Guild Wars 2

Harvest.2506:

Shadelang.3012:

Hahaha No they don’t. And most of the “helpful suggestions” people come up with are just as cliche as dragon hunter.

Sentinel
Paragon
Valkerie
Artemis (credit to Atlas3025 on reddit)
Atlas
Quincy ( Bleach)
Marshal
Signaller http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signaller (also from YugiOh 5D)

I think Artemis (Rear Guard), Marshal (Military Police), or Signaller (Artillery Guidance) as names have more relevance than Dragonhunter.

Unless of course we get a baby dragon to fight with and rise, or some sort of Draconic mechnic, like in skyrim or Final Fantasy XI. This is just a bit too random.

Sentinel – This one is really good
Paragon – Doesn’t do what a Paragon does. No.
Valkerie – This is exclusively female from Norse legend. No.
Artemis – This is literally a Greek god’s name. No.
Atlas – Again, another Greek, this time a Titan. No.
Quincy – Probably trademarked (although the likenesses are uncanny, I must say). No.
Marshal – Ehh, too much like a commander. Maybe.
Signaller – Isn’t exactly what this guy does, but the name is iffy too. Ehh…

Sentinel is the only one that makes significant sense here.

Mogget.2104:

The concern people, myself included have with them is that they potentially make the base classes inferior. Not to mention we have no idea how long it will be before we see new specializations. I wouldn’t be suprised if we don’t see new ones for a good 6 months to a year after hot releases.

Don’t forget, you still need to take 2 of the base trait lines, and some of the builds and play styles that emerge from combining 3 base trait lines will not exist with 2 base and 1 elite, and vice versa. Also, considering the Ranger becomes a Druid (which would be heavily focused on nature magic and less on distance pew pew) and the Guardian becomes the Dragonhunter (name aside, it goes from melee/mid-range tank to long-range support), this drastically changes the play style, so it’s really difficult to compare properly. You could really consider it’s only as much of an issue as choosing to play a different class is; after all, certain classes are objectively better than others at certain things.

This doesn’t seem any different.

You’re complaining about the virtue actives? From what they showed us so far, the new virtue active effects are superior to the ones we currently have.

Also, we do not have enough information about 3 of the weapon skills, the utility skills, the elite skill, or the trait line to even remotely claim that this is a rip-off of the Ranger. There seems to be a good bit different from these classes from that video.

However, we’ll find out tomorrow exactly how different they are. Don’t go gettin’ your panties in a bunch when they haven’t even released all the information yet.

MithranArkanere.8957:

Engineers have lots of other options, so they can use those in the meantime, while they come up with better solutions for turret abuse.

They do, but bunker is no longer one of them.

There are some people who would have you believe otherwise, but turret builds are, in fact, not viable at all anymore. I think the most glaring fault with the change is exactly this part:

Fully specced into Turrets survivability and they melt in seconds in PvE

A lot of people only think of the sPvP environment because “lol E-Sports”, but this is not the only game mode. Turrets have always struggled in PvE, but when you have 5-6 traits completely dedicated to them and they die as easily as they do now against PvE mobs? That’s ridiculous.

Edit: And the only time turrets are useful outside of their “place and blast finisher” style of play is if you take at least half of the turret traits, but you really need all of them to even hope for them to be effective. End edit.

There are numerous threads outlining potential changes Anet could make to make turrets not useless anymore, but chances of them actually implementing anything soon is very unlikely.

Bran.7425:

Hate to break it to you, but the dev’s want the spirits to be good (at not moving) while being stationery.

I know people want things to look good on paper, but I don’t think the devs want it to literally be paper. :P

Arantheal.7396:

were I ever mentioning MM’s?
No.
Have I ever complained about mesmer clones?
No.
Have I ever complained about spirit weapons?
No.

So why do I dislike turrets then?
Because in opposition to the former 3, they are completely independent from the engi, both AI and stat-wise, therefore allow the engi to completely leave the node in case a 3v3 happens, and just keeps his overcharges going.
Turreteers – as players- were providing nothing into a fight other than being a turret spawn-node (extremely low dps, 1 cc, 1 immob, no support other than the standard HT). While all other minions have intricate mechanics build in them, interacting with the player, turrets had nothing but traits to enhance themselves. Even experimental turrets was not interacting with the engi properly since they would give their boons to whoever was in the area to that time, again making the engis presence unnecessary.
Clones can only be summoned on a target, while being shattered at various targets, providing different effects to the mesmer who used them / to the target they got shattered on.
Spirit weapons, while bringing nothing but direct attacks, were bound to the movement of the guardian, therefore requiring the player itself to position himself properly if he wants his AI to perform.
Minions increase life-force when they die, can cleanse condis off the necro who runs them and even reflect them back on attackers, together with the fact that they are also bound to the movement of the necro.

turrets are just standing there, targeting random things (unless the engi himself is present to attack something) and act completely independent if necessary.

So yea, a rework would be awesome, but not if they again end up as sturdy, automatically engaging, high dps node with zero interaction whatsoever.
And yes, there are ways to play actively and skillful with turret-orientated builds.
In fact there is a rather unpopular s/d build with utilizes TK and both rifle / rocket-turret, but only as knock-back beacon, blast-finisher, their toolbelts and for the homing kock-down of rocket-turret. This is a turreteer hybrid which actually features mobile and skillful use of turrets, on cost of a proper stun-breaker, but with frequent knock-backs in turn it’s one of the few turreteer builds that actually work quite decently in WvW as well.
And do you know what’s funny about it? It’s performance remains the same after the nerf. All the nerf did was punishing drop&forget gameplay with turrets, which is a very good thing in my opinion.

If you want to introduce a rework for making them more skillful in general, be my guest, there are enough topics to discuss these ideas, in fact I posted a couple of suggestions over the past few weeks myself.

There have been many people the past few weeks, myself included, that have offered something up to make them better. Some ideas actually sounded really good and I hope that Anet takes a look at them, eventually…

Regardless, one glaring issue right now is the number of traits that are practically required for turrets to even be effective for more than a blast finisher, and you need at least most of these. These traits even take up almost two full separate trait lines, which really backs the engineer into a corner. Do they take the turret traits and make their turrets as strong as possible but lose viability with other things, or do they take only a half the turret traits and get a mediocre balance between turrets and some kit. Taking no turret traits isn’t really an option if you’re running anything other than healing turret.

I’m really hoping that the final trait rework can address this properly.

Ignore them if they say that. If they want to duel, they have custom arenas they can make. Unranked/ranked queues are for playing the game as it is meant to be played, which included ganking players 1+X v. 1 if need be.

If they bug you about it, just block them. They’ll only give you grief if you respond to them.

Arantheal.7396:

Turrets were not viable on higher skill levels.
Turrets were OP in lower skill levels.
Since they contributed nothing to shape the meta, and further were nothing but a easy and frustrating-for-new-players pug farm, a-net removed them.
Was that simple enough for you?

They shouldn’t have been removed; they should have been reworked. This isn’t the fix that was needed.

You are right about what they did, and that’s the inherent issue with them right now. They need to be changed to something that makes them viable in all levels of play and all game modes (at least not be a burden) and at the same time not be OP; some change that puts their skill floor and ceiling right in line with other builds is needed.

Condition builds currently suck primarily because of the stack limits. Once those are removed, a pure condition build may be viable (for long fights mainly) by the simple fact that their powerful conditions will not be overridden by much weaker, passively-applied conditions by zerker-geared power builds.

Also, conditions being unaffected by armor is the tradeoff between them not being able to crit.

Didn’t they nerf precision and ferocity somewhat recently anyway?

lighter.2708:

any thing that has insta big damage will get the boss obviously..

All you need is the very last hit, even if it’s a piddly 1 condition damage. The best way to get this is by a massive condi burst or a rapid attack like Ranger Rapid Fire or Engineer Flamethrower 1

Not everything is a “jumping puzzle”, per se, but does require jumping on some platforms to get around. It’s a pretty integral part of this game. I would assume that HoT and its maps will have a lot of this especially since they are promoting the verticality of the expansion. There are certain dungeons and fractals that cannot be done without some platforming, and even some world events that are difficult without jumping around too.

warduke.1780:

Erukk.1408:

warduke.1780:

How will conditions be MORE useful with the advent of condi immunity as a boon? It really seems to me like they want to kill condi roamers altogether.

From what I’ve read, resistance doesn’t remove the conditions when applied. It just makes you immune to their damage and effects when it’s active. The boon itself will probably only last for a very short amount of time as well.

Anyone who plays a stance warrior knows how to abuse condi immunity long enough to kill any condi roamer.

So one class (maybe 3 in total if you count invuln rangers and some bunker guardians) can avoid being damaged by a build for a bit and this is an issue? Not every build for every class should be able to take down every other build of every class. There are going to be strengths and weaknesses between classes as it’s all just a big game of rock, paper, scissors.

warduke.1780:

Also, not surprised to see the usual fanboy/shill posts defending any and all changes. Honestly, I believe that if Anet removed all classes except one from the game permanently, there would still be a sizable crowd of sycophants shouting down any opposition.

lolwut. Excessive hyperbole is excessive.

Xyonon.3987:

So noone cares about turrets anymore? Or is it just a too big wall’o’text?

There’s a lot going on right now with these changes, and even before all the dust has settled it is very clear that something drastic needs to be done with the build. I’m personally fine with them not having auto-attacks anymore. I would love to be able to run these in dungeons and actually have them be useful, and it would be great to have them in PvP without anybody being able to complain about it being a “brain dead” build.

I offered suggested changes too, recently, and we’re not the only ones. My hope is that Anet sees any of these posts and makes considerations based on them, and maybe even incorporates some of the ideas.

Why give that many points or any points at all? Just have it so that the game ends instantly. Better yet, don’t show the name of the opposing team’s players until after the match starts (do show the class). This way, nobody will feel compelled to leave if they recognize any players that they don’t want to play against in particular.

Gern.2978:

Spyritdragon.6048:

I’m not saying a nerf wasn’t needed.
But this is just ridiculous – leave some viability at least!
This is a full line of engi utility skills that now see absolutely no usee whatsoever, which is incredibly infuriating. Not only were turrets already nearly worthless in PvE and WvW, but now they’ve been taken out of PvP too.

I started playing engi 50% for the turrets. These things are meant to be -structures- that you can put down and leave to shoot. Not just “overload and then get blown up” things.
Turrets are useless now, and they need a buff back to viability. They needed a nerf, but turrets still need to be viable, which they arent currently.

That is a gross overstatement. Turrets are by no means useless, the fact that you still see plenty of turret engineers in SPvP who do just fine is a testament to that. The only thing that this nerf did was remove the AFK style, #1 attack spammer turreteers from PvP, leaving the ones who actively play and are smart about where and when they place down their turrets.

Everyone is constantly mentioning these “#1 Attack spammer turreteers”, but these guys were the easy ones to kill. That can’t possibly be the crux to any argument as to why they were nerfed the way they were. If anything, it was the better players behind a turret build that caused this grief. Any team with a player that goes AFK, even if they were a turret engineer, still would have likely lost. Overall though, and I know you’ve been disagreeing all thread about this, turrets are a lot easier to kill and therefore don’t do what they used to do; hold a point. It is now, more-so even than before, a build that relies on your opponents beings stupid and not killing either you or the rocket turret first. If they manage that then you lose faster now.

Shiki.7148:

Emtiarbi.3281:

I think necros will cry a lot if their elite class is Summoner lol

kitten right you are. Give it to the Ele >:P At least their elementals work relatively reliably.

Well, the ele elite spec is definitely the “Tempest”, whatever that entails. (many AoE fields? they already sort of do that…)

ZudetGambeous.9573:

What makes you say longbow? Isn’t that the Shortbow Aether in the picture?

Look at the size of the bow relative to the character. It’s definitely a longbow.

This is a rather selfish request. It’s almost the only reason I PvP as much as I do. The free level-up items I get from this (and from daily log-in, you get 10 per month by default) will get my Revenant to 80 by the time HoT is released. Obviously it wouldn’t make sense to a person that only does sPvP, but for all the PvXers like myself it is highly appreciated that it is included as a reward.

I hold down both mouse buttons all the time while I’m running around (which locks the camera to the mouse and moves you in that direction as well), but when I want to ground target I move with the WASDQE keys until I finish and then I return to the mouse. The only time I actively change how I’m doing this is when I’m running grenades on my engineer, since the grenade skills are exclusively ground-targeting abilities. I do a decent amount of sPvP and WvW as well, and I have no issues controlling like this. I also kept all of the default movement controls on the keyboard.

I don’t know if the “active switching” style would work for you, but it works for me. My hands don’t cramp up from it unless I play for, like, 4 hours straight (which I don’t often get to do anyway).

Between you, me, Runeblade, and a bunch of other people, I hope Anet can at least consider some of these ideas and eventually implement a change for the better. Turrets absolutely need a rework, but I have a feeling that, if they ever get around to it, it would be long after HoT is released.

I want the “play how I want” style to be applied to turrets for all game modes, and the only way to do it is with a complete overhaul.

Gern.2978:

I have not felt any loss of effectiveness with my healing turret or my crate.

But there is an objective loss of effectiveness from both of those things. The healing turret will die faster, sometimes even before the overcharge can be used, and the crate turrets already couldn’t be overcharged but will still die faster. This is highly visible even in PvE, where turrets were hardly every targeted.

I don’t know if anybody ever complained about healing turret or supply crate being OP, especially since most engineers didn’t take any traits that would make either of those two things ridiculous in the first place.

runeblade.7514:

How is this PvE/WvW friendly?

Your turret suggestion still have a healthbar and a range requirement.

The numbers would need to be tweaked, but before the patch their health was hardly ever an issue in PvE. I could take on Champion creatures with a full set of turrets and win, sometimes without losing turrets. The only issue is that they provided little extra, since their damage did not scale with anything, so they were not very useful in dungeons and completely useless in WvW.

However, I saw your post. I actually like the concept you have of making them 5 sec duration invulnerable utility skills. That’s a change that I think many people can definitely get behind. I won’t get rid of this post though, for the sake of discussion, but I do like what you have in mind.

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.

RunicAura.9860:

I’d have to say this would defeat the purpose I feel that the turret has. After all the turrets I feel are supposed to fortify your position helping you do damage and then move forward after the battle. Offering passive support either by fire power or defense. Though I would like to see the cool down instant if you pick up the turret instead of having it destroyed or blown up. I know that isn’t going to happen. I think they function how they should now. As it is you can always call up the turret hit it’s secondary ability then explode it causing a blast finisher all within that five second time. The cool down though would mean you’d have to wait to do it again.

Honestly, their purpose is very questionable at the moment. I know the original intent is an automated unit that helps you in battle, but this is clearly not a good solution for the PvP scene and it’s not very effective in any other game mode (especially after the nerfs, like how I can’t keep healing turret alive when fighting veteran mobs in Silverwastes…).

I think Runeblade’s idea makes them act more like actual utility skills; skills that are used, have some effect last a certain amount of time, and then going on CD for a certain amount of time. It would completely revamp how turrets are played, and it would be active play.

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.

Gern.2978:

OP, your changes completely reverse course, and bring us right back to the overpowered state that turrets were in before. Actually more so, since you want turrets to be able to crit, but not be critted or affected by conditions. Wouldn’t a more logical fix be to just buff their base health a bit?

The responses to this post are interesting. The first person said that these changes would nerf turrets further into the ground, and you’re saying it would make them OP. :P

The only reason why turrets not being able to be crit on or have conditions applied to them was an issue was because they essentially had a mind of their own, like a pet. These changes I listed above wouldn’t make them like a pet at all; more like a part of your main-hand weapon that you drop on the ground somewhere and attacks from that location, but only when you tell it to attack and only what you are targeting at the time.

Arantheal.7396:

Your changes are horrible, and here is why:

You are trying to make skills “reasonalbe” that are already “beyond good”, by doing nothing but nerfing them into the ground.
Healing turret would be a joke of a heals since it’s nothing but a big KILL ME sign for anyone who wants to mess up our healing-option.
You also miss the fact that the bandages from supply-crate are 1 of the 3 main reasons to pick up this elite, which you simply deleted.
The 2nd are the 3 small low-health turrets which are meant to blow up for the cc’s they bring in that moment, so all that is left is the 2-second stun, since frankly your big rapid fire turret will die faster than 10sec it takes for it to get its dmg trough, epsecially if you face a mesmer or guardian who’d faceroll this elite with a big, satisfied smile.

And the change to the rifle turret would even costs it its last factor that made it decent: a low-cd belt-ability for s/d builds.

honestly, your changes do nothing for turreteers and kitten up the few remaining aspects that made skillful play possible with some turrets.

A big “NO, TY” from me.

I kept the bandages in the supply crate. Honestly, I put 6 in there instead of 3, as well as an antidote and a stimulant pack.

The turret skills are not “beyond good” as they are right now, because they are literally worthless in a PvE and WvW context. They were only ever good in sPvP because of the game mode itself encouraging tanky bunker builds. In TDM, it was not wise to bring too many turrets because the enemy team could just stay away from them, unlike in Conquest.

Unfortunately, we’re still left with a less than desirable set of options for a good chunk of our utilities. There has got to be a change that would both make it reasonable to pick but also not be something that people can complain about.

shion.2084:

Actually playing again last night I do find one big problem… my healing turret actually dies before I can overcharge it. So your immobilized, in a condition well, you think, hey bringing out my healing turret and overcharging to remove a condition would be really useful here…. So since it does no offensive damage, they could at least make it last long enough to be overcharged immediately. I also can’t pick them up reliably anymore because they are dead before I hit the retreive option.

I think this needs to be thought about a bit more by the developers.

Healing turret is probably hit the hardest because of these nerfs. Engineers already have issues dealing with condition removal and this turret dying as fast as it does will not help at all. This particular change is affecting nearly every engineer too, not just the turreteers.

Individual Turret Changes

Above are the things that should be done to turrets in general. Here are some examples of changes that would make sense for individual turrets. Keep in mind, turrets would no longer have auto-attacks. All turrets would currently retain all of the health they have, as well as the tool belt skills when the turret is stowed or on CD.

1. Rifle Turret
a. Placement CD: 20 sec (same)
b. Activation: Remote Rifle Shot
i. CD: 6 sec (formerly 2 sec rate of fire at 476 damage per shot)
ii. Damage: 1000
iii. Attack Range: 1000
iv. Projectile Finisher (20% chance)
c. Tool Belt Activation: Remote Snipe
i. CD: 15 sec
ii. Cast Time: 1.5 sec
iii. Damage: 2000
iv. Attack Range: 1500
v. Projectile Finisher (100% chance)

2. Flame Turret
a. Placement CD: 25 sec (same)
b. Activation: Remote Flamethrower
i. CD: 7.5 sec
ii. Damage: 300
iii. Burning: 2 sec (650 damage)
iv. Attack Range: 500
c. Tool Belt Activation: Remote Smoke Screen (same)
i. CD: 30 sec
ii. Cast Time: Instant
iii. Damage: 0
iv. Attack Range: 240 radius
v. Duration: 5 sec
vi. Number of Targets: 5
vii. Combo Field: Smoke

3. Net Turret (largely unchanged)
a. Placement CD: 30 sec (same)
b. Activation: Remote Net Shot
i. CD: 10 sec (formerly 10 sec rate of fire)
ii. Attack Range: 600
iii. Immobilized: 2 sec
c. Tool Belt Activation: Remote Electrified Net (same)
i. CD: 30 sec
ii. Damage: 325 (formerly 318)
iii. Attack Range: 600
iv. Immobilized: 3 sec
v. Stun: 2 sec

4. Rocket Turret
a. Placement CD: 50 sec (same)
b. Activation: Remote Rocket
i. CD: 10 sec (formerly 4 sec rate of fire at 1429 damage per shot)
ii. Damage: 2000
iii. Attack Range: 1000
iv. Number of Targets: 5
v. Radius: 240
vi. Blast Finisher
c. Tool Belt Activation: Remote Missile (higher speed, no arc)
i. CD: 25 sec (formerly 20 sec)
ii. Damage: 2500
iii. Attack Range: 1500
iv. Number of Targets: 5
v. Radius: 360
vi. Blast Finisher

5. Thumper Turret (largely unchanged)
a. Placement CD: 20 sec (same)
b. Activation: Remote Rumble
i. CD: 5 sec (formerly 3 sec rate of fire at 635 damage per shot)
ii. Damage: 1000
iii. Crippled: 3 sec
iv. Number of Targets: 5
v. Radius: 240
c. Tool Belt Activation: Remote Thump
i. CD: 30 sec
ii. Damage: 1000
iii. Blowout: 400
iv. Number of Targets: 5
v. Radius: 240
vi. Blast Finisher

6. Healing Turret
a. Placement CD: 20 sec (same)
b. Activation: Remote Healing Burst
i. Ground-targeting
ii. CD: 5 sec
iii. Healing: 1000 (no initial heal)
iv. Regeneration: 2 sec (200 health)
v. Number of Targets: 5
vi. Radius: 240
c. Tool Belt Activation: Remote Cleansing Burst
i. CD: 15 sec
ii. Healing: 2500
iii. Regeneration: 5 sec (500 health)
iv. Conditions Removed: 2
v. Number of Targets: 5
vi. Radius: 480
vii. Combo Field: Water

7. Supply Crate (Gatling Gun, 6 Bandages, 1 Antidote, 1 Stimulant)
a. Placement CD: 180 sec (same)
i. Ground-targeting
ii. Cast Time: 1 sec
iii. Damage: 250 (formerly 246)
iv. Stun: 2 s
v. Number of Targets: 5
vi. Duration: 60 s
vii. Radius: 240
viii. Blast Finisher
ix. Range: 1200
b. Activation: Remote Rapid Fire
i. CD: 10 sec
ii. Channel Time: 5 sec (can move while channeling)
iii. Damage (25x): 200 (5000)
iv. Attacks per Second: 5
v. Projectile Finisher (5% chance)
c. Tool Belt Activation: Remote Vulcan Fire (We will have this soon!)
i. Channel Time: 5 sec (can move while channeling)
ii. Damage (50x): 150 (5000)
iii. Attacks per Second: 10
iv. Projectile Finisher (5% chance)
v. Gatling Gun explodes when the channel ends (does not do this when destroyed)
vi. Damage: 1000
vii. Blowout: 400
viii. Burning: 3 sec (750)
ix. Number of Targets: 5
x. Radius: 360
xi. Blast Finisher

TL;DR: Turrets have not been useable in PvE or WvW at all. People complain about them in PvP, which has led to them getting a nerf (even if they are still effective against poorly-skilled players). I’m just hoping to start a discussion about what needs to be done to make our primary heal, 5 of our utilities, and our primary elite somewhat reasonable.

The community has spoken and Anet listened. Here are some suggestions I have that might positively affect the engineer turrets.

The primary thought process with what needs to be done with turrets is getting rid of the AI aspect of them and making them skillful to play and fair to play against. A turret, with these proposed changes, would act more like an extension of your weapon instead of like a pet. Engineers do not get a second weapon set because they have kits. When an engineer does not use any kits, they have significantly fewer options than any other class. The key with this post is to not only make the turret engineer build viable and fair in PvP, but also a build that functions well during PvE and WvW content.

1. Turrets will no longer have an auto-attack
a. Turret abilities will be treated as an additional weapon skill.
b. I will elaborate on potential turret abilities in the second section.

2. Turrets will detonate after the engineer moves 2000 units away
a. Turrets will no longer remotely detonate, but they can still be picked up and would still explode when destroyed (triggering APT)
b. I don’t believe the intent for turrets was to place them and immediately detonate them for a blast finisher. The idea is to make it that you wouldn’t want to do that.
c. The range is needed not only because being able to run across the world and have your turret fight is silly, but also because turrets will need your target to attack, and that is not possible if you are too far away.

3. Turret placement will be ground-targeting as a baseline
a. Ground-targeting is seen as both a pro and a con, but it is useful for strategic placement, which turret engineers always need to consider to be effective
b. This would fall in-line with the upcoming Necromancer well changes

4. Turret placement will be instant (Currently cast time is .5 sec)
a. The floating turrets need to be addressed and this should solve that issue. The alternative is making the cast time ~2 seconds (would this be better, constructing the turret? Please discuss this)

5. Turret damage will scale with the stats that the engineer currently has
a. This damage will adjust in real time as the stats change
b. Treating these new turrets as part of the weapon the engineer has means they are only activating when you tell them to and at what. That makes them like any other damaging utility skill, at least in that regard
c. This would include any food buffs, boons, etc. The numbers would need to be adjusted accordingly

6. Turrets will no longer receive conditions or critical hits, but now they can critically hit
a. This change would seem counter-intuitive to the whole rework, but only if you consider turrets as they are right now.
b. Since all turrets would be activated by the player (no auto-attacks) there would be less concern for having them survive while you get downed and the engineer is halfway across the map (even though they would be detonated by this point with these new changes)
c. Any reflects or retaliation effects triggered by the turrets will affect the turrets

Shylock.4653:

Shaogin.2679:

Not just the PvP game. They removed any possibility of Turrets ever being viable utility choices in any game mode.

Turret Engi were nearly exclusively used in PvP, because they were bad in every other game-mode. So there is no real collateral damage here. Instead of removing Turrets “completely” from the game anet should have taken a bigger approach and completely rework turrets to make them viable and skillful but not OP in all game-modes.

If they changed the auto-attacks to act like an additional skill usage, this would make it a skillful build that acts no different from any other class’s skills except for where the attack is coming from. For example, The rifle turret would not auto-attack. Instead, a powerful rifle shot from it, with a CD of, say, 5 seconds, could be activated by pressing the utility skill button and it would fire at the current target that you have, and if nothing is targeted then it would fire off into the distance. It would act like an extension of your weapon, not like a pet. Almost all of the other turrets could accomplish this too. Even the healing turret could be an AoE ground targeted heal bomb instead of just spitting out regen every few seconds. I might try and make a post about this in the engineer forum to see if it can garner any support.

witcher.3197:

Xillllix.3485:

It seems Anet doesn’t know how to balance classes

Turret was cancer. They cured the game of it, I don’t see the problem. For the risk/reward factor the turret build has it’s actually balanced now. Such a passive noskill build should never be even remotely viable.

If a build such as this should never even be remotely viable, then the utilities should not exist in the first place. What you’re arguing for is for a class with 1 heal, 5 utilities, and 1 elite skills that consist of this mechanic that are nothing but a picture in the skills list. This is NOT a good way to design a game. Imagine making Mesmer mantras lose a stack whenever you are struck in combat, or Guardian meditations that required a 3 sec channel before activating, or if allies now triggered necromancer wells. I could go on. Changes like these would make using any of these abilities a bad choice.

Don’t forget, this isn’t just about PvP. The turreteer was already struggling in PvE in terms of ability to keep up with any group or to complete any map-related content, which actually required more skill to try and juggle the cooldowns of your turrets with when to drop them, where, for how long, etc. They die just as quickly now in PvE environments as they do in PvP, and when they die you have 30-50 seconds of no utility skill, sometimes with literally no benefit of having placed the turret in the first place.

Hate the build all you want, but you cannot reasonably believe that a class having 7 useless skills is good for the game or its diversity. There were plenty of fixes they could have implemented that would have worked just fine, even if it still wouldn’t have addressed the PvE and WvW issues.

Edit: I have tried the turreteer build in PvP, and it still has some viability. However, it is difficult to consider it a bunker build anymore. It is really just a build that attempts to focus on defense and still succeeds when the opponent does not attack the rocket turret first.

tramwajarz.2369:

Rin.1046:

I really like the sounds of this specialization, but it does raise one question in my mind. With the benefits of the elite spec being so strong, will anyone ever create a build without it? Of course when other elite specs come along that might change, but it seems too strong to only use core specs. But maybe that’s the plan?

Of course it’s a plan. Base professions are being toned down to make specs look OP so people will be more happy to buy an expansion. And after a year we will see massive nerfs and the outcry will be delicious. I dunno how anyone can expect anything better from any company on the market.

It might seem OP, but we don’t have any of the CD numbers or cast time lengths yet. Only testing this spec in the field will tell whether or not it’s actually OP. It could also just seem OP because there currently isn’t anything at all like it, and it looks useful.

JohnBourke.8941:

According to this site: http://www.mmoga.de/Guild-Wars-2/Guild-Wars-2-Key/
it will costs about 40 $

You know that site have nothing to do with ANet, they have no info and their guess is as good as ours, right?
Anyway, I think 40$ sounds like a good guess, it will probably be around that.

Do NOT buy this game from 3rd-party sites. Do NOT pre-order this game from anybody except Arena Net. Nobody will sell the game for cheaper than Anet and nobody will sell it sooner. If you pay money for the pre-order to someone else, you might be risking your money.

Just wait for Anet to announce the cost and when it will be sold. Also, please don’t dredge topics up after they’ve been dead for a month.

DeWolfe.2174:

Archaon.9524:

Liewec.2896:

no worries, i’ll just grab the ground target trait and throw them to impossible to reach locations XD
(ontop of pillars is a good spot!)

and yes…this is the next thing they need to fix

i was going to to say that myself

They said Ground targeting will be baseline didn’t they? So Flying them will be gone but, tossing them against things will still work. BUT, half the time they don’t even fire when placed up on things anyway. A couple of weeks ago they really started acting up.

Ground-targeting will be baseline for Necromancer wells but turrets were, surprisingly, not included. That is not to say that it would not become baseline, but I don’t think they said it would be.

miriforst.1290:

I am really interested to hear how it improved your burst.

Yeah, I don’t know where they see that happening. I may still also run turreteer more to test its viability, but this isn’t beneficial for “burst”. I suppose, since your turrets will be destroyed more, you could consider the extra damage over time from their explosions would “add to your burst”, but this is not a beneficial side-effect.

Jasher.6580:

I don’t know why, but it really upsets me seeing some of these people defending turrets.

The reason people are defending them is because they are a core aspect of the engineer class. There are 1 heal skill, 5 utility skills, and 1 elite skill that use turrets, both the heal and elite are used very frequently by almost all of the engineers out there, except for some niche builds. Even turreteers like myself wanted them reworked, but we didn’t want them dead. It’s bad enough that they have literally no usability in WvW, and what little usability they had in PvE is gone now too. That means that 7 skills that used to be only useful in one game mode (and even then it was only because either 1) the person couldn’t/didn’t know how to counter them or 2) because Conquest encourages tanky bunker builds) are now no longer viable in any game mode.

They might as well completely rework the concept of turrets, because this can’t possibly be the “working as intended” they meant. Make them explode after 2 uses of the overcharge, or after 30 seconds of placement, or when you move/are pulled too far from them, or they require a long cast time to place. ANYTHING! Instead of tweaking these utility skills to function fairly they instead destroyed any semblance of the build. Fortunately, engineers have other builds to fall back on, for now. We’ll see what everyone starts running once celestial gets the nerf hammer.

Archaon.9524:

Liewec.2896:

no worries, i’ll just grab the ground target trait and throw them to impossible to reach locations XD
(ontop of pillars is a good spot!)

and yes…this is the next thing they need to fix

i was going to to say that myself

On top of pillars isn’t nearly as bad as having them literally float mid-air. Only a few turrets would work well from up high anyway, and if they were down on the ground they would die in 2-3 seconds. This might be the way to respond to the changes; through severe tactical positioning. It is a defensive build after all, so it can only be expected.

Tibs.2783:

I have noticed a surplus of absolute kittened people playing as of late and have suffered for it greatly. Funnily enough my solo queue was going much better when there were turrets because now all the turret rejects have to play something else and that something else ends up my team it seems.

This is the irony of everything about the state of turret engineers. Were they difficult to deal with on point? Yes. Were you always fighting against one of them? No. The same thing occurs with any of the meta builds. It would certainly suck to go up against a team of celestial eles, engis, and warriors wouldn’kitten Why, exactly, were turrets any different if you could also have them on your team? There’s so much hatred for this build that it’s become comical. I do still have a turret build, but I also run a FT/EG build and a celestial build on my engineer. I’m going to try out a SD build to make up for the potentially dead turret build (haven’t played enough games to verify yet), but who knows.

I still feel that turrets have a chance to be viable, in some sense of the word, but certain turrets (like thumper and even healing) have become nearly useless for anything other than a blast finisher on they self-destruction. This change really is far too sweeping. The only seemingly outburst reaction are coming from the numbers of people begging for salty, Turreteer tears. It really speaks volumes about the community.

It’s a pity they don’t fix builds. I would have really enjoyed a viable PvE turret build for HoT, but this is literally impossible. If they are going to change turrets to what they are now, they really should reconsider the entire concept of turrets and adjust them, especially since almost an entire trait line is dedicated to them.

Nike.2631:

MiniEquine.6014:

For every one build a class has, there are 66,713,226 other builds that a second class can have, an additional 66,713,226 builds that the third class can have, etc.

The first class has 66,713,226 different builds, so it would be 66,713,226^8.

Read that back to yourself. That you used the word “additional” (correctly) points to you knowing it in your gut but having spent a little too long working combinational problems .

If there are 66 million Ranger builds and 66 million Guardian builds there are 132 million ranger and guardian builds. Its additive, not multiplicative.

We must be talking about different aspects of combining. If you add them, you are adding up the total combination of traits when only looking at one class at a time. When you use exponents, you are looking at all combinations of all 8 classes at the same time.

Say you have ranger combo #1, the guardian has 66,713,226 different combinations with ranger combo #1. Ranger combo #2 also has 66,713,226 guardian combinations that work, and so on until Ranger combo #66,713,226. That’s what I was talking about, haha.

Technically we’re both right, but it depends on which number you are trying to report. Since one of each class isn’t very useful, what might be more useful is the total number of variations that a 5-man team can have, assuming 5 different classes.

Nike.2631:

MiniEquine.6014:

And don’t forget, these numbers are for each class, so technically there’s some unfathomably large combination of traits if you expand your choices to every single class (66,713,226^8 or 3.92*10^62).

Um… That’s 66,713,226 times 8, not to the power of 8 .

You can’t combine traits across profession lines.

I thought it was exponential. I’ve been second-guessing myself all day, so I could be missing something, but:

For every one build a class has, there are 66,713,226 other builds that a second class can have, an additional 66,713,226 builds that the third class can have, etc.

The first class has 66,713,226 different builds, so it would be 66,713,226^8.

Nate.3927:

Spurnshadow.3678:

Nate.3927:

people need to realize that 1000 possible unique builds, 980 of which are complete rubbish is worse than let say (random number) 50 possible builds, all of which are viable.

Realistically speaking, how many people do you think currently run something like 4/4/2/2/2 or 5/5/2/1/1 or anything weird like that? I’m willing to bet less than 0.01% of players do that.

That’s a pretty silly assumption. Almost all of my builds use adept or even just one minor in a line. My traits are usually spread across 4 trait lines. For example, My ele is 0,2,2,6,4. My guardian is 0,2,6,4,2. My warrior is 1,0,4,6,3. Many of these builds are common among my fellow players and are guild builds.

I’m not a theory crafter so I won’t bother trying to figure out the details of your builds, but are you telling me, that “reckless dodge” on your warrior is such a huge core part of your build. You use it so much to kill your enemies that losing that one trait and gaining 5 more traits is a net loss for your build?

mrstealth.6701:

It would be nice to put 2 or 4 into that line. But no, I have to meaningfully waste more points on traits that I have no use for. Why can’t I put another master or adept trait in the grandmaster slot? At least that slot would be doing something useful then.

what points are you wasting exactly? We get 4 extra points with the new system even if all 4 ends up used for traits you don’t need/want you’re still back where you started. You’re no worse off than before.

Since the new trait system will be shuffling the traits around a little bit, it’s sort of comparing apples to oranges, but there are very significant changes to the customizability of builds. From my post elsewhere:

MiniEquine.6014:

Okay, NOW it should be good.

6/4/2/2 yields the most results with 19,627,920 different combinations
3/3/3/3/2 yields the least results with 7,776 different combinations
66,713,226 different possible trait combinations with the current system
196,830 different combinations with the new system
99.7049% reduction in trait combination by switching to the new system.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1H9KAc7ghxmrxsq0bkWNALddKMkETmdQ1dW-eS7Xa8Hc/edit?usp=sharing

There are currently 20,724,390 build possibilities that only use 3 trait lines (about 1/3 of the total)

runeblade.7514:

MiniEquine.6014:

Okay, NOW it should be good.

6/4/2/2 yields the most results with 19,627,920 different combinations
3/3/3/3/2 yields the least results with 7,776 different combinations
66,713,226 different possible trait combinations with the current system
196,830 different combinations with the new system
99.7049% reduction in trait combination by switching to the new system.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1H9KAc7ghxmrxsq0bkWNALddKMkETmdQ1dW-eS7Xa8Hc/edit?usp=sharing

Yet only 39 viable pvp builds.

I can only posit that this is exactly why they are making changes to the system. And don’t forget, these numbers are for each class, so technically there’s some unfathomably large combination of traits if you expand your choices to every single class (66,713,226^8 or 3.92*10^62). Why have this insane number of combinations, when nearly 100% of them are not even useable, never mind even being close to optimal.

Knighthonor.4061:

Any word on Inventory changes?

Will we get more bag space? Because I am running out of room.

They have an option to purchase new bag slots with gems. Since HoT would likely not be making gathering loot any different from what it is now, I don’t see why they would give bag slots for free.

Okay, NOW it should be good.

6/4/2/2 yields the most results with 19,627,920 different combinations
3/3/3/3/2 yields the least results with 7,776 different combinations
66,713,226 different possible trait combinations with the current system
196,830 different combinations with the new system
99.7049% reduction in trait combination by switching to the new system.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1H9KAc7ghxmrxsq0bkWNALddKMkETmdQ1dW-eS7Xa8Hc/edit?usp=sharing

FrizzFreston.5290:

MiniEquine.6014:

FrizzFreston.5290:

MiniEquine.6014:

For a current 6/6/2 combination, my numbers are correct. If you do the math out like I explained above, it will make sense.

Your numbers for the “now” part are still incorrect. You simply added two amounts of combinations together without taking into account of all the different combinations of those combinations. (Oh dear) You did exactly the same thing for the new system (27*27*27) but no (594 *594) )

Not to mention that the 6 * 9 * 11 part is incorrect as well as it doesn’t take into account that it doesnt matter what order you pick the adept or master work traits in. (IE.: I, III, IV is the same as IV, III, I )

So no, that number is not correct at all.

A couple of things. First, please don’t use condescending “oh dears”. Explain your math or don’t bother. Now, onto the meat.

I took a look at the current system and, to my surprise, found that certain combinations produced far greater results in terms of number. For example, 6/4/2/2 produced a whopping 15,396,480 different combinations (nearly half of all possible). In all, there were 32,965,584 different combinations with the current system, but you’re right, this does not factor in repeat traits combinations but in a different order. For a filled line of traits in the current system, I have found 233 unique combinations. I used the following:

S(i=1 to 6 [i] (S(j=i+1 to 10 [j](S(k=i+2 to 13 [k])))) = # of combinations

That’s just a rough formula I used that starts at the lowest combination of traits (1,2,3) and works its way to the top with #1 (up to 6) less than #2 (up to 10) less than #3 (up to 13).

However, I did not “simply add two amounts” together. Probability is multiplicative, so I’m not sure where you thought I did that.

I don’t know where you got 594*594 from. The 27^3 is correct for the number of trait combinations in any three trait lines. If you think it’s not, please show your work. I already showed mine up above, and I’m not the only one coming to these numbers.

Edit: this forum does not like Sigma.

I already explained it. Everyone skipped over it I think. You need to reread your own posts really as it said *2 traitlines. I didn’t make it up or something. I even retyped those numbers to see if that’s how you got that specific 200k number and it did, which is likely to be more than others did. That it does give that number doesn’t mean it’s right though.. I also don’t care if other people came to the same. Math isnt a matter of who has the most people doing it their way.
That said I did at least say that my method could be just as wrong.

The 594 = 6 * 9 * 11 you did. 27 ^3 is because of 3 traitlines. Then 594*594 or 594^2 is when you have two traitlines completely full. Although I got 188 instead of that 594. Explanation of that is in my earlier posts. Feel free to check it out and say it’s wrong if it is.

SEE THE POST BELOW

I know math isn’t subjective. I do now acknowledge that my previous method for calculating the old trait lines was incorrect. After reviewing my work (and sleeping on it a bit :P ) I have reorganized my calculations and found the number of combinations.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1H9KAc7ghxmrxsq0bkWNALddKMkETmdQ1dW-eS7Xa8Hc/edit?usp=sharing

This should be the correct representation of the old values, so long as the revised methods I used still hold water. Sheet 1 will show how I found the different, non-repeating trait combinations for each tier (please feel free to see if this is accurate, but I did double-check this). That means for a filled line there are 233 unique combinations, a master-filled line there are 39 combinations, and for an adept-filled tier there are 6 combinations. For each trait line, the number of trait combinations are multiplied together in addition to the possible trait line combinations. [s] It seems that 5/5/4 yields the most results at over 21,000,000 combinations by itself.

80,399,886 [/s] (Seed Edit 2) 59,638,286 different combinations in total. The only thing this does not consider is swapping lines to get different minor traits for the odd-number-filled lines, but at this point I think it can get a bit excessive to bother factoring that in (especially since it does not add that many more combinations, in the long run).

Let me know what you think, or if you have anything to add.

Edit:
Sheet 1 is the non-repeating combinations sheets
Sheet 2 is the calculations sheet

Edit2: I found an error where I accidentally had 5/5/4 with the adept lines all filled. This was incorrect and has been revised, significantly reducing the number of combinations down to 59 million

Edit3: I can’t get strikethrough to work

Edit4: There are some errors I’m fixing with it, but I have found them.

Gern.2978:

I’m not going to try very hard to get one. RNGeesus rarely smiles on me. There was the one time I got a Spark, but I’m pretty sure he meant to give it to someone else in my party.

If you get anything worth more than 10G in this game from a drop, you have most assuredly been blessed by RNGesus. You found a precursor. There are numerous people who have been playing since launch that have never found anything of much valuable.

You’d think they would at least look at this bug while they were re-working the turrets. I’m a Turreteer and have never once used this, because it’s ridiculously unfair. I also haven’t seen it in a game (yet), but maybe it’s just ‘cause I’ve been playing less lately.

Nyx.7342:

runeblade.7514:

Fixed usually means that it was broken and they repaired it. Fixed doesn’t mean destroy it.

is it actually destroyed…? its not like any of the turrets were hard to kill before, except thumper, it was more that the engie could be tanky af and still have turrets that hit hard. This is a pretty silly fix

I’m interested to see if it is still manageable or not. I enjoyed playing Turreteer for the strategic defensive options. The only people who think the build is literally brain dead are those who don’t appreciate the point of the build; to be tanky and successfully defend a point. It is not an assault build.

That said, every single turret will melt now; fast. Experimental Turrets is going to be less desirable, since you will want your turrets far out of range of you (being attacked), and Thumper Turret will probably be affected the most, since it usually lives right on point. I could see this build still functioning, but I doubt it will be anywhere near as effective as it was. I just hope they consider condition clear for them, even if they don’t allow boons to be applied (though they absolutely should, for balancing purposes).