Proposed Holosmith Changes

I've been seeing a lot of different threads about making changes to Holosmith as well as commenting on them myself.

I figured I'd make this thread so everyone can compile their wishes for Holosmith changes in one thread and maybe generate more visibility for what the players would like to see.

Biggest impacts with the smallest changes would be:

1) Sword auto has a more useful benefit on having heat. 25% / 50% more critical damage would go a long way to making it good, better than just using bomb auto.

2) Revert trait nerfs on explosives and full endurance. I see that they were afraid of holosmith being overpowered with those still in the game, but they were very wrong.

3) Either go all-in on the burning/power hybrid so we know to use grievers, or stop half-kittening it. Trait to give us burn on auto attack and we'll get the message (possibly rework the currently-garbage Solar Focusing Lens). Right now there's not enough burn in photon forge for it to be feasible, all zerker is our current best option and even then it's "ehn" as seen by the negative feedback.

4) Make all exceeds benefit from enhanced capacity storage unit.

5) Give all engineer weapons heat benefits.

6) Add combo finishers and fields to holosmith skills where appropriate. There is a distinct lack of "combo" in this spec.

@Kamahl.3621 said:Biggest impacts with the smallest changes would be:

1) Sword auto has a more useful benefit on having heat. 25% / 50% more critical damage would go a long way to making it good, better than just using bomb auto.

That may not be enough, I think at the minimum (in addition to this) they need much better power scaling. That would help lower power builds not abuse any damage buff but if you build for glass cannon you actually hit like it. The other day I was trying to work out the best rotation for power. First place I started was "filler" skills, do we still need Bomb Kit? So I did a test of sword auto vs bombs.

• Sword AA vs Bomb AA = Sword lost
• Rotation of 2 Sword AA chains + Refraction Cutter vs Bomb AA = Sword lost
• Rotation of 2 Sword AA chains + Refraction Cutter + heat level using PBM vs Bomb AA = Closer, but sword lost
• Rotation of 2 Sword AA chains + Refraction Cutter + heat level using PBM vs Bomb AA + Fire Bomb on cooldown = Wasn't close anymore, sword lost

There's no reason a pretty involved rotation of timing the cooldown reduction from sword AA to utilize Refraction Cutter (an actual hard hitting skill) shouldn't beat Bomb auto. Plus in any real rotation you might do that once or twice per rotation? With heat bonuses it shouldn't even be a conversation.

@Adamantium.3682 said:

@Kamahl.3621 said:Biggest impacts with the smallest changes would be:

1) Sword auto has a more useful benefit on having heat. 25% / 50% more critical damage would go a long way to making it good, better than just using bomb auto.

• Sword AA vs Bomb AA = Sword lost
• Rotation of 2 Sword AA chains + Refraction Cutter vs Bomb AA = Sword lost
• Rotation of 2 Sword AA chains + Refraction Cutter + heat level using PBM vs Bomb AA = Closer, but sword lost
• Rotation of 2 Sword AA chains + Refraction Cutter + heat level using PBM vs Bomb AA + Fire Bomb on cooldown = Wasn't close anymore, sword lost

It's one part of engineer design I've never understood -- our weapons are some of the weakest and slowest in the game, without a doubt, and the only reason I've heard given was "kits, lul." At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if our next elite spec's "weapon" was actually just a kit. Because that's what Holosmith feels like.

@Vagrant.7206 said:

5) Give all engineer weapons heat benefits.

Pretty much this !!

I am trying to approach this from a realistic perspective... meaning looking at Anet's history of balance patches what kind of changes do they really make? They almost certainly won't do something like remove the cooldowns for all PF skills, or completely rework the heat mechanic. They will make "small slices" as I believe they once described it. Also, it's very unlikely they will reverse nerfs that they just did... as much as we think they should (so I won't say Crystal Configuration: Storm damage buffed by 10% as much as I want to!)

With that in mind... I think something like this could be realistic (even still probably more than they will do). I'll leave bug fixes/QOL and core Engi stuff out of it except for the PF thing.

"We wanted the Holosmith to be a high risk high damage style of gameplay. While the design came out well in this regard and it feels satisfying to manage the heat mechanic, Holosmiths weren't being rewarded enough for successfully managing the restrictions and dangers inherent in the heat mechanic and Photon Forge. With this balance patch we wanted to increase the sustained damage potential of the Holosmith. In addition we also felt some aspects of the Holosmith didn't flow as well as we hoped, like toolbelt cooldowns and combo capability."

• Photon Forge now uses equipped weapon strength in PvE and WvW, like we did with kits 3 years ago!
• Sword: Increased damage coefficients on all skills to allow high power builds to better utilize the sword for damage. Heat bonus on auto attack chain changed to critical damage instead of critical chance.
• Holo Leap is now a Leap Finisher.
• Cauterize is now instant.
• Solar Focusing Lens now grants +10% damage against burning foes in addition to its current effects.
• Hard Light Arena now pulses damage to enemies. (EDIT: Less than Shredder Gyro)
• Photon Wall now allows use of Launch Wall for an additional 3s after blocking duration ends.
• Launch Wall now pierces enemies and each wall thrown is a Projectile Finisher.
• Crystal Configuration: Storm is now a Projectile Finisher.
• Corona Burst final hit, Holographic Shockwave, and Coolant Blast are now Blast Finishers.
• Corona Burst now applies a Fire Field while pulsing damage to foes.
• Flash Spark cooldown reduced to 15 seconds.
• Blade Burst cooldown reduced to 25 seconds.

I had made a few threads for each to separate the discussion of different Holosmith issues a bit; figured why not share the links here instead of pasting and ignoring responses to them. :)

• Increasing Holosmith Mobility
• Coolant Blast and Cauterize Changes
• Adding Light Aura/Light Fields
• Necessary Combo Fields/Combo Finishers
• Exceed Skill Usage

@Adamantium.3682 said:Radiant Arc is now a Leap Finisher.

Maybe it was a stealth change or was bugged before but I just checked and Radiant Arc is a Leap Finisher already.

I'd like to see Photon Wall be more effective, either increase the duration to 5 seconds or lower the cool down to 25 seconds.

Also I mentioned this in another thread but I'd like to see more involvement with Light Aura and fields. Holosmith seems the perfects candidate for a functionality change for Light Aura on its profession (kind of like how ele gets a trait that increases protection's effectiveness from 33% to 40%, Holosmith could make Light Aura -15 or -20% reduced condi damage instead of 10%. Maybe make Laser Disk a mobile Light field as well.

i would also like to see more ofhand options cause as zerker you have actual only the shield pistol is more condi based, so dunno if a hybrid build with sword pistol could work but even if you take viper the sword skill 25% more crit is useles cause u have the recision but you are missing the crit dmg.

It would be nice to have something like sword/sword build to have more zerker abilitys for ofhand.

@Arimas.3492 said:I'd like to see Photon Wall be more effective, either increase the duration to 5 seconds or lower the cool down to 25 seconds.

Also I mentioned this in another thread but I'd like to see more involvement with Light Aura and fields. Holosmith seems the perfects candidate for a functionality change for Light Aura on its profession (kind of like how ele gets a trait that increases protection's effectiveness from 33% to 40%, Holosmith could make Light Aura -15 or -20% reduced condi damage instead of 10%. Maybe make Laser Disk a mobile Light field as well.

Well Photon wall actually has an insane amount of aoe burst with 50% heat thats 3 exploding walls with 5 targets ive been able to do upwards so far of 7k crits on the wall for 21k damage single target but add in 5 targets for the explosion you can do insane amounts of damage I wouldn't mind the cd reduction, but I feel the launch wall part should be instant cast.

@Frightlight.3796 said:Well Photon wall actually has an insane amount of aoe burst with 50% heat thats 3 exploding walls with 5 targets ive been able to do upwards so far of 7k crits on the wall for 21k damage single target but add in 5 targets for the explosion you can do insane amounts of damage I wouldn't mind the cd reduction, but I feel the launch wall part should be instant cast.

It's a 4.5 power coefficient at 50% heat and very much worth using (the entire auto chain in Forge is the same thing, for reference). If not during forge, then definitely when you're cooling down, since the aftercast on it seems a bit aggressive, but the animation of creating + throwing the walls takes slightly more than a second, while the forge chain is 2.33 (ish?) seconds, so it's definitely a gain, and doesn't generate heat either, buying you time so you can get off another Blitz before needing to exit forge.

@Arimas.3492 said:I've been seeing a lot of different threads about making changes to Holosmith as well as commenting on them myself.

I figured I'd make this thread so everyone can compile their wishes for Holosmith changes in one thread and maybe generate more visibility for what the players would like to see.

My first question is..... How do you determine that making YET ANOTHER holosmith change thread, will result in streamlining the conversation? It quite literally does the exact opposite. Other than pointing out the flaws of the backward logic of numerically adding another thread on a topic that is already weighted down with the issue of multiple jumbled threads, I will add my concerns.

Make all exceeds benefit from the enhanced capacity trait similarly to the sword skills.

Offer benefits to the other weapons skills for having heat levels. We are given damage by max heat levels, issues a forced time lockout of kits, and locked out of Orbital Strike (losing damage and access to two blast finishers), Med Pack Drop (losing multiple heals and a 14 condition cleanse), Elixir X (losing access to various CC, damage, and survivability option.).

Add combo finishers and fields to some of the holosmith skills. WHy are we punished with fewer fields while having the ones we can access, on a forced lockout when using the holosmith designed functionality?

Why in the sky above, do we have to take condition damage when using a skill that cleanses conditions? (Cauterize)

@Arimas.3492 said:

@Adamantium.3682 said:Radiant Arc is now a Leap Finisher.

Thanks I had mixed up the two leaps, that should be Holo Leap

@Adamantium.3682 said:

• Solar Focusing Lens now grants +10% damage against burning foes in addition to its current effects.This, so much this. I feel like Solar focusing lens could be stronger then what it is. Along with other weapons getting heat benefits. If holosmith is aimed at DPS and not utility feels to me like it should be buffed to be a stronger pure DPS spec. (In a pve sense, I haven't tested pvp or WvW with it at all.)

@coglin.1496 said:

@Arimas.3492 said:I've been seeing a lot of different threads about making changes to Holosmith as well as commenting on them myself.

I figured I'd make this thread so everyone can compile their wishes for Holosmith changes in one thread and maybe generate more visibility for what the players would like to see.

I figured I'd make this thread for all of Holosmith concerns so in the future people can comment here rather than keep making new threads for each individual change. Thanks for your input, I agree with the cauterize especially, it's counter productive it seems.

Give rifle/pistol mainhand heat interaction. I believe allowing rifle to burn on Overcharged shot or Blunderbuss blast when over a certain heat level maybe would be a start.

Rifle net shot: 130 radius , up to 3 targets?

Kits: Flamethrower ought to have heat interaction. Maybe added 200 to 300 range depending on heat level?Flamethrower: add blast on Air blast...

Lower the overheat damage. Something like a 1 second daze would be enough of a penalty given you are locked out of Photon Forge...Maybe make AED prevent overheat damage.

Flash Spark --- add Reveal ?

Photon Wall : outside of WvW it likely has low usage, so please consider decreasing recharge.

@Adamantium.3682 said:I am trying to approach this from a realistic perspective... meaning looking at Anet's history of balance patches what kind of changes do they really make? They almost certainly won't do something like remove the cooldowns for all PF skills, or completely rework the heat mechanic. They will make "small slices" as I believe they once described it. Also, it's very unlikely they will reverse nerfs that they just did... as much as we think they should (so I won't say Crystal Configuration: Storm damage buffed by 10% as much as I want to!)

With that in mind... I think something like this could be realistic (even still probably more than they will do). I'll leave bug fixes/QOL and core Engi stuff out of it except for the PF thing.

"We wanted the Holosmith to be a high risk high damage style of gameplay. While the design came out well in this regard and it feels satisfying to manage the heat mechanic, Holosmiths weren't being rewarded enough for successfully managing the restrictions and dangers inherent in the heat mechanic and Photon Forge. With this balance patch we wanted to increase the sustained damage potential of the Holosmith. In addition we also felt some aspects of the Holosmith didn't flow as well as we hoped, like toolbelt cooldowns and combo capability."

• Photon Forge now uses equipped weapon strength in PvE and WvW, like we did with kits 3 years ago!
• Sword: Increased damage coefficients on all skills to allow high power builds to better utilize the sword for damage. Heat bonus on auto attack chain changed to critical damage instead of critical chance.
• Holo Leap is now a Leap Finisher.
• Cauterize is now instant.
• Solar Focusing Lens now grants +10% damage against burning foes in addition to its current effects.
• Hard Light Arena now pulses damage to enemies. (EDIT: Less than Shredder Gyro)
• Photon Wall now allows use of Launch Wall for an additional 3s after blocking duration ends.
• Launch Wall now pierces enemies and each wall thrown is a Projectile Finisher.
• Crystal Configuration: Storm is now a Projectile Finisher.
• Corona Burst final hit, Holographic Shockwave, and Coolant Blast are now Blast Finishers.
• Corona Burst now applies a Fire Field while pulsing damage to foes.
• Flash Spark cooldown reduced to 15 seconds.
• Blade Burst cooldown reduced to 25 seconds.

Keep in mind that for wvw purposes HLA is a defensive skill and adding pulsing damage will kill you fast due to retaliation and its long duration. What if it instead worked like air overload on tempest and gave players a buff causing a small holoburst on their next attack. Right now HLA is actually the one skill i feel satisfied with, and i think its well balanced so it doesn't need to much help in pvp/wvw although i see where you are coming from in a raid scenario.

And hell yes to the photon wall suggestion. I would have suggested the launching of walls to happen automatically without cast time on skill end (same for shield 5 really) but this works too. They did this for bandits defense so why not for us? Also just from a intuitive perspective it would be nice if they worked like guardians blocking shot while traveling. And a larger explosion radius would be nice.

As for blade burst this skill is so incredibly dull, like all tool belts ( except HLA). I could see us throwing a laser disc like a frisbee or something more entertaining than just a instant meh damage SD proc fodder (which we already have plenty of)

I like that you try to be realistic. However i can dream right?

I really hope anet fixes the pof powercreep first, and tunes the overperforming classes down to start with.Then only minor number adjustments would have to be made to bring holo in a decent spot.

I am curious, how much of a difference proper gear scaling for forgemode will make.Also they should reverse the crystal configuration nerf.

If thats not enough, i'd rather have changes to how lazers edge works, on top of a buff to PF AA power scaling.

My idea for a lazers edge rework:First off, it needs to affect outgoing condition damage.

Second, to make it feel more rewarding, rework it into a stacking buff, that adds 3% outgoing power and condition damage per stack.

You get one stack for every 10% heat increase, and the max stacks vary depending on the grandmaster trait you choose.

With vent exhaust you cannot get more than nine stacks (@90%heat):This makes it rewarding to keep your heat level up without overheating, as you'd loose all stacks on overheating.

With enhanced storage capacity you get 1 stack per 10%, until five stacks are reached (50%) and then 1 more for every 20% with a max of nine stacks (@140%heat).You loose all stacks on overheating.

With phototonic blasting module you get one stack per 10% and loose five stacks on overheating (@100%heat), but keep the remaining five until your heat reaches zero%.

tl:dr

I propose to fix the holo dmg problem by changing the "lazers edge" trait into a stacking buff that affects outgoing power and condition damage (depending on your heat level).

@miriforst.1290 said:

@Adamantium.3682 said:I am trying to approach this from a realistic perspective... meaning looking at Anet's history of balance patches what kind of changes do they really make? They almost certainly won't do something like remove the cooldowns for all PF skills, or completely rework the heat mechanic. They will make "small slices" as I believe they once described it. Also, it's very unlikely they will reverse nerfs that they just did... as much as we think they should (so I won't say Crystal Configuration: Storm damage buffed by 10% as much as I want to!)

With that in mind... I think something like this could be realistic (even still probably more than they will do). I'll leave bug fixes/QOL and core Engi stuff out of it except for the PF thing.

"We wanted the Holosmith to be a high risk high damage style of gameplay. While the design came out well in this regard and it feels satisfying to manage the heat mechanic, Holosmiths weren't being rewarded enough for successfully managing the restrictions and dangers inherent in the heat mechanic and Photon Forge. With this balance patch we wanted to increase the sustained damage potential of the Holosmith. In addition we also felt some aspects of the Holosmith didn't flow as well as we hoped, like toolbelt cooldowns and combo capability."

• Photon Forge now uses equipped weapon strength in PvE and WvW, like we did with kits 3 years ago!
• Sword: Increased damage coefficients on all skills to allow high power builds to better utilize the sword for damage. Heat bonus on auto attack chain changed to critical damage instead of critical chance.
• Holo Leap is now a Leap Finisher.
• Cauterize is now instant.
• Solar Focusing Lens now grants +10% damage against burning foes in addition to its current effects.
• Hard Light Arena now pulses damage to enemies. (EDIT: Less than Shredder Gyro)
• Photon Wall now allows use of Launch Wall for an additional 3s after blocking duration ends.
• Launch Wall now pierces enemies and each wall thrown is a Projectile Finisher.
• Crystal Configuration: Storm is now a Projectile Finisher.
• Corona Burst final hit, Holographic Shockwave, and Coolant Blast are now Blast Finishers.
• Corona Burst now applies a Fire Field while pulsing damage to foes.
• Flash Spark cooldown reduced to 15 seconds.
• Blade Burst cooldown reduced to 25 seconds.

I totally agree re: HLA. I was just trying to put in something that would help sustained damage for Holo and not require Nades/Bombs and actually give us some small group support without dropping a bunch of dps. Plus it's weird thematically (to me) that's it's not punishing for an enemy to stand in it.

It's a great skill as is and I'm happy if it were left alone.

@Kamahl.3621 said:Biggest impacts with the smallest changes would be:

1) Sword auto has a more useful benefit on having heat. 25% / 50% more critical damage would go a long way to making it good, better than just using bomb auto.

2) Revert trait nerfs on explosives and full endurance. I see that they were afraid of holosmith being overpowered with those still in the game, but they were very wrong.

3) Either go all-in on the burning/power hybrid so we know to use grievers, or stop half-kittening it. Trait to give us burn on auto attack and we'll get the message (possibly rework the currently-garbage Solar Focusing Lens). Right now there's not enough burn in photon forge for it to be feasible, all zerker is our current best option and even then it's "ehn" as seen by the negative feedback.

Condi Holo is a dps increase to core condi engi, while both out DPS any power build engi has.

Griever's is incredibly bad on its own because of no expertise, it isn't comparable to vipers having no ferocity.

@Rhomulos.2089 said:

Condi Holo is a dps increase to core condi engi, while both out DPS any power build engi has.

Griever's is incredibly bad on its own because of no expertise, it isn't comparable to vipers having no ferocity.

I'm not sure if condi holo is a dps increase over core. Can you reach 34k+ with holo?What rotation, utilities do you use when doing so? It has awesome burst but get better results with core condi.Kit cd prevents normal condi rotation so i don't know where to improve.Reached 33k but core is still higher

@Rhomulos.2089 said:Griever's is incredibly bad on its own because of no expertise, it isn't comparable to vipers having no ferocity.

No, Griever's is not incredibly bad.

Expertise is not universally good. Expertise is a stat that is largely dependent on your damage breakdown.Expertise has two "requirements": As little power damage as possible, plus many conditions with equal damage spread.

Condition Engineer has a damage breakdown that is actually very poor for Expertise.A very high contribution of a single condition (burn), followed by medium contribution of a second condition (bleed).Then is still a good junk of power damage, that is only "low" due to all the expertise you have, which pushes condition #2 ahead of it.

Grenade Kit is the single biggest contributor to power damage on Condi Engineer.Grenade Kit is the single biggest contributor to bleed damage on Condi Engineer.

You're effectively gearing expertise to maximize the bleed provided by grenade kit, while grenade kit adds so much power damage that you'd actually want ferocity.

If you're going for condi engi + holo instead of tools, you're adding signficant more burn and trading grenade power for holo power. Go for Grieving, cap burning with balthazar (or flame legion), and replace grenade kit with something that actually adds damage (flame turret or rocket boots), instead of wasting stats on expertise to max whatever minimal bleeding damage remains.