Guild Wars 2

Foefaller.1082:

Eurantien.4632:

Engineer’s have different kits on their back?

Seriously, no one looks at the kit, or at least I don’t. You either see them with their weapons, or there are nade animations, or bomb animations, or you see the flame thrower, or you hear the elixir gun, or you see a gear shield. I have never looked at an engineer’s backpack in order to see what it was doing.

I believe you have just giving him the answer he wanted to hear.

Personally, I love having that “hobosack” 99% of the time on my engi, but I would still like the option to have it not show if/when I get a sweet back item I want to ogle at instead.

So yeah, make it an icon that shows up on our stat bar like ele attunment, and give us the option to not have it override whatever back piece we have on.

I want to hear any answer that is true. Looking, not looking, this isn’t really for me – this is essentially just a call for any player to speak up one way or another, and hopefully the devs will maybe look in and find themselves either confirmed in their balance concern or consider removing the sacks.

That said: Personally, I’m definitely a supporter of options. If people want the hobosack, let them have it, but don’t force them on people using cosmetic back items.

In any case, at least get the bloody code working right, so the back item doesn’t clip through the sacks.

In the year or so that this thread has existed, absolutely nothing has been done regarding the subject of Hobosacks.
These unsightly rucksacks prevent visibility of back items, and can obscure much of the character using them, in addition to letting back items glitch through them when skills are being used, making them even more unsightly. Some of them even look almost identical – particularly Bomb Kit and Tool Kit, which differ only in that one gives the user a wrench and the other leaves them empty-handed.

Roughly ten months ago, Bill Freist popped in with:

Some pretty interesting ideas here. I was actually spit-balling some ideas on how to address this today. This has always been something that has bothered me, too.

For example:

• Have kits respect the existing back item flag. If you have a back item and you want to show it, hide the kit. If you don’t have a back item or choose to hide it, always show the kit. Obviously this makes it a little harder than usual to tell what kit you are using, so:
  • A nameplate icon similar to Elemental Attunements would be a good addition (I may add this regardless if we can get the art )
  • Move the kit somewhere else on your body. I know, crazy right? For example, who doesn’t like a sweet fanny-pack?

Hopefully this finally gets resolved soon, and I’ll do what I can to see that happen. Keep in mind, as Colin mentioned before, that there are some pretty beefy projects going on that are consuming our engineering time. But that doesn’t exactly mean we can’t sneak stuff in here and there .

-Bill

This ten-month-old post implies that there’s something of a balance concern to removing the ‘hobosacks.’ Now, if only there was a board where profession balance was discussed – wait, there is. And I’m on it, precisely because it’s implied there that this is a balance issue, unlike (presumably) the purely cosmetic visibility of gloves, helms and shoulder gear, which have all had visibility toggles slipped in at one point or another.

Now, without further nattering, the question: Does seeing the sack on an Engineer’s back help, in any way, shape, or form, in combating them?

To put it another way: Would removal of the hobosack make fighting an Engineer more difficult?

Celestina.2894:

Penguin.5197:

“I’ll make this quick.” Said the op. And with those words, one of the longest running threads in this forum begins.

And one I feel everyone from every class can get behind in support of.

We tried a rally, once.
It didn’t take. Of course, it wasn’t spectacularly organized, I’ll be the first to admit, and it was before megaservers, so if there was any kind of turnout, it was scattered amongst servers…which is part of why the lack of organization caused an issue.

Toolbox.9375:

Turrets are good, but still not as turrets. More as multi-purpose deployable utility devices. Their damage remains garbage and the area denial is non-existent.

Improving the damage might improve the denial – they’re just not concerning enough at the moment. I still support adding the scaling that the tooltips were inaccurately showing…which could also give Power builds a use for them.

Advent.6193:

One can fairly argue that they’re too focused on making $$ over in China to handle pressing NA issues with class functionality and customization.

• Hobosacks
• Persistent clipping issues
• Mesmer’s obscenely long buglist
• Thief P/P set/Traps/amount of skills unusable underwater
• Ranger Pet names/AI/Longbow QOL
• <Insert other issue here>

The worst part is; fixing issues like this will only serve to increase the money ANet and their investors make. Happy players are more likely to toss some spare bucks here and there. Meh.

No kidding. I’ve been refusing to spend any money into the gem store due to the lazy QA, and now that they’ve finally gotten around to bugfixing Turrets, I’m not spending money because of stupid issues like this.
I spent sixty bucks to buy the game at launch in the first place, and if I’m to give Anet more money, they’ve got to actually do something to make me think I should. I’ve given Warframe more than a hundred dollars, and that’s free to play, so it should be pretty clear that I will spend when I think it’s deserved.

Turrets are bound to a firing cycle. While I used to be a proponent of eliminating this due to Reason 1, I’ve come to believe that making Overcharges activate immediately could cause balance issues, particularly with Thumper and Net Turrets. There’s a lot of control those two turrets offer, and they’ve already nerfed one because of it.

That said, I would like the Thumper and Flame Turret to trigger their overcharges outside of combat. They’re both AoE effects with possible pre-combat utility, so it’d just be a nice QoL adjustment.

Elixir-Infused Bombs only affects Bomb Kit attacks.

Ranger pet names also aren’t one of the most common meta-achievement rewards.

Mitzruti.5719:

assuming the tooltips are correct, weapon rarity and strength are completely irrelevant.

Never assume the tooltips are correct. Ever. Anet is terrible at keeping them correct – for at least a month, Turret tooltips claimed Power scaling that didn’t actually exist, for example.

It’s most likely that it only accounts for main-hand rarity, so if your Pistol is Common and your Shield Exotic, you’d probably be getting Common damage.

Dual.8953:

The mobs used to move out off AoEs in the betas. The problem was it worked too well, as classes with tons of AoEs would end up chasing the mobs around with thier ground targetted AoEs and the mobs would be too busy evading to mount a counter offensive.
They need a middle ground. Maybe have it so powerful attacks have a chance to trigger the mob’s evade routine. Like say Hundred Blades now has a 66% chance to make Mobs evade.

This is pretty much why I was thinking of establishing some sort of risk/reward evaluation system for the mobs.
I think it’d be effective if the mob was aware of: Its own HP, the HP of the player it’s trying to target, the armor class of the target (heavy/medium/light), current/upcoming AoEs, and aggro values/Hate, as well as how much damage it would be likely to take.

First, it’d consult the aggro tables to decide on a target. Then, it could use AoE awareness to path to the target. If there’s too many AoEs for it to approach safely, it could compare its own HP to the HP of its target, how much damage it’s likely to do and take, and then act accordingly – either rush through the AoE or switch target. It could also build up some sort of counter, which might be taken into account to make the AI able to break a pattern of being warded off.

It’s just…really, really awkward how easy PvE is, and how massive mob HP pools get – what if the mobs were a little smarter? Would that make the game a little more challenging, and allow some tuning-down of mob HP?

What I mean by ‘smarter:’ I can use a pulsing-damage AoE on a ranged enemy, and said enemy will simply stand there. Enemies happily trot into AoE circles, as well, because they just don’t seem to know that there’s a reason to care.
I don’t like this. I think it’s silly. I think Ranger Pet AI and Mob AI have been said to be too linked to give Ranger Pets the ability to avoid AoE…and I think that’s lame, both because it holds Rangers back and because it keeps mobs from being able to do exactly what Rangers want their pets to - avoid AoEs if there’s nothing keeping them from doing so.

If mobs did gain the ability to avoid them, what would be the pros and cons? I think they’d actually give people some practice at setting up their high-damage effects with control effects. I can’t think of any cons, although the HP pools would probably need retuned afterward.
There is a concern that people would just spam AoEs on themselves to keep mobs at bay, but that could be handled by having the mobs perform some sort of risk assessment – HP vs Aggro tables, maybe, with Armor Classes and Professions coming up as well.

I’ll probably end up wedging Turrets into the build somewhere – they’re my favorite skillset, even if they really aren’t that great, with very limited scaling and still a bunch of bugs. I’ll also try using Bomb/Grenade kits a bit.
Part of my reason for choosing Celestial gear is being able to take advantage of the new trait system’s one good feature, making it less of a “Ah, all my gear is for X, I’d do better with Y here. Too bad I can’t go craft more. Hmph.” situation when I go into, say, World Bosses with Turrets (which still don’t target them), but have the wrong gear to switch to the Grenade Kit for a ranged assault. It also makes experimenting with builds much less cumbersome.

PvE, mostly.
/fifteencharacters

What weapons/skills/traits would you use?
I’ve been thinking of attempting to craft a full set of Celestial gear, but I’m really kind of curious what kind of skills, traits, and weapons seem like they would be ‘best’ for it. Should I just start researching coefficients?

Wolfar.6508:

Rozbuska.5263:

Rabit will be probably better choice while turret damage dont scale with power or even with might, condi damage on other hand..:-)

Turrets do scale with power, change the knight amulet to rabid and you will see the damage done drop by the turrets.

My testing indicates that there isn’t any Power scaling. The tooltips have also stopped lying about it, so there’s really no reason to be misinformed about Turret Power scaling or the lack thereof any further.

Testing method:
I went to Loch Waypoint in Metrica, put Thumper, Rifle and Rocket Turrets on my skillbar, removed every item I possessed that gave a Power bonus, and picked fights with neutral Jungle Spiders nearby.
Without gear, my Power was 51; with gear, it was 67.
With and without gear, Rifle dealt 42 damage per shot, Thumper dealt 43, and Rocket dealt 97.
Similar tests run against the golems in Heart of the Mists’ DPS trials area returned similar results – turret damage at 1,559 Power was identical to turret damage at 916 Power.

Jason.9643:

the thumper stun breaker. did you notice that it has enough stability.. just to be immune from your own rifle #4 overcharge shot’s knockback?

also, turret build is really strong. i havent lost a single 1v1. i think we will get a nerf. which will be sad.

If they nerf Turrets because of how they perform in one-on-one situations, they’re stupid – it’s an MMO with all of, what, one duel mode?

Being able to turn off Explosive’s on-dodge Bomb would be appreciated by stealth Engies.

It should probably be noted that they’ve intentionally made Engineer main-hand weapons weak.

They do. It’s not a ton, but it’s something.

Electro.4173:

It probably doesn’t prioritize you or party members because its treated as a separate entity entirely, not as an extension of your character. Same reason that, for example, Healing Turret’s condition cleanses don’t count toward Daily Condition Cleanser.

Why turrets are treated as such when most other minions / pets aren’t, I don’t know. Maybe because turrets let you get much further away from them?

This is probably the problem. No idea why Turrets, specifically, are treated in such a way, but it’s at the root of a lot of several issues.

What I think is happening, actually, is that Turrets somehow end up tagged as ‘inanimate objects,’ like large world bosses like the Claw of Jormag. This makes them immune to critical hits, among other things, but…well, just like the large world bosses don’t register as ‘enemies’ to Marks, Turrets, and possibly Traps, this causes more problems than it actually solves, such as preventing Turrets from contributing to at least some achievements and triggering proc effects.
Turrets have spaghetticode to begin with, too – the last patches have been great for Turrets, in that they actually get bugfixes, but that’s after almost a year of apparent ignorance of the issues.

In short: Lazy coding. Can the engine literally not handle two more classes of object, one of which is Turrets and the other of which is World Bosses?

igmolicious.5986:

Mayonnaise.9624:

It cannot be simply toggled PvE people since you need to be able to see what weapons are at disposal to an engineer you PvP with and against.

The solution is simple as it was already stated countless times. Make status icons as you did for elementalist attunments, or at least ANet take 1 minute and leave us a reply and explain why nothing has changed since your last reply (1 year ago)!

Well, aside from that, it’s generally pretty obvious what sort of engineer you’re facing off against by what they are doing. And since packs can change from moment to moment, in PvP seeing a pack (if you actually CAN) doesn’t mean that the engineer is going to be using that kit from one second to the next. Also, I can’t even reliably see my Asura’s pack when staring at it from the back, so I question how well someone trying to look past my giant head from the front could identify the pack I’m wearing.

In addition, Bomb Kit and Tool Kit are absolutely identical, with the exception of one equipping the Engineer’s hand with a wrench.
Obviously, the pack can’t be that important, or they’d at least have spent a half-hour throwing together visually distinct packs to begin with.

It’s pretty much experience, in my opinion.
Get in over your head, and learn to thrive in situations you wouldn’t expect to survive to begin with. Learning the game inside out is nice and all, and maybe it’s important for, say, sPvP, but theory does nothing if skill is lacking.

I certainly seem to recall getting what seemed like an absurd amount of aggro on my Turret Engineer; there were times when I would kite bosses back and forth, frantically trying to avoid their attacks, and times when I would be the bosses’ sole target until I went down…and resume being their sole target when I got back on my feet. Things got downright creepy when I ran Ascalonian Catacombs – groups of enemies would split off of fighting my allies to converge on me.

And that’s why I’ve gone bunker.

Thumper Turret does have 11950 HP (the most HP of any Engineer Turret), and can be traited to take 33% less damage. If traited with Experimental Turrets, it also gives Protection to its allies.
It also has a very, very short range, even with Rifled Turret Barrels, and is a Turret – part of a skillset which has drawn ‘They just don’t live long enough’ complaints for as long as I can recall.

There, a little of both sides.

If they’re getting smart, get smarter. Know what it can do, and figure out how to counter it.

Guhracie.3419:

Well, I won’t be advising anyone to buy new character slots, and I’m glad I didn’t buy any in the last sale. My new alts are officially going to be running around without traits until level 80, and then I’ll only get the ones I need for my build. If the intention with free trait resets was to allow for more build diversity, that has failed horribly.

If you’re going to have 100% zone completes unlocking things, at least have it unlock all the adept traits in a certain line. Having it unlock a single trait is just punitive, especially when it’s high level zones for low level traits. This is just SO. BAD. And has anyone done the math on the cost in gold and skillpoints to unlock all the traits at the vendor? I want to say it’s around 450 skillpoints and 100g per character.

Did the math. Unless I’ve made an error (which is entirely possible):
10s 2sp x30 [3g, 60sp] Adept
50s 5sp x20 [10g, 100sp] Master
1.5g 10sp x8 [12g, 80sp] Old Grandmaster
3g 20sp x5 [15g, 100sp] New Grandmaster

Totals up to 40g, 340sp.

Naranek.3467:

I can’t help but think that this is a missed opportunity for growth beyond level 80. Why not use the unlocks to let us access traits outside of the trait lines we put points into? I’ll explain. First, assume that we revert to the old system of manuals (bought with gold only, no skill points) but keep the on-the-fly retraiting; 6 points or 30, doesn’t really matter for this

You’re a 6/6/2/0/0 whatever. Generally you’re happy with your build. You like the stats, you like the Grandmaster, you like how it works with your profession mechanic and your chosen skills. But then you start looking at those bottom lines, and find a few things that would really compliment it. A boost to your favorite weapon, a shorter recharge on that one skill you use all the time, a weapon swap bonus, maybe a handy out of combat trait like speed or (for those who do a lot of puzzles) reducing fall damage. Stuff that you really want to incorporate, but just can’t quite justify spending your limited # of points for this one thing.

That’s where the unlocks come in. You go off on whatever quest, and can access the particular trait without spending points. Now, because you’re not spending points, you don’t get the stat bonus or the minor trait, nor can you choose another major trait without doing that quest, too (though of course you can simply retrait with points as normal).

This would increase build diversity which is what this was supposed to do, it would give us greater customization of our characters, because it’s our choice of a bonus instead of what is supposed to be a core function of the game it’s easier to justify taking the time for these requirements, it doesn’t lock out alts or – even worse – new players, etc. People have been complaining for a long time about no meaningful endgame content. Well, here. Character optimization that you have to go out and earn.

Basically, if I’m reading this right, exemption from needing trait points to pick up Major Traits in other categories?

…I love this idea. This would actually give level 80s something to do that would matter besides the stupid bloody Living Story. This would give so much more customization and optimization potential.

It’d be nice if they’d say anything about the subject.

Right, I’m kind of late to the party here – see, I have a level 80 Engineer, who’s been level 80 for a year.
I started a Ranger, and leveled them to 30, just recently (only reaching 30 last night). This was the first time I actually saw the unlock requirements, and…really?
More approachable, this is supposed to be?
I will probably never play this Ranger again, because this is absurd.
Here are my trait choices at level 36, if I don’t buy any, and actually try to unlock them at level-appropriate times:

• Signet Mastery (Marksmanship)
• Keen Edge (Marksmanship)
• Pet’s Prowess (Skirmishing)
• Shared Anguish (Wilderness Survival)
• Nature’s Bounty (Nature Magic)

I haven’t counted WvW unlocks, despite their level-nebulous nature. This is because I abhor WvW as a whole, and every single time I enter it, I’m greeted with the Outmanned ‘buff,’ which does wonders for resolving that pesky “Hey, let’s try WvW” thing. Capturing these points, while Outmanned, while every single lowbie in the game needs to do exactly the same thing if they don’t want to buy the trait? Not likely to happen.

I also only checked ‘level appropriate’ by ‘This area caps at level 36 or less,’ so there might be a small margin of error.

Anyway, let’s look at my build ‘options,’ at this point:
Marksmanship offers two choices, Power and Condition Duration: +20% Signet Recharge Speed, and Sharpening Stone on Player-to-Enemy<75% HP hit.
Skirmishing offers one, Critical Chance and Ferocity: Pets deal more critical hit damage.
Wilderness Survival offers one, Toughness and Condition Damage: Pets take your crowd-control conditions.
Nature Magic offers one, Vitality and Boon Duration: Regeneration you apply lasts 33% longer.
Beastmastery offers none, Healing Power and Pet Attribute Bonus.

Obviously, I’ll go Marksmanship – sure, I can reset my traits, but I still have to consider my gear and its synergy with my traits. It also seems like Marksmanship’s traits would be far more useful in PvE. So, here I am, I’ve gone Marksmanship.
Power gear it is; I’m obviously encouraged to use Signets, by the dearth of choices, so I will…despite actually wanting to get Master’s Bond as my first trait, because I’d rather not just buy the manual, and 100% Frostgorge Sound at level 36 is a stubborn fool’s errand.

And this system was supposed to encourage meaningful character growth? I don’t find slogging through badly-considered unlock requirements until I’ve finally obtained the ability to make the choice I’d wanted to make all along meaningful, fun, encouraging or approachable.
Having to slog through levels 1-29 without having anything except for utility skills and gear I hesitated to craft until I could see the requirements for trait unlocks, I also didn’t find approachable or feel like it improved pacing of the game – I felt like it hurt it, in fact, and if I were a new player, I wouldn’t just be quitting right now.
I’d be asking for a refund, and that’s not an exaggeration.

Here, let me explain:
It was a wholly unsatisfactory, grindy experience leveling this new character from 1-30, and frustrating to discover that I’d have a grand total of five traits I could pick from if I didn’t just buy them from the trainer, like the requirements of the rest of the traits seem intended to encourage.
From 1-29, I couldn’t even pick a set of gear to start crafting, because it’s impossible to check the trait unlock requirements until 30, making choosing a build to go for very, very difficult indeed.
Then I hit 30. My character has 0 Tier 3 skills unlocked, one Elite Skill unlocked, and the only alternative to these absurd trait unlock requirements is to spend skill points that will continue to be required for unlocking skills until about level 60, if I recall my Engineer’s progress properly.
If I didn’t already have a level 80, in fact, I would’ve stopped playing at level 25 or earlier, because it’s simply not particularly fun to level a character who can’t even be built in any meaningful way except for skill, weapon and pet choices.

Now that I’ve reflected on it a bit, it really does feel like they just made a giant, rushed, sweeping change to try to impress people in preparation for the China release, when what they really should have done to make the trait system more approachable is just add the on-the-fly reset.

Seriously – the unlock requirements (especially for the Adept tier) are utter garbage, causing me to essentially abandon a character I had previously been enjoying in protest. Pushing the initial unlock back to 30 just leaves levels 1-29 boring, with any character customization limited to gear choice and skill bar, and making it only progress initially one point per six levels makes leveling unrewarding, at least for me.

The on-the-fly reset is the only good decision in this entire restructuring, in my opinion, and if it were the only thing that had been done, it would have made experimenting with builds and traits so much more interesting.

So, another suggestion as to how to ‘fix’ it:

• Revert it, aside from the on-the-fly reset button.
• Actually take the time to do it in a way that doesn’t make character-leveling awful afterward.

The only way I can think of to verify the stat-numbers without building the gear is to use old-fashioned math. Characters have definite statistic baselines, and the numbers granted by gear of any type are available on the wiki.
The Mists will always seem like they use lower numbers, because characters have a much more limited level of build-customization (in that it’s only an amulet and some runes/sigils, as opposed to a whole set of gear).

The tooltip might be showing the amount of bleed that would be applied if all the five axes hit one target. Tooltips can be a bit…odd.

Nilkemia.8507:

As someone who like and plays this game when I can, I’m sorry I discouraged you like that. I still like this game, even after all this crap, because there are still things it does right. But this isn’t one of them. And maybe I’m just ranting on and on, but part of me hopes someone at ArenaNet might read this and think “Hmm, how can we fix this so players will like these changes more?”

But..that’s probably just the tiny optimist in me typing. Eh…so. Any more feedback? Now that I’ve ranted my fingers off at how these trait unlocks aren’t good, what of ways to improve it? I’ve seen a few up on this thread already, but I want to get some more feedback, so that hopefully a better solution to this trait issue can be made that works for as many as possible.

It’s not you, it’s Anet – I’ve already got a level 80 Engineer, and man am I glad I’m not leveling them now. It’s discouraging, looking over the list of requirements to unlock traits (even just specifically the ones I intend to use), and imagining the endless slogging through to get them while feeling kitten due to the lack – rebalancing of content aside, some of these are in such absurd locations that it pretty much forces particular builds for lack of any other trait options. Don’t want to use one of those builds while trying to unlock what you actually want? Have fun having no real choices in your trait selection, unless you buy them all. I simply hadn’t realized what it took to unlock traits until I looked at this thread.

Also? Screw this ‘Pushed back to level 30 for approachability and meaningful character growth from 30 to 80’ kitten.
We were all new to GW2 when it was released, and I’ve not heard of anyone thinking the system was too much, too fast, and the forums are where people go to complain, so I’m sure I’d’ve read something. Even during the first weeks after release, I never heard anyone go “Whoah, I’m not sure how to deal with Traits,” except in ’I’m not sure how to build for X purpose’ contexts. Or, of course, ‘Yo, this is stupid bugged, how do I work around this?’
Did the playerbase turn into monkeys? I’m pretty sure those could figure out the system, too.
From level 30 on, I was worried about filling out my skill lists, getting more Trait points, and picking up Elite skills, and then it was just a trudge on to 80 when that was done. If there was a lack of meaningful character growth in those fifty levels, it’s because all there is in them is gathering Trait and Skill points, and building up gear. No Living Story has been designed with those levels (or any below 80) in mind, no particular milestones besides Elite skills, Master and Grandmaster trait unlocks – of course it doesn’t feel like there’s a ton of meaningful things happening, there’s really very little changing about the character besides fine-tuning and unlocking of further trait options.
The new system doesn’t change that, but it does make the initial 1-30 slog worse, in my opinion; I’d rather be able to start customizing and fine-tuning my build at level 11. Then I could look forward to my Elite skill, and my Master trait unlock.

As for what I’d do: I’d probably do the ‘thematically appropriate’ thing, as others have suggested, for whatever lent itself to such.
For everything else, maybe actually incorporate racial starting zones – set a few things here and there in areas determined by player race as ‘starter’ traits, to unlock the Adept tier’s traits as they progress toward unlocking the Adept tier itself. Use early Personal Story, particularly racially iconic skill points, Heart Quests, and event chains for Adept-tier traits – leave World Bosses and late-zone Map Completion for Master and Grandmaster.
Oh, and always, always make sure that enough choices to actually offer options would be available before the traitline opened up. Maybe nothing skill-specific, but things that can fit in any build should be available.
Edit: Malthurius also has a brilliant idea, there. Oh, sure, it might involve (gasp!) actual work for the devs, but it’s a great one that gives each class more identity.

I’ll probably end up doing a critique of my own on the system regarding build options and restrictions resulting from the current set of unlock requirements.

This thread has actually made me far less interested in leveling new/low characters, because I’m not sure if I can stand having trait slots and almost no traits to put in them for thirty levels.

It honestly doesn’t seem like they thought this through at all.
And they said it would be ‘more approachable.’

Edit: Just got my Ranger (that I’d been intending to level to 80) to 30. Took a look at the traits myself. Yeah, that’s not going to happen – what was the thought process behind these choices?

…Wow, people just don’t know anything about Turrets. 20 second cooldowns on most of them? I wish.

Here, I’m just going to link the wiki so there’ll at least be some accurate information available for the lazy:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Turret

That has info on every single Engineer Turret and trait that affects Turrets.

Overcharging should theoretically give precisely half the total personal, non-Regeneration healing of the Healing Turret. If actually doesn’t quite do this, due to a bug in the Overcharge making it not scale at all to Healing Power.

But, to answer the question: You get more healing if you use Overcharge.

I’d probably suggest ditching the fire rate increase – Net Turret, in particular, would draw much ire. Thumper would, as well, given that it would keep any enemy near the Engineer in perma-Cripple. The limited mobility itself would be incredibly handy, without being overpowering, and allow roaming Turreteers much more flexibility.
I know *I*’d certainly appreciate being able to have, say, Flame Turret complementing my Pistol attacks between big encounters, as opposed to relying almost entirely on my Toolbelt. Or have Thumper Turret mounted for when I know I’ll want to run out of close combat.

As long as this didn’t allow the user to have two of the same Turret out without using Supply Crate, it’d probably be fine; include a clause about it sticking around until the Turret was placed again or the timer expired, and that’d probably take care of it.

Also: Forcing this Turret to only attack the user’s target, rather than ’user’s last-damaged, or whatever’s hostile and close,’ seems advisable. Common sense also indicates that the backpack should be destroyed if the user unslots the affected Turret.

Questions, though:
If you pick up, say, Healing Turret and then Rifle Turret, with this trait equipped, would Rifle Turret replace Healing Turret as your Backpack Turret, or would a different means be used to determine which stayed on?
What would happen to the Toolbelt skill of the carried Turret? I can see three different options: Toolbelt is treated as if Turret is out (so it stays Detonate), Toolbelt is treated as if Turret is not out (so Toolbelt can be used regardless), or Toolbelt could become how the Turret could be Overcharged while still being carried.

Each has pros and cons, of course.
Option A (Deployed) – Engineer is essentially walking around with more or less an instant-trigger Big Ol’ Bomb. Mostly a potential problem because of the instant traited knockback, Blast Finisher, and damage-dealer.
Option B (Undeployed) – Engineer is able to use the Toolbelts in conjunction with the Turret’s usual attacks. In the case of Net Turret, especially problematic; Rifle #2, Net, and Backpack would be able to inflict a very long-uptime Immobilize.
Option C (Overcharge) – Engineer is able to activate Overcharges (which would share cooldowns with their placed-Turret OCs, of course) centered on their location. Would pretty much remove need to place the Turret, except for tactical positioning purposes, and likely causes other issues that I’m not noticing.
Option D (???) – What’s the plan for this?

Domo.2894:

Napzor.8275:

They are good, though (unlike people think) they require quite a lot of active play and thinking. I’ve tested them in team queue for some time, had no trouble at all as close capped/far assaulter. No one can win you in 1v1 most of the time, 1v2 is fine as long you see them on time. Moving the team fight to you might be the problem, but it’s on your team to prevent that. I am speaking as the maker of (currently) the most effective turret build, and top 50 (maximum rank7) in team queue EU.

But what is the most effective turret build?

I am also curious about this, as someone who prefers Turrets over any other skillset available to the Engineer.

…probably because you can’t even access Grandmaster tier traits at level 32. You might’ve unlocked it for when you can access GM traits, but there’s a while to go for that.

Also, I think unlocking Experimental Turrets (is that the trait in question?) involves something in Orr.

I think this is the OP’s point: There’s five Grandmaster Minor/five-point traits that give 10% of Stat X to Stat Y, and three of them start with a baseline of 916+traitline bonus. Two of them start at 0+traitline bonus.

The resulting difference is pretty obvious. At a minimum, the three with baseline 916+traitline bonus will be getting 116 (10% of 916+250), while the two with baseline 0+traitline bonus will be getting 25 (10% of 0+250).

This also limits these traits maximum effectiveness – with literally every item, including a stacking sigil focused on Healing Power, only 1882 Healing Power was gained, making the buff 188.
The only thing I didn’t grab to increase Healing Power was food.
Focusing on, say, Power? I could get it up to 2798, making the buff 279.

Note once more, of course, that these five traits are all Grandmaster Minor, and two of them have roughly two-thirds of the effectiveness of the other three.

There are several traits of a lesser amount, such as the plethora of 7% this to that, but unless they’re based on Healing Power, Condition Damage, or Ferocity, they’re starting at 916+traitline, so that’s more than 64 per trait, as I’m not accounting for possible variations of tier placement.
Notably, however, they’re all more effective at baseline, regardless of tier, than some Grandmaster Minor traits.

I’d suggest improving the ratio, rather than adjusting the base stat; adjusting the base stat risks a ripple effect wherein Healing Power builds simply never die. Making the ratio 14.85% would bring Nature’s Wrath and Performance Enhancement just about up to the effectiveness of the other three traits.

My girlfriend’s Guardian’s reflect wall also fails to reflect Frostgorge Wurm boulders. I’ve seen a bug report regarding it; it seems like it might be something to do with the new world boss.

As interesting as it would be to have mobile Turrets…I’ve stopped thinking it’s a good idea. Partially due to trait interactions with Deployable Turrets, I’ll admit; Anet has demonstrated a remarkable inability to get Turrets working entirely properly to begin with, going by the eight months between reporting and resolving several crippling issues, and I’ve little love for the idea of seeing them attempt to make ‘They go where you throw them, and then move along with you’ work.

Instead, I’d suggest modifying the base cooldowns – make them start when the Turret is placed, at the very least. This would reward people who could keep them up for longer, while also making it less of an issue to Detonate even the longest-cooldown Turrets.

I do a lot of Turret use, to, uh, put it mildly (I pretty much never don’t use four Turrets, except underwater), and I’ve personally not noticed a ton of issues with mobility. I also don’t often place my Turrets when not outnumbered in PvE, so that might have something to do with it.

Grenix.1576:

Stats to pick with turrets i think are power thoughness vitality (soldier) Since you probably will make most use of those stats.

Turrets don’t scale to Power, despite their tooltips. The tooltips are liars. Nevertheless, I have heard of ‘Berserker Turret’ being effective.

What Turrets do scale to: Condition Damage/Duration, Boon Duration, Healing Power. Cleric, Apothecary, or Carrion would likely be the best equipment sets for maximizing the effectiveness of the Turrets themselves and the user’s survivability.

You kidding? I’m impressed they didn’t somehow manage to replace Turrets and their Toolbelts with randomly-selected other skills, really.

…They actually just set them to fire at their listed fire rates, I thought. Like, in the 15th’s patch. It was one of their big overdue bugfixes, resolving an issue wherein the fire rates were off by at least 50%. Did they somehow break it again?

Yep, Turrets and World Bosses is a bug. Think it’s actually based in the World Bosses themselves, though – they’re marked as objects in order to prevent people from being able to Critical Hit them, from what I’ve gathered, which leaves Turrets, Necromancer Marks, and probably a couple other things whiffing them entirely. Apparently, it’s so incredibly difficult to make one new class of object that is both not able to be affected by crits, and able to be affected by Turrets, etcetera, that even when they’re doing complete reworks of the bosses and their mechanics, it just isn’t going to happen.

Oh, yeah. That happens sometimes. Not mad. Incredulous, maybe, but not mad. Mad is more like an infuriated howler monkey, only without the flinging of feces, so I guess a slightly more well-mannered howler monkey or particularly ineffectual Hulk with less wardrobe issues.

welp, archival post bollocked due to forum error. Too bad.

I’m not trying to recover those links because, frankly speaking, it’s a huge pain in the kitten .

And they didn’t say it wouldn’t afterward. There was no ‘Rifled Turret Barrels losing range boost when used with Deployable Turrets has been resolved,’ there was only ‘Rocket Turret: This turret is no longer created with its overcharged shot as the default attack when traited with Rifled Turret Barrels and Deployable Turrets.’
Side-note, I’m not even sure if RTB grants its range boost to non-Deployable Turrets of those types after Overcharging – it certainly didn’t last time I checked. I might hop on and retest it in a couple days.

Is it startling you that they didn’t hotfix this while they were in there, or something? It took them eight months to fix the firing rates, hitboxes, and resolve the issue with Rifle Turret’s Overcharge not getting the 50% faster fire rate, except under a condition wherein it would never lose it. Months to resolve other issues, as well, some of them exploitable.

Am I saying ‘Be glad they fixed anything?’ Yeah, kind of, if I’m being entirely honest. But more than that, I’m saying ‘They had to start somewhere.’ Were they supposed to resolve every issue at once? I’m critical of Anet’s lackadaisical bugfixing, too, but this is just silly – there is nothing to even give the merest vague impression that they’d have resolved the issue you’re calling attention to (which they are aware of, I’m certain) not being resolved.
Literally the only mention of the traits is ‘Yeah, these were involved with the bug.’

I’m all for calling Anet out on being bad at bugfixing and quality assurance, I really am, but this isn’t even making a point. It’s just going ‘Hey, you said something about those two traits, they still have the following issue, so you obviously haven’t done anything to change the functionality of Turrets. No, it doesn’t matter that you actually did resolve an exploitable issue, you didn’t fix these two traits that are only related to the issue because they had to both be active in order to cause it.’ Do you tell the plumber he’s done nothing because, when he comes and fixes your water pressure, he does nothing about the malfunctioning hot water heater, despite never claiming to have done so?

tl;dr: Claiming the patch did nothing, while citing tangentially related issues as reasoning, is inaccurate and, considering the number of long-overdue bugfixes finally delivered…rather unreasonable.

insanemaniac.2456:

Grackleflint.4956:

Jeezus, what has happened to the Engi community?

have we ever been anything but overly negative about even the smallest tweaks?

its pretty typical of the gw2 community in general:

• “how are these condis killing me, condi builds are op, i quit” (while using scholar runes, air/fire sigils, power food)
• “champ bags dont give money now, gg, cant farm, game ruined, i quit”
• “automated response got nerfed? but i needed that trait, cant play engi now cuz engi wasnt good for anything but decapping”
• etc

look at any nerf in the patch notes and i guarantee there are 5+ threads in the relevant forums complaining that the nerfs are unjustified. and there arent really ever any positive threads on the same subject. and if someone attacks the OP for being an idiot, +1 infraction, message deleted, because they have a right to complain.

In this case, OP is complaining that an easily exploitable bug that rendered the Rocket Turret absolutely broken (due to delivering a knockdown every four seconds) got fixed without affecting the functionality of other parts of the turrets.

I’m a little confused by this.
Did they not fix the bug? I actually haven’t tested this.
Did they state that they had done something about other bugs or functionality in that patch note? It certainly doesn’t look like it to me.
Are we supposed to be angry that they chose to resolve an issue that made Rocket Turret overpowered? I’m not – I consider a bug to be a bug, whether it’s advantageous or not, and if they resolve it, I’m certainly not going to complain.
It’s also worth noting that they’ve been hotfixing the most recent, obvious Turret issues very shortly after introducing them in the first place.
Why does this thread exist?