Guild Wars 2

Good day, one and all.

I am currently running as a Charr turret engineer and I have filled my skill bar with all the turrets I can put in it. Hopefully the link bellow works so you could see my build.

<a>http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcIQJAqalIqyUnqSbFs9IyoHM2EuZhekYg2iBqQeB-e</a>;

Now, before anything, I made this build for the lulz with a bit of OCD. So far I am enjoying it, being able contribute to dungeons and hold down areas/provide support fire for Hearts and events.

Currently, I’m thinking about the stats I’m using. I have Rabid gear since most of my skills have conditions on them. I also understand that Berserker gear is a general ‘one stat combination fits all’ property. Another property I’m looking at is Dire, as it would give me better survivability than Rabid.

To this end, I would like to ask for opinions. Would any of the three properties I mentioned work for me as it stands? If not, would you recommend anything?

Thank you all.

Berserker would not be a good choice; its stats do absolutely nothing for your Turrets.

Dire, however, would probably be the best choice at this moment. Personally, I usually gear in full Cleric’s; it leaves me open to Conditions, but I don’t do PvP, so it’s not much of a problem.

Explanation: Condition Duration/Damage, Boon Duration and Healing Power are the only things Turrets currently scale to, after all. Ignore the tooltips. They’ve been right less and less as they bug Turrets up more and more in their attempts to balance what isn’t working right to begin with.

Anymras.5729:

Explanation: Condition Duration/Damage, Boon Duration and Healing Power are the only things Turrets currently scale to, after all. Ignore the tooltips. They’ve been right less and less as they bug Turrets up more and more in their attempts to balance what isn’t working right to begin with.

the strange thing is that anet removed nearly all condition dmg from the turrets… Do we have to understand this?

Anymras.5729:

Berserker would not be a good choice; its stats do absolutely nothing for your Turrets.

not for the turrets themself but: they are contributing to your dmg. They are far to weak to contribute to their dmg.

I prefer berserk/celestial, even with turrets. But the only 2 really fun spec i found (for me) with turrets is 20/0/30/20 Turret SD or 30/0/30/10/0… With both specs I use turrets more for the additional utility (cripple, firefield) than for their dmg.

Like Anymras told you the only stat suplementing your turrets are Condition damage, and Duration + Healing Power and Boon duration. But again, most of those stats only affect a couple of your turrets, not all of them so you need to choose wisely depending on your play style.

Toughness can also indirectly help your turrets build out. There is nothing more frustrating to drop your turret down and see it get destroyed right away because ennemies decided to ignore you for a moment. Most of the ennemies rely on multiple aggro tables to check who they are going attack first, your maximum toughness and if you equip a shield will increase your priority in that table making your turret less susceptible to take aggro a thus increasing their chance to remain intact for the rest of the fight.

Ambrecombe.4398:

… thus increasing their chance to remain intact for the rest of the fight.

But they won’t.
I’ve been playing my engi with turrets ever since it was created and have no intention to swap to kits or some other BS just because Anet doesn’t pay attention to this subject outside of the nerfing alley.^^

Honestly though, almost every highlevel mob in orr, or explorermode will have some sort of AoE. It is very very rare that your turrets survive even if you plant them midway up the walls with deployable turrets+rifled turret barrels so they still can actually shoot stuff.

You should see the whole turret concept as a single skill. There isn’t only the turret itself + it’s overcharge but also accelerant packed turrets, detonation and the other toolbelt skills.
If you run berserker gear, that tactical missle offered by rocket turret will hit for 8k-10k. The flame field created by your flameturret’s toolbelt skill is one of our strongest burning sources.

I switch turrets constantly depending on my teamsetup and the next encounter. In any way, the best place for your turrets in most cases is right in your enemy’s face so they can explode properly. This is also a saver zone sometimes as melee classes got to have an easy time around heavy AoE bosses in gw. Let them fire until they die and be happy that you can once again use your toolbelt cooldowns + just had a couple of free detonations, which also remove a couple of defiant stacks.

Escadin.9482:

But they won’t.
I’ve been playing my engi with turrets ever since it was created and have no intention to swap to kits or some other BS just because Anet doesn’t pay attention to this subject outside of the nerfing alley.^^ .

Good for you, I have the same problem you see, while I tested many builds, I’ve created my Engineer for the sole purpose to use turrets but unfortunatly I am barely using him anymore because those utilities are clearly broken (wich spoil my fun).

And yes, they might eventualy die, but they will die sooner if you go full glasscanon wich is not something you want when you go in the Invention traitline. You realy want to increase their life span as much as you can, because turrets are an important secondary source of your sustained DPS and helps with burn application (at least it was at greater extend before the change when you played pistol&shield).

Escadin.9482:

Honestly though, almost every highlevel mob in orr, or explorermode will have some sort of AoE. It is very very rare that your turrets survive even if you plant them midway up the walls with deployable turrets+rifled turret barrels so they still can actually shoot stuff.

It depends if the AoE is radial or targeted, how your ennemy AI works and especialy the people you are playing with. If you have high toughness and can manadge to keep the ennemies on you while keeping the targeted AoE’s away from your turrets, they can remain alive for their whole 5min, even in a strong encounter. Exception made when your champion has some kittened and huge life leech AoE wich destroy everything in a 1200 radius, than you are better not using turrets at all.

But otherwise I have to disagree, it is possible to keep most of your turrets alive it just requiere three things :
- Deployable turret trait
- Crucial positioning
- Allies who cares

Escadin.9482:

You should see the whole turret concept as a single skill. There isn’t only the turret itself + it’s overcharge but also accelerant packed turrets, detonation and the other toolbelt skills.
If you run berserker gear, that tactical missle offered by rocket turret will hit for 8k-10k. The flame field created by your flameturret’s toolbelt skill is one of our strongest burning sources. .

First, please do not assume things for me, I am perfectly aware of the current situation and wouldn’t post anything if I wouldn’t know anything about it. (and I also would like to keep this thread as clean as possible)

Secondly, accelerant packed turrets, while it has its use, is probably the most counter productive trait if you couple it with the invention traitline. Basicaly what it does, it gives you some pretty decent control but it forces you to place turrets where you would not put them otherwise and make you waste valuable blast finisher, unless your ennemy happens to be near of one of your turrets while you are waiting in a combo field at the exact same time(the odds are very small).

When I see this trait i’m asking myself the following question : “Why would I use some traits to keep my turrets away from harm if I end up using a trait instead wich forces me to put my turret closer to it to get anything out of it?”

Than again, you could always separate Turrets in 2 different playstyles :
1) Beeing a bunker build that rellies on (Deployable Turret, Metal Plating, Autotool Instalation and Rifled Turret Barrels) wich will have a much better use in a condition build to optimize its DPS while keeping some good defenses and a way to keep ennemies away from your turrets.
2) Beeing a more offensive build that rellies on ( Deployable Turrets and Accelerant Packed Turrets) wich would be much more flexible when it comes to weapon selection and allow a better use of turrets in a power build. Sinds it wouldn’t be requiere to drawn attention away from them so you can freely choose your gear.

But personnaly, I think it is a bad design decision.

cleric is by far the best stat combination as you benefit from toughness healing and power, and maybe only take 2 turrets with 1 slot for some utility such as elixir U ( which can be used to protect them from ranged attacks and up your damage output.

Stalima.5490:

cleric is by far the best stat combination as you benefit from toughness healing and power, and maybe only take 2 turrets with 1 slot for some utility such as elixir U ( which can be used to protect them from ranged attacks and up your damage output.

Turrets do not benefit from power, the tooltip is wrong. And condition damage affects only Flame Turret with the recent change, so if you don’t use Flame Turret that much your stat combination depends on toughness and your weapon of choice.

You will end up with a full/mix of Knight and/or Cleric if you use a Rifle. And you will end up with a full/mix of Rabid and/or Apothecary if you use Pistols or Pistol&Shield.

If you don’t care about the healing power and are looking for more vitality you will probably end up mix your equipement with Soldier or Dire gear depending on your weapon.

it doesnt matter if turrets scale or not, the healing power and toughness combined with your own high power allow you to do alot of weapon damage, and tank a heck of alot of damage while you do it. the extreme levels of power you get from doing that make the rifle a pretty deadly weapon even without needing crit damage. pair that with the twin turrets and elixir U and youve got something that you dont really want to be fighting for very long.

its more about the sustained damage output/tankcombination that just focusing on only turrets

Ambrecombe.4398:

2) Beeing a more offensive build that rellies on ( Deployable Turrets and Accelerant Packed Turrets) wich would be much more flexible when it comes to weapon selection and allow a better use of turrets in a power build. Sinds it wouldn’t be requiere to drawn attention away from them so you can freely choose your gear.

But personnaly, I think it is a bad design decision.

I didn’t mean bad mouth your knowledge about engineers, sorry for that.

This is probably why I suggested this. Playing alot of Pve I naturally run a full power / berserker build (30/ 20 / 0 / 0 / 20 ) with grenades because I prefer very long range. So maybe that’s the best use for turrets in my build I’ve come up with so far.

I deploy them to stay alive as long as possible when I see a chance, but mostly I want them to overcharge and then be tactically sacrificed for area weakness or heal (or whatever my team offers for combo fields) AND maybe interrupt someone when I don’t see a chance for them to survive. Either way, I will sacrifice them once the corrosponding toolbelt skill has refreshed (because this one scales with my equipment) and so it just feels right to get most out of detonating a turret. Additionally they are usually just as safe in melee range as they are elsewhere. 99% of the game content has been designed to be possible for melee only groups and many bosses even have dedicated safetyzones for melees around them. It’s not like the turrets care from where they’re firing ^^

I would love to have RTB but there is nothing in that traitline I desire (despite elite supplies maybe), but all those minor traits and stats? I don’t care for them.