If turrets were UN-nerfed, would they fit in today?

So I guess this is a what if question and mostly for the old players who remember the dominance of pure turret builds in pvp.

Some of the more recent changes I've grown fond of, like being able to access the toolbelt skill whilst deployed but....

If we could turn back the time and reverse the nerfs (including bringing back steel packed power's knock backs and ground target deployment) would the old turreteer fit in with todays power creep?

Probably not, since most classes have indiscriminate AOE damage and significantly better access to Stability.

I actually think that today's 90% damage reduction while taking AOE is a good thing. But they need to make it with condition damage, too given all the Conditions being thrown around. And making them immune to crits.

That said, I have seen some turret builds here and there which operate with moderate effectiveness.

The answer depends on a lot of things. Would we get back the ability that allows turrets to self heal over time? Are we making them immune to certain damage types? Are we simply undoing nerfs or are we bringing them to parity with other professions. Aoe and cleaves are a problem as mentioned above. Spellbreakers would render them useless too.

What you'd need are some changes for synergy to make the reward worth the risk of using them.

In Tools:

Static Discharge: In addition to working with belt skills- Static Discharge applies to turrets. Turrets once again have overcharge on demand and when turrets are overcharged they proc a Static Discharge from each turret to the nearest target.

Power Wrench: Make Power Wrench a master trait -swaping it with Lock On- and in addition to more turret health restored per strike allow Smack, Whack, and Thwack to impart a short duration Alacrity on the affected turrets to reduce their overcharge cooldowns and regular fire rate while in effect.

Gadgeteer: change to Mechanical Savant: In addition to the improvements to overcharged Gadgets- allow Turrets to benefit in a similar fashion- reduce overcharge cooldowns by twenty percent and add an additional effect to Turret overcharges:

Cleansing Burst: applies Resistance in addition to cleansing conditions.

Smoke Screen: applies Weakness in addition to Blindness.

Electrified Net: applies Slow in addition to Immobilise and Stun.

Automatic Fire: inflicts a heavy Bleed in addition to Vulnerability.

Explosive Rockets: inflicts a heavy Burn in addition to knocking down the target.

Thump: inflicts Daze in addition to launching nearby foes.

In Firearms:

Turrets have a chance to inflict critical hits

High Caliber: Effect extended to turrets.

Pinpoint Distribution: Effect applied not only to players standing near the Engineer but also those a certain distance away from any turret set down by the Engineer.

No Scope: Effect Applied to Turrets.

Incendiary Powder: Effect applied to Turrets.

In Inventions:

Experimental Turrets changed to Turret(tower-haha) Defence: Turret Defence applies the same effects as Experimental Turrets but also either adds passive damage reduction OR applies pulsed boons to nearby turrets as well.

Bunker Down: Effect applies to turrets. Turrets capable of inflicting critical hits gain small bit of health from critical hits and in addition deploying a Mine at their location.

These are just some of the things that could make turrets a fun and rewarding play style again. Only problem I foresee are the people who are going to whinge about us being better farm bots in pve as if Anet isn't vigilant enough about nerfing farming and having enough gold sinks to make this a non-issue.

Turrets like the Rifle Turret, Thumper Turret and to a certain degree the Rocket Turret are alright at best and mediocre at worst. The rest of the turrets are so bad that they need some kind of rework in order to be even viable.

I don't think that they need to be unnerfed to what they once were, but instead increase their health and reduce the cooldowns to not be so long. Also the toolbelt skills are some of the worst I've seen.

@Hoodie.1045 said:Turrets like the Rifle Turret, Thumper Turret and to a certain degree the Rocket Turret are alright at best and mediocre at worst. The rest of the turrets are so bad that they need some kind of rework in order to be even viable.

I don't think that they need to be unnerfed to what they once were, but instead increase their health and reduce the cooldowns to not be so long. Also the toolbelt skills are some of the worst I've seen.

Healing Turret is also great. That's 4/6, only leaving net and flame that need work. Not bad, tbh. That's better than a lot of class skill types.

I'm of the mindset that we just need another trait or two to offer a buff to turrets. Make it a choice to build around them, but make the investment worth it. Things like an increased rate of fire, a damage bonus for each additional turret out, a reduction in damage taken can all be tied to traits in the inventions line.

Its a shame right now as I love the idea of a turret engineer, but I don't think it would work in the current game even in their previous state.

The prospect of playing Turreteer was specifically what attracted me to GW2, along with the friend who told me about its existence and convinced me to pre-purchase it back in June of 2012 and marathon every BWE and stress test I could afterwards. Because of it, my very first character in GW2 (out of now 41) was an Engineer created within minutes of launch.

Needless to say, though we both deeply love the game, we were both somewhat disappointed with how Turreteer actually turned out.

I still use turrets, but think of them much the same way I think of utility skills on any other class. Considered that way, they're actually pretty competitive, even now.

Still, I know I'm not alone in wishing turrets could serve as something Engineers could rely on as their primary focus in combat. Heck, if necessary for balance reasons, I would give up a primary weapon altogether to be able to do that.

An all-turret bundle, perhaps?

no, they are only good at tagging mobs, world bosses in afk modethey need to be redone, probably distribute changes in tool traits, 1 trait for boons another for dpsbut this will never happen, still can dream

they should always come overcharged for whole duration of turret and actually do some sustained damage/cctheir life time should be removed like necro minions, or extended with "repair", they should put a boon showing how much life duration they havetheir cd should be reduced to 5sec*their remaining health (if you pick them up)their boon application should be reduced 10-> 3 sec, they should apply more boons to steal spot from messmers(who am i kidding, nothing can come close to them and stationary turrets wont have chance either), or have unique buffs like gyros or ranger spiritstool belt skills are junk, should be replaced with deployable versions of turrets