Guild Wars 2

We should use this thread to discuss the issues of Turrets for Engineers and maybe get the dev’s some attention to these issues so we can get some answers.

I have played an Engineer since the first ever beta event. I fell in love the day I logged on the Guild Wars 2 site to find that Charr Engineer all pretty and gold on the page. From that point on I knew that Engineers would be my thing.

I love different play styles in the game and how easy it is to switch out skills and builds. But by far my favorite play style is turrets and it’s the only build I like to run. (I love dual pistol conditioner, but I strongly hate lobbing grenades. And I don’t think you need either of these builds to be truly “viable”. Viability comes down to the player). That said I think there are a couple issues with Turrets, and scouring through the forums, we all know that Turrets feel like the elephants of our class.

Some recommendations are:

1. Turret scaling for power: I realize that they scale with condition damage, but considering we have a flame turret, overcharged rocket, and overcharged riffle turret that applies conditions, that’s 3 conditions that are included: Blind, Bleed and Burn. That’s a great addition to turrets, but judging from what I see, I think it would be beneficial that they benefit from power.

2. Turret aggro: Enemy aggro for turrets should be tuned down a lot. There’s nothing more frustrating then having an enemy (cough boss cough) be able to one shot your turret, purposely. If there are other players attacking the enemy, the boss shouldn’t charge to a poor little turret.

3. Turret cool down: I think if turrets are destroyed or picked up early, their cool down should be reduced by a percentage based on how long the turret was active for. There will still be a cool down, but it will be more beneficial and flexible.

4. Turrets and AoE: I think it should be a baseline effect that at least in PvE, turrets take 90% less damage from enemy AoE abilities. There’s nothing more frustrating then having all your turrets be destroyed instantly.

5. Turrets and the relationship with the Toolkit: I absolutely love the idea of the Toolkit. I’m actively watching my Turrets and guarding them from enemies that do attack them, all while healing them with my wrench. However I find it’s an issue with the fact that the Toolkit uses up a utility slot that can be replaced with another turret. If you are an engineer maximizing a turret build, there’s a 90% change you have that Toolkit. I think that the Engineers should have access to a new weapon: the 1h Mace. With a 1H mace, the wrench functionality can be re rolled into a Mace + Shield combo. This is not a huge issue for some people, but I know some find the Toolkit as a negative utility slot that can be replaced with a turret. I wouldn’t know the best way to go about it but I’m sure that people can come up with some sort of solution. The truth is though I love the Toolkit and would be sad to see it go at the same time.

The reality is these are some QoL changes, and also some balance changes. I think this is really important and should be addressed for players who love the turret play style and optimize their builds for that role. Part of the reasons I mentioned above are reasons why there are so many players overlooking the beauty of turrets.

So what do you guys think. Is there anything else that you can think of? Try to leave everything constructive, with reasons based on your experience and plausible solutions to make this easier for the devs, no QQ.

I wouldn’t want to see the Toolkit go, either. XD I use every ability it has, and shoving it onto a Mace instead would mean losing at least one of its abilities, and losing the “stagger” you get from having both a shield and the Toolkit.

As far as turret suggestions go, my absolute favorite was having turrets increase dramatically in power based on their health percentage, with them spawning at low health (about the amount of health they have now, basically). Such an approach would…

-Make them more durable due to their higher health pool.
-Give them a true “area denial” role.
-Improve synergy with the Tool Kit.
-Give Autotool Installation a more prominent effect, particularly when combined with Deployable Turrets.
-Prevent the turrets from being immediately powerful, solidifying them as a “setup required” ability type that is truly unique to Guild Wars 2, while still having a viable role in plenty of content throughout the game.

Their range is short enough that people can still combat an Engineer in the PvP modes, especially given that the Engineer is giving up a Utility Slot for each turret he has set up. Engineers are thus left with only their weapons to combat attackers; not terribly potent at long range, as most Engineers know, and not effective enough overall to stand on their own, without extra Utility abilities. This is most certainly an acceptable tradeoff.

This is very cleary from a PVE opinion. Turrets counter play in spvp is that ae hits them, i had another suggestion that probably wont be popular but figure i’ll throw it out.

To start turrets have increased stats and attack rate and scale appropriately off all stats (like gaurdian pets do).

Now, heres the catch. They are on duration. You drop them, they will not stay forever, infact everytime they attack they lose health. HOWEVER you can keep them out longer (or indefinitly) through using the tool kit to heal them.

Also since they eventually blow up anyway, there is no reason to turn the toolbelt skill into detonating your turret, this could allow the current toolbelt skills that go with each turret to always be accessible whether the turret is alive or dead.

One clear issue is the inability to move them around coupled with long cooldowns.
On one hand, because they’re so freakin’ fragile I don’t think they even need long cooldowns.
But assuming the devs want it that way and would rather make them just not die so easily, I think a good way to repair the massive immobility issue would be to make it so that, when you pick them up, one of two things happens. I don’t know which would be easier/better.
Either you could just ACTUALLY pick it up like a bundle and move it somewhere else, or they could make it so that the cooldown is reduced by the percent of health remaining on it.
Full health, no cooldown. Half health, half cooldown etc.

Grimwolf.7163:

Full health, no cooldown. Half health, half cooldown etc.

Came here to suggest something similar. This would solve all the mobility issues. When you pick up a turret, you should be able to instantly place it down. The longer you keep it stowed away, the more health it regenerates. The cooldown is instant, but the health regen is not. If your turret is at 25% health, and you pick it up and put it back down 50% of its detonate cooldown later, it’ll be at 75% health. This would increase mobility and incentivize using the tool kit to heal turrets.

Zinwrath.2049:

This is very cleary from a PVE opinion. Turrets counter play in spvp is that ae hits them, i had another suggestion that probably wont be popular but figure i’ll throw it out.

To start turrets have increased stats and attack rate and scale appropriately off all stats (like gaurdian pets do).

Now, heres the catch. They are on duration. You drop them, they will not stay forever, infact everytime they attack they lose health. HOWEVER you can keep them out longer (or indefinitly) through using the tool kit to heal them.

Also since they eventually blow up anyway, there is no reason to turn the toolbelt skill into detonating your turret, this could allow the current toolbelt skills that go with each turret to always be accessible whether the turret is alive or dead.

Yea, this is for sure from a PvE perspective. I love using turrets in PVP as I find some players ignore them…

• Turrets have low hp and very high toughness, reason mobs love to eat them
• Cannot increase toughness or make them take less damage because in PvE people would just let it tank everything.. and if increased by a little.. it wouldn’t make a different
• Cannot scale properly with damage because its AI controlled, in sPvP it would become a huge problem since engineers would just let them melt people while they
  dodge.

these 2 reasons, are the reasons given to the ranger forum as why their pets are so unbalance, and if yo think about it.. they apply to turrets and anything AI controlled, and its easy to understand why. The only solution is if they nerfed turrents to make them more utility oriented.. like;

• Net turret, no damage but snare is amazing
• Healing turret, stalls cd on heal but AoE Regen is the best!

possible solutions

• Flame turret..same, but instant smoke field with a larger radius
• Thumper Turret: Really high HP/Armor to attract (ball mobs) quick before it dies, and skill pulls up to 5 enemies on a 600-900 range
  *rifle..idk
  *rocket.. idk
  *Finally, either;
• Picking up turrets affect their recharge depending on the turrets hp! 83% recharges 83% faster
• Turrets act like banners.. both the way its transported around and duration before disappearing, no additional skills are needed except maybe Set up or Drop Turret