I originally intended this for education purposes for non engineers how the turrets viability and mechanics have changed. Hence the over explanatory wording. I especially try to highlight the room for skill and decision making for people who think “It got AI which makes the player a bad auto attack to win spammer” infused in every possible build bringing a turret.
“I tried constructing a node fighter build with flameturret and thumper along with toolkit and HT going 2 0 6 6 0 and had a lot of fun with it. But i did not play it like i see new engineers and the type of engineers getting a lot of hate now do (setting up a triangle of net, rifle and rocket turret and then killing people wading into the point with not a single thought in the world of dodging or blocking the overcharge, ranging the engineer with condipressure in the turrets dead spots or nuking his turrets from orbit first and then killing the engineer). I agree that kind of play is not that exciting. Instead my turrets are on pointers with short range and they work as a resource in every way as much as a clone does for the mesmer and i do not use them until the effect is required, depending on which role i need them to fill.
For example using my healing turret and picking it up at once resulting in the highest possible condiclear and hps or blasting it up for a longer recharge to allow me to buy a breathing room from a melee character beating me up and thus possibly negating enough damage to compensate the hps and condiclear/s loss along with making it a bigger burst heal or gasp leaving it out for a few seconds to use the shield to negate enough damage and gaining a bit of dps back, this also lowering my hps and condiclear but negating damage proactively, sometimes i judge it worth it to activate it before needing the healing effect itself just for this reason. All these possibilities with a single healing skill. Note that doing one of these things is at the cost of the other.
And this works in the same way for flame and thumper turret. Will i use the flameturret mainly as a reflect and thus not keeping it out at all but maximizing the reflect uptime? Will i stop it from DPSing to create a smokefield allowing me to blast it for stealth for stomping or pure survival. I can sacrifice a number of turrets for that blast depending on how much stealth i need. I can keep it out for a steady low stack of might or use the firefield on napalm (which itself is a “skillshot”) and sacrifice turrets and blast for a mightspike.
For the thumper turret i can keep it out halfway into the battle to cripple my enemy and buy a bit of breathing space with the overcharge, ideally i will try to combine this with a smoke vent from flame turret to stealth me and disorientate my opponent. Then i get periodical protection as long as it is up. And my stunbreak means not having the thumper up or destroying it, is it worth destroying the tumper for the stunbreak?
I will also have to keep an eye out for their health, will they last long enough to get that welcome launch up again or will i pick it up to ensure a shorter cooldown than if it had been destroyed. They have done a good job of making the turrets more active as a resource and force some decision making to get the most out of them. Instead of switching to a kit and using all skills independent of eachother i decide what function i need right now and try pulling that of, again at the cost of other possible uses."
Sidenote i actually tried this in wvw a bit and got a tie with a PU hybrid roamer mesmer, when she got low she stealthed so i followed her example. And so it went on for a loooong while until we simply jumped and /waved. Fun times.
Oh and for some reason i eat warriors for breakfast, that reflected pindown and burn field or impale cant be good for their health.
