When most players get to the turret section of the engineer they think of using them for one of two purposes. “It’s a meat.. I mean metal shield that shoots!” and “It’s glass cannon support, I must protect it!” are common reactions. In this article I’ll share everything you need know to be the best at what makes the engineer one of the best professions in the game. Alright, lets get started!

 

Variety is the spice.. I mean flame of life

First some basics. Every engineer has 5 turrets:

• The Rifle Turret is your basic of the 5. It’s cool down (cd) is the shortest with a cheap 20 seconds and thus it is your go to turret to be sacrificed. It’s loss won’t be noticed because you’ll be able to toss it out again right away.
• The Flame Turret is equal parts sacrifice and glass cannon. It’s cd is right in the middle at 40 seconds.
• The Thumper Turret is all about the overcharge that knocks back enemies. It’s cd is a sizable 50 and requires skilled used if you don’t wish to sacrifice it.
• The Rocket Turret is a perfect example of a glass cannon. It’s cd is a huge 60 and thus should never be used as a sacrifice unless you have to and always use the overcharge whenever you can.
• The Net Turret is a must for non rifle users who want to kite. It’s low cd and lack of damage loss makes it appear to be a good sacrifice turret, but provided you kite correctly and use the overcharge, you should never have to. If you use a rifle you don’t need this turret all that much in pve.
• The Healing Turret is exactly that, a turret that heals. When you place the turret it does a heal around and then heals over time. It’s cd is 20.

Turret Traits

There are two traits in explosives that cater to different  players.

• Accelerant-Packed Turrets turns every turret into a thumper turret. Whenever you sacrifice a turret and make it explode, it blasts enemies away just like the overcharge. If you choose to get this trait you can forget putting thumper turret on your bar, but must be sure to explode the turret.
• Demolitions Expert is perfect for the player who often bites more then they can chew. One of the most annoying parts of turrets is not being able to see their health bar and be fully active. This allows you to be forgetful and the detonation of your turrets be automatic.

Inventions has a bountiful amount of traits, almost too many in fact. For those of you like me who drool over turrets, you should have a pond under you right now.

• Deployable Camo makes your turrets invisible while not in combat. Assuming this stops turrets from auto attacking this works perfectly well for patrols walking  into invisible thumper turrets. However, this applies best for mines. So this is fairly ignorable.
• Deployable Turrets works perfectly for sacrificial turrets when attempting the yo-yo (more on yo-yo later). This allows you to throw turrets where you please. Unless you plan on pulling the yo-yo, this is ignorable.
• Metal Plating increases the armor of turrets. Although generic, it works well if you plan on camping and letting your turrets take a decent amount of damage.
• Modified Turrets increases the damage your turrets deal by 15%. Generic like metal plating, but also very helpful.
• Protective Turrets doesn’t actually effect your turrets. This increases the armor of you by the amount of turrets you have. Unless you plan on taking dmg yourself, this can be ignored.
• Rifled Turret Barrels increases the distance of attack for your turrets. All turrets. This is very helpful if you are dealing with a boss that has a large aoe attack or if you plan on running around like crazy when you are kiting your target. However, if you don’t pay attention to your distance this is ignorable.
• Extra Supplies adds a rifle turret to your elite skill Supply Crate.

Tools only have 2 traits.

• Autotool Installation heals your turrets. How much is unspecified, but it’s a great tool for camping, just like metal plating.
• Power Wrench doubles the healing of your smack ability in the toolkit. This obviously only comes in handy if you are using it. Thus it’s ignorable if you aren’t using it.

Metal shield

Time to hate on your turrets 

The metal shield strategy is fairly basic. The idea is you place a turret with the pure intention of it taking damage while you wail on the target. Placement of the turret is simple, closer to your foe than you. Some choose to place the turret right away after the fight starts, while others place it at the last second when the enemy is on top of them. Let me just go ahead and tell you, unless it’s a dire emergency while you are kiting, you should never do the second of those. Plan your sacrifice! In the event that a turret becomes a sacrificial lamb be sure to make it explode, or have bought the Demolitions Expert. When choosing what turret to sacrifice you must stay away from the rocket turret if you can help it, ideally going for the rifle turret. Metal Plating is also a must if you plan on doing this a lot, after all, you want more time right? This idea by itself is flawed because turrets are by no means a tank and a dead turret is not killing anything.

But sir, when do I explode my turret? You ask… Well kiddo, I’ll tell you. It’ll obviously be at the end of the turrets life, but there is a twist. You have to time it with the turrets attack. If you believe the turret has enough guts to survive to deal another attack or shoot another rocket, let it live.. and then make it blow up into a million zillion pieces making shrapnel cut various new holes in your enemies.

Glass Cannon

Can’t let your love die

The principal behind this is also simple. Place your turrets whenever and wherever you want but you can’t let them get hit because they will die instantly. This idea is the worst ever because it’s completely untrue. Turrets can take more than one thinks, and even the best of us fail at times when it comes to kiting. Don’t get me wrong, there are times when you don’t want your turret to be targeted, but never ever letting it be attacked is just a foolish wish. The most important trait for this would have to be  Modified Turrets.

Ccccccoomboo.. maker.. ??

Now, both of these strategies can work on their own, but properly combining them is a skill. Proper combination is all about planning. Your goal is to reach the happy medium between damage done and damage you take. There are multiple ways to go about it and I’ll go through two.

The first is to use yourself as bait. Place some turrets and engage the enemy. Kite them in a pattern that will end with you running through your turret and letting it take the aggro so that you can let your endurance fill back up and your net shot finish it’s cd. Your path should look something like a semi circle, oval, or a crazy zig zag.

The second way is to let the turrets be both. You start off with some turrets you don’t want to lose. Then you move a decent distance away and deploy a turret you are cool with losing. Engage the enemy and hand the aggro off to your second turret post haste. Once that turret is done kite the enemy to the death. In a way it’s very much the reverse of the first, but requires 2 turrets. However, this is best if you are taking on a stronger enemy because you can use that first turret as a back up sacrifice.

Feel free to make up more ways because they are endless. Don’t worry if you plan goes bad, even the best laid plans can and will fail. This is where split second thinking and player skill come in hand and the true test begins.

The yo-yo

The yo-yo takes full advantage of throwing your turrets. I’ll make this as simple as possible. A train leaving.. wait.. wrong thing. You are at point A. Your enemy is at point C. Point B is equally between you. What you do is you shoot the enemy, and toss your turret at point C before the enemy reaches point B. This will cause your enemy to turn back around and attack the turret at C. Kinda like a yo-yo that you failed to bring up.

PvP

Most of the information so far is targeted towards PvE. PvP however is another story. Using turrets in pvp can be tricky. Placement is the biggest factor here, more so than in PvE. You must be careful not to place them in an area that can be attacked by non Line of sight player abilities. Turrets require it to function and it’s one of their few downfalls. You must also never place them close to each other. Every player has access to some form of aoe or adjacent foe attack. There can be no super turret stacking awesomeness.

A few last notes

• Always pick up your turrets if you can help it. It cuts your cd by a massive 25%.
• Know thine enemy. I’ll be honest, putting multiple turrets in one spot can be pretty cool. Be sure to know if you enemy casts an aoe though.
• Feel free to try out different combos of turrets and ways to abuse the aggro system with multiple turrets.
• Never sacrifice your healing turret. Don’t.. just.. please don’t..
• Turrets will auto attack enemies once deployed. Be careful of your distance from enemies and don’t deploy a turret unless you are ready to fight it out.
• Turrets don’t block players. You and a few fellow engineers can’t make an awesome wall of attack turrets to block off a location. Don’t even try.
• When making your turrets ground targeting, everything changes. Dumping a turret in an effort to drop aggro is much harder.
• To remove aggro from your turret simply use overcharged shot and then net shot. After which you need to get between the enemy and your turret.
• If you don’t mind losing a turret you can equip the tool kit. The first ability allows you to heal your turrets by “Smacking” them.

Well thats all I got. Hope you have learned alot.. and read all of it. I’ll admit, it was more then I thought it would be, but I had fun. Hope you did to.
-Dag

Ps. Check the builds section for a turret heavy build built around these strategies. Also keep in mind that the game is currently in beta stages and anything can change.