Would you prefer Holo GM traits to have equivalent dps?

Currently, the best choice is PBM which is kind of awkward. PBM turns heat management completely on its head and instead of being something you skillfully manage (and are severely punished for screwing up), it turns it into rather static rotation where you fit 2x Photon Blitz/Corona Burst before exploding and making your effective health slightly better than low health professions.

The main drawback to the other two traits is that the Laser's Edge trait flat out does not work outside of Photon Forge whereas PBM overheat does make it work. If that limitation was removed, these two would become much more viable.

The end result to the three being equivalent would be:

Thermal Vent: Crazy hard Heat management that requires you to use dodge rolls to not only maximize heat, but offensively into enemies. Uses the Tools traitline.Enhanced Capacity Storage Unit: More forgiving on Heat thresholds with a complex heat strategy required to maintain double heat bonuses for Sword and maximum punishment for failure.Photonic Blasting Module: Simplified Heat management with the drawback of taking (self-healed) damage that effectively makes you a low health profession.

Most of this would be accomplished, of course, by simply removing the Photon Forge requirement from Laser's Edge, effectively increasing the non-PF damage of the other two traits by 15%.Laser's Edge would read:

While photon forge is active and you are above the Heat Threshold, your outgoing damage is increased

Imho either ECSU or PBM should be made baseline (and balanced accordingly) so we get room for a trait that cuts heavily the forge lockdown and has condi interaction so condi Holo exists and becomes less of a meme. The problem with heat interaction is it's severely limited to the weapon you have on (just sword) and the truth is most if not all optimized builds don't even run sword. PBM is indeed the strongest DPS option in PvE but in PvP or WvW you don't even look at it so I think there's semblance of balance there, it isn't the only right choice for every game mode.

I think the main argument is that ECSU and TV are primarily used in PvP, which is where this would be seen as a direct buff.

That said, each GM should have value in both PvE and PvP IMO.

I wish all GM traits had some kind of interaction with the non-holo related stuff like Photonic Blast does with the damage buff while cooling down.Photon Forge really lack synergy with the rest of the class, so if we're not getting heat mechanics on core engi weapons, can we at least get some synergy somewhere else?