Turret fix/rework

[Phyrak.7260]

Hey there,

No doubt this being a millionth thread on this.

Turrets are in and have forever been in a strange place - between the bots using them for farming and the lack of scalability in both terms of damage and healing.

The question is how to make turrets worthwhile in a build.

To avoid the botting issue, changing them to work like guardians spirit weapons would be a good start. With the added bonus to match the guardians scaling depending on the turret itself.

As for the traits, removal of the choice to explode the turret and to make it happen once it has cycled through it's actions would be a way to make it work; then traiting would give added boons/buff the turret and also put it in a natural over charge state when summoned.

Making a much more active play style with turrets - still using them as both denial, defense and burst depending on the chosen turret at hand.

The trait with all that's going on would make more sense to make it a grandmaster 

What are your thoughts on turrets? 

Are there any ways that would work to bring the to an equal front when it comes to choice of support trait line? 

Thank you for reading,

 

-Phyrak 

 

 

[SleepyBat.9034]

They need to make Turrets usable again or they need to rework/replace them with a different utility, I hate that they've left them in this kind of meme territory where they're not super useful but they're not useless either.

[Phyrak.7260]

9 hours ago, SleepyBat.9034 said:

They need to make Turrets usable again or they need to rework/replace them with a different utility, I hate that they've left them in this kind of meme territory where they're not super useful but they're not useless either.

I very much agree! 

Hence the writing of this thread - having them mimic the way spirit weapons work would be best for use case and use of prior script written to copy across for ease of programming 

[Matoro.9708]

It's definitely a good start, and if this is the direction that helps devs actually do it, great.

[Phyrak.7260]

10 minutes ago, Matoro.9708 said:

It's definitely a good start, and if this is the direction that helps devs actually do it, great.

Now just about getting their attention to the thread somehow...and also wait until they finish the Christmas break away from working on the game 

[Ghos.1326]

On 12/26/2022 at 12:00 AM, Phyrak.7260 said:

Hey there,

No doubt this being a millionth thread on this.

Turrets are in and have forever been in a strange place - between the bots using them for farming and the lack of scalability in both terms of damage and healing.

The question is how to make turrets worthwhile in a build.

To avoid the botting issue, changing them to work like guardians spirit weapons would be a good start. With the added bonus to match the guardians scaling depending on the turret itself.

As for the traits, removal of the choice to explode the turret and to make it happen once it has cycled through it's actions would be a way to make it work; then traiting would give added boons/buff the turret and also put it in a natural over charge state when summoned.

Making a much more active play style with turrets - still using them as both denial, defense and burst depending on the chosen turret at hand.

The trait with all that's going on would make more sense to make it a grandmaster 

What are your thoughts on turrets? 

Are there any ways that would work to bring the to an equal front when it comes to choice of support trait line? 

Thank you for reading,

 

-Phyrak 

 

 

Neat suggestion for turrets.

Here's my idea: since they are stationary summons, I'd opt into drastically increasing either the amount of health they have (all turrets) or the amount of toughness they have.

If anything would need to be nerfed damage-wise to make up, I'd be fine with that so long as they no longer destroy by being attacked almost immediately after being placed. Originally, the concept of the turrets was just as I explained, stationary sturdy objects summoned for point control either offensively or defensively.

Also, I'd opt into the overcharge abilities having long cooldowns, but no longer only used during initial deployment, meaning they can be used over and over until they are either picked up, self detonated, or destroyed.

This above suggestion would be very nice for the trait Experimental Turrets, which grant boons at a set interval (boons are based on what turret is deployed), granting a little bit of boon support for the self and allies while bunkering somewhere.

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

I haven't a clue what can be done with turrets to make them better. I mean automatic turret is only used for the toolbelt skill surprise shot in most builds that even bother with it that I see. It's funny they tried to turn scrapper gyros into wells when the turrets are the well powers of engineers.

 

One way to fix turrets, of course, would be to give us the ability to throw them instead of needing to be in place to drop them. That would go a long way to letting engineers feel like they might be useful again. Of course some changes would be needed as well, because autofire turret has questionable use and the AI is not the greatest. And the others that provide status effect are iffy at best as well, since we don't really have a lot to play off of there.

 

Turrets that do condition effects or buff alllies would be so much nicer in this regard. And let's not get into the toolbelt skills like one just being a net launcher.... wooo... I guess.

[SleepyBat.9034]

22 hours ago, Ravenwulfe.5360 said:

One way to fix turrets, of course, would be to give us the ability to throw them instead of needing to be in place to drop them. That would go a long way to letting engineers feel like they might be useful again.

There was a trait called "Deployable Turrets" that gave them ground targeting at one point but anet removed it.

 

[Kodama.6453]

22 minutes ago, SleepyBat.9034 said:

There was a trait called "Deployable Turrets" that gave them ground targeting at one point but anet removed it.

Unfortunately, getting that effect back wouldn't help. Being able to throw a turret at any position doesn't help if said turret does absolutely nothing itself....

Rifle turret, which does literally nothing else but single target damage, deals 250 dps. Not affected by your boons, not affected by our damage modifiers, nothing. Just 250 dps flat.... this is ridiculously bad.

[The Boz.2038]

Any rework that doesn't include "and they take 100% of your stats" is dead in the water.

But this is game-wide, though. ALL minions, constructs, pets, summons, turrets, etc. need to always take on the player's stats.

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

10 minutes ago, The Boz.2038 said:

Any rework that doesn't include "and they take 100% of your stats" is dead in the water.

But this is game-wide, though. ALL minions, constructs, pets, summons, turrets, etc. need to always take on the player's stats.

Not sure I agree with 100%. Power Mechanist only takes on 50% but is still a competitive DPS build with minimal input from the user.

 

I would go for 50% at least though turrets also need a health buff. They are the wells of engineers and they need to at least be given that level, and some of them just need to be replaced with something else. And each turret is basically the same kitten thing right now only providing a unique effect when detonated. They are all just some form of damage, with the only real utility coming out of them maybe the toolbelt skills but the current meta let's be honest if you aren't married to your grenades you aren't doing it right as it is.

 

Yea, stats would be a good start but turrets as a whole need a complete rework. 4 flavors of damage is ridiculous for well powers.

[The Boz.2038]

3 minutes ago, Ravenwulfe.5360 said:

Not sure I agree with 100%. Power Mechanist only takes on 50% but is still a competitive DPS build with minimal input from the user.

You are forgetting the knob of Power Ratio, which is 100% a thing they can turn as needed.

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

2 minutes ago, The Boz.2038 said:

You are forgetting the knob of Power Ratio, which is 100% a thing they can turn as needed.

Not really, I just don't agree with 100%. i

[The Boz.2038]

Just now, Ravenwulfe.5360 said:

Not really, I just don't agree with 100%. i

There is no difference between
Turret Shot - 0.5 Power, 100% stat inheritance
and
Turret Shot - 1.0 Power, 50% stat inheritance
The result in both is a hit that deals 0.5 engineer's Power in damage.
Without full stat inheritance, precision, expertise, and concentration take needlessly complicating nerfs to reliability and potential class design options.

[Kodama.6453]

32 minutes ago, The Boz.2038 said:

There is no difference between
Turret Shot - 0.5 Power, 100% stat inheritance
and
Turret Shot - 1.0 Power, 50% stat inheritance
The result in both is a hit that deals 0.5 engineer's Power in damage.
Without full stat inheritance, precision, expertise, and concentration take needlessly complicating nerfs to reliability and potential class design options.

Just give turrets the spirit weapon treatment and be done with it. Then there is no need for all these "stat inheritance" stuff, since the damage is calculated from our stats in the first place.

[The Boz.2038]

Just now, Kodama.6453 said:

Just give turrets the spirit weapon treatment and be done with it. Then there is no need for all these "stat inheritance" stuff, since the damage is calculated from our stats in the first place.

They're attackable entities, so they also need to have health/defense, though.

[Kodama.6453]

4 minutes ago, The Boz.2038 said:

They're attackable entities, so they also need to have health/defense, though.

I said give them the spirit weapon treatment.

Spirit weapons are not attackable entities. They are just fancy animations for AoE effects now. You can't destroy them, they just appear and do their thing for a few seconds, then they are gone.

Just do the same with turrets. Make them appear, let them do an effect for a few seconds, then make them disappear in a blast finisher explosion. You can't attack or destroy them.

[The Boz.2038]

AH, you want to go that far with it?

Huh...

[Kodama.6453]

1 hour ago, The Boz.2038 said:

AH, you want to go that far with it?

Huh...

I wanted to keep turrets as our minion type in the past, but I don't see the appeal of that anymore with mechanist being a thing.

Tbh, with mechanist existing, there is no chance anet will allow semi-permanent auto attacking turrets to be viable anywhere. Because this just promotes even more lazy gameplay since mechanist also has them available.

It already started. I recently did strikes with a power mechanist who didn't even take any signets. They used rifle turret and rocket turret for more afk pew pew. Their performance was terrible, but if turrets were viable, more players would flock to that playstyle.

At this point, making turrets actively used AoE abilities for a burst window just seem like the better approach to me.

We are even already treating the healing turret the same way for ages. Who really keep the healing turret out? There is no point in it, since all it does is pulsing regeneration, which we have plenty of sources of. Usually you will place it, let it overcharge and then you immediately detonate it for a water combo finisher. Same could be done with it being a spirit weapon type thing.

Edited January 5, 2023 by Kodama.6453

[Kodama.6453]

Here some more detailed suggestions for a rework that changes turrets into spirit weapon like abilities:

Healing Turret

Places a healing turret while healing yourself. The turret creates a water combo field and pulses healing, regeneration and condi cleanses every second for 3 seconds. After performing these 3 pulses, the turret detonates and blasts it's water combo field (self contained combo, like blast gyro).

Rifle Turret

Places a rifle turret, which barrages enemies in cone in front of it (the direction the engineer was facing while placing it). 5 seconds duration, ticking power damage and vulnerability. Highest power dps turret. At the end, it explodes dealing damage and blasting combo fields.

Rocket Turret

Places a rocket turret, which starts barraging a ground targeted area for 3 seconds. Explosion tag. Third attack knocks down enemies. At the end, it explodes dealing damage and blasting combo fields.

Static Turret (replaces Thumper Turret)

Places a static turret, which resembles a tesla coil. It releases two electric waves around itself, the first occurring 1 second after placement and the second after one more second. Both waves daze enemies for 1,5 seconds, but if they hit an enemy who is already dazed then they will stun instead. At the end, it explodes dealing damage and blasting combo fields.

Alchemical Turret (replaces Net Turret)

Places an alchemical turret, which creates a poison combo field around itself for 4 seconds. Enemies inside the combo field are poison and receive 2 stacks of torment each second. Elixir tag. At the end, it detonates blasting it's own poison combo field (self contained combo).

Flame Turret

Places a flame turret, which starts a flame jet attack. Imagine something similar like the flamethrower attack fro Sabetha, the turret will create a flame stream in front of it and then start rotating clockwise for one full rotation. Enemies hit by the flame jet are inflicted with slow and 2 stacks of burn.

Supply Crate

Summon a crate to the targeted area, stunning all enemies hit. Places an alchemical turret, a static turret and a healing turret in a triangle formation.

Experimental Turrets

Turrets create a reflecting shield around themselves after placement, lasting for 4 seconds.  Each of their attacking pulses (every half of the full rotation for the flame turret) also pulse a boon on nearby allies.

• healing turret: protection
• rifle turret: fury
• rocket turret: might 2 stacks
• static turret: swiftness
• alchemical turret: resolution
• flame turret: stability