Why do renegade summons scale with stats but engineer turrets don't?

[Tulki.1458]

Both of these skill types are stationary summons, but only one of them scales off the player's stats. They're functionally the same type of skill, but one is selectively worse without the ability to scale and there doesn't appear to be any reason for it, aside from the fact that turrets were created earlier and are probably based on older tech. On top of this, turrets are considered environmental objects and will be pierced by all projectiles, and are unable to gain boons but will gain conditions. Renegade summons block projectiles and will gain boons. Turrets, being environmental objects also have a rotational delay so they can only hit stationary targets. These are three massive and arbitrary disadvantages stacked on top of each other that leads to nobody using turrets in any game mode, but renegade summons see widespread use in every game mode.

For that matter, everything to do with summon scaling in this game is inconsistent. Mesmer illusions do scale, necromancer minions do not.Several summons take player condition damage, but ignore power.Boons from summons will use player concentration... except when they don't (e.g. Fern Hound will use the player's healing for regeneration, but its own stats for everything else).

Is there ever going to be a balance pass over summons so that they scale in a consistent way across professions? It just seems like a bunch of abilities are arbitrarily made worthless because they were created with old systems.

[Blocki.4931]

Turrets actually do something on their own, Renegade needs to do something themselves.

I don't know, they're not exactly the same besides being stationary. I wouldn't compare them.

[Turkeyspit.3965]

Not quite a apples vs. apples here, but unquestionably turrets outside of Healing turret are just a waste of utility slot for anything outside afk farmers.

[Dante.1763]

@Blocki.4931 said:Turrets actually do something on their own, Renegade needs to do something themselves.

I don't know, they're not exactly the same besides being stationary. I wouldn't compare them.

Minions do things on their own too and they are way more useful than turrets.

[Tulki.1458]

@"Blocki.4931" said:Turrets actually do something on their own, Renegade needs to do something themselves.

I don't know, they're not exactly the same besides being stationary. I wouldn't compare them.

I don't really buy this. Icerazor's Ire "does things on its own". It targets enemies and attacks them, and takes the player's power, precision and ferocity when it does it. Turrets do the same thing, and ignore player stats. Why?

Although it wasn't the goal of the post, I could also come out and ask why turrets are considered environmental objects, and renegade skills aren't. Turrets do not block projectiles, but renegade summons do. Turrets can't take boons, but renegade summons can. It's a completely arbitrary disadvantage on top of another completely arbitrary disadvantage that leads turrets to never be used in any game mode.

[Taril.8619]

It's because like 90% of Engie's entire class hasn't been updated ever and is thus left being a relic of release GW2 where there was a number of differences compared to current designs.

Such as, but not limited to;

• Engie turrets being a pile of crap and only useful for their toolbelt skills (And then, only Rifle and Flame turrets) - Meanwhile, Renegade has essentially turrets that scale with their stats and can crit and can innately buff allies (While Engie needs a trait to make their turrets provide boons). The only upside to Engie turrets is that they can last forever (But really, no. Because they're only "Useful" during their overcharge and then you're better off blowing them up).

Also, the ironic thing is, having turrets scale off personal stats would have also addressed the issue that caused them to get nerfed ages ago. Which was due to Bunker builds doing reasonable damage because they'd just plop down turrets that deal damage independent of their stats. Having them scale off personal stats would have worked to make Bunker build turrets tickle machines without gimping any other usage of turrets.

• Full Divine Alchemy Engie with HGH cannot even get 100% uptime on their SELF ONLY boons that are applied by using an entire Utility slot that does nothing else but provide them with self boons - Meanwhile, several other classes can provide 100% boon uptimes for themselves and up to 10 people nearby (Heck, Herald can provide perma Regen, Swiftness, Fury, 25 Might and Protection to 10 players... While in full Zerker gear with 0 Concentration) whilst also incidentally providing other effects.

• Engie still has pretty poor burst condi application. Meanwhile, you've got other classes able to drop down 20+ stacks of Bleeding or Torment in no time at all. (The consolation is that Engie applies a reasonable amount of Burning which is a strong condition but still, bursting out like 7 stacks of it and then being like "Welp, time to wait 15s for Blowtorch again and 50s for Incendiary Ammo so I can deal damage again...")

The only thing I can think of that Engie has some sort of upper hand with, is when looking at how Revenant's thing is having 10 utility skills due to the dual Legend system. Meanwhile, Engie's been rocking 10 utilities forever because of Toolbelt skills... (Though, this too is mitigated by the fact that a lot of the time it's a choice between a good toolbelt skill OR a good utility skill... But hey, at least they can use all 10 skills unlike Rev who's able to use like 2 skills because each one costs like their entire energy bar while also trying to maintain their upkeep skill(s))

[Tulki.1458]

@Taril.8619 said:The only thing I can think of that Engie has some sort of upper hand with, is when looking at how Revenant's thing is having 10 utility skills due to the dual Legend system. Meanwhile, Engie's been rocking 10 utilities forever because of Toolbelt skills... (Though, this too is mitigated by the fact that a lot of the time it's a choice between a good toolbelt skill OR a good utility skill... But hey, at least they can use all 10 skills unlike Rev who's able to use like 2 skills because each one costs like their entire energy bar while also trying to maintain their upkeep skill(s))

That's not really an engineer advantage. The tool belt is the engineer's profession mechanic, like the necromancer shroud, guardian virtues, or warrior bursts.

[Taril.8619]

@Tulki.1458 said:

@Taril.8619 said:The only thing I can think of that Engie has some sort of upper hand with, is when looking at how Revenant's thing is having 10 utility skills due to the dual Legend system. Meanwhile, Engie's been rocking 10 utilities forever because of Toolbelt skills... (Though, this too is mitigated by the fact that a lot of the time it's a choice between a good toolbelt skill OR a good utility skill... But hey, at least they can use all 10 skills unlike Rev who's able to use like 2 skills because each one costs like their entire energy bar while also trying to maintain their upkeep skill(s))

That's not really an engineer advantage. The tool belt is the engineer's profession mechanic, like the necromancer shroud, guardian virtues, or warrior bursts.

Yes. And Revenant's profession mechanic is having the dual Legend system allowing them to have 10 utility skills.

But, Engie's skills are available all the time and don't come with a janky Energy mechanic, unlike with Rev.

[Khisanth.2948]

Both can be killed/destroyed.

Renegade summons have some very stupid placement requirements like requiring a valid path and line of sight.If you are someone who clicks their skills instead of using keybinds this would actually make the two equal since that would put them at your feet but skill clicking is not an effective way to play the game.

Renegade summons last 6/10/22(for the elite but that sacrifices all your energy so you can't do much else) while turrets last 5 minutesAt least some of the summons can be CC'ed since I've seen them being tossed about and pushed by various attacks. Not sure if you can CC turret

3 of the summons are support skills the heal, elite and razorclaw. They can either scale with the player stat, be useless or be over powered. Two of those options are obviously no good. Additionally Razorclaw is mainly for applying bleeds and turrets also uses player stats for conditions.

As with all other rev skills the summons cost energy from the same pool as the rest of the skills.Turrets just has the usual CD. You're not even really sacrificing a skill slot since each also includes a toolbelt skill.

@Tulki.1458 said:On top of this, turrets are considered environmental objects and will be pierced by all projectiles

A turret will block a non-piercing projectile. Piercing projectiles will pierce as expected. Tested this in a pvp arena via both combat log and the fact that with only the turret being hit the engineer doesn't even enter combat.

Are you suggesting that turrets should be immune to piercing?

[Tulki.1458]

@"Khisanth.2948" said:

A turret will block a non-piercing projectile. Piercing projectiles will pierce as expected. Tested this in a pvp arena via both combat log and the fact that with only the turret being hit the engineer doesn't even enter combat.

Are you suggesting that turrets should be immune to piercing?

I never said they should be immune to piercing. According to the wiki, all projectiles will pierce them (see notes at the bottom): https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Turret. Considering the actual turret mobs have been completely untouched for nearly seven years, that is probably still true. Last time I tested it, it was. But this might be because they have a larger hitbox than actual mobs, and can possibly take damage without blocking if a projectile grazes them, like you see with every other structure in the game.

I am not seeing any reasons in this thread why these things shouldn't scale. "They have cooldowns and you have a profession mechanic" is not a reason for an entire utility category to act as a massive outlier for three huge reasons.

I could also say: All Legendary Renegade skills should no longer scale, and they should no longer accept boons (but should still take condition damage). This is okay because revenants still have legend-swapping as a profession mechanic. See how absurd that is? It's the exact same argument. We can get into the mud around every single difference between professions (revenants have energy, engineers have no weapon swap, firebrands have an entire weapon kit per virtue, etc) but at the end of the day, everything about how turrets work is now an outlier from the lack of scaling, to behaving like structures, to rotational delay and not taking boons.

Turrets last five minutes, but they also have substantially higher cooldowns to match. They also cannot be deployed at range.

[sasya neko.1985]

to me the only fun part about the engie are turrets......

[Faenar.8036]

The only one single situation where engi Turrets were actually usefull in any possible way, was at Lake Doric leather farm. ArenaNet then released a "fix" which forced all engi Turrets in Lake Doric map to explode roughly 0,5 seconds after spawning them, thus effectively disabling those Turret skills in the map.

This disabling is a proof that ArenaNet dont want Turrets to be used, because they dont have a clue how to ballance them.

[Raknar.4735]

Renegade spirits can be CC'd.

[Kodama.6453]

Turrets in general need a major rework, how they are currently working, they are not allowed to be useful in any game mode at all (except the healing turret, which is basically a healing bomb at this point).

Anet made some really strange decisions when it comes to turrets... They are supposed to reinforce a location and were supposed to be permanent in the past (now lasting 5 minutes), but they introduced a change that actually punishes keeping turrets out for long periods of time, since they just and only overcharge when placed. The reflection bubble from the trait also can just get triggered by placing the turret. Which means we are rewarded for constantly removing them again to plant them once more......

Why???Turrets should give bigger benefits if you keep them alive for longer periods of time. They should also scale with the players stats, which, as someone already pointed out, would also have fixed their problems in PvP. If you use a bunker build, then turrets will deal no damage anymore. If you use offensive stats, then your turrets become more fragile and die more easily.

And while we're at it: Turrets could also use a new look...Engineers got advertised with pictures like this one: https://d3b4yo2b5lbfy.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/wallpapers/GW2_EngineerWallpaper02-1920x1200.jpgThat turret on the left, that would have been an awesome design for a rifle turret.The concept art for turrets also looked amazing: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/d/d8/Machines_01_concept_art.jpgOne of these actually looks like the Rifle Turret icon:https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/3/35/Rifle_Turret.png

But what we actually got looks like this:https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/8/89/Rifle_Turret.jpgThis just hurts....

[waaghals.6124]

Why does mantra has only 2 charges on mesmer and firebrand have three and better ones?

[kharmin.7683]

@sorudo.9054 said:to me the only fun part about the engie are turrets......

They were a lot more fun when you could toss 'em.

[Trise.2865]

...so that you can run builds that are optimized for things other than Turret damage and still be able to use them effectively. Utilitarianism is a core concept of Engineering.The problem here is the assumption that the scaling with your stats will make the skill stronger.

[sasya neko.1985]

@kharmin.7683 said:

@"sorudo.9054" said:to me the only fun part about the engie are turrets......

They were a lot more fun when you could toss 'em.

if only they improved the engie from it's core, to me kits are way to punishing, the weapons are there just for show and the skills (outside kits) are underwhelming to say the least.i personally had the idea to remove the second weapon in the engie and make it a "weapon", allowing a kit to be slotted instead.