Guild Wars 2

while turret nerf was needed for PvP Only
its gotta be admitted some compensations should ve been implemented so turrets dint become useless and relied more on skill and timing

some simple changes could be:
Lower Cooldowns and while add it give static cooldowns its ridiculously punishing getting even lenghtier cooldowns when turrets are killed in their current state they are immobile and extremely fragile

Making rifle turret overcharge apply weakness instead of vulnerability this makes rifle turret so much useful not just as a means to make it survive longer but as a support unit.

supply crage why not replace flame turret with rifle turret and add a thumper turret instead with the Elite supply trait

or why not make an elite turret like a healing turret but instead of healing it pops up a bubble shield every certain ammount of time and have an overcharge that does an aoe boon for turrets in range like giving them some sort of like protection or a 10-20% heal

or why not fix fortified turrets it doesnt work in combat most of the time
plus its very lackluster for a grandmaster trait i’d rather have turrets giv 2 shields on 20s cooldowns as it stands its useless as after 4s they simply become normal turrets wich is as good as having no trait

everyones gonna tell me specializations are around the corner and while that is true turrets had no mention other than 1 or 2 trait merges no actual improvements or anything

I refuse to even call it a nerf. That implies an attempt at balancing the skills, when it was nothing more than removal.

Anyway, there are a couple of threads about this already, and I don’t think the discussion is leading anywhere.

i ve been using turrets quite successfully
so upon said further testing

Rifle turret – Vulnerability on overcharge needs to be replaced for weakness or shots should pierce targets as not only the damage is minimal but it is blocked by even the most minute thing.

Rocket, Flame and Thumper Turrets: For their purposes they get the job done no complaints here

Net Turret:this one is on a tricky spot immobilize every 10s is very powerful
and there is the problem Landing the immobilize net is near imposisble on moving targets specially moving to any side as the net shot is extremely slow

possible suggestions to improve turrets would be :

Increase Base damage by 25-30%
make fortified turrets trait proc a bubble shield every 30 seconds
get rid of rifled turet barrels and increase their base range then fortified turrets trait would be justified for being so bad
increase net turret’s net shot speed by 15-25%
make rifle turret pierce
most importantly :
Cooldowns they are dreadful make cooldowns static as too much turret play involves turrets dieing instead of sustaining them to begin with it makes no sense to be penalized for it. maybe drop rocket and thumper turrets to 35s cd rifle and healing stay at 20s and flame at 25s (sadly cant ask much changing for flame turret as its overcharge is a lengthy blinding smoke field reducing cd would make it nearly perma aoe blind )
maybe make flameturret burns last kitten so it actually punishes players that stay immobile in its range

something to point out outside of condition damage on flame turrets they do Not scale at all with engi stats , turrets cannot crit as well hence why the base damage increase is needed

and there everyone is happy turrets are squishy and useful encouraging active gameplay

oh yeah the net turret nerf can you revert that already
the only reason it was OP was cuz players all ran serk gear and no condition nor stun breakers back then . (heck back then all warriors ran were 5 signets and back then they dint have the active effects they do now lol).

its hypocritical that net turret was considered OP because you could do a simultaneous short stun+ immob (they are simultaneous so they wear off at same time)and then the net turret’s extra

but hambow warriors , wolf+spider+root that self reapply immob each second for 10-20s on a 60s cd werent considered even anoying

not saying those are OP as i handle myself just fine just using them as examples to show carelessly things were thought out

Turrets along with so many other minion/summons/spirit lost their effectiveness pve early on in the game and have not really made a come back in my opinion. they may still be effective in pvp or wvw but with the amount of damage that can be dished out in these pve battles they just are not effective. I do hope that the developers are looking into this and working to make them viable in pve again. As for turrets I did have a thought on how to rework them or at least a few grand traits maybe.

Turrets in my opinion as they are now should be used to fortify a position for you and your party members. Though since they die so fast they do not offer any of that. That said perhaps adding some life and toughness to them would be a good start.

Adding a fortified location trait where your turrets buff one another is another thing that would be interesting. The more turrets the more fortified the location gets. thus if you put out one turret it may die but if you put out two both of them have more health, more damage reduction, offer maybe a slight damage boost to one another. When you heal one with your wrench the healing transfer to each of them and they heal more effectivily. If you have three turrets out they should be even harder to destroy and offer more to one another. This should only work with your turrets that you own. I think if I put my effort into upgrading my turrets it should show with more effectiveness.

The second idea was a little different. Turning turrets into a shoulder/back item that when active allows you to continue going with the turret attacking your target from your back. Or dropping a box in case of the thumper turret. They may do less damage but the mobility of them would make up for that. They would stay active till their energy was depleted. the turret skill would flip as normal for the overcharge ability which would take energy to deploy which makes the turret go away faster. once energy is depleted it would need to recharge for a time. Since it is on your back however this would mean no exploding it. Thus the tool kit would continue to be operational. The tool version would not deplete the energy of the turret when used. You could limit it to one turret active at a time or allow all turrets to be active but either way it would be an interesting effect.

in my opinion this could be added as a trait for both and work with other traits already in effect. This could be an interesting and welcome change of course would come with a lot of number reworking. Fortified location or mobilized turret pack.