Heya!

I've been benchmarking for many hours since after the patch and while Holo is even weaker than pre patch (which is sad but not the topic here), the most unsatisfying change / interaction is between the new mechanic, overheating locking you out of toolbelt abilities and the grandmaster trait "Photonic Blasting Module".

I do understand and can live with the fact that you (ANet) want to punish overheating. However the trait Photonic Blasting Module works with that mechanic and it feels extremely bad, dull and boring to play Holosmith with it now. The issue here is that you can't keep your dps toolbelt abitlies on cd, nor are you able to use specific toolbelt abilities when they are required; you can't time things anymore. Holosmith lost not only a lot of depth and fun, it also lost the ability to play with some base Engi as well as Holo skills, talking Rifle Turret and Photon Wall toolbelts here, as those require you to cast them every 8s on point. The lock out therefore basically prevents you from playing sword with that trait. I know there is an alternative (even tho still underwhelming) GM trait for sword, but I question the decision of creating a trait that prevents you to efficiently use your profession weapon in Raids.

I push for this suggestion as it desperately needs to happen ANet, and asap as well:

while you have the Photonic Blasting Module traited, you should not be locked out of Toolbelt abilities after overheating.

The current mechanic interferences make little sense and prevents fun and interactive gameplay. To know what I mean, the new Holo rotation will now always be this:Enter forge 34, aa's, big old, barrage, 34 overheat | rifle, nades and bombs | repeatThere's no room for adaptation anymore, which is really sad. :(

Thank you for reading.

greez o/

• Xyonon

Edit: Oh yea, also condi Holo is heavily crippled now as well. :/

Edit2: Here the "new" rotation for you guys. Look how fun it is! How amazing the gameplay is! /s

I think the change wanted to intentionally push Holos out of the very dominant PBM. It did achieve that by completely phasing out Holo from anything but casual open world. The alternative, ECSU, feels very counterintuitive: juggle your heat levels but every time you leave forge you completely lose one of the biggest modifiers (if not the biggest) you have.

I don't know, feels very incomplete.

I agree with this post

Press 'F' for Holo main.

I know what can solve that, maybe other DH buff.

ECSU has the issue that the huge modifier you have in forge disappears completely when going out of forge. This combined with the fact that the rotation doesn't align with Laser Disk and Prime Light Beam, so you often get them ready at 150 heat when you have to leave the forge - at this point you don't know wether you shoudl use it for more uptime or wait and use it with a higher modifier. However you can't make use of the 22.5% dmg because you barely stay up there, so there are only a few "tics" in the modifier.ECSU needs either "you keep Laser's Edge for Xs after leaving forge above 100 heat" or in general "Laser's Edge stays out of forge with 50% efficiency", tho I prefer the first one by far!

PBM then would become the burst trait while ECSU becomes the dps trait. That would be really cool if you ask me. Right now they seem equal(ly bad) with ~29.5-30k final dps, while PBM just have more burst and is ~500 dps higher in general. Another big issue I found while trying some raids was that with PBM I'm not only locked out of toolbelts for dps, but also utility - I can't keep and use Big'Ol'Bomb for cc anymore, as ... well I just can't use it ... -.-''

i really hope anet takes this to heart, because dps holo in pve feels horrible to play now.

I just noticed that condi Holo is heavily crippled as well now. :/

@Xyonon.3987 said:I just noticed that condi Holo is heavily crippled as well now. :/

Yeah, solar focusing lens gets particularly hurt by the change, because it specifically relies on overloading in PBM.

@emtbh.4315 said:i really hope anet takes this to heart, because dps holo in pve feels horrible to play now.I hope so too

The feeling I got from this patch is "what the hell am I supposed to do?!"

I remember awhile ago. Bomb kit was nerfed. Hard. Engineers were one of the easiest classes to bring to raids, because you could just sit on bomb kit + rifle turret and do 30k dps. Anet decided that they didn't want that. So, they nerfed bomb kit, and gave engineers nothing in return. Then, engineers have to do cheese grater-on-forehead difficult rotations barely be relevant. It was terrible.

Come PoF, and holosmith gets introduced. It is a bit of a blessing for this class, because photon forge does high damage without playing Flight of the Bumble Bee on your computer. But then, holosmith gets nerfed. Again, and again, more and more nerfs. They went from 38k DPS to 31k DPS. Holosmiths had a complicated rotation again, and their condi builds now did more damage than their power builds. But now, that has also massively been nerfed. Their reasoning, for what little they gave, doesn't make sense. They're trying to nerf elite specializations to make core builds more viable, but they're just ruining the class. It's like Anet decided the only thing anyone should play is core condi, a spec in which after several days of trying I cannot break 20k DPS on, because I can't play Flight of the Bumble Bee. "Oh, Holosmith has a simple rotation that does 30k power damage? Well, we can't have that."

What the hell am I supposed to do? Are engineers forever relegated only to players with musician level dexterity and hikkomori level obsession with the game? Am I supposed to run around in braindead scrapper builds, ignoring the fact that my presence makes everything worse because the damage I do doesn't compensate for the up-scaling I cause?

This wasn't a balance patch. This was murder.

@Xyonon.3987 said:I just noticed that condi Holo is heavily crippled as well now. :/

That's terrible news, how crippled is cHolo?

Edit2: Added a video of the "intense" rotation.

After playing around i knew pretty much exactly what that video would sadly show and it just sux it comes out as an extended cooldown on barrage and big old while also locking us out of any utility we might have on belt.

Even if i wanted to save big old for cc or to avoid knocking stuff back i actually now cant do that without loosing to much dps in which case why bother with holo at all.

What if you used med kit and overheat you now cant use the self heal on yourself as its the F1 skill all while taking damage from overheat.

Use AED for CC ? well to bad if you are in overheat.

What if you used med kit and overheat you now cant use the self heal on yourself as its the F1 skill all while taking damage from overheat.

Woah this is probably the worst scenario so far. Thanks for pointing it out. Yea the flexibility or rather our ability to react with all our skills is just ... blocked. Engi is standing for this, which is exactly WHY the blasting module needs to preven the overheat lockout for toolbelt skills from happening! Ty for your support!

@wiazabi.2549 said:After playing around i knew pretty much exactly what that video would sadly show and it just sux it comes out as an extended cooldown on barrage and big old while also locking us out of any utility we might have on belt.

Even if i wanted to save big old for cc or to avoid knocking stuff back i actually now cant do that without loosing to much dps in which case why bother with holo at all.

What if you used med kit and overheat you now cant use the self heal on yourself as its the F1 skill all while taking damage from overheat.

Use AED for CC ? well to bad if you are in overheat.

The amazing thing about it all is just that it locks us out of so much. The entire class mechanic is toolbelt -- that's what defines engineer. It's the justification for why we don't have a weapon swap.

Half of the problem is, they don't want toolbelt to be a thing for Holo, but are scared to just remove it. They're not just trying to make core specs viable, they're trying to make the elite specs something else entirely (see Berserker and Scrapper getting negative stats in their minor traits).

Yes, it sucks for now and needs some adjustments, but I don't disagree with the direction because elites were ruining the game for years to the point where alot of people felt the expos were basically P2W especially in WvW/PvP game modes.

Without this direction, they wouldn't be able to add more elites in the future, because each elite becomes a tumor.

@"Hannelore.8153" said:Half of the problem is, they don't want toolbelt to be a thing for Holo, but are scared to just remove it. They're not just trying to make core specs viable, they're trying to make the elite specs something else entirely (see Berserker and Scrapper getting negative stats in their minor traits).

Yes, it sucks for now and needs some adjustments, but I don't disagree with the direction because elites were ruining the game for years to the point where alot of people felt the expos were basically P2W especially in WvW/PvP game modes.

Without this direction, they wouldn't be able to add more elites in the future, because each elite becomes a tumor.

I'd say it's probably a little too late to make that claim. It's been nearly 2 years since PoF dropped, nearly 4 since HoT. If they really wanted to stop the "tumor" they should've acted sooner.

I'm more likely to believe they're dropping new elite specs soon, which is why they're nerfing existing ones.

It is not just a nerf of damage that really aggravates me since I felt the old power holosmith rotation was okay. What truly annoys me is how the change feels when playing condi holosmith which before the patch felt extremely smooth because I could fill in gaps with big ol' bomb and grenade barrage after I overheat and without that option I have to resort to grenade autos which feels weird. The option to use my toolbelt skills after overheating allowed me to make up mistakes in my rotation by filling those in there. Making condi holosmith lose that smooth feeling is really a pain. At this point of gameplay after like 4-5 thousand hours across 4 accounts in this game the only reason I play raids and PvP is to enjoy the feeling of playing Engineer/Holosmith and without that the game is basically boring. The desire to auto attack in magnetic shield is not appetizing to me.

Changing Photonic Blasting Module to not negate toolbelt skills will both help with dps slightly but also make the class feel less clunky. While the change won't make holosmith competitive with Weaver for dps, but it will feel less like a liability to bring to actual raid environment. Perhaps I will just need to adapt a bit, but for now I will also be swapping to condi core more often.

@"Xyonon.3987" said:Heya!

I've been benchmarking for many hours since after the patch and while Holo is even weaker than pre patch (which is sad but not the topic here), the most unsatisfying change / interaction is between the new mechanic, overheating locking you out of toolbelt abilities and the grandmaster trait "Photonic Blasting Module".

I do understand and can live with the fact that you (ANet) want to punish overheating. However the trait Photonic Blasting Module works with that mechanic and it feels extremely bad, dull and boring to play Holosmith with it now. The issue here is that you can't keep your dps toolbelt abitlies on cd, nor are you able to use specific toolbelt abilities when they are required; you can't time things anymore. Holosmith lost not only a lot of depth and fun, it also lost the ability to play with some base Engi as well as Holo skills, talking Rifle Turret and Photon Wall toolbelts here, as those require you to cast them every 8s on point. The lock out therefore basically prevents you from playing sword with that trait. I know there is an alternative (even tho still underwhelming) GM trait for sword, but I question the decision of creating a trait that prevents you to efficiently use your profession weapon in Raids.

I push for this suggestion as it desperately needs to happen ANet, and asap as well:

while you have the Photonic Blasting Module traited, you should not be locked out of Toolbelt abilities after overheating.

The current mechanic interferences make little sense and prevents fun and interactive gameplay. To know what I mean, the new Holo rotation will now always be this:Enter forge 34, aa's, big old, barrage, 34 overheat | rifle, nades and bombs | repeatThere's no room for adaptation anymore, which is really sad. :(

Thank you for reading.

greez o/

• Xyonon

Edit: Oh yea, also condi Holo is heavily crippled now as well. :/

Edit2: Here the "new" rotation for you guys. Look how fun it is! How amazing the gameplay is! /s

Srsly please get rid of the toolbelt lockout while using PBM. :(

So then it's confirmed that Photonic Blasting Module, when equipped, doesn't mitigate the toolbelt lockout. Well, that's a bummer. Agreed, PBM should prevent locking out of toolbelt during overheat, as the trait WANTS you to overheat.

Changing Photonic Blasting Module to not negate toolbelt skills will both help with dps slightly but also make the class feel less clunky.Frankly, I'd gladly wait until next balance patch for the dps if they'd change the toolbelt part :/

@Xyonon.3987 said:

Changing Photonic Blasting Module to not negate toolbelt skills will both help with dps slightly but also make the class feel less clunky.Frankly, I'd gladly wait until next balance patch for the dps if they'd change the toolbelt part :/

That's the biggest bummer, they may not even address it next balance patch

I think the main problem with this change is:

• no half-decent player ever overheats by accident

Overheating accidentally is something you might do a few times when you're new to holosmith. If you do, it's already pretty punishing in that you're going to take damage and not get the heal from Heat Therapy, and be locked out of forge until it clears. .. but then you do that a few times and quickly figure out how to manage heat and not use forge when it would cause you to overheat.

So that leaves the intentional use of overheat with PBM. This is almost entirely a PvE thing (basically no one uses PBM in wvw/pvp) and only serves to punish holo dps. If this was their intended nerf, then fine. I don't think it's necessary, but that's what it does. However, why didn't they just say that in the patch notes? They could have just said "we're adding this penalty because Holo is overperforming in raids compared to other engineer specs"

This lockout is possibly the most dumbest change in the history of guild wars.

Please revert this change immediately.

You cannot CC, you cannot heal, you cannot use pulls, you cannot use traited toolbelt skills, you cannot give yourself superspeed to run away from mobs, you cannot use emergency stealth, you cannot use condi clear, you cannot stunbreak, YOU CANT DO ANYTHING IF YOU OVERHEAT LITERALLY

FIX IT!

@Control.8154 said:This lockout is possibly the most dumbest change in the history of guild wars.

Please revert this change immediately.

You cannot CC, you cannot heal, you cannot use pulls, you cannot use traited toolbelt skills, you cannot give yourself superspeed to run away from mobs, you cannot use emergency stealth, you cannot use condi clear, you cannot stunbreak, YOU CANT DO ANYTHING IF YOU OVERHEAT LITERALLY

FIX IT!

But...but..before you could use your forge to do nearly 90%of what good dps classes do that cant be!

@jan.7915 said:

@Control.8154 said:This lockout is possibly the most dumbest change in the history of guild wars.

Please revert this change immediately.

You cannot CC, you cannot heal, you cannot use pulls, you cannot use traited toolbelt skills, you cannot give yourself superspeed to run away from mobs, you cannot use emergency stealth, you cannot use condi clear, you cannot stunbreak, YOU CANT DO ANYTHING IF YOU OVERHEAT LITERALLY

FIX IT!

;-;