Guild Wars 2

I’m going to put up of videos of each tournament map and how i play those maps.

I’m going to replace this first kyloh video with a new one. It shows a full match and its much better quality.

(Battle of Kylho full match) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmsvtaA4evM&feature=youtu.be

(Forest of Nifhel part. 1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xY5jxS_8qY

(Forest of Hiflhel Part 2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1MbcM7BS5o

I’ve been playing turret engi for about a month now and i decided i’d post a video showing exactly what it can do. I’ve played engineer ever since launch and pretty much all the build except “100nades”.

The video is just short clips of encounters i had in one night of tourneys. I’ll post some more videos and even some hotjoin vids with a different turret build if there is any interest. enjoy, and stop laughing at turret engis

Sweet vid, I liked it! I thought you were going to die on that one fight where you forgot to put your turrets up but you rallied. Nice.

I don’t know why turrent engineers would be funny, really. When I first learned they had turrets I thought “oh, cool, I can have a Shaman in GW2.”

thx for the comment. That fight you were talking about is when i realized that laying down the turrets is way more important than capping the node first, that will definitely be the last time i do that.

I can remember one post where a guy says him and his guildies call turret engi’s “turret noobs” and consider them free kills lol. All the while the only class that i don’t absolutely steam roll is a ranger. I still win those fights 3 out of 4 times though. After the ranger i’d have to say that mesmers are hard for me to fight because of all their clones. Luckily not a lot of mesmers assault back point XD

For the engis wanting to try turrets. first pick up the traits accelerant-packed turrets and deployable turrets, it changes the whole game. Also don’t worry too much about traiting your turrets for survivability, placement is more important. P/S and Rifle both work very well with turrets.

that was a cool video to watch.

A video about endlessly skilled thieves not being able to kill a guy with 0 stun breaks.

My sides status: achieving transcendence

I would love to know what your traits are and the stat amulet you’re using. I’ve always wanted to play a turret Engi build.

Mind sharing your build? :p

The moment this becomes a named/known build and starts circulating online it’ll be doomed to get nerfed.

what do you have to say about the turret changes in the patch, Fairtex? Had a change to dig in yet?

dinominator.9862:

The moment this becomes a named/known build and starts circulating online it’ll be doomed to get nerfed.

I seriously think ANet just look for any named build and try their best to remove said build. Do they even have any testers playing Engineers?

Fun stuff.

Don’t you miss condition removal?
It seems your only option for that is the overcharged healing turret on 60 seconds.

My confusion stems from the fact that the enemy players just run around and let you and your turrets pepper them. I’m not saying I don’t like playing a turret build, but the opponents in the video were as bad, if not worse, than npcs.

Is it just me?

who in their right mind would attack turrets tho? ^^

very nice vid, looks like a solid build. glad to have a positive thread for once

anyone in their right mind would :| when you realise it takes a couple of nades to take those turrets down, or a couple of cluster bombs, why wouldn’t you do it? no risk involved and it completly shuts down all the utility the engineer has, and all his damaging capabilities

Turrets die way to fast, and the traits helping that are all over the place.

Not saying they are useless, just saying I hoped the patch would adress the awfull design of the turret traits in 3 different lines…

Testing out a net turret – rocket turret combo myself right now.
Overcharging these is one hell of a frustrating combo for your enemy

Well, right now Deployable Turrets causes all of your turrets to revert to the old versions so I wouldn’t recommend using it. Accelerant-packed Turrets is a decent trait, but it forces us into Explosives. Of the Adept traits in that line Acidic Elixirs and Forceful Explosives (bombs and mines only) don’t affect your build with the exception of the latter when you choose to use Throw Mine instead of Rifle Turret.

The best choices I see are Empowering Adrenaline or Incendiary Powder, the latter depending greatly on your amulet/jewel choice (crit chance). You’re running Self Regulating Defenses, and possibly Static Discharge. You’re not using Kits so no weapon swap sigils, and I don’t see any on kill effects triggering. So I’m guessing you’re using passive sigils like Force or Accuracy, or an on crit Sigil like Nullification. I also see now that you’re using Knee Shot. Your Net Turret hits the thief at :07 and applies Immobilize and Cripple.

As for the video—you show a lot of fights with opponents who want to stay in melee range. This is great for Accelerant-packed Turrets and your shield abilities. You don’t showcase a single ranged fight which is where a Turret engineer rolls over and dies. You don’t have the damage output with a pistol to stand toe to toe with a bow ranger, staff mesmer, p/p thief, or a staff necro. You just don’t. Please don’t mislead people with more videos unless you can showcase how you deal with someone destroying all three of your turrets (before you’ve even done 3K damage to them with your pistol) and then ranging you down. That terrible thief at the start of the video doesn’t count. He approached without stealth and tried to use the short bow for dps instead of for mobility and evasion, which is what it’s for.

What do you do against conditions? What are your tactics against someone that can stay out of the range of your Net Turret and put massive pressure on you? Once your turrets are down you have your shield abilities and your toolbelt which are all on very long cooldowns. Regenerating Mist is ticking for 95 on you which is just enough to counteract 2 stacks of bleeding.

I’m glad you’re enjoying it, and you are effective in the right situations—but—I would need to see a lot more footage to be convinced it’s worth playing from a purely competitive standpoint.

Thanks for sharing the video. It was entertaining and the tactics were new to me.

ShaunZ.1098:

My confusion stems from the fact that the enemy players just run around and let you and your turrets pepper them. I’m not saying I don’t like playing a turret build, but the opponents in the video were as bad, if not worse, than npcs.

Is it just me?

They were average at best and some were poor. There was a fight with a guardian that had me scratching my head the whole time. Even when he wasn’t cc’d by the net turret he couldn’t seem to find his target. Keyboard turner?

Um, not to diss you or anything but your opponents didn’t really have a clue. You have no stunbreaker. You would die in seconds against a decent thief, warrior or mesmer. I’m not sure you’d fare that well against anything with decent ranged abilities either, like staff mesmer/necro/ele or bow ranger.

You also pop Supply Crate every single fight, 1v1. Now, that’s not a bad thing. But its a 3 minute cooldown, and in tPvP I really hesitate to use it in anything that’s not a game changing team fight.

All in all, its another curbstomp video and while I applaud you for the effort, it does not show that turret builds are viable.

I can see how a turret engineer would work in sPvP. Since you set up on a node… a node in which the enemy wants to cap, they have to come to you and walk into the fray. And since the common perception(as you can even see in this thread) is that turrets are a joke — then it really any wonder why players run into the setup and ignore the turrets?

Really cool video, unfortunately I don’t do s/PvP – just WvW. I can’t really see turrets working too well out there except in certain circumstances . Although I’ve heard urban legend of turret engineers in sPvP defending siege like nobodies business(I guess there is a sPvP map with it? – I dunno the sPvP maps) and I’d be interested to see that in action as I cold possibly apply that to WvW.

Based on his health (24, 022) I did a little fiddling with a profession builder. What I came up with is that his rune and amulet set up is full Dolyak* and either a Carrion or Soldiers amulet with either a Carrion or Soldiers jewel—for anyone that was interested. It was the only way I could come up with that health total. Oh, and 20 points in Alchemy. Not sure what for though He has Self Regulating Defenses and Protection Injection (the Thief dazes him at :10 and he gets Protection). The only mysteries left are what his final 10 points are in and what sigils he’s using. I get really irritated when people post a build video without a build.

*Personally, I would go with 6/6 Melandru because of this build’s total lack of condition removal.

irakai.6891:

Um, not to diss you or anything but your opponents didn’t really have a clue. You have no stunbreaker. You would die in seconds against a decent thief, warrior or mesmer. I’m not sure you’d fare that well against anything with decent ranged abilities either, like staff mesmer/necro/ele or bow ranger.

You also pop Supply Crate every single fight, 1v1. Now, that’s not a bad thing. But its a 3 minute cooldown, and in tPvP I really hesitate to use it in anything that’s not a game changing team fight.

All in all, its another curbstomp video and while I applaud you for the effort, it does not show that turret builds are viable.

Fairtex.7810:

…and stop laughing at turret engis

It is difficult not to laugh when the “brilliant” turret AI decides to net shot a rock dog instead of a player…

Nice video,

But I got to agree with some others poster.

The ennemies you fought in this video were pretty much clueless, not tryng to remove anything from you.

But the guardian that just walked around in circle hiting nothing, or the thief(not sure) who was hitting your exploding turrets.

Also, most fight you use your supply drop. It does help a lot with any build.

Thank you everyone for the comments, positive and negative. sorry it took so long to post any replies, long day at work. i’ll answer as many questions as possible but still keep it short and readable.

@Nakoda I think the turret changes were nice. nothing to really make people dedicate themselves to turrets. I honestly didn’t feel like turrets were in such a horrible spot like some do. I think people just expect more out of them. I think the traits need to be cleaned up and rearranged though.

@ Kimbald (and all others wondering about condi removal) Condition removal is the major problem for this build. Do i have trouble with conditions when i’m home point bunking? not really. RARELY do i have a condition class assault my node. When that does happen. I have a 15 sec heal, good regen uptime, 60 sec condition cleanse, and 6 medpacs @1300 health from my supply drop. I’ve never died from conditions, even in hotjoin.

@Irakai Its all good man, to be honest, they probably had no idea what was happening. Which is true for a lot of people who try and take my node. When i’m bunking home point, i consider that MY node and i’ll be kitten if i lose it. even if it means dropping supply crate. And it seems that i get assaulted… about every 3 mins. If i was a team fight engi, i would only use my supply crate in very special situations too. But i’m rarely ever involved team fights unless they bring it to me. The reality is, melee is the main type of class that assaults their far point. I’m about as hard as a hard counter can get against melee. even with no stun breakers.

I will agree with all those that say this, rangers and mesmers are my hardest opponents. I’ve had a mesmer come to my node once and i beat him because he had no idea what was happening when my net stunned him, then my rocket knocked him down, then my net stunned him again, then my rocket knocked him down again. all the while my supply drop destroyed any clones in the area via flame turret or exposions. Against rangers i pretty much have to put so much pressure on them and get them to run or change to melee.

BrimstoneAshe pretty much nailed the reality of how it goes down. If you want my node you need to come and get it. that means walking through 6 plus turrets plus me. Its really not as simple as destroying my turrets and then rolling me. I’ve had thieves try and take out my turrets from range but the fact is i do pretty good weapon damage too.

I’m working on posting my build with explanations and how i address the shortcomings and why i choose the traits i do. will be up soon.

Again, thank everyone for taking the time to read and post. much love

Hi Fairtex,

So in the spirit of fairness, I decided to give your build try before passing my final judgment on it. Not that I think my final judgment carries a lot of weight, I just thought I should start trying different builds before forming a complete opinion of them. It doesn’t cost me anything but a little time and effort.

Here’s what I ran:

http://preview.tinyurl.com/ck4vwlv

(cut and paste the link or it won’t work)

Keep in mind I reverse engineered your build from watching your videos and don’t know exactly what you’re running.
_
TL;DR My experience over 20 tPvP matches was good overall. I was able to defend my team’s back node quite well, and was only downed a few times over the course of all of the games, and only when put under severe pressure (3 or more opponents).

continued below…

I decided the best way to test this build was to imitate your tactics. I would get to a node, set up my Net Turret near the approach, Rocket Turret on the back side, and my Mine and Minefield on the node where I would stand on it. When defending the Altar in Temple of Silent Storm I would place my Minefield on the bridge because the narrow space caused them to clump up which very helpful.

Many opponents were taken by surprise when hit with Electrified Net and an Overcharged Rocket back to back. A lot of players simply fled, but the ones that stayed were fairly easy to manage. I found that focusing my version of your build on the Pistol as the main source of damage, backed by the control of the mines, and turrets, and some vulnerability and cripple stacks worked well. I didn’t feel like I was struggling to dish out enough damage.

Here’s the interesting part. Many of the opponents that fled would come back with a much different approach, making the fight even harder. I had a Mesmer waltz in with Sword and Pistol and get totally destroyed in moments. Then he came back and ranged me down with his staff and shatters. This was very demoralizing, but I figure every build has to have a counter. From my limited experience the hard counters to this build are: Staff Mesmer, Staff Necromancer, Bow (long or short) Ranger, and Hammer Guardian.

These profession builds were just too slippery for me to get a handle on and dealt massive damage that I could not mitigate, and/or they had better control than me.

The random targeting nature of the turrets worked against me often. There are lots of minions (guardian spirit weapons, thieves’ guild, bone fiends, ranger pets, etc.) that would seem to draw many of my turret’s attacks. This was a huge pain in the butt and is by far the biggest downside to running turrets. Also—the 5 minute timer on turrets does hurt. I tried to keep an eye on this, but was taken by surprise quite a few times when my Rocket Turret suddenly blew itself up just as I was being attacked. This change should be reverted for s and t PvP.

I rarely got to use my condition removal from Healing Turret, because as we all know—say it with me—Water Turret is always best when blown up! <sigh> I couldn’t say whether or not Transmute (Alchemy minor trait) was making enough of a difference because it’s so hard to quantify. I did feel better knowing I had some condition protection. I was sorely tempted to drop Alchemy for Inventions and get Cloaking Device (amazing in Xv1 fights) and Reinforced Shield, but I wanted to play as close to your style as possible. I might even swap Protection Injection for Formula 409 since Hidden Flask and Self-regulating Defenses do trigger it.

Highlights:
Throw Mine is highly underrated; having the ability to remove boons helps to level the playing field against certain builds. The knock back was also a life saver at times. Between that and the Sigil of Nullification, my opponents had a harder time keeping boons active allowing me to win fights I think wouldn’t have otherwise.

Accelerant-Packed Turrets gave me the control and damage I needed to finish some very hairy 2v1s, though I still think Rocket Turret needs an even shorter cool down.

Rocket and Net Turret have great synergy. The alternating knockdown and immobilize trivialized some fights to the point of making me feel overpowered (1v1 with no pets of course).

Pistol/Shield is always a joy to run. There is nothing like a well-timed Static Shot, Magnetic Shield, or Static Shield to help turn a fight around.

Cons:
No get out of jail free card. Without a stun breaker I could not come back from being flanked by a warrior with 100 Blades or an ambush by a Thief.

This build really struggles against other ranged opponents. It’s easy to say just close into melee range, but when that means walking into massive shatters, traps and swords, or a few wells I would rather just run away and come back with help. Also, I’m not sure what closing the gap gains us since we have no melee abilities other than making life hard for players who aren’t good at maneuvering.

No ability to reset a fight. Once your turrets are down, the conditions are piled on and you’re below 50% health it is very hard to come back. I found that I had to be extremely pro-active about my defense and healing and keep my health up above 50% at all times.

Bad at dodging? Get ready to eat a stun and get set up for big damage. I felt I was good at timing my Static Shield, and dodging set up moves, but I was pretty much screwed if I was off in my timing.

Thanks for sharing this build. I was interested enough to give it a try and explore the possibilities.

cheers

I enjoyed your video, but I wish I could see a recording of an entire match with this build to see its real viability when Supply Drop isn’t available.

I can answer that to some degree, Phineas. I won’t lie—the Crate really helps and in some fights allowed me to simply stomp people into the floorboards. However, I didn’t feel naked without it. When Supply Drop was on cool down, I had to pay a lot more attention to my positioning and my turrets positioning, and sometimes abuse line of sight to win. Not always, but often.

Looking over your setup on Guildhead: I just can’t imagine running with no stunbreakers on my bar without the help up Power Wrench or Reinforced Shield to help mitigate damage through blocks. I suppose detonating turrets would even-out getting stunlocked, though.

I’ll give it a try tonight though if I can get online.

It’s hard to get used to but you begin to rely more on well timed dodges and Static Shield activation to avoid enemy burst setup.

Hi Grackleflint,

I really appreciate you trying out the build, and thank you for your interest. You pretty much nailed the pros and cons of the build. I’ll go ahead and post what I was running at the time. Right now i’m working on addressing the weak points of the build. So my build will probably be different, as I am working on doing a write up.

The no stun breaker thing was very hard for me to accept, especially when i first began to give this build a go. But like Grackleflint had mentioned, you do begin to adjust and become more aware that YOU DO NOT HAVE A STUN BREAKER. You adjust to this by saving and timing your static shot, shied moves and dodges more. Also kiting around your healing turret and rifle turret if you using it, and are ready to blow them up when needed. You just kind of adjust is all i can really say.

I’m sorry that i haven’t been able to reply more to this thread, life has kept me surprisingly busy these past few days.

have fun and thanks again for all the posts

http://tinyurl.com/cpv4kz9

(copy paste)

The lack of condition removal and a stun breaker is a bit of a problem.

I say a “bit” because it is really easy to trait out of it. Personally on my s/tPVP turret build I run 20/20/20/10/0. It seems a little unfocused until you realize that all of those traits add together to get one mean setup. The big stars in the defensive lineup there is Protection Injection and Automated Medical Response. Projection Injection is an outright awesome defensive trait, turning any engineer into an instant defensive wall whenever the opponent disables them. Automated Medical Response instantly charges up healing turret again, which of course makes it a second AoE Heal + Regen + Interrupt. The healing turret in general will keep regen stacked on the engineer almost permanently.

The big thing about the turret engineer is that their defenses are all active defense. The enemies will be stunned, immobilized, knocked back, and knocked down a whole lot. And during that time-frame, other players aren’t free to use conditions or their own stuns, or even attack the turret engineer. So while it looks like using only turrets leaves a big hole with condition curing and stuns, the fact is the opponent is never free to use them.

I, myself, have always contemplated using pistol+shield and going for more condition damage with a turret build. But, I can never pry myself away from the rifle’s high damage and very available controls in #2 and #4. I guess my turrets just “take the hit” in that department and do less damage from their conditions.

Fairtex.7810:

Hi Grackleflint,

I really appreciate you trying out the build, and thank you for your interest. You pretty much nailed the pros and cons of the build. I’ll go ahead and post what I was running at the time. Right now i’m working on addressing the weak points of the build. So my build will probably be different, as I am working on doing a write up.

The no stun breaker thing was very hard for me to accept, especially when i first began to give this build a go. But like Grackleflint had mentioned, you do begin to adjust and become more aware that YOU DO NOT HAVE A STUN BREAKER. You adjust to this by saving and timing your static shot, shied moves and dodges more. Also kiting around your healing turret and rifle turret if you using it, and are ready to blow them up when needed. You just kind of adjust is all i can really say.

I’m sorry that i haven’t been able to reply more to this thread, life has kept me surprisingly busy these past few days.

have fun and thanks again for all the posts

http://tinyurl.com/cpv4kz9

(copy paste)

I’m surprised (and pleased) that I got really close to your original build. It was a fun challenge to try and figure out what your Traits and gear were. Those are interesting Sigil choices, but I get it—with 20 pts in Explosives and the sigils you get another second out of your Immobilize and your Stun. Pretty handy for sure.

Have you considered combining 4 Rune of the Forge with 2 Rune of Earth for +40% Protection Duration? I’m not sure it worth giving up the 6/6 Rune of the Forge proc but it could be worth testing.

A fight against a minion necro will be hard for you. A fight against a Mesmer would also be hard for you. BUT, the truth is, those people rarely come to the far point, smart teams would send a mesmer though.

Testing turrets in pve a bit, and WvW.

Sad to say they just roll over and die, just like before.
Rocket turret is fun, but more often than not it’s simply killed in seconds unless I have a high edge to drop it on.
Than it lives untill someone sees it… and the cooldown is still annoyingly long for something that is killed so fast.

I tried it out and while not as bad as I originally thought it would be it still is really not great.. against anyone smart enough to kill my rocket turret I just felt like I was fighting an uphill battle where my elixir builds would have prevailed 10x better. Anyway just my 2 cents, but I feel like turrets still need some work their targeting is just so bad that they literally felt worthless against any class with pets/illusions. Glad to see some people can use it decent, but I’ll definatley still be running HGH power or HGH conditions for tourneys.

One thing that I have used in the past to counter the lack of a stunbreak in a turret build is to try to stand near a turret. In this build that is likely to be the healing turret. When that Thief or Warrior stuns you to set up massive spike, you can detonate the turret and knock them back, interrupting their spike and allowing the time for the stun to expire. Not fool proof by any means, but better than no protection at all.

This is also a good trick when reviving, place the turret down and it can protect you and give you that extra second if anyone gets too close.

@Fairtex

I have been running an FT build since forever

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/The-Levitican-FT-Rifle-Support-sPvP-Build/first#post1711094

and I recently made some changes after the patch.

Namely, I have replaced elixir S with the rocket turret, and am now setting my rockets up in similar placements to yours. the added CC from the rocket knockdown is immeasurable, and the extra burn never hurts the FT builds.

I still struggle with more than two opponents, especially more so since I no longer have invuln or safe-stomping, but I find that not having the oh-kitten button makes me more conscious of my surroundings and enemies. That all said though, nothing is more entertaining than watching an unsuspecting foe who has never dealt with turrets before make the slow agonizing run from the front of the cap to the back as my net turret and rifle stop them every few seconds and pelt them with rifle fire while my rockets goes hard, then i blow them back into the middle again with the ft and rinse/repeat.

as with Grackleflint, most intelligent players would return with new strategies, but I still made life difficult for them.

I am having much fun with an FT+2 Turret build now. I have no changed my traits, and i have always used 6pc forge runes like you.

Just wanted to give an update, I have still been running turrets for the past few days with some minor changes to the builds posted. The biggest change I made and have had great success with is using the bombkit, with the sheer amount of knockdowns, and immobilzes it meshes very well with the bombkit, plus the condition damage works great with bombkit as well. As with all the other builds you lack a stunbreaker and hurt for condition removal, but honestly I have had more issues with condition removal than a stunbreaker as you can just explode your healing turret for a nice knockback. I by no means think this build is perfect, but I’ve been having moderate success with it.

I’m sure it could use some tweaks for min/maxing. I feel sigil of geomancy really does well with this build to as your near your opponent when you change to bombkit. The second sigil could go either way, but I’ve just been running it with corruption. Anyway heres the build I’ve been running feel free to try it out and let me know what you think.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqelIq6ZntSXF1LJRoCFGki8uXRF0/nHylupF;ToAgyCuoAzAmAMLYOwkgN8YuA

Cheers,

Zaragoz

@ nakoda

I’m glad your having success with the FT, i’ve always like the idea of FT but i could never make it work. And there really is nothing more entertaining than watching someone stroll in for the first time! Going off of something you said, when they come back for a second time, they know what to expect. Our best response would be too change things up. Our only ways of doing that are either 1) not putting down turrets untill engaged in combat (2 traiting for deployable turrets. The latter i’ve been really considering.

Also, Forge runes are in my opinion the best for homepoint bunking for this build. The 60 sec CD doesn’t work against you. plus you can count on at least 10 seconds of protection, to make up for the lack on toughness. Protective Shield and Protective Injection, you get really good protection uptime. With 20 into explosives (maybe 15?) + Forge runes gives you perma burn from your rockets.

@Zaragoz

I’ve considered bombkit as well. For homepoint bunking it really makes sense. 30 bob would be the biggest selling point for me. Plus, you’d get to use a good swap sigil.

Now, i’ll say why i ended up choosing mine over bombkit. 18 sec cd, boon removal, ability to place it, and unlike BoB, you can either detonate it or its proximity. BoB is on a timer and gives a big red circle. Mines is not. Mine works against melee trying to set up bursts. Thieves especially. After trying other things, I ultimately miss my mines the most and i feel very vulnerable without it.

Like GrackleFlint has said, its extremely underrated

While trying to deal with the problem against ranged opponents, I’ve really considered running toolkit mainly for magnet pull. Pull them in range of your turrets after you have overcharged them would be a tactic i would use. You would have 3 blocks, a nice source confusion, and another cripple and bleed. But boy would i miss my mine.

I would be interested to hear everyone’s take on this. Or what other ideas you’ve had.

ShaunZ.1098:

My confusion stems from the fact that the enemy players just run around and let you and your turrets pepper them. I’m not saying I don’t like playing a turret build, but the opponents in the video were as bad, if not worse, than npcs.

Is it just me?

As of right now, turrets just don’t rate that high of a threat for people. As more people start to take advantage of the turret buff’s people will get used to it and start reacting to them. Though honestly, having people to take time to kill turrets is what you want. Particularly if your running that turrets explode trait.

Spvping with a bunch of guildies, I listened to a guy in mumble that was completely baffled as to what was binding him. He didn’t even think about the net turret.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Looking over your setup on Guildhead: I just can’t imagine running with no stunbreakers on my bar without the help up Power Wrench or Reinforced Shield to help mitigate damage through blocks. I suppose detonating turrets would even-out getting stunlocked, though.

I’ll give it a try tonight though if I can get online.

Yeh, this.

I think the turret situation would be served by healing turret having a trait that causes them to remove immobilize/stuns every x amount of seconds.

I have tried a pure turret build, and the only weakness I found is that I can’t move for the life of me if I get hit by that rangers 20 sec immobilize skill if I am using pistols with it. I started using a rifle instead for its cc breaker and it also has worked quite well.

Thats why you can never make a build that relies on turrets too much. Meaning, your only hurting yourself if you trait too far into turrets. Its obviously more important that you stay alive longer than your turrets.

what initially sparked my interest in turrets happened when i had a tourney queue pop while i was in hot join messing around with turrets on my HGH build. I forgot to change back to my elixers before the map changed. After that match i began to mess around with condition turrets. Running conditions makes so much sense because you can still put on decent weapon damage plus the support damage from your turrets.

After that one 2v1 at the end of the video, i talked with the ele and he/she said the hardest thing about that fight was the net turret. “it owned us” were their words. I’m glad they increased hp by 25% last patch.

On a side not, i’ve downed so many people while in downstate myself, just from my turrets alone. You can also revive very efficiently with accelerant-packed turrets. Even more so with deployable turrets.

timidobserver.7925:

Though honestly, having people to take time to kill turrets is what you want. Particularly if your running that turrets explode trait.

Do we really?
I understand what you are saying, but have you ever taken the time to see how long it takes to kill a turret?
We are taking 2 or 3 hits from a low damage build here. Targeting them is half the trouble.

As for the exploding: only if they melee it…

You have a point, not aying you don’t.
But I do like to stress how this points at one of their big weaknesses: they die like nothing, they did before and they still do.
Thumper Turret is the only one being a bit tougher. They should ALL be like that at least.

And you know what is a great way to nullify a turret without even hitting it?
Having a pet, or a clone, or anything that is targetable.
As long as turrets don’t take targets, they are not a threat to anyone running any kind of pet.
At best your pet stops their pet… but that is not what you want.
Turret overcharges have such long cooldowns that you want them to hit the player, ALWAYS.

Totally agree with you Kimbald, after playing 30+ tournaments on the build I posted this weekend, I cannot tell you how I cringed when seeing a necro, ranger or mesmer heading to my point. It was like my turrets just didn’t really help me at all, the net turret would immobilize a clone or pet then my rocket turret would waste overcharge on another one, it was a complete nightmare. All the while the player is just melting me because my cc was wasted on stupid npcs.

With that being said however there were fights I had against warriors, guardians, engineers and thieves where they would be COMPLETELY locked down and unable to do anything at all… I actually had a couple people message me asking how I did it lol. And I did okay against some mesmers, necros, and rangers as well, although I lend that to the fact that they were unsure of how to deal with me and got trapped in some decent cc chains, although against those classes I pretty much had to drop supply crate to even stand a chance.

Overall turrets are just way to squishy for the type of cooldown they currently have. Rocket turret for example has a 50 second cooldown after it dies, and let me tell you even if you spec for the 30% increased life it still dies really fast to anyone who can target it, and there we sit for 45 seconds without a utility. I would like to see them add something to help deal with either the cooldowns or maybe an increased health buff, at the very least rework it so that the countdown timer works in a different way so we can actually pick up and move without having such a long cooldown.

Bit sad, because on paper the combo of net turret and rocket turret is just awesome fun.
It still is, but only if they don’t have pets… and have trouble targeting your rocket turret (net is always very near you or them…)

And 50 seconds on the rocket turret still… seriously devs?

I keep coming back to the rifle:

Pros:
*Jump Shot: Hits like a truck and is very easy to land against a stunned/immobilized opponent.
*Overcharged Shot: Clears immobilized, crippled, and chilled which is fantastic in a build that gives up condition removal. It can also get people off the point or launch them into your turret farm—whichever is more appropriate at the time.
*Blunderbuss: Hits hard and benefits from condition damage. This is a bunker style build and people will get up in your face. It will also has a great AOE cone that’s good for crowded control points.
*Net Shot: More immobilize!
*Hip Shot: Pierces which is useful in team fights.

Cons:
*Doesn’t make as much use of +condition damage as the pistol, or dual pistols.
*One sigil option, but with our limited options in this build (no on-swap sigils) it’s not a huge downside.
*Less defense than Pistol/Shield.

I think if you find yourself going deeper into Firearms or Explosives you can get good results with the rifle and turrets. A setup like this might do well:

http://preview.tinyurl.com/d522ur8

(remember to copy and paste the link in a new browser window)

This build is untested, but I feel that it could do well. It might be a good entry point for someone who favors the rifle, but is also interested in turrets. The trait allocation and sigil are to help reach +50% to burning duration (with Runes of the Forge as well) to get an extra tick out of each of our burning effects. The Soldier’s Jewel in the Carrion Amulet is for some extra power to compliment the Rifle.

I’m bringing this topic to the front page one last time because I think there is still some more build exploration to be done. Does anyone have a twist on a Turret build they want to share?

I still have not found a turret build I like any better than the bomb variation that I linked, I feel it just puts the condition damage over the top which leads to the best point control. With that being said I also think turrets are still by and far inferior to either HGH conditions or HGH power rifle/grenades. You lack condition removal, a guaranteed stomp, or any form of true burst mitigation, sure you can blowup a turret but its still no 3 second invulnerability, plus due to the poor targeting of the turrets you will lose some fights against mesmers, rangers, and necromancers that you would otherwise win.

Can it work? Yes. Is it among our best options? No.

So, no. Got it. Could have saved yourself some typing.