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Exceed Skills aren't as useful as they could be to replace kits...they really are just for show.


LUST.2305

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Hard Light Arena

  • Poses no threat to enemies in the Arena. If it should apply some threatening debuffs (maybe blindness, vulnerability?)

Photon Wall

  • It should automatically fire unblockable parts of the barrier when it blocks/reflects attacks for the duration. Right now, it's really no different than using the Off-Hand shield skill (Magnetic Shield) but just one direction and a little bit more range...

Spectrum Shield

  • Duration is stupidly short and the cooldown is long. I say the duration gets longer the more attacks it takes, capped of course, since it only reduces 50% unlike other classes that have similar skills that potentially reduce 100%.

Laser Disk

Coolant Blast

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HLA is a good skill as it is IMO right now, if it posted a threatening debuff then enemies would want to stay out of it, whereas the Engineer wants to stay in it because of really good defensive buffs, so enemies avoiding it is not good.

Photon Wall should have a longer duration or a shorter CD, even with reflect its fairly weak being a 3 second long skill, also the flipover skill should last longer after the wall has been used that way you can get the full duration of the wall and use the attack portion of the skill when you're now in position.

Spectrum shield is fine as it is, if used right that's a stun break on a 15s CD with 3 seconds of 50% DMG reduction. Very powerful ability. The toolbelt on the other hand needs a major CD reduction, it should also be 15 seconds or so.

I've only used laser disk in PvE so far and it's decent damage that you can just forget about after casting it, not sure how you could change it TBH, I don't think a whirl finisher would be the right thing for it, I could see it being a mobile light field though but its duration is long so that might also be too good.

Coolant blast could get a blast finisher which would be good, I'd like to see the Regen buff you get from being over the 50% heat threshold be shared too, or at least the base healing be increased.

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I agree they could use a look. I think boon strip on arena would be very nice! Maybe condition cleanse? This would help a ton with engies in WvW. It's toolbelt however is very nice. Otherwise this is my favourite on offer from Holosmiths skills

Wall is pretty poor, I mean we have an elixir toolbelt skill that does a better job AND it's main skill has quickness and a stun break. It's toolbelt is ok for WvW roaming.

Disc is terrible it's damage is ok, but if I am picking a cast and forget damage boost, again, I would prefer an elixir, and its toolbelt is awful. Might be good for condition I'm not sure, but I would like it to have cripple added to it.

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@Arimas.3492 said:HLA is a good skill as it is IMO right now, if it posted a threatening debuff then enemies would want to stay out of it, whereas the Engineer wants to stay in it because of really good defensive buffs, so enemies avoiding it is not good.

@Vagrant.7206 said:I have a proposal for Hard Light Arena: Projectiles that enter it get slowed down (50%). Might make for some fun counterplay when holosmith is getting ranged.

My reasoning on that is PvP experience. No one cares that arena is up, Protection is the only real benefit. Fury isn't adding much to your build that already gives 50%+ crit chance and little that regen that isn't going to keep you sustained. The field is light, but as discussed in the combo field thread, there is nothing much that can help you fight off conditions. That or more beneficial defensive buffs like: Resistance, Retaliation, Vigor, Stability. Or just give the full boon set (considering PvE group settings), raids would love that.

Least this way, there is some threat for coming toe-to-toe with a Holosmith in the arena because right now so many classes zone a holosmith out with fighting in their own AoEs that actually damage enemies.

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If you want an Engineer without a utility bar locked up by kits, you remove the Toolbelt, move kits into a "Profession skill" pool (ala the utility skill pool) with two slots (F1-F2), rebalance the kits a bit in order to promote more compacted purpose for each kit, and then revamp bombs a bit so that there is a power option.

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@lorddarkflare.9186 said:Uh, no single skill type effectively competes with kits. I agree that exceeds need to be better, but the fact that they do not compete is more a problem with Kits.

That's the thing though, as long as kits exists no single skill will compete with them. It's not a problem really because some skills can fill niches kits can't which is where they should specialize them.

I think it would be a good idea to also take a pass on certain kits to make them more niche.

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@schloumou.3982 said:I really dont understand why Holo didnt get a single utillity to deal with condis. That makes him even more an easy prey to condibuilds than coreengi was since he cant use EG or mortar to its full potential. No kits are far from OP we just got no good alternatives...again.

So far, the only condi cleanse I know comes from cauterize and the trait that removes condis when you exit PF. Neither of which are optimal because we have better condi cleanses already.

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I posted this in another thread too, but since this is an exceed thread...I don't like heat interaction on Exceed skills in general. Some of them work, I think hard light arena or laser disk heat bonus makes sense.But a lot of them are reactive skills with decent amount of cooldowns, you really don't get to choose when you need them and plan heat management around it. It doesn't help that heat bonus doesn't actually feel like a bonus, it feels like a punishment when you don't get them.I wish it was more of a granular boost rather than a huge one-time check, like cooldowns rewinding faster(like you have alacrity) when you have/generate/spend high amount of heat, or giving you passive benefits like signets that scales with heat level.

Also, they have been reducing cooldowns on pretty much all gadget skills, so they would be competitive with kits. They seem to have forgotten about that with Exceed skills. Plus gadgets come with decent toolbelt skills! (what the hell is up with Flash spark being on 40 sec cooldown? I can slot in flamethrower to get the same thing on 20s cooldown.)

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@Yid.3024 said:But a lot of them are reactive skills with decent amount of cooldowns, you really don't get to choose when you need them and plan heat management around it. It doesn't help that heat bonus doesn't actually feel like a bonus, it feels like a punishment when you don't get them.

Bothers me too. I dont like the idea that you have to enter a fight already at a high heat level to be able to use those skills effectively.In a duel situation its fine because its playerskill to postpone the need to stunbreak e.g. to a point of hight heat but thats a rather niche szenario.

Also, they have been reducing cooldowns on pretty much all gadget skills, so they would be competitive with kits. They seem to have forgotten about that with Exceed skills. Plus gadgets come with decent toolbelt skills! (what the hell is up with Flash spark being on 40 sec cooldown? I can slot in flamethrower to get the same thing on 20s cooldown.)

Yeah i said the same thing when this TB-skill was first leaked and still think its an perfect example of an undertuned skill. Sadly wasnt changed.https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/professions/engineer/Holosmith-all-skills-and-traits-tooltips/first#post6666458

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@Yid.3024 said:But a lot of them are reactive skills with decent amount of cooldowns, you really don't get to choose when you need them and plan heat management around it. It doesn't help that heat bonus doesn't actually feel like a bonus, it feels like a punishment when you don't get them.

Well said. Prismatic Singularity is the only heat related skill I can think of that doesn't conform to this. It feels rewarding to be able to open combat with this skill if enemies are already within its range. It doesn't feel punishing to use it without heat.

I think it's unfair to expect this of all the heat skills, at a certain point there's only so many things you can design. But the ratio is very poor and some skills are way too far on the punishing end of the spectrum (looking at you Coolant Blast!)

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Not for nothing but Scrapper got traits interacting with gyros (well one trait anyway), there isn't a single trait interacting with Exceeds either (and since engineers needed to get an entirely new and unique type of skill once again, there aren't even runes for it or anything like that).

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I think conceptually it is difficult to talk about how to modify Holosmith, because base Engineer (specifically the way kits dominate the class design but are "just" utility skills) poses such big problems.

If it were on me I'd schedule a bigger rework of Engineer first. Potentially I'd go as far as dropping the entire toolbelt, instead placing 3-4 purpose-built kits there, then retooling the class without kits on healing/utility/elite slots. Elite specs would then "simply" add another kit on top, a fourth respectively fifth. A gyro kit (yummy!) or a photon forge kit, to be fair the latter already works exactly like that.

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@Carighan.6758 said:I think conceptually it is difficult to talk about how to modify Holosmith, because base Engineer (specifically the way kits dominate the class design but are "just" utility skills) poses such big problems.

If it were on me I'd schedule a bigger rework of Engineer first. Potentially I'd go as far as dropping the entire toolbelt, instead placing 3-4 purpose-built kits there, then retooling the class without kits on healing/utility/elite slots. Elite specs would then "simply" add another kit on top, a fourth respectively fifth. A gyro kit (yummy!) or a photon forge kit, to be fair the latter already works exactly like that.

Essentially a firebrand then?

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They're just not good enough.If they want Holo utilities to be worth picking over kits, they need to be good by default, and really good when above the heat threshold, instead they made them bad by default and just alright with heat.There's a difference between a skill that could have been used better and one that just isn't worth using and right now most of the new utilities fit into the second category without heat. The others are already so situational by design that whether you have enough heat when you need them is more up to luck than anything.

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