Guild Wars 2

I can’t recall who, but somebody suggested something along the lines of:
Allow Turrets to be picked up and used as Kits.

It just so happened that I liked this idea. I find it similar to the Banners used by Warriors and Guardians, with a more active bent than “And this thing makes you stronger.” So, without further ado, I’m going to get to the point:

If Turrets could be picked up and used as weapons, what skills should each Turret have?

The Weapon Swap key should stow the turret (to reduce the cooldown, as usual), 5 should place it back down again…but what should 1-4 do?

Oh, and: All Turrets used in this manner would benefit from applicable Kit effects. Pick up a Turret, gain Swiftness with Speedy Kits, cause a Kit Refinement effect appropriate to the Turret (probably based on Overcharge?), get boosts from the Engineer’s Rune, etcetera, but only when making use of the Turret as a Kit.

If people actually seem to like this idea, I’ll take it over to the Suggestion boards, but first, I’d like to hear from you all.

Guess I may as well have a go at it, myself. No idea how long cooldowns should be, etcetera. This may well be a terrible idea.

Healing Turret:
1 is a channeled effect giving the user and all nearby allies Regeneration, of course. Creates a Water Field when channeling begins, but goes on cooldown when any other Healing Turret skill is used. Meant to be similar to the planted Healing Turret’s effect.
2 launches a concentrated glob of the Healing Turret’s elixir to a friendly target, healing nearby allies on impact.
3 uses the propulsion system that sends the elixir in the Turret flying to activate a Whirl finisher.
4 Overcharges the Healing Turret kit, causing skills 1 and 2 to cure Conditions, as well. Cures one condition per pulse of 1, and is expended after channeling (whether channeling is completed or not); cures all conditions on one use of 2, and is expended afterward.

Rifle Turret:
1 is a single-shot attack mirroring the vanilla effect of the Rifle Turret itself, with a higher firing rate.
2 aims for the legs, inflicting a short-duration Cripple.
3 inflicts Weakness and Confusion by targeting the torso and head region.
4 Overcharges the Rifle Turret Kit, causing all attacks to become channeled bursts, or increase cooldown rate; whatever seems a better idea. Duration identical to Rifle Turret Overcharge.

Flame Turret:
1 is, of course, the Flame Turret’s usual effect, being a short-range fire burst that inflicts Burning.
2 fires liquid napalm directly at foes, causing Burning (but does not travel through foes or explode).
3 arcs a wall of napalm around the user, creating a ring of fire (and Fire combo field).
4 vents exhaust, creating a smoke screen – identical to the Flame Turret’s overcharge.

Net Turret:
1 is the usual Immobilizing Net.
2 launches a much larger than normal net, which is ground-targeted, causing effects similar to Glue Shot (initial immobilize, followed by cripple).
3 launches a net with rockets at each corner, dragging enemies struck by it back before exploding.
4 Overcharges, electrifying all nets for a duration identical to Net Turret Overcharge’s duration. Fire rate is not increased, to account for variety of attacks; effects are otherwise identical. Only enemies coming into contact with the nets become Stunned.

Thumper Turret:
1 is exactly the same as the Thumper Turret’s usual effect, being a very short-range AoE blast.
2 fires a bolt of concussive force, Dazing all foes affected as well as dealing damage greater than Skill 1.
3 launches a cone of concussive force, Confusing nearby foes and dealing damage to all in the AoE.
4 is Thump.

Rocket Turret:
1 is Rocket Turret’s usual effect, la-dee-friggin’-da, shoulda seen that comin’.
2 is a slower rocket with a minor ability to track targets.
3 is a cluster-bomb rocket, similar to Thief Shortbow 2.
4 launches a single rocket that functions identically to the Overcharge of the Rocket turret.

Mortar:
Allow Engineers, and Engineers only, to pick it up and run with it, though they must stop to fire. Weapon swap button places it on the ground instead of stowing it to reduce the cooldown.

Neat designs. Shame they’ll never make it in.

Yeah. Fun to think about, though. Would counter mobility issues of turrets, versatility issues of turret builds, and be generally hilarious.

That was my idea I believe. In my “Engineer Revamp Plan” thread. This idea lessen the work on Developers and promotes Turrets to be a viable asset on the battlefield. I’m glad people are liking this idea.

It may have been. I honestly can’t recall who it was who said the thing that inspired the “Why not make it so you can pick up a turret and run with it?”

Great idea!
This would be fun and balance out the deficiencies of turrets.

Now if Anet could find another solution to turrets being used as exploits that doesn’t involve nerfing them…

Zenguy.6421:

Now if Anet could find another solution to turrets being used as exploits that doesn’t involve nerfing them…

A duration on turrets before they expire? Something like a minute would make sure you had to be attentive to your turret and your pickups.

The only ‘exploit’ I know of involving turrets is “Oh, they put it somewhere we can’t reach.” Most weapon skill sets include a ranged attack of some kind, or the user can switch into a ranged weapon if they have it equipped as a secondary, allowing them to be easily demolished by anyone with the range to do so, because they’re fragile. Even if they weren’t, it’s not much of an ‘exploit-’ and if someone happens to manage to place a turret so it’s out of range of most ranged attacks, well, turrets don’t have the most stunning range, either. I don’t consider this to be an exploit, at all.

I’d suggest what you did or have them ride in your packpack with the ability to place them down, although no one would ever do that if they still worked as they do but on your back.

I could see that alternate suggestion there as working like the Mesmer’s Mantras. Prep them out of combat, run in, plant turrets, and have the next ones ready sooner due to the initial skill eating the cooldown. Or something.

Oh, or: If they’re used in backpacks, but don’t replace weapon skills, only let one be used in that particular fashion at any time.

Yeah let me clear up that post and put down my suggestion from elsewhere:
1) Turrets would ride on back behaving like they normally do, having all or only one usable this way at a time, where skill bar would place down the turret form, toolbelt remain same

2) I suggested that turrets be changed to backpack mods with unique overheating mechanic that functions simalarly to initiative, where each turret and gadget(maybe elixer) skill has a spammable or nearspammable skill that heats(depletes for elixer) your backpack of destruction, fully overheating your pack locks out overheat skills until cooled down 75% but lets out a fireball or something similar.

This is also a fairly interesting idea.

I’m beginning to think there should be a compilation of suggestions for Engineer fixes/overhauls/etcetera, posted onto the Suggestion forums for future consideration. With these ‘big’ patches coming, that may mean that there’ll be a window between the big patches and new content that we may be able to get enough attention to wedge ourselves into.

I’ve always thought Turrets would be better if they were more like the pet mechanic. So you can only have one but we would have many more different types and they wouldn’t take up a utility slot.

Basically through some sort of questing Engineers could obtain Turret Schematics and you can have 1 Schematic equipped at a time. We would be limited to only having a single Turret but there would of course be many more different turret options available, like Rapid firing and Slow Firing Rifle Turrets, Frost Turrets, Cloaking Turrets Elixir Turrets. etc

To me Turrets are the most Engineery thing about Engineers and yet they are one of the least used skills we have, specially in PvP.This would be making it so you can have a more specialized turret to fit whatever build you are running rather than having to completely spec for a lackluster turret loadout.

^Frost turret would be awesome, now I want a snowcone. But again, yes, turrets are the most engineer-ish we have, with slick shoes and failure rocket boots of flaming roundhouse kicking

Grenades, mines, bombs, flamethrower: demolitionist
Elixers: alchemist
goggles/pilot
elixer gun isn’t an elixer gun, its a tranq gun that shoots corrosive bouncing glue of speed(lulwhut?), poison clouds of condition removal(theres a pattern!) acid and healing springs. Which belongs to no profession, animal tamer in RL maybe?

Back on topic, if turrets also rode on your back it would be a ‘fix’ to them not using stats and dying because the dmg source is you! Also, like the frost and cloaking turret, it’d be neato to have turrets that say versatility through effects normally belonging to other profs.

I’m not really a fan of this idea at all. Turrets are turrets, not handheld weapons on sticks waiting to be grabbed. This would really do nothing to boost the turrets as they are, it would just give them a gimmicky secondary feature and probably overshadow their current turret functions, making them into wierd-to-use kits.

However, I would really like it if you could pick turrets up. Not to use as weapons, mind you, but to be able to move them around. There are some turrets in the Charr Iron Legion storyline you can use like that, you just walk up to them, interact, and they go into your hand (like how you’d pick up a rock or shard or whatever in the world), then you can move and press 1 to place it back on the ground in a new position.

Having something like that for Engineer turrets would be fantastic, allowing you to reposition your turrets without having to wait on the cooldown every time. Interact with a turret to pick it up into your hand, press 1 to set it down at your current position (or with Deployable Turrets, at a ground-targetted location) or press 2 to stow it permanently. Moving them around wouldn’t heal the turret, so there’d still be a reason to perma-stow them now and then to fix ‘em up, and it would also make the Self-Repairing Turrets trait useful to heal your turrets so you wouldn’t have to stow them.

I would love a turret kit, it would give me more of a reason to smack and heal turrets with a wrench, because as it is now, trying to fix your two attacking turrets instead of attacking is not worth the opportunity cost of doing way higher damage attacking directly as opposed to shooting for 300 damage every two seconds. A turret kit would help do more damage at a time and maybe just make healing them worth the effort, more turrets would mean more overall damage. And you could take for the third slot the ever necessary stun breaker skills.

before any of that:
Make turrets scale with stats!
Fix all the bugs!

Then see how it turns out.
Maybe THEN think about introducing such a mechanic.

I agree with naphack, fix all the bugs, then change things or add new stuff

Fix the bugs, make the turrets scale with player’s power or at least minimise the cooldown on them when stowing them back. A warrior can keep his banner up 98% of the time and even move it around. Why can’t the engineer move it and has to wait a longtime after stowing them back?

Just double the attack rate, triple the HP and buff the damage and turrets are fine!

Sounds too warrior bannerish to me. Why does everyone try to make our rifles replicas of warriors? Now trying to make our turrets like banners? they really serve different functions.

I think if we are looking for more functionality out of turrets, that this is a horribly wrong way to go about it.

The intent was mostly to get some kind of mobility, especially, out of turrets, without disabling the user during moving them or making them overpowered; maybe it’s not the best idea, but it’s at least something.

More on the graphic design point of view:

How will we be using it as a kit?

Do I:

A. pick it up and make some dances?
B. have the turret as a shoulder-mounted device (like those things you see in gunkittenhemed animes)?
C. transform the turrent into a bad kitten weapon?

I’m having doubts about this, since by definition, turrets are a “mechanism of a rotating projectile-firing weapon platform”. Either change the name or change the theme.

I hadn’t actually considered it from a graphic standpoint. It amuses me far too much to imagine the person picking up the turret just straight-up lifting the thing and running with it, though.

I think it should be a combination, I guess. Pick up the Rifle turret, for example, could be: grab a handle on the top as you run by, tripod folds up and whole thing is held under one arm, using the handle to control it and the crank in the back to make it fire.

Rocket Turret could be lifted up onto the shoulder, probably with tripod still attached (using it as the handle?).

Flame Turret and Healing Turret would both involve yanking out the guts of the Turret to reveal a hidden weapon similar to the Elixir Gun or Flamethrower, with the business end being the cap of the Turrets.

Net Turret should probably be about like the Rocket Turret – pick the thing up, perch it on a shoulder, hold it steady with one hand while working it with the other.

Thumper Turret would be pretty much just picking the whole thing up and running at enemies with it, business end first, though. Too hilarious not to.

As for Mortar, probably hold it like a bazooka.

Don’t take this idea too seriously – part of it’s to address the lack of turret mobility, and part of it’s going “Argh, kittening kits, why is the class built around a specific set of Utility skills? More things should be usable as kits, if they’re going to be emphasized so heavily.”

Hahaha

It won’t stop me from enjoying these babies if it would ever get implemented.

Not that it would. But still…

Make all turrets 5 seconds cool down when picked up and 30 seconds cool down when destroyed/exploded (excluding the healing turret). The turret’s original cool down is now their overcharge cool down. Problem solve, everyone goes home happy.

I would like some stun breaker options for kits. As of now we only have condition removal via super elixir on elixir gun, and no stun breakers at all. Personal I would like to see Elixir Gun #4 get a stun breaker.

That would be pretty handy, definitely. I think the Kit Refinement on Elixir Gun works as a stunbreaker (via the condition removal), but having to trait into it makes it more of a pain than it might be worth, depending on the build.

Come to think of it, probably should’ve included a stunbreaker in the Turrets-as-Kits bit. Hm. Not sure where it’d fit, so I’ll let somebody else do that, if they want.

coglin.1496:

I would like some stun breaker options for kits. As of now we only have condition removal via super elixir on elixir gun, and no stun breakers at all. Personal I would like to see Elixir Gun #4 get a stun breaker.

I agree—sacrificing utility for a weapon slot is what makes engineers less versatile than they’re supposed to be. Note that flamethrower also removes a condition with refinement, so we’re actually pretty decent there. But our stunbreakers are all gadgets and elixirs, no kits or turrets.

Another option might be to give us some psuedo-stunbreakers. For example, mesmers regularly run with no stunbreak because they can phase retreat out of anything. Thieves? If in doubt, shortbow out. Maybe EG 4 could become instant cast and still move us, but without actually “breaking” stun, like phase retreat. Or, maybe a kit refinement effect could give a blind or brief daze. Flamethrower 5 is marginally useful to reduce the punishing while stunned. Maybe we need more stuff like that?

I think rather than giving them individual skills, they should be more like Warrior banners (sorry!), and have 4 shared skills, and 1 turret specific. ie:

1) Bash: Hit your foe with your turret
2) Slam: Hit your foe with your turret, causing Confusion (3 stack, 5 second duration). 10 second recharge.
3) Brutal Smack: Hit your foe with your turret, stunning them (1 second duration). 40 second recharge.

4) Turret specific skill
Rifle: Launch several shots at your foe, making them Bleed (5 stacks, 5 second duration). Range 900, Combo Finisher: Projectile, 15 second cooldown.
Flame: Set the nearby area on fire, burning foes (Burning: 2 seconds). Radius 300, Combo Field: Fire (3 seconds), 20 second recharge.
Net: Launch a series of immobilizing nets in a cone in front of you. (Immobilize: 1 second). 30 second recharge.
Rocket: Launch a short range rocket at your foe, knocking them back. Range 300, Knockback 300, 45 second recharge.
Thumper: Slam your turret into the ground and Knock down nearby foes (Knockdown: 1 second). Radius 130, Combo Finisher: Blast, 60 second recharge.
Healing: Heal nearby allies and cure one Condition. Healing ~1000, Radius 300, 30 second recharge.

5: Redeploy: Place your turret back on the ground.

Weapon swap with a turret equipped would stow the turret, functioning the same as the current picking up of turrets currently does. Make turrets only able to be picked up by the Engineer who placed them (to prevent chain stunning, etc.).