WvW Power Holo?

I haven’t played my Holosmith in quite a long time. I used to play it in WvW as a full, YOLO, marauder/berserker stat build with rifle. I mostly played in small groups (aka havoc) and Zerg, where I would dive into the enemy blob and interrupt with photo-hammer or just put out pure dps.

With the recent updates, especially the one that neutered power builds, what do WvW power holo builds look like now? Should you go less dps stats and go more with tanks stats?

Its the exact same now. Still pointless in zergs (dps scrapper accepted now though) and in my experience, only really effective when they go roflstomp damage. But I have seen a big reduction in the amount of holos in favor other classes.

If I run holo, I use marauder+berserker+diviner (a little). I still do all right vs most professions, except eg. condi herald (13-15 torment in 5 seconds in meele range), thief (ANet forgot to nerf mobility, almost no way to keep up with them), some soulbeast builds.

Most holos disappeared after holo shockwavefart nerf. And honestly if core engi had one-handed power weapon, I'd probably prefer core to holo.

What about creating a tanky holosmith? Just go with the protection holo build on meta battle?

@Lonewolf Kai.3682 said:What about creating a tanky holosmith? Just go with the protection holo build on meta battle?

i played a maurader/commander/crusader prot holo with rune of the pack before patch but its somehow dead now. You can sustain very well but it takes to long to kill something. It is also quite hard to master all the combo fields very well.My full celestial weaver does more damage and has better sustain now.

@Kontrolle.3514 said:

@Lonewolf Kai.3682 said:What about creating a tanky holosmith? Just go with the protection holo build on meta battle?

Confirming this as I've been playing a Power Boon Pistol/Shield build with core Engi for a little while now. The core version is better than Holo because I either have to give up too much damage or too much defense, and even if I sacrifice my defense my damage just isn't that great because I'm reliant on certain kits that I can't afford to take with Holo.

I think Holo does best if you're going almost entirely offensive now, or if you're going with a max Burn duration Condition build. The latter of which I had a lot of success with both pre and post patch. Although it's kind of gimmicky and certain builds can handle your burst better than others, it has an extremely brutal Burn burst ( that can tick as high as 9k ) on a low cool down with enough cover Conditions and CC's to make it stick.

Holo as fallen. Its pretty weak right now. For power youre way better with scrapper, way more sustain and better damage with an easier rotation. Im not really sure what the point of holo right now to be honest. As other have said you can do a condi issssssh build but lets be honest condi holo is probably the weakest condi build.

@"Makuragee.3058" said:Holo as fallen. Its pretty weak right now. For power youre way better with scrapper, way more sustain and better damage with an easier rotation. Im not really sure what the point of holo right now to be honest. As other have said you can do a condi issssssh build but lets be honest condi holo is probably the weakest condi build.

I've played a bit of power holo after the patch and its not weak.

You get these sorts of views after anything that was insanely broken is nerfed. Holo was insanely broken, and people that mained holo became accustom to it being broken. Before the nerfs you should never lose a 1v1 while running a power holo with tools and boon duration. After the nerf holo is more balanced and is no longer insanely broken, but people get the nerf whiplash when their class can no longer demolish every other class by head butting the keyboard.

So you will hear a lot of "rifle holo was gutted" or "holo is weak now".No it isn't, its just balanced now. Its more than capable of being effective if you're an actually decent holosmith and weren't being carried by how insanely overpowered it used to be.

In contrasts you got the same attitude when Deadeye was nerfed after its inital PoF release. People could no longer pop out of stealth and hit for 30k anymore. People also cried that reducing dodge stealth from 3 seconds to 1 second made it "unplayable". DE needed its nerf badly and the game was better for it, but people who were used to demolishing people pre nerf were so used to their comfortable play style that after the nerf they screamed from the hills on how bad DE is now. "Anet gutted it" etc. Which was nonsense.

I speak about DE and holo because those are the two classes I've played in the past few months. Don't listen to people saying power holo is bad. Its not. Its just not broken anymore.

@Doug.4930 said:

You get these sorts of views after anything that was insanely broken is nerfed. Holo was insanely broken, and people that mained holo became accustom to it being broken.

Nah. I did allways split up my playtime pretty even between core engi and holo. In my opinion especially the forge skills and elite got hit to hard by the combination of cc rework and damage nerf. I mean 5 and prime got basically deleted. 3 is ok now i guess with might gen, but the other skills have less damage than normal engi weapons which have been a meme. When i play Holo now i find myself regularly thinking why activate forge? I lock myself out of kits/better weapon skills, make my plays more predictable and have to manage heat just to crit for 1.8k with a leap. It offers nothing. No damage, hardly any utillity, no defence etc. I think it means something when most engi players i know just drop a free 5 skills and just take scrapper instead.

@schloumou.3982 said:

@Doug.4930 said:

You get these sorts of views after anything that was insanely broken is nerfed. Holo was insanely broken, and people that mained holo became accustom to it being broken.

Respectfully disagree. Holographic shock wave was so busted it was crazy. It 100% deserved its nerf. Crowd control skills are immensely strong in pretty much every game I've played and gw2 is no exception. A skill that has the ability to lock the player out of their class is already strong. Having it do a huge chunk of damage is pushing the envelope to say the least. Anet removing damage from CC skills is probably one of the best changes they've ever made. As for photon forge, it still offers a lot. Holographic shock wave just needs timing now as it no longer has the blast radius of a tsar bomb. Holo leap still does good damage as well as being good for closing gaps/mobility. Photon blitz still does good damage. So why go into photon? Mobility, more crowd control that just needs skill to land now and yes, damage.

I think it means something when most engi players i know just drop a free 5 skills and just take scrapper instead.

As I said this would have happened regardless. People get used to overpowered builds. There's usually two types of players. The people who follow the meta and play the most OP build at the time, and the people who play what they enjoy. The former group would have just moved on to what they think to be the next most OP class/spec. The latter who just happened to play holo because they enjoyed it grew accustomed to winning all their fights and generally steamrolling their opponents. Once the training wheels were removed however they fail to recognise that they were carried by the build and post nerf they find that they can no longer cope without the crutch, and move on to another build they enjoy. In this case scrapper as people who enjoy holosmith probably enjoy playing engi in general. Their losses and ineffectiveness on scrapper would be chalked up to them needing to learn how to play the class over time, whilst they are oblivious to the fact that if they had persisted with the now balanced holosmith, they would probably find an equal amount of effectiveness as they would with scrapper given a little time and patience.

In my time playing this game, whenever a crutch/broken/insanely overpowered build like holo, PU mesmer, perplex engi, P/D condi thief, cele ele, cele perplex warrior, sic em ranger etc etc gets balanced people usually quit those builds in droves because coming down of that months/years long high of demolishing the opposition with ease is too much for them.

Holo is still strong especially in terms of sustain - be it constant regen from big boomer and heat therapy, or prot holo. Especially combined with multiple fast-recharging leap finishers and water field when running mortar. I like it because p-forge allows to run power build with shield without forcing us to use pistol as power weapon. Power core is cool but it lacks sustain & access to on-demand combo finishers.

Holo still really strong right now for smallscale and roaming, but they have changed from being some burst god which sustains really well, to just sustaining really well.

It's nearly impossible to kill a Prot Holo unless yur some sort of Bunker Terrormancer which poops out Corrupts and Condi which totally shafts Holos, but on the flip side, yur never gonna catch them if they decide to disengage.

Holo was never really a great fit for Zerging because their entire Forge kit is close to mid ranged and yu have way better options as Scrapper with the super well rounded Hammer over using Forge when yu ball up and push.

I main holo in wvw running berserker weapon and trinkets +soldier armor. I dont die unless its a unfair 4v1 or the full zerg attacks in stampede mode.The damage is not hight but in holomode is pretty decent.

Admittedly good sustain on Prolo. I never understood why people play pointholder specs in smallscale though but thats on me.

@Doug: I think you look at skills too much in a vacuum. Power of cc skills eg. scales with access to stab and stunbreaks etc. When you look at wave you have to consider that it locks you in place in a pretty long and telegraphed animation in an fast paced environment with quick interrupts and bursts plus your access to stab is limited now. But I'm generally with you and like the split of cc and dmg. Just think Holo as somehow designed around cc and burst got pushed into a role that should be a scrapper role and vice versa. Don't know I don't play enough to really give an educated opinion atm^^

@schloumou.3982 said:Admittedly good sustain on Prolo. I never understood why people play pointholder specs in smallscale though but thats on me.

@Doug: I think you look at skills too much in a vacuum. Power of cc skills eg. scales with access to stab and stunbreaks etc. When you look at wave you have to consider that it locks you in place in a pretty long and telegraphed animation in an fast paced environment with quick interrupts and bursts plus your access to stab is limited now. But I'm generally with you and like the split of cc and dmg. Just think Holo as somehow designed around cc and burst got pushed into a role that should be a scrapper role and vice versa. Don't know I don't play enough to really give an educated opinion atm^^

That's fair enough we all have our own opinions, OP should be able to make an informed decision after reading both our posts.