Turrets need some love.

[Calen.8945]

So I was messing around with a turret build in pvp mode and I quickly remembered why I don't use them any more. Their damage is fine for the most part and they are good for helping to hold a point, but the issue comes when you have to move them. With cooldowns from 20s to 40s it makes them very hard to have when I need them. In my few games trying this out, I found I would often fine myself in situations where I debated if I should pick them up to start the cooldown but risk not having them if someone showed up or just leave some on a point and just go without them.

 

My suggestion that may help. When you pick up the turret reduce the cooldown to 5s.

 

Can't say how well that would work in game but they do need some QoL touches.

[Endaris.1452]

I'm pretty sure their insane value for bunkering down on a point was one of the main reasons why anet completely axed them down. I remember watching some competitive PvP streams before HoT (when it still existed, lol) and you always had that celestial engineer bunkering down on a point on every single team.

[Calen.8945]

47 minutes ago, Endaris.1452 said:

I'm pretty sure their insane value for bunkering down on a point was one of the main reasons why anet completely axed them down. I remember watching some competitive PvP streams before HoT (when it still existed, lol) and you always had that celestial engineer bunkering down on a point on every single team.

man, why did the turret meta have to be before my time 😞

[draxynnic.3719]

Yeah, that was pretty much the reason. Problem is that it happened before ArenaNet finally recognised that they should be doing skill splits for different modes, so they murdered turrets in all game modes in order to boonsmite them in sPvP.

[Noah Salazar.5430]

thay need chirurgic operation, for love thers too late 😕

 

Edited August 20, 2022 by Noah Salazar.5430

[wasss.1208]

13 hours ago, Calen.8945 said:

My suggestion that may help. When you pick up the turret reduce the cooldown to 5s.

Turrets always start with their overcharge ability. If you would reduce their cooldown to 5 second, people would put down, pick up, put down... rinse and repeat. Doing this with Rocket and Thumper Turrets could perma cc 5 enemies, you could get insane heal with Heal Turret, or get a pulsing blinding field on a 10 second cooldown. This is why currently, when you pick them up, you get a few seconds reduction, but nothing major.
As much as I like the fantasy of the Turrets on Engineer, they need a full overhaul. Either changing how they work from the ground up (like Guardian Spirit Weapons), or replacing them with a whole new utility type. (like Thief Traps)

[Tails.9372]

Turrets could use some love but if they were actually good then people who already hate the mech would just completely lose it.

[SleepyBat.9034]

What if they make them duration based like Renagade Stance skills?

[Atmaweapon.7345]

You know the original Engineer splash art where the Engineer has two rifle turrets behind him? What if we took that picture more literally and he's actually wearing rifle turrets on his back?

 

Redesign turrets into "Armaments" which are kind of like Signets, but the effects are more varied and the actives don't disable the passive by default

 

Rifle Armament:

Passive: Fire a weak shot when successfully hitting a target

Active: Fire a volley of shots at your target.

 

This reworks effectively makes the Engineer itself the turret and the effects can be re-balanced accordingly. This also makes traits like Experimental turret more reliable since you can basically just say "Pulse this boon when you have this armament."

 

As for filling a unique niche? There are two main niches for armaments: Pulsing specific boons with a trait, and reliably triggering certain effects. For example, you can use the Rifle armament to reliably trigger aim assisted rocket while wielding non projectile weapons. A Rocket armament would allow you to trigger explosions more readily. Other turrets can be repurposed into different armaments like a barrier generator or something.

[cyberzombie.7348]

I always had an idea to make them manually operated, but with a full array of skills and scaled with the player's stats, much like the old mortar. Though the current pacing of combat wouldn't make that viable these days.

Edited August 21, 2022 by cyberzombie.7348

[Matoro.9708]

29 minutes ago, Atmaweapon.7345 said:

You know the original Engineer splash art where the Engineer has two rifle turrets behind him? What if we took that picture more literally and he's actually wearing rifle turrets on his back?

 

Redesign turrets into "Armaments" which are kind of like Signets, but the effects are more varied and the actives don't disable the passive by default

 

Rifle Armament:

Passive: Fire a weak shot when successfully hitting a target

Active: Fire a volley of shots at your target.

 

This reworks effectively makes the Engineer itself the turret and the effects can be re-balanced accordingly. This also makes traits like Experimental turret more reliable since you can basically just say "Pulse this boon when you have this armament."

 

As for filling a unique niche? There are two main niches for armaments: Pulsing specific boons with a trait, and reliably triggering certain effects. For example, you can use the Rifle armament to reliably trigger aim assisted rocket while wielding non projectile weapons. A Rocket armament would allow you to trigger explosions more readily. Other turrets can be repurposed into different armaments like a barrier generator or something.

Cool, but probably better for an elite spec, and also bulwark gyro is a barrier generator.

Many comprehensive turret rework threads have been posted, and my favorite generally involve the following:

-Model updates (they have existing stuff like this used nowhere else in game but caudecus's manor https://imgur.com/4Gc8yQI)

-Old traits returning (like auto repair)

-Ammo system, no passive autos, detonate is only an option when out of ammo

-Throw em around like before

-Can receive boons

-Elite turret that isn't just 3 lesser ones (maybe the gatling turret seen in icebrood saga?)

-Scale with (at least offensive) stats

-Can't pick up turret for a few seconds after dropping

Probably more I'm forgetting. But really, so many of these ideas can be implemented without huge effort. I'd love to see a world where turretchads are actually more involved in the game than mechavirgins.

[draxynnic.3719]

19 hours ago, SleepyBat.9034 said:

What if they make them duration based like Renagade Stance skills?

That's a common suggestion. It pretty much destroys the fantasy of fortifying a location with turrets, but ArenaNet seem to have pretty much already decided they can't have that, so turrets might as well be allowed to do something.

[Opopanax.1803]

25 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

That's a common suggestion. It pretty much destroys the fantasy of fortifying a location with turrets, but ArenaNet seem to have pretty much already decided they can't have that, so turrets might as well be allowed to do something.

It doesnt help that they ended up making Gyros act more like how turrets should be.... got their design space crowded out with scrapper re-design

[SleepyBat.9034]

On 8/21/2022 at 7:38 AM, Opopanax.1803 said:

It doesnt help that they ended up making Gyros act more like how turrets should be.... got their design space crowded out with scrapper re-design

I don't agree that Gyros act like what Turrets should be, Gyros are all melee and move with the player whereas Turrets are placed (ideally using ground targeting) and can flank the opponent.

[Matoro.9708]

On 8/26/2022 at 10:36 AM, SleepyBat.9034 said:

I don't agree that Gyros act like what Turrets should be, Gyros are all melee and move with the player whereas Turrets are placed (ideally using ground targeting) and can flank the opponent.

The sad thing is that they used to be independent entities, and the shredder gyro in particular was placed at a distance via ground target. Certain enemies in game still use a version of it that even moves. True, none are ranged, I guess you could argue the old bomb gyro was, but not really. 

I'm mostly just concerned that clearly they tried an evolution of 'turrets' and it failed so spectacularly that they just noped and converted them to wells. Is this what will happen to turrets too? I sure hope not. I'd still prefer them to stay as is than be gutted into something as boring as that.