Look, I don't want to make this some epicly long guide so here's the deal. A lot of you don't seem to use your turrets correctly. It's not a badass gun that mows down anything in your path. In fact, the damage is pretty damn terrible. It is, however, a great piece of cover you can place most anywhere you want. Place the turret and crouch behind it. You now have some of the best cover you can get. Uncrouch and you have a nice little window to shoot through. Do not use the turret to shoot unless you are camping a spawn or you will make yourself an easy target.
That's not always true, it can be useful in some other situations. I do agree that the cover is nice though. You don't even need to uncrouch to shoot, you can fire through the shield.
Its its better as cover then just get rid of the turret and give me a real piece of deployable cover.
It's a nice decoy as well! I also find that the turret feels a bit more powerful than the assault rifle, but more importantly, it also tends to be more accurate in addition to the obvious benefit of a bigger magazine. But yes, most turrets I see are just bullet magnets. Why would you use a turret in an open field and hop on it for more than ten seconds, random person? Why?
I took a Max down with my turret yesterday. I'm a noob ofc but that felt good. Edit: Why is N.oob censored?
Because you're using the wrong word - Newb(ie) is the one YOU are looking for. Nub is a purely negative term used to ridicule players who just don't learn no matter how much they play.
The mana turret's damage per bullet hit is about the same as the engineer's default carabine weapon (at least for TR), but at a much higher rate of fire, no recoil and unlimited ammo. It's got a lot of weaknesses - but low damage isn't among those. Unless of course you're using it for continuous fire, in which case bullet spread will daramatically increase just like with any other weapon.
the Mana Turret is great for defending doors and narrow corridors. I defended a Bio Dome with my Mana Turret for a good 5-6 minutes scoring a dozen kills and about 20 assists before they finally rolled me with rockets. You don't have to kill with it to make it useful. All that people know is that something shot them, and they usually run back out of the hall or back into cover.
I rarely kill with it. When I deploy it it is usually either a distraction (especially in the night, as from the front you cannot see clearly if there's a gunner on it without tapping Q, and by that time it served its purpose, and my bullets coming from another direction might've disoriented you even more) or as cover (placed in the direction the enemy comes from to crouch behind when I capture a CC, etc). But either way, I'm still hoping the devs will add other deployables so we can pick something else, like a small directional forcefield that blocks bullets and/or enemy infantry, tank barriers, or AV / AA variants of the turret. Or hell, a deployable ladder so we can get non-LA troops on walls and roofs, even if they're helpless while climbing.
Are you not moving when crouched behind this tiny bit of cover? Then you're an easy target. Turrets are beacons for HA rockets and snipers alike.
A MANA turret can completely destroy a group of infantry in the right situation. But those situations are not very common. Thus I often just use it as portable cover and/or a decoy. I'll place it in a good location to sweep a point I'm capping, then hide in a corner. Also It is like a "shoot me" beacon, especially at night or against a dark backdrop. The few times I've manned one in those situations, I die in seconds to fire at my head.
I've seen both NC and TR on jaeger make some pretty good use of MANA turrets in groups as area denial and to create ad-hoc choke points indoor by turning a straight hallway you want to defend in to a zigzag hallway that takes the enemy longer to move through under friendly fire from the far end. Bonus points for putting prox mines under the turret. Lots of people will ignore an unmanned enemy turret or better yet attempt to use it as cover, and it tends to distract from the prox on the floor pretty well in that situation.
I've actually learned that turrets can be moderately useful in open, mid-range scenarios. The key is that they're disposable, so you can plant one, fire for 20 seconds or so, get a few kills or assists, then ditch it before snipers or HAs target you. Move a little and do it again.
the title is misleading, they aren't using it wrong, only using it for cover is the wrong use, but sadly its really the only thing it is worth using it as
i actually told my pocket engi to do this... fantastic cover when you're looking the other way... incredible deterrence for anyone who walks into a room and go OH sheet
I use my turret as cover and a decoy. Set it up facing a door while I hide in another corner of the room. Enemies waste precious seconds second guessing themselves. Or I set it up in a high traffic area and then leave to guard a point. People stop to kill the thing giving me an early warning.
