Guild Wars 2

Saw an elementalist named Elementary Watts and an engineer named Turrets Syndrome

What part about it being a fun, non-competitive build did you miss? Always a critic, I suppose.

Also, with the Accelerant-packed Turrets trait, they explode & knockback when killed, so I don’t care if someone stands in the middle of them and whirlwinds.

I don’t think it was me, but here’s what I run purely for operating the treb.

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mcMM9cz0owmxMMwMxMGax0aVsocabV8khA7070M7khA707kuW70V7ofD8ofY

I surround myself with turrets before operating the treb, and cackle maniacally when people roll up, smash a turret, and get blown over the edge of the parapet, only to come up and do it again. I use a rifle for it’s control abilities, so I can place them where the blowback from my turret explosions will do the most harm. I chose Deployable Turrets to turn my turret abilities into ranged black finishers/knock back. This build is not competitive—it’s purely for fun.

How do I beat thief bs?

fixed

A: No idea. I just bunker until my team shows up and then drink the tears when the thief dies and sends me a nasty tell.

Any trait we share with other Adventurers either costs more trait points to reach or has received an arbitrary 50% reduction in effectiveness. It is lazy design.

Just spent an hour playing your build Reux. Love it. Thanks for sharing.

Receiving Error 42 upon log in attempts for past 15 minutes.

US – Isle of Janthir

Volstag.6371:

So, now, do I take it into WvW? I have not gone into that arena at all yet, so being a complete noob with turrets sounds like a long day. I may give it a go this weekend and see where it takes me. You see a human engineer from Tarnish Coast getting owned in WvW lend a hand or at least go easy on him. I’ll need it.

Thanks for sharing your experience in PVE so far. I’m more focused on sPvP and WvW, so I’d like to share my experience in WvW to help you get started. Please keep in mind that these are just my opinions.

Performing well in WvW requires you to be mobile, and somewhat self sufficient because you never know if you’ll get the help you need. Unfortunately it is very hard to fit turrets into a WvW build. For mobility, I choose Speedy Kits and run at least one kit—usually Grenade Kit. This gives me mobility, and the capability to add constant pressure through direct damage and conditions during larger team fights. I feel that this is crucial to being an asset to your team whether you’re with a small group of 3-5 people hitting caravans and camps, or with a squad attacking or defending larger objectives.

So now I’m 10 points into Tools, and down one utility slot. If I then choose to run turrets I would select Healing Turret and Rocket Turret. Now I’m down to one utility slot and I have no condition removal (Healing Turret’s “cleansing burst” is unreliable due to the turret’s fragility) or stun breaker. For your elite, it doesn’t matter what you choose. You can switch on the fly when you’re out of combat. When defending a fort I use Mortar or one of my Golems (Asura racial) to disrupt enemies at the gate. When I’m attacking I use Supply Crate, Elixir X (Tornado is great for clearing walls of pesky defenders), or my Power Suit (nice tanky option and can deal significant damage to champs and clear walls with whirling assault).

So what should you choose for your last utility. If you’re running with a party, you could risk a third turret and no stun breaker and hope they are good about reviving people. If you do I would choose Flame Turret. The Smoke field allows you to apply Blind, or detonate turret for a stealthy getaway. (Personally I would choose Toolkit as my third option. The 3 second block and Magnet Pull have many applications in WvW.)

I would recommend running Pistol/Shield. In WvW it’s important to be able to get past attackers and into a fort. You might be late to a fight or you may have been pulled off of a wall, and you need to get back inside. Magnetic Inversion and Static Shield (the latter can be channeled while moving) can buy you precious seconds to slip past a zerg. Magnetic Inversion is also a handy Blast finisher to add some area healing or buffs in large fights.

In conclusion, I’m not excited about turrets in WvW. If they were immune to area damage or took significantly less area damage, I might consider them. Even then their range would have to be increased or we would need to be given the ability to cause our turrets to focus on one target. I would settle for turrets attacking a marked target when we hit T to assist.

I’ve tried a more supportive turret build that allowed me to rush into fights and revive people, but the turrets were getting destroyed too quickly. It consisted of Pistol/Shield, Healing Turret, Flame Turret, Thumper Turret, and Bomb Kit. I would use Big ol’ Bomb, Thumper Turret overcharge, or Magnetic Inversion to clear some space for a quick revive, or I would use Flame Turret overcharge + a blast finisher to stealth myself and my revive target. It was fun for a little while, but ultimately didn’t work often enough to make a difference.

I hope this information was helpful or at least interesting.

Good luck with your turrets syndrome.

I’ll try Rifle/FT a try after I run this for a bit. I can see how Hair Trigger and Fireforged Trigger would allow for more knockbacks.

Thank you for the detailed reply, Ayestes.

Can anyone suggest a Rune/Sigil set up that will compliment my Point Neutralizer/Bunker build?

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mzMzM9Mz0MNhGmMoRGm9MxxazksMoRo

The goal is to get onto a point and use Big Ol Bomb, Thumper Turret, Magnetic Inversion, and Elixir X to keep people on their backs and off of the point as much as possible. The build is very tanky with a lot of up time on Protection.

I’m currently using Ice/Chilling and Svanir. I don’t seem to notice much benefit.

Can anyone suggest a Rune/Sigil set up that will compliment my Point Neutralizer/Bunker build?

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mzMzM9Mz0MNhGmMoRGm9MxxazksMoRo

The goal is to get onto a point and use Big Ol Bomb, Thumper Turret, Magnetic Inversion, and Elixir X to keep people on their backs and off of the point as much as possible. The build is very tanky with a lot of up time on Protection.

Tonight I’m running this build:

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mcMzM9Mz0mNhGmMoRGm9MxxaoksMRbo8khC7khV7070c7kIn70V

I start the game as a far node striker. Try to meet the enemy team on their nearest node and keep them there. I can usually keep a group of 2-4 tied up for 40-60 seconds, and sometimes I can score a kill with the patented “Tiny Dunk.” The Thumper Turret may seem lackluster, but when overcharged it can cause a lot of problems for a group that is tunneling me—which they usually are. So much hate! I have no idea why.

Big ’ol Bomb is a great point clearer, but I have to say that 22 seconds of tornado is the ultimate because it combines humiliation with point clearing/bunkering. You will get trounced by long duration Stability buffs, but every build has a counter, right?

The shield gives you some much needed defense, and if you don’t need to block projectiles, Magnetic Inversion can clear the point yet again. Once you’ve finished harassing their near point then take on the role of point neutralizer. You can get on an enemy point and keep them off of it until it becomes neutral.

After all of your cooldowns are spent you can play support. Keep your Static Shot on cooldown and save Poison Dart Volley to help focus people down by applying a healing debuff. If things get hairy, don’t be afraid to pop Elixir S and book it.

Underwater: Pop all of your elixirs from left to right and pray. If you get Whirpool cackle like a maniac while 2-3 people are chewed up in short order. If you get Withering Plague—sad trombone.

The Runes of Svanir add to your annoyance factor giving you a 5 second iceblock when you reach 20% health. That’s 5 more seconds off of your best point clearing player humiliating cooldowns.

If there seems to be an overemphasis on humiliation, it’s due to hours of being teabagged by Warrior players who think Stun>100bros = skill. Hours of Haste>Stun>Heartseeker spam. Hours of Mind Wrack spam. If I get a nasty tell from someone I spent a couple of minutes tossing around until my zerg showed up, then I know I’m doing my job.

Why fiddle around. Every other profession seems totally faceroll under water. Use: H/B/U/?/X. Pop them in order from left to right. Hope for whirlpool and cackle while other people get a taste of their own medicine. I hate fighting any other prof under water as an engineer. Feels like trying to kick water uphill in a head wind.

Hi Alemfi,

It looks like you have three different things competing for space in your build: turrets, immobilization effects, and swiftness/kiting.

If you don’t mind, I’d like to suggest narrowing your focus a bit by dropping one aspect, and increasing the power of the other two. I would suggest focusing on our amazing immobilize and cripple combos while stacking vulnerability.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcIQFAUl0pyVX8y2F17IxoHcuzbG0j9a36LqQ+B;TEAjBA

Now when you hit with that first Net Shot you’re Crippling your target, and giving it 5 stacks of Vulnerability through Sitting Duck (tooltip is out of date). If you want to stack more cripple and vulnerability you can use Launch Personal Battering Ram (cripple) and add 10 stacks of Vulnerability with Utility Goggles. If they’re still not dead, drop a Net Turret, and if they manage to close with you hit them with Personal Battering Ram, or Overcharged Shot.

You also gain swiftness two ways: scoring critical hits or equipping Med Kit. With Adrenal Implant and Invigorating Speed your Endurance will be full most of the time granting you a hefty 10% damage bonus through the Enduring Damage minor trait.

This build has high crit and can kite an enemy for days. You can also catch runners easily and make them miserable. I would be surprised if any single enemy could touch you in PVE. You could also do quite well with this build 1v1 in PvP. It has an all important stun breaker, and good control.

I hope you don’t mind me tinkering with your idea.

Rifle. Make a bee line for Hair Trigger in the Firearms line so you can use the Rifle skills more frequently. Root your target with Net and continue to Hip Shot. When your target closes with you use Blunderbuss, Jump Shot, Overcharged Shot in that order. That should kill anything of equal level. If you want a great high damage utility on a short cooldown, grab Rocket Boots. This will get you out of melee giving you enough time to throw another Net Shot. The Toolblet skill Rocket Kick is a 19 second cooldown damaging move with a HUGE burn attached. This is a great no nonsense leveling set up. Add whatever else you want to it.

Oh, and stack Power over all.

Wait until you see the hat. It’s one of my absolute favorites.

I was also really disheartened that they seem focused on skill capped players. That’s a VERY small minority of players who I wouldn’t be concerned about balancing for if I were concerned with the financial success of my company.

On team composition: Ele’s are strong? Huh…we run 5 Engineers. Maybe that’s why we suck so bad.

I really dislike the profession dev’s commentary.

Supcutie.2538:

To summarize:
1. Balancing around low tier play and high tier play is like balancing different games, it’s hard! (This is not an excuse however, but Anet is trying to make things better)
2. Balance in high tier play is arguably pretty decent.
-This is a hot topic I know. Everyone has their own opinion, but it’s not like you can run five of one class and excel.

A minority of players are playing at that high tier, so saying that it’s balanced there is not a good way to strengthen your argument. It’s not in the best interest of ANet’s pocket book to adopt your philosophy because satisfying more players is always better than satisfying the few elite—where money is concerned.

tl;dr Expect nerfs.

That’s what my gut was telling me, but I wanted to see if that was the case. One thing I’m noticing is that you can tell good players from below average players by when they use their heal. Good players use it when they’re down X where X is roughly how much their heal goes off for. Below average players use it when they’re at 25%. The latter I have no problem taking down. It’s the good players who get 2-3 uses out of their heal per fight that are extremely hard to beat.

Having said that, I am seeing people go from 25% to 70 or so. Crazy powerful heals.

I’ve spent about 90% of my game time on my Engineer. When I’m in sPvP, and WvW to an extent, I see enemies using their healing utility and gaining well over 50% of their health. These kinds of fight resets are very hard for me to overcome, and I’m not sure what I can do short of applying poison constantly. This can be a big challenge as an Engineer as I either need to run Pistol, Grenades, or both. If I want to interrupt a heal, I need to be lightning fast and have the right weapon equipped: Rifle for Overcharged Shot, Tool Kit Magnet, or Magnetic Inversion (Shield #4), or Flamethrower’s Air Blast. Now—I am trying to save these moves, when I have them equipped, to interrupt heals, but they’re often too fast or come with a variation of “blocks all attacks” etc when used.

Can someone please share some insight on how to deal with powerful healing like this? What kinds of traits allow for such high numbers (50% of total health healed)?

I like it. Can we make it a bit higher of a threshold though? 25% feels like 1% when 100Bros is in your face.

We could definitely use some finishers that aren’t on long cooldowns, and don’t eat up multiple utility slots (I’m lookin’ at YOU turrets).

rizzo.1079:

I run with healing turret as my main heal. Otherwise, sometimes I’ll drop a rocket turret for Teq since I have to be a little close for comfort to hit him with my FT.

The great thing about Healing Turret is that it’s an instant self heal. There is no way to interrupt it. Just make sure you’re not poisoned when you drop it. You can use it with a melee attacker glued to you, then immediately detonate it for extra healing and about 1K damage on your attacker.

Inventions Minor Trait

Evasive Turret: When you dodge in combat you place a Rifle, Net, or Flame Turret. (20 Second Cooldown)

Think of it less as healing with bombs, and more as bombs that also heal. Go power. Damage is king.

Vexor.3640:

Remember you can pick up turrets to reduce their CD by 25%. They’re still a lengthy CD though aside from healing turret.

I appreciate this feature, but CDs on turrets need to be reduced across the board.

When I play a turret build in sPvP I don’t have time to run around collecting them. Sometimes I’ve placed my rocket turret in a very hard to reach spot. So when I move on, I just detonate them all and I’m forced to trigger the entire cooldown on each one.

I’ve enjoyed using them in PvE, WvW, and sPvP. However, a build that employs 2 or more turrets is VERY restrictive. You have to consider positioning and really know your strengths and weaknesses. Some points in WvW and sPvP have layouts that favor turret placement, and those are the ones I stick to when I’m playing a turret build.

They are flat out useless in Dungeons and Fractals because of A) the speed at which you will move through trash mobs (non boss enemies), and B ) the prevalence of area damage.

If you like to plunk down turrets during events, defending a point, or while grinding levels or dailies, then you will find them very useful. My current favorites are Flame and Rocket, with Thumper a close third. They all take practice to use, and the mastery of them has a rewarding feeling. Just understand that you are generally weakening your build with every turret you slot.

Thanks for another solid movie. Are you leaving the Engineer behind, or are you just retiring from making game play movies?

It’s an annoying but harmless practice.

Thanks for sharing your tips, Slyfe!

I will most definitely try this in WvW.

Recently I’ve been using a bunker build in sPvP. I’m currently using Pistol/Shield, Elixir H, Bomb Kit, Net Turret, Elixir R (sometimes I swap this out), and Elixir X. The following is a description of how I use Net Turret with this build.

When holding a point with my bunker build my main concern is to buy time until my teammates can arrive. A well placed Net Turret can immobilize a lone opponent for 6 seconds (Turret+ Tool belt) and stun them for 2. This gives me time to apply some conditions with my pistol and prepare a Big ol Bomb. Most melee opponents will use a gap closer once they are snared. For these enemies I drop Big ol Bomb when the first net hits them and then pop Static Shield. When they close the gap and attack they eat a 2 second stun and then the damage and knock-back from BoB. Next I use the Tool belt net attack (if available) and overcharge my turret to keep them off of the point even longer. If your turret is down and they’re stuck on you, switch to bomb kit and go nuts.

The key to using Net Turret to its greatest effect is positioning. You want to keep opponents away from it as it is extremely fragile. Magnetic Inversion, Glue Bomb, and Big ol’ Bomb help a lot with this. Placing the turret in a hard to reach spot also helps. Consider placing it on the opposite side of the point from the approach. Let your opponent attack, then use knock-back to position them in range of the turret.

Notes: The turret currently seems bugged and will sometimes fire two nets back to back when overcharged. The turret’s attacks are easily obstructed and it will attempt to fire at targets it doesn’t have line of sight to. Keep this in mind when placing it. In a team fight it will also lose utility as its targeting is seemingly random.

I’ll post my build later since I’m seriously considering revising it and swapping from Pistol/Shield to Rifle for another net attack, and grabbing Knee Shot to apply and stack cripple. I need to do some testing to see if the Net Turret attacks and tool belt work with Knee Shot. I’m a huge fan of cripple because most melee opponents are stubborn and will dodge twice to get into melee range. This puts them at a huge disadvantage when you decide to use your hardest hitting abilities.

I hope this is informative and helpful.

The numbers:

Build a net turret that immobilizes nearby foes.
Immobilized: 3 s
Net range: 600
Rate of fire: 10 s
Overcharge your turret to fire an electrified net that immobilizes and stuns.
Rate of fire increase: 50%
Damage: 318
Immobilized: 3 s
Stun: 2 s
Net range: 600
Duration: 10 s

Toolbelt Skill:
Fire a net from your belt to immobilize your foe.
Immobilized: 3 s
Range: 600

Hawks.5736:

Sylosi.6503:

There is a buff in the general section:

Profession Skills
General

• Gadgets placed by players (such as turrets) will now apply boons and conditions based on those players’ stats. Those conditions and boons will not be reduced to level-1 values when the triggering gadget is destroyed.

Yeh this is kind of a big change for turrets. Cant wait to do some testing.

What does this mean exactly?

You can also spell cool words with our Elixir names like:

BRUSH
BUHRS
CHUBS
CRUSH
CURBS
SCRUB
SHRUB

Flaunz.5273:

Doing some testing with Rocket Boots atm!
If this skill only worked properly…
Imagine laying down a smoke bomb and then shooting yourself into the zerg while stealthed (or out of it, if the need should arise).
How much better can it get, really?

I like that combo a lot, but I feel like the duration of the stealth buff is too short. You spend too much of it getting up off the ground. Because of that it’s probably better for offense than defense. With practice though it might be good for escapes if a convenient piece of cover is nearby. I wish we had macros in this game. I’d love to be able to macro the boots with the about face key.

Thanks for sharing your build. I have to agree that bomb healing isn’t just simply about the bombs. It’s also about the damage and conditions and fields. It’s too bad people aren’t more open minded about builds in general.

I really like this idea. I was using a turret build with MF gear for Orr events, and was cursing the turret mechanics and cooldowns during every escort quest.

Add
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqel0pic3zSfF1LJxIFdW0hKgfRPyfld8nCyF;ToAA1Crocy4kwJrTOnkONAZuA
to the bunker section. This build is credited to Flaunz and can be read about over here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/Build-Video-Diving-Into-Zergs/first#post1264177

Flaunz.5273:

You will see mist form activate at about 3:22 (indicated by a buff icon), I’d say its about 3 secs.

And thanks for the name suggestion (I like it!) and the positive feedback!
I might be starting to work on a video running the same build in a more organized group scenario with my guild. And maybe instead of having all those very short example sequences a few longer fights.

Fun Fact: I once went to the mists to test a “Dive Grenadier”, full glass cannon and with kit refinement and Explosive Descent for triply barrage
I’d jump off some cliff and into the golems, trying to trigger all barrages at once.
I was a bit disappointed back then as I realized at least one of those barrages (not sure if it was kit refinement or falling dmg one) was only about half as strong.

But still, imagine doing that in wvw where u have another tanky engi luring a group to a cliff, immobilizing them and then a second engi is waiting on top of that cliff ready to jump down, where both engis will unload all the burst they have
Super situational but I guess that could be fun as well xD

Thanks for answering my question, Flaunz. (also—glad you like the name suggestion)

That death from above trap with the two Engineers is a great visual. I want to see it done with 10 Engineers. It would be like deadly lemmings. When the devs give you lemons, make lemming’nades, I guess.

Keep on sharing those videos and thoughts. There’s a lot of attention on sPvP so we need people like you who are working on ideas for WvW play.

Diving into zergs and bombing them? I’d call this build the Dive Bomber.
(Might I suggest swapping out Cloaking Device for Explosive Descent to really earn the name?)

I loved the video. I agree that this profession is big on fun, but still needs help.

Also, you have a very soothing voice. Please make more videos.

Edited for one more question about Rune of Vampirism: How long does mist form last?

SimpleKingly.5021:

Hahaha that was funny Grackle I don’t blame you for not sharing hahaha. But ok I’ll definitely try it out and tell you how it goes, thanks! I just don’t like the long cooldowns on shields for any class.

:) I would if I knew what 100nades was. I’m wondering just as much as you.

I share your dislike of the long cooldowns. I’m glad I could persuade you to give it a try.

This thread is making me think of the Moogle Flintlock in FFTA2.

SimpleKingly.5021:

What’s this 100 nades your talking about?

The engineer community would tell you, but it’s a secret. See what I did there.

I kid.

On a more serious note. The defense, offense, and support you gain from using a shield, in my opinion, far outweighs the dps gained from Blowtorch due to it missing quite often. I’ve played P/P extensively and it has roughly a 30-40% miss chance on mobile targets.

Only an engineer can wear shoes that create and oil slick and not fall down in it.

Only an engineer can design a wrench that behaves like a boomerang.

SimpleKingly.5021:

How are P/S builds? Never tried it.

Magnetic Shield is both defensive and offensive. It takes practice, but being able to react quickly enough to reflect attacks such as a Ranger’s Rapid Fire or a Thief’s Unload will turn tides. This gives you some unexpected offensive power.

Magnetic Inversion is a great for getting some distance on a foe, but it’s also a fantastic support ability as it can interrupt multiple foes (up to 5) trying to stomp a teammate and put people out of position or knock them off of edges. It’s also a Blast finisher.

Static Shield can be channeled while moving giving you the ability to get to cover unscathed or safely close in on a foe that is trying to keep you at long range. While Static Shield’s effect ends when you get hit with a melee attack it can block any number of ranged attacks for its duration. One of my favorite techniques with Static Shield is to use it to advance on someone who is out ranging me, then just before the channel is over I activate Throw Shield to daze them. Throw Shield is also a Projectile finisher.

I’m having a TON of fun with this build! So many possibilities. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks Mask, Lanny, and Pann.

Hi Mask,

I decided to try this build for WvW because it is already very similar to my PvE build (except I have 10 points into Explosives for Incendiary Ammo). I may have been hasty in crafting a full set of exotic Carrion armor. I’m finding that I have plenty of health but I think my toughness is too low. I’m taking big spikes of damage. Do you have a minimum toughness that you aim for? Would you mind sharing a more detailed list of your gear (runes, sigils, etc) with a fellow pistolier?

I’m bumping this because there is a lot of good information here.