"Nerf Holosmith!"

[UNOwen.7132]

> @"Eugchriss.2046" said:

> > @"UNOwen.7132" said:

> >The issue with Holo isnt an issue with Holo at all. Its the fact that damage as a whole is just too low right now.

> Then how is that core and scrapper seem less broken then? I mean they both don't have PF nor holo traitline AND damage is still low for them too but yet perform way worse than holo.

 

They cant use shield effectively. They also do even less damage. Anyway the point is that holo is not a tanky build by any means. Its a glass cannon zerk build. But due to damage being too low, even a glass cannon zerk build doesnt die. Reintroduce damage to the game, and Holo will not be an issue.

 

> A simple deduction is Holo is performing either thanks to holo trait line either thanks to PF either thanks to both.

> Stating that "The issue with Holo isn't an issue with Holo at all" is actually one of the definitions of nonsense.

>

 

Actually its because of sword most of all. As I said, Holo is the only one that can use shield effectively. Pretty good weapon that.

 

> Edit: and by the way, that statement can be applied to every broken meta build like: "The issue with crev isnt an issue with crev at all. Its the fact that damage as a whole is just too low right now"

 

Well, yes. Right now that is precisely the case. Sidenoders are unkillable because damage is too low. That applies to Holo, to Rev, to Zerk Ranger, everyone.

[Shiyo.3578]

The #1 NA and EU player on the leaderboards both play Holosmith. Just saying.

[UNOwen.7132]

> @"Shiyo.3578" said:

> The #1 NA and EU player on the leaderboards both play Holosmith. Just saying.

 

I mean, it *is* the best sidenoder, even if its not by very much.

[Shiyo.3578]

"Hey here comes a holo-...oh my entire team is already dead to grenade barrage."

 

I'm really bored of it at this point, and I, and many others, absolutely will not wait for another patch weeks, if not months, down the line to fix this spec.

[MrForz.1953]

> @"Shiyo.3578" said:

> "Hey here comes a holo-...oh my entire team is already dead to grenade barrage."

 

What kind of team dies to a grenade barrage?

 

[Shiyo.3578]

A lot of teammates do even in plat. Don't ask me, ask the matchmaker.

[DeceiverX.8361]

My issues with Holo and Scrapper are that they pretty much never seem to have any defensive of offensive downtime, and half of its skills look the same and are often heavily obscured while having some very high-impact effects, even if it isn't just raw damage.

 

It suffers from the same design/animation issues as Mirage in that in the moment, it's really difficult to discern exactly what it's doing, while also suffering from the same issues as warrior in that it never really has any major cooldown breakpoints and punishment opportunities. Except it's also just objectively stronger than both at virtually everything.

[Vancho.8750]

> @"Shiyo.3578" said:

> A lot of teammates do even in plat. Don't ask me, ask the matchmaker.

Well it is not rocket science to throw some nades at a stunned target. The nades are spammable and the animations look the same and the trait is buffing their speed add quickness and might and laser's edge and it adds up, it just does more damage then a designated AoE profession, which tend to need to shed some defense and go into melee to reach the same numbers. If holo died easily and did its current damage which is way way higher then everything else(big skills usually do on average 4,5 k damage with a noticeable telegraph on every other class ) it would have been okish, but currently there isnt a specialization that can contest holo on damage and durability since it applies constant pressure while running around with the grenades, also it is probably the worst target in a teamfight or a skirmish since it resets really easily. It just kept its damage output while everything else got normalized.

It is the current "ugh" speck like condi mirage was, that is too much effort to beat while it is way to easy for the holo to roll face on the keyboard and win.

 

[wevh.2903]

> @"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:

> Stop acting like Forge on 5s CD isn't full of kitten.

>

> If a Reaper Shroud was on a 5s CD instead of a 9s CD, do you have any idea how much stronger a Reaper would be?

 

Imagine comparing shround with photon forge

[wevh.2903]

> @"Tayga.3192" said:

> > @"UNOwen.7132" said:

> > Why are you so surprised to hear about something that happened multiple times in the MOTA? Like, we saw Boyce fight 1v1 multiple times in the finals alone.

>

> I think a miracle occurred, but I actually agree with you on that one.

> Reaper is an underrated counter to holo. Chill is good for their out-of-forge mobility. For photon forge, cd increases are relevant. Also boonrip is hug. Reaper is not extremely annoyed by blind. The natural damage reduction of shroud and holo's lack of cc makes it hard for the holo.

>

> It depends but if the enemy doesn't have a teamfight comp, I'd put my weak sidenoder (warrior, prev etc) on the teamfight instead, so that my reaper can 1v1 holo.

 

Yes reaper as a side noder nice idea XDDDDDD

[Shiyo.3578]

Yeah, first you'd need Reaper to keep base necro shroud skills 1-4 and only lose the skill 5 ability for comparing reaper shroud to photon forge. What a silly person.

[Bast.7253]

Are you saying there's something wrong with a class that can do high melee and ranged damage, keep high vuln, poison, bleeds, and burns on someone, stealth, cc lock, block, heal to near full in the span of one stealth, become invulnerable, have easy access to quickness and high might, not only cleanse conditions but convert them, spam high damaging aoe attacks, and.. should I continue?

 

I mean the whole kit is broken, the damage is broken. Given that it has been the entire length of this expansion and they're doing nothing to address grenades in the upcoming balance patch I think it's safe to assume this is the golden child class of Arenanet.

 

 

 

 

[Shiyo.3578]

Engineer has been overpowered since Alpha, though.

[N A T E.3108]

> @"DeceiverX.8361" said:

> My issues with Holo and Scrapper are that they pretty much never seem to have any defensive of offensive downtime, and half of its skills look the same and are often heavily obscured while having some very high-impact effects, even if it isn't just raw damage.

>

> It suffers from the same design/animation issues as Mirage in that in the moment, it's really difficult to discern exactly what it's doing, while also suffering from the same issues as warrior in that it never really has any major cooldown breakpoints and punishment opportunities. Except it's also just objectively stronger than both at virtually everything.

 

I don't think it's quite fair to lump scrapper in there with Holosmith. As I mentioned in my earlier posts, scrapper is under-performing by a fairly large margin in spvp... and regarding your statement about skill visibility and identification... I think you may need to play the class in order to comment on this accurately. While it is true that grenades can at times be relatively difficult to distinguish, the rest of the build is easy to identify. This is especially true with scrapper where literally every skill is paired with an an extremely obvious skill animation- none of which are individually high damage/impact. Holo does have more usable access to a few low-animation/high impact skills with rifle, such as blunderbuss (though using rifle isn't really meta these days), and, on occasion, static discharge with Particle Accelerator... Otherwise, holo-specific skills all are very flashy and identifiable. Literally big flashing lights and a full-character model make-over into a flashy light humanoid. You could make this case for grenades, but otherwise, I really don't feel that this is the right critique for holo or scrapper. Scrapper needs buffs to be viable- plain and simple. Holo needs a couple damage nerfs in relation to it's abuse of grenades and explosive entrance, possibly paired with a slight sustain nerf (as was addressed in my previous posts). If you take some time to play the classes, you'll easily be able to spot the skills that are being utilized. With holo, the rotation is so predictable and visually obvious that you can honestly avoid most of the damage- this is only not the case in the current meta because of their ability to abuse grenade kit.

[Shiyo.3578]

This patch BARELY touched this class. There is some conflicting philosophy over how classes are intended to be post-feb patch when it comes to holosmith. It was stated that you're supposed to give up damage for sustain, sustain for damage, but holosmith currently gets it all for free. It has ranged burst, melee burst, superspeed, stealth, insane sustain, insane disengage, tanky, condi > boon conversion, tons of boons, and 25 might.

 

Holosmith is essentially living in the cele meta while every other class is following said post-feb philosophy. Why does Holo get to have everything and not follow a simple guideline you set for balancing classes in PvP?

 

This class will be even stronger now, despite a nerf to grenade barrage, since the tanky classes got a lot less tanky and everyone will be dying quickly to holosmith now, so they will carry games even harder(Both the rank1 NA and EU play holosmith).

Explosive entrance is still far too strong ~~and STILL can crit while no other trait like this can. ~~ and needs to have it's power coefficient nerfed. Holosmith still has too much disengage and full heal sustain while in combat, and still has too much might, and grenades are still too powerful due to all the damage modifiers and boons holosmith gets.

 

Something has to give, you can't have a design philosophy for class balancing then make a single class completely ignore this philosophy and have everything at once. Give holosmith the nerfs it DESERVES already.

[Jekkt.6045]

> @"Shiyo.3578" said:

> This patch BARELY touched this class. There is some conflicting philosophy over how classes are intended to be post-feb patch when it comes to holosmith. It was stated that you're supposed to give up damage for sustain, sustain for damage, but holosmith currently gets it all for free. It has ranged burst, melee burst, superspeed, stealth, insane sustain, insane disengage, tanky, condi > boon conversion, tons of boon, 25 might.

>

> Holosmith is essentially living in the cele meta while every other class is following said post-feb philosophy. Why does Holo get to have everything and not follow a simple guideline you set for balancing classes in PvP?

>

> This class will be even stronger now, despite a nerf to grenade barrage, since the tanky classes got a lot less tanky and everyone will be dying quickly to holosmith now, so they will carry games even harder(Both the rank1 NA and EU play holosmith).

> Explosive entrance is still far too strong and STILL can crit while no other trait like this can. Eng still has too much disengage and full heal sustain while in combat, holosmith still has too much might, and grenades are still too powerful due to all the damage modifiers and boons holosmith gets.

>

> Something has to give, you can't have a design philosophy for class balancing then make a single class completely ignore this philosophy and have everything at once. Give holosmith the nerfs it DESERVES already.

 

i can confidently tell you, if holo had existed in the celestial meta, a celestial meta would have never existed.

 

[Kodama.6453]

> @"Shiyo.3578" said:

 

> Explosive entrance is still far too strong and STILL can crit while no other trait like this can.

 

That is a false statement.

Reckless Impact -> warrior deals damage after dodging, this attack is even unblockable and able to crit

Flame Blast and Shock Wave -> both skills get activated through the trait Evasive Arcana while being attuned to fire or earth, both can crit

Mark of Evasion -> leaves a mark of blood on the ground after dodging, it can crit

etc.

 

 

[Vancho.8750]

> @"Kodama.6453" said:

> > @"Shiyo.3578" said:

>

> > Explosive entrance is still far too strong and STILL can crit while no other trait like this can.

>

> That is a false statement.

> Reckless Impact -> warrior deals damage after dodging, this attack is even unblockable and able to crit

> Flame Blast and Shock Wave -> both skills get activated through the trait Evasive Arcana while being attuned to fire or earth, both can crit

> Mark of Evasion -> leaves a mark of blood on the ground after dodging, it can crit

> etc.

>

>

Found the issue here https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Explosive_Entrance_(trait_skill) it has PVE scaling of 332 (1.25) and these have 133(0,5) https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shock_Wave_(trait_skill) , https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Reckless_Impact, this one is a hoot though https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Lesser_Mark_of_Blood#WvW.2CPvP lol 40(0,1). Also tested Reckless dodge if you stack all the multipliers you can get 2k, tried with the PVP build on holo got 3500, the base damage starts at 771.

 

[Kodama.6453]

> @"Vancho.8750" said:

> > @"Kodama.6453" said:

> > > @"Shiyo.3578" said:

> >

> > > Explosive entrance is still far too strong and STILL can crit while no other trait like this can.

> >

> > That is a false statement.

> > Reckless Impact -> warrior deals damage after dodging, this attack is even unblockable and able to crit

> > Flame Blast and Shock Wave -> both skills get activated through the trait Evasive Arcana while being attuned to fire or earth, both can crit

> > Mark of Evasion -> leaves a mark of blood on the ground after dodging, it can crit

> > etc.

> >

> >

> Found the issue here https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Explosive_Entrance_(trait_skill) it has PVE scaling of 332 (1.25) and these have 133(0,5) https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shock_Wave_(trait_skill) , https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Reckless_Impact, this one is a hoot though https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Lesser_Mark_of_Blood#WvW.2CPvP lol 40(0,1). Also tested Reckless dodge if you stack all the multipliers you can get 2k, tried with the PVP build on holo got 3500, the base damage starts at 771.

>

 

Yeah, they should nerf the power scaling of explosive entrance in PvP, if anything.

But it doesn't need to become unable to crit.

[N A T E.3108]

> @"Kodama.6453" said:

> > @"Vancho.8750" said:

> > > @"Kodama.6453" said:

> > > > @"Shiyo.3578" said:

> > >

> > > > Explosive entrance is still far too strong and STILL can crit while no other trait like this can.

> > >

> > > That is a false statement.

> > > Reckless Impact -> warrior deals damage after dodging, this attack is even unblockable and able to crit

> > > Flame Blast and Shock Wave -> both skills get activated through the trait Evasive Arcana while being attuned to fire or earth, both can crit

> > > Mark of Evasion -> leaves a mark of blood on the ground after dodging, it can crit

> > > etc.

> > >

> > >

> > Found the issue here https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Explosive_Entrance_(trait_skill) it has PVE scaling of 332 (1.25) and these have 133(0,5) https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shock_Wave_(trait_skill) , https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Reckless_Impact, this one is a hoot though https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Lesser_Mark_of_Blood#WvW.2CPvP lol 40(0,1). Also tested Reckless dodge if you stack all the multipliers you can get 2k, tried with the PVP build on holo got 3500, the base damage starts at 771.

> >

>

> Yeah, they should nerf the power scaling of explosive entrance in PvP, if anything.

> But it doesn't need to become unable to crit.

 

/)_- I think you two miss the point of this entire discussion.

 

[wasss.1208]

> @"N A T E.3108" said:

>

> /)_- I think you two miss the point of this entire discussion.

>

 

That was kind of expected, with that title. A lot of people doesn't really read or try to understand the original point, they just see a holo nerf thread, and jump on to argue that it is op.

[Vancho.8750]

> @"wasss.1208" said:

> > @"N A T E.3108" said:

> >

> > /)_- I think you two miss the point of this entire discussion.

> >

>

> That was kind of expected, with that title. A lot of people doesn't really read or try to understand the original point, they just see a holo nerf thread, and jump on to argue that it is op.

And i see you all missing the point that the explosives traitline got PVE buffed, one would say powercrept. It was made into the Warrior Strength line, which is a line for class with low ability count that needs passives that buff these abilities to be on par with the rest, and engi got it while being a class with a lot of options, so it has all of these active strong abilities and on top it gets strong passive abilities.

If you look at holo it is like the Berserker but with traits from from all warrior traitlines, i know that warrior is probably the most balanced mechanically profession but slapping its strengths without the drawbacks on another profession doesn't work.

 

[wasss.1208]

> @"Vancho.8750" said:

>And i see you all missing the point that the explosives traitline got PVE buffed, one would say powercrept. It was made into the Warrior Strength line, which is a line for class with low ability count that needs passives that buff these abilities to be on par with the rest, and engi got it while being a class with a lot of options, so it has all of these active strong abilities and on top it gets strong passive abilities.

> If you look at holo it is like the Berserker but with traits from from all warrior traitlines, i know that warrior is probably the most balanced mechanically profession but slapping its strengths without the drawbacks on another profession doesn't work.

 

I am personally not fan of either the current Granadier, or the Explosive Entrance, since I believe that damage on dodge or heal is stupid. Sadly, these things keep core engi playeable at the moment, take these away without compensation, and the spec. becomes even worse than it is now.

And I assume this is why @"N A T E.3108" started this converstaion originally, so Holosmith gets nerfed, to be less opressive, so core and scrapper can keep their nice things.

 

There are a lot of things that can be shaved on Holosmith, it currently has the best condi cleanse trait on engi, with Prismatic Converter, it gets easy might via Corona Burst and ECSU, easy mobility with Holo Leap, and even damage and sustain from Heat Therapy and Laser's Edge. There are a lot of things that can be shaved, as the original poster mentioned a few.

[mortrialus.3062]

Holosmith: It only does Everything.

[wevh.2903]

> @"Shiyo.3578" said:

> Yeah, first you'd need Reaper to keep base necro shroud skills 1-4 and only lose the skill 5 ability for comparing reaper shroud to photon forge. What a silly person.

 

Imagine thinking photom deals same damage as reaper shround