Guild Wars 2

They are currently just wasting many traits positions which should be changed to something useful.

I have to disagree completely. If you removed healing turret, a mob with torches and pitchforks may come after you. As well, rifle turret is very popular in SD builds.

On certain levels, some turrets are handy, its simply turret builds that are so problematic.

If they can’t even bother to take 5 minutes to band-aid fix turrets such as lowering cooldowns to something reasonable, what makes you think they would replace them with something useful? Much less the take the time to delete them at all?

It really makes me question really Anet does care or not..

Might as well. As for the healing turret gotta disagree with coglin. Played my ranger there’s nothing more frustrating then playing another class and realizing that they can do the same thing I do on my engineer with half of the buttons needing to be pressed for the same effect.

Besides they can add all the hitpoints they want to any pet it won’t make any difference until these pets get immunity to AOEs to a certain degree otherwise they’ll remain useless.

Healing turret is a hell of micromanegment just for a heal skill.
Give us a nice gadget heal skill instead a defibrillator or a mobile waterpump!
Turret will never be usefull unless you buff them into oblivion. Honestly the GW2 turrets are pretty decent compared to other games.

Kontrolle.3514:

Healing turret is a hell of micromanegment just for a heal skill.
Give us a nice gadget heal skill instead a defibrillator or a mobile waterpump!
Turret will never be usefull unless you buff them into oblivion. Honestly the GW2 turrets are pretty decent compared to other games.

I disagree.

All you have to do is press heal twice (not hard at all), then toolbelt skill for even more healing, or press F to pick it up.

It’s a 5k heal with 2 condi cleanse on a 15 second cooldown, or a 7k heal with 2 condi cleanse on a 20 second cooldown, it is WELL worth the tiny bit of extra effort. And this is on top of applying regen, affecting allies, and having only a 1/2 cast time. You can also use the blast finisher on other fields, or even trait it to knockback/dmg each time you heal if you want.

It’s the best and most flexible heal skill in the game IMO, and I LOVE it.

Knote.2904:

If they can’t even bother to take 5 minutes to band-aid fix turrets such as lowering cooldowns to something reasonable, what makes you think they would replace them with something useful? Much less the take the time to delete them at all?

It really makes me question really Anet does care or not..

Going from asserting that a particular set of cooldowns should be lowered to wondering if a game company cares is kind of a stretch…

On topic: healing turret=golden; rifle turret=disposable, but great for everyone except roleplayers who need to keep their turrets alive for RP reasons. Net turret=extremely strong in PvP since patch. Flame, rocket and thumper=the weakest, but useful in some situations. People would be rightly upset if turrets were completely removed from the game.

NevirSayDie.6235:

Knote.2904:

If they can’t even bother to take 5 minutes to band-aid fix turrets such as lowering cooldowns to something reasonable, what makes you think they would replace them with something useful? Much less the take the time to delete them at all?

It really makes me question really Anet does care or not..

Going from asserting that a particular set of cooldowns should be lowered to wondering if a game company cares is kind of a stretch…

On topic: healing turret=golden; rifle turret=disposable, but great for everyone except roleplayers who need to keep their turrets alive for RP reasons. Net turret=extremely strong in PvP since patch. Flame, rocket and thumper=the weakest, but useful in some situations. People would be rightly upset if turrets were completely removed from the game.

No, my point was that they could easily do quick bandaid fixes to instantly make them useful, but they don’t, that’s what frustrates me.

Knote.2904:

No, my point was that they could easily do quick bandaid fixes to instantly make them useful, but they don’t, that’s what frustrates me.

Fair enough, although I’m glad they’re not reducing cooldowns on underused skills as a “bandaid.” There are certainly things wrong with turrets still, though.

NevirSayDie.6235:

Knote.2904:

No, my point was that they could easily do quick bandaid fixes to instantly make them useful, but they don’t, that’s what frustrates me.

Fair enough, although I’m glad they’re not reducing cooldowns on underused skills as a “bandaid.” There are certainly things wrong with turrets still, though.

Well in this case it would be huge, and could easily make them worth taking.

50 seconds on thumper and rocket turrets? That’s ludicrous.

They should have 30-35 seconds tops, then have a 10 sec cooldown when you pick them up, then you can actually reliably use them.

Agree. Add bots,just like ranger’s Spirit.

clearly messing with turrets was anets plan all along they were also clearly over powered because this “BALANCE” patch made them even worse then before.

on a serious note, turrets need a complete change, as of right now they are no longer useful to use them for what they are, rifle and rocket turret will only be used with static discharge/burst builds now why take flame turret over any kits, thumper turret is only good for 3 blast finishers, healing turret is a great heal but then again who actually uses it as a turret, the traits might be good if turrets could actually bring something to a fight for the duration there out.

I’d really love to be able to use the turrets in dungeons, but everytime I place them they won’t even last 5 secs in a fight. In boss fights they will only last for the next aoe spell and then thats it. :/

I suggest that turrets should only take 10% or something of pve aoe damage or perhaps make them completely immune to aoe damage. Don’t know about pvp and spvp as that would probably be a little OP, but in dungeons I don’t see that would be a problem other than if that were to be implemented turrets might actually be able to last a fight. I know this has been suggested before.

Victoitor.2917:

They are currently just wasting many traits positions which should be changed to something useful.

No.

NO AND NO.

As much as I hate to say that many aspect of Turret are still buggy and disappointing, I love my Healing Turret and Thumper Turret.

Knote already explained the full usefulness of Healing Turret, and Thumper Turret? Ever since they added breakstun and 1s stability effects on its toolbelt skill, I almost always use it in my PvP CC bunker build.

Sure, Rumble’s CD is a bit long even if you put some points into Tool line, but considering it is a stunbreaker, blast finisher, and a source of stability, the length of its CD is completely understandable.

1s stability may seem laughable, but when you use it together with rifle’s Overcharged Shot, you can prevent the self-knockback, which can be useful at time.

Thumper Turret’s overcharge ability is also nice, just when those people who think they mastered the technique of dodging our O’mighty Big O’ Bomb, they usually did not expect that I would put Thumper Turret right below their foot and blow them away in an instant (the radius is pretty big too).

Currently, I never left my turrets on the field for more than 5 sec, either I’d pick or explode them right up, before someone even tried to destroy it, so I don’t really have the constantly-talked-issue of “turret cannot withstand AoE attack”.

I think the first thing they should do for turret, is giving us a trait that reduce Turret’s CD, many of turret’s CD are still too long when exploded.

request denied! I like my healing turret the way it is thank u:) if theres a big bad boss out there u don’t have to put the turret beside the boss for it to aoe and destroy. I always thought turrets were about position placement and using cc and kiting abilities to keep bosses occupied. In other cases, turrets can serve as that sacrificial lamb. Not to mention they do amazing damage.

Sure, Remove turrets and gadgets, move him to heavy armor and rename him to Demolitionist or Alchemist. Then create a new Engineer class in leather armor that ACTUALLY FOCUSES ON GADGETS/TURRETS instead of grenade, bombs and kittening magic potions.

PvE-Wise, turrets definitely aren’t as lasting as other builds. PvP-Wise, it takes 2-3 folks to take this control point away from me!

The best Fix IMO, would be to give turrets some form of temporary lasting power, at least until their active abilities are finished casting. Once you get the turrets active ability off, the damage it deals afterwards is Icing on the cake.

They could split armor plating for PvP and PvE:
PvP: current iteration of 33% damage reduction
PvE: After deployment, turret is immune to damage for 10 seconds. This gives it time to get it’s over charge off while also letting it get some damage in. As it is now, my minion master’s minions are more durable than engineer turrets by a large margin, and they are supposed to be the disposable ones.

Another solution would be to make it so engineer turrets aren’t on the aggro table, but instead give aggro to the engineer. They could still be killed by AOEs, but this makes it so that the rifle turret/heal turret aren’t immediately killed upon creation by adds.

Seems that those that want to keep them use them as disposable blast finishers, while those that want to remove them actually try to use them as turrets.

IMO that indicates that something is badly wrong with the overall turret system.

Uber.7623:

PvE-Wise, turrets definitely aren’t as lasting as other builds. PvP-Wise, it takes 2-3 folks to take this control point away from me!

And that is what is messing up this game. PVE and PVP plays so very differently. And the cause is more likely to be how mobs are designed than the profession balance.

All the bigger mobs come in two kinds.

1. big bags of health with spiky damage output. Pretty much designed to force us to use what ANet came up with to avoid the “i swing a sword” aspect of MMORPGs that they disparaged in their manifesto.

2. trick bosses that largely nullify profession differences by requiring the use of some environmental object or other.

Both of these badly break turrets, as they can’t dodge/block/evade and are pointless to bring for a trick boss.

Basically turrets are useless as anything but blast finishers outside of SPVP, in large past because of the massive focus the game has on mobility as a defense mechanic.

ANet needs to come up with a easier way for us to bring our turrets with us, but without us turning into a clockwork minion-mancer.

Could someone please explain to me (turret noob) what the issue is? I thought they just patched them?

I only ever use healing turret to be honest. The others never interested me.

Turrets PVE:

Short story: Useless, just go grenadier.

Long story: Useless, just go grenadier. Ok maybe its not that bad. The healing turret can come in handy in groups when it wont pull aggro. Also turrets can be handy as a distraction to large groups of mobs and you just run around using them as a “get out of jail” card. They are SO weak in EVERY regard they simply are a waste of traits.

Some changes might make turrets useful and practical. AOE immune when spec’d. Substantially more hit points (ie: 2 times current). Mobile trait similar to spirits. Self repair is a joke as well. Even if a turret survives a hit (they are almost predominately always one shotted) it simply will not survive the next because it takes so long for such a uselessly small heal that its dead before the regen fires. Even if the regen fires the turrets HP (even with 30% reduction) is so miniscule its dead anyhow. The ONLY time this does not apply is when you are against completely regular mobs and you are 10+ levels over the area with the traits to match.

Been playing an eng for a very long time and all of the issues expressed in this thread and others have been around forever. The facts are dont bother as the developers/managment simply are NOT going to do ANYTHING about turrets.

Just go play a grenadier with medkit and dont get too irritated when people can buy your medkit skill for 15 copper (no Im not joking).

What about WVW and sPVP?

Very good PVE explanation.

Healing Turret really isn’t even a turret outside of supply crate.

Not sure why anyone would EVER keep it out.

It’s really just a very strong regular healing skill that does a lot of things.

you wonder if anet is interested in the turrets of the engineer? the reponsse is not a day since last October 15, still does not work for Roquete turret and the apptitue XII does not work and it lasted for 6 days.
While not the devs cares completely us poor inge

Sorry for my bad english I’m french …. I come here ’cause of the french forum we are not listening ….

good game all

KOPPER in sPVP they are marginally useful. The ability to place them off at distance and let them fire once then self-destruct can, for about 5 seconds, give you a good hit. Then you are on a 30-60+ seconds cool down. So yah… dont bother but hey supposedly useful.

In WvW… LOL FT eng or Turret Eng… Take 10 of them against one grenadier eng and the other 10 are dead meat. They cant hit, they have no range and the only one that does decent dps is the FT but of course all you have to do is 1)keep distance, the key to a gren and 2)run up a hill and laugh at the FT eng as his flame shoots right into the ground. PWNT

Gren eng isnt that good in pvp and its just “OK” in wvw. I hate pvp and wvw overall. They bore the math out of me. pvp Id probably go explosives and use mines. wvw Ill stick with grens with speedy kits. Not because Im going to dominate, engs CANT dominate, but because Ill bring a lot to the group and drive the opponents so freaking nuts their reptilian brain will force them to leave their hiding places to seek me out.

These are just my opinions though. Take them with a grain of salt.

What is NOT opinion though is that turrets suck and either need replacing or total revamping.

This is what I always come back to. Nice for jack of all trades performance in gren mode and easy to switch to turrets and get some decent output WHEN they are applicable (0.1% of game) or just to mess around. Occasionally Ill run dual pistols or pistol/shield but its rare now. I find the net from rifle great for surv and I rarely use pistols or rifle for damage as they pretty well suck vs all other professions.

http://www.gw2db.com/skills/calc/engineer#14|0|0|0|0|0|0|30|1876|1422|1885|0|0|0|0|20|988|1012|0|20|1880|1479|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|1|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|

But unless you are hell bent on an eng just play a guardian and you’ll be a god in game and can do anything with zero rebuilds. Perfect profession with zero weaknesses and cant be stopped. Its basically the concept of a 1 class game. Everyone will eventually play it and only it when it matters.

thanks for the turret explanation.

The problem is with the mechanics of the class itself… When you give a class stationary summons that are essentially supposed to be ‘set it and forget it’, as opposed to more traditional pet micromanagement classes (Rangers, Mesmers, Necros etc.) you put yourself in the unenviable position of constantly trying to keep the stationary summoners in check, since at least in nature they require less effort (management) to succeed with and thus can very easily cross into overpowered territory.

Don’t believe me? Look at the long and battered history of Shaman in WoW. 90% of the game they have been noticeably underpowered, the other 10% noticeably overpowered. Or how about the spiritual predecessor to GW2 Engineers? Ritualists similarly had almost nothing but growing pains in GW1.

You are playing a class that, by its very design will always try to limit you more then everyone else, and at its BEST will allow you to sufficiently fill a niche role. But the only evident solution, as the OP suggests, to remove the main unique element of the class would almost certainly require gutting and a total overhaul/rework of the class… Which is a task rarely ever undertaken in MMO’s post launch.

Sorry to say it because I’m among those of you always drawn to these oddball classes, but Engineer as it exists should have never made it into the game.

We still have to micromanage our turrets. Even more so than the other “traditional pet” professions. If for no other reason than they constantly die and have to be placed again. We have toolbelt skills for them and entire trait lines used in conjunction(ie: wrench and healing in at least two methods). My ranger takes far less micro managing in every respect vs my engineer.

As far as it being the class mechanics and having such a short distance between UP and OP I call BS. Its due to lack of proper management of the class by the developing crews. Simple and true.

Even if mobile turrets were granted, which would just be a blast of fun, they would still suffer the same issues they currently have that is the primary reason for making them useless. Under all circumstances outside of the weakest of opponents (read NPCs) they are typically instantly killed and if AOEs are involved its game over for them.

The fact is its due to lack of proper planning on the crew that manages engineers as to the turret problems. Im not saying its an easy thing to do but its clearly not being done. All you have to do is look at when they do finally come out with a “patch” a good part of the time it does not work or breaks numerous other traits entirely to the point its blatantly obvious no one did an ounce of regression testing before tossing the useless patch in place. Changes of the regen nature of turrets or buffing them a few hundred hit points is ridiculous and one cant help but think its for no other reason than so they can say “Look we are doing something!”.

At least other aspects have been fixed such as the removal of randomness on some elixirs but the unfortunate nature of this is that it has nothing do with the defining characteristic of this profession. Engineers were sought after predominately, if not entirely, for the turret aspect of the class and yet this defining attribute is so broken it reduces the profession to a long range VERY slow ranger (ie: grenadier) or sort of warrior class in leather armour. The flame thrower is little more than a melee weapon due to its close combat nature which is why they give a toughness bonus when this is traited. Of course I just noticed the weakened this trait. Why? 200 to 140 toughness. Spend time making us weaker on things that clearly are not OP in the first place and yet leave entire attributes of the class useless.

Anyhow just to be clear. I appreciate the attempts to address some of the issues but its lacking and poorly planned. That isnt an insult. Thats an honest observation. I also like the profession and even some of its quirkiness, even if I do complain about it.

I personally am of the opinion that they should either do a massive revamp on turrets or remove them. Mobility, aoe immunity and a health survivability trait would make a world of difference.

Mobility would be something as simple as you can pick up the turret and you get back or a different toolbelt skill or it replaces your primary skill set with something related to the turret.

AOE could just replace the exploding nature of the turrets. ie: skill grants 5-10 seconds aoe immune. Yes more micromanagement but it would take user skill to use effectively. Hardly OP.

The survivability buff is needed because the cost of dropping a turret to get one or two shots off simply isnt enough. You are better off with some other skill with a much smaller cooldown. Lowering the cooldown on turrets would help but will not address the fundamental problem.

Just my 50 cents worth of ramblings.