Guild Wars 2

Here are the patch notes from April 28th 2015. Standard patch day for most players but in one line Anet decided to kill my style of engineer game play.

4/28/15 – April 28 Release Notes
Release Notes:
NEW FEATURES AND CONTENT
Expansion Beta Loot Drops
Mordremoth is stirring, and the nearby areas of Dry Top and the Silverwastes are feeling the effect. All events and creature drops in this area now have a small chance to drop a Portal to the Heart of Maguuma item that will qualify the player’s account for an upcoming Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns™ closed beta test. These drops will continue for a week or longer to collect a strong player base for the test.
BALANCE, BUG-FIXING, POLISH
Profession Skills
Engineer
The engineer’s turrets are now affected by conditions and critical hits.
BLACK LION TRADING COMPANY GEM STORE
New Items and Promotions
To celebrate the tenth anniversary of the original Guild Wars, we’ve updated the Black Lion Weapon Specialist’s inventory.
The new Balthazar’s weapon set is available for one Black Lion Claim Ticket.
The Chaos weapon skins inspired by the original Guild Wars have been reduced to one Black Lion Claim Ticket each for a limited time.
The Tormented weapon skins inspired by the original Guild Wars have been reduced to one Black Lion Claim Ticket each for a limited time.
Black Lion Chests have been updated. Keys are available in the Special category of the Gem Store for 125 gems.
The Mini Snow Owl has been added as a rare drop.
The Mini Hawk has been added as a rare drop.
The Mini Raven has been added as a rare drop.
The following items have been removed from Black Lion Chests:
Custom Arena Time Tokens
Lion’s Arch Commemorative Dye Kit
Lion’s Arch Survivors Dye Kit
Mini Super Monkey
Mini Super Spider
Mini Super Bee Dog
Mini Super Yeti
Mini Super Raccoon
Mini Super Banana
With the coming of spring, the baby miniatures are returning. Mini Piglet and Mini Orange Kitten are available in the Toys category of the Gem Store for 400 gems each.

Engineers were the only class to be “altered” in any way and in one line turret engineers died. Turrets needed a nerf everyone understood one was incoming but what actually happened was an excution of an entire style of play. With one line of text and no testing on Anet’s part of what this change would mean to turret engineers, they’ve rendered my engi useless.

Yes, of course I can still play my engineer if run condi or Cele rifle, but I never wanted to in the first place. I bought or trained my traits and geared to run turrets because I enjoyed the unique style.

As a player with monumentally bad luck in this game since launch I am finally about to craft my first legendary… Quip. I chose it because my thief and my new favorite engineer could both use it. Now I dislike my engineer since he’s always dead in pvp if I’m stupid enough to play my old build.

Turrets weren’t an abomination celestial amulets are and should be removed from pvp. The pvp community cried because turrets couldn’t be 1 hit or easily killed by condition users, but they never needed to be, focus on the engi burst him and turrets died. To borrow from the pvp vernacular it was simply a L2P issue that pvpers never understood because they didn’t try to.

Turrets were the purest form of engineer logically as engineers don’t brew potions so destroying them completely is baffling. Simply reducing overall hp from what they were would’ve solved the balance issue.

Please fix asap Anet… thanx

“Turrets weren’t an abomination, Celestial amulets are.”

“Simply a L2P issue.”

“Turrets were the purest form of Engineer.”

The feeling of loss will pass, and you will hopefully walk a mile in a non-turret Engineer’s shoes in ranked queue. My enjoyment in ranked queue has gone up 900% due to less presence of Turret Engineers. While I feel sympathy for those who’ve had their playstyle destroyed (RIP 100 nades), you cannot ever propose a good enough argument that would justify causing even 1 more flavor-of-the-month Turret Engineer in ranked queue.

Felt the same way when my Haste thief was nerfed. I loved that virtually no one else was playing the same build as me, it meant no one really understood how to fight me. I knew all my weaknesses, I knew what could drop me in seconds, but I seemed like the only one to know these things, and that ended up being my builds greatest strength.

That an the ability to warp close to a mile and warp back out when I was in trouble. lol Hell, I even managed to solo kill Grenth’s Priest once when the Zerg went stupid! Good times.. But then ANet ran my build over with a train load of Nerf and killed my sword thief quite thoroughly.

My point is, yea, ANet is great about killing your favorite build. But I found new builds that few others had stumbled apon and made them in to my new style of play. Keep at it, and you’ll manage the same. Look at all those traits and skills that everyone ignores and writes off as useless and dig around in the Runes and Sigils for a while. You’ll stumble on to something you love. just takes time and gold.

Turrets are not useless. Everyone keeps saying that even the healing turret is useless now and all I can think is that they are using it wrong. I use mine the same way I always have: I put it down, overcharge it and pick it back up. If I need a bigger heal, I put it down, over charge it and then detonate it in the water field. It hasn’t lost any effectiveness.

As for a full turret build, a person can no longer play the AFK turreteer where they plop down all their turrets on the middle of the point and spam 1 to win. I think this is a good thing. Now, to be good with turrets you have to play smart about where and when you place your turrets.

I’m just sad about the condi thing, really hurts if not kills their rare uses in PVE.

Nerfed was only those dumb stacionary builds where you build your AI and go pretty much afk. And it will be nerfed even more because they will remove autorepair trait afaik. Othere builds where you use turrets for reflects like me wasnt hurt at all.

Rifle barrels and deployable turrets are history too it seems…. These are the only two turret traits that interest me at all.

My healing turret gets blown up before I can overcharge and pick it up sometimes.

10/10

sorrychief.2563:

My healing turret gets blown up before I can overcharge and pick it up sometimes.

10/10

I mean, for the longest time there was almost no reason to run any heal other than healing turret, so I guess it did increase build diversity a little. Finally seeing more people playing around with AED and I love it.

sorrychief.2563:

My healing turret gets blown up before I can overcharge and pick it up sometimes.

10/10

Perhaps you should be more aware of your ssituation when using turrets. In my opinion, if your healing turret is destroyed before you can over charge it, that is 100% your fault. Healing turret has almost 6000 healrh. Stop dropping it in the middle of AoEs with 6 damage raining down.

As something that is supposed to “take control of an area”, yeah, they’ve been completely destroyed. They die in few seconds, let alone take control of anything.
May have other uses, but their original one is done for.

Chaith.8256:

“Turrets weren’t an abomination, Celestial amulets are.”

“Simply a L2P issue.”

“Turrets were the purest form of Engineer.”

The feeling of loss will pass, and you will hopefully walk a mile in a non-turret Engineer’s shoes in ranked queue. My enjoyment in ranked queue has gone up 900% due to less presence of Turret Engineers. While I feel sympathy for those who’ve had their playstyle destroyed (RIP 100 nades), you cannot ever propose a good enough argument that would justify causing even 1 more flavor-of-the-month Turret Engineer in ranked queue.

I have run Cele rifle quite a bit but the class as I played it no longer exists. I have no desire to quit my playstle as my engi was my bunker toon. Engineers were designed to do exactly what I used mine for and need to be fixed.

Aidenwolf.5964:

Chaith.8256:

“Turrets weren’t an abomination, Celestial amulets are.”

“Simply a L2P issue.”

“Turrets were the purest form of Engineer.”

The feeling of loss will pass, and you will hopefully walk a mile in a non-turret Engineer’s shoes in ranked queue. My enjoyment in ranked queue has gone up 900% due to less presence of Turret Engineers. While I feel sympathy for those who’ve had their playstyle destroyed (RIP 100 nades), you cannot ever propose a good enough argument that would justify causing even 1 more flavor-of-the-month Turret Engineer in ranked queue.

I have run Cele rifle quite a bit but the class as I played it no longer exists. I have no desire to quit my playstle as my engi was my bunker toon. Engineers were designed to do exactly what I used mine for and need to be fixed.

So basically you’re saying that turrets were the only way to play engineer the way they were designed and without nigh-unkillable turrets our class is essentially useless? Only issue I had with the nerf was conditions affecting them as it doesn’t make sense, but crits make perfect sense and was a nerf that I think was dearly needed. Engineer has the potential to have more skills than any class(aside from ele) and the fact that almost everyone else was having trouble killing an engineer that sacrificed all those skills just for passive offense is a clear sign of trouble. Passive play should never hardcounter or surpass active play.

You can still play bunker engineer, you just have to sacrifice some offensive pressure now like everyone else.

Necrotize.2974:

Aidenwolf.5964:

Chaith.8256:

“Turrets weren’t an abomination, Celestial amulets are.”

“Simply a L2P issue.”

“Turrets were the purest form of Engineer.”

The feeling of loss will pass, and you will hopefully walk a mile in a non-turret Engineer’s shoes in ranked queue. My enjoyment in ranked queue has gone up 900% due to less presence of Turret Engineers. While I feel sympathy for those who’ve had their playstyle destroyed (RIP 100 nades), you cannot ever propose a good enough argument that would justify causing even 1 more flavor-of-the-month Turret Engineer in ranked queue.

I have run Cele rifle quite a bit but the class as I played it no longer exists. I have no desire to quit my playstle as my engi was my bunker toon. Engineers were designed to do exactly what I used mine for and need to be fixed.

So basically you’re saying that turrets were the only way to play engineer the way they were designed and without nigh-unkillable turrets our class is essentially useless? Only issue I had with the nerf was conditions affecting them as it doesn’t make sense, but crits make perfect sense and was a nerf that I think was dearly needed. Engineer has the potential to have more skills than any class(aside from ele) and the fact that almost everyone else was having trouble killing an engineer that sacrificed all those skills just for passive offense is a clear sign of trouble. Passive play should never hardcounter or surpass active play.

You can still play bunker engineer, you just have to sacrifice some offensive pressure now like everyone else.

Turrets were unaffected by the player’s stat choice so they would do the same amount of damage Even if the engineer ran PTV which was where the nerf should’ve focussed. Turret engineers sacrificed everything to run their build meaning we were naked with only a rifle vs any attacks coming out way.

Calling turret engineer a passive play style shows a significant lack of understanding on your and the community’s part. I actively attacked and defended (my life and my point) and to say otherwise is false.

Turrets damage affected by the engineer’s stats would’ve meant that to achieve their current damage output the player would need to gear zerker which would sacrifice survivability and if the engi wanted to run soldiers the damage output would be greatly reduced.

Again, turrets were never designed to take this damage and the entire trait line is ruined now. No changes to cooldowns, no cleanses added, no repair skill introduced, it simply destroys turrets to the cheers of players who run cheese builds they consider superior.

Aidenwolf.5964:

Necrotize.2974:

Aidenwolf.5964:

Chaith.8256:

“Turrets weren’t an abomination, Celestial amulets are.”

“Simply a L2P issue.”

“Turrets were the purest form of Engineer.”

The feeling of loss will pass, and you will hopefully walk a mile in a non-turret Engineer’s shoes in ranked queue. My enjoyment in ranked queue has gone up 900% due to less presence of Turret Engineers. While I feel sympathy for those who’ve had their playstyle destroyed (RIP 100 nades), you cannot ever propose a good enough argument that would justify causing even 1 more flavor-of-the-month Turret Engineer in ranked queue.

I have run Cele rifle quite a bit but the class as I played it no longer exists. I have no desire to quit my playstle as my engi was my bunker toon. Engineers were designed to do exactly what I used mine for and need to be fixed.

So basically you’re saying that turrets were the only way to play engineer the way they were designed and without nigh-unkillable turrets our class is essentially useless? Only issue I had with the nerf was conditions affecting them as it doesn’t make sense, but crits make perfect sense and was a nerf that I think was dearly needed. Engineer has the potential to have more skills than any class(aside from ele) and the fact that almost everyone else was having trouble killing an engineer that sacrificed all those skills just for passive offense is a clear sign of trouble. Passive play should never hardcounter or surpass active play.

You can still play bunker engineer, you just have to sacrifice some offensive pressure now like everyone else.

Turrets were unaffected by the player’s stat choice so they would do the same amount of damage Even if the engineer ran PTV which was where the nerf should’ve focussed. Turret engineers sacrificed everything to run their build meaning we were naked with only a rifle vs any attacks coming out way.

Calling turret engineer a passive play style shows a significant lack of understanding on your and the community’s part. I actively attacked and defended (my life and my point) and to say otherwise is false.

Turrets damage affected by the engineer’s stats would’ve meant that to achieve their current damage output the player would need to gear zerker which would sacrifice survivability and if the engi wanted to run soldiers the damage output would be greatly reduced.

Again, turrets were never designed to take this damage and the entire trait line is ruined now. No changes to cooldowns, no cleanses added, no repair skill introduced, it simply destroys turrets to the cheers of players who run cheese builds they consider superior.

Turrets cannot be affected by player stats due to their status as constructs, or ‘gadgets’ (not the utility type.) It’s a technical limitation.

Everyone’s been saying this for years, but it can’t happen.

Also, I’m not alone in saying, I DO say otherwise when you claim you can play the meta turret build in an ‘active’ measure. You never have to leave the point, and your player input accounts for less than a third of your effectiveness.

Chaith.8256:

Aidenwolf.5964:

Necrotize.2974:

Aidenwolf.5964:

Chaith.8256:

“Turrets weren’t an abomination, Celestial amulets are.”

“Simply a L2P issue.”

“Turrets were the purest form of Engineer.”

The feeling of loss will pass, and you will hopefully walk a mile in a non-turret Engineer’s shoes in ranked queue. My enjoyment in ranked queue has gone up 900% due to less presence of Turret Engineers. While I feel sympathy for those who’ve had their playstyle destroyed (RIP 100 nades), you cannot ever propose a good enough argument that would justify causing even 1 more flavor-of-the-month Turret Engineer in ranked queue.

I have run Cele rifle quite a bit but the class as I played it no longer exists. I have no desire to quit my playstle as my engi was my bunker toon. Engineers were designed to do exactly what I used mine for and need to be fixed.

So basically you’re saying that turrets were the only way to play engineer the way they were designed and without nigh-unkillable turrets our class is essentially useless? Only issue I had with the nerf was conditions affecting them as it doesn’t make sense, but crits make perfect sense and was a nerf that I think was dearly needed. Engineer has the potential to have more skills than any class(aside from ele) and the fact that almost everyone else was having trouble killing an engineer that sacrificed all those skills just for passive offense is a clear sign of trouble. Passive play should never hardcounter or surpass active play.

You can still play bunker engineer, you just have to sacrifice some offensive pressure now like everyone else.

Turrets were unaffected by the player’s stat choice so they would do the same amount of damage Even if the engineer ran PTV which was where the nerf should’ve focussed. Turret engineers sacrificed everything to run their build meaning we were naked with only a rifle vs any attacks coming out way.

Calling turret engineer a passive play style shows a significant lack of understanding on your and the community’s part. I actively attacked and defended (my life and my point) and to say otherwise is false.

Turrets damage affected by the engineer’s stats would’ve meant that to achieve their current damage output the player would need to gear zerker which would sacrifice survivability and if the engi wanted to run soldiers the damage output would be greatly reduced.

Again, turrets were never designed to take this damage and the entire trait line is ruined now. No changes to cooldowns, no cleanses added, no repair skill introduced, it simply destroys turrets to the cheers of players who run cheese builds they consider superior.

Turrets cannot be affected by player stats due to their status as constructs, or ‘gadgets’ (not the utility type.) It’s a technical limitation.

Everyone’s been saying this for years, but it can’t happen.

Also, I’m not alone in saying, I DO say otherwise when you claim you can play the meta turret build in an ‘active’ measure. You never have to leave the point, and your player input accounts for less than a third of your effectiveness.

Staying on a point doesn’t mean inactive it means defending. As for my actions not making a difference that’s laughable. I actively attacked my attackers exactly the same as I do running Cele rifle the only change is that I never kit swapped.

Since you’re not gonna agree that turrets are by far more passive than any most other playstyles, I’ll just use an example. So we have a turret engi, relatively tanky, usually running 3 turrets and all traits that boost turrets. Right off the bat, you have tons of traits invested in skills that you don’t even really control after putting them down, you just kind of drop them out of the way of the point and forget them. Before the nerf, killing turrets was simply not a good idea as it wasted a huge amount of time. The builds strong enough to burst down the engi couldn’t handle the off point pressure for long enough, and the builds with enough sustain to go toe to toe with the engi on point would make almost no progress as they are consistently knocked off the point or eventually whittled down. You know there’s a problem when its just a huge waste of time to engage a single turret engi on point with anything less than 2 people.

Was it a bit of a bandaid fix? Maybe. But honestly I prefer it to the alternative of teams telling the turret engi to hold home and then unless 2-3 people from the opposing team want to go uproot him, you can almost guarantee no one is getting that point in under a minute.

The recently announced changes clearly show Anet wants to move away from passive offense and defense. Mesmers losing a lot of access to retaliation, higher emphasis on shatters, no more mindless clone spamming to apply conditions. Rangers spirits can’t move anymore. Warriors passive regen getting lowered. Engi is no exception. They just got their change first.

Necrotize.2974:

Since you’re not gonna agree that turrets are by far more passive than any most other playstyles, I’ll just use an example. So we have a turret engi, relatively tanky, usually running 3 turrets and all traits that boost turrets. Right off the bat, you have tons of traits invested in skills that you don’t even really control after putting them down, you just kind of drop them out of the way of the point and forget them. Before the nerf, killing turrets was simply not a good idea as it wasted a huge amount of time. The builds strong enough to burst down the engi couldn’t handle the off point pressure for long enough, and the builds with enough sustain to go toe to toe with the engi on point would make almost no progress as they are consistently knocked off the point or eventually whittled down. You know there’s a problem when its just a huge waste of time to engage a single turret engi on point with anything less than 2 people.

Was it a bit of a bandaid fix? Maybe. But honestly I prefer it to the alternative of teams telling the turret engi to hold home and then unless 2-3 people from the opposing team want to go uproot him, you can almost guarantee no one is getting that point in under a minute.

The recently announced changes clearly show Anet wants to move away from passive offense and defense. Mesmers losing a lot of access to retaliation, higher emphasis on shatters, no more mindless clone spamming to apply conditions. Rangers spirits can’t move anymore. Warriors passive regen getting lowered. Engi is no exception. They just got their change first.

Perma stealth thief can avoid combat completely. If that’s not considered passive by you, we’ll never agree on this.

Aidenwolf.5964:

Perma stealth thief can avoid combat completely. If that’s not considered passive by you, we’ll never agree on this.

And? Stealth prevents you from capturing or contesting control points in an entirely control points based PvP.

How does a “perma stealth” thief apply its damage passively? How does a “perma stealth” thief passively stealth themselves? How does “perma stealth” thief heal itself passively?

coglin.1867:

Aidenwolf.5964:

Perma stealth thief can avoid combat completely. If that’s not considered passive by you, we’ll never agree on this.

And? Stealth prevents you from capturing or contesting control points in an entirely control points based PvP.

How does a “perma stealth” thief apply its damage passively? How does a “perma stealth” thief passively stealth themselves? How does “perma stealth” thief heal itself passively?

You’re joking right? Passive whenever they want meaning I don’t like this matchup I’ll go invisible and go somewhere else, or just stand here invisible doing nothing until this guy leaves the point, decap it, then go passive mode at will.

You have a problem with the “passive” nature of turret engineers I cite an actual style more passive and you say “and?”.

Aidenwolf.5964:

coglin.1867:

Aidenwolf.5964:

Perma stealth thief can avoid combat completely. If that’s not considered passive by you, we’ll never agree on this.

And? Stealth prevents you from capturing or contesting control points in an entirely control points based PvP.

How does a “perma stealth” thief apply its damage passively? How does a “perma stealth” thief passively stealth themselves? How does “perma stealth” thief heal itself passively?

You’re joking right? Passive whenever they want meaning I don’t like this matchup I’ll go invisible and go somewhere else, or just stand here invisible doing nothing until this guy leaves the point, decap it, then go passive mode at will.

You have a problem with the “passive” nature of turret engineers I cite an actual style more passive and you say “and?”.

There’s a difference when you’re talking about PvP. A thief just sitting there staring at a held point waiting for someone to leave is nothing but a burden on the team for however long that takes. The turret engi so long as he sits on point is a constant source of points and if 2 people do come to uproot him, he just made the other fights outnumbered in favor of his own team for however long it takes to kill him. A rotating thief is an annoying thing, but bursting down skilled players and choosing your fights definitely is more active than dropping your turrets as far off point as possible then letting them shoot at whoever tries to fight you on point. At least now there is a reliable way to counter turrets without wasting an inordinate amount of time.

People who complain about “perma stealth” thief seem to be under the delusion that permanently being in stealth is somehow useful to the team. I’d much rather have a thief bursting down off point pressure, decapping/capping far points or making fights outnumbered in our favor anyday. A thief that picks fights, disengages in stealth whenever he picks a wrong one and waits is essentially useless to the team so long as he’s hiding. As I said before, so long as the turret engi is sitting on point, he isn’t being useless.

Hmm if were going to get rid of passive play that has an active role in combat…Lets get rid of 90% of sigils then o.O starting with air and fire.

Its the very DEFINITION of passive. A Chance based proc that you yourself have absolutely no control over other than (do I shoot or not shoot).

Necrotize.2974:

Aidenwolf.5964:

coglin.1867:

Aidenwolf.5964:

Perma stealth thief can avoid combat completely. If that’s not considered passive by you, we’ll never agree on this.

And? Stealth prevents you from capturing or contesting control points in an entirely control points based PvP.

How does a “perma stealth” thief apply its damage passively? How does a “perma stealth” thief passively stealth themselves? How does “perma stealth” thief heal itself passively?

You’re joking right? Passive whenever they want meaning I don’t like this matchup I’ll go invisible and go somewhere else, or just stand here invisible doing nothing until this guy leaves the point, decap it, then go passive mode at will.

You have a problem with the “passive” nature of turret engineers I cite an actual style more passive and you say “and?”.

There’s a difference when you’re talking about PvP. A thief just sitting there staring at a held point waiting for someone to leave is nothing but a burden on the team for however long that takes. The turret engi so long as he sits on point is a constant source of points and if 2 people do come to uproot him, he just made the other fights outnumbered in favor of his own team for however long it takes to kill him. A rotating thief is an annoying thing, but bursting down skilled players and choosing your fights definitely is more active than dropping your turrets as far off point as possible then letting them shoot at whoever tries to fight you on point. At least now there is a reliable way to counter turrets without wasting an inordinate amount of time.

People who complain about “perma stealth” thief seem to be under the delusion that permanently being in stealth is somehow useful to the team. I’d much rather have a thief bursting down off point pressure, decapping/capping far points or making fights outnumbered in our favor anyday. A thief that picks fights, disengages in stealth whenever he picks a wrong one and waits is essentially useless to the team so long as he’s hiding. As I said before, so long as the turret engi is sitting on point, he isn’t being useless.

I cited a more passive style of play than turrets but in no way are thieves useless. Decapping is a massive boost to a team in conquest. I play all classes in pvp try to keep that in mind.

Aidenwolf.5964:

coglin.1867:

Aidenwolf.5964:

Perma stealth thief can avoid combat completely. If that’s not considered passive by you, we’ll never agree on this.

And? Stealth prevents you from capturing or contesting control points in an entirely control points based PvP.

How does a “perma stealth” thief apply its damage passively? How does a “perma stealth” thief passively stealth themselves? How does “perma stealth” thief heal itself passively?

You’re joking right? Passive whenever they want meaning I don’t like this matchup I’ll go invisible and go somewhere else, or just stand here invisible doing nothing until this guy leaves the point, decap it, then go passive mode at will.

You have a problem with the “passive” nature of turret engineers I cite an actual style more passive and you say “and?”.

Dude, it’s called reseting [via mobility].
A thief does so by stealthing / teleporting.
A warrior does so by using leaps / GS mobility to nope out.
A ranger does so by knockbacks and leaps.
A elementalist does so by teleporting / RTL or burning retreat.
A mesmer does so by stealhing / blinking.
A guardian does so by aegis-spam / blocking / leaping / teleporting.
A necro does so by flesh-worm teleports.
And a engi does so by rocket-boots / acid bomb / Superspeed + gear shield.
Recognizing that you are overwhelmed and taking the decision to reset by leaping / teleporting / stealthing away is a valid tactical decision, considered as active play.
The only reason a thief has to do this frequently is because he’s squishy as kitten and can’t risk a prolonged duel in qonquest mode, regardless what build he runs.
On higher skill-levels you will see this behavior from almost all classes, which is also why many people will tell you that turreteers have no “mobility”, because they lack the option to reset a combat properly, due to the complete lack of leaps, blocks, stealth, a.s.o.
Running turrets together with a kit and speedy kits is not considered “mobility” since swiftness alone does not account for all the gap-closers competitive builds take with them.

Turreteers go on a point, drop their turrets and then either win due to their opponent not calling for help / reseting in time, or losing because their opponent did call for help in time OR did get rid of the rocket-turret and packs enough cc to keep the engi off point until he topples over, giving the enemy team 5 points for free, since the decision when and how the fight ends can’t be influenced by the turreteer in any way.

Turreteers – by design – depend on their opponents stupidity. If their opponent is smart, they lost the fight even before the match started. The only circumstance that let this build appear so so strong before the nerf, were that so many people would get frustrated and ran heads-first into turreteers in unorganized teams. In this environment turreteers were totally OP, caused dull and uneven matches for new players, and therefore were nerfed into the ground by a-net to get rid of this black spot on their marketing campaign.
“Spend money on my game, so trolls can farm you repeatedly, since you have no idea what is going on and will suffer from other new players around you, even if you decide to read up on classes / skills yourself” is not a good promotion for the upcoming xpack.
Currently it seems that a-net has completely given up on their original design plans for turrets, and in lack of a better solution – as of yet – nerfed them into the ground to get rid of them.
All we can hope for is that they revisit the core-design of turrets and give them actual purpose in competitive builds, along with a well-balanced setup for all skill-levels in the future.

This build was cancer, and even tho I ran turrets around 7-8 months ago myself, I’m extremely happy about the well deserved nerf, since this only can mean a new design for turrets after the dust of HoT has settled.
In the mean-time: learn and adapt. The engineer is an awesome class that comes with a great build-diversity, that serves almost all gameplay-preferences. If you give kits and other utilities a chance, you’ll learn that trolling noobs is so much more fun if accomplished by properly planed and well executed builds, that would shred high-skilled players alike.

Not entirely certain you understand the definition of “passive” in this case.

Everything you listed the thief does, is an physical bottom press and action. None of that is passive.

After reading further, I am not entirely certain you know what cancer means either. Would you mind defining cancer? And how the build was cancer, under said definition?

Are you asking me or Aidenwolf, because I used the term “cancer” on turreteers, but he was the one calling stealth on thief passive play…

I’m honestly confused.

Arantheal.7396:

Are you asking me or Aidenwolf, because I used the term “cancer” on turreteers, but he was the one calling stealth on thief passive play…

I’m honestly confused.

Obviously. It’s clearly directed at you. You responded to me talking about a passive build by calling mine cancer.

Obviously I was referring to Aidenwolf. about his “passive” statement that didn’t actually apply in any way, Sorry for the confusion there

To you, from my perspective as a “cancer” survivor, I find it offensive, but mostly mind blowingly unoriginal. It wouldn’t hurt some folks to stop copy/pasting lame buzz words and learn to articulate their own thoughts, instead of copying the language every other unoriginal poster used.

Calling something “cancer” in my experience, often translates to a situation in which a poster feels they have limited evidence to support their perspective, so they use artificial terms that do not really apply, to try to create a negative connotation.

Sure, then lets fill in my part:
The build was cancer because it promoted a overly-rewarding, passive play-style in an action-driven combat system, therefore giving new players a false impression of the class (and combat system in general) and causing all kinds of toxicity ingame towards engineers, regardless what builds they were actually running.
The recent nerf to turrets is a “cure” to this “cancer” in my book.

And now explain us how the decision to reset a fight is considered passive play, Aidenwolf.

Arantheal.7396:

The build was cancer because it promoted a overly-rewarding, passive play-style in an action-driven combat system

Prove that for us please.

Arantheal.7396:

therefore giving new players a false impression of the class

I am curious, what is your education that qualifies you to tell us what other players think, and how they came to those conclusion? Psychology degree? Did they elect you to speak for them, or did you chose to do that on your own?

Did you interview every new player before you presumed you could speak for them or did you do a random pol? What is the Skew percentage?

Arantheal.7396:

Sure, then lets fill in my part:
The build was cancer because it promoted a overly-rewarding, passive play-style in an action-driven combat system, therefore giving new players a false impression of the class (and combat system in general) and causing all kinds of toxicity ingame towards engineers, regardless what builds they were actually running.
The recent nerf to turrets is a “cure” to this “cancer” in my book.

And now explain us how the decision to reset a fight is considered passive play, Aidenwolf.

Sure thing.

1st to @Dancingmonkey I’m glad you’ve survived a horrid illness that no one should have to endure, all the best for the future.

I’ll answer as a former infantryman on why resetting is passive. Running or retreating is the opposite of fighting it’s passive. In gw2 one can become invisible until they attack, meaning that If someone’s not visible they are passive.

Arantheal.7396:

Sure, then lets fill in my part:
The build was cancer because it promoted a overly-rewarding, passive play-style in an action-driven combat system, therefore giving new players a false impression of the class (and combat system in general) and causing all kinds of toxicity ingame towards engineers, regardless what builds they were actually running.
The recent nerf to turrets is a “cure” to this “cancer” in my book.

And the nerf did nothing to address the “overly-rewarding, passive play-style in an action-driven combat system”.
Redesigning them to be more active would have done it.
This change make them paper-mache. It didn’t cure anything. It just made them useless in their proper use, but for those 6 seconds they’re alive, they’re exactly as “overly-rewarding and passive” as before.

I can understand that people were fed up with turret builds, but defending this change as something well done is nonsensical. It was no cure, they just amputated a part. And they’re probably done with it.

Giving up active solutions to uncontrollable AI is considered passive play. The way turreteers played their build (and as it was meant to be played) was to “place & forget” their turrets.
We do not speak about decap builds that maybe took the thumper or some hybrid FT builds with flame-turret. We speak about the 3(4)-turret crap that you can copy from metabattle (which most people in fact did). Please explain me how a turreteer is able to reset, rotate or defend himself against focused burst, you know things that are considered active play?

“I am curious, what is your education that qualifies you to tell us what other players think, and how they came to those conclusion? Psychology degree?”
Answer: 2 eyes and the PvP subform, Heart of the mist map-chat, map-chat during matches, observed for the past year, while playing myself.
If you want to criticizing my conclusions, fine, but implying that my conclusions are base-less or made-up is something that you have to prove first.

Your turn.

Edit: Also I’d like to know what surviving cancer or having served in the military has to with this discussion? You know, the way this discussion takes reminds me of this picture:
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/assets/FallaciesPosterHigherRes.jpg

Aidenwolf.5964:

I’ll answer as a former infantryman on why resetting is passive. Running or retreating is the opposite of fighting it’s passive. In gw2 one can become invisible until they attack, meaning that If someone’s not visible they are passive.

Yeah, but were are simply trying to inform you that by definition alone, you are factually incorrect. That is quit literally not what passive means. “Running” and “Retreating” are actions, that require designated intent and use of utility, weapons, or elite skills to occur. “Passive” by definitions means not taking action.

Arantheal.7396:

2 eyes and the PvP subform, Heart of the mist map-chat, map-chat during matches, observed for the past year, while playing myself.
If you want to criticizing my conclusions, fine, but implying that my conclusions are base-less or made-up is something that you have to prove first.

Okay, so your disingenuously claiming to speak for them, got it.

I am not criticizing your conclusions. I am criticizing that you claim it as fact and state it as such, when it is simply your opinion. there is a difference between subjective opinion and objective fact. And yes, unless you can definitively prove them, it is disingenuous to demand it is fact. In my personal experience, I feel players complain about it based on over use rather then anything else. As well, its effectiveness against weak players. In my experience, when weak players struggle with something, that does not anything more then it is.

I am beginning to suspect you may believe I was against the recent changes. That is not the case. I do not feel players should be capable of having minions, pets, or otherwise, that are immune to a players critical change or investment in condition damage as a state. As I se it, that was bad design, and the change rectified it.

Manuhell.2759:

Arantheal.7396:

Sure, then lets fill in my part:
The build was cancer because it promoted a overly-rewarding, passive play-style in an action-driven combat system, therefore giving new players a false impression of the class (and combat system in general) and causing all kinds of toxicity ingame towards engineers, regardless what builds they were actually running.
The recent nerf to turrets is a “cure” to this “cancer” in my book.

And the nerf did nothing to address the “overly-rewarding, passive play-style in an action-driven combat system”.
Redesigning them to be more active would have done it.
This change make them paper-mache. It didn’t cure anything. It just made them useless in their proper use, but for those 6 seconds they’re alive, they’re exactly as “overly-rewarding and passive” as before.

I can understand that people were fed up with turret builds, but defending this change as something well done is nonsensical. It was no cure, they just amputated a part. And they’re probably done with it.

It surely fixed the “overly rewarding” part of the issue.
But you’re right, a more in-depth rework would have been miles better, still the nerf fulfilled its intended purpose.

Arantheal.7396:

It surely fixed the “overly rewarding” part of the issue.
But you’re right, a more in-depth rework would have been miles better, still the nerf fulfilled its intended purpose.

It didn’t fix that either, strictly speaking.
For that duration of time they’re alive, they’re exactly as “overly rewarding and passive” as before.
They made that timeframe much shorter than before, and that’s it. The design issue is still there. Sure, that reduced timeframe made using them as turrets useless. But it didn’t solve anything about their passiveness, it just swept the problem under a rug.
If their purpose was to hide the issue, they indeed fulfilled it. But that’s all.

dancingmonkey.4902:

Okay, so your disingenuously claiming to speak for them, got it.

I am not criticizing your conclusions. I am criticizing that you claim it as fact and state it as such, when it is simply your opinion. there is a difference between subjective opinion and objective fact. And yes, unless you can definitively prove them, it is disingenuous to demand it is fact. In my personal experience, I feel players complain about it based on over use rather then anything else. As well, its effectiveness against weak players. In my experience, when weak players struggle with something, that does not anything more then it is.

Welp, from my perception it is a fact.
And if you look into outside-sources like youtube or reddit, people there, who were not yet playing gw2 got told frequently to not put high expectations in the PvP portion of Gw2, since it were considered “broken AI-bullkitten”.
So yea, the turreteer build was indeed promoting a passive playstyle to people who were not yet playing, or recently started to play Gw2, therefore giving a false (in my terms “cancerous”) impression of the actual combat system.

Manuhell.2759:

Arantheal.7396:

It surely fixed the “overly rewarding” part of the issue.
But you’re right, a more in-depth rework would have been miles better, still the nerf fulfilled its intended purpose.

It didn’t fix that either, strictly speaking.
For that duration of time they’re alive, they’re exactly as “overly rewarding and passive” as before.
They made that timeframe much shorter than before, and that’s it. The design issue is still there. Sure, that reduced timeframe made using them as turrets useless. But it didn’t solve anything about their passiveness, it just swept the problem under a rug.
If their purpose was to hide the issue, they indeed fulfilled it. But that’s all.

Their true purpose for this nerf remains unknown, appart from the fact that a-net themselve perceived it as OP. Hence the nerf.
But the reason to adress it by nerfing it into the ground straight away can only be speculated about.
I guess they just wanted to get rid of it asap since it was causing a heap to their current HoT-hypetrain, and since the majority of the devs is busy with designing HoT atm. Once they’ve decided on the actual design plan and trait layout for the next engineer iteration, we maybe get a surprise and have turrets back together with the upcoming trait-system-changes, which are promised to be rolled out before the release of HoT.

And even if turrets will not get reworked in short terms, one still can hope that we get reasonable balance changes after the workload for HoT decreases. I mean, they currently even work on a solution for the hobosack issue, which is minor compared to a whole utility-family being effectively unplayable.

Arantheal.7396:

dancingmonkey.4902:

Okay, so your disingenuously claiming to speak for them, got it.

I am not criticizing your conclusions. I am criticizing that you claim it as fact and state it as such, when it is simply your opinion. there is a difference between subjective opinion and objective fact. And yes, unless you can definitively prove them, it is disingenuous to demand it is fact. In my personal experience, I feel players complain about it based on over use rather then anything else. As well, its effectiveness against weak players. In my experience, when weak players struggle with something, that does not anything more then it is.

Welp, from my perception it is a fact.
And if you look into outside-sources like youtube or reddit, people there, who were not yet playing gw2 got told frequently to not put high expectations in the PvP portion of Gw2, since it were considered “broken AI-bullkitten”.
So yea, the turreteer build was indeed promoting a passive playstyle to people who were not yet playing, or recently started to play Gw2, therefore giving a false (in my terms “cancerous”) impression of the actual combat system.

Eh, you kind of admit defeat when you claim your opinion as fact.

For every complaint thread or complaint post, there is one that disagrees with it. No one suggest it isn’t a more passive play style from what I see. Your kind of proving the other posters point when you claim to know what new or potential players perceptions are. Making claims and declaring your opinion as fact, simply suggest you have no faith in your argument and chose to forgo it for irrational stubbornness. When I read posters suggesting the are right “just because” I tend to write them off quickly, so it is possible a dev who reads it, may do so as well.

Err, having something observed is now giving giving up on what you have observed?
Wat?
It’s not like I insist on water flowing upwards, I insist on knowing that my eyes work. And from what I can read, yes: Turreteers were making up a bad picture of Gw2 to outside-sources, causing toxicity in this forum, and spawned prejudices towards all engineer players.
If you want to deny that you may as well deny that the PvP subforum or reddit exist.
This discussion almost feels like I intend to disprove the existence of god by stating nothing but “I never saw him”…

Maybe people don’t understand the difference between opinion and fact, so lets try it again from start:
Fact #1: Turreteers allowed passive & rewarding play in PvP.
Fact #2: The majority of non-engineer players felt infuriated by the fact that their hours of training and accomplished skill in active play were nullified by a build that did require minor input.
Fact #3: These players were going ahead and harrassing engineer players, regardless what build they were running ingame, and distributed their frustration to outside sources as well.

And here comes my opinion:
I therefore think that this build is cancer, and should have never existed in the first place, because I myself certainly did not enjoy the harassment when solo-Queuing, nor did it felt good to read all that negativity about Gw2 on other websites.

I hope it is now clear what I consider as fact and what I consider as my personal opinion in my argument.

Arantheal.7396:

Err, having something observed is now giving giving up on what you have observed?
Wat?

You appear to misunderstand.

For starters, your observances cannot reasonably even remotely apply to everyone in the game. You offer no evidence of your sample size.

Secondly, we have no evidence to support your observations are even accurate. Anyone can claim they know something, saw something, heard something, or in your case, heard multiple players say something. That doesn’t even remotely make it true. It is simply one poster, with no evidence, claiming other players agree with them.

If I state that in my many many matches in PvP and hours in HotM, that I have heard nothing but praise for the turret design and praise for turret engineers, then by your own method, you posted, that would make my “observation” a fact. So now, either what I say is also fact, by your own methods you posted, or you are confusing your subjective opinion for that of objective fact.

Arantheal.7396:

Maybe people don’t understand the difference between opinion and fact.

Yes. you are one of those people. Evidence here………

Arantheal.7396:

Welp, from my perception it is a fact.

Necrotize.2974:

sorrychief.2563:

My healing turret gets blown up before I can overcharge and pick it up sometimes.

10/10

I mean, for the longest time there was almost no reason to run any heal other than healing turret, so I guess it did increase build diversity a little. Finally seeing more people playing around with AED and I love it.

I love AED. As a level 47 Asuran Engie, I hit the Scarlet Hologram(from the big group event) for 37K and lived to tell the tale thanks to the AED. Its really under used and under valued.

Simple: If you suspect me of lying we can stop right here, since ofc I have recorded nothing from map-chats in hopes to post it one day in this specific thread.
As of the rest of my “sample size” just click on the PvP sub-forum and browse back a couple of pages to see some of the threads / posts from before the nerf was announced.

coglin.1867:

Arantheal.7396:

Err, having something observed is now giving giving up on what you have observed?
Wat?

You appear to misunderstand.

For starters, your observances cannot reasonably even remotely apply to everyone in the game. You offer no evidence of your sample size.

Secondly, we have no evidence to support your observations are even accurate. Anyone can claim they know something, saw something, heard something, or in your case, heard multiple players say something. That doesn’t even remotely make it true. It is simply one poster, with no evidence, claiming other players agree with them.

If I state that in my many many matches in PvP and hours in HotM, that I have heard nothing but praise for the turret design and praise for turret engineers, then by your own method, you posted, that would make my “observation” a fact. So now, either what I say is also fact, by your own methods you posted, or you are confusing your subjective opinion for that of objective fact.

Arantheal.7396:

Maybe people don’t understand the difference between opinion and fact.

Yes. you are one of those people. Evidence here………

Arantheal.7396:

Welp, from my perception it is a fact.

Again, it is my personal opinion what I make out of the feedback that I have observed.
And while I can’t prove that I’ve read said feedback in map-chats, this feedback is recorded for everyone to read in the history of the PvP subforum, which makes the existence of said feedback – including the harassment tied together with it – an observable fact.

To get this back on topic I’ll state actual facts (so that those unaware of what facts look like can judge all other opinions against them).

1. Turrets are engineer constructs with no movement
2. Turrets cannot receive boons or healing (other than self repair which is currently broken)
3. Turrets cannot be cleansed of conditions (to which they are now susceptible)
4. Turret traits do not allow for resistance to crits (toughness)
5. Turret CDs have not been lowered to account for their now fruit fly esqe lifespans making them a burden in pvp.

These are facts. Please remember opinions while sometimes valid, aren’t always facts.

Arantheal.7396:

Turreteers – by design – depend on their opponents stupidity. If their opponent is smart, they lost the fight even before the match started. The only circumstance that let this build appear so so strong before the nerf, were that so many people would get frustrated and ran heads-first into turreteers in unorganized teams. In this environment turreteers were totally OP, caused dull and uneven matches for new players, and therefore were nerfed into the ground by a-net …

Currently it seems that a-net has completely given up on their original design plans for turrets, and in lack of a better solution – as of yet – nerfed them into the ground to get rid of them.

All we can hope for is that they revisit the core-design of turrets and give them actual purpose in competitive builds, along with a well-balanced setup for all skill-levels in the future.

This is what I agree with.

Arantheal.7396:

This build was cancer, and even tho I ran turrets around 7-8 months ago myself, I’m extremely happy about the well deserved nerf

This is what I don’t agree with. Doubly so since it’s something that affects all game modes right now. You want to talk about signals they send out? For PvPers, I guess it’s a godsend. The same build that they continued to call garbage for a year only to turn around and “become OP” once a good amount of people actually understood the pressure it can cause. For everyone else, it’s just absolutely laughable. Do you remember years ago when Engineer was pretty much the “all work no payout” class because it didn’t do enough damage and people didn’t really know how to play the class well? Engi was the kind of class that takes more to get used to than Warrior, Guardian, and Thief. Even Mesmer was getting some nice play since clones easily confused people in the early days and it made incoming damage spread a lot thinner. And on top of that, Engineer was getting nerfs left and right due to not corresponding to the vision of the class.
- 100 Nades? Engineer’s not supposed to have this kind of burst.
- Kit Refinement? Rest in Peace.

And you know what was getting buffs all this time? Turrets. Honestly, I can’t remember a SINGLE nerf to Turrets before. Hitbox was too big, gotta make it smaller. Damage too low, bump it up a little. Range too low, bump it up a little. Traits are garbage, gotta make them worth taking. Autotool Installation used to heal the turret for ONE PERCENT every TEN SECONDS. Not enough kinds of traits, let’s add TWO new GM traits that focus on turret usage. The only nerf that I could think of the “Turrets last only five minutes” adjustment to prevent people from AFK farming. But who actually leaves those things out for so long in actual play? For the PvE player, the biggest problem they have is their longevity and that’s been NERFED. Why? Because a lot of people in a completely different game mode finally realized that it was useful for scrubbing out scrubs. So while you’re cheering the death of a single build, I’m dying during vinewrath because an Elite Mordrem Wolf managed to crit my turret before my overcharge went off.

Turrets became a thing to avoid in PvE. It’s going to become that way in PvP after a while. I know a lot of people are going to hang onto it to prove “Yeah, it can still work! You just have to position like THIS and THAT and TIME THIS DROP THIS WAY and people can’t stop you as well as they do!” But let’s face the reality of this situation:
(cont)

Even if Turret Engineers DID find the proper placement to keep you from attacking the squishy turrets…

Even if they DID learn to outplay you with immobile, squishy, AI bots that can’t get boons but can take conditions and can’t deal crits but can be crit…

It does NOT change the fact that the build is an AI-reliant mess that has nothing to fall back on except a single weapon with no weapon swap (unless you took a kit which, by the way, means you’re not running as many turrets), utility bar that’s completely occupied with skills on high cooldowns when destroyed, and a toolbelt that’s conditional depending on whether your turret is out or not (which puts you in this kitten ed if you do, kitten ed if you don’t predicament where you can’t use the skill you want without putting a turret on cooldown).

Out of everything the Engineer has had issues with, turrets have historically been the most problematic thing and the problem lies deep in the design. We have literally seen the scope of it go from absolute garbage, to “So OP that people have quit playing PvP because of turret players”. Soon, they’ll probably head back to being absolute garbage with this fix since they now suffer from the same problem that they do in PvE. It’s downright hilarious.

And for the record, I really don’t like it when people go around saying things like “they did this because [business decision]”. That’s just putting words into their mouth and damages integrity. Yes, ArenaNet is a business but they’re job is to make a good game and gameplay changes should reflect the future of gameplay. So, I’m going to take what they said at face value. The reason they did this was to promote active counter play. And with that said, I’m going to disagree with their methods. In fact, I feel it does the opposite of promoting active counter play. I’m not against conditions being applied to it because those are pretty tactical use and I can consider it active counter play (confusion, blind, chill, etc). But the longevity of the turrets decrease exponentially with crit damage and it enables people to go in without thinking about it.

People on both sides of this argument know that turrets fundamentally promote a method of play that isn’t looked at very highly. The solution we needed would be to change it from the ground up. The solution we got was just to make it less viable.

Arantheal.7396:

…this only can mean a new design for turrets after the dust of HoT has settled.

This is what I’m praying for. I have been crossing my fingers hoping that whatever “drones” in the HoT trailer that showed up isn’t actually anything to do with the Elite Specialization but rather a complete rework of how turrets function. I’m sorry for anyone who really loves turrets and turret gameplay, but they just can’t be balanced properly in a game.

And I’m sorry, I really am sorry for regurgitating the same stuff we’ve been saying, playing, and understanding for two years now in this mile long post. I feel bad for making you read it and if you tell me tl;dr, I won’t feel offended at all. But at the very least, I do want someone to read this I do not care for the PvP community’s distaste for Turret Engineers. I don’t care for their distaste towards Bearbows, Celestial overuse, or the tanky, healy, perma-sustainy, Ramirez-do-everything-esque meta that they feel their being plagued with. And I wish I didn’t have to care about it at all. I like WvW. I like PvE. PvP doesn’t attract me too much, but I play it every now and then just to see what it’s like. But whenever anything I like about this class changes for the worse, it’s almost always because of PvP issues and it makes me bitter just to be playing the same class as you. But I also understand that it isn’t your fault since it’s the developer’s job to make balance changes. I hope that one day they start to notice this bitterness and decide to start splitting balance changes for PvP/PvE/WvW use so I can stop discussing problems that PvP players are having from my PvE/WvW viewpoint that is utterly and totally different.

Chaith.8256:

Turrets cannot be affected by player stats due to their status as constructs, or ‘gadgets’ (not the utility type.) It’s a technical limitation.

Everyone’s been saying this for years, but it can’t happen.

Also, I’m not alone in saying, I DO say otherwise when you claim you can play the meta turret build in an ‘active’ measure. You never have to leave the point, and your player input accounts for less than a third of your effectiveness.

Could they do it through traits though?

Idea being say new traits, Fortified Turrets is brought down to Master level competing with Experimental Turrets. All turrets have their attack speed reduced by 20%, such that you say get a Net Turret every 10s, you’d now get one every 12s.

Then Experimental Turrets will now decrease that reuse to bring it back to the current baseline, as well as giving buffs and decrease reuse on your turrets themselves.

Fortified which would now be an either/or situation, has tacked onto metal plating a “make turrets immune to condi and crits” such that you can gain the old defenses back, but at an overall loss of not only 20% attack speed on them which would hurt, but not being able to couple it with the buff trait, making it more or less like an unmodified turret build pre-nerf.

In both cases you have weaker turrets, but you could have turrets that live, or turrets that could be powerful.

Just a thought, details of course are just an example, but personally I just hate the condi change as it conflicts with so many of my PVE uses for them I think it’d be nice if I could get something to let me counter that even if it took sacrifices in other areas maintaining an overall weaker turret build for those that go full in that direction.

The balance issue Anet was 100% correct in taking action but they should’ve adjusted the damage of turrets instead of making them irrelevant. The stated job of turrets is to hold points and they cannot do so now. What the community thinks of them isn’t my concern As my dislike for medi guardians shouldn’t concern them.

Just trying to keep this thread fact filled, here is what Anet says turrets are for.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/professions/engineer/

GG I avoid aoe circles, deploy healing turret for overcharge/cleanse and it gets one shotted by a class or npc that can do more than 6k damage in one hit. As a member of this community I would like to complain and hope Anet reads this and nerfs damage in all game formats.