Heat boosts

Why aren't the heat bonuses on the pistol and rifle 1-3 skills ? It feels like Anet just forgot since Weaver gets dual skills on all old weapons. I hope they are planning to patch them in for alternate Holosmith playstyles.

Anyone have any ideas for some good heat bonuses for the pistol / rifle? :)

Pistol more bleeds per heat levelPoison shot more projectilesStatic shot more bouncesFlame shot more range thresholdGlue shot larger area/duration

Rifle more damageNet shot more netsBlunderbuss better range thresholdKnockback shot stun breakerJumpshot longer higher crit chance

Shield reflect larger area per stackBlock longer stun

P/p condi builds get better condi application from the weapons rather then taking kits with the down side being locked into photon forge to upkeep heat forcing periods or reduced condi application

Rifle gets better ranged capabilities and supirior hit and run capabilitys with the forge and with jumpshot getting a better crit chance allows us to use more tankier gear while still being able to use it as a burst skill

Shield gets better cc and area denial

@ukuni.8745 said:Pistol more bleeds per heat levelPoison shot more projectilesStatic shot more bouncesFlame shot more range thresholdGlue shot larger area/duration

Rifle more damageNet shot more netsBlunderbuss better range thresholdKnockback shot stun breakerJumpshot longer higher crit chance

Shield reflect larger area per stackBlock longer stun

P/p condi builds get better condi application from the weapons rather then taking kits with the down side being locked into photon forge to upkeep heat forcing periods or reduced condi application

Rifle gets better ranged capabilities and supirior hit and run capabilitys with the forge and with jumpshot getting a better crit chance allows us to use more tankier gear while still being able to use it as a burst skill

Shield gets better cc and area denial

This is problematic. Holosmith should not be required in order to make the baseline Engie weapons good.

@lorddarkflare.9186 said:

@ukuni.8745 said:Pistol more bleeds per heat level[...]Shield gets better cc and area denial

What about Mirage and Weaver? Both gave base weapons new abilities, even underwater. In our case it wouldn't even be new abilitis, just the old ones with new effects (no new animations).

@Samug.6512 said:

@lorddarkflare.9186 said:

@ukuni.8745 said:Pistol more bleeds per heat level[...]Shield gets better cc and area denial

Because the old weapon skills are interwoven with the new skills in these specs. It wouldn't make much sense if the weaver a spec designed around juggling 2 elements at once still had vanilla skills on everything except sword/x and the mirage uses a completely different evasion mechanic so some skills had to be tweeked for balances sake (imo not in a fair way perm evade OP) the engi however has absolutely no reason to be forced to take holosmith like lorddarkflare said, in order to make old skills good, we have too many weapons at our disposal in the form of kits and the photon forge. It is impossible to justify adding addional elements to the class which would make it possibly too strong or too overwhelming to some, taking my past points into account.

I think the proposal make sence.Heat mechanic is punishing you if you overheat , and i know you shouln't push it to much but even chaithh & zan sometime overheat (rarely).Therefore I find it normal to get some "bonus" to play risky (whats the point of a self damage + puting holo on huge CD if you don't get anything by pushing it to the limit).

I think you can do simple improvements without making the weapon drasticaly better. BUT it should provide qol / smal utility improvements without changing the damage output / combo possibilities to much.

Lets give a few exemples :

Riffle :

• Net shot could have + 0.25 sec duration for each heat level (50% - 100%) on net (wich is minimal since the regular duration allow you to place the combo anyway and you won't be able to follow up with holo to much since you are already high on heat levels).

• Blunderbuss could get + 1 stack of bleeding for each heat level ( Riffle on regular engi or holo focus on direct damage --> with max heat ( >100%) it will only do + 200 damage over 5 seconds)

• overcharged shot could have small range increase per heat level ( hitting it when ppl are far away will put the enemy out of net shot/ jump shot range and you won't be abble to follow up with combo anyway)

MH pistol : (Ideas taken from above)

• Static shot more bounces ( smal increase of confusion stacks if you manage to make it bounce . The reason is holo trait line is not great to play condi)
• Poison shot + 1 projectiles per heat level (Obvious)

Shield : (I think this should be the most improved one by holo since core engi / scrapper barely use it and the main holo weapon "force" you to take shield)

• Static shield + 0.5 sec blocking time per heat level ( Up to 3 sec block on 30 sec CD and add ICD to stunt only once per 1 seconds for each attacker)
• Magnetic shield duration increase + 1 sec per heat level ( Potentialy +2 seconds is HUGE but it make sence since it will be mostlikely used with sword and the extra duration help closing distences to stay into mele range or disengage after landing a succesfull holo burst)

Oh those are some lovely ideas @Abimes.9726 , never thought about adding them to offhands too, but I guess it makes sense. Managing heat on top of everything else is constantly overwhelming me 'cause I'm not used to needing to stay in melee range too.

@Dusk.4708 said:

@Samug.6512 said:

@lorddarkflare.9186 said:

@ukuni.8745 said:Pistol more bleeds per heat level[...]Shield gets better cc and area denial

We are only asking for the 1-5 skill weapons. Not kits. We literally only have 3 base weapons, no new animations required. It's at most an hour of programming to implement. And those 3 weapons I mentioned? They're really suffering right now. Even if it doesn't address the core of the problem (that our weapons are stupidly weak), it would help address the fact that it seems like ArenaNet thinks about the engineer class for all of 30 minutes each expansion.

It also doesn't make sense that heat would only affect our sword. I know they touted this "you're a jedi, Harry!" line, but we're not [all] wielding lightsabers. If there's supposed to be a risk-reward payoff with the heat mechanic, why is there only risk and no reward for any weapon other than the sword?