Kuma.1503

> @"idontnoso.9850" said: > > @"Kuma.1503" said: > > It is not a hard rule, but easy to play often comes with the trade-off of being easy to counter. > > > > If your gameplay flow chart is simple and one dimensional, you can expect the counterplay to be similarly one dimensional. In this instance, it's simply a matter of learning to work around the build's strengths and you should be able to neutralize it. Putting it in terms that these forums often use, you may refer to builds like these as "gimmicks". > > > > While gimmick builds may be frustrating to fight, especially for those inexperienced, they generally crumble once you learn "the trick" to beating them. In Burn DH's case "the trick" is to either kite/outrange them, as Sword of Justice is near-useless on a moving target, or calmly cleanse at the peak of their condition burst. > > > > You should never die to SoJ unless you are either immobilized or caught in Dragon's Maw. In a worst case scenario in which you're trapped in Dragon's maw with a SoJ on top of you, rather than faceplant into the wall, calmly use whichever ports, blocks, invulns, or stationary evades (e.g. twist of fate) you have available. > > > > > > > > > > I think the issue is that the gimmick of DH fits too well into the game mode of "Capture the Point". When players are forced to stand on a specific location to gain points, the DH excels are what they do, dealing high damage at a point. If you run into a DH in WvW, they are destroyed because the player is not forced to stand on a single point. Players can kite the DH with no demerits. Where as, in PvP, you may be forced to engage on a stack of traps or be in a prolonged fight where a DH drops traps in the middle of a fight when you're forced to defend a point; if you decide to leave they ultimately win by taking control of the point. > > Lets forget about the idea of engaging on a DH that's already on point. The biggest problem is when a DH engages on a fight that's already happening on a point. They simply enter the fight, drop their traps, and benefit from massive damage to multiple players; at times being able to down an entire team simply by laying down their traps. > > So, yes, the DH is easily countered in a duel or open world situation, but in a game mode where players are forced on to a single location, they do exceeding well. You have a valid point. In a game of hold the node, the weaknesses of some builds may be felt less than due to movement restricted fighting conditions. However, this does act as a double edged sword. You know with a fair degree of certainty where the DH will place his traps. Knowledge you can use to safely trigger them. You can run run through them while blocking, evading, or while invulnerable. You can send any AI pets you have into the line of fire, or in Herald's case, you can use DH traps as your own personal on-demand health pack. Simply turn on IL and heal to full whenever you desire. As the DH, you can replace these traps after they've been triggered if they've been set down for some time, but your opponent will have the benefit of knowing precicely where your traps are placed, and can plan their counterplay accordingly. Class specific counterplay: Ranger, Mesmer, and thief all have an easy method of triggering traps. DD can dash across the node. If caught they have plenty of blinks to escape maw. Ranger and Mesmer can trigger traps with AI. Other noteworthy classes are Spellbreaker, which gets guaranteed full counter off of traps, and zoo necro, who has no shortage of canon fodder and can screw the DH over with condi transfers.

It is not a hard rule, but easy to play often comes with the trade-off of being easy to counter. If your gameplay flow chart is simple and one dimensional, you can expect the counterplay to be similarly one dimensional. In this instance, it's simply a matter of learning to work around the build's strengths and you should be able to neutralize it. Putting it in terms that these forums often use, you may refer to builds like these as "gimmicks". While gimmick builds may be frustrating to fight, especially for those inexperienced, they generally crumble once you learn "the trick" to beating them. In Burn DH's case "the trick" is to either kite/outrange them, as Sword of Justice is near-useless on a moving target, or calmly cleanse at the peak of their condition burst. You should never die to SoJ unless you are either immobilized or caught in Dragon's Maw. In a worst case scenario in which you're trapped in Dragon's maw with a SoJ on top of you, rather than faceplant into the wall, calmly use whichever ports, blocks, invulns, or stationary evades (e.g. twist of fate) you have available.

Burning: [New Effect] If the burns are not cleansed within 1 second the remaining burns will automatically cleanse themselves. Everyone is happy-- wait, nevermind, I just described condi weaver.

It's a good habit to check/adjust your build at the start of every match. You get roughly 90 seconds worth of time to scout the enemy team and make any necessary build adjustments.

> @"snoow.1694" said: > Offensive Scrapper isn‘t the problem, meaning ones that heavily rely on the use of grenades - since nades got nerfed they don‘t feel as oppressive anymore, what Scrappers need is a massive sustain nerf in terms of barrier, boon uptime and defensive skills such as Elixir S as well as some mobility reduction. > > Scrapper play in general is kinda degenerate - they harrass a point knowing fully well that the person defending it won‘t with a high probability survive as long as them and as soon as another person from the enemy team goes to +1 they hit Elixir S, then stealth, kite and even get away most of the times through high mobility, which then results in the rest of the team getting slaughtered in a 3v4 on other points. If Scrapper would go down more easily in case of a +1, everything would be fine, but right now people invest too many players to achieve nothing while losing on the rest of the map - that is the main problem > > Engineers and Revs will forever stay a problem in PvP, because they don‘t have to choose between high damage, sustain, mobility or support, they can offer everything without losing much on other ends I looked up the definition of degenerate and I got the following: "Tactics that force an opponent to adopt playstyles that are not fun to play or are non-standard. This is often (but not always) a subset of cheese." When people say a class/build is degenerate on the forums, they're almost always referring to the first definition. It's not fun to play against. Unfortunately, that's next to useless because "fun" is entirely subjective. Losing (generally) isn't fun. Scrapper is meta. Players are losing to scrapper at a higher rate than they were before. Same can (and often has) been said of any other meta build. Non-standard play does not apply here. Scrapper is doing exactly what a sidenoder should be doing. It's difficult to kill. It has to interact with you in order to obtain it's sustain. Impact Savant is just a sustain nerf unless they hit to to gain value out of barrier. It has good mobility via superspeed in order to kite around node and gain value by wasting player's time. It plays similarly to a spell breaker. It's a beefy spec. It's not meant to go down easily. You could nerf it's durability, but then what would be the point of scrapper? Why suffer impact savant's vitality loss if not to gain good barrier uptime. You wouldn't have a trade-off at that point, you'd simply have a downgrade. Scrapper's durability isn't the problem. It's where it should be. Its support isn't the issue. It cannot hold a candle to tempest or Healbreaker even if it invests heavily into support. Mobility on it is average to slightly above average. It has two gapclosers, brief bursts of superspeed, no blinks, and virtually no swiftness (You need to sacrifice 2 high value skills if you want to blast lightning fields and you can only do so once). Damage wise, it's middle of the pack. After nade nerfs it has to rely on chipping you down with mortar kit autos before going in for its burst. Problem is that damage as a whole is too low. It's natural that they would feel unkillable after we nerfed what few hard hitting classes we had left.

Bout time Scrapper did something relevant. If Anet is going to let it be bad in PvE because "it's a PvP spec" damnit, let it do well in PvP. Yes I am biased because I main it.

Thief skill breaks Anet: Dw fam I gotchu Kalla Elite doesn't have fire field for months Anet: I'm just gonna ignore that.

might be an interesting concept for an elite spec

> @"JusticeRetroHunter.7684" said: > > @"Kuma.1503" said: > > Hey Kuma glad your trying to bring the conversation into a more civil realm. > > Personally, I think people's frustrations come from #2 in your post. People can't engage or disengage from a thief on their terms. It's common knowledge because they have the best mobility. Balance patches have messed up things, and so classes that us-to be able to do damage to a thief can't anymore...and so we have harder to kill thieves with good mobility. The balance has basically dumbed down the game to make not just thief but all classes less risky to play. > > Thing is that thief was screwed by the balance patch and massacred it's damage. Before the idea was that thief should be able to kill another thief...now thieves can't kill each other and can reset if they want cause damage isn't high enough. > > The build's suck, nothing does anything of real consequence anymore basically. So ya someone can play DP backstab, but the most you will be doing is evading, running away and decapping and that's it, their damage is so low, and their tolerance for reset is so low that after hitting a target once or twice they already have to disengage a fight...it's really just a joke what happened to thief and the overall balance of the game. > > That is my personal thoughts...nothing objective there. > I reckon that might be a big cause for the disagreement. If thief can only afford to take 1 or 2 hits before it's forced to disengage, then that does not leave the opponent with much time to interact with the thief. You can expect the thief to attempt to avoid taking damage altogether by utilizing stealth, mobility, blinds, and evades, and by the time you've manged to deal some damage to them, they're already planning their grand exit. At the same time, the thief is forced to undergo this elaborate dance in order to stay alive, all while doing chip damage to targets far more durable than they are. I don't think it's very fun for the thief to whack away at a necro with 20k hp and shroud watching him continue to survive off of little more than raw stats. It's like "I'm doing all this work, but for what?" Bumping damage game wide would be a start. Aside from being a welcome change, it would make engagements with thieves more lethal on both sides

I'm no PvP expert, but I would like to offer a different take on this discussion. Perhaps the reason for the controversy has to do with thief's design more so than its strength. In short, when fighting against a thief, a player is liable to feel as if they have little agency over the situation. It fees good when you're able to execute an action, however difficult, and force your opponent into a disadvantageous position as a direct result of that action. When you're able to "force" mistakes out of your opponent, allowing you to kill them even in the scenario in which they play the fight well. However, when fighting thief, it often ends up feeling one of two ways. Either: 1. A thief can force mistakes out of you via skilled play, but you must wait for the thief to mess up. (thief has agency. non-thief does not) or 2. Neither of you can force a mistake out of the other, leading to an unrewarding and frustrating fight on both sides. (neither side has agency) It leads to a feeling of powerlessness when fighting good thieves. You can't run from them because they're faster than you. You can't chase them because they have phenominal reset potential. You lack agency in this scenario, and you're forced to pray on the weaknesses of the human behind the class rather than the class itself. Hope they eventually grow impatient, sloppy, or careless and let you kill them. Where contention lies is that thief could be all of these things, yet still be as weak as a kitten. Hence, thieves complaining that the class cannot possibly be overpowered. "Lol imagine complaining about thief when backstabs hit for 2k" or "I can whail away at a Necro for 2 straight minutes and his healthbar doesn't move". I'm curious to know how others feel about this. All of this is purely conjecture based on what I've heard as well as my own experience.

Well that convo devolved quickly... but at least it ended on a positive note. Happy New Year everyone!

> @"Bazsi.2734" said: > > @"Kuma.1503" said: > > > @"Bazsi.2734" said: > > > > > You do not solve this problem by buffing damage back so I can 100-0 instead of 100-40. > > > > > I'd rather not be accused to putting words in your mouth, so first I'd just like to clarify what's being said here. > > > > Are you stating that taking someone from 100-40 in a burst is commonplace in the current meta? Would that not put it within the realm of possibility to chip your opponent to 60% HP and 60-0 them in a burst? And if so, is that not precisely what you've been asking for? The need to soften your target up before bursting them? > > > > > Neither will a partial revert achive anything, who cares if my target got healed back from 20% instead of 40%? He's back to full... same outcome. > > > > If making a comparison, it's standard practice to make sure all other variables remain constant. Otherwise, you'll reach faulty conclusions such as stating that a 80% heal = a 60% heal. > > > > If you're going to compare both scenarios. It would be advisable to start from 20% in both scenarios. In which case the comparison would look like this: > > > > In Example A: The target heals from 20% hp to 100% HP an 80% heal > > > > In Example B The target heals from 20% hp to 80% hp a 60% heal. > > > > Taken a step further, if this scenario were to repeat itself, Target A would survive indefinately wheras target B would eventually die. > > > > Example A. Target takes 80% hp. Drops to 20%. Heals 80% hp. Returns to 100%. Process loops indefinitely. > > > > Example B. Target takes 80% hp. Drops to 20% Hp. Heals 60% Hp. Returns to 80% Hp. Takes 80% Hp. Target B dies. > > > > It's not the same sceanrio. > > > > > > While you are definitely not putting words in my mouth, I have no idea what you're actually doing right now. A target that recieves less healing than damage over time dies, thats correct... cool? What I'm doing is stating the obvious in response to a flawed argument. I quoted it above, but I'll do so again. I was responding to: > Neither will a partial revert achive anything, who cares if my target got healed back from 20% instead of 40%? He's back to full... same outcome. I'm also trying to hone in on some of the points you've made . You've made a few statements which, if assumed true, would actually work against your argument.

> @"Bazsi.2734" said: > You do not solve this problem by buffing damage back so I can 100-0 instead of 100-40. > I'd rather not be accused to putting words in your mouth, so first I'd just like to clarify what's being said here. Are you stating that taking someone from 100-40 in a burst is commonplace in the current meta? Would that not put it within the realm of possibility to chip your opponent to 60% HP and 60-0 them in a burst? And if so, is that not precisely what you've been asking for? The need to soften your target up before bursting them? > Neither will a partial revert achive anything, who cares if my target got healed back from 20% instead of 40%? He's back to full... same outcome. If making a comparison, it's standard practice to make sure all other variables remain constant. Otherwise, you'll reach faulty conclusions such as stating that a 80% heal = a 60% heal. If you're going to compare both scenarios. It would be advisable to start from 20% in both scenarios. In which case the comparison would look like this: In Example A: The target heals from 20% hp to 100% HP an 80% heal In Example B The target heals from 20% hp to 80% hp a 60% heal. Taken a step further, if this scenario were to repeat itself, Target A would survive indefinately wheras target B would eventually die. Example A. Target takes 80% hp. Drops to 20%. Heals 80% hp. Returns to 100%. Process loops indefinitely. Example B. Target takes 80% hp. Drops to 20% Hp. Heals 60% Hp. Returns to 80% Hp. Takes 80% Hp. Target B dies. It's not the same sceanrio.

Rangers help keep those pesky thieves in check. And unlike thieves you can actually kill them on most classes. I'm cool with them.

> @"avey.4201" said: > burn guard is kitten, needs tuned down but at the same time it's the only viable damage guard has, power/glass has less damage than tanky necro. Wait what? Glass guard falls over to a stiff breeze, but if there's one thing it doesn't lack, it's damage. Build in question that I use: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PWwAEx3lVwuYgsPGJOyL+raA-zZILjGThMrA7GA I have repeatedly bursted necros from full shroud to dead with this build. They think they're safe at full shroud so they don't dodge. They regret that decision every time... Utilities are flexible. Sometimes I'll run Renewed Focus and/or swap out Judges Intervention for Stand your Ground. Save Yourselves has hilarious synergy with power of the virtuous. As if the build didn't have enough dps modifiers.

> @"Bazsi.2734" said: > > @"Kuma.1503" said: > > Instead of nerfing sustain again, we need to bring damage back up a tad and reduce the cooldown of #2 skills. Both of these changes were done to slow down the game, make choices more deliberate, but they went too far in their intended goal. > > > > Lower weapon cooldowns, raise damage across the board. Bring damage back to heavily telegraphed CC skills like Executioner's slap, Prime light poke, drop the squeaker, big ol' fart, and backscratcher. > > > > Each of these tweaks should have followed the feb patch. > > > > We've need to stop trying to solve issues by nerfing what's directly in front of our face and instead ask how it got there in the first place. > > Both damage and sustain were so high that attrition style gameplay did not exist. You stacked vitality/thoughness (or both) to survive oneshots, not to deal with pressure. > Damage was drasticly lowered in february, and then some. Oneshots are gone from competetive PvP, they are banished to unranked meme build status. > Which was the purpose of the patch, good on A-net. However sustain bunkers are a thing now. You sit on the node(often with 1 another bunker buddy of yours), and you rotate through your defenses. It almost doesn't matter whats trying to attack you. As long as you move out of the most concentrated AoE-s and avoid getting 5v2-d, you can easily draw any fight out to eternity. > Sustain is too high, period. The gamemode is about holding/contesting nodes, if any build can just sit on it, it's bad for the game. There should be an intricate dance of jumping on/off the capture point to hold, avoiding pressure, faking out bursts, coordinating spikes... not this braindead "lets just tank everything while we spam defensive rotation and heals" that most of my matches with plat 2+ players devolve into. > > I'd propose to shift supports from raw healing towards damage mitigation. Of course every support could still heal some, but guardians could excel at spamming protection/aegis, necromancers could be the king of condition transfers, druids could mix healing with outgoing buffs/mightstacks etc. > > The point would be that once you land damage, it matters. Currently the initial midfight 4v4 can go on for minutes. People dipping below 50%, just to get topped off seconds later. This shouldn't be a thing. Healthbars should generally go downwards. I acknowledged why the reduction in damage was done in my post. I didn't disagree with that decision. To reiterate what I said, the reduction in damage was done to slow down the pace of combat and make choices more deliberate. Fights pre-feb were generally decided on who landed their 100-0 first. It's good that you're forced to interact more with the class in front of you, outside of stacking evades, invulns and blocks up until the point that one of you runs out of defensive cooldowns and explodes. But as I said, Anet went too far with reducing damage, increasing cooldowns, and nerfing damage on crowd control. Every time we reach a point where healthbars generally go downwards, people complain about the class(es) doing the damage. If every sustain decrease is met with an equal or greater damage decrease, the problem will never be fixed. My solution was to awknowledge that, recognize a couple of pain points where damage can reasonably be brought up (Executioner's Scythe, for example, should relevant deal damage to low hp targets), pull back on the damage nerfs, and go from there. I think Anet were on the right track, but they shot too far, and they need to tune things back up a tad.

Mine is to get gud at drawing. Maybe learn a bit of music theory. Haven't touched PvP in a while.

I wouldn't be opposed to a game-wide buff to 1s boon durations. It was an over nerf in most cases. Especially here where it's yet another nerf to an underperforming core spec. Regardless, in this specific context the problem is easily solvable. Simply adjust your combo from: Elixir U > Overcharged Shot to Overcharged Shot > Elixir U If you have trouble hitting Elixir U fast enough to prevent self CC, the issue may stem from poor keybinds. GW2's default uses 1-9, but anything past 5 (6 if you have long fingers) is going to force you to reach across your keyboard, wasting precious time.

When Scourge only had one shade, what did weakening shroud proc around? Was it the shade or the Scourge? If it's the former, perhaps that's the reason for the confusion.

Leave the soft furred grumpy kitty alone.

> @"Arheundel.6451" said: > People don't complain about being killed....**people complain about the source of the damage**, nobody in his right mind would complain about being killed by a glass staff ele, a full trap power dragon hunter ( minus trap runes ), nobody would complain about burst builds if these so called "balanced" build would not come with a plethora of "get out of jail free" cards baked in the profession itself. > (Snipped to prevent post from getting too long) Words like "skilless" **"gimmick"** and "cheese" get thrown around liberally. Each are so ill defined (or poorly used) that most people just slap them onto whatever build they dislike as a label, use it to justify why their death was undeserved, and demand that the build be nerfed. Fact is, skill is less relevant in these discussions that most lead themselves to believe. Meta builds, by definition are going to offer a greater reward for a smaller amount of effort. Some, like engi, ele, mesmer, or rev, may have a higher barrier to entry due to a need to juggle multiple weapon sets, manage resources, execute fast combos, or attunement swap, but players will minimize these skills at any chance they get. **[Quick disclaimer: I will use holo as an example because it is a spec I am familiar with. What I say can apply to other meta builds. Past, present, or future.]** A good holo may be managing his heat in order to maintain high might stacks, juggling kits, utilizing combo fields, stow baiting, timing his forge deactivation to cleanse important condi, ect. As the person getting beat by it, you're likely to see none of that, and instead focus on how he bursted you with Corona Burst into Nade barrage, then escaped the +1 with Elixir S and lived. Naturally, this hypothetical person gets frustrated, says it takes "no skill" to press those buttons in that sequence, says using Elixir S in the manner he did is "Cheese", throws around some other vaguely armchair dev-like statements and then posts a thread to complain about it. Now, this hypothetical person is probably frustrated. His ego is a bit bruised, and ego, being the protective mechanism that it is, tries to shield the person from the loss. It convinces us that, not only was the build cheese, but that there was nothing they could have done. It tells us, "If that Holo plays properly, there is no world where I beat them, therefore the loss isn't my fault". So he makes his forum post. Since the build in question is meta, therefore strong, people agree. It gets nerfed, People use the fact that it got nerfed to justify any biases they may have, and the cycle continues. A build isn't unhealthy because it killed you and used it's defensive cooldowns intelligently to avoid death. We can call it "abusing get out of jail free cards", but what does that statement mean? It's loaded with negative conotations, but what does it mean when you strip away emotion, judgement, ego. What's really being described here is a player who executed his burst, got the kill, and managed to survive a +1 through proper use of defensive cooldowns.

Instead of nerfing sustain again, we need to bring damage back up a tad and reduce the cooldown of #2 skills. Both of these changes were done to slow down the game, make choices more deliberate, but they went too far in their intended goal. Lower weapon cooldowns, raise damage across the board. Bring damage back to heavily telegraphed CC skills like Executioner's slap, Prime light poke, drop the squeaker, big ol' fart, and backscratcher. Each of these tweaks should have followed the feb patch. We've need to stop trying to solve issues by nerfing what's directly in front of our face and instead ask how it got there in the first place.

> @"Leonidrex.5649" said: > > @"Kuma.1503" said: > > Anet nerfed sustain. You need only look back to the last patch. Rev sustain nerfed. Cele amulet removed. Healbrand nerfed. Well before that, Anet hard nerfed Crev's sustain, hit tempest multiple times, doubled druid's avatar cooldown, deleted symbol monkey, deleted decap scrapper, nefed paladin amulet, deleted cavalier, knights, barbarian... the list goes on. > > > > Safe to say, a lack of attention to sustain is not the issue here. > > > > So why are bunkers so tanky? > > > > Hard hitters like Renegade, Holo, and Prev, condi thief, ect. were keeping bunkers in check. We complained, got them nerfed. > > Some might Argue that DH is rising in popularity as an answer to said bunkers. > > > > Guess what? We want DH nerfed too. > > > > Does no one consider the long term consequences of the nerfs they ask for? > > > > When you guys complained about these builds doing too much damage, what was you end goal? > > > > Did you want fights against these classes to last longer? If so... well..., fights against these classes last longer. Bunkers can now heal through their dps provided they manage their resources correctly > > > > I'm genuinely not trying to come off as condescending here, I'm curious. > > > > Do you think the damage from builds like Holo/ Renegade was too high? Might it have been better to bring damage up to a similar level as these two classes? Because I must reiterate, **sustain has gotten nerfed hard across several patches**. > > > > If we lower sustain again. Expect builds similar in power (relative to the meta) as Nade holo become to appear as a result. We're going to have to accept that and not complain when someone posts a screenshot of them being three-shot by a bread-n-butter burst combo. > > > > > > > > . > > > > > > the way people used to day pre-feb wasnt due to sustained damage but due to getting bursted down from 100%-0% or 80%-0%, now its not possible to do it, and people as always have more sustain then damage, Just look at what is possible from rev side, every 30s you can heal for close to 20k health if you really devote this much to healing, and nothing and I mean NOTHING can actually deal that much damage to you in turn, before feb what would happen is someone would drop you to 70% with chip damage, stun you, and kill you in 1,2-1,5s. And now its no longer the case, HARD nerf some of the sustain and MAYBE just MAYBE we will be able to slowly kill people Agreed, the typical damage profile changed after the feb patch. Renegade (sevenshot), Holo (nades), Condi thief, heck go back further in Post feb meta and you had Power ranger. None of these classes would straight 100-0 you in most cases. Some people would face tank an entire combo and die in 4-5 hits, call it a "oneshot" and post a screenshot about it, but they each generally would soften you up before nuking you in a stun or after blowing your dodges. ...Or in ranger's case the Owl would disembowel your insides. Regardless... People complained that that was too much. We can nerf sustain again But then cases like the ones I just mentioned **will** happen again. And people will complain. My point is that, at some point we will have to accept that dps builds are going to burst you. You will die, and it might not be the easiest thing in the world to prevent that death from happening. Not specifically you, I'm aware that you're a pretty damned good mesmer, so I'm sure you're no stranger to killing players in a well timed burst, but "you" here referring to the community as a whole.

Anet nerfed sustain. You need only look back to the last patch. Rev sustain nerfed. Cele amulet removed. Healbrand nerfed. Well before that, Anet hard nerfed Crev's sustain, hit tempest multiple times, doubled druid's avatar cooldown, deleted symbol monkey, deleted decap scrapper, nefed paladin amulet, deleted cavalier, knights, barbarian... the list goes on. Safe to say, a lack of attention to sustain is not the issue here. So why are bunkers so tanky? Hard hitters like Renegade, Holo, and Prev, condi thief, ect. were keeping bunkers in check. We complained, got them nerfed. Some might Argue that DH is rising in popularity as an answer to said bunkers. Guess what? We want DH nerfed too. Does no one consider the long term consequences of the nerfs they ask for? When you guys complained about these builds doing too much damage, what was you end goal? Did you want fights against these classes to last longer? If so... well..., fights against these classes last longer. Bunkers can now heal through their dps provided they manage their resources correctly I'm genuinely not trying to come off as condescending here, I'm curious. Do you think the damage from builds like Holo/ Renegade was too high? Might it have been better to bring damage up to a similar level as these two classes? Because I must reiterate, **sustain has gotten nerfed hard across several patches**. If we lower sustain again. Expect builds similar in power (relative to the meta) as Nade holo become to appear as a result. We're going to have to accept that and not complain when someone posts a screenshot of them being three-shot by a bread-n-butter burst combo. .

> @"Leonidrex.5649" said: > > @"Kuma.1503" said: > > > @"Leonidrex.5649" said: > > > whenever I played holo I noticed that you never run out of cooldowns, and always have some high damage skills to spam, you leave forge you have nades, you use nades you have sword, sword on CD you go forge again, forge has high heat, nades off cooldown again. Maybe they should work on that. > > > Add a trade-off that increases all weapon and kit cooldowns when you play holo by 20%, if that is not enough hit holosmiths healing too. > > > Then you can make core engi into something worth considering without making holo a thing of nightmares. > > > > Always having something up is by design. Both Engi and Ele are like that across all specs. You could increase cooldowns by 50% and they'd still by able to cycle through everything. It would by clunky as hell, but when you've got 5 different weapon sets (Nades, Forge, Mortar, Egun, s/s) that's to be expected. > > > > Core got around this issue the same way Ele does. Kit weapon skills are all low impact. Even the infamous nades when you don't have Holo's free might Gen and lazor's edge to carry their damage into absurdity. > > > > Holo turns all of these skills into burst skills thanks to its might gen and damage modifiers. Anet should put some of this offensive power into firearms. Make Holo run Explosions/Firearms as it's core lines if it wants to burst hard with everything. > > > > You kill thee birds with one stone. You buff core. you buff scrapper, you make holo sacrifice sustain from elixirs if it wants to be a dps powerhouse. Best of all, you could make this change game-wide and it would improve the diversity of engineer specs in PvE. Raid Holo runs Firearms anyway so it wouldn't feel much different. > > lazor's edge works only when you are IN forge, so at best you can do barrage. > Or thrown nade and enter forge, that technically might work too. > But I disagree, couple stacks of might alone does not make the difference THIS big. And it boils down to the issue of high sustain. > If you do 50k dmg over span of a fight and someone heals for 50k you did nothing, but increasing your damage by 20% suddenly makes you go from " did nothing " to took over 50% hp from someone, and this is the case with holo due to extra reliable hard hitters in the form of corona burst, leap and 4. Ok, you're going to get a kick out of this. I was curious just how big/small the difference would be between the burst of Holo vs Core. So I did a few golem tests, nearly pulled my hair out several times because grenades just **love** giving me inconsistent numbers. I did find out one amusing tidbit. For you holo mains out there, you'll want to know this because this has huge ramifications for how you should be bursting. SO After the recent round of nerfs grenades took... Shrapnel Grenade hits harder than grenade barrage. Consistently! Without even factoring in the bleeds. It's about ~400 more damage than nade barrage even if your opponent instant cleanses the bleed. If you get the bleed to stick, it's ~1200 more damage. Best of all, you can guarantee all hits crit with intel sigil. Nade barrage made me want to chuck a grenade at my computer screen because I could not get all 6 hits to consistently crit, even with an intel sigil. I was running the meta set up. Explosives, Alchemy with Zerker/Revenant. I could have gone firearms, but that would have resulted in unrealistic numbers. So yeah, if you're still using nades after the patch. Shrapnel grenade is your hard hitter. Prioritize it over Barrage unless you're in forge.