Guild Wars 2

I’ve been playing increasingly with turrets. I don’t think they are as bad or useless as many say, but they do need help. Here are my observations:

Turrets are decent damage and used constructively are viable in PVE and WvW. WvW absolutely requires deployable turrets to be used viably. Turrets have several advantages such as being able to be placed on walls and thrown from the top of walls down without the need for LOS. Considering their frailty this is fair and easily counterable. Accelerant Packed Turrets makes this turn into improvised AOE when used on zergs many times.

However, Turret heath is a little bit too low and the cooldown on specific turrets is too high. Additionally they target the closest target so they will be on poor targets many times. This is the greatest weakness of turrets, they are flat out unreliable. If you knew they would live for at least 10 seconds on average they would be worth the cost, but they many times will not live that long in high end PVE and in WvW.

Turrets do not scale with Player stats with the exception of condition damage. The base damages of the turrets are currently pretty good considering what they could do if they were reliable, extra condition damage makes a few of them hurt pretty badly. Turrets cannot crit and cannot be healed outside of specific means. Again this is a tradeoff and if they worked reliably it would be fine.

Changes I believe that Turrets need:

Overall Changes:

Add a 20% cooldown reduction to all turrets on the Trait “Metal Plating”

Turret Build DPS isn’t even equivalent to alot of more reliable, more versatile, and more survivable builds. This change will help turrets be a little more reliable and combined with the HP change will give people a reason to grab this trait. Currently turrets die fast enough most times it doesn’t make much of a difference.

About 30% more health across the board. Turrets need a bit more survivability to do their job. Not too much, but enough to take a few hits. I included an additional number with their Effective HP after gaining the Metal Plating Trait. The Metal Plating Trait reduces the damage turrets take by 30%.

Without the Metal Plating Trait the damage mitigation of turrets is pretty negligable. I just tested a direct comparison against raptors in WvW for 10 minutes or so. I tested with my engineer built reasonably durable, each turret, and then retested with my sheer glass cannon Staff Elementalist. I’m only including the Ele numbers because it shows the situation very clearly.

Average damage Glass Elementalist recieved with 2,200 armor = 1,300 per hit
Average damage Glass Elementalist received naked = 2,600 per hit
Average damage turrets received = 2,000 per hit
Average damage Thumper Turret received = 1,600 per hit

So Turrets have next to zero mitigation. After additional testing with various stages of partially naked (ooh la la!!) I discovered:

Turrets mitigation is equal to 1,300 armor.
Thumper Turret mitigation is equal to 1,600 armor.
Glass Elementalist = 2,050 Armor. (For reference)

Current Values (With Metal Plating Trait):
Thumper Turret: 11,950 (x1.3 = 15,535 EHP)
Flame Turret: 8,960 (x1.3 = 11,648 EHP)
Rifle Turret: 7,470 (x1.3 = 9,711 EHP)
Net Turret: 7,470 (x1.3 = 9,711 EHP)
Rocket Turret: 7,470 (x1.3 = 9,711 EHP)
Healing Turret: 5980 (x1.3 = 7774 EHP)
Glass Elementalist: 12k (15k EHP) again for reference.

When a glass Elementalist is much MUCH more survivable AND can heal and move, you can see why turrets don’t survive at all currently. I think everyone knows exactly how squishy a glass staff ele is.

Suggested Values (With Metal Plating Trait):
Thumper Turret: 15,535 (x1.3 = 20,195 EHP)
Flame Turret: 11,648 (x1.3 15,145= EHP)
Rifle Turret: 9,711 (x1.3 = 12,625 EHP)
Net Turret: 9,711 (x1.3 = 12,625 EHP)
Rocket Turret: 9,711 (x1.3 = 12,625 EHP)
Healing Turret: 7774 (x1.3 10,105 = EHP)

Suggested Individual Changes to turrets:

Rifle Turret: An overall pretty decent turret, it’s nice when it’s overcharged but outside of overcharge it’s pretty negligible unless it blows up on someone. That should be fixed. The cooldown of both the toolbelt skill Surprise Shot and turret feel right.

Add a 2 second bleed to the rifle turret when not overcharged

The base attack of the turret is a pathetic and ignorable. 476 damage sounds good until you realize it cannot be increased by stats or buffs and cannot crit. A 2 second bleed would help make it not quite as terrible and provide additional viability for condition damage builds.

Make base attack pierce like overcharge shots do

The overcharge Rifle Turret shots pierce but the base attacks do not. Even with the bleed addition adding this to match the overcharge shots in theme wouldn’t imbalance anything with the base attacks still lowish damage and would be a nice boost to the rifle turret. It also makes the overcharge match the original shot thematically.

Add a 2 second bleed to surprise shot:

The additional damage is ok and it’s instant, but if your turret is down your DPS is also going to be down considerably. 2 second bleed would help this a little bit as well as add additional viability for condition damage builds.

Flame Turret: No changes.

The Flame Turret is in a good spot. It does pretty good condition damage, has a nice overcharge active that is very useful (especially with deployable turrets and accelerant packed turrets!!), the recharge is well balanced, and even the toolbelt skill is both useful and well balanced.

Rocket Turret:

An overall good turret hampered by excessive recharge. Rocket Turret has nice range, pretty decent damage thats a combination of direct and burning, and a useful overcharge. It’s toolbelt skill is a decent moderate damage pop as well. But recharge kills everything.

Reduce the recharge on both the turret and the toolbelt skill from 50 seconds to 40 seconds.

Seriously the recharge on this is way too much, even with the changed I suggested to Metal Plated Turrets it’s excessive. This results in Rocket Turret being down the vast majority of the time.

Add 3 seconds of burning to Toolbelt skill “Rocket”.

This just fits with the other rocket attacks and if the turret is down our DPS is down significantly. I see no harm in giving it a little boost with it’s longer recharge.

Either fix the tooltip of give these actual AOE’s

I can understand the current recharges if rockets actually did AOE damage. They do not. Neither your turret nor tool belt skill does AOE yet it claims that it does AOE in a 240 radius. Please amend the tooltip or give it the AOE.

Personally I think with the changes I have mentioned the turret will be balanced for single target, so the tooltip can just be modified.

Net Turret No changes

A situation-ally powerful turret that is also in the supply crate. Net Turret is a solid all around turret that needs nothing to be viable. Likewise the toolbelt skill is well balanced when combined with the turret. The HP changes and cooldown changes won’t even improve it’s viability much due to the nature of it’s use, but that’s ok because it is already solid.

Thumper Turret:

A fairly solid turret with a high cooldown and only achieves it’s potential by being in a situation most certainly fatal to it. It’s tougher than other turrets currently, but that’s not saying too much because it still gets killed pretty quickly by multiple enemies and there isn’t any reason to use it outside of multiple enemies. It has decent damage with a nice attatched cripple, but next to zero range. It has a very nice overcharge, but a fair sized delay on applying it.

It needs a little help in making it useful for what it is intended for….taking a little damage and dealing decent AOE damage with a useful cripple. Surviving long enough to do it’s job is key, and the HP change is almost enough. The toolbelt skill is nice though.

Change cooldown to 40 seconds

Because this turret needs to be placed directly in harms way against multiple people or mobs it should be expected to die alot faster, even with the added health and armor. You cannot offset this with good placement like other turrets. With that in mind the cooldown needs to be lesser so you are not always left on cooldown and this turret can do it’s job.

Increase the armor on the turret to 2,000 from it’s current 1,600

Essentially this turret needs that extra touch of survivability on top of the extra health and metal plating. Considering that the turret doesn’t have the expected survivability of many other pets that can be buffed, healed, and move, I think this is fair. If anyone is worried that an engineer could make the turret “immortal” by using a tool kit to support it remember that the engineer just gave up 2 utility skills and countless trait points to make this turret less tough than a Ranger bear pet. And it’s immobile and cannot be buffed or crit.

Make the overcharge more responsive

This overcharge seems to happen on the next attack, it should override and happen immediately. 3 second delay can really wreck the usefulness of it.

Wrapping up!
I think this should be enough to make turrets alot more competitive. They still won’t have the damage of some other builds, but they will at least be alot more reliable. Leave feedback, comments, and opinions please.

Indeed, reliability is key. I would prefer more control over turrets, or at least their AI changed so that it always targets the enemy currently selected by the engineer (or at least react to Ctrl+select targeting), and doesnt attack unless the engineer is already in battle with that enemy.

Overcharge abilites need to trigger immedietly on command. When i press the overcharge on healing turret, i need that three stacks of conditions removed NOW, not 3 seconds later. When i want to overcharge my thumper, i want it work its magic when the mob is right around it, not after they ganged up on me outside of its range 2 seconds later.

I guess the basic idea behind the turrets original survivability was that they cant be critted and cant suffer conditions. (On the other hand, they cannot crit, cannot be buffed or healed without sacrificing yet another utility slot. And even with the Tool kit, its healing is pathetic.) That would be well and good if not 80% of all direct damage abilities and skills would have AoE. Nasty, nasty AoE. On unmoveble turrets. In GW2, (one of the) the most dynamic and movement based game. At least give them some turret-specific Retaliation with a trait or something!

Nice post, I can easily see all these changes being added. Mainly because I think some of them are still a little too weak. Which is a good thing, you balance little steps at a time, if you take large steps you just end up overshooting the mark (which is almost always the case when nerfs come around).

Healing Turret, Still needs to be changed so having it deployed is a better option than Placing It→Overcharge→Pickup/Denote. There going to have to break down and change it from adding regen to direct healing pulses that adds regen on overcharge. That way the combination of the overcharge’s regen and the turrets pulses will be enough that you want to keep it deployed.
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Iv started playing a ranger, and iv notice that my pet will always go after the target im attacking, even if I change targets while the first is still alive, the pet will immediately change to my new target . Unless I order it to attack a target then it will stay on that target until it dies.
Our turrets should always try to do the same, attack what we are attacking unless they are unable.
Devil’s Advocate Mode: I have to assume anet tried this already and it causes problems, most likely the turrets going idle until our target comes within range even if other targets are within range.

give turrets 30% damage reduct and replace the trait for deployable turret

lower rocket turret and Rocket tool belt cooldowns to 40

lower thumper turret’s cooldown to 30

add rifle turret to supply crate and remove the trait thats adds it to supply crate

bam everything works on a single traitline now and is somewhat viable.

lakdav.3694:

At least give them some turret-specific Retaliation with a trait or something!

On one hand a trait like that sounds like a pretty cool idea, it would punish those who use aoe attacks and force them to think twice about using it. On the other hand that also sounds like free ret for thieves.

Rezzet.3614:

give turrets 30% damage reduct and replace the trait for deployable turret

lower rocket turret and Rocket tool belt cooldowns to 40

lower thumper turret’s cooldown to 30

add rifle turret to supply crate and remove the trait thats adds it to supply crate

bam everything works on a single traitline now and is somewhat viable.[/quote]

I see you didn’t read. While I appreciate your support you should read before commenting, Supply Crate is really good already, everything else is dealt with as part of my changes and then some.

XelNigma.6315:

Healing Turret, Still needs to be changed so having it deployed is a better option than Placing It->Overcharge->Pickup/Denote. There going to have to break down and change it from adding regen to direct healing pulses that adds regen on overcharge. That way the combination of the overcharge’s regen and the turrets pulses will be enough that you want to keep it deployed.

While I want to agree, this is only from the perspective of a solo player. Truthfully in a combat situation in WvW leaving it deployed and you free to continue fighting is very helpful. The current situation makes healing turret useful in both ways and I see no problem with it.

Especially since any stronger and the healing turret will be too good.

I’ve started playing a ranger, and iv notice that my pet will always go after the target im attacking, even if I change targets while the first is still alive, the pet will immediately change to my new target . Unless I order it to attack a target then it will stay on that target until it dies.

Our turrets should always try to do the same, attack what we are attacking unless they are unable.

Aside from the additional server strain and the possible coding issues you mentioned this limitation also leaves for room to make them a bit stronger than normal. Currently they are effective enough if you made them reliable and survivable with good placement. Good placement SHOULD be rewarded.

lakdav.3694:

Indeed, reliability is key. I would prefer more control over turrets, or at least their AI changed so that it always targets the enemy currently selected by the engineer (or at least react to Ctrl+select targeting), and doesnt attack unless the engineer is already in battle with that enemy.

That change is both an advantage and a disadvantage. I like the fire and forget mode they have currently. With proper placement you can get them to target what you wish most of the time, that works well enough for me if we can get them reliable and survivable.

Overcharge abilites need to trigger immedietly on command. When i press the overcharge on healing turret, i need that three stacks of conditions removed NOW, not 3 seconds later. When i want to overcharge my thumper, i want it work its magic when the mob is right around it, not after they ganged up on me outside of its range 2 seconds later.

Agreed the thumper turret needs a more responsive active. I’ll add that. Healing turret however activates pretty quickly so I will disagree at the need for that change.

I am playing with turrets now on WvW.

The MAJOR problem is the CD. If you throw a Rocket Turret in a battle, but the battle move a little this brake you hard. ;p

I am using the flame turret a lot because of the low CD and the Rocket I need to think a lot because the high CD and if It die fast(for ACs basically evaporate in 2 seconds), you can only cry.

HeliaXDemoN.1208:

I am playing with turrets now on WvW.

The MAJOR problem is the CD. If you throw a Rocket Turret in a battle, but the battle move a little this brake you hard. ;p

I am using the flame turret a lot because of the low CD and the Rocket I need to think a lot because the high CD and if It die fast(for ACs basically evaporate in 2 seconds), you can only cry.

Look at what I suggested for rocket turret lol. My suggestion was to lower it’s CD to 40 second from 50. The Trait Metal Plating (Turrets take 30% reduced damage), I suggested that a 20% turret CD reduction be placed on that in addition to the reduced damage.

You silly no reading peoples. It’s like I’ve been listening to the community or something.

For me the emphasis would be on these:

- turrets AI is simply awkward. Targeting closest enemy is silly on a 1200 range Rocket Turret.
I want the turret to target MY target in the first place.

Order of attack:
1. my target
2. if I have no target: player attacking me
3. if no target and no player attacking: npc attacking me
4. if none of the above: wait till one applies.

- another thing is hat I think Accelerant Packed Turrets should be standard behaviour for every turret being detonated or destroyed. The knockback should always be there.

If that trait is given baseline, we can free up some trait points and choices in a full turret build.
It would also make turrets more usefull for other builds.

They can remove the 1200 damage if they want, it’s the knockback that makes the trait good.

I tried reading it all, but I didn’t see the baseline changes I would make like the targeting issue.
You mention it but I didn’t see a suggestion on changing it.

If you go the route of condition damage for all turrets, you narrow their use down to certain builds.
Like the suggestion of adding a bleed to the standard riffle turret attack.

I would simply say: let turrets scale on power too!
That way everybody can make the best of them in any build they choose.

My rocket turret should scale on power if I use it in a full power build. So should a rifle turret.

I realise this goes against standard pet scaling in this game. But turrets have several flaws that other pets don’t have, movement being the most visual one.
So giving turrets a different scaling system than other pets isn’t all that overpowered.

On the survivability I don’t think the suggestions will help all that much.
It’s good they would get some vitality added, but it’s not going to save them I’m afraid.

First of all, and simplest: toughness. Scaling or baseline, but they need a lot of it.

A better option would be to make turrets immune to any attack that is not targeting them directly.
They are supposed to be a hinderance to the enemy. In order to do that they need to stay alive untill directly destroyed.

Funny fact: in the State of the Game the devs actually discussed turrets as if they worked this way.
They don’t… Turrets die in any aoe in seconds. A few k more health won’t make them last longer in there.

This touches upon a weird way of how turrets work:
turrets die fast if we put them near us.
Deployable turrets is the best mechanic we have to keep them alive.
But turrets target wrong targets if we put them far, making deployable turrets counter-productive.
Most turrets also have very short range.
Turrets can be healed with Tool Kit, but tool kit is melee range so the turret needs to be right at you.

So instead of being forced to use deployable turrets t keep your turret alive, I would rather be able to use them up close and still know they can survive the damage.

Kimbald.2697:

Turret AI stuff

Coding the turrets to smartly attack the right thing while being immobile would be both difficult for the programmers and difficult for the players to use properly as well. It would also require them to rework their AI completely. Currently with good placement you can get consistent damage out of your turrets in large battles and you can hit the people you want in small battles.

Yes, sometimes they will go for pets or NPC’s sometimes. But this can be largely overcome with good placement. Also, this can be used as a balancing factor to have a bit stronger turrets than you could have with proper AI.

If you want turret fixes sometime quicker than 3-6 months, letting the AI stay as it is would be the way to go. They still don’t even have Ranger pet AI working properly as the pets actually STOP to attack and so have issuekittenting moving targets. But similarly that is part of why the pets still do as much damage as they do.

Kimbald.2697:

On the survivability I don’t think the suggestions will help all that much.
It’s good they would get some vitality added, but it’s not going to save them I’m afraid.

First of all, and simplest: toughness. Scaling or baseline, but they need a lot of it.

A better option would be to make turrets immune to any attack that is not targeting them directly.
They are supposed to be a hinderance to the enemy. In order to do that they need to stay alive untill directly destroyed.

Funny fact: in the State of the Game the devs actually discussed turrets as if they worked this way.
They don’t… Turrets die in any aoe in seconds. A few k more health won’t make them last longer in there.

This touches upon a weird way of how turrets work:
turrets die fast if we put them near us.
Deployable turrets is the best mechanic we have to keep them alive.
But turrets target wrong targets if we put them far, making deployable turrets counter-productive.
Most turrets also have very short range.
Turrets can be healed with Tool Kit, but tool kit is melee range so the turret needs to be right at you.

So instead of being forced to use deployable turrets t keep your turret alive, I would rather be able to use them up close and still know they can survive the damage.

This is why my suggestion is both increasing the health of turrets by a fair amount as well as decreasing cooldowns across the board via the trait Metal Plating. I also decreased the cooldown of specific turrets baseline.

Current cooldowns:

Rifle Turret: 20 seconds
Flame Turret: 25 seconds
Net Turret: 30 seconds
Thumper Turret: 50 seconds
Rocket Turret: 50 seconds (50 second toolbelt skill recharge)

Cooldowns with my suggestions while using Metal Plating Trait:

Rifle Turret: 16 seconds
Flame Turret: 20 seconds
Net Turret: 24 seconds
Thumper Turret: 32 seconds
Rocket Turret: 32 seconds (40 second toolbelt skill recharge)

The 30 secondish window leaves rocket turret and thumper turret on cooldown when they die, but 30 seconds is a much more manageable cooldown than 50 seconds. Combine these recharges with the reduction on picking them up and you’ve got nice recharges for turrets that live.

Also take a second look at the thumper turret section. I’ve separated the cooldown and the armor buff. I really want that thing alot tougher so you can actually use it how it’s intended to be used. But it’s the only turret that specifically needs the additional armor specifically.

As a side note the toolbelt skill throw wrench heals turrets I believe. Also the range of turrets is actually improved with a trait, rifled turrets.

Kimbald.2697:

If you go the route of condition damage for all turrets, you narrow their use down to certain builds.
Like the suggestion of adding a bleed to the standard riffle turret attack.

I would simply say: let turrets scale on power too!
That way everybody can make the best of them in any build they choose.

My rocket turret should scale on power if I use it in a full power build. So should a rifle turret.

I realise this goes against standard pet scaling in this game. But turrets have several flaws that other pets don’t have, movement being the most visual one.
So giving turrets a different scaling system than other pets isn’t all that overpowered.

Letting the power not scale allows their base damage to be higher. This allows you to build alot more bunker and still get more mileage out of the turrets. Scaling on power would be both an advantage and a disadvantage at the same time for builds. While it would help power builds, alot of other builds would lose out.

I wouldn’t be specifically opposed to power scaling, but it changes the way they have it now and it’s a trade-off, not an advantage. As well the damage on some things might have to be lowered in that case, power/condition gear and current turrets would do quite alot of damage currently without changing their baseline damage to be lower. Currently their baseline damage is actually pretty decent or even good, with the exception of the rifle turret normal attacks. (hence the boost)

Adding bleed on the base turret attack and toolbelt skill is just there to increase the damage by around 20% on the baseline, while still allowing condition builds to get their mileage out of turrets. The turret already has a bleeding attack on the overcharge, I figured it just fit to give it the bleeding on the normal attack.

Made a couple edits.

Thumper Turret edit:

After more thinking and testing I separated the baseline cooldown reduction and additional armor into two separate points. I didn’t want to overdo it before, but considering the practical use of thumper turrets I do not think it’s overpowered by any means to have both the cooldown and the added armor on top of the health. They will still be getting hit by multiple targets and are completely immobile, and have very short range.

Very strong in open world PVE perhaps, but in sPVP, dungeons, and WvW they will still melt or be utterly avoided.

Rifle Turret edit:

I remembered that the overcharge actually makes Rifle Turrets shots pierce. I added the suggestion to give this piercing to the Rifle Turrets base attacks in addition to the other changes. With the still lowish damage of these attacks, AI controlling the shots, and extremely thin line of piercing this shouldn’t imbalance anything, but should make for a nice bonus that fits the overcharge better.

small remarks:

1. Throw wrench indeed heals the turret, on both passes. But you throw it at the enemy, not in the direction of a safely placed turret. In the end it does nothing to heal your turret if you placed it somewhere strategically.
And if that heal is the only one you can give your turret… it won’t keep it alive anyhow.

2. The devs need to chose: either turrets are disposable and have low cooldowns (your suggestions) or turrets are durable and stay out for longer periods during the fight (their version on State of the Game).

For your version smaller fixes would suffice, but sadly they mentioned leaving them out yet they didn’t go all the way on the consequences that choice brings.

I don’t believe in a halfbaked mix. Either durable, a LOT more durable, or make them more disposable with a much shorter cooldown.

Not just thumper turret. If rocket turret does not get a better AI, or get better survivability, that 1200 range is always a waste.
And that range is part of the reason it has such a long cooldown.

3. Rifle turret could do with a condition that fits it better than bleed, like vulnerability for example.
If it stacks vulnerability at a decent rate, it would help power builds, help the team, and do more damage itself.

Because let’s face it: who takes the rifle turret?
Condition builds don’t pick rifle turet as first choice. It’s the prefered turret for Static Discharge builds, if they take a turret of course.
Vulnerability would help them more.

And yes: piercing would be so great.
Just like having a real aoe on the rocket turret would be. I agree with both and have made a post about Rocket aoe myself on another occasion.

Thanks for the replies, it’s a very interesting thread.

Kimbald.2697:

small remarks:

1. Throw wrench indeed heals the turret, on both passes. But you throw it at the enemy, not in the direction of a safely placed turret. In the end it does nothing to heal your turret if you placed it somewhere strategically.
And if that heal is the only one you can give your turret… it won’t keep it alive anyhow.

2. The devs need to chose: either turrets are disposable and have low cooldowns (your suggestions) or turrets are durable and stay out for longer periods during the fight (their version on State of the Game).

For your version smaller fixes would suffice, but sadly they mentioned leaving them out yet they didn’t go all the way on the consequences that choice brings.

I don’t believe in a halfbaked mix. Either durable, a LOT more durable, or make them more disposable with a much shorter cooldown.

Not just thumper turret. If rocket turret does not get a better AI, or get better survivability, that 1200 range is always a waste.
And that range is part of the reason it has such a long cooldown.

3. Rifle turret could do with a condition that fits it better than bleed, like vulnerability for example.
If it stacks vulnerability at a decent rate, it would help power builds, help the team, and do more damage itself.

Because let’s face it: who takes the rifle turret?
Condition builds don’t pick rifle turet as first choice. It’s the prefered turret for Static Discharge builds, if they take a turret of course.
Vulnerability would help them more.

And yes: piercing would be so great.
Just like having a real aoe on the rocket turret would be. I agree with both and have made a post about Rocket aoe myself on another occasion.

Thanks for the replies, it’s a very interesting thread.

It’s always good to have discourse.

I did a half-baked mix of sorts with the cooldowns and the survivability because I really do think that too short of cooldowns means too much time playing turret placer and too high of durability with long cooldowns means either they are difficult to counter play or they are just avoided and you’re stuck with high cooldowns. Ideally you need them low enough cooldowns to be reasonably mobile and durable enough to take a few rounds of fire but still fall if picked on directly.

By doing both you get a more reliable overall package which is still able to be counterplayed in multiple ways.

As far as rifle turret directly? I think more people would use it if the base attack wasn’t terrible, it had higher hp, had a stronger toolbelt skill, and a downtime of merely 16 seconds. I put lots of little buffs to it that makes it more useful across the board.

I don’t like the idea of vulnerability because if it’s low amounts then the damage increase is negligble realistically. If it’s high amounts then suddenly the rifle turret becomes way too good if you keep people pinned in it’s range. Bleeding is more reliable and consistent and provides a better balance.

Also Rifle Turret makes a fantastic choice for placing on walls in WvW. 3 Turrets on a cannon operator will flush him off of it shortly, essentially giving you the pressure damage you’d have as grenadier, albeit a bit lesser damage and single target. However they continue to shoot him on the wall mua ha ha. (Easily countered by people killing the turrets but makes a nasty surprise when placed suddenly and with the flame turret blind)

As well Rifle Turret makes a fantastic choice when protecting your back line from the melee and thieves that break through. In this settings the turrets coordinate vs a single target beautifully.

I run rifle turret and net turret, with the intention to add rocket (level 11!) when available. I have been running them in wvw, though, so I have some knowledge of their baseline stats at eighty. Turret durability seems to be generally too low. I intend to blow up my turret more than pick it up most of the time, but even against random weak mobs, a chance crit can kill it before it does anything. Baseline toughness needs to go up. I really don’t think tying usefulness to traits is a good fix, though buffing the traits could be good on top of fixing untraited, general usefulness seems like it should take priority. I also don’t like putting reduced cds and additional toughness together as some may want to make their turrets last and some may want to put them out more often, but it isn’t a total overlap and balancing around full turret-focused power level would hurt build variety and the strength of untraited turrets.

Penguin.5197:

lakdav.3694:

At least give them some turret-specific Retaliation with a trait or something!

On one hand a trait like that sounds like a pretty cool idea, it would punish those who use aoe attacks and force them to think twice about using it. On the other hand that also sounds like free ret for thieves.

I love this idea, just like players who attack mesmer clones with AoE, it would punish those who attack our turrets: and even to a further degree, by placing them altogether, would esssentially make a retal bomb!

PWNcakesAndROFLs.8263:

Penguin.5197:

lakdav.3694:

At least give them some turret-specific Retaliation with a trait or something!

On one hand a trait like that sounds like a pretty cool idea, it would punish those who use aoe attacks and force them to think twice about using it. On the other hand that also sounds like free ret for thieves.

I love this idea, just like players who attack mesmer clones with AoE, it would punish those who attack our turrets: and even to a further degree, by placing them altogether, would esssentially make a retal bomb!

Thumper Turret with retaliation can be fun.

HeliaXDemoN.1208:

PWNcakesAndROFLs.8263:

Penguin.5197:

lakdav.3694:

At least give them some turret-specific Retaliation with a trait or something!

On one hand a trait like that sounds like a pretty cool idea, it would punish those who use aoe attacks and force them to think twice about using it. On the other hand that also sounds like free ret for thieves.

I love this idea, just like players who attack mesmer clones with AoE, it would punish those who attack our turrets: and even to a further degree, by placing them altogether, would esssentially make a retal bomb!

Thumper Turret with retaliation can be fun.

Sounds interesting lol. But I wouldn’t know where to tie it in.

I’d like the thumper turret to have a bigger radius.