Is Holosmith still an engineer?

It's probably just me, but having a really hard time playing the holosmith, I enjoy the challenge or walking on the edge of destruction, cycling in and out of mechanics ramping up my endurance. The mechanics that creates the engineer as a more difficult class is there. It's...........it's I feel like I'm playing a character complicated enough to be fulfilling to the most stringent player but designed for a 5 year old.I feel like I'm playing something that was designed for an entirely different game to entertain young children......... Frankly I feel "anti-macho" watching the thermometer on my overclocked flashlight. To me there is no real satisfaction fighting with a supersized plastic sword.. Lack of volatile explosions and mechanical mayhem. And we're given a heat gauge and a safety helmet.I'd like to have access to alot of the technology that's in the game like the ability to operate a golem, control steambeasts, have a rocket launcher.

I really wanted the engineer to go down some kind of steampunk idea. with more explosions, And a new pair of goggles. :-) schematics, gadgets, and misc. contraptions.........

@Slyven.8637 said:It's probably just me, but having a really hard time playing the holosmith, I enjoy the challenge or walking on the edge of destruction, cycling in and out of mechanics ramping up my endurance. The mechanics that creates the engineer as a more difficult class is there. It's...........it's I feel like I'm playing a character complicated enough to be fulfilling to the most stringent player but designed for a 5 year old.I feel like I'm playing something that was designed for an entirely different game to entertain young children......... Frankly I feel "anti-macho" watching the thermometer on my overclocked flashlight. To me there is no real satisfaction fighting with a supersized plastic sword.. Lack of volatile explosions and mechanical mayhem. And we're given a heat gauge and a safety helmet.I'd like to have access to alot of the technology that's in the game like the ability to operate a golem, control steambeasts, have a rocket launcher.

I really wanted the engineer to go down some kind of steampunk idea. with more explosions, And a new pair of goggles. :-) schematics, gadgets, and misc. contraptions.........

What you seem to be asking for is the scrapper or base engineer.

Holosmith appears to be ArenaNet's attempt at streamlining the class to be more approachable to new players. How much it actually succeeds at that is anybody's guess, but that's what it looks like from my perspective.

And we're given a heat gauge and a safety helmet.

There is nothing more "anti-macho" than ignoring your personal protection equipment and risk being a heartache and lifelong burden.

I really wanted the engineer to go down some kind of steampunk idea. with more explosions, And a new pair of goggles. :-) schematics, gadgets, and misc. contraptions.........

You already have that in the base Engineer and the recently buffed Gadgets. So why not use those, with or without the Holosmith.

As for your titular questions, yes the Holosmith is still an Engineer. Rather than working with stone-age contraptions, the Holosmith works with Hard Light manipulations, the creation of order from chaos.

The class was built generally from the science that Scarlet Briar was known for. She had the light technology was one of her main assets for dealing with us. She was very much an Engineer as she had constructs of various nature. She managed (more like manipulated) multiple people like an actual engineer in the real world. At the core, we're still engineer, we just have her technology on top.

Agreed - also dont like holosmith, would prefer their normal - original design light sabre, like dual swords etc... Holosmith has to many types of weapons, i just lost immersion - reverted to scrapper and not playing hs.... Crap in my opinnion...

@maciora.9542 said:Agreed - also dont like holosmith, would prefer their normal - original design light sabre, like dual swords etc... Holosmith has to many types of weapons, i just lost immersion - reverted to scrapper and not playing hs.... Crap in my opinnion...

To each our own.

I for one love using Asuran inspired Elonian light tech.

The other thing I want to point is that so far, both engineer specs have a racial theme:

Scrapper: CharrHolosmith: Asura

There's still Norn, Sylvari, and Humans -- these are likely to be the themes for the next specs.

• A sylvari take on engineers might be similar to scarlet's mechanical contraptions (possibly a cross between turrets and gyros, with summonable units that defend or fight on an area).
• A norn take might be similar to the steam creatures you can find near Reaper's Lair, or an exosuit to take on animal fighting abilities.
• A human take would likely be more advanced weaponry (somebody suggested alternate weapon modes in another thread).

@Vagrant.7206 said:The other thing I want to point is that so far, both engineer specs have a racial theme:

Scrapper: CharrHolosmith: Asura

Zephyrites and Elonians had a major part in harnessing that power and making it practical, actually, Asurans might have had the smallest part here, the name Holosmith being a little misleading as it goes beyond Holomancy. Scrappers are Engineer survivors of the pact fleets crash. The circumstances and discoveries made by expansions make the elite specs, not the races. There's still room for creativity nonetheless.

It's pretty fun honestly. Also let's be real with ourselves, Engineer was never a particularly complicated class to play so the common arrogant assumption that it was overly difficult was a meme at best.

@Vyrulisse.1246 said:It's pretty fun honestly. Also let's be real with ourselves, Engineer was never a particularly complicated class to play so the common arrogant assumption that it was overly difficult was a meme at best.

What.

Have you tried a core condi engineer?

@Vagrant.7206 said:

@Vyrulisse.1246 said:It's pretty fun honestly. Also let's be real with ourselves, Engineer was never a particularly complicated class to play so the common arrogant assumption that it was overly difficult was a meme at best.

They're not entirely wrong. To be completely perfectly optimal with condi engi ofc takes a lot of practice and muscle memory, but you're allowed screwups like misclicking the wrong kit or something without all that much issue. As long as you get the important skills off, it's not that bad.

Compared to something like a weaver where if you attune to earth accidentally your dps may kill itself.

@Evolute.6239 said:

@Vagrant.7206 said:

@Vyrulisse.1246 said:It's pretty fun honestly. Also let's be real with ourselves, Engineer was never a particularly complicated class to play so the common arrogant assumption that it was overly difficult was a meme at best.

If you switch to the wrong kit, that's a significant DPS loss from any benchmarking standpoint. Plus your argument is contradicting itself -- if we're not assuming optimal play, then what are we assuming? There's no point in arguing about which is less complex for open world, because open world is easy all-around.

Watch the rotation for engineer:

Weaver

Tell me which one is autoing more. Because even grenade "autos" aren't even automatic.

@Slyven.8637 said:I really wanted the engineer to go down some kind of steampunk idea. with more explosions, And a new pair of goggles. :-) schematics, gadgets, and misc. contraptions.........I'm not sure about 'anti-macho' as you say - while I think holo could use some work (specifically, adding heat mechanics to our remaining weapons), generally I like the spec. But I did want to say: I believe I read somewhere that one of the the early designs for the PoF elite spec was a golem or power suit-related concept. I've tried to dig up a reference, but haven't been able to, so you can take that with a pack of salt.

That said, I would absolutely love to see what they could do with a power suit design. Jumping into some sort of Scruffy 3.0 would be continuously awesome to me. Hopefully it would be something more substantial than Wildstar's exosuit - that's basically just a short-term buff, but it does look sort of cool. For reference:

And a proper rocket launcher could be great - the mortar kit can be fun, but it's a little lackluster. Maybe one day!

@Slyven.8637 said:I feel like I'm playing something that was designed for an entirely different game to entertain young children......... Frankly I feel "anti-macho" watching thethermometer on my overclocked flashlight. To me there is no real satisfaction fighting with a supersized plastic sword.. Lack of volatile explosions and mechanicalmayhem. And we're given a heat gauge and a safety helmet.

A little, red crash helmet, yes. Though they gave that to us back in Heart of Thorns.

@Vagrant.7206 said:What you seem to be asking for is the scrapper or base engineer.

Holosmith appears to be ArenaNet's attempt at streamlining the class to be more approachable to new players. How much it actually succeeds at that is anybody's guess, but that's what it looks like from my perspective.

Together these two sort of hit the nail square. Holo seems an attempt to cut to the chase. A way of ripping the bandage off quickly for newer players so as not to have them wasting time with theory crafting a broken profession(Engineer.) You log on, take two other trait lines -doesn't matter which- then go holo. That done, you intermittently hump one kit, and one kit only,(Forge) trying to convince yourself that the still-somewhat-subpar- damage you're seeing versus the effort required is worth the indefensible nature of the profession as it currently stacks up against other, much easier to play professions. And when you aren't using that kit you're using what's probably the weakest versions of the base weapons out there(sword or rifle) whilst having no weapon swap unless out of combat.

A night or two of this and you're come to the crossroads which other players took the better part of five years to arrive at; Accepting that Engineer is broken and move on to play another profession which makes you happier -or-

Or- be 'that player', the one whose slavish devotion and 'Just hold on, someday we won't be quite so rubbish as today. Just hold on, the Devs said they'll change. They said they'll listen to our complaints and I still believe them. I still believe in them,' attitude makes them the MMO equivalent of the poster child for co-dependent abusive relationships. If choosing the latter you're in for a treat.

• Stew in your bitterness and denial. Alternately defending your decision to players of other professions in the professions forums whilst tearing that position down amongst your peers(Yes, though hard to believe, those other few; your seatmates at the dork table.)
• Wallow in the pity of your peers and enemies in turn who on seeing you downed in quick fashion feel a twinge of guilt, but otherwise shrug and say, ' Oh well. Free bag. Better them than me.'
• Bask in the sort of glory which keeps you playing, those times, precious and few, in which you've crossed paths with an opponent worse much worse than you at playing GW2 and you've won.
• And last though never least, revert to guilt and self loathing once you've seen they were playing base Engineer, Scrapper, or Holosmith.

A night or two of this and you're come to the crossroads which other players took the better part of five years to arrive at; Accepting that Engineer is broken and move on to play another profession which makes you happier -or-

That's the problem -- Everything else is too boring to play.

@Vagrant.7206 said:

A night or two of this and you're come to the crossroads which other players took the better part of five years to arrive at; Accepting that Engineer is broken and move on to play another profession which makes you happier -or-

I agree. Or rather I used to say this exact thing to my friends. But that was years ago when turrets were still a thing and I felt as though we still had a full and viable bag of tricks. Back then I didn't feel that I had to have alchemy in every build and kits were more of an adjunct to my play style rather than, say- the only play style.. Back then I didn't feel bad about spending a bar slot on a gadget for fun's sake. Even with some of the improvements to some of our gadgets, Rocket boots being one, I slotted them, used them a couple of times then said, 'Right... Now what?' Thematically I still agree with you- nothing more appealing in concept than my little Engineer against the big, wide world- but the execution just isn't there.

Funny thing is that as I write this I recall standing in Divinity's on my Engineer years ago -well before HoT- had just reached eighty. A little Asura Engineer in a wide brimmed hat walked up, must have seen how happy I was, and so struck up a conversation with me- complaining left and right about everything bad Anet had done to ruin the profession. In turn I extolled its virtues -tried to- couldn't say enough good about all our options. He wasn't impressed and I was still having fun. We had to agree to disagree.

Wonder where he is now, because it's years later and now I sort of see where he was coming from. The feeling just isn't there. It isn't that the game isn't fun anymore. It is, but on other profs. More, I come away with the impression that with every update/iteration the Engineer falls further and further behind. If you look there are plenty of other professions that have better/more ways of keeping the game fresh without making a player feel crippled -even if it's as simple as having a weapon swap or shifting a trait line or two around. Do they each have one or two things they feel are rubbish, probably, but most of their abilities tend to feel solid. On top of that they don't require you to be utter glass or to hear the words, 'High risk-high reward,' Particularly when you trait into their elites. Just about anything that isn't an outgrowth of engineer feels as though it contributes more and for much less effort and without necessarily subverting the heart of its base profession. I don't get that from Engineer anymore. We have several must-haves and even when the must-haves are spot on we still feel hobbled, still feel as though we'll never quite measure up. And our elite professions, rather than the spice they're intended to be just feel as though they're crudely applied band-aids, slapped over the Engineer to hide the rot/rust rather than enhance a solid foundation.

Even if it's just perceptual -something not out of the realm of possibility- the Engineer is still a hot mess to me. As in, the everything wrong Blizzard ever did to Engineering as a crafting profession- sort of hot mess. I don't know whether Anet's capable of righting them now, or if the will to do so is even there. And the sad truth is the longer they dally this game just grows longer and longer in the tooth. If I'm honest- I'd even go so far as to say the Engineer isn't an Engineer anymore. At least not the way it was originally sold.

It isn't even any one thing I could point to, but rather a diminishing of the profession across all the many and lesser aspects which make it up as a whole. Over time this degradation has just sucked the fun right out of playing them. It's the sort of experience where you leave it for a while, come back to it and at first say, 'Oh yeah! That's what I was missing!' then a little bit later, much less animatedly after having been given a good thrashing, 'Oh yeah... That's why I don't do this as much any more.'

@maciora.9542 said:Agreed - also dont like holosmith, would prefer their normal - original design light sabre, like dual swords etc... Holosmith has to many types of weapons, i just lost immersion - reverted to scrapper and not playing hs.... Crap in my opinnion...

You lost immersion, because the class that is considered jack of all trades, that has tools for every situation is also having multiple weapons? Lol, ok.

@Iozeph.5617 You said Blizzard instead of Anet ^—^

@RedSPINE.7845 said:@Iozeph.5617 You said Blizzard instead of Anet ^—^

Yes, I was making a comparison of 'engineers.' In World of Warcraft Blizzard never had an Engineer class as such. Engineering was a crafting profession and it was fun- particularly early on in PvP until they gutted the functionality from many of the craftable gadgets. After that engineering lost much of its fun and flavour. I was saying that the negative changes made over the years to Anet's(GW2's) Engineers have been of equal, if not greater measure, than those of Blizzard's changes. Whichever side it falls on it's resulted in something that isn't as much fun to play as what came before. Especially now if you know what you're missing from the older iterations of the Engineer.

@Kalibri.5861 said:

@Slyven.8637 said:I really wanted the engineer to go down some kind of steampunk idea. with more explosions, And a new pair of goggles. :-) schematics, gadgets, and misc. contraptions.........I'm not sure about 'anti-macho' as you say - while I think holo could use some work (specifically, adding heat mechanics to our remaining weapons), generally I like the spec. But I did want to say: I believe I read somewhere that one of the the early designs for the PoF elite spec was a golem or power suit-related concept. I've tried to dig up a reference, but haven't been able to, so you can take that with a pack of salt.

Haaw man! This exo suit looks so cool! Why can't we have one? I mean at last holosmith focus on another side of technology (holography) and that's good i think (even if the design of the class is lazy f5= one new kit). Scrapper has Nothing other than a Hammer and gyros... not really convincing both thematicly and mechanicly (i mean holosmith is just a scrapper 2.0 they are 2 melee classes). I would have liked if they have do Something else than scrapper. I mean scrapper was not really appeling both in thematic and design but it works only in pvp and that's even worse... At last, even if i find the holosmith design lazy it's quite appeling visually and thematicly.