Stab hit req feels clunky now

Is there a way to rework the trait so the stability is reliable and acquireable without having to dive into the cc you are trying to avoid in order to get it? Having it on cast was too much I agree but right now most of the time you can't get any stab during fights because you are getting cced the whole time and with no other form of stab it's very very easy to get ping ponged around between everyone's cc spam. We need a source of stability that isn't spammable but is usable BEFORE we come into contact with cc or doesn't require you to go up and hit someone with an incredibly obvious telegraph.

That's my 2 cents at least. With all the other hits to holo the lack of stab just destroyed it's ability to handle certain matchups (mesmer got exponentially harder after the patch with all their cc. Not impossible, but definitely significantly harder than it used to be. Warrior became even more of a monster to fight because of how much cc it has and how anti melee spellbreaker is)

Core warrior at the moment absolutely shits on holo in terms of DPS and match up. Imo they should give holo f5 a 5second stability stack upon entering it.... because my god way to much cc in this game not to have something other then an exilir and a possibly f1-f4 to help us out...

@"Ario.8964" said:We need a source of stability that isn't spammable but is usable BEFORE we come into contact with cc or doesn't require you to go up and hit someone with an incredibly obvious telegraph.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Toss_Elixir_B

@vaxjani.9073 said:

@"Ario.8964" said:We need a source of stability that isn't spammable but is usable BEFORE we come into contact with cc or doesn't require you to go up and hit someone with an incredibly obvious telegraph.

Oh yes let me take something that's already a garbage skill in pvp and then throw a projectile with all the projectile hate in the game and hope that I don't get stunned during the cast or get immobed so I toss it away from me... I toolbelt on an underperforming skill is not a reliable source of stab.

Juggernaut? I just dance between Flamethrower and Photon Forge all the time... (Of course I'm not a PvPer...)

@Ardid.7203 said:Juggernaut? I just dance between Flamethrower and Photon Forge all the time... (Of course I'm not a PvPer...)

It'd be worth considering if firearms or flamethrower were viable options for pvp. Issue is flamethrower atm doesn't provide enough power damage for a power build and condi engi sucks in pvp and even more if you use holo so unfortunately that's not an option either :/

@Ario.8964 said:

@Ardid.7203 said:Juggernaut? I just dance between Flamethrower and Photon Forge all the time... (Of course I'm not a PvPer...)

I tried a condi holo recently. It definitely wrecks noobs, but it has very little impact on skilled players. :-\

@Vagrant.7206 said:

@Ario.8964 said:

@Ardid.7203 said:Juggernaut? I just dance between Flamethrower and Photon Forge all the time... (Of course I'm not a PvPer...)

I mean any holo build can work against noobs. I've played with and wrecked noobs on every holo build you could think of (condi, sage, menders, cele, zerk ,magi, etc.). The issue is those can each work against noobs because they are good in certain scenarios and noobs fall into those scenarios very easily (I.E condi holo relies on really burn bursting someone so you get the noob to waste his condi removal then burn burst and gg) but obviously better players won't fall for those simple baits. And once those baits become irrelevant then they become useless. Corona burst is sort of at this level right now where if someone is actually paying attention they will deny all your attempts at stability and then just cc you to ignore any other pressure you try to put out.

Can only agree on it, amount of stability and stunbreaks on useful abilities is very limited. In wvw group fights I'm fine with the stability stacks application on hit, but I think the stack amount could be increased there.

Stunbreaking with entering holoform for like 15% heat could be also a thing.

More stability options that can be used when on range would be great.

It is definitely way more difficult to land now. It'd be nice if they gave us a bit more for our trouble (eg. 1 stack of stab per hit), which would make it more valuable in a large fight like WvW.

I don't know if that addresses the main issue though: Holo is a glass cannon build without any real defenses, so it needs to land its damage, or it loses very quickly. Other glass builds have better defensive/escape/evade/stealth options. Holo used to have that sort-of 'unstoppable' factor with the double-stab pulse that was pretty hard to interrupt. Honestly though, I thought it was comparable to Warrior.

@coro.3176 said:It is definitely way more difficult to land now. It'd be nice if they gave us a bit more for our trouble (eg. 1 stack of stab per hit), which would make it more valuable in a large fight like WvW.

I don't know if that addresses the main issue though: Holo is a glass cannon build without any real defenses, so it needs to land its damage, or it loses very quickly. Other glass builds have better defensive/escape/evade/stealth options. Holo used to have that sort-of 'unstoppable' factor with the double-stab pulse that was pretty hard to interrupt. Honestly though, I thought it was comparable to Warrior.

Holos have some of the best / strongest defensive skills in game besides possible a spell breaker imo. Adapting to how holo should be played now is completely different from a season ago. What Could of worked then might not work now and with that we should stay focus on other skills/builds that can help the class shine for it's many other usage.

@zoopop.5630 said:

@"coro.3176" said:It is definitely way more difficult to land now. It'd be nice if they gave us a bit more for our trouble (eg. 1 stack of stab per hit), which would make it more valuable in a large fight like WvW.

I don't know if that addresses the main issue though: Holo is a glass cannon build without any real defenses, so it needs to land its damage, or it loses very quickly. Other glass builds have better defensive/escape/evade/stealth options. Holo used to have that sort-of 'unstoppable' factor with the double-stab pulse that was pretty hard to interrupt. Honestly though, I thought it was comparable to Warrior.

Oh? What skills are those?

From what I can think of:

• Elixir S - gets you killed a lot of the time if you get tagged with condi right before you trigger it. IMO, it's a pretty fair invuln, since it locks you into the animation. It's much better since they nerfed the passive. Toss Elixir S is good though. I don't run it though because I prefer....
• Rocket Boots - this is pure escape. It's good vs melee, but it won't help you if they have range since it doesn't evade during travel. It'll also blast fields for some stealth or healing
• Spectrum Shield - it's okay, but only reducing damage by 50% isn't good enough. If you need to block a 20k burst, "only" taking 10k still hurts.
• Hard Light Arena - great, but long cooldown and easy to play around

From PF, you get a 15% damage reduction and a small amount of barrier on one skill.

These are servicable defenses, but I wouldn't rank them anywhere close to "the best / strongest". That would be stuff like Mirage's stunbreak+condiclear-on-dodge, multiple evasive attacks, and blinks, Spellbreaker's high sustain, or Thief's evades + disengage potential while also running glass cannon stats.

@coro.3176 said:

@zoopop.5630 said:

@coro.3176 said:It is definitely way more difficult to land now. It'd be nice if they gave us a bit more for our trouble (eg. 1 stack of stab per hit), which would make it more valuable in a large fight like WvW.

I don't know if that addresses the main issue though: Holo is a glass cannon build without any real defenses, so it needs to land its damage, or it loses very quickly. Other glass builds have better defensive/escape/evade/stealth options. Holo used to have that sort-of 'unstoppable' factor with the double-stab pulse that was pretty hard to interrupt. Honestly though, I thought it was comparable to Warrior.

• Elixir S - gets you killed a lot of the time if you get tagged with condi right before you trigger it. IMO, it's a pretty fair invuln, since it locks you into the animation. It's much better since they nerfed the passive. Toss Elixir S is good though. I don't run it though because I prefer....
• Rocket Boots - this is pure escape. It's good vs melee, but it won't help you if they have range since it doesn't evade during travel. It'll also blast fields for some stealth or healing
• Spectrum Shield - it's okay, but only reducing damage by 50% isn't good enough. If you need to block a 20k burst, "only" taking 10k still hurts.
• Hard Light Arena - great, but long cooldown and easy to play around

We don't have the best active defenses out there but our sustain can be pushed to an absurdly high level and when combined with our pretty solid defenses can make you tanky as hell. For example I was running with a meme build on holo specifically with the idea of just tanking multiple foes and eventually killing them if I could bait them properly (Ran cele with water runes if that tells you how much I was going for sustain). Using a combination of hard light, spectrum shield, egun, and mortar I was able to consistently tank up to 3 people before I would be forced to pull completely out of a fight (not without stalling for a good few seconds mind you). The defenses themselves weren't really broken but the ability for me to cycle them in combination with all the regen and kiting I could do allowed me to remain virtually unkillable without allowing my team a huge snowball opportunity by going 4v1 or 3v1 on me for an extended period of time. So both you and zoo are correct in a sense. Engi has some of the best defense/sustain when built for it and assuming you can kite/cycle cd's properly but 1) Does not have the potency of mirage defenses 2) Sacrifices viability in higher tiers for said sustain.

@coro.3176 said:

@zoopop.5630 said:

@coro.3176 said:It is definitely way more difficult to land now. It'd be nice if they gave us a bit more for our trouble (eg. 1 stack of stab per hit), which would make it more valuable in a large fight like WvW.

I don't know if that addresses the main issue though: Holo is a glass cannon build without any real defenses, so it needs to land its damage, or it loses very quickly. Other glass builds have better defensive/escape/evade/stealth options. Holo used to have that sort-of 'unstoppable' factor with the double-stab pulse that was pretty hard to interrupt. Honestly though, I thought it was comparable to Warrior.

• Elixir S - gets you killed a lot of the time if you get tagged with condi right before you trigger it. IMO, it's a pretty fair invuln, since it locks you into the animation. It's much better since they nerfed the passive. Toss Elixir S is good though. I don't run it though because I prefer....
• Rocket Boots - this is pure escape. It's good vs melee, but it won't help you if they have range since it doesn't evade during travel. It'll also blast fields for some stealth or healing
• Spectrum Shield - it's okay, but only reducing damage by 50% isn't good enough. If you need to block a 20k burst, "only" taking 10k still hurts.
• Hard Light Arena - great, but long cooldown and easy to play around

defensive skills and evasive skills are two different things.

Defensive -used or intended to defend or protect

Evasive - directed toward avoidance or escape

In terms of avoiding damage then yea Mesmer has the edge but in actual terms of taking damage holo has the edge on that by far. The Abilities from their utilities alone isn't the only thing they got for defensive moves, Need to also take a look into turrets and Shield with certain trait lines that help.

Also Flash Spark is another tool belt ability that helps take in damage.

Most of those are not "Holomancer" specific skills that is what I feel you are missing, that they are trying to explain to you.

I don’t have too much of an issue with this change. I think that it was actually a great change as far as balance is concerned and still run this trait for PvP.

However, I think what feels wrong is the context of this nerf relative to what other classes are allowed to have. The Engineer is always saddled with give-and-take mechanics. Want great damage and cleave potential? Deal with the heat mechanic and possible self-damage. Want access to kits? OK, lose your weapon swap.

So many other classes don’t seem to deal with the balance issues Engineer faces. In this instance: want access to stability? OK, enter melee, the most dangerous place, and hit with a PBAoE to get it. This is in fact very good game design, but other classes don’t have to deal with it.

@Julius Seizure.4985 said:I don’t have too much of an issue with this change. I think that it was actually a great change as far as balance is concerned and still run this trait for PvP.

However, I think what feels wrong is the context of this nerf relative to what other classes are allowed to have. The Engineer is always saddled with give-and-take mechanics. Want great damage and cleave potential? Deal with the heat mechanic and possible self-damage. Want access to kits? OK, lose your weapon swap.

So many other classes don’t seem to deal with the balance issues Engineer faces. In this instance: want access to stability? OK, enter melee, the most dangerous place, and hit with a PBAoE to get it. This is in fact very good game design, but other classes don’t have to deal with it.

It would be good design if defenses weren't so readily available. The problem we have now with builds is that combat is paced by people's defense more than their offense. Instead of the players needing to go through the norm of trading (you try to land your stuff then switch to defense to try and avoid as much as you can and ideally end up with more left for the next engagement) now it's chain defenses and occasionally throw out a few hits to damage your opponent over time and outsustain them. Designs like the current function of eclipse become ineffective with that combat interaction because the opponent will 99% of the time have some form of defense to avoid giving you stability (this includes cc being used to stop incoming damage rather than guarantee your own). Instead of it being a good skill to use in the middle of combat like it's intended to be (the idea is that you are already close to the target so you can get the hit off before you go even more aggressive or decide to peel a bit) it is just an ineffective interaction because all the current meta builds are specced to counter that form of play (you could argue mes because of clones but they dish out so much cc your stab is really nonexistent with them in prolonged trades). I like the idea and the intention of it and I think that's just the kind of thing holo needs but I'm not sure the current implementation is the best option for it.