Guild Wars 2

I followed Guild Wars 2 closely for most of it’s development cycle, and when it finally came out, I was only able to play for a bit before a major change of life situation forced me to put down games for 3 years.

Guild Wars 2 seemed to be the answer to my love for the Turret, Area Denial, Defensive playstyle in a largescale and open-world MMO, with well-developed PVP.

I just reactivated my account, and when searching for updates on the Engineers Turret capabilities, all I am seeing is basically the destruction of this aspect of the character. No mention of any such mechanics even incorporated in it’s new spec. Like it was just swept under the rug. (I understand it’s to give more offensive options to the Engineer, but even in TF2 you can run around with mini-turrets or level one turrets and play combat Engineer style.)

Are the turrets still nerfed to obscurity? or has there been any viability patches or buffs to this defining aspect of the profession?

I’m sorry if this sounds melodramatic, I’m not trying to whine. I am just emphasizing that there is a playerbase who loves this playstyle and, I’m wanting to just get up dated on it’s current state.

In PvE, all minions were given a 95% damage reduction if they are not direct targets.

In WvW and PvP, Healing Turret and Supply Crate are still the only useful ones.

Turrets were never really outstanding anywhere except for a while when they were generally considered a super cheesy way to win in PvP (no offense to you, just reporting the general consensus at the time).

Since then, as said above me, they’ve really received nothing but a buff in the form of reduced damage when not targetted in PvE. In sPvP, they now just don’t survive as well as before since they can be crit and damaged by condis.

I think there’s potential for turrets to be a strong non-cheesy build if they boost the power of the active overcharge skills, but I don’t expect that to happen anytime soon.

Hmm, Okay. That’s a little less discouraging.

Also, if you quit before the trait was added that gave turrets reflect, be sure to check that out. It adds a lot more depth and utility to the use of turrets.

As others have said, turrets are probably going to only be useful in open-world, and even then as more of a gameplay style choice.

Having said that, take a look at a few traits:
* Explosives: Explosive Powder (knock-back on turret destruction). Also, Shrapnel (cripple/bleed on explosion), since turret destruction counts as explosion
* Inventions: Experimental Turrets and Advanced Turrets.

Been playing since Beta, as well, and I must say that turrets have NEVER been viable as area denial defense. X) They’ve got some neat functionality available to them, but it’s never been lucrative to keep them up more than 4-5 seconds. The closest I’ve ever come to passable area denial is a Ranger with Guard, and maybe some traps. But Engineer turrets are less of sentry guns and more of disposable explosive gadgetry.