Am I the only one dissapointed?

I'll say this, I think I'm the only human playing this that lives Deadeye over Holo.

I was dissapointed once I discovered we are even squishier than baseline thief and even elementalist, and I'm still dealing less damage than my Deadeye. I'm full zerk with scholar, force-air sigils, Explosive-Firearms-Holo, with some of the survivability traits slotted in.

It feels so fragile and yet I feel my damage isn't enough, in fact I feel I'm playing Shiro Power Rev... And I feel out utility isn't enough to justify our frailty. Ele it's fragile but has powerful AOEs and distance attacks, plus water attunement. Thief can Regen health per hit. We don't even have that yet I feel Deadeye and Daredevil outdamage my Holo...

Ofc I could be wrong and most likely I am, bit I feel we will be Reaper 2.0, the one elite that had everyone hyped because of the aesthetics, yet everyone hated once benchmarks were released.

Holo is fun, but is not very engie, and is TOO warrior for my tastes. I'm not disappointed of Holo itself... but I'm disappointed with Anet being unable or unwilling to help core engie or to create new gameplay without ditching the more essential aspects of the profession in the process.

I feel glassy, which I like, but I also melt everything I see instantly. Run full zerker or viper and you'll kill most vets in 5 or 6 seconds max.

I think I'm the complete opposite of you here.
In open world, you can easily slot one or two of Holo's defensive skills to keep from being squishy.And as for damage, it does just fine. Sword 3 -> Forge 2 -> Forge 3 is usually overkill for anything and the AoE pull of the HLA toolbelt skill allows you to take out groups of mobs with that combo easily.

Meanwhile, on Deadeye it's either tedious to play with rifle due to the lack of AoE or you just end up playing like a core thief to deal with groups of mobs.

My only beef with Holo in open world is the lack of stealth.

You're not the only one disappointed.

I do more damage and have more survivability on my core engi in PvE. In PvP holo gets utterly annhilated by any warrior, necro, or guardian who knows what they're doing, assuming you're just 1v1. If you're not 1v1, they focus you down rather quickly. It's only amplified by all the existing problems with core engi. I can wreck rifle engis in PvP matches, and they seem capable of doing even less.

@Rhomulos.2089 said:I feel glassy, which I like, but I also melt everything I see instantly. Run full zerker or viper and you'll kill most vets in 5 or 6 seconds max.

move that viper gear to firebrand or scourge and youll kill vets in half that time without having to bother with paying attention to a stupid self destruct mechanic. and firebrand even plays more like engi than holosmith.

Why did they think Holo needed heat to balance it at all? The numbers are so low compared to other classes and we are super glassy. Major fail by ANet... Good thing they do balance patches so often or know how to buff engi... Oh wait, they nerfed Scrapper into the garbage bin over the past two years. Time to look for another game I guess.

Yeah...Holo is not fun for me. Too squishy and I'm dying more now than ever. If I wanted to play a melee class I'd play something with better armor. Turret nerf was a slap in the face. Scrapper was a slap in the face. I'm over my main of 5 years, what a waste :( Spending the day researching other classes. Engineer turned out to not be what I thought it was going to be on release. RIP Engineer.

@Ardid.7203 said:Holo is fun, but is not very engie, and is TOO warrior for my tastes. I'm not disappointed of Holo itself... but I'm disappointed with Anet being unable or unwilling to help core engie or to create new gameplay without ditching the more essential aspects of the profession in the process.

Engineer was the profession I originally wanted to play 5 years ago.

To this day, it strikes me as overburdened by too many individually sound and complete mechanics. Kits alone would make for an amazing class concept. Just build the whole class around them, essentially. Turrets would also be a great concept (if re-designed and again, expanded), as would the toolbelt. All 3 of them together just shackle the class down with too many gimmicks. And that says something for a class which is conceptually built around gimmicks.

As a result, I feel that "elite experiments" such as the Holosmith always fall a bit flat. They're adding 1-3 mechanics, to a class with so many individualy mechanics and states and contexts, they hardly register.

So yeah, fully with you. I think Engi needs a re-tooling. At a very basic level, comparable to what Mythic did with Necromancers in DAoC or what happened to Shamans in WoW.

I don't understand, Holo goes against everything Engineer was supposed to be.Bye bye kits, you're forced into a regular 2 weapon sets and generic utils.Except there's a twist! You can't choose your weapons, Photon Forge is always one of the two and Sword is the only one that works in tandem with it, oh and you can't use the first for too long or you explode.

im disappointed by the fact that there are no holosmith (heat-) mechanics for weapons other than sword.holosmith itself feels pretty cool to play with and is fun.

it wouldn't even take as much like weaver was with all the additional skills. just a overheat mechanic for other weapons. still it would only be for rifle, pistol, off-pistol and off-shield.

I am disappointed that Holosmith isn't really much of an improvement over anything (with the exception of open world PvE which doesn't really matter anyway). In comparison to other DPS classes (and "support specs") in PvE, Holosmith's sustained damage is lagging behind. What's more is that in order to reach your max DPS, you still have to juggle between kits/rifle. In PvP and WvW, I'm not convinced that Holosmith is a better option than Scrapper. Perhaps Holosmith might be a decent roamer but as soon as you come across a one of the new condi elite specs, it's over and you would have been better off with Scrapper.

All in All, for a selfish DPS elite specialization designed around concept of 'high risk/high reward" that brings only damage and no unique utility, the damage it gets is barely higher than core power Engi (and perhaps lower than Condi Engi).

They dropped the ball and it's almost shameful. I was so excited, and now I'm contemplating quitting because of how underwhelmed I am. Sure, it's good at open world content, but that's about as relevant as a fart in a typhoon. In fractals, my damage isn't that much better than it was as power engi beforehand, which was already a substantially fat chunk less than condi engineer anyway. Remind me why I'm risking losing half my health to overheating when I do less damage than a dragonhunter anyway, as a squishier class with all my utility slots dedicated to damage?

3/10, see me after class Anet. My best efforts at damage might come close to a lazy dragonhunter, but it's still a far cry from the output of other new specializations (and that's ignoring the disgusting outliers of Firebrand/Weaver). The best damage doesn't even use a sword for crying out loud, it's literally treating forge like another kit, overheating via 3 and 4 as quick as you can, and then blowing all your cooldowns while you cool down before spamming bomb auto. Wow, what a waste of some potential overheat mechanics! Sword 3 is a DPS loss when you're already being given quickness, and sword 2 is still mediocre damage even at 100%+ heat if you're running the EC trait. Congrats on your power scaling of 2 in a best-case scenario, hope you don't mind the pitiful sword auto with a literally worthless heat mechanic tacked onto it.

Yes I'm salty, all my hopes and dreams were with holosmith and it's literally what lured me back into the game. I can't help but feel a li'l tricked when it was advertised as the end-all be-all selfish DPS class that does a ton of damage at their own risk, but it turns out they still are hot garbage compared to far more stable and less risky builds. If I didn't care at all about aesthetics, I'd just roll a renegade and push a few buttons for disgusting levels of damage.

I am disappointed in the damage levels but I find the design very fun. I think it's easy to fix and while I don't have a ton of confidence it will be I don't think anything needs to go back to the drawing board. Fix the PF weapon quality bug, buff sword, and maybe give a damage boost to one of the traits and it would be much closer to where it needs to be.

@Adamantium.3682 said:I am disappointed in the damage levels but I find the design very fun. I think it's easy to fix and while I don't have a ton of confidence it will be I don't think anything needs to go back to the drawing board. Fix the PF weapon quality bug, buff sword, and maybe give a damage boost to one of the traits and it would be much closer to where it needs to be.

double the duration of the burning trait. triple burning duration of photon blitz. revert the pve nerf. Thats some "slight" buffs it needs.

@Nephalem.8921 said:

@Adamantium.3682 said:I am disappointed in the damage levels but I find the design very fun. I think it's easy to fix and while I don't have a ton of confidence it will be I don't think anything needs to go back to the drawing board. Fix the PF weapon quality bug, buff sword, and maybe give a damage boost to one of the traits and it would be much closer to where it needs to be.

I never said or suggested it only needs "slight" buffs, not sure what that comment means.

Burning duration is another low hanging fruit that would be pretty simple to buff but I think overall the Holosmith has a more clearly defined role as power dps. Buffing burn duration will do very little to fix the problem IMO. I agree that it has to start with the PvE PF bug.

Buffing burn duration will improve condi holo dps. I get better results with condi holo than with power holo in the first place.It doesn't have a defined role as power spec. 2 traits and photon blitz are clearly condi orientated.I would like a more defined role because right now its mediocre in both. Photon blitz could be a real condi or power skill. 3rd forge skill should hit way harder and they should get rid of the easy might stack purpose of that. Make it a blast finisher instead to involve some skill for might.

What i meant is that it needs serious buffs and its not likely they will do it. Right now it is self-sufficient in the offensive buff department. They never buff those builds to deal good dps. Except for maybe warr because reasons.Just look at necro. They justified shit necro damage with high might stack potential and a useless shroud for years.Just remember the dev reasoning for the nerf."It’s fairly safe to say that Holosmith was doing a little too much damage during the demo weekend".While it could be on par with soulbeast and scourge. But most likely wouldnt.

The results are in from all classes and the overall opinion is that we are seeing opposite results to our initial expectation. Deadeye and holosmith are pure dps builds however they do less damage than the meta counterparts plus are beaten by the new hybrid support/dps elites like firebrand and scourge.And weaver is just broken... 45k dps....

I was shocked when I tested out holosmith, despite what seems like overwhelming burst damage from photon forge- I was only able to manage at best 27-30k on full zerker gear in optimal realistic raid setting. Interested to see if someone can try in condi viper gear.

Disapointed...

1: Heat mechanic don't works on others skills and weapons than exceeds and sword.2: Self kill with overheat.3: Loss of toolbelt skill #5.4: Lack of combo finishers on some skills:

• Corona burst: blast
• Photon blitz: projectile.
• Holographic shockwave: blast.
• Lazer disc: whirl.
• Blade burst: projectile.

5: Lack of sustain (how can a melee spec don't have sustain?).

@JETWING.2759 said:Disapointed...

1: Heat mechanic don't works on others skills and weapons than exceeds and sword.2: Self kill with overheat.3: Loss of toolbelt skill #5.4: Lack of combo finishers on some skills:

• Corona burst: blast
• Photon blitz: projectile.
• Holographic shockwave: blast.
• Lazer disc: whirl.
• Blade burst: projectile.

5: Lack of sustain (how can a melee spec don't have sustain?).

I feel like you summoned up my feelings on this pretty clearly here.

Also, adding the lockout time on kits is abysmal to me. I spent years seeing devs reply to complaints about bad skill or trait changes, claiming it was to counterbalance lack of cooldowns on kits. Now that you forced a cooldown on kits. It is painful that those skills and traits received no changes to compensate.

@coglin.1496 said:

@JETWING.2759 said:Disapointed...

1: Heat mechanic don't works on others skills and weapons than exceeds and sword.2: Self kill with overheat.3: Loss of toolbelt skill #5.4: Lack of combo finishers on some skills:

• Corona burst: blast
• Photon blitz: projectile.
• Holographic shockwave: blast.
• Lazer disc: whirl.
• Blade burst: projectile.

5: Lack of sustain (how can a melee spec don't have sustain?).

It's almost like they have a long history of throwing their failed ideas at engineer to see what'll stick. And if there's ever a time that one of the ideas seems even slightly OP, well, it gets nerfed rather quickly.

@Nephalem.8921 said:Buffing burn duration will improve condi holo dps. I get better results with condi holo than with power holo in the first place.It doesn't have a defined role as power spec. 2 traits and photon blitz are clearly condi orientated.I would like a more defined role because right now its mediocre in both. Photon blitz could be a real condi or power skill. 3rd forge skill should hit way harder and they should get rid of the easy might stack purpose of that. Make it a blast finisher instead to involve some skill for might.

What i meant is that it needs serious buffs and its not likely they will do it. Right now it is self-sufficient in the offensive buff department. They never buff those builds to deal good dps. Except for maybe warr because reasons.Just look at necro. They justified kitten necro damage with high might stack potential and a useless shroud for years.Just remember the dev reasoning for the nerf."It’s fairly safe to say that Holosmith was doing a little too much damage during the demo weekend".While it could be on par with soulbeast and scourge. But most likely wouldnt.

You're right it performs better as condi right now because it's being added to an existing condi build that was already better than the best power build. That doesn't mean Holo is better for condi. You could change nothing in the core Engi meta condi build except swap Tools for Holo and it would do more damage than any power Holo build. That doesn't mean Holo is better for condi, it's being thrown into a build that already had a sizable head start!

It very much is a power spec. You are mistaken regarding Photon Blitz, if you use ArcDPS you will see that is far and away your largest source of damage in a power build (at least in a PBM build where you can use it twice per PF). The burning it grants is pitiful and has little impact to a condi build. Even with +100% duration.

Every single sword skill, Exceed skill, and PF skill is a larger contributor to a power build than a condi build. Do some add condis? Sure, but they will not replace Nades/FT/Bombs on your bar because those are actual condi skills. There are a couple traits that are good for condi builds, but that's it.

Frankly I don't care what they do to buff it as long as they buff it and make it top tier damage for all the risks and restrictions. I just think if you take a look at the history of how Anet balances (very small changes at a time) and as the Holosmith stands today... it's much more likely to push it up into the proper damage range by buffing power. That takes a couple skill coefficient tweaks, fixing the PF transform bug, and maybe adding a damage buff to a trait (I vote Solar Focusing Lens, that trait is very underwhelming). Turning it into a condi spec would require a complete rework to the weapon, utilities, and Forge skills. Not to mention the duplication we would have... why have two 1H main hand condi weapons? And if sword isn't condi, then what's the point of it in a spec designed for condi?

In love with my Holo static discharge build ! Sure holo is squishy but in my opinion its not a proffesion for everyone ....The only thing i would love to see , that rifle scales with heat level .

You can put me in the disappointed crowd. Tried it for t4 fractals for two consecutive days, and it simply isn't fun to play. It also isn't that good. While yes, it does do more damage than power scrapper, the holosmith is bad in everything else it does.

First problem I've noticed is that surviving is really hard. Even with Light Density Amplifier, enemies chew through your defenses like they are paper. The only defensive skill the holosmith has on it's weapon bar is static shield. All other skills offer no defense, and the paltry barrier on Corona Burst does not count for anything meaningful. The utilities give us spectrum shield, which is inferior to gear shield in every way. 3 seconds of taking half damage isn't worth a utility slot, and against large, heavy hitting attacks you will still go down in one hit sometimes.

The second problem I've noticed is this spec is slow as a snail. The sword attacks are so slow it is painful. The leap on radiant arc is slower than just walking. It is really hard to get a full chain out of the auto. The photon forge mode has a movement skill, but you have to take a trait in order to get any momentum out of it. The exceeds themselves are slow to use (Photon Wall being particularly painful). Playing the entire thing feels like it is a slog through mud.

The third problem I've noticed is that it has low damage. Yes, this sounds contradictory, but let me explain. In order to get the elusive "slightly better than vanilla engi" damage, you have to spec almost entirely into dealing damage. Every weapon, every utility, every trait, must be dedicated toward doing damage. There is no room for a toolbox or versatility. You have to mash the utilities, functions, and skills like a madman in order to eek out that precious DPS. If you don't, you're better off just camping bomb with vanilla engi. In an era where half the specs do over 35k DPS regularly AND have additional functionality, an incredibly selfish 31k just does not cut it.

The fourth problem I've noticed is a lack of a toolbox. The toolbelt skills on the exceeds are generally ineffective and do little more than damage. The exceeds themselves are fairly bland, in that they don't really affect change insomuch as they just do damage (or reduce some of it). The photon forge skills do little more than inflict damage in different directions. The sword skills are exclusively dedicated to just doing damage. There are some buffs attached to the skills, but nothing that a good comp already gives or doesn't care about. The only noticeable utility is the AoE pull in Prismatic Singularity and the most terrible reflect in the game on photon wall. About the only thing the spec does other than damage is cc. I would say to just use the vanilla engi utilities, but if you do that then your damage is terrible.

Combine all of these together, and you get a specialization that just isn't fun to play. Slow, frail, and inflexible make for a terrible combination of features. If you try to go for defenses or utility or mobility, then your damage and other features plummet in response. There is nothing you can do with the holosmith to make it well rounded or useful for a particular niche. You're just wholly unsatisfied no matter what you attempt.

For a comparison, I'm going to bring up the scrapper. Particularly the Hammer:

The auto attack could out-damage bombs in situations where might wasn't capped, giving it a use overall.Electrowhirl was a quick projectile reflect on command, a DPS skill, and also a whirl finisher.Rocket Charge was a movement skill, an evade, a DPS skill, and a series of leap finishers all in one. The leap finishers were important, because of another skill.Shock Shield had its damage nerfed, but it was a block that also inflicted plenty of vulnerability.Thunderclap was a good CC, a very high damage patch, and using rocket charge inside of it would chain dazes together.

You had movement, reflects, blocks, evades, cc, and buffing skills all on a single weapon without sacrificing damage. The hammer was a well designed weapon. The photon forge was not. Heck, you can't even use the sword for for good effect unless you've built up a bunch of heat in forge mode.

To fix this, you need to do two things. First, give the photon forge and sword more innate functions other than "damage" and "damage while self buffing". Second, make the remaining skills do more damage, so the forge can compete with other classes when specced for full damage, or it can be serviceable while using non-exceed utilities. In general, power engineer needs damage buffs anyway, and I would also like to see the scrapper do more than 28k.

@Krag.6210 said:I don't understand, Holo goes against everything Engineer was supposed to be.Bye bye kits, you're forced into a regular 2 weapon sets and generic utils.Except there's a twist! You can't choose your weapons, Photon Forge is always one of the two and Sword is the only one that works in tandem with it, oh and you can't use the first for too long or you explode.

Frankly as someone who wanted to love Engi at release but couldn't because of the chaotic mess of its plethora of systems tossed together, Holosmith ripping some of them out is good.

Sure, I'd prefer kits to be the class mechanic of Engineers. And each new elite spec adding one of them. But it's not, our class mechanic is toolbelt skills.