Are turrets as bad as racial skills?

[Matoro.9708]

I was doing some thinking in how some games like ESO have skill lines that aren't locked to one class, and so generally have pressure to be viable. Racial skills are halfway like this, but Anet made them awful anyways. I think the general tactic of reliable balance for GW2 doesn't lie in the sphere of shared skills, but rather belief that as long as some do, game's fine. I really think the issue with GW2's balance is just an out of touch mentality that if you want to play the whole game, go play the flavor of the month class. From which I think it clearly follows that this is only an MMO, not an MMORPG. An awful state to be in for the game I think has the potential to be the best of those.

[Jerus.4350]

Racials are purposely weak to dissuade players from feeling the need to be a specific race.  I think that’s a good call.  Some do have niche uses, like technobabble for ranged CC, golems for body blocking when you don’t have a mech/necro wurm, or sylvari take root invuln for exploits.  But in general they’re just bad and for a reason.

In that sense turrets are similar, they’ve been neutered to dissuade passive gameplay.  They were pretty bonkers at certain times in gw2 history.  Now they are similarly situational, BUT they can be strong as long as they don’t bring back the passive gameplay they used to provide.  So I’m still hopeful that they’ll be changed at some point.

That said, I regularly use 2 of the turrets.  Rifle turret on pDPS builds for Surprise Shot, and Thumper Turret for protection and CC on my heal mech build.  Flame Turret does show up for Kitless cMech, though I don’t play it.  Rocket Turret has some interesting play for WVW burst builds (precast the toolbelt skill).  And Heal Turret has always been a solid heal option, usually use it to give mirages regen lately.

 

In the end Turrets are currently in a similar situation to Racials but I wouldn’t call them the same, because Racials need to be how they are, turrets don’t.

 

Edit: and as far as balance goes, I think the game is in one of the best spots it’s been with multiple viable builds for every profession, and that’s especially true for Engi with a few good builds per elite spec and among the best for core on either power or condi.

Edited May 30, 2023 by Jerus.4350

[MrForz.1953]

Racials are underwhelming for a reason. Turrets.... The ones that don't just provide boons or instant CC are either bad or broken, many outside their TB skills don't even scale with stats. Feels like a case of not knowing where to start with on turret balancing despite the monthly rework suggestion threads, the most popular one being them working like Renegade skills or at least have them on a very short timer.

[Dadnir.5038]

9 hours ago, MrForz.1953 said:

many outside their TB skills don't even scale with stats

It's the case for most "summons/pets". I mean, this is not something that's unique to turrets as necromancer's minions and ranger's pets don't scale with their master/summoner's stats.

Most of the value of engineer's turrets is condensed into the overcharge that happen when you first place it and their tool belt skills. That's basically what one should seek to maximize if one want to consider sloting a turret.

It might be somewhat counter-intuitive for most but turrets aren't meant to be used as a passive source of damage. Unless you use the experimental turret trait there is no real reason to keep them around for more than a few seconds.

[Kuma.1503]

Charrzooka on Holosmith > Turrets. 

But only because of the bug. 

[Limbo.4087]

12 hours ago, Kuma.1503 said:

Charrzooka on Holosmith > Turrets. 

But only because of the bug. 

Yeah, I tried. Great luck if the projectile hits someone 😂

[XenoSpyro.1780]

On 5/30/2023 at 1:44 PM, Jerus.4350 said:

Racials are purposely weak to dissuade players from feeling the need to be a specific race.

 

If racial skills are so bad that no one wants to use them and this is by design, why even bother putting them in the game?

Edited June 10, 2023 by XenoSpyro.1780

[foxtrot.6902]

Honestly rifle turret is pretty awesome. Low cd so dont mind popping in water fields and toolbelt is really good being off global cool down. But I guess the actual turret and dmg itself pretty laughable.

Heal turret is pretty solid too. 

If thumper had lower cd's on both turret and toolbelt i'd use for fun a bit, nice support heals for blasting water fields. 

Rocket, net, and flame (debatable) = junk-o

[Stalima.5490]

I think you are mistaking bad with niche.

 

The turrets have strong effects but they do not have as wide uses as many other abilitys, they don't do much but they are good at what they do.