Guild Wars 2

I know this is being beaten to death but the way I see it the more noise that is made the more likely something appropriate will be done about the issue.

First Id like to say the nerfing of grenades was completely uncalled for. It was the one thing that really set our profession apart and it was good at it just as most professions have something they accel at. Yet ANET seems to think rather than fixing our issues they’d rather nerf one of the few reasons the engineer is really worth playing(my opinion). That aside, about turrets.

The new changes are not only not enough but they actually have made the turrets in some ways weaker. In particular in the past they would heal for very large chunks of health yet at a very slow pace. Now they heal for a pathetic and useless amount again over a long spans. For example:

Wychmire Swamp
Level 14 Veteran Mossheart.
Level 80 Engineer with: accelerant-packed turrets, metal plating, auto-tool installation, rifled turret barrels.
-Rifle Turret 58hp per 10seconds
-Rocket Turret 58hp per 10seconds
-Thumper Turret 93hp per 10 seconds
-Flame Turret 57hp per 10 seconds

Clearly those numbers are as good as them not even having regeneration. This is the best they do and that’s out of combat. Skale’s have better regeneration.

Also all but the thumper turret were lucky to survive 2 close range aoe ground smashes by the Mosshearts. Against at level mobs all turrets die pretty much instantly. For example: Meddlers Waypoint in the Cursed Shore a Risen Abomination (level 80) charges you. This charge will destroy, rifle, healing, rocket and net turrets INSTANTLY leaving the thumper turret to literally dies perhaps five seconds later from an aoe ground smash.

I tried this several times. Set your turrets up in a spread out fashion. Pull one of the abominations. Run behind the turrets and watch as it plows through them destroy ALL but the thumper. Then it hits the ground once and its down. The entire group lasting a grand total of maybe 8 seconds starting from the time the mob started to charge.

There is no way someone can honestly think turrets are not broken from the mere fact stated above.

PLEASE consider some(all) of the following:

1)Health needs to be increased across the board.
2)Regeneration needs to be sped up or the amount healed for increased.
3)Can you PLEASE allow us to use turrets underwater!? Rangers pet lions can breath at 500 feet but I cant use my freaking healing nor thumper turrets in the water.
4)Mobile turrets: Either a trait to make the mobile or allow them to be picked up “into” their respective toolbelt slot and then redeployed.
5)Eliminate the trait to allow placement of turrets and just make them always placeable.
6)Have them only attack my target or perhaps make this switchable. A trait?
7)Have our attributes effect turrets(ie: we have more power so they do to etc)

At level 80:
Rifle Turret: 747hp per 10seconds
Thumper Turret: 1195hp per 10 seconds.

I would add: their hitbox is terrible. I can’t understand why it is so large.

What puzzles me most is how they have been ‘buffing’ turrets for 2 patches now, in some attempt to open up more builds… but failed to even recognise the main weaknesses of turrets.

I like turrets, just as I like kits. They are how I see a profession called ‘engineer’.
Elixirs are not how I imagine a profession named ‘engineer’.

This is personal of course. But just speaking for me: I am sick and tired of turrets being so incredibly weak and awkward in design, compared to the effectiveness and trait support elixirs get for example.
Elixirs are fine… so high time turrets got some REAL improvements too!

jniel.3581:

At level 80:
Rifle Turret: 747hp per 10seconds
Thumper Turret: 1195hp per 10 seconds.

the damage a mob can do to a turret in 10 seconds… even if you take of 30% from yet another trait, you still can be sure the mob does WAY more damage than hat.

And than compare to what a player can do, without even actively targeting the turret, just by aoe.

Place the turret further? On an edge or a height?
Best way to keep your turret alive actually, except for one little detail: it will NOT target your target but anything that moves closer to the turret.

Turret weakness, poor designed turret traits, and even worse turret AI go hand in hand to actually make everything work counterproductive.

Kimbald.2697:

What puzzles me most is how they have been ‘buffing’ turrets for 2 patches now, in some attempt to open up more builds… but failed to even recognise the main weaknesses of turrets.

My only tough is that current devs don’t have access to the source code, but only a limited control panel to change some variable numbers.

JubeiTM.5763:

Kimbald.2697:

What puzzles me most is how they have been ‘buffing’ turrets for 2 patches now, in some attempt to open up more builds… but failed to even recognise the main weaknesses of turrets.

My only tough is that current devs don’t have access to the source code, but only a limited control panel to change some variable numbers.

It could also be as simple as: they don’t recognise these issues as the real problems with turrets because they have limited personal experience with them.

I don’t buy these ‘technical’ reasons players come up with for various issues the dev’s never said anything about themselves.

IF it is technical, than I assume they would say so.
Not saying you are wrong, just saying you are skipping a step in the logical process.

Right now, all we know is that they don’t even acknowledge these issues at all.
So the first logical conclusion is not that there are technical issues, but very simply that they don’t see the problem with these mechanics.

When they discussed Turrets in The State of the Game, I crinched a little.
To me it really sounded as if they had very little practical experience using turrets at all. Their comments sounded like theorycrafted optimal scenario’s instead of the practical experience that shows these theories have many flaws when you actually use them.

Not once did I hear a mention of technical issues like coding.
Mostt comments on turrets health or survivability sounded as if they think these are absolutely fine and working as intended!

I think the worst thing about turrets is the traits give a false impression of what they’re usually best at. They’re disposable pets, and yet the traits imply that they’re supposed to tank things and regenerate health, meaning last a long time.

I think turrets are fine, but generally if they’re taking melee damage I just detonate them and fall back on their toolbelt skills until they come off CD. That said, I think turret traits are useless filler besides Accelerant Packed Turrets and Deployable Turrets. The increased range trait should be good, but it’s too high in the trait tree and isn’t good enough to warrant how much other stuff you have to take to get to it. The turret toughness and regen traits are a complete waste.

Turrets really should be doing the damage mesmer’s phantasms do and need more health to compensate for the fact that they take up a utility slot. I have actually been playing my mesmer with a phantasm build simply because its the closest I am going to get to the playstyle I thought I would get from my engi.

YourOwnFear.2743:

Turrets really should be doing the damage mesmer’s phantasms do and need more health to compensate for the fact that they take up a utility slot. I have actually been playing my mesmer with a phantasm build simply because its the closest I am going to get to the playstyle I thought I would get from my engi.

turret damage is actually ok IF they stay alive.

I’ll give an example of my favourite turret: the rocket turret (RT) !

- RT keeps burning up almost permanent, and permanent with 33% condition duration.
This burning scales on player condition damage.
This is pretty good, nearly permanent burning that is re-applied every 4 seconds so even if they remove it, they get it again.

- RT also does decent direct damage.
For some oddball reason this does not scale on player power.
Still: the direct damage is pretty good, especially when counting the overcharge as well.

- RT has a range of 1200 untraited!
This is very long for a turret. Even if it’s unable to follow you, you still get some leeway to hop around fighting.

- every 20 seconds you can use the overcharge, which gives you TWO knockdowns in a row.
They fly slow and very visable, so you’ll need some immobilize or other cc to make them hit. Fair trade-off, if they land, they are pretty darn effective.

All of this sounds great on paper.
but now take into account the issues with turrets we are discussing:

- if the turret is killed in seconds, you get the 50 second cooldown… so what good is that 20 second overcharge?
Your turret WILL die, so your real cooldown is 50 seconds, not 20.

- what good is 1200 range if your turret targets the CLOSEST enemy near?
You may be at 1200 range, but your turret will not be shooting where you fight, it will shoot the pet-door-npc that is closer.
RT has an effective range of ‘whatever gets close’.

- permanent burning?
Well, not if the turret dies and you are stuck with that 50 second cooldown no…

- even if no one is doing damage near the turret, it WILL hit a mob close and that mob will kill it in 2 hits. Traited or not.

Rocket Turret only works if you are duelling someone in a clear arena setting. In a game that has neither duels, nor arena’s…
Sometimes you can copy such a setting, but if your opponent has any kind of pet, you can no longer rely on the turret when you need it.

Rocket damage is ok, it really is.
But with the current turret mechanics, all of that damage is utterly wasted.

The solution is not to increase the damage by a lot, because that would be OP in those few scenario’s where the turret stays alive longer.
The only solution can be: make turrets tougher and smarter.

I don’t see how a stationary visible turret would be op if it did more damage. I am not asking them to give turrets 20k health and 2700 armor on top of increased damage. I want the damage they do to be threatening because If I run a full turret build I just gave up all my utility outside what those turrets can do. Also running turrets would be a damage build so the damage needs to be comparable to or exceed the current damage build choices. No one is going to drop 3 utility slots to do less damage and lose utility.

YourOwnFear.2743:

I don’t see how a stationary visible turret would be op if it did more damage. I am not asking them to give turrets 20k health and 2700 armor on top of increased damage. I want the damage they do to be threatening because If I run a full turret build I just gave up all my utility outside what those turrets can do. Also running turrets would be a damage build so the damage needs to be comparable to or exceed the current damage build choices. No one is going to drop 3 utility slots to do less damage and lose utility.

the thing with turrets, wich is in fact their very essence: is that they do their damage while you do yours…

If I test them against a dummy, so with no damage coming back at the turret (or me) and with no other target in between turret and duummy… I’m actuall quite happy about turret damage.
Overcharge a rocket, a net and a rifle turret on a dummy, while unleashing your own damage as well. The thing blows up pretty fast!

The reality of course is that turrets are awlays taking damage, and they always find wrong targets to target.
In that reality I fully follow your argument: turrets do way to little damage in a real setting!

But my solution would not be more damage, but turrets better at staying alive, and smarter at targeting.
If those are improved, we can see if the damage is still too low.

I would lower some cooldowns as well, and make it so that picking up a turret does not start a long cooldown at all. Deploying after picking up must be very fast, or they remain handicapped in a game this mobile.

I get what you are saying. What I am saying is the damage you can do in a turret build isn’t on the same level as what you can do in a HGH build for example. It isn’t even on par with an SD build with nades. In both of those builds you get better damage and utility. Like better condition cleansing and stun breakers. To compensate for this I believe the damage should atleast be on par with those builds. In reality it should be better because your full potential is isolated to the area you drop your turrets in for up to 50 secs. That means if your target decides to leave your kill area and move the fight 1500 units away then you just lost any advantage you had for the duration of their cds.

So yes with my idea it would seem like a lot of damage but its extremely easy to predict and counter damage. The whole set up makes you extremely weak outside of your turret area and weak against conditions in it (every 20 secs). It could hardly be considered an op set up.

YourOwnFear.2743:

I get what you are saying. What I am saying is the damage you can do in a turret build isn’t on the same level as what you can do in a HGH build for example. It isn’t even on par with an SD build with nades. In both of those builds you get better damage and utility. Like better condition cleansing and stun breakers. To compensate for this I believe the damage should atleast be on par with those builds. In reality it should be better because your full potential is isolated to the area you drop your turrets in for up to 50 secs. That means if your target decides to leave your kill area and move the fight 1500 units away then you just lost any advantage you had for the duration of their cds.

So yes with my idea it would seem like a lot of damage but its extremely easy to predict and counter damage. The whole set up makes you extremely weak outside of your turret area and weak against conditions in it (every 20 secs). It could hardly be considered an op set up.

It’s true that you should be doing the same damage with turrets as our other ‘damage’ builds.

Just don’t forget the immense ammount of cc you put on your opponent with turrets IF they would function correctly.

A Rocket overcharge, a flame overcharge and a fire turret overcharege for example is totally locking out your opponent of doing anything at all.
(not that I would combine rocket and flame, rifle seems better with one of these).

Combine such cc with high burst, and you have created something overpowered indeed. Not that this would be the first of it’s kind, but still…

Outside of these overcharges however, a turret build is indeed pretty defenseless.
Not in the least because turrets eat up all your traits as it is.
A fully turret build not only has no skill slots left for defense, he also has no trait points left for defense!

I currently use grenades and healing bombs in WvW (which is the bulk of what I do). But in all honesty: I would prefer turrets at this point.
Multikit builds simply lack damage, I could annoy people but never kill them.

I did try a turret set up, combined with my beloved tool Kit.
But in WvW… turrets just die in seconds.
You put them down and the next second you wonder ‘hey, what killed my turret already?’
They were glorified mines at best, since I traited accelerant-packed turrets. But I couldn’t even control the knockbacks: they got destroyed immediately, if i wanted the knockback or not…

Not even in pve, they constantly targeted the wrong npc’s and died because of that in seconds again. Utterly frustrating in a dungeon run where you’re constantly moving too!

I can see turrets work in tpvp point defending, that’s about.
And you better not be facing a mesmer, necro, or even a ranger with a pet. All of your precious overcharges will be wasted on knocking down clones, stunning minions and blinding cats and dogs.

Is it just me or when the idea of an Engineer is brought up as a class for a game, I usually think about gadgets and Turrets, not potions. Sure I can at least see kits, at least since they’re unique to the engineer, but I feel like (what should be) the most iconic things about the class in general are also currently the worst.

They could’ve easily made an entire other class dedicated to Alchemy and had that be separate from the engineer entierly.

Anyways, I agree that turrets really don’t need much to make them more usable, hell changing the AI to focus on what the player is targeting before anything else might make a huge difference in usability alone. On top of that I feel like since Turrets don’t move, they really would make for a better Tank build, so increasing the turrets toughness and health would probably be enough on it’s own. You could still have some turrets be more DPS based, like maybe the Rifle turret, but in general the turrets would probably be fine with just survivability buffs.

Well if I had to add one other thing, it would definitely be agreeing with the cool down changes people keep suggesting. I particularly like the idea of turrets keeping the same cool down, but starting them as soon as the turret is placed. That combined with a slight increase in survivability would make them much more annoying in combat. And then Picking up a turret would also still do the same thing, reducing the cool down, but now that the cool down starts sooner, it might make it be able to immediately be placed again. However that might not be fair, so maybe that would be changed to reducing the remaining cool down by the same percentage.

Blazedrag.4568:

Is it just me or when the idea of an Engineer is brought up as a class for a game, I usually think about gadgets and Turrets, not potions. Sure I can at least see kits, at least since they’re unique to the engineer, but I feel like (what should be) the most iconic things about the class in general are also currently the worst.

They could’ve easily made an entire other class dedicated to Alchemy and had that be separate from the engineer entierly.

Just on this point: I agree so very much!

Engineers go boom! They use noisy mechanics and thingamagics.

from my view of the engineer, I would expect turrets first, after maybe the icnredibly cool flamethrower.
Gadgets next.
Bombs and grenades for sure, hitting with stuff from your tool box.

totally at the back of my list would be elixirs.

odd, since elixirs are the one skill set we have that is completely balanced and backed up by amazing traits.
Kits run a far behind second. They have great competitors, but they lack team spirit and are not working together as a team at all.
Turrets are closing in on kits but not near them at all for now.
And gadgets aren’t even in the race it seems, they’re still on the track somewhere near the start.

The way turrets are right now make me think they were originally designed to be apart of a kit.

i still think each turret needs to be a “kit” of it’s own, so you “swap” to the individual turret’s “kit” to deploy/overcharge, detonate remains on the toolbelt, and then add on three ancillary abilities:

1) attack my target
2) weak attack (like a small aoe heal burst on healing turret)
3) strong attack (like an aoe bandage drop around the healing turret)
4) overcharge
5) pickup/plant (within range)
F#) detonate/toolbelt skill

that way engies could micro manage the turrets from anywhere on the point.

if your ally is near your net turret, and you are far away, you could swap to the turret controls, drop down an oil slick to slow your ally’s foe. or maybe it is a flame turret, and you activate a smoke field to blind your foe and help your ally get away.

many more opportunities for dynamic play would be available if we could swap to our turrets for extra skills like we do our kits.

and they need much much much more health to make them long term fixtures on the battle field.

they need to be threatening enough that a foe has to actively choose to attack it instead of you, leaving you to attack your foe (just like prioritizing ranger pets). they need to be strong enough to survive direct fire long enough for YOU to become the threat.

Blazedrag.4568:

Is it just me or when the idea of an Engineer is brought up as a class for a game, I usually think about gadgets and Turrets, not potions. Sure I can at least see kits, at least since they’re unique to the engineer, but I feel like (what should be) the most iconic things about the class in general are also currently the worst.

They could’ve easily made an entire other class dedicated to Alchemy and had that be separate from the engineer entierly.

Anyways, I agree that turrets really don’t need much to make them more usable, hell changing the AI to focus on what the player is targeting before anything else might make a huge difference in usability alone. On top of that I feel like since Turrets don’t move, they really would make for a better Tank build, so increasing the turrets toughness and health would probably be enough on it’s own. You could still have some turrets be more DPS based, like maybe the Rifle turret, but in general the turrets would probably be fine with just survivability buffs.

Well if I had to add one other thing, it would definitely be agreeing with the cool down changes people keep suggesting. I particularly like the idea of turrets keeping the same cool down, but starting them as soon as the turret is placed. That combined with a slight increase in survivability would make them much more annoying in combat. And then Picking up a turret would also still do the same thing, reducing the cool down, but now that the cool down starts sooner, it might make it be able to immediately be placed again. However that might not be fair, so maybe that would be changed to reducing the remaining cool down by the same percentage.

Alchemy works because it provides quality boons. If turrets provided lots of boons then they’d be the go-to build. They don’t. They do unreliable damage and die easily. I use them because I enjoy them, and have just learned to treat them like disposable blast finisher dispensers.

Turrets:

Press F Key for Blast Finisher
Press F Key for AoE Knockback
Press F Key for situational skill effect
Press # Key for delayed, occasionally useful “Overcharge” skill effect
Summon to do , unreliable damage and distract enemies sometimes

I have to say, there’s a lot of utiility wrapped up in one utility slot. It’s too bad that the actual Turret parts of turret skills don’t work very well.

Well that’s why I think that the only things needing changes are survivability, and like, 1 line of code to the AI. (okay, maybe 2 or 3). I know that turrets have a fair amount of utility; when they’re not out, it’s like you have a gadget, and when deployed, they’re like a mine that also gets a few shots in. But turrets shouldn’t be used like mines. If a weapon sucks for it’s normal use, but still works if used in an odd way, I still think it should be adjusted to work as intended. Although usually that sort of thing leads to new abilities being introduced to work with how the ability worked the old way. However when it comes to turrets, if they just fixed those 2 problems that really shouldn’t take much, then they’d be nearly perfect.

I mean. The net turret is almost usable simply for the extra net shot from the belt, and I’ve heard that the Healing turret is Usable in its current state if you drop, pop, and blow it all at once, but that’s not a turret, it’s a bomb. I would much prefer to actually have turrets be turrets.

(Yes I am a turret junkie in every single game ever)

They are not worthless… they used to make an excellent target for my rangers axe, my ele’s lightning bolts, and my thieves shortbow.

Anything I can bounce an attack off, I’d thank you for.

…oh wait, you currently ‘play’ an engineer? I totally misunderstood, I didn’t think anyone still played an engineer.

My general rule is, turrets can be good, just not if you use a full turret build. Rocket Turrets fit into some builds, as well as net turrets and rifle turrets (like in the SD build).

The problem comes in when someone tries to make a “turret build” and then suddenly realizes they have zero condition removal and no stunbreaks.

The CDs on turrets could be a little more forgiving, however, and especially the toolbelt moves.

aydenunited.5729:

My general rule is, turrets can be good, just not if you use a full turret build. Rocket Turrets fit into some builds, as well as net turrets and rifle turrets (like in the SD build).

The problem comes in when someone tries to make a “turret build” and then suddenly realizes they have zero condition removal and no stunbreaks.

The CDs on turrets could be a little more forgiving, however, and especially the toolbelt moves.

I’m angry because you are right, sadly enough:

You can’t have a full turret build, ok.

You can’t have a full kit build either since they lack stunbreaker and condition removal since the KR nerf.

You can’t even have a full gadget build, even though they have several stunbreakers…

But you CAN have a full elixir build, and have stunbreaker, condition removal, damage to boot! And you have traits supporting you both defensively as offensively!

That’s why I claim elixirs are the only finished skill set we have.
If you can have a full elixir-build, you should also be able to make a full turret-, gadget- or kit-build.

Never once did I see someone reply to HGH builds: ‘but hey, you’re not supposed to make a full elixir build!’
Yet I hear that in EVERY turret, kit or gadget discussion!

Kimbald.2697:

JubeiTM.5763:

Kimbald.2697:

What puzzles me most is how they have been ‘buffing’ turrets for 2 patches now, in some attempt to open up more builds… but failed to even recognise the main weaknesses of turrets.

My only tough is that current devs don’t have access to the source code, but only a limited control panel to change some variable numbers.

It could also be as simple as: they don’t recognise these issues as the real problems with turrets because they have limited personal experience with them.

Perhaps. Or perhaps its sheer laziness.

Lets set the scene. You are one of only two developers that have to deal with all professions, their balance, bug fixes, everything in all 3 gamemodes.

Now, after a couple of drinks, you’ve worked up the courage to finally open that file on Engineers. You prefer not to go there, its a mess! But, a job is a job. You figure you want to make Turrets more appealing, and you wanna get it done as fast as possible. Because you’re not a fan of Engineers and you’re busy! Its already noon and you just realized you havent buffed Thieves yet!

Okay, back to Turrets. Are you going to spend your time working out the complicated targeting algorythm of Turrets, aswell as figuring out a balanced system where Turrets are durable enough without being unkillable?
Or, would you rather slap a kitten buff on them? Something that sounds big, neglecting that 100% more of nothing is still nothing?

Yah, i thought so. Case closed, now you earned yourself another drink and then you can start with your monthly “balance” of Thieves… maybe we should let em fly… hic

Terrahero.9358:

Kimbald.2697:

JubeiTM.5763:

Kimbald.2697:

What puzzles me most is how they have been ‘buffing’ turrets for 2 patches now, in some attempt to open up more builds… but failed to even recognise the main weaknesses of turrets.

My only tough is that current devs don’t have access to the source code, but only a limited control panel to change some variable numbers.

It could also be as simple as: they don’t recognise these issues as the real problems with turrets because they have limited personal experience with them.

Perhaps. Or perhaps its sheer laziness.

Lets set the scene. You are one of only two developers that have to deal with all professions, their balance, bug fixes, everything in all 3 gamemodes.

Now, after a couple of drinks, you’ve worked up the courage to finally open that file on Engineers. You prefer not to go there, its a mess! But, a job is a job. You figure you want to make Turrets more appealing, and you wanna get it done as fast as possible. Because you’re not a fan of Engineers and you’re busy! Its already noon and you just realized you havent buffed Thieves yet!

Okay, back to Turrets. Are you going to spend your time working out the complicated targeting algorythm of Turrets, aswell as figuring out a balanced system where Turrets are durable enough without being unkillable?
Or, would you rather slap a kitten buff on them? Something that sounds big, neglecting that 100% more of nothing is still nothing?

Yah, i thought so. Case closed, now you earned yourself another drink and then you can start with your monthly “balance” of Thieves… maybe we should let em fly… hic

“Laziness” is not a thing. It doesn’t really exist, or at least not to the degree that we throw the word around. If given two alternative methods to accomplish the same goal, almost everyone picks the one that’s fastest/easiest. The only reason anyone would pick the one that’s hardest is if it offered a measurably greater reward or if they actually enjoyed the harder activity more (and even then most people still don’t).

Software developers that assemble complex virtual worlds which bring in millions in annual revenue are not often what I would call “Lazy.”

Even so, they are often wrong about stuff. I think this is the case here. I think there’s a mismatch between how the dev team think turrets should work and how they actually work. I think this mismatch is there because how they think turrets should work is simply not a playstyle anyone values.

Can you build an engineer that creates a safe-haven full of constant blast-finished buffs/heals? Of course you can do that! It seems like the intended playstyle of turrets. Does anyone value that? Is it worth all the bother? Does it make sense to create a static safe haven that’s one Meteor Storm away from being a lot of cooldown timers and wasted effort?

No. It isn’t. That’s a best-case scenario of what I can imagine that turrets were designed to do, and in that best-case scenario it still isn’t all that valuable. That said, I do it anyway because I enjoy it. And even though it isn’t all that valuable, it does bring some value. But as long as my little turret nest is one Well of Suffering away from the trash bin it will continue to be a suboptimal playstyle.

Terrahero.9358:

Kimbald.2697:

JubeiTM.5763:

Kimbald.2697:

What puzzles me most is how they have been ‘buffing’ turrets for 2 patches now, in some attempt to open up more builds… but failed to even recognise the main weaknesses of turrets.

My only tough is that current devs don’t have access to the source code, but only a limited control panel to change some variable numbers.

It could also be as simple as: they don’t recognise these issues as the real problems with turrets because they have limited personal experience with them.

Perhaps. Or perhaps its sheer laziness.

Lets set the scene. You are one of only two developers that have to deal with all professions, their balance, bug fixes, everything in all 3 gamemodes.

Now, after a couple of drinks, you’ve worked up the courage to finally open that file on Engineers. You prefer not to go there, its a mess! But, a job is a job. You figure you want to make Turrets more appealing, and you wanna get it done as fast as possible. Because you’re not a fan of Engineers and you’re busy! Its already noon and you just realized you havent buffed Thieves yet!

Okay, back to Turrets. Are you going to spend your time working out the complicated targeting algorythm of Turrets, aswell as figuring out a balanced system where Turrets are durable enough without being unkillable?
Or, would you rather slap a kitten buff on them? Something that sounds big, neglecting that 100% more of nothing is still nothing?

Yah, i thought so. Case closed, now you earned yourself another drink and then you can start with your monthly “balance” of Thieves… maybe we should let em fly… hic

As someone who makes MMOs for a living, that post would make me far less likely to read anything else in this thread. Putting in months of 100+ hour weeks to cram for launch, lazy? How many 100h weeks have you done? (without overtime pay)

The shear level of ignorance in your post almost makes my eyes bleed. Two lead designers != two developers total. The last game I made had two leads “making class balance decisions” with a team of 10 designers under them, and 20-30 programmers under that.

I was not permitted to comment on our live forums, but I read that thing every day. 1-3 hours were spent looking over customer feedback, they never knew it, but we all did. for every dev post you see, thousands of threads were read. But we are human, and when people start breaking out the baseless insults, we go to other threads.

If you want to kitten off the devs to the point they stop reading, well I would bet my last copper “mission accomplished”. If you think you are “helping”, go to the warrior sub-forum, they need your type of “help” more.

Well its good to see who takes things written on the internet just a little to serious, i thought it was more then obvious that it was satirical by nature. Regardless, i stand with the message of my post. And its backed by plenty of practical examples.
How about the fact that a trait has been broken for 9 months now? Ow, but they did investigate this claim. However they’re testing was done so rushed and shoddily that they couldnt even come to a rather simple conclusion. Completely ignoring months of feedback, backed with evidence, and brushing it off. And not even communcating this directly back to the Engineer community!

And lets not even start on how long it took for basic functions to even work for Engineers. You know, sigils and stat scaling. Or how the downed state is still an utter mess. And where is the much needed hotfix for Necromancers? You know, they are suffering from a bug that essentially breaks their downed state. Just something at the core of this games combat system.
I think you are overestimating the manpower they really have on this, no way such bugs can linger around for so long. Or such terrible bugs be left untouched for so long, if they really had that team of 10 devs and 30 programmers. Try selling that on the Necro forum, i dare you!

They have yet to even come up with that the design behind Engineer is really suppose to be. It seems to change on a month by month basis. If my job was to look after all the professions i’d want to make sure such fundamentals are checked off. And when you see threads like this pop up on a daily basis, maybe try and communicate. I mean for godsake, we had to find out that they tested Scope from some thread in the sPvP forum!
You cant blame people for getting kitten off and making disrespecting threads and posts when you yourself havent exactly shown a lot of respect either.

Ow and the “100hour weeks”. I work in healthcare, when i was an intern we had 24h shifts. Nightshifts. 15h a night, for a week. And ofcourse plenty of studying when you were off. I’ll let you guess how much an intern makes, so dont you even with me.

Sweety, The Colbert Show is satire, This Hour Has 22 Minutes is satire… that was insulting.

And no, I’m not overestimating anything, I’m basing it exactly on first hand knowledge based on my job history. The places that have paid me to make games. Triple-A MMOs have teams in the several hundreds (last one I was on was “small” at 250 employees). Generally, about 2/3rds to 3/4ths of that is developers, the rest QA (not counting customer service as that will bump it up another 200+). Any MMO is going to have what is known as a “Systems Design Team”, These are the guys and gals who come up with the formulas, stats, drop rates, economic design etc that make the back end of the game work. What you are actually playing is a shiny interface over their formulas.

Most games have 1-3 Lead designers. A small game, or a single player can get away with one, larger MMOs will need more. This is where the “there are two designers on it” misquote comes from. They were referring to LEAD designers, not total bodies on the problem. The team on average, from my experience, will range from as low as 5 in pre-production up to 20 during full on crunch, and back down to about 10 for a live project. I would be extremely impressed if ANet can do what they do on a team smaller than that.

The programmers, specifically game-play programmers (GPPs) usually outnumber the designers two to one, as it is often FAR faster to design a system than it is to implement. So 20+ is not an exaggeration.

and I’m glad you know what a 100h week feels like… now put yourself in the shoes of someone who just had some fella come up and tell you how lazy you are for not having every single problem fixed to their exact requirements, ignoring the fact that some of it may be so far down on your list of priorities as to not even matter, may be technically impossible, may be relying on work from someone else in another country, or may be extremely easy, extremely important, but your manager says it needs to be delayed?

Would that make you lazy? Hell no.

They can make turrets do one million damage and they’d still be useless as they are destroyed in one hit, so whats the point of them taking a utility spot for something useful, not much useful such as things are on Engineer at best..

I remember using my rifle turret to tank for me in the Plains of Ascalon, sure the target selection could sometimes be a bit random but that turret was my best friend. Then gradually the turrets became (comparatively) less and less robust, until dropping a turret became at best a one shot-deal (even when traited) and at worst a liability … with utterly useless hovering in the middle firing at an empty space that used to house a weapons rack.

Nowadays the only reason I have a turret taking up a utility slot is so that I can use the associated toolbelt skill.

It would be nice to be able to tank with turrets again, to have that option available … maybe even to make it worth having a toolkit equipped just for the repair ability!

I’m not holding my breath, but it would be nice to have the option to play a proper grease-monkey.

Turrets are just flat out broken, and I don’t mean damagewise. I’ve been running a turreteer since day 1 of headstart. The only change I’ve made to my build was dropping healing turret in favor of the healing elixir after the last patches heavy handed nerf (50% heal reduction… jesus…)

Any patch to increase turret damage or survivability should be second, IMO, to fixing their broken state. After 9 months of using them, I’ve gotten relatively skilled and making fine use of them even in Champion battles. They dish out pretty solid damage and survive pretty well, for me at least. And WvW they are BEASTLY.

So what’s broken? The AI. It makes them WORTHLESS. They don’t prioritize anything. They will happily shoot in inanimate object over an enemy that is bashing my face in any day of the week. They will happily target and shoot upon an invulnerable air elemental instead of shooting the Modniir shaman that summoned them and is doing unspeakable things to me. And they will completely, I mean COMPLETELY, ignore Dragons. I have put them between the toes of Jormag’s claw AND Teq and they just sit there… waiting… waiting…

All I can assume is that after 9 months of it not only not being fixed but also not even being acknowledged by Anet, that this must be working as intended. :-\

Since turrets are not mobile, they should, at least, be a lot more durable than other temp pets. My necro’s minions are more durable than turrets, and those were described as throw-away minions…

Currently the best way to play turrets solo is to tank for them. In PVE they merely provide a meat shield, which takes away from proper utilities.

There’s other glaring problems with turrets too. But at the very least, could we expect ritualist spirit quality turrets?

Dante.1508:

They can make turrets do one million damage and they’d still be useless as they are destroyed in one hit, so whats the point of them taking a utility spot for something useful, not much useful such as things are on Engineer at best..

Thats the point. As long as Anet dont …

- fix the kitten AI
- reduce the cooldown to a proper timer (~15 seconds except of the heal turret)

They can buff the damage/armor/hp to hell, there will be no viable/competitive turret-build as long as they dont change this. But it seems that they wanna change everything else before they confess it.

marnick.4305:

Currently the best way to play turrets solo is to tank for them. In PVE they merely provide a meat shield, which takes away from proper utilities.

This is how I currently use them, and it works alright for me. I drop them as I run around, trying to set them just at the edge of their range and then run back into the middle of the fight, so it creates sort of a “turret arena” with me and the NPCs in the middle, and the turrets on the outside shooting in. With the self repairing trait + 30% less damage, they pretty survive all fights shy of ones that involve an AOEing champion.

At the end of the day, in WvW, the turret is ultimately an exploding target dummy. A mesmer clone has more utility than a turret in WvW and is on a far shorter cooldown.

Manuhell.2759:

I would add: their hitbox is terrible. I can’t understand why it is so large.

this is another HUGE issue turrets can be melee’d from almost 300 range

BrimstoneAshe.5043:

At the end of the day, in WvW, the turret is ultimately an exploding target dummy. A mesmer clone has more utility than a turret in WvW and is on a far shorter cooldown.

and before someone comes saying this is a lie

Turret Cons:

Stationary
non scaling stats other than condition damage
Huge Cooldowns
mediocre damage
poor survivavility

Mesmer Clone:

some advantages:

Mobile
Applies conditions
Buffs Allies
Absorb 50% damage player would take
low cooldowns
long range
Damages Foes when killed
have permanent retaliation when traited
some clones deal massive damage
can be sacrificed in exchange for various effects= F- skills

Cons:

semi con- Low Hp (why buff it when you want them to die on purpose since they harm foes by being destroyed)

several clones lack direct damage

It’s funny. This issue is the exact same issue that rangers have with their spirits. At least they get a trait to make em follow. Warrior banners are so popular and strong because they can’t be destroyed. Yet turrets & spirits can and aren’t nearly as amazing.

I agree that the toolbelt skills are lackluster for Turrets. I think all of them should have an increased or addition effect and reduced cooldown. They are so weak and have such long cooldowns that the best tactical choice is to always have your turret out. If they were useful and balanced there would actually be a tactical reason to detonate turrets other than the blast finisher.

Imagine if Rocket Turret’s Rocket caused a 1 second daze. Now you have a reason to blow up your Rocket Turret and jam on that F key—to interrupt a stomp or rez. Imagine if Thumper Turret’s Rumble caused an AOE cripple or knockdown. Imagine if Flame Turret’s Throw Napalm had a bigger radius and left a fire field behind.

The only exceptions are Net Turret’s Net Shot, which is very useful, and Rifle Turret’s Surprise Shot which is a favorite of Static Discharge builds.

Even their detonate toolbelt skills need something. Having a blast finisher or even three isn’t going to make or break a fight. They should provide blast finishers and an effect. The Flame Turret could leave behind a fire field, or a smoke field. The Rocket Turret could cause a barrage (see ranger skill) of tiny rockets. The Thumper Turret could cause AOE cripple or bleed when detonated.

I know this sounds like a lot, but Turrets need attention in all areas if the developers want them to be more widely used.

Turrets need like some 100~300% life buff or some complex change.

HeliaXDemoN.1208:

Turrets need like some 100~300% life buff or some complex change.

in PvE or WvW it is ok. But please not in PvP.

If you play the engineer as a node keeper turrets are fine.

Unless your trying to bunker, stationary utilities are fairly useless and/or situational.

Much more useful abilities at our disposal.

Lupanic.6502:

If you play the engineer as a node keeper turrets are fine.

That’s really only true if they ignore your turrets. If they’re smart, they realize they can kill your turrets very quickly (even if you trait them up) and then you’re up the creek without a paddle: a lot of your DPS has been lost and your utilities are all on cooldown for the length of time it will take them to kill you.

Turrets would be a lot better if they were a lot tougher, or maybe if they did something like:

• Turret picked up = normal cooldown
• Turret detonated = double cooldown
• Turret destroyed = half cooldown

The fact that anyone can ruin a turret build engineer in PvP just by taking 5 seconds to kill all their turrets is what keeps them useless in PvP. Yeah you can blast noobs with them but Anything Works Against Noobs™.

I have another idea:

Turrets would be a lot better if they were a lot tougher, or maybe if they did something like:

Turret picked up = no cooldown
Turret detonated = normal cooldown
Turret destroyed = normal cooldown

These posts made me wonder; why does the cooldown for turrets start when you pick them up/detonate/ destroyed? The cooldown for my mesmer’s clones start when I create them. Usually by the time they are destroyed (they seem to be much more survivable than turrets, btw) or I destroy them, they are ready to IMMEDIATELY be deployed again. Is there a good reason why turrets don’t have the same or similar mechanic?

The mesmer did things right that others can learn from in way of “pets” and how to summon them.
Both the engi and necro must use up all of there utility slots to be a “pet” build be it minions or turrets. where as the mesmer has it as part of there weapon skills. I think there are only 2 phantom skills in the utility and neither of them focus on dealing damage, they are both utility (what utility “pets” in the utility skills?). Even the utility skills that create Clones still have the utility of stun breaks and invisibility.

It helps that the mesmer’s class mechanic is its “pets” where as both the necro and engi suffer from the devs trying to be “creative” with the class. DS is a fail, was from the start, but our ToolBelt might beable to work if its managed a little differently.

I’m not sure exactly how to do it, but we need some utilitys added to our turrets, we need stun breaks and the like.
What if:
Cooldown starts on deployment
Detonate Turret skill removed

My first thought was to replace all the turret’s toolbelt skills and have them always accessible whether the turret is deployed or not, but I know people who use that static discharge would be upset if they removed the toolbelt skill of the rifle turret: belt shot.

So instead have the utility toolbelt skill appear once the turret is deployed, after all the main point of a turret is to deploy it.

part of the problem is this misconception that turrets are pets..

they aren’t, they are utilities.

you may well want them to be pets, but don’t hold your breath.

re: smart pvp players;
- with deployable turrets you can put the turrets in places that make the opponent have to choose to go after them while you pummel the opponent.

- if your opponent is smart, play smarter than them.

They are a utility that offer no utility? how useful.
Also a “pet” is any NPC that works for the character. be it the hunter’s pet, the necros minions, the engi’s turrets, the memser’s illusions, the elems elementals, the guardians spirit weapons or any other summon of any other skill. If it creates a NPC that is considered part of the player’s character it is a “pet”. Be the “pet’s” purpose to remove boons/conditions like the mesmer’s disenchanter or just deal damage like the engi’s rifle turret. It doesnt matter if its perma like the necro’s minions or very short lived like the guardian’s spirit weapons. So lets get that clear right now.

I have to point out that the power of a utility differs from class to class.
The utility skills on the warrior for example are mainly there for support and utility. But none are really for damage or to be the main focus of the class.
But the engineer’s utilitys are his main focus, which is pretty obvious with Kits being a staple of the class.
Its possible to make a build that focuses on your weapon skills, but every one knows a large part of the engi’s power is them using kits as there main weapon which DING DING, are utilities.
Just. Like. Turrets.

turrets are no more NPCs than the volcanic fissures in the grawl fractal (as an example).

turrets are structures like siege weapons, trebuchets, etc. which fire automatically. mortar is a special “elite” structure that allows your allies to control it.

they are stationary utilities.

they are not meant to move, and i will be thoroughly surprised if they ever do.

just because they are lack luster utilities (currently, for the most part) does not mean that they are anything but utilities.

ps: another example of a turret-like utility in the game are the cannons in the final stage of the Arah story. Those are not NPC either.