Why does holosmith have so much damage?

[King xiuras.3615]

I recently started playing pvp again because of the new league. I'm playing thief and druid. I am really amazed about how easy holosmith can do so much damage, like when i am playing thief. When the engi gets one knock down, its over for sure cuz it has so much damage like what the hell. Hes literally one shotting...... Idk if its me but the damage seems to be too much to be honest.

[Ario.8964]

It seems like it has an enormous amount of damage from nowhere because of the dodge roll damage. Against a thief, the dodge roll can crit upwards of 12k (assuming all mines hit and everything crits) and there's not much you can do to avoid it besides just never going melee. The knockdowns you don't like are due to overcharged shot and holographic shockwave (neither of which crit upwards of 2.5k btw) and prime light beam (which has an insanely large telegraph so it's fine if it hits for a bit more).

 

The cc damage or even the damage from photon forge isn't all that ridiculous, what's absurd (this is coming from someone who mains engi) is the dodge roll damage ability of holo. It carries bad players because they can dodge spam burst whenever they screw up their cc or their damage combos and good players seemingly can't be stopped because they know how to not only land their damage combos but also their dodge roll damage..

 

Summary: Dodge roll damage is killing you, other stuff I'm assuming you know how to dodge.

[Atmaweapon.7345]

When you're playing a Thief, you're going to die in one coordinated burst because the other half of the time you should be functionally invulnerable from evade spam. The only time a Holo should ever actually land a CC on you is a point-blank Overcharge Shot because Holographic Shockwave and Prime Light beam have some of the most obvious tells in the entire game, and even then, Thieves have a trait that restores 100 endurance and immediately breaks stuns when they get CC'd so you are flat out misplaying if you're spending time in CC by a single Holo.

 

There are also a couple tells that are important when facing a Holo. When they turn bright Red, they're at high heat so they'll be doing higher damage, but need to cool off soon. Also, immediately after their spin move, they gain 10 stacks of Might which is a pretty major boost to damage. Generally you're going to want to be on the defensive at these times.

 

Mines can be dodge rolled or evaded through with the right attack. If you're a Daredevil, you're probably going to be evade spamming over mines anyways.

 

 

[Flauvious.6195]

Because not enough people play engi for everyone to realize how broken it is.

[Euthymias.7984]

Its meant to be a really bursty spec, and for the most part, it accomplishes that well.

However, it gets a lot of "passive" damage from Minesweeper, which could use some slight tweaks (lower numbers, ICD, ect).

Holosmith's pretty much fine otherwise.

[Rezzet.3614]

> @"Flauvious.6195" said:

> Because not enough people play engi for everyone to realize how broken it is.

 

Its actually the opposite so few players play engi that they dont even know whats getting them or how to fight the new spec

 

Few easy counters to holo damage

 

Blind,weakness,Protection,Cc

Holo is basically a stealthless thief of he locks you you ded , if you lock him he evaporates

[Arheundel.6451]

Holosmith is not a spec to be fought at melee range...as funny and ridiculous as it may sound , PoF introduced what I'd define as "anti-melee train", almost all new elite are specialized in melee neutralisation , your best bet on thief is to play p/p ( no kidding ) or deadeye rifle...if you have ultra instinct you can play s/d...d/p is a nono. As for ranger is even easier : longbow/staff with smokescale and bristleback , beastmastery a must and if you like soulbeast then gazelle/smokescale with longbow a must ...**always keep your distance** and at all time be mindful of the shockwave CC leap/launch at range..it's delayed effect and can seemingly hit if you misdodge.

 

-80% of holosmiths will start stealth and try to rifle CC you, count to 2 and dodge opposite direction from where they come

-they will try to follow with shockwave heatmode 5 to set up their elite

-they then start to dodge roll under your feet to trigger minesweep

-do never become overconfident ..with that healing turret+blast and perma boons , they can reset easily

-once you forced an engi to use both elixir s...you'll have a guaranteed victory 9/10 as many can't really play engi..they just rely on youtube combo and double elixir s, with those elixirs gone...80% of current engi will start running like headless chickens...( same idea with warriors, they too go in panic mode once they lose their safety net , the double endure pain )

[Rezzet.3614]

Holosmith damage aint all that big in the big scope of things

 

[whoknocks.4935]

In WvW the damage is crazy, but in sPvP only unaware people get bursted down by it, the one who doesn't know of the use of stunbreaks.

It is not like scourge, if you get caught offguard by a scourge you are done, cripple chill weakness bye bye and he does that nonstop.

 

Holosmith is full of windows to land your counter action on him, as an holo myself even if playing spellbreaker it is so good block everything with a simple shield5 skill and dodge the elite, then i counter attack popping his 2 invulns and the holo have to run away because he is squishy like a thief.

 

All the holo skills have a delay and an obvious animation before cast, so you can't use the spam tecnique and expect to win.

 

In low leagues might seems op because people do not know when to dodge and how to use stunbreaks and disengage, but that is a l2p issue not a problem with holo.

 

Scourge and mirage are way more cancerous then holo, which seems the only one balanced new spec, together with spellbreaker now thanks to the nerfs.

[Master Ketsu.4569]

> @"Rezzet.3614" said:

> Holosmith damage aint all that big in the big scope of things

>

>

 

Funfact: Thief doesn't have 2 stacks of stability on a 6s cooldown.

[Swagg.9236]

Because the only tangible thing that this shallow game offers players is big damage numbers. They've just been getting randomly bigger as time has gone on. An arbitrary engineer spec just got bigger numbers than a lot of other classes for no particular reason.

Sword/Sword Rev is another, more recent result of this ongoing meme design.

[ZeteCommander.4937]

That's the advantage of it

[Dawdler.8521]

Holo can build for good damage and stuns but the thing is, there are still some flaws that come with the class. You wont have insane easy healing like a spellbreaker (unless its WvW and you go boon duration sustain), blocks are limited unlike a spellbreaker, no perma immunity to cc like a spellbreaker and in contrast to a spellbreaker he cant do damage while invoulnerable.

 

It really is like a balanced version of the spellbreaker compared to the spellbreaker, if you get what I mean by now.

[Master Ketsu.4569]

> @"Dawdler.8521" said:

> no perma immunity to cc like a spellbreaker

 

Holo and spellbreaker have roughly the same CC immunity.

 

SBs only seem like they have more because one of them is a free 40s automatic stunbreak which some SBs take. If you aren't aware of how it works it can seem like they have perma stab. In reality they don't, and you can actually cheese them by using a low cost simple CC to intentionally pop their passive then screw them over later.

 

 

 

 

[Saiyan.1704]

> @"Rezzet.3614" said:

> > @"Flauvious.6195" said:

> > Because not enough people play engi for everyone to realize how broken it is.

>

> Its actually the opposite so few players play engi that they dont even know whats getting them or how to fight the new spec

>

> Few easy counters to holo damage

>

> Blind,weakness,Protection,Cc

> Holo is basically a stealthless thief of he locks you you ded , if you lock him he evaporates

 

If you lock him, he elixir invuln, kites, heals up from 20% to 40%, attempts a burst, elixir again, dodges+mine bursts, then he evaporates :)

[Velimere.7685]

> @"Dawdler.8521" said:

> Holo can build for good damage and stuns but the thing is, there are still some flaws that come with the class. You wont have insane easy healing like a spellbreaker (unless its WvW and you go boon duration sustain), blocks are limited unlike a spellbreaker, no perma immunity to cc like a spellbreaker and in contrast to a spellbreaker he cant do damage while invoulnerable.

>

> It really is like a balanced version of the spellbreaker compared to the spellbreaker, if you get what I mean by now.

 

You sound like a bad salesman. Holosmith wrecks Spellbreaker.

[whoknocks.4935]

> @"Velimere.7685" said:

> > @"Dawdler.8521" said:

> > Holo can build for good damage and stuns but the thing is, there are still some flaws that come with the class. You wont have insane easy healing like a spellbreaker (unless its WvW and you go boon duration sustain), blocks are limited unlike a spellbreaker, no perma immunity to cc like a spellbreaker and in contrast to a spellbreaker he cant do damage while invoulnerable.

> >

> > It really is like a balanced version of the spellbreaker compared to the spellbreaker, if you get what I mean by now.

>

> You sound like a bad salesman. Holosmith wrecks Spellbreaker.

 

Only great holos against bad spellbreaker, a good spellbreaker have all the tools he needs to counter burst attacks, right now it is the most tanky build of all professions, with simply shield 5 and 1 dodge you countered all the burst of holo plus dodge the elite without even pop the passive defy pain and the active one.

 

Spellbreaker struggle a bit more on sustained damage in my opinion, or burst only by good thieves. The holo interrupt are just 2 and so easy to counter for a spellbreaker, as i said just shield 5 at the right time, dodge the elite, and you have another dodge extra plus gs3 for evade plus full counter and repeat... so yeah if you take a plat holo against a bronze spellbreaker then of course he win.

[allias.1420]

> @"Velimere.7685" said:

> > @"Dawdler.8521" said:

> > Holo can build for good damage and stuns but the thing is, there are still some flaws that come with the class. You wont have insane easy healing like a spellbreaker (unless its WvW and you go boon duration sustain), blocks are limited unlike a spellbreaker, no perma immunity to cc like a spellbreaker and in contrast to a spellbreaker he cant do damage while invoulnerable.

> >

> > It really is like a balanced version of the spellbreaker compared to the spellbreaker, if you get what I mean by now.

>

> You sound like a bad salesman. Holosmith wrecks Spellbreaker.

 

I don't think holo flat out wrecks spellbreaker. It's a close fight, but I reckon holo will most of the time come out on top due to minesweeper damage.

[Cynz.9437]

I think the problem with Holo is not even damage but how long they can survive and how rather forgiving Heat/Overheating mechanic is (and the timing on those). Say you kited the burst out, you start to pressure Holo, he goes in Hulk-Mode within rather really short time again so you are forced to run. Even if you somehow get them low, they have plenty of survival tools. The biggest difference to say zerker thief is that Holo attacks are mostly AoE, it is not just some BS dealing high damage to one target but huge aoe murdering possibly half of your team.

And as many mentioned, something needs to be done about mines. At the moment you can't really melee Holo.

 

This is general issue with PoF: too much easy, effective AoE on short CDs. The expansion is extremely melee unfriendly - which i personally find (to put it really nicely) extremely bad design given that pvp in this game is all about standing in circles.

[Xanctus The Dragonslayer.2]

As other said, melee unfriendly expansion. With absurd mine damage, scourges and mirage shatters. melee is really a no go if u don't play any of the meta builds, heck spellbreaker is like the only class that can really stay in your face. core s/d can teleport around and has enough mobility and a role to be able to burst in teamfights. and ofcourse holosmith, everything else is a no go unless u outskill.

 

 

[otto.5684]

While Holo damage is surely too strong, the sustainability is the issue. Someone said “lock down the Holo.” Good luck with that considering they are nearly un cc able, have 8 sec of invulnerability, invisibility and good sustainability.

[Ithilwen.1529]

> @"Ario.8964" said:

> It seems like it has an enormous amount of damage from nowhere because of the dodge roll damage. Against a thief, the dodge roll can crit upwards of 12k (assuming all mines hit and everything crits) and there's not much you can do to avoid it besides just never going melee. The knockdowns you don't like are due to overcharged shot and holographic shockwave (neither of which crit upwards of 2.5k btw) and prime light beam (which has an insanely large telegraph so it's fine if it hits for a bit more).

>

> The cc damage or even the damage from photon forge isn't all that ridiculous, what's absurd (this is coming from someone who mains engi) is the dodge roll damage ability of holo. It carries bad players because they can dodge spam burst whenever they screw up their cc or their damage combos and good players seemingly can't be stopped because they know how to not only land their damage combos but also their dodge roll damage..

>

> Summary: Dodge roll damage is killing you, other stuff I'm assuming you know how to dodge.

 

Except that the leap into cc makes it difficult or impossible to get out of the way of the giant laser. The damage is OP because it's difficult or impossible to evade. I've been killed too many times while my abilities were disabled by a long knockdown.

 

The spec is way overpowered.

[Falan.1839]

Cause it's fun yo.

[Rezzet.3614]

> @"otto.5684" said:

> While Holo damage is surely too strong, the sustainability is the issue. Someone said “lock down the Holo.” Good luck with that considering they are nearly un cc able, have 8 sec of invulnerability, invisibility and good sustainability.

 

The average holosmith should have access to 2 stacks of stab and 2 stunbreaks 1 being the invuln

 

I wouldnt call that unstoppable

Invuln also locks skills

 

The only broken synergy i see in the profession is mines+vent exhaust

 

Also the shockwave having 600 radius , it should be lowered to 450

[Rezzet.3614]

> @"otto.5684" said:

> While Holo damage is surely too strong, the sustainability is the issue. Someone said “lock down the Holo.” Good luck with that considering they are nearly un cc able, have 8 sec of invulnerability, invisibility and good sustainability.

 

Average holo should have access to 2 stacks of stab 2 stunbreaks one being the invuln

 

I wouldnt call that unstopabble

annoying when combined with the extra elixir s sure but thats about it

 

Also engis healing took a big hit the heal reset trait got its CD increased to 2 minutes

 

The only broken synergy i see so far is mines+vent , maybe make mines simply give dodge bomb a 50%ish damage gain at least then theres a timer to avoid the damage

 

Also shockwave radius should be decreased to 450

 

The whole holosmith has too much sustain argument doesnt work when thief and mesmer can spam evades distortion and stealth infinetly regardless of spec

 

Also warrior and guardians deal high damage while having more sustain