Guild Wars 2

I mainly play pvp so is related to this more so than pve. I understand the need for the “nerf” to the turret engineer, but this has now completely messed up the healing turret which for me was the main form of healing.

The turret now often dies before you have a chance to gain anything from it and in most cases dies before it can be detonated, which makes this “nerf” even worse. Why does healing turret have to be part of this nerf? its not OP, not part of a problem? but now it is very hard to use and makes the survivability very bad.

drop the turret on any form of aoe and it dies pretty much as you lay it down and usually before you even have the chance to detonate for the water field heal. These are often the times you need to heal the most and you don’t have time to run 200 mtrs over to the other side of the map to avoid the aoe just so you can drop the turret and get a successful heal.

large and multiple aoe fields with massive condition damage just make this worse, especially when fighting over a capture point

i’m hoping they will fix this, but any suggestions what direction i should go in the mean time? as i’ve now gone from being able to survive a bit of a fight, to dying very quickly….

thx

Luku.6542:

I mainly play pvp so is related to this more so than pve. I understand the need for the “nerf” to the turret engineer, but this has now completely messed up the healing turret which for me was the main form of healing.

The turret now often dies before you have a chance to gain anything from it and in most cases dies before it can be detonated, which makes this “nerf” even worse. Why does healing turret have to be part of this nerf? its not OP, not part of a problem? but now it is very hard to use and makes the survivability very bad.

drop the turret on any form of aoe and it dies pretty much as you lay it down and usually before you even have the chance to detonate for the water field heal. These are often the times you need to heal the most and you don’t have time to run 200 mtrs over to the other side of the map to avoid the aoe just so you can drop the turret and get a successful heal.

large and multiple aoe fields with massive condition damage just make this worse, especially when fighting over a capture point

i’m hoping they will fix this, but any suggestions what direction i should go in the mean time? as i’ve now gone from being able to survive a bit of a fight, to dying very quickly….

thx

Well, actually Healing Turret is OP. Try using Med kit, A.E.D, Elixir H, and examine how your sustain changes. Lol.

Maybe a little health boost could be in order, if it’s dying within .5 seconds.

Try dodging away and using it immediately after, should help.

HT can’t be used offensive, I’d suggest too to make him the tanky one. In the end I look forward to let him become the best aoe heal over time heal and the medkit the burstheal skill. Let’s see what they do in HoT or if they let the medkit replace him completly

Putting aside whether healing turret is OP or not, the reason it is messed up is because Anet have a habit of slapping on lazy band-aid “fixes” that don’t really work, rather than addressing the real issue, so rather than rework turrets to be less brainless, more active they just flat out made them useless.

You can see it all over the game, everything from the ferocity nerf to thieves continually being hit with the nerf stick rather than reworking them to address the broken core mechanisms that make them too good at their role.

Chaith.8256:

Luku.6542:

I mainly play pvp so is related to this more so than pve. I understand the need for the “nerf” to the turret engineer, but this has now completely messed up the healing turret which for me was the main form of healing.

The turret now often dies before you have a chance to gain anything from it and in most cases dies before it can be detonated, which makes this “nerf” even worse. Why does healing turret have to be part of this nerf? its not OP, not part of a problem? but now it is very hard to use and makes the survivability very bad.

drop the turret on any form of aoe and it dies pretty much as you lay it down and usually before you even have the chance to detonate for the water field heal. These are often the times you need to heal the most and you don’t have time to run 200 mtrs over to the other side of the map to avoid the aoe just so you can drop the turret and get a successful heal.

large and multiple aoe fields with massive condition damage just make this worse, especially when fighting over a capture point

i’m hoping they will fix this, but any suggestions what direction i should go in the mean time? as i’ve now gone from being able to survive a bit of a fight, to dying very quickly….

thx

Well, actually Healing Turret is OP. Try using Med kit, A.E.D, Elixir H, and examine how your sustain changes. Lol.

Maybe a little health boost could be in order, if it’s dying within .5 seconds.

Try dodging away and using it immediately after, should help.

Healing turret is (was) very useful, but I don’t know if it’s OP so much as the other engineer heals are simply underpowered, comparatively. Even in PvE (fighting Mordrem in Silverwastes, for example) I have placed my healing turret down only to have a small mob drop a poison field on it and it dies almost instantly. If anything, this nerf should only be applied to the offensive turrets, not the healing turret. It’s almost not worth taking anymore.

I don’t understand where everyone is coming from when they say that the healing turret is useless now. I use my healing turret as I always have: If I only need a little healing, I put it down, overcharge it and then pick it up. If I need a big heal I put it down, over-charge it and then detonate it to blast the water field. I haven’t seen any loss of effectiveness in my healing turret since the patch, even in SPvP.

Gern.2978:

I don’t understand where everyone is coming from when they say that the healing turret is useless now. I use my healing turret as I always have: If I only need a little healing, I put it down, overcharge it and then pick it up. If I need a big heal I put it down, over-charge it and then detonate it to blast the water field. I haven’t seen any loss of effectiveness in my healing turret since the patch, even in SPvP.

It depends on the situation. OP mentioned it in their post. You used to be able to drop Healing Turret in a batch on heavy conditions to give you that extra health and condition removal, and even have it possibly give you an extra tick of regen before it died, but now that’s not possible to do. It can still be used, but it needs to be placed where it won’t get cleaved at all. I’ve noticed significant changes to its survivability where, even in team fights, the turret will just die almost immediately after placing it because the entire area is covered in AoE.

MiniEquine.6014:

It depends on the situation. OP mentioned it in their post. You used to be able to drop Healing Turret in a batch on heavy conditions to give you that extra health and condition removal, and even have it possibly give you an extra tick of regen before it died, but now that’s not possible to do. It can still be used, but it needs to be placed where it won’t get cleaved at all. I’ve noticed significant changes to its survivability where, even in team fights, the turret will just die almost immediately after placing it because the entire area is covered in AoE.

pretty much this exactly. Try dropping the turret in the middle of a nerco mark, or a warrior hambow fire field, or or (you get the idea) and watch it disappear. I have a 300+ ping so i’m sure that’s not helping, but it often dies before I can even detonate it, dispite spamming the keys to try and do so, meaning my heal fails and i die.

I also disagree with the comments the healing turret is OP, it is just our other healing skills are lack luster at best.

Gern.2978:

I don’t understand where everyone is coming from when they say that the healing turret is useless now. I use my healing turret as I always have: If I only need a little healing, I put it down, overcharge it and then pick it up. If I need a big heal I put it down, over-charge it and then detonate it to blast the water field. I haven’t seen any loss of effectiveness in my healing turret since the patch, even in SPvP.

I’m with Gern here. if I end up leaving my turret sitting it’s because I screwed up. if I’m not detonating it I’m picking it up immediately to get that 15sec cooldown ticking.

HT isn’t OP, it’s just like with Healing Signet on warrior- the alternatives are just bad.

Chaith.8256:

Luku.6542:

I mainly play pvp so is related to this more so than pve. I understand the need for the “nerf” to the turret engineer, but this has now completely messed up the healing turret which for me was the main form of healing.

The turret now often dies before you have a chance to gain anything from it and in most cases dies before it can be detonated, which makes this “nerf” even worse. Why does healing turret have to be part of this nerf? its not OP, not part of a problem? but now it is very hard to use and makes the survivability very bad.

drop the turret on any form of aoe and it dies pretty much as you lay it down and usually before you even have the chance to detonate for the water field heal. These are often the times you need to heal the most and you don’t have time to run 200 mtrs over to the other side of the map to avoid the aoe just so you can drop the turret and get a successful heal.

large and multiple aoe fields with massive condition damage just make this worse, especially when fighting over a capture point

i’m hoping they will fix this, but any suggestions what direction i should go in the mean time? as i’ve now gone from being able to survive a bit of a fight, to dying very quickly….

thx

Well, actually Healing Turret is OP. Try using Med kit, A.E.D, Elixir H, and examine how your sustain changes. Lol.

Maybe a little health boost could be in order, if it’s dying within .5 seconds.

Try dodging away and using it immediately after, should help.

Op on its own or Op when you analyze the entire build when running HT? That said it can be easy at times to stuff up the healing on HT which is something less likely to happen with other heal skills. Anyway things will change when specializations introduced.

choovanski.5462:

Gern.2978:

I don’t understand where everyone is coming from when they say that the healing turret is useless now. I use my healing turret as I always have: If I only need a little healing, I put it down, overcharge it and then pick it up. If I need a big heal I put it down, over-charge it and then detonate it to blast the water field. I haven’t seen any loss of effectiveness in my healing turret since the patch, even in SPvP.

I’m with Gern here. if I end up leaving my turret sitting it’s because I screwed up. if I’m not detonating it I’m picking it up immediately to get that 15sec cooldown ticking.

HT isn’t OP, it’s just like with Healing Signet on warrior- the alternatives are just bad.

I litterally don’t have time to overcharge it anymore because there is a slight delay between deployment and overcharge, and as it’s dead before I overcharge, I certainly can’t pick it up.

Noone is arguing they wanted to leave it on the ground for 10 minutes, but they’d at least like the option to overcharge which isn’t a possibility anymore in some circumstances (particularly showing up in PvP).

Consider, you’re on point, you get immobilized and there’s a well underneath you / ranger barrage / ele whatever it is they do. You think, I’d really like to not be here, oh hey my healing turret can remove a condition and heal me… that’s pretty handy. You deploy it and it dies before you can overcharge.

vincecontix.1264:

Chaith.8256:

Luku.6542:

I mainly play pvp so is related to this more so than pve. I understand the need for the “nerf” to the turret engineer, but this has now completely messed up the healing turret which for me was the main form of healing.

The turret now often dies before you have a chance to gain anything from it and in most cases dies before it can be detonated, which makes this “nerf” even worse. Why does healing turret have to be part of this nerf? its not OP, not part of a problem? but now it is very hard to use and makes the survivability very bad.

drop the turret on any form of aoe and it dies pretty much as you lay it down and usually before you even have the chance to detonate for the water field heal. These are often the times you need to heal the most and you don’t have time to run 200 mtrs over to the other side of the map to avoid the aoe just so you can drop the turret and get a successful heal.

large and multiple aoe fields with massive condition damage just make this worse, especially when fighting over a capture point

i’m hoping they will fix this, but any suggestions what direction i should go in the mean time? as i’ve now gone from being able to survive a bit of a fight, to dying very quickly….

thx

Well, actually Healing Turret is OP. Try using Med kit, A.E.D, Elixir H, and examine how your sustain changes. Lol.

Maybe a little health boost could be in order, if it’s dying within .5 seconds.

Try dodging away and using it immediately after, should help.

Op on its own or Op when you analyze the entire build when running HT? That said it can be easy at times to stuff up the healing on HT which is something less likely to happen with other heal skills. Anyway things will change when specializations introduced.

OP on it’s own. HT doesn’t depend on any synergy with builds to be far more optimal than any other heal.

It’s objectively better than even a fully traited version of other heals!

Well, our other heals are quite terrible to start with, though. They may be traited, but traits can’t do miracles.
We know they’re working on med kit, let’s hope they’re improving the others as well. And then we can see about healing turret.

shion.2084:

choovanski.5462:

Gern.2978:

I don’t understand where everyone is coming from when they say that the healing turret is useless now. I use my healing turret as I always have: If I only need a little healing, I put it down, overcharge it and then pick it up. If I need a big heal I put it down, over-charge it and then detonate it to blast the water field. I haven’t seen any loss of effectiveness in my healing turret since the patch, even in SPvP.

I’m with Gern here. if I end up leaving my turret sitting it’s because I screwed up. if I’m not detonating it I’m picking it up immediately to get that 15sec cooldown ticking.

HT isn’t OP, it’s just like with Healing Signet on warrior- the alternatives are just bad.

I litterally don’t have time to overcharge it anymore because there is a slight delay between deployment and overcharge, and as it’s dead before I overcharge, I certainly can’t pick it up.

Noone is arguing they wanted to leave it on the ground for 10 minutes, but they’d at least like the option to overcharge which isn’t a possibility anymore in some circumstances (particularly showing up in PvP).

Consider, you’re on point, you get immobilized and there’s a well underneath you / ranger barrage / ele whatever it is they do. You think, I’d really like to not be here, oh hey my healing turret can remove a condition and heal me… that’s pretty handy. You deploy it and it dies before you can overcharge.

i have heal on right click and detonate on middle mouse. i find i can get the overcharge off, however i don’t encounter a lot of power necros in pvp and can see how those wells could be very problematic.

on the healing turret being OP, i disagree. it looks overpowered for the same reason the healing signet does, the alternatives are vastly under powerd. engineer has strong heals to make up for it’s weak condition clear, but only the healing turret does so. apart from medkit (in some situations) i would say the other two are never worth it when untraited.

choovanski.5462:

it looks overpowered for the same reason the healing signet does

It is overpowered. It’s the best heal in this game. There is no other heal that puts out this amount of aoe heal, regen and condiremove on a 15-sec cooldown. Plus, its a finisher and traited cc.
For me nothing has changed at all. Of course i probably won’t be able to overcharge it when in an area of heavy aoe, but as an engineer you should not move there in the first place. If you are in there because you are cc’d, 1) you won’t even be able to use the turret so it doesn’t make a difference and 2) you are probably dead anyways.
Note: My turret didn’t die once since the nerf.

This is a bit of an exaggeration, however I do agree that in very rare cases where HT(still useful, but sometimes gets burst down) and crate turrets WOULD have been useful, they are not anymore.

MiniEquine.6014:

Gern.2978:

I don’t understand where everyone is coming from when they say that the healing turret is useless now. I use my healing turret as I always have: If I only need a little healing, I put it down, overcharge it and then pick it up. If I need a big heal I put it down, over-charge it and then detonate it to blast the water field. I haven’t seen any loss of effectiveness in my healing turret since the patch, even in SPvP.

It depends on the situation. OP mentioned it in their post. You used to be able to drop Healing Turret in a batch on heavy conditions to give you that extra health and condition removal, and even have it possibly give you an extra tick of regen before it died, but now that’s not possible to do. It can still be used, but it needs to be placed where it won’t get cleaved at all. I’ve noticed significant changes to its survivability where, even in team fights, the turret will just die almost immediately after placing it because the entire area is covered in AoE.

As I said, I don’t know where you all are getting this. I use my healing turret the same way I always have, even putting it right in the middl of AOE fields and I am still able to detonate it in it’s water field every single time. I am even abel to pick it back up after overcharging it if I don’t want to detonate it. I haven’t seen any loss of functionality at all.

Manuhell.2759:

Well, our other heals are quite terrible to start with, though. They may be traited, but traits can’t do miracles.
We know they’re working on med kit, let’s hope they’re improving the others as well. And then we can see about healing turret.

While other heals aren’t great, healing turret IS easily the best heal in the game. It his higher HP/S than healing signet, while being a burst heal (so its good against both sustained and burst damage). It gives you 2 condis cleared, which is better than most other heals (although many argue necessary for engie). It also gives you a HUGE water field and integrated blast, making it not only the best self-heal of the engie, but also the best support heal. All other “support” heals other classes have (like well of blood, healing breeze, arcane heal, etc.) have much less self-healing.

Also, it has a teeny-tiny cast time and is nearly impossible to interrupt, unlike consume conditions, troll unguent, or ether feast.

Also, they are changing healing signet so that it has to be cast more often.

BlackBeard.2873:

While other heals aren’t great, healing turret IS easily the best heal in the game. It his higher HP/S than healing signet, while being a burst heal (so its good against both sustained and burst damage). It gives you 2 condis cleared, which is better than most other heals (although many argue necessary for engie). It also gives you a HUGE water field and integrated blast, making it not only the best self-heal of the engie, but also the best support heal. All other “support” heals other classes have (like well of blood, healing breeze, arcane heal, etc.) have much less self-healing.

Also, it has a teeny-tiny cast time and is nearly impossible to interrupt, unlike consume conditions, troll unguent, or ether feast.

See, this is where things get fun.
Healing turret can be strong, sure…but only as long as you don’t use it as a turret.
Using it as a proper turret would be too risky. Since the overcharge and cooldown after pickup conveniently have the same duration, there is just no reason to leave it down. The minor benefit given by the normal regen “autoattack” isn’t worth the risk of seeing the turret destroyed. And this one was always being easily destroyed when placed down, due of its low amount of health points, even for a turret.
In other words, not being sturdy enough is what caused people to use it in alternative ways. Be it by picking it up or by comboing with the toolbelt (calling it “integrated” isn’t exactly correct, as we use the toolbelt to do that – our class mechanic – and destroying the turret is a detrimental action, in theory… that is, if we weren’t already sure it would die anyway if left on the field.

Still, i don’t think it is correct to compare the engineer’s utilities to other classes’ ones. The engineer is focused on its utilities, due of the lack of the second weapon. Something has to be better than the norm to make up for it – be it the mechanic, utilities, or a mix of both. Else the engineer would end up underpowered (same in everything, but lacking a second weapon).
But even if we wanted to compare those healing skills, the turret has to be balanced over its drawback of being destructible…even if it isn’t used in a way that usually permits to do so.

Funnily enough, people now advocate using the other turrets in exactly the same way.
Because once they can be easily destroyed, they’re more effective by being used in such a way than as being used as turrets. Cause using them as glassy turrets pose too much risks for the rewards.
So, pick your poison. Either turrets are enough sturdy to be used as proper turrets, or they get used in alternative ways to reduce the risks that make their proper use unfeasible, while retaining the rewards for the potential risks (since they’re still there).

Gern.2978:

MiniEquine.6014:

Gern.2978:

I don’t understand where everyone is coming from when they say that the healing turret is useless now. I use my healing turret as I always have: If I only need a little healing, I put it down, overcharge it and then pick it up. If I need a big heal I put it down, over-charge it and then detonate it to blast the water field. I haven’t seen any loss of effectiveness in my healing turret since the patch, even in SPvP.

It depends on the situation. OP mentioned it in their post. You used to be able to drop Healing Turret in a batch on heavy conditions to give you that extra health and condition removal, and even have it possibly give you an extra tick of regen before it died, but now that’s not possible to do. It can still be used, but it needs to be placed where it won’t get cleaved at all. I’ve noticed significant changes to its survivability where, even in team fights, the turret will just die almost immediately after placing it because the entire area is covered in AoE.

As I said, I don’t know where you all are getting this. I use my healing turret the same way I always have, even putting it right in the middl of AOE fields and I am still able to detonate it in it’s water field every single time. I am even abel to pick it back up after overcharging it if I don’t want to detonate it. I haven’t seen any loss of functionality at all.

Not all engineers stay out of melee range. If you’re a nade spammer you might notice no change to your healing turret but if you are in close combat a cleave or aoe will kaboom your HT. Saying otherwise means you’ve been getting lucky, try to get closer to the action and you’ll see.

Aidenwolf.5964:

Saying otherwise means you’ve been getting lucky, try to get closer to the action and you’ll see.

Sometimes i’m as close to the action as it gets and my turret still doesn’t explode. You know what i think? I think, it’s not us who are lucky, but you who has really bad luck with his turret. HT has 6k life, and it’s up for not even a second. If it gets destroyed that often, well…

NitroApe.9104:

Aidenwolf.5964:

Saying otherwise means you’ve been getting lucky, try to get closer to the action and you’ll see.

Sometimes i’m as close to the action as it gets and my turret still doesn’t explode. You know what i think? I think, it’s not us who are lucky, but you who has really bad luck with his turret. HT has 6k life, and it’s up for not even a second. If it gets destroyed that often, well…

Ranger 1 alone fired through the turret does that by itself.

Previously, I would leave my healing turret out 2-3s after overcharging against melee foes (especially thieves), so that I could CC the enemy if they came close. If they didn’t fall for the bait quickly, I’d pick it back up. I can’t do that anymore, because it dies way too quickly.

I won’t deny that Healing Turret is a very strong heal, but I think it’s necessary considering how weak Engineer is versus both conditions and CC.

NitroApe.9104:

Aidenwolf.5964:

Saying otherwise means you’ve been getting lucky, try to get closer to the action and you’ll see.

Sometimes i’m as close to the action as it gets and my turret still doesn’t explode. You know what i think? I think, it’s not us who are lucky, but you who has really bad luck with his turret. HT has 6k life, and it’s up for not even a second. If it gets destroyed that often, well…

As a bomb kit, front line commander who plays engineer, I have to agree with this. If you placing your HT in a situation in which it takes 6k damage in the 1 second it is out, your not showing enough situational awareness.

It is just like any other heal. You cannot use it all willie nillie. You have to utilize it at the most opportune times.

Not to mention, HT is extremely strong. This is a risk versus reward value not to the very large AoE heal, water field, blast of the water field by the turret itself, AoE regen, AoE cleansing , all in one. It is reasonable that you should need to be a little more aware of what you are doing.

Welp, supply-crate surly is less effective now, but when it comes to the healing turret, I’ve not seen any impact on its performance.
I believe that this issue appears only if you do not correctly execute the healing turret combo, so I go ahead and explain to you how it works in detail:

1.: Spam your healing skill. Seriouskly, spam the button until you see the white circle of HT.
2.: pick it up immediately (reduced cd, therefore more cleanse per second) OR use the toolbelt to explode it right in the second when the white circle is visible (therefore blast its own waterfield for max healing).

Turrets will execute their overcharge instantly if it’s que’d up while the turret-placement animation is going, therefore minimizing the required uptime for healing turret down to a split-second since the AOE cleanse and heal are instant. Still the waterfield will remain for its full duration, allowing for further blasts from other utilities / weapon-skills.
The only scenario that I can think of where the healing turret dies faster than you can use its overcharge is when people press their healing-button once, wait for the turret to spawn and then start to spam the healing-skill. This will result in the Overcharge being que’d after the first AA (in this case aoe-regen), therefore unnecessarily delaying the cleanse / heal and forcing you to wait a couple of seconds more before you can pickup / explode it again, which delays the actual cd even more.

I make sure to drop -> overcharge ->pickup/explode my healing turret every time asap, and other experienced engineers do so as well. So far (after the patch) I did not notice my HT getting destroyed before I got the effect, even while used in the middle of wvw-blobbs.

So please make sure that you execute the HT-combo properly before you assume that it’s suddenly broken. From my POV it still works perfectly fine, therefore the issue must be at the side of those who appear to be struck by the nerf-bat.

Aidenwolf.5964:

Gern.2978:

MiniEquine.6014:

Gern.2978:

I don’t understand where everyone is coming from when they say that the healing turret is useless now. I use my healing turret as I always have: If I only need a little healing, I put it down, overcharge it and then pick it up. If I need a big heal I put it down, over-charge it and then detonate it to blast the water field. I haven’t seen any loss of effectiveness in my healing turret since the patch, even in SPvP.

It depends on the situation. OP mentioned it in their post. You used to be able to drop Healing Turret in a batch on heavy conditions to give you that extra health and condition removal, and even have it possibly give you an extra tick of regen before it died, but now that’s not possible to do. It can still be used, but it needs to be placed where it won’t get cleaved at all. I’ve noticed significant changes to its survivability where, even in team fights, the turret will just die almost immediately after placing it because the entire area is covered in AoE.

As I said, I don’t know where you all are getting this. I use my healing turret the same way I always have, even putting it right in the middl of AOE fields and I am still able to detonate it in it’s water field every single time. I am even abel to pick it back up after overcharging it if I don’t want to detonate it. I haven’t seen any loss of functionality at all.

Not all engineers stay out of melee range. If you’re a nade spammer you might notice no change to your healing turret but if you are in close combat a cleave or aoe will kaboom your HT. Saying otherwise means you’ve been getting lucky, try to get closer to the action and you’ll see.

When did I say that I stay out of melee range or that I am a grenade spammer? In fact, I said right there in the post which you quoted that I put my turret down right in the middle of AOE fields and it’s fine. I use a FT build, so I am very much in melee range.

coglin.1867:

As a bomb kit, front line commander who plays engineer, I have to agree with this. If you placing your HT in a situation in which it takes 6k damage in the 1 second it is out, your not showing enough situational awareness.

It is just like any other heal. You cannot use it all willie nillie. You have to utilize it at the most opportune times.

Not to mention, HT is extremely strong. This is a risk versus reward value not to the very large AoE heal, water field, blast of the water field by the turret itself, AoE regen, AoE cleansing , all in one. It is reasonable that you should need to be a little more aware of what you are doing.

Funny you say this.
If we were to use it as we are supposed to, it would have to stay on the field most of the time. Receiving any such damage. And instead we’re here debating that we shouldn’t leave it in the field even for a second when the situation gets dangerous (incidentally, that’s also when we are likely to need to heal). And it wouldn’t even be that good if used properly, anyway (a cleansing burst every 15s, in that case).

And i wouldn’t even say that HT is strong. Rather, it’s kinda terrible. As a turret, it can’t stand alive even some seconds. And the effect isn’t even worth the risk.
But the alternative way we’ve found to use it? Oh, that’s indeed good, especially the synergy with the toolbelt detonation (cause it is one of the few times it actually works to our advantage; even if just picking it up after the overcharge can be as much as beneficial).
But ultimately, it is just that – we aren’t intended to use it like that. Expecting them to balance the healing turret over a side-effect makes no sense. Rather, they’re far more likely to remove the alternative use, or dampen it greatly. And then we’re left with the weak healing turret we’re actually supposed to use.

Combos are a intentional, often promoted mechanic in Gw2
Giving turret destruction a blast finisher was a intentional dev-decision.
Giving healing turret 2 short-lasting waterfields was a intentional dev-decision.
Not counting 1 and 1 together is your intentional decision.

We are not supposed to use anything.
We just got options for possible combos from the game’s design. When it comes to the engineer, the intricate design is to combo & chain as much skills as possible. If you insist on this not being true and rather use one single key at a time, you should not expect to be taken seriously, especially not when it comes to PvP.
If you insist on AA’ing random mobs to death and only using your utilities once in a while, go have fun, PvE is easy enough to not punish you for that. But running around and bashing on the statement that a skill – which is not executing its optimal mechanic by a single key-stroke – is not intended to work that way, so we all act against the game’s design and therefore must be wrong, is so hilariously dumbstruck that you will earn nothing but WvW-players / PvP players & dungeon/fractal runners responding exactly like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FopyRHHlt3M

Even giving turrets immunity to criticals and conditions was an intentional dev-decision. As well as saying that “we can take control of an area by placing turrets”. As well as the old “perma-stability while in flamethrower” Juggernaut or the old flamethrower skills. As well as the old “immunity to conditions below 25% hp” automated response.
Their “intentional dev-decisions” are changed and reversed all the time.
But putting aside that, turrets are supposed to be used as turrets (and we’re supposed to take control of an area with them, by design) and not as things we put down for a second and blast or pick up for reduced cooldowns. Cause that goes directly against what they were designed for.
They happen to be more effective while used in the latter ways? Oh, indeed. Of course they are, they just aren’t balanced over that. What makes you think that such an healing skill with a 15s cooldown (or 20s with an added blasted water field) is even remotely normal?
It’s nice to have it, but let’s not beat around the bush – we aren’t really supposed to use it as such. And i won’t be surprised at all when they’ll nerf the healing turret as a whole, raising its cooldown (and thus making its intended use even less worth the risk). Just because that’s far simpler than any other alternative (that is, dealing with the unintended use that made it so strong).

Arantheal.7396:

Combos are a intentional, often promoted mechanic in Gw2
Giving turret destruction a blast finisher was a intentional dev-decision.
Giving healing turret 2 short-lasting waterfields was a intentional dev-decision.
Not counting 1 and 1 together is your intentional decision.
We are not supposed to use anything.
We just got options for possible combos from the game’s design. When it comes to the engineer, the intricate design is to combo & chain as much skills as possible. If you insist on this not being true and rather use one single key at a time, you should not expect to be taken seriously, especially not when it comes to PvP.

There are numerous dev decisions that don’t work as intended. 100Nades got nerfed because “Engineers weren’t meant to have this amount of burst”. Kit Refinement got utterly destroyed because “the utility was too good”. In fact, the Healing Turret is an example of this in ITSELF.

They changed it to the way it is RIGHT NOW to give players more of an incentive to leave it out rather than pick it up. They did this by moving a portion of the overall heal from the deployment effect into the overcharge effect. But all this did was force more people to learn how to immediately deploy, overcharge, and pickup/detonate, because you weren’t getting the same amount of personal heal otherwise. It even changed the timing of how we used to do it before, so those of us who DID know to do that already had to go and practice the timing again when the patch was made live.

Developer decisions aren’t perfect. If they were Kit Refinement would still be remotely good, thieves would be dealing half of my life total with Heartseeker, and this conversation wouldn’t be happening because turrets wouldn’t have had their longevity neutered. That’s the thing about game design. It is an ITERATIVE process that builds on itself and you make changes based on the things that don’t work. If making turrets much not viable in PvP was their plan, then I guess they’re succeeding. But it does so in ways that go against their ideal for the Healing Turret, and turrets in general. The only reason we don’t use the other turrets the same way as HT is because the CDs are too long. If they ever drop the cooldowns on them in response to turret life being absolute garbage, you better believe I’d be using the Thumper Turret just like I do with the Healing Turret. It would really be just like the Mesmer Illusions that some players like to compare them to. Put out, get effect, shatter it.

This discussion is hilarious.
HT still works exactly like before the patch.
Devs never nerfed the healing turret, they actually made it more viable for group-play. Yes, it requires high apm to be used correctly, but when you invest it, you support your group even more.
You artificially construct problems where are none.
If you want to complain about the turreteer build being gone, there are numerous other threads.
For me this topic is answered.

Of course it works (almost) like before the patch, no one ever used it as a turret to begin with. It was brittle before, it is even more brittle now. But who cares, heh, the only use it gets is an overcharge and pickup as soon as it is placed down, or a detonation instead of the pickup.
If you don’t want to face it, do as you wish. But we never used it as we’re supposed to, and it was never balanced over the use we’re doing.
If they ever decide to properly balance it according to the use people do of this “turret”, it will be throughly and substantially nerfed. Just don’t act surprised when that will happen. A 15s heal/area heal with 2 condition removal never made sense from a balancing standpoint.

Unless you show me the dev-post, citing this, I assume this is your personal opinion.
You are free to have your opinion. Just don’t state it as fact.

You’ve been citing your personal opinion all the time, and you even talk about the profession page on the official site as some outdated and weak source.
Mines are here, and that’s the most official source there is – cause that’s how the class was designed.
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/professions/engineer/
If anything, you’re the one that should stop with the personal opinions and start citing facts to demonstrate that we aren’t supposed to use turrets as turrets, but only as things to place, overcharge and pickup/blast. I’ll wait for that.
And no, reducing their survivability doesn’t comprovate your opinion on the matter.

Arantheal.7396:

HT still works exactly like before the patch.
Devs never nerfed the healing turret, they actually made it more viable for group-play.

If you’re talking about the patch I was mentioning (looking it up, it was the 4/30/2013 patch), you’re 100% right about that. They made the turret a lot better for the group. But that was a means to an end. The intention was to make the Healing Turret a strategic object to protect while it was on the field. So that the Engineer and his allies would protect it, while the enemy team would want to destroy it for the passive benefits it gave. A presence of importance. But instead, it had the opposite effect. You drop, you pop overcharge, you pick it up or detonate, you move on with life.

That said, I’m going to concede this point for lack of evidence. I can’t find the dev post or video in which they actually said the reasoning behind the change. I just specifically remember the situation becoming the exact opposite of what they wanted to promote.

>“Your source is outdated, and here is why”
>“Posts same source again, to validate said source”

Okay.
Dude, I don’t cite my opinion as fact, I just have the opinion that the devs have given up on this little paragraph that you shove in your front like a giant, indestructible shield.
And why do I have this opinion? Because they nerfed the survivability of turrets into the ground, clearly not giving turret AA’s any chance to be used effectively over a prolonged duration of time.

So unless they come back suddenly, say “sorry” and fix turrets’ survivability, it’s a reasonable guess that your little paragraph from 2011-12 is nothing a dev would put their hand into the fire for.

And yes, reducing their survivability into nothingness very well comprovates my opinion, ty for pointing that out already.

Nilix.2170:

Arantheal.7396:

HT still works exactly like before the patch.
Devs never nerfed the healing turret, they actually made it more viable for group-play.

If you’re talking about the patch I was mentioning (looking it up, it was the 4/30/2013 patch), you’re 100% right about that. They made the turret a lot better for the group. But that was a means to an end. The intention was to make the Healing Turret a strategic object to protect while it was on the field. So that the Engineer and his allies would protect it, while the enemy team would want to destroy it for the passive benefits it gave. A presence of importance. But instead, it had the opposite effect. You drop, you pop overcharge, you pick it up or detonate, you move on with life.

That said, I’m going to concede this point for lack of evidence. I can’t find the dev post or video in which they actually said the reasoning behind the change. I just specifically remember the situation becoming the exact opposite of what they wanted to promote.

I started playing Gw2 August 2013, so after that patch hit.
I do know the patch-notes from launch to now however since it interested me what the class was intended as in the beginning, still I’ve not seen all of the live-streams where a-net explained their balancing-intentions. All I know from that time are the patch-notes, and judging from them, we got a couple of nerfs, and nice a load of buffs. In my book, HT always seemed on the buffed side.
And as of now, it still works exactly like before the recent patch, which is why I don’t understand this thread’s existence.

I swear if you cant get your heal off with healing turret you are an embarrassment to engies. This is a complete learn to play issue, with barely any induction it cant be interruped and now can be canceled due to counter play. Use your heal smarter…

Claes.4795:

I swear if you cant get your heal off with healing turret you are an embarrassment to engies. This is a complete learn to play issue, with barely any induction it cant be interruped and now can be canceled due to counter play. Use your heal smarter…

I think someone needs to learn to read.