are turrets supposed to be this pathetic?

imelchori42

so, i kinda liked the idea of having a few turrets to place down on my character. wasnt statisfied with the flamethrower turret that you can craft yourself, since the ranged beam damage did very little damage.

so i went on the exchange and bought the antiproton biotech turret and its... barely any better.


i can place a turret at 450 kit performance down, and it takes like 2 to 3 shots to even break the shield on an enemy lieutnant on normal difficulty. for it being single target damage, youd think it just 1 shots most enemies at these values on normal difficulty.

on the other hand, i have straight aoe damage kits that dunk entire groups of enemies in 1 shot at the same values. sompek lightning does more than 800 electric damage, and anchor of grethor is a 14 sec cd, aoe cc/fire dot ability on a short cooldown that kills whole groups in 2 to 3 seconds.

so am i doing something wrong and these things dont scale with kit performance, or are turrets just generally really terrible and not worth it?

protoneous

I've always thought the standard / flamethrower turrets were decent for ranking up and cloaked enemies but just "ok" for end game. There's so many other engineering and universal consoles these days that really there's a lot of choices.

gaevsman

The terran Assault turrets are awesome, do not last too much, but do a lot of damage.

rattler2

Ground turrets aren't meant to be stand alone really. They're meant to be static defense that augments the damage output of the player. Basically you plop them down and they help shoot things. Pretty decent in defensive situations. And the mortars have more utility in being able to drop one around a corner if you're in a hallway, and its indirect fire will still hit.

However... if you're more of a mobile engineer, I'd suggest looking into the various drone kit modules. With the right set up you can have a whole squad of the things zipping around causing chaos in various ways, either healing you or damaging the enemy.

imelchori42

rattler2 wrote: »

Ground turrets aren't meant to be stand alone really. They're meant to be static defense that augments the damage output of the player. Basically you plop them down and they help shoot things. Pretty decent in defensive situations. And the mortars have more utility in being able to drop one around a corner if you're in a hallway, and its indirect fire will still hit.

However... if you're more of a mobile engineer, I'd suggest looking into the various drone kit modules. With the right set up you can have a whole squad of the things zipping around causing chaos in various ways, either healing you or damaging the enemy.

in theory this makes sense. in practise even for this purpose theyre weak sauce.

unless there is another way to really double or triple their dps, even in situations you described i dont see a reason to take them over longer duration aoe effects.

theyre way more effective and to my experience their cooldowns are short enough that by the time the effects run out, the kit is ready again.

like, anchor of grethor is mostly supposed to be a cc ability that pulls many enemies together in one spot with some fire damage on top of it. its not even the main purpose of the kit to deal a lot of damage with it.

but the dps even on a single target of this thing is probably twice, if not triple that of the antiproton turret i bought.

ball lightning from the summer event lasts quite a while and clears an entire room by itself. for area defense its just way more effective than those turrets are.

if there isnt a way to scale the single target damage of the turret higher than my aoe/cc kit modules, i really dont see what the point is in using them.

rattler2

There are DOffs that can proc a chance to beam down more turrets. But IMO turrets are really only good when you need to stay in one area for an extended duration. Drones are a lot more flexable, and there are A LOT of different kinds that don't conflict with each other. And on top of that, Engineers have a NATIVE Drone ability. I got a Drone Master Engie that I absolutely love on ground. You want drones? I got drones. I got a mini army of drones. lol
I wanna get an Elite Captain Upgrade for her so I can have more drones with the extra kit module slot.

imelchori42

rattler2 wrote: »

There are DOffs that can proc a chance to beam down more turrets. But IMO turrets are really only good when you need to stay in one area for an extended duration. Drones are a lot more flexable, and there are A LOT of different kinds that don't conflict with each other. And on top of that, Engineers have a NATIVE Drone ability. I got a Drone Master Engie that I absolutely love on ground. You want drones? I got drones. I got a mini army of drones. lol
I wanna get an Elite Captain Upgrade for her so I can have more drones with the extra kit module slot.

well they just gave out such an upgrade and the new episode mission drop gives a module that spawns 3 exocomps. so it should fit your theme.

these themed builds are cool, im just disappointed that the turrets are so bad compared to aoe kits even at what their niche should be. area defense.

because i originally wanted to make a themed build around turrets.

i even used a federation frontier kit for a while that had a chance to spawn additional turrets on using a module. i paired that up with a nanite health generator (which i still find crazy good), and 2 turrets and wanted to just spit out turrets this way.

its just a damn shame that the things are so weak.

i ended swapping the kit for a risan that was reengineered to 4x Kitperf instead. would be cool if they would make all kits reengineerable.

protoneous

The Universal Kit Module - Ambush Turret is one of my favourites . Nice quick cool down and good damage.

Gave it a try after doing some reading about ground builds here.

legendarylycan

The only turrets worth using are the Crystal Prisms and the Ba'ul Obelisk.​​

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questerius

This is basically the lovechild of a 360 degree shotgun and a turret
https://sto.fandom.com/wiki/Universal_Kit_Module_-_Plasma_Blastwave_Turret

If you want something which packs a punch then this is it.

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protoneous

Seems any kit module that doesn't do a bizillion damage gets a bad rap lol.

Somebody got it right about turrets...

rattler2 wrote: »

Ground turrets aren't meant to be stand alone really. They're meant to be static defense that augments the damage output of the player. Basically you plop them down and they help shoot things. Pretty decent in defensive situations. And the mortars have more utility in being able to drop one around a corner if you're in a hallway, and its indirect fire will still hit.

Although off topic, grenades work just dandy also...

1. Slot the ground trait Situational Awareness for a chance to expose.
2. Jog up to the nearest group of enemies
3. Buff yourself i.e. Battle Strategies
4. Throw the grenade at point blank range
5. Anything that isn't already dead can be finished off with your primary weapon. If you exploit an exposed target it takes +200% damage.

Of course opinions and methodologies vary. As an alternative there's always grinding for EC, grinding for Loluwhat Favors, doffing for Xmas trinkets and then equipping a variety of specialty kit modules that do offer alternatives and sometimes blot out the sun. Use whatever you like

legendarylycan

That you feel the need to say that something that is meant to be used at range needs to be used point-blank to actually work just shows how worthless they are.

I'm glad Tychus' Shredder Grenades in SC2 aren't even remotely as bad as these pathetic excuses for thrown explosives - it would make Belly of the Beast infinitely harder, and that mission's already enough of a pain in the TRIBBLE as-is.​​

davefenestrator

Another thing turrets are good for is drawing attacks. Plop down a turret and the AI will often favor it over the player despite the player's weapon being more of a threat. Turret + chroniton mine barrier = boom!

protoneous

legendarylycan#5411 wrote: »

That you feel the need to say that something that is meant to be used at range needs to be used point-blank to actually work just shows how worthless they are.

Sorry, I forgot this is a complaint thread.

Just offering some advice on how to make a grenade work better (i.e. bypass complaints of transit time). What most people really miss is step 3 though...

Buff yourself i.e. Battle Strategies

Tactical officers... please slot several buffs for your attacks and perhaps your team as well. It's one way of getting the job done in good style versus slotting various fancy clickies and wondering why they don't do much.

And now back to turrets.

rattler2

I used the old Bunker Kit before kit modules were a thing. Was alright back in the day. IMO if you want more firepower combined with mobility, drones are a better option.

Now if only the Tholian Web Drones can be converted from a consumable to a kit module.

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vetteguy904

I do alright. I have the ambush turrets, but I also use chains of grethor and a couple other aoe universal kits

poddli

legendarylycan#5411 wrote: »

The only turrets worth using are the Crystal Prisms and the Ba'ul Obelisk.​​

Given the amount of times we are less mobile and defending a spot from waves of enemies, I find these two modules extremely useful. The prisms dish out respectable damage and when all five are placed, they will seriously punish mobs at a fairly decent range with a rapid fire rate. The Obelisks don't fire as often, but generally it's a one shot kill. Excellent range on them too.

Using these two modules on Voth Battlezone for example. The capture points spawn big ol' shielded mechs. My Obelisks rip them to shreds in two shots, the crystals destroy the turrets as they spawn.

imelchori42

corinthalas wrote: »

A lot of the default class kit modules are pretty...mediocre (and that's being polite). The engineer's ground turret is no exception. On its own, it'll struggle to take down a Tholian ensign, which is one of the weakest and most fragile enemies in the game. Or grenades for tac captains, which are dumb-fire, slow to wind up, have delayed explosions after landing, and barely deal enough damage to make up for the damage you *weren't* dealing while waiting to throw it. And because they're so slow to use and activate, most enemies get clear of the blast anyway, which means using a grenade is routinely a complete waste of time.

These kit modules being so underwhelming is part of how they sell the lockbox and lobi kit modules, and to a lesser extent, the event, winter, and summer kit modules. Anything to get rid of the lousy ones your class happens to be saddled with.

but the weird part is that the turret i bought is a lockbox item if im not mistaken.

at the same time, the kit modules im using and that actually deal damage were both summer and winter event modules that i got for just collecting the marks during the event.

im not so sure if its really about lockbox stuff or if some of the modules just need buffs because i suspect power creep over the years the basic kit modules and their variations (even lockbox variants) cant keep up anymore.

because the biotech turret i bought off the exchange is probably based on the template of the basic engineers turret including its scaling. the only things that were probably changed was damage type and visuals.

if they were to update the basic kit modules, like give grenades a faster animation and activation, and just having the turrets scale up in damage more, then it would probably make them worth to use.

o4q123

I have the Romulan turret and it does respectable damage. One thing to keep in mind is that your choices in your skill tree play an important part in DPS with turrets. So if they aren't doing much you may want to look at that.

davefenestrator

rattler2 wrote: »

I used the old Bunker Kit before kit modules were a thing. Was alright back in the day. IMO if you want more firepower combined with mobility, drones are a better option.

Now if only the Tholian Web Drones can be converted from a consumable to a kit module.

• 10 Nukara Marks Nukara Marks
• 1,250 Refined dilithium
• 2,500 Energy credit
• 1x Engineering or Operation Department Duty Officer

... for a lousy 10 charges.

Agreed it should be a kit module. I'd also be happy if they just doubled the dil cost and removed the other requirements. or upped it to 50 charges.

angrytarg

rattler2 wrote: »

I used the old Bunker Kit before kit modules were a thing. Was alright back in the day. IMO if you want more firepower combined with mobility, drones are a better option.

Now if only the Tholian Web Drones can be converted from a consumable to a kit module.

Yeah, I still play my Engineer like a old Bunker Fabrication Kit. Mines, Shields, Turrets. And the Chroniton Mines alone deal a lot of damage, the turrets are more of a support or lure to get the enemy to your mines.​​

imelchori42

o4q123 wrote: »

I have the Romulan turret and it does respectable damage. One thing to keep in mind is that your choices in your skill tree play an important part in DPS with turrets. So if they aren't doing much you may want to look at that.

i have the right spec for this. my ground spec is all points into kits and weapons.

i can have above 500 kit perfomance atm with certain procs activated.

my other modules benefit from the exact same stats and vastly outperform the turrets. so its not a matter of the spec, but rather how the modules compare to each other.

i think part of the problem is that turrets dont benefit from cooldown reduction and procs that cut your cooldowns short, because you can only have one of them placed down at a time per kit anyway. maybe removing this restriction would buff them appropriately.

the imperial assault armor set for example has a proc that instantly reduces your running kit cooldowns by 50% and gives you 100 kit performance for 30 seconds whenever you kill 5 enemies in 5 seconds. so basically you can chain aoe kits with this into larger enemy groups or groups that spawn in waves, which is a massive DPS increase.

this doesnt increase the DPS of turrets, because the new turret placed by the same ability just replaces the old one.

if you were able to stack them up and throw down 3, 4, 5 or 6 turrets over time then maybe they could compete.