Holosmith's Photon forge a bit overtuned?

While fighting Holosmiths i found photon forge to be a bit over-tuned. To be specific I found that even if I go on the defensive when photon forge is activated and use up my defensive skills and dodges to mitigate the Holosmith's damage it usually doesn't do much as their short cooldowns would be up very soon afterwards, but they can hardly be fought back against because of their high damage.I also noticed that Holosmiths can go through multiple photon forge rotations without overheating, leading me to think that there is not enough risk for the reward they get.I think Photon forge skills' damage is ok, but their cooldowns, and, perhaps, the risk of using them, should be increased (or a cooldown to entering Photon forge introduced).

Have you played those builds? I highly recommend it. It's not as easy as it looks in real fights.

It's a high skill-cap build. When you see people who are performing really well with it, it's genuinely because they know how to play it well. The skill floor is a little high due to the damage output, but you generally have to be playing idiots for them to not notice the huge telegraphs and damage.

@NaXorb.9732 said:While fighting Holosmiths i found photon forge to be a bit over-tuned. To be specific I found that even if I go on the defensive when photon forge is activated and use up my defensive skills and dodges to mitigate the Holosmith's damage it usually doesn't do much as their short cooldowns would be up very soon afterwards, but they can hardly be fought back against because of their high damage.I also noticed that Holosmiths can go through multiple photon forge rotations without overheating, leading me to think that there is not enough risk for the reward they get.I think Photon forge skills' damage is ok, but their cooldowns, and, perhaps, the risk of using them, should be increased (or a cooldown to entering Photon forge introduced).

I can't help but notice you've started threads in four of the profession forums, each thread amounting to the same thing: X is too strong. It begs the question, what are you playing where four professions are destroying you with ease?

Regarding holosmiths not overheating: a good holosmith will never overheat unless they're traited to do so. Overheating severely damages the holosmith and locks them out of the photon forge.

@"Vagrant.7206" said:Have you played those builds? I highly recommend it. It's not as easy as it looks in real fights.

It's a high skill-cap build. When you see people who are performing really well with it, it's genuinely because they know how to play it well. The skill floor is a little high due to the damage output, but you generally have to be playing idiots for them to not notice the huge telegraphs and damage.

100% agree. Never noob player playing holosmith for the first time will own and rekt you like a scourge can. A new player playing scourge can simply stand still and spam and get the work done. To play holosmith efficiently you need to use brain, you have many good tools: stealth, rocket boots to disangage, but they are not spammable like scourge skills, and one second of using that skills late and you are dead because you remain a so squishy class. The downside of photon forge is that at some point you have to exit photon forge mode and be "naked", in that moment you can counter attack. If you don't dodge the super obvious telegraphic skills and remain standing without kiting in melee range it's obvious you will get bursted down.

I don't know why people complain about holo when a freaking soulbest can pull out the same burst of holo maybe more but from range and have the same tools of holo, stealth + the annoying pet. Or wanna talk of weavers and mirages??? In WvW if you didn't see them coming they can literally 1crit shot you (weaver) and kills you in a second seriously without any possible counter attack. Holo can't oneshot you like that.

@"Vagrant.7206" said:Have you played those builds? I highly recommend it. It's not as easy as it looks in real fights.

It's a high skill-cap build. When you see people who are performing really well with it, it's genuinely because they know how to play it well. The skill floor is a little high due to the damage output, but you generally have to be playing idiots for them to not notice the huge telegraphs and damage.

So? What does skill cap have to do with balance? Are you saying it's ok for Holosmith to have totally unprecedented offensive capabilities just because it has a "high skill cap?"

I can get far better results on a Holosmith than on my Reaper despite having over 20 times as much experience on Reaper than I do on engi. Sure I can't play Holo as well as a engi main, but what does that matter when I can still outperform my main despite my inexperience.

@Crinn.7864 said:

@"Vagrant.7206" said:Have you played those builds? I highly recommend it. It's not as easy as it looks in real fights.

It's a high skill-cap build. When you see people who are performing really well with it, it's genuinely because they know how to play it well. The skill floor is a little high due to the damage output, but you generally have to be playing idiots for them to not notice the huge telegraphs and damage.

You get better results on bad opponents and not aware of you. Reaper and Holo has different playstyles and strenghts.

Holo is a sort of a thief ambush class which caught you by surprise and burst you.Reaper is not an ambush class and can take more hits before dying but the damage is more or less same as holo especially in shroud form

So what do you have to complain? See any core engi around? No. See any scrapper around? No. Holo is a power burst class and removing the damage is killing the purpose of the class. It is like you remove shroud from your Reaper and become useless. Learn to dodge the attacks which are super telegraphic or apply condis and you get the job done.

@Crinn.7864 said:

@"Vagrant.7206" said:Have you played those builds? I highly recommend it. It's not as easy as it looks in real fights.

It's a high skill-cap build. When you see people who are performing really well with it, it's genuinely because they know how to play it well. The skill floor is a little high due to the damage output, but you generally have to be playing idiots for them to not notice the huge telegraphs and damage.

Few things:

• Skill cap and skill floor has to do with the range of potential for a given class (aka: Its potential risk and potential reward). Several elite specs/classes (rev, scrapper, etc.) have low overall ranges in terms of potential, so no matter how skilled you are, you won't be able to beat others. Reaper's potential is significantly lower than Holo's is, but it also has a relatively high skill floor. A noob reaper is relatively indistinguishable from a super-experienced one.
  • Aspects of design change the skill floor and cap. Overheating potential lowers the skill floor, for example. If a skill is spammable, it raises the skill floor.
• The closest comparison for holo right now is the D/P thief, which has existed for a very long time without serious nerfing (due to high skill cap and low skill floor). If you know half of what you're doing, you're going to wreck noobs with those builds. But against skilled players, you're likely going to get wrecked yourself. As some people commonly say, high risk, high reward. Reaper is a relatively low risk design.
• Bear in mind that holo is the only viable meta option for engineers in PvP currently. Engineers have been pigeonholed into a single build for the last few years, and nerfing our only existing one (again) is just another slap in the face. Other builds/specs should be brought up, or the whole meta should be brought down, but there's no justification to focusing on holo as it's not the biggest outlier in terms of output or risk vs. reward right now.

@Vagrant.7206 said:

@Crinn.7864 said:

@Vagrant.7206 said:Have you played those builds? I highly recommend it. It's not as easy as it looks in real fights.

It's a high skill-cap build. When you see people who are performing really well with it, it's genuinely because they know how to play it well. The skill floor is a little high due to the damage output, but you generally have to be playing idiots for them to not notice the huge telegraphs and damage.

• Skill cap and skill floor has to do with the range of potential for a given class (aka: Its potential risk and potential reward). Several elite specs/classes (rev, scrapper, etc.) have low overall ranges in terms of potential, so no matter how skilled you are, you won't be able to beat others. Reaper's potential is significantly lower than Holo's is, but it also has a relatively high skill floor. A noob reaper is relatively indistinguishable from a super-experienced one.
  • Aspects of design change the skill floor and cap. Overheating potential lowers the skill floor, for example. If a skill is spammable, it raises the skill floor.
• The closest comparison for holo right now is the D/P thief, which has existed for a very long time without serious nerfing (due to high skill cap and low skill floor). If you know half of what you're doing, you're going to wreck noobs with those builds. But against skilled players, you're likely going to get wrecked yourself. As some people commonly say, high risk, high reward. Reaper is a relatively low risk design.
• Bear in mind that holo is the only viable meta option for engineers in PvP currently. Engineers have been pigeonholed into a single build for the last few years, and nerfing our only existing one (again) is just another slap in the face. Other builds/specs should be brought up, or the whole meta should be brought down, but there's no justification to focusing on holo as it's not the biggest outlier in terms of output or risk vs. reward right now.

Removing the burst and damage from holo it's like removing the damage from thieves or remove their stealth, or remove shroud from necros.You just kill the class.

Good condi mirages (too many condi stacks even after cleanse) not caught off guard, good scourges (too many condi stacks even after cleanse), good spellbreakers (too many damage mitigation, they receive 0 damage from your burst combo and they can do it twice in a fight with passive and active), good power soulbeasts or druids can outstand you and kill you just for the signet you receive zero damage and for the insane damage they pull out at range (maybe match the holo burst if not more); good thieves can out surprise you and same as weavers can 1crit or 2crit shot you and you can't counter attack because already downed; good dragon hunter too if they manage to spear you and do the ToF combo well can destroy an holosmith. With the teleports too while you are escaping and the range from longbow.

Now i know weavers have zero place in sPvP at all.But in WvW if you get caught by a holo even if stealthed up you see his animations to stun you and pull out the combo, if you turn back the screen and see a weaver, 1 second, goodbye., oneshotted. I find more unfun to play against a weaver for example. Ok they are glass cannon builds which if they fail the burst they are dead, but they still have many invulns and way to disangage too. So I don't get why this hate against holo.And you know good holos has to come out of photon forge mode otherwise they get punished so hard for overheat. And that is your window to counter them even more.

Let's compare Photon Forge with Reaper Shroud:

-Both popped give you access to 5 new skills which release insane damage in both classes.-In Reaper if not wrong you can trait it to have stability and stunbreak too when you pop it.-In holo just the remove of few condis when you leave photon forge mode.-Photon Forge has a timer that grows to Overheat, a really bad condition and balanced thing for the cost of having that insane damage.-Reaper what has? A completely extra and bonus health bar of 17k maybe more xD. You see my point? Reaper don't get even punished staying too long in reaper shroud but the more you stay the better it is and the damage is the same as holo, maybe not all the mobility, but without rocket boots which are a core engi skill holo doesn't have that much mobility too.

@whoknocks.4935 said:Now i know weavers have zero place in sPvP at all.

Actually, I've seen some perform quite well. They generally can't hold up against me (engineer tends to be a natural anathema to eles), but they wreck some of the other classes.

@Vagrant.7206 said:

@whoknocks.4935 said:Now i know weavers have zero place in sPvP at all.

Depends what they run, but if they are not int he meta or great builds means other classes are just better at doing what ele does.Of course at low leagues those zerk weavers can pretty much kill all the enemies team because they don't know what they are doing, but in the pro high tier pvp scene I don't think there is space for them, same as revenant and scrapper.

In WvW roaming around if you land your combo and surprise people you literally one shot any class, maybe except spellbreaker not sure.Eles in sPvP are generally better at support or bunker, but firebrand is simply an ele tuned up 100 times so...

As a thief I would have to say no. I usually counter holos pretty hard almost every time I fight them, unless I make two mistakes, one I can usually get away with, but two is too much. And this is why I went from hating them soooo hard to loving them to death. As was talked about, the skill ceiling. I'll go out on a limb and say I'm a decent thief (high gold to mid plat) and when I run into a good holo, and I mean an honestly good player, I know, because I can't afford to make more than one mistake, that is how the game of high damage should be played, that is why I love fighting them so much.

Edit: I can't comment how other classes fair in sPvP, I only really know thief

Edit 2: actually those mines on dodge could be tuned down, right now I feel that dodge rolling for holo rewards way too much imo