The Turrets of the Future - a Comprehensive Rework including Traitlines

[Matoro.9708]

An Introduction

So, gentleman. Here we are. We ask ourselves a question that millions already know the answer to. What is wrong with our Turrets? By god, what isn't? We aren't here today to illuminate this fact. Heavens above, it speaks for itself, the corpses of so many Engineers, the scrap of thousands of useless peashooters. But we are here, my friends and compatriots, to look for a brighter tomorrow. A tomorrow where an Engineer can create a fighting machine. A machine that, in the right hands, can strike fear into the hearts of men. Not the actual fear condition, I'm not that dumb. Anyhow, the devil's in the details boys, so let's jump right in.

Consider the 6 kinds we have known to contemporary Tyrian Engineers. Healing, Rifle, Rocket, Flame, Thumper, and Net (peace be upon you Karl). Their underwater variants are essentially the same. Each serves a distinct purpose, as we shall now lay out.

• The Healing Turret aims to create a location of reliable healing, and cure conditions. Focused, direct, admirable.

• The Rifle Turret literally aims to deal consistent power damage on a single target in range. Overcharges of the past allowed on demand vulnerability and RoF increase, which further helps simplify and advance this goal.

• The Rocket Turret did three things: AoE power damage, explosions, and a ranged knockdown. It feels quite muddled - what does it want to do best? CC? AoE damage? This Turret needs a more focused goal.

• The Flame Turret, bane of 'nam. This certified American Turret is intended to burn any who come near it, no more or less, for a condition damage oriented Engineer. It's toolbelt skill reinforces this idea. It also could use smoke to blind nearby attackers, protecting either itself or the owner. Cohesive in theme and action, this one is closest to perfect as we have, perhaps tied with Healing. But could it be more?

• The Thumper Turret, looking like a CBT device, is intended as well for CC through knockdown and cripple. Men fear those hard metal balls. It's range is weak, however, but has high HP for remaining alive as either area denial or keeping foes in your grasp. It doesn't synergize too well with other Turrets since stunbreaks are everywhere, and foes keep on you harder than the memories of your ex regardless.

• The Net Turret. It could immobilize and stun, but not before your target ran 5 laps around you. Simple, clean, but hardly walking the line of effective CC. And why does it compete with Rocket and Thumper for CC? Much to consider.

• The Supply Crate is merely a mashup of Rifle, Healing, and Flame. Arguably the most solid available choices, but not customisable, and not inventive - that alone should mean it is not an Engineer's skill. Spamming them out is annoying to fight and has no tact whatsoever. Needs to be replaced by an Elite skill that delivers on a useful and unfulfilled Turret dream.

We know what our subjects are, and their intended purpose. What else aids them? Only Experimental Turrets, in Inventions. A shadow of what the entire line used to be, this trait gives 4 seconds of a reflective bubble on placement, and boons every 10 seconds. These boons themselves suggest as well what their focus should be. We will consider that more as we lay out first the changes to the skills themselves, then the changes to traits throughout Engineer.

Changing the Turrets

First, an overarching change to how Turrets themselves even work. The Tyrian Engineering Society formally abhors afk Turret farmers, going to far as to ban them, which led to the funding crisis, which led to the inquisition, subsequent civil war, and so on - fortunately, Turrets aren't competitive, so we won that fight. And here is our plan to bring them up to speed without encouraging brainless button mashing.

Bold problems require bold solutions. We henceforth remove autoattacks. As the gods from above told us, "1 button = 1 action." So shall it be. So are Turrets going to be meat shields that attacks pass through for some reason, not even rendering them effective meatshields? Well, let's fix that, so that attacks must have piercing properties to go through Turrets. Next, we shall give them ammunition skills, amount of charges varying per Turret. Once spent, either allow it to reload, or by activating again at 0 charges, detonate the Turret. Toolbelt skills remain always.

Next important step: add marginal stat scaling. An Engineer who knows how to armor himself should know, at least slightly, how to increase the toughness of the things he builds. An Engineer who is precise and powerful with bucketloads of ferocity should see some small return for filling his Rifle Turret with broken glass and his enemys repressed memories. Therefore, if base Turret stats are left as is, you will see a small buff in the direction of your highest stats. Clearly, this now means Turrets can critically hit. But it remains at base 5%, like players base, and scales poorly with your precision, and the scaling of all values depends on the Turret, for the sake of tuning and balance. If Rifle Turret gets OP, don't tune them all down. I will try to be conservative with the numbers going forward. As a baseline, scaling 0.05xStat seems appropriate until otherwise specified. Since conditions already use your stats, and Healing Turret as well, we are considering new scaling with vitality, toughness, power, precision, and ferocity.

Turrets can gain boons. They can be affected by conditions, so this is only fair. Using Purity of Purpose on your Turrets is an intended use case.Turrets begin recharge for placement while active, but increase their recharge by 50-100%. This allows a patient Engineer to move his Turrets, but not a hasty one to spam them.

Detonations scale damage with power, at 0.5x, and can crit.

Turrets now will be doing unique things compared to each other and without any overlap. You go to Rifle for single target damage/vulnerability. Rocket for AoE damage and explosions. Flame for condition damage/blind. Thumper for AoE control effects. Net for single target CC. And my new Turret elite, Magnetizer, attempts to be a defensive Turret that retains some CC the original elite had on its stun. That is maybe not my best idea, you decide.

• The Healing TurretThis one largely remains the same, but as no Turret automatically overcharges any longer, you'll have to press the skill again, then detonate. This ammo skill, same as the overcharge, will have no cast time to keep it fluid and ready to detonate immediately for the healing blast combo. Recharge of the single ammo charge is 20 seconds. This allows an Engineer to keep it up and decide the perfect moment to get that heal off, at the risk of course of it being destroyed. This Turret hardly requires a change. 30 second build cooldown. Remember, this starts cooling down immediately.

• The Rifle TurretThis guy needs a higher precision modifier if he wants competitive single target damage. 0.35x. Not great, not terrible. Power at 0.15. If this Turret were a gear set, it'd be Assassins, compared to rocket, more like Berserker. The ammo skill will be its overcharge rapidfire mode, and it will have 2 available, the overcharge currently lasts 10 seconds. Recharge for the ammo, 25 seconds. Cast time of ammo, 0.5 seconds. Cooldown between ammo shots, 1 second. 60 second build cooldown.

• The Rocket TurretThis Turret will identify itself proudly by its association with explosions and associated traits. It will not do any hard CC, and it's ammo skill will be 3 mini rockets coming out of the 3 barrels in that triangular pattern. Explosion radius 180 on each. Damage on each will be 1/3 of the overcharged rocket. You will have 2 charges for the ammo. Count recharge is at 15 seconds. Scaling: 0.30x power, 0.10x precision. Cast time, 0.5 seconds. Cooldown between ammo shots, 1 second. Toolbelt skill arc reduced significantly with increased travel speed. 70 second build cooldown.

• The Flame TurretThe Turret spins around, spewing flame at 600 range and napalm from it's mouth, doing initial damage and 2 burning stacks, and leaving a smaller AoE smoking, pulsing smoke field that inflicts 1 second of burning and blind each second for the entire 5 seconds it lasts. Baelfire would be proud. Also 2 ammo charges, recharge of 18 seconds, 0.5 second cast time. Cooldown between ammo shots, 6 seconds. 55 second build cooldown.

• The Thumper TurretThis Turret scales higher in toughness at 0.25x than the other Turrets. It no longer inflicts knockdown, but instead a short 0.5 second daze upon slamming the earth in its AoE ammo skill. Cripple remains to simulate trying to walk while experiencing a mini earthquake. This has 3 ammo charges, 16 seconds to recharge an ammo charge. 0.25 second cast time. Cooldown between ammo shots, 1 second. 65 second build cooldown. Toolbelt has cripple on it.

• The Net TurretThis guy now will always shoot electrified nets, giving a 1 second stun, 1.5 seconds of immobilize and slowness, and very small damage. 2 ammo charges, 14 second recharge. Cast time 0.5 seconds. Cooldown between ammo shots, 4 seconds. 45 second build cooldown. Toolbelt skill has slow.

The New Elite: The Magnetizer Turret and Other IdeasI considered long and hard what Engineer needed that Turrets weren't giving. If these changes are implemented, they now have reasonable sustained DPS when you need it, bit better as timed bursts, can sit and wait for enemies while you repair them, and you bet we're talking about toolkit later.The first thing I know is I want is its effect from Experimental Turrets to be Alacrity. This means if you are nearby it, all your skills and Turrets do more Turreting, as well as buffing your allies. This is definitely something the Engineer doesn't have, and I don't expect more than 2 seconds of alacrity, since this is largely a Chronomancer boon. But it is a good fit. And remember, you have to take Experimental Turrets. Either Alacrity, or Stability, for uninterrupted ammo activation, would be fine. I prefer alacrity since Engineer gets tons of Stability anyways. And disabling a Turret Engineer should mean he's mostly helpless. Okay, so what is the new turret?

Magnetizer Turret - Ammo skill fires a magnet onto a target, pulling other foes to him. F5: Reverse polarity, instantly pushing enemies away from you. 135 second build cooldown.Only 1 recharging ammo charge, doing as described. Takes 0.75 seconds to cast. Recharges in 13 seconds. This turret has simply above average toughness scaling, 0.10x, but is less tanky than the thumper. Inflicts a small duration of weakness and/or confusion on hits. Not really sure here without a baseline. This Turret should serve both power and condi builds.

Other ideas? I can expand on these later if deemed better.Black Hole Sun - An asura gate drops in, linked to space. Sucks players in, deals lots of damage and explodes when someone touches it. No ammo skills. F5: Mini version of Stavemaster Adryn's black hole? Lmao. Not really a Turret.Force Turret - Ammo skill fires in a cone, generating an ionic pressure wave that knocks enemies down or back. A trait decides this. F5: Fire 20? hammerhead bullets in under a second circularly around you, channelled, each doing a small amount of cripple.Portal Turret - Ammo skill fires at targeted foes, teleporting them to a random nearby location. F5: teleport them 1200 range away by throwing a mini asura gate at them.Laser Turret - Ammo skill fires a laser with traited color, causing a specific condition, and power damage coefficient. F5: White Light, that has white orbital lasers shoot down in a AoE that cure and heal you and your allies at the target location. Think Vigil Megalaser. F5 is essentially a better clone of Med Pack Drop. Or make it 'Infrared Pulse' to replace Detection Pulse which got deleted and is arguably better. Hard to pick.

Phew, we did it! All the turrets, well and accounted for. But traits. Here we go. And Tool Kit.

Traits and Tool Kit

For Tool Kit, frankly, if the Kit changes here are done, it feels healthiest to let Kit Engineer be its own thing, while Turret Engineer goes its own way as well. Thus I propose Turret Repairs are no longer a part of Tool Kit. Chances are, your Turret is off cooldown anyways after a minute or two of fighting. We consider alternative repair methods.

Let the fun begin. I largely use what's already there and let turrets benefit. An easier patch IMO.

Given that we now let Turrets be cleansed and receive boons, we consider the following changes.

• FirearmsMinor Adept - Sharpshooter - Critical hits have a chance to cause bleeding. This now also applies to your Rifle and Rocket Turrets.Major Adept - Sanguine Array - Gain might whenever you inflict bleeding on a foe. This now also applies to your Rifle and Rocket Turrets.Major Adept - High Caliber - You have an increased critical hit chance against foes within the range threshold. This now also applies to all of your Turrets.Minor Master - Hematic Focus - You have increased chance to critically strike against bleeding foes. This now also applies to all of your Turrets.Major Master - No Scope - Critical hits within the range threshold have a chance to grant fury. Fury grants you ferocity. It now also works for all of your Turrets.Major Grandmaster - Juggernaut - Gain might and stability while wielding a flamethrower. Might applied to you gains increased duration. This now also applies to all of your Turrets.Major Grandmaster - Modified Ammunition - Deal increased damage for each condition on a foe. It now also applies to all of your Turrets.Major Grandmaster - Incendiary Powder - Critical hits inflict burning. Burning you apply lasts 33% longer. This now also applies to your Rifle, Rocket, and Flame Turrets.

• InventionsMajor Adept - Over Shield - Shield skills gain recharge reduction and grant protection to nearby allies. Protection on you gains increased damage reduction. This now also applies to Turrets.Major Adept - Automated Medical Response - All heal skills recharge when struck while you are below the health threshold. Turrets spawn a 2 second reflective bubble when hit below 25% HP.Major Adept - Autodefense Bomb Dispenser - Drop a smoke bomb when you are disabled. This now is also deployed by all Turrets when hit by CC effects, on their own longer cooldown and a smaller radius.Major Master - Experimental Turrets - You know. The reflective bubble is being taken off and moved to previous trait. Boons remain unchanged. Applies to up to 10 nearby allies.Major Grandmaster - Bunker Down - Create a proximity mine and med kit at your location when you critically hit with an attack. This now is deployed by all Turrets upon their critical hits at their location, in a weaker form, with a longer cooldown.Major Grandmaster - Medical Dispersion Field - A percentage of healing you apply to yourself is shared with nearby allies. Turrets take 15% less damage in the presence of their owner.

• Tools (Tom Cruise approved)Minor Adept - Optimized Activation - Using tool belt skills grants vigor. This now also applies Vigor to the Turret the toolbelt skill belonged to.Major Adept - Static Discharge - Discharge a bolt of lightning whenever you use a tool belt skill. This now also launches a static discharge from Turret the tool belt skill belonged to.Major Adept - Reactive Lenses - Activate Lesser Utility Goggles when blinded or disabled. This now also applies to all of your Turrets.Minor Master - Mechanized Deployment - Just look at that name. Stare at it. Revel in it. Your tool belt skills gain reduced recharge. This now also reduces recharge of Turret building by 10%.Major Master - Lock On - In addition to previous effects, Rifle Turrets can now Lock On too, with significantly reduced boon/reveal duration and vulnerability stacks.Minor Grandmaster - Excessive Energy - Deal more damage while under the effects of Vigor. Turrets begin to auto repair when under the effects of Vigor. 5%/sec.Major Grandmaster - Kinetic Battery - Gain Kinetic Charges when you use a tool belt skill. At maximum charges gain a burst of speed. Turrets gain charges with each Ammo skill used. These charges improve their damage by 1%, maximum of 5 stacks.

• ExplosivesMajor Adept - Glass Cannon - Damage increases when above the health threshold. A lesser form now also applies to all of your Turrets. (5%).Major Master - Aim-Assisted Rocket - Striking a foe occasionally tags it for a seeker rocket. Your Rocket Turret can now also send its own weaker version of these when it attacks.Major Master - Big Boomer - Gain vitality and ferocity based on your power. These bonuses to your stats affect your turret scaling.Major Master - Short Fuse - Bomb skills have shorter fuses and gain reduced recharge. Gain fury when you strike a foe with an explosion. It now also applies to your Rocket Turret.Minor Grandmaster - Shaped Charge - Deal more damage to targets with vulnerability. This now also applies to all of your Turrets.

• AlchemyMajor Adept - Protection Injection - Gain protection when you are disabled. Turrets also will when hit by a CC attack.Minor Master - Transmute - Drink a Lesser Elixir C when you reach a threshold of conditions affecting you. Turrets have their own version, with only 1 conversion.Minor Grandmaster - Compounding Chemicals - Heal yourself when you grant yourself a boon. Gain increased concentration. Turrets heal 1% when a boon is applied to them, 1 sec ICD.Major Grandmaster - Iron Blooded - Reduce physical and condition damage for each boon you have. Affects turrets.

So I think that's just about everything. It's possible I forgot stuff, so...

Conclusions

These changes strive to make Turrets more interesting, interactive, impactful, and profession defining. We gain plenty of strategies for Turret play, and each one stands on it's own as a good and purposeful Utility skill. I'm sure some things will not be perfect, but let me know what you liked or want changed. I will include a Community Changes section after this that I will update with good ideas. Do these changes lead to new and fun synergy across Engineer? Something broken? I want to make a golden corpus for Anet to use as the Turret bible. As I finish this, however, I am spent and cannot even read for proofing anymore. Thanks for reading.

Community Ideas

Personally I think Magnetizer with new Bomb Kit would be dope.Initial placement readies overcharges, a stronger version of the repeatable ammo skills.Reload mechanics possibly with tool kit (maybe chances on crit or tied to tool belt skills)Ground target deployable (300-600 range sounds fair, without teleport pathing)Turrets being a sort of pseudo-Preparation skill in theme.Turrets will begin an auto countdown when you are outside 1200 range, detonating at the end unless you return.Turrets keep auto attacks but similarly go dormant when you no longer are specifically attacking a target.

[rdigeri.7935]

Easily one of the best anime speeches oof all time.

It's a long read though, so here is a short version for those who don't want to dig through it (lazy!):-turrets no longer autoattack.-turrets are not automatically pierced by projectiles, only by ones that pierce anyway.-once a turret is placed, the skill flips over into the overcharge;overcharges now have an ammunition mechanic:There is 1 or 2 ammo depending on kit, and when these are on cooldown, pressing the skill will detonate the turret. (Picking up the turret enables you to save the ammo for later, while detonation does not.)-turrets now scale with stats. Each turret has their own individual scaling with each stat for balancing reasons.-turrets are now able to receive boons.-turret cd starts as soon as the turret is placed, similar to preparations on thief.-detonations now do more damage scaling with power.

These are the basics. The goal of these changes is to reward good turret management; and rebuffing turrets without afk gameplay abuse.

Check the post for individual skill and trait ideas.

[rdigeri.7935]

As for my opinion, i'd keep the turret cooldowns slightly shorter, and also keep the overcharges short cd to reward keeping the turret alive better.

For example, healing turret'd have 25 sec cd with slightly more healing than before, and the overcharge 10sec with slightly less healing than before. Enemies who don't destroy this turret will find killing the engineer more difficult as a result.

I'll come up with some turret ideas soon

[Matoro.9708]

@rdigeri.7935 said:Easily one of the best anime speeches oof all time.-turrets are not automatically pierced by projectiles, only by ones that pierce anyway.

Hahaha thanks man I tried too hard, just to make it silly for the sake of it. Kind of you to make a TLDR for me.I read on the old EU forums that it was in fact the case that turrets were one of the only structure type objects with the yellow health bar that bullets don't collide with. Maybe this was stealth patched (doubtful), but I have no way to test this on my own turrets. I'd have to try on the PvP Engineer fighter with a class with standard projectiles, like ranger longbow untraited. Edit - I just did, and they don't use turrets. I wonder why? :p

@rdigeri.7935 said:As for my opinion, i'd keep the turret cooldowns slightly shorter, and also keep the overcharges short cd to reward keeping the turret alive better.

For example, healing turret'd have 25 sec cd with slightly more healing than before, and the overcharge 10sec with slightly less healing than before. Enemies who don't destroy this turret will find killing the engineer more difficult as a result.

I'll come up with some turret ideas soon

I'm happy that the issues are more with the numbers than mechanics, as the balance team has so much more experience tuning cooldowns and such. Though it's an interesting idea to keep strong placement overcharge effects. I'll add that. Thanks

[derd.6413]

here's an idea: allow toolkit to reload turrets

[rdigeri.7935]

@derd.6413 said:here's an idea: allow toolkit to reload turrets

That sounds pretty good! Weird turret dps builds here we come

[Antycypator.9874]

For this day I think turrets are useless.Healing turret - weak healing. Take something with better numbers, e.g. A.E.D.Rocket turret - only good thing is aoe CC at first shot, but turret has long CD, rate fire is long (you will kill your foe before it can shot again).Rifle turret - low damage. Better take grenades - at least they're aoe.Thumper turret - why waste one utility skill for aoe cripple? Slick boots can do better I think.Fire turret - everything is better. Flamethrower if you play condi.Net turret - not worth wasting another slot for immobilize.Elite - long CD, but it has good CC.

Turrets, to be attractive, should be better than other skills. For now, everything can be replaced with kits, and kits have more than one use.

[rdigeri.7935]

@Antycypator.9874 said:For this day I think turrets are useless.Healing turret - weak healing. Take something with better numbers, e.g. A.E.D.Rocket turret - only good thing is aoe CC at first shot, but turret has long CD, rate fire is long (you will kill your foe before it can shot again).Rifle turret - low damage. Better take grenades - at least they're aoe.Thumper turret - why waste one utility skill for aoe cripple? Slick boots can do better I think.Fire turret - everything is better. Flamethrower if you play condi.Net turret - not worth wasting another slot for immobilize.Elite - long CD, but it has good CC.

Healing turret is the meta healing skill in pretty much every gamemode, you can even do combos in the water field, so you're wrong about that. It's the reliable healing skill.The rest of them you're right about.

Turrets, to be attractive, should be better than other skills. For now, everything can be replaced with kits, and kits have more than one use.

I'd disagree with this statement too

A skill being better than another is still only one skill being used.Instead, skills should have different strengths, be non-comparable, and that way they can both be viable options.

So instead, turrets should be given a role that the other skills don't have

[Iozeph.5617]

Turrets need to have their auto attack. They need to be ground/wall target deployable again. No need for an ammo system just put back on demand overcharges. They still need the auto though- that's the point of placing turrets- area control. Without the auto they're just inferior versions of any other utility out there because you end up having to first place them on the go which still takes time and then you have to actively manage them while either chasing or running away from most melee opponents. And those opponents still have the option of just running out of their range.

Biggest thing is also restoring them to their status as world objects. Similar to Tequatle's fingers. Immunity to critical hits and conditions. On their own turret damage has always been trickle damage- ostensibly this also plays a part in why our rifles and pistols do such terrible damage - because they were meant to be supplemented by turrets or other utilities. Slight additive damage which ultimately makes up for(at least that seems to have been the plan) what other professions -warriors for example- get built into their regular strikes. If you make them ammo based and increase their damage they'll be nerfed again because apart from holo we're not allowed(note I didn't say we shouldn't have it) to have that sort of burst at our disposal.

Of all the complaints I've heard about turrets the one that stands out the most is the lack of durability once those changes went through. Having what was once (back then at least) one of our defining elements rendered worthless by a few cleave attacks wasn't and still isn't acceptable. They're negligible damage. They don't scale off of our attributes. But the toughness and the deployability made them a solid counter to high evade/stealth professions as well as tougher high pressure melee characters. It just that much the way they've done with Scrapper today, people whinged and we were nerfed. So then, as now, everyone who didn't want to play against us decided we didn't deserve to excel at even one thing- controlling fights over static points.

Don't see it being reversed in my lifetime, but good luck trying to get turrets changed all the same.

[rdigeri.7935]

@Iozeph.5617 said:Turrets need to have their auto attack. They need to be ground/wall target deployable again. No need for an ammo system just put back on demand overcharges. They still need the auto though- that's the point of placing turrets- area control. Without the auto they're just inferior versions of any other utility out there because you end up having to first place them on the go which still takes time and then you have to actively manage them while either chasing or running away from most melee opponents. And those opponents still have the option of just running out of their range.

Biggest thing is also restoring them to their status as world objects. Similar to Tequatle's fingers. Immunity to critical hits and conditions. On their own turret damage has always been trickle damage- ostensibly this also plays a part in why our rifles and pistols do such terrible damage - because they were meant to be supplemented by turrets or other utilities. Slight additive damage which ultimately makes up for(at least that seems to have been the plan) what other professions -warriors for example- get built into their regular strikes. If you make them ammo based and increase their damage they'll be nerfed again because apart from holo we're not allowed(note I didn't say we shouldn't have it) to have that sort of burst at our disposal.

Of all the complaints I've heard about turrets the one that stands out the most is the lack of durability once those changes went through. Having what was once (back then at least) one of our defining elements rendered worthless by a few cleave attacks wasn't and still isn't acceptable. They're negligible damage. They don't scale off of our attributes. But the toughness and the deployability made them a solid counter to high evade/stealth professions as well as tougher high pressure melee characters. It just that much the way they've done with Scrapper today, people whinged and we were nerfed. So then, as now, everyone who didn't want to play against us decided we didn't deserve to excel at even one thing- controlling fights over static points.

Don't see it being reversed in my lifetime, but good luck trying to get turrets changed all the same.

I feel your nostalgia; it sucks when something you relied on suddenly disappears.

I'm totally down for thrown deployment.

I don't think they should be world objects. That'd be a clear disadvantage for amy condition based opponent that's against you.

And while it's true they may seem inferior to other stuff in this version, they're not: as you place them, you gain access to a short cooldown, impactful skill which you can repeatedly use as long as you can keep the turret alive. An example of this could be a rifle turret: you place it, and it can do a bristleback-ish attack every 10-15ish seconds. Enemies are then pressured to move in and destroy the turret, and you can use this to your advantage in many ways.

Taking autoattacks out is only because they were used for afk farming; but with these new short cooldown skills turrets can still be used for that supplementing damage. As a plus, it is now active gameplay, you need to time it correctly.

As for no burst allowed, i don't understand what you mean. Can you elaborate?

[Iozeph.5617]

@rdigeri.7935 said:

@Iozeph.5617 said:Turrets need to have their auto attack. They need to be ground/wall target deployable again. No need for an ammo system just put back on demand overcharges. They still need the auto though- that's the point of placing turrets- area control. Without the auto they're just inferior versions of any other utility out there because you end up having to first place them on the go which still takes time and then you have to actively manage them while either chasing or running away from most melee opponents. And those opponents still have the option of just running out of their range.

Biggest thing is also restoring them to their status as world objects. Similar to Tequatle's fingers. Immunity to critical hits and conditions. On their own turret damage has always been trickle damage- ostensibly this also plays a part in why our rifles and pistols do such terrible damage - because they were meant to be supplemented by turrets or other utilities. Slight additive damage which ultimately makes up for(at least that seems to have been the plan) what other professions -warriors for example- get built into their regular strikes. If you make them ammo based and increase their damage they'll be nerfed again because apart from holo we're not allowed(note I didn't say we shouldn't have it) to have that sort of burst at our disposal.

Of all the complaints I've heard about turrets the one that stands out the most is the lack of durability once those changes went through. Having what was once (back then at least) one of our defining elements rendered worthless by a few cleave attacks wasn't and still isn't acceptable. They're negligible damage. They don't scale off of our attributes. But the toughness and the deployability made them a solid counter to high evade/stealth professions as well as tougher high pressure melee characters. It just that much the way they've done with Scrapper today, people whinged and we were nerfed. So then, as now, everyone who didn't want to play against us decided we didn't deserve to excel at even one thing- controlling fights over static points.

Don't see it being reversed in my lifetime, but good luck trying to get turrets changed all the same.

I feel your nostalgia; it sucks when something you relied on suddenly disappears.

I'm totally down for thrown deployment.

I don't think they should be world objects. That'd be a clear disadvantage for amy condition based opponent that's against you.

And while it's true they may seem inferior to other stuff in this version, they're not: as you place them, you gain access to a short cooldown, impactful skill which you can repeatedly use as long as you can keep the turret alive. An example of this could be a rifle turret: you place it, and it can do a bristleback-ish attack every 10-15ish seconds. Enemies are then pressured to move in and destroy the turret, and you can use this to your advantage in many ways.

Taking autoattacks out is only because they were used for afk farming; but with these new short cooldown skills turrets can still be used for that supplementing damage. As a plus, it is now active gameplay, you need to time it correctly.

As for no burst allowed, i don't understand what you mean. Can you elaborate?

Most of the damage we do comes in small snippets that have to build up or add up over time. It's why just about every single utility or weapon or kit etc we have does mediocre damage. For those who are able to figuratively play piano with the profession there are a lot of little things to add up. If you're lucking enough to find a match against a team who are either afk or stone you stand a good chance of success with that...maybe. Otherwise every other profession has the utility/mobility to ignore you.

This hurts us in competitive modes because a human player isn't going to just stand there stupidly and allow you to build your condi stacks/ramp up damage or stand in the middle of your turrets. In that case the advantaged is heavily in favour of classes able to frontload/dump as much damage as possible in as small a time window as possible. This is the design philosophy behind the Holosmith. And though it makes it the abberation for our profession, it's currently -even nerfed as it is of late- the only one which works.

If you take away the auto attacks on turrets you have to do something to make up for it. Makinig the attacks ammo related -with no auto attacks to even out those peaks and valleys- puts you behind the time curve against every other profession just deploying the turret before you even get to use the ammo. And again, the sore point being that if they choose to they'll just run away from them and your cooldowns are wasted.

Without auto attacks an ammo based attack has to outweigh the loss of damage over time. If it's application of conditions or boons which are easily cleansed/stripped/corrupted? Yeah back to square one. Higher damage per ammo spent equals burst. And people will cry. Look at all the bitterness over Mesmers and clones/phantasms.

I don't see us getting burst with turrets. And even if we did it would be via a slow, cludgy, glorified bomb which is still easily cleaved or ignored. They don't taunt or shift our enemy's target - and that alone would be worth asking for because without it even if we get them deployed most players with even a passing familiarity to the profession know to treat us as a dolyak convey in wvw - burst us down and the turrets disappear with us. That would be a turret worth asking for - one which is deployed and which throws up six holographic versions of the engineer - which must be destroyed or have the turret destroyed before the engineer is targetable by attacks. Won't happen - back to durability.

They need to be world objects so that they present an actual threat to enemy players over time. I hate to say this because I love turrets in theory but without increased durability and making them more a persistent damage over time utility - they still won't be worth the slot. You'd still be better served taking any other utility -whether it's a kit or some ammo based gadget or mine in their place.

And at that rate, even more regrettably, why not just suck it up and stay with Scrapper? Gutter tier that it is at least the wells/gyros travel with you and have semi-decent belt utilities. Function gyro is an abortion but so what? If we're arguing against Scrapper purely on the merits of missing the f5 skills we could in turn argue against the core turret Engineer on the merits of wasting three whole utility slots... More if we take into account the elite that is essentially a poor man's Drop The Hammer on a much, much, much longer cooldown.

I love the ideas in this thread and appreciate the effort it takes to do such a write up but my faith in those with the authority to make such changes is nil.

Torn because I love what the engineer used to represent, but of late I find it hard to care anymore. One sided relationships never work out and that's exactly what we have going with the devs right now. Sorry for the novel. Hope it answered your questions in some way . If it didn't. Sorry. CBA to post another explanation.

[rdigeri.7935]

@Iozeph.5617 said:Most of the damage we do comes in small snippets that have to build up or add up over time. It's why just about every single utility or weapon or kit etc we have does mediocre damage. For those who are able to figuratively play piano with the profession there are a lot of little things to add up. If you're lucking enough to find a match against a team who are either afk or stone you stand a good chance of success with that...maybe. Otherwise every other profession has the utility/mobility to ignore you.

This hurts us in competitive modes because a human player isn't going to just stand there stupidly and allow you to build your condi stacks/ramp up damage or stand in the middle of your turrets. In that case the advantaged is heavily in favour of classes able to frontload/dump as much damage as possible in as small a time window as possible. This is the design philosophy behind the Holosmith. And though it makes it the abberation for our profession, it's currently -even nerfed as it is of late- the only one which works.

If you take away the auto attacks on turrets you have to do something to make up for it. Makinig the attacks ammo related -with no auto attacks to even out those peaks and valleys- puts you behind the time curve against every other profession just deploying the turret before you even get to use the ammo. And again, the sore point being that if they choose to they'll just run away from them and your cooldowns are wasted.

Without auto attacks an ammo based attack has to outweigh the loss of damage over time. If it's application of conditions or boons which are easily cleansed/stripped/corrupted? Yeah back to square one. Higher damage per ammo spent equals burst. And people will cry. Look at all the bitterness over Mesmers and clones/phantasms.

I don't see us getting burst with turrets. And even if we did it would be via a slow, cludgy, glorified bomb which is still easily cleaved or ignored. They don't taunt or shift our enemy's target - and that alone would be worth asking for because without it even if we get them deployed most players with even a passing familiarity to the profession know to treat us as a dolyak convey in wvw - burst us down and the turrets disappear with us. That would be a turret worth asking for - one which is deployed and which throws up six holographic versions of the engineer - which must be destroyed or have the turret destroyed before the engineer is targetable by attacks. Won't happen - back to durability.

They need to be world objects so that they present an actual threat to enemy players over time. I hate to say this because I love turrets in theory but without increased durability and making them more a persistent damage over time utility - they still won't be worth the slot. You'd still be better served taking any other utility -whether it's a kit or some ammo based gadget or mine in their place.

And at that rate, even more regrettably, why not just suck it up and stay with Scrapper? Gutter tier that it is at least the wells/gyros travel with you and have semi-decent belt utilities. Function gyro is an abortion but so what? If we're arguing against Scrapper purely on the merits of missing the f5 skills we could in turn argue against the core turret Engineer on the merits of wasting three whole utility slots... More if we take into account the elite that is essentially a poor man's Drop The Hammer on a much, much, much longer cooldown.

I love the ideas in this thread and appreciate the effort it takes to do such a write up but my faith in those with the authority to make such changes is nil.

Torn because I love what the engineer used to represent, but of late I find it hard to care anymore. One sided relationships never work out and that's exactly what we have going with the devs right now. Sorry for the novel. Hope it answered your questions in some way . If it didn't. Sorry. CBA to post another explanation.

Yep, thanks for sharing your thoughts on the matter.And i see where you're coming from although i disagree with a few things you said.

The first one is that holosmith is the only one that works. While not on the top, both core and scrapper have builds, even bursty ones like Drunk Engineer. I don't think bursts are the trademark of holo, there's no reason the other specs can't have it.

As for continuous damage, that's kind of what frequent bursts achieve.

Yes enemies can run out of range to avoid it, but that means you have control over them, the point is yours. Yes they can go out of their way to go after turrets, but that's more time when they don't focus an actual player.Engi would probably become some kind of teamfighter with turrets, preparing for fights even before they happen.

You're right that they're not nearly as durable as they should be, but i think condis being ineffective is the wrong approach; it's rather the stats that should be changed.

And i don't think this would be anywhere near meta, neither should it be. But turrets are dead skills now. If they become viable, fun options, and also usable in pve, then it can be considered a win.

I'm pretty much down to anything that makes them viable and fun. Even if they become the engi's version of Preparations. There's just not much variety with an entire type of skills being so useless.

One can hope i suppose

[Matoro.9708]

@Iozeph.5617 said:And at that rate, even more regrettably, why not just suck it up and stay with Scrapper? Gutter tier that it is at least the wells/gyros travel with you and have semi-decent belt utilities. Function gyro is an abortion but so what? If we're arguing against Scrapper purely on the merits of missing the f5 skills we could in turn argue against the core turret Engineer on the merits of wasting three whole utility slots... More if we take into account the elite that is essentially a poor man's Drop The Hammer on a much, much, much longer cooldown.

Love the way you said that so succinctly haha. I hear all your points and I am very inclined to agree. Unfortunately, as we know, DPS on turrets as it is, is at BEST about 1.2k. About 1/38th the effectiveness of ideal Ele dps which admittedly has a particularly complex rotation for beginners, but largely this is because turrets are non-interactive and completely unbuffable. Other classes abilities gain something from you being more responsive and having buffs on you. Having turrets be as scalable as the rest of your kit in that way is maybe the most important change to make. Which is why I wanted scaling and boons for them.

Back in the day I had a Scrapper build that used Bulwark to stay alive longer to allow turrets to do what you described, steady trickle damage over time, but Scrapper isn't so tanky anymore, especially since turret hits don't give you barrier. The turrets died fast, and I shortly after. Anyways I'm getting off topic - I could see auto attacks remaining but probably only in PvP and WvW. In PvE, turret AFK farming leads to bots and generally terrible behavior - I want the turret to be interactive, so maybe we can get them to have an auto attack window of 5 seconds that you have to trigger by using your own attacks/skills, in addition to the ammo skills? Maybe this could work. If the autos do remain, then I don't see them getting any stronger than they currently are. If anything, weaker, with repeatable ammo/overcharges coming in. And if the autos are just similar to the overcharge, it feels redundant.

Even if the DPS isn't automated, it's totally possible to lower the cool downs for these ammo skills to allow more consistent and also flexible damage/utility. I am still in favor of making people press a button for every attack, even if the result is 10 seconds of hands free chain-gunning from your turret. It generally earns more respect to know every action and bit of damage came from your actions, and turrets need more respect, that's for sure. It's like the hood: if you don't have respect, you'll get capped and put 6 feet in nerf city. I can guarantee it's less piano-y than kit builds, at least.

If the turrets gain stat scaling which I think is the right move, then they would be ineligible as status for world objects - they would count as minions. Either way, your experience with it all is very refreshing and the original ideas and implementations of turrets are obviously some strong cornerstones that we ought to not forget. Thanks.

@rdigeri.7935And i don't think this would be anywhere near meta, neither should it be. But turrets are dead skills now. If they become viable, fun options, and also usable in pve, then it can be considered a win.

This is definitely the right sentiment to have and I hope the devs have it too. Whatever it takes to see them become more fun and compelling, we would all be happy to have it.

I'll go add all the cool ideas up in the top now. I'm really happy you all care about this issue as much as I do. Thanks for discussing, and here's hoping it goes somewhere.

[Iozeph.5617]

@Matoro.9708 said:Back in the day I had a Scrapper build that used Bulwark to stay alive longer to allow turrets to do what you described, steady trickle damage over time, but Scrapper isn't so tanky anymore, especially since turret hits don't give you barrier. The turrets died fast, and I shortly after. Anyways I'm getting off topic - I could see auto attacks remaining but probably only in PvP and WvW. In PvE, turret AFK farming leads to bots and generally terrible behavior - I want the turret to be interactive, so maybe we can get them to have an auto attack window of 5 seconds that you have to trigger by using your own attacks/skills, in addition to the ammo skills? Maybe this could work. If the autos do remain, then I don't see them getting any stronger than they currently are. If anything, weaker, with repeatable ammo/overcharges coming in. And if the autos are just similar to the overcharge, it feels redundant.

I believe you hit the nail on the head right here. This strikes the perfect medium. Or near enough to perfect. Keep auto attacks, require the engineer to attack as well and on top of that require them to stay within at least twelve hundred range of any given turret. If not in range then the turret goes inactive/stops auto attacking and a countdown begins before it despawns and the maximum cooldown for redeployment -as if they were blown up and not picked up- is incurred. That would encourage active play while giving a bit more damage over time flexibility. This encourages the engineer to stay in the fight but at the same time doesn't step on the toes of professions with mobile pets.

Searched couldn't find anything on it but another thing to play around with if it doesn't currently exist would be allowing turrets to trigger sigil procs. Torment/Fire/Air/Blight etc.

[Cirian.8917]

Awesome, you wrote it ^_^

[Matoro.9708]

@Iozeph.5617 said:I believe you hit the nail on the head right here. This strikes the perfect medium. Or near enough to perfect. Keep auto attacks, require the engineer to attack as well and on top of that require them to stay within at least twelve hundred range of any given turret. If not in range then the turret goes inactive/stops auto attacking and a countdown begins before it despawns and the maximum cooldown for redeployment -as if they were blown up and not picked up- is incurred. That would encourage active play while giving a bit more damage over time flexibility. This encourages the engineer to stay in the fight but at the same time doesn't step on the toes of professions with mobile pets.

Searched couldn't find anything on it but another thing to play around with if it doesn't currently exist would be allowing turrets to trigger sigil procs. Torment/Fire/Air/Blight etc.

Great ideas. The most interesting use of turrets with sigil procs to me would be the ones that activate on flanking strikes, as this would encourage you to put turrets behind enemies. I just tried testing to see if this currently works, it doesn't. Clearly these sigils are geared for thieves and other stealthy/flighty classes. I don't believe necro minions or mesmer clones trigger sigils either, so we're likely not getting it.