Guild Wars 2

Okay, here’s an idea that may or may not have been suggested before, and more than likely won’t even be read by a dev, but I thought I’d post it anyway purely to see what others would think of it. I’ve always liked the idea of turrets, but never really used them beyond picking them for the corresponding toolbelt ability, largely because they feel cumbersome and usually ineffective.

My post is mainly prompted by reading the recent “leaked” patch changes and contemplating the still limited viability of turrets should those changes go live. Worth noting that I’m viewing this from a predominantly WvW (and a bit of sPvP) perspective.

Essentially it seems to me that the two main reasons turrets aren’t great is the following:

• Mobility - There isn’t any. They can have fairly lengthy cooldowns which essentially roots you to the same spot should you wish to be performing as a level 80, rather than an upscaled sub-level 5 character with no utilities. In WvW especially (where there is lots of open space) the fights can quickly change pace and direction and only being able to change your position every 40 seconds or so isn’t really a great state of affairs.

• Survivability - There isn’t any. Turrets die quickly as it is. The health boost may help, but I’m not sure it will finish the job. As it stands I can easily see, for example, a stun/greatsword haste warrior catching you in amongst your turrets, and bringing down all your turrets within the duration of the stun (as well as doing 10k damage to you [please give back Elixir R stun break]). In a group situation the amount of AoE encountered renders turrets almost entirely useless.

I can think of a fix that would assist both these areas; heli-turrets. Put rotors on top of the turrets and allow them to take to the air, liberating them of their static squishyness. Essentially the way I can see it working would be as follows:

• Turrets no longer stay where they are initially placed. They will fly around the Engineers head remaining close to him, following him around (including during combat) whilst performing whatever function they are intended to.

• As a result of now existing in the air, turrets are unaffected by ground targeted or AoE abilities, or damaging fields. This means they will not be instantly squashed into the ground during a zerg. They will not die after a few seconds in combat by getting cleaved by abilities that weren’t even directed at them. Equally, they can be targeted for single target damage and destruction should the opponent find a particular turret to be intrusive enough to justify such a decision. This makes destroying turrets a tactical decision rather than something that happens a couple of seconds into a fight (often unintentionally) as a result of cleaving from attacks directed at the Engineer himself.

• For the sake of balance, airborne turrets could fail upon the Engineer entering downed states (nothing more irritating than a situation similar to the one found in Rangers where a downed player is nigh on unkillable without using stability/invulnerability/blind while their minion mauls you to death).

• Equally, I imagine for something like this to not have have overpowered effects on non-turret based builds perhaps running just the one turret, I think it should be something that Engineers have to trait for. I feel that a grandmaster trait in the often unloved invention line would fit the bill, but details like this could be fine tuned anyway.

Thoughts/opinions/changes etc?

Definitely a cool idea, but it’s a pretty large change and would be a tough sell.

Also, the Oct 15th patch has been confirmed to include real targeting for turrets, which is the biggest news for turrets since at least the HT buff and probably since launch. Seriously, this fix by itself will make turrets viable, although I understand that you want to use them in large-scale WvW and they’ll probably still be a bit difficult there.

That change won’t make them viable – it’ll help, but there’s still a huge list of bugs, they still won’t scale with Power (which is a huge disadvantage, as it forces users of turrets to build ‘Traits for this, Gear for that’ instead of dovetailing smoothly), and I’m sure there’s a few things I’m not recalling.
The lack of scaling, in particular, limits improvement after level 80, and until Power-scaling is implemented, they will continue to be substandard, and the drop-and-pop tactic will continue to be standard procedure.

I’ll still be using them, though, because I’m a stubborn kitten like that.

As far as this idea goes:
I think they’ll just be destroyed anyway. Being in the air doesn’t give immunity to ground-targeted effects, if Griffons and Imps are anything to go by.

Other than that…I would enjoy mobility, but I’d rather they work properly first, and get scaling.

Great minds and all, just made a shortform post with the same intention. I would kill for this, especially as a PVE player who can’t run turrets due to instant AOE death.

I will not want to see yet another MM Necro or Spirit Ranger enter the fore of low skillcap high reward play for Engineer builds, because that way lies nerfs and madness.

Now, if you actually treat turrets as fully disposable gadgets, you will have a lot better time with them. Elixir Gun, Bomb Kit, Net Turret and Rifle gives you a good start to a DPS/CC build. Have you seen the length of Immob on Net Turret? It’s basically 3/4ths of a Warrior Throw Bolas ; every 10 seconds; and you get a Toolkit Immob with it as well.

Or you can put Rifle Turret, Toolkit, Utility Goggles/Rocket Boots together for your typical Static Discharge 100-0 build.

If you’ve watched Steamhawke stream lately (pandacache on Twitch) on his teamQs with VVV (Vision Valour Victory, one of the top teams in NA), you’ll note that he actually incorporates Thumper Turret into his Static Discharge Grenadier build because the Overcharge can launch people off point, the Toolbelt is a Stunbreak, and fighting around it just gives him good steady DPS.

To make some of these things mobile would almost immediately evoke cries of OP and Nerf, 100%.

Trait consolidation of Autotool Installation and Metal Plating would go a long way; along with a rework to Rifled Turret Barrels to increase Turret Mobility.
Perhaps something like

MonMalthias.4763:

Remote Redeployment

The Engineer may select a turret to be recalled from range. Recalling a turret reset’s the turret’s placement cooldown, such that it may be placed again. Recalling a Turret reset’s its attack cooldown, so that it will immediately fire again when placed. Once per 60 seconds per recalled turret, the Overcharge cooldown is reset.

Or just something that will give a bigger CD reward than a mere 25% when Turrets are picked up.

There could also be Traits that leverage Turret Detonation and Toolbelt skills as well.

Accelerant Packed Turrets is a good start, but it’s too high up in the Explosives line to justify the 20 point cost on top of 30 points for an all-in Turret build.

I’m thinking something like;
Turret Toolbelt Adapters (Name doesn’t matter)
Your Turret Toolbelt abilities have additional effects. Your Turret Detonation skills deal extra damage and Daze nearby foes (240 radius) for 1 second.

• Surprise Shot inflicts 5 stacks of Vulnerability for 5 seconds
• Net Attack also Dazes a target for 2 seconds
• Rumble also Pushes foes back to the edge of the radius (240 units)
• Throw Napalm also applies Cripple to foes struck in its radius for 3 seconds
• Regenerating Mist also cleanses 1 condition in a 240 radius AOE
• Rocket also Burns the target for 3 seconds

Alternatively, there could also be a trait like:
Turret Rescue System

• Picking up turrets grants a bonus to cooldown reduction equal to % missing health on top of the 25 % pickup bonus.

Or

Overcharge Refinement
Overcharging Turrets grants them 25% bonus damage reduction and 50% AOE damage reduction. Overcharged Turrets self-destruct after overcharge completes. Turrets self-destructed in this way have 25% placement CDR.

TL:DR:
There’s a ton of ways to make Turrets a complete kit, as it were, without having to make them Mobile. Making them mobile doesn’t solve their underlying issues; which is niche application in a utility slot starved profession, fragility in PVE and single target lockdown focus. They are absolutely disgusting in duels, but fall over in PvE and in the presence of more than 1 target. Changes to their toolbelt to complete their kit and to leverage off existing utility can go a long way.

MonMalthias.4763:

There could also be Traits that leverage Turret Detonation and Toolbelt skills as well.

Accelerant Packed Turrets is a good start, but it’s too high up in the Explosives line to justify the 20 point cost on top of 30 points for an all-in Turret build.

I’m thinking something like;
Turret Toolbelt Adapters (Name doesn’t matter)
Your Turret Toolbelt abilities have additional effects. Your Turret Detonation skills deal extra damage and Daze nearby foes (240 radius) for 1 second.

• Surprise Shot inflicts 5 stacks of Vulnerability for 5 seconds
• Net Attack also Dazes a target for 2 seconds
• Rumble also Pushes foes back to the edge of the radius (240 units)
• Throw Napalm also applies Cripple to foes struck in its radius for 3 seconds
• Regenerating Mist also cleanses 1 condition in a 240 radius AOE
• Rocket also Burns the target for 3 seconds

Alternatively, there could also be a trait like:
Turret Rescue System

• Picking up turrets grants a bonus to cooldown reduction equal to % missing health on top of the 25 % pickup bonus.

Or

Overcharge Refinement
Overcharging Turrets grants them 25% bonus damage reduction and 50% AOE damage reduction. Overcharged Turrets self-destruct after overcharge completes. Turrets self-destructed in this way have 25% placement CDR.

TL:DR:
There’s a ton of ways to make Turrets a complete kit, as it were, without having to make them Mobile. Making them mobile doesn’t solve their underlying issues; which is niche application in a utility slot starved profession, fragility in PVE and single target lockdown focus. They are absolutely disgusting in duels, but fall over in PvE and in the presence of more than 1 target. Changes to their toolbelt to complete their kit and to leverage off existing utility can go a long way.

You have my vote. However, I don’t like the destroyed on overcharge. What if the 25% bonus damage reduction and 50% AOE damage reduction only last a 5 to 8 sec.

To OP, having the turrets float around you is a good idea. But what about the range of Flame turret? You would never use it . Unless you wanted to be that close.

Other than that, good ideas.

*Launch padding *
Turrets gain 30% damage reduction and if a turret is over “X” units your tool belt skill changes to Launch

Launch kitten cooldown ground targeted like deployable turrets traits but has a bigger radius for the blast finisher
Activate rockets from under you turret to launch them to your location dealing damage upon landing.

It is similar to the supply crate elite but dose not stuns (still dose blast finisher) and still keep the feeling of the engi while adding mobility to the turrets.
thou it may need to switch places with the auto repair since it dose seem more of a higher tier trait.

I have a better idea to make those more mobile while keeping their stationary attribute, lets just see how turrets can be improved :

1) Fix the bugs related to turrets (check?).
2) Fix the targeting issues (check).
3) Remove pickup fonction “f” and improve Turrets self-destruct toolbelt ability, reducing the specific turret cooldown by a duration equal to the time it remained deployed.
4) Make overcharges instant abilities.
5) Give Metal Plating 33% damage reduction to all turrets (check) and allow each turret to become invulnerable for 3-5sec whenever those get strucked by an AoE (20-25sec CD).
6) Merge Power Wrench with Autotool Installation, increase its base regeneration to 4% max health every 3sec and double that amount when the Engineer wears his Wrench.
7) Make turrets scale with every stats to allow more build variety.

Making Turrets viable with the current game mechanics is almost impossible.

You’re going to place a low-health, immobile, easily destroyed Turret on the ground with no taunt or threat-generation mechanic?

No way.

Gadgets and Elixirs will always be superior to the Turrets unless they add some kind of taunt / threat mechanic to Warrior & Guardian Shield abilities or something. Just buffing Turrets isn’t going to matter if they’re focused for more than 2 seconds…

I think adding scaling would do more for their viability than most would expect.

If they added Power, Precision, and Critical Damage, then Turrets would hit hard enough to be a concern.
If they added Toughness and Vitality, they’d be much more difficult to destroy.

They’re already doing something about adding a massive amount of HP to minions in PvE, which may or may not apply to Turrets due to the way the leaked notes described it. Also, that’s from leaked notes, so it’s possible it might not happen (but those notes seem pretty accurate).

As a bonus: If they added scaling, then you could actually create an intuitive Turret build, wearing mostly Cleric’s gear.

Turrets need some kind of overhaul to be viable. Heli-turrets is one way. Giving them massive hp boosts is another (given their meager offensive capabilities). Another interesting fix could be to simply bundle all of them into a kit and increase cooldowns or nerf them a bit.

Turrets really only need to have their size reduced to their current visual size. Right now they are basically dolyak sized, and this makes it really painful against AoE.

On the other hand, because of that AoE, toolbelt heal ranges are also ridiculous, but who really depends on that range anyway…

Turrets are really fine the way they are at the moment except the bugs and issues.

I run a full turret, no kit build for WvW, PvE, and sPvP with the same exact traits and I do just fine, if not better than some others. If you want the best damage, go nades for sure. If you try to make turret damage on par with that, it will be overpowered.

It would be much simpler to just reduce the “pick up” time of all the turrets, to 1/4 of the original recharge time. So if you picked up Rocket Turret, the recharge time would be 12,5 seconds, instead of 50 seconds.

The turrets definitely need more survivability, and it is easily justified by the fact that they are machines, unlike pets and spirits.