are weak and slow. I’ve demonstrated how many traits we are missing that other classes enjoy, and how cooldowns are everything but equal when it comes to turrets and other class pets/summons/traps/aoe fields, and how pickups don’t work properly.

One other thing that bothers me is the manual way in which we are stuck with condition removal. The CD on overloads is too long. Other classes enjoy multiple automatic interval removal systems from traits and skills while we have to wait 15 seconds. As such I have to actually combine 3 points in elixir and the turret just to have enough condi removal to match other classes and even that has a longer CD. (from what I’ve experienced it’s even a 15 second wait time on Transmute. They did improve it’s chance of occuring but imo it’s still not on par with other classes AND it’s not expandable so we can’t for example extend it to other players in a support role unlike the other classes.

Some would argue that we can with the overload but like I pointed out there’s a time differential on top of this being a manual operation and on top of the inherent weakness of the turret we have to contend with waiting 5 seconds longer than any other class.

I think they need to make this turret have as much health as the thumper, have as much armor and resistance to AOEs as if we already had the traits activated to improve these things without the need to activate those traits so that this wouldn’t be an issue anylonger because just as Rangers need the damage from their pets so to do engineers need the healing from this turret.

It’s either that or they listen to a brilliant and tested suggestion that has saved summons/pets in general from AOE attacks in every game (which they once admitted was a serious problem even in WvW and thought to nerf AOEs in general as I recall) and buckle down with giving all pets/summons a 90% immunity to AOE damage types. This would solve the entire problem with pets in this game in a single application. Like I said it’s been done in multiple other titles and has worked out very well improving pet classes entirely across the board. The one acception to this would be the duplicates of the mesmer as they don’t have this issue (I know I played one).

Or they could improve our condition removal choices entirely by making a trait that removes conditions at an interval while under the affects of regeneration which would solve the condition removal choice problems this class has since we don’t have signets as a good alternative.