Giving holosmith a "proper" trade off

A common point of feedback you've probably seen on the forums is that some classes do not have obvious trade offs. Tempest, Firebrand, Herald, and, for the purposes of this discussion, holosmith. The holosmith traitline gives so much functionality to core engineer. It gives damage, sustain, crowd control, mobility, and some very minor support capabilities. What does it give up to obtain all of this? On first glance, nothing, but perhaps this is not an issue of holosmith being too strong, and instead, an issue of core engi being too weak and outdated.

In reality, Holosmith does have a tradeoff. Back in the ye olden days, when you thought "Engineer" you thought "jack of all trades, master of none". The selling point of this class was it's utility. It's piano-esk playstyle, the sheer number of buttons you could press leading to countless possibilities. The driving force behind all that utility? Kits. Unfortunately, that playstyle did not resonate with a lot of people. The possibilities were endless, but the amount of effort required to play the class optimally was off putting to a lot of people. Thus, Holosmith was born.

Holo was an elite spec that significantly streamlined the spec, allowing you to achieve as much as other classes could with roughly the same amount of effort. The trade off? You temporarily gave up all of the utility and versatility that enigneer was known for. Kits are locked out for a period of time upon entering forge. If you saw an ally get spiked with condis and you wanted to fumigate them, If a melee jumped on your face and you wanted to drop a flash shell for pulsing blindness, you couldn't if you just activated photon forge.

Aditionally, choosing the holosmith traitline would cause you to give up a core traitline that buffed the functionality of your kits, further reducing the utility that the class has to offer. You cannot chose holosmith and also take elixirs to buff Elixir gun, Explosives to buff bombs and nades, and still have room for firearms for those juicy crits.

So why does it feel like holosmith does not have a trade off? The reason is multifaceted.

1. The game has gotten more power creeped over time.
2. Core engi has received several unjustified nerfs over time, many of which due to holosmith over-performing, further exacerbating the feeling of a lack of trade off.
3. Combo fields and finishers have gotten less valuable over time. This was a significant source of engi's utility.
4. Kits have not recieved the love and QoL updates that they need to remain competetive. They're outdated.

With core engi being so weak, it does not feel like you need to give up as much to pick the holosmith traitline.

With Kits being so weak and non-functional, it doesn't feel nearly as impactful to lose them for a period of time upon entering forge.

With combo fields and finishers feeling so weak in current GW2, it doesn't hurt as much to lose access to bomb kit's fire/smoke field, or Mortar kit's Water field.

The solution? Buff Core engi, give it some real synergy in its traits. The explosives rework was a very nice step in the right direction. The other traitlines would greatly benefit if they got the same amount of love.

Finally, buff kits so it truly feels like a loss when you're forced to give them up, even if only for a short time.

Ideally, a small buff to fields and combos would be nice, but this would have game-wide impact and would have to be done carefully.

Accomplish this, and you will have finally given holosmith a proper trade off.

I dont get all this commotion. remove holos dodge and its going to be perfectly balanced.you are overthinking all of it.

I would just wait until everything gets nerfed by 33% except for kits, and then Explosives gets buffed. I'm predicting that Core/Scrapper/Holo aren't going to be that far off in power level.

How to nerf holo? Buff core engi.Noice B)

Simple, remove f1-f4. :smile:

@Widmo.3186 said:How to nerf holo? Buff core engi.Noice B)

The point of giving trade offs to e-specs is to create an opportunity cost. The purpose isn't explicitly to nerf. Nerfing just so happens to be Anet's preferred method.The kit lockout on PF is the intended tradeoff of Holo. You don't notice it because kits are so weak that most holos go kitless.

@Leonidrex.5649 said:I dont get all this commotion. remove holos dodge and its going to be perfectly balanced.you are overthinking all of it.

Perfection!

I would say Anet had a really good concept on paper for Holo, start off weak with attacks as weapons are materialised and start to build strength as they hurt themselves from self burns for staying longer in holo form.

but they bow down to the whingers who wanted 1 shot combo

You do get a good bit of that playstyle... In PvE. Holo will try to keep themselves between 50-100 heat, and they will preheat to 75 in order to have a good opening burst. The difference between a holo that preheats and a holo that doesn't is huge. With condi holo you add in the element of literally blowing yourself up.

In PvP you, err... dodge spam with perma vigor to vent heat and stay in PF as long as possible.

As for taking things away to create tradeoffs. It's fun to meme about... until months down the line when the class gets numbers buffs and becomes an easier/spammier version of itself. cough Mirage one dodge roll cough

Holosmith gets 5 new skills from Photon Forge so remove the 5 they get from Toolbelt Skills (engi class mechanic) as a tradeoff. (Obvi keeping one of them to enter PF)

They can still use kits if they want more skills.

@shadowpass.4236 said:Holosmith gets 5 new skills from Photon Forge so remove the 5 they get from Toolbelt Skills (engi class mechanic) as a tradeoff. (Obvi keeping one of them to enter PF)

They can still use kits if they want more skills.

yea as if blowing urself up for 8k dmg when missplayed and kits usage is clunky and not great at all on holo to begin with. i wanted to use toolkit once, until i realised i cant switch to it for blocking when i rly needed it. BUT! lets remove all toolbelt skills to further hammer those pesky holo's in the ground! dud i know u got an vendetta out for holo but removing toolbelt skills is WAAAAY too much. believe it or not but holo actually needs those toolbelts to stay alive and disengage.

ive called for holo nerfs for a long time now even tho i main it (and tempest) and i finally got what i wanted from the 2 last pacthes and the big one to come. if anyone think holo needs more nerfs after this ure out of your mind since

1. healing got nerfed, both healing turret and heat therapy.
2. our stab is gonna be nonexistent , holo 3 removal of stab and elixir U got gutted not long ago(sure we can use elixir B for stab but what utility do we exhange here? the stunbreak,the invuln, or the block?)
3. upcomming nerfs also include major shave 50% to boon durations in alchemy tree (which is good, no more perma vigor) elixir S stealth nerf which is good too.
4. photon wall cd which i dont agree with but they needed to hit it somehow.
5. the range on holo 5 actually hit harder than i thought, now we need to be all close and personal with ppl with all that stab we dont have.
6. the toolbelt lockout on overheat(yea i still overheat from time to time on either missplay or because i was too greedy and needed that last bit of dmg to down my target)and id rather have toolbelt lockout than the 15sec cd increase anet has planned. it takes less time to cooldown than wait 15 sec

and thats just the few i could came up with on top of my head, theres way more in the patch notes.

now lets not forget that engineer as a whole dosnt get any evade frames on any attacks or utilities, or teleports for that matter. u are not fighting a rev phasing in and out of reality . or warrier evading with gs3 , FC, bullsharge. or mirage even tho that class is getting nerfed so hard to the ground its not even funny anymore. or thieves with permaevade enabled from just choosing the class.

if u can see the engineer. u can hit it. unless he block's, use elixir S, or dodge ur attack. thats it basically. oh and also make good use of your eyes AND DODGE THE GIANT TELEGRAPHED LIGHTSHOW ATTACKS THE HOLO IS GOING AT U WITH. or cc him, he donst have stab anymore so yea, GG ^^

@toxic.3648 said:

@shadowpass.4236 said:Holosmith gets 5 new skills from Photon Forge so remove the 5 they get from Toolbelt Skills (engi class mechanic) as a tradeoff. (Obvi keeping one of them to enter PF)

They can still use kits if they want more skills.

1. healing got nerfed, both healing turret and heat therapy.
2. our stab is gonna be nonexistent , holo 3 removal of stab and elixir U got gutted not long ago(sure we can use elixir B for stab but what utility do we exhange here? the stunbreak,the invuln, or the block?)
3. upcomming nerfs also include major shave 50% to boon durations in alchemy tree (which is good, no more perma vigor) elixir S stealth nerf which is good too.
4. photon wall cd which i dont agree with but they needed to hit it somehow.
5. the range on holo 5 actually hit harder than i thought, now we need to be all close and personal with ppl with all that stab we dont have.
6. the toolbelt lockout on overheat(yea i still overheat from time to time on either missplay or because i was too greedy and needed that last bit of dmg to down my target)and id rather have toolbelt lockout than the 15sec cd increase anet has planned. it takes less time to cooldown than wait 15 sec

Anyone who knows how to dodge won't overheat. It's not a tradeoff if they never lose anything :joy:

If you're dodge rolling to vent heat, you're already making a trade off.

Do I dodge to vent or do I save my dodge for an important CC?

@Kuma.1503 said:If you're dodge rolling to vent heat, you're already making a trade off.

Do I dodge to vent or do I save my dodge for an important CC?

Or you can dodge roll attacks that you should dodge with the added bonus of venting heat + healing passively through the course of a fight.

Or do you just eat attacks and save it for venting heat? Because that's not how you play Holo properly and if you're honestly trying to make it seem like Holos should choose between dodging attacks OR stopping themselves from overheating, that's hilarious.

That's like a Mirage saying the tradeoff to their spec is that they have ridiculous counterpressure/damage when they dodge. Like, no, silly. You can play normally and your dodges will kill people as a Mirage. Neither spec really loses anything atm.

There's three things wrong with your statement.

1. If a holo is using their dodges with good timing and foresight, they are playing well. That should be rewarded, not punished.
2. Mirage is not a good comparison to holo because Mirage does not need to dodge under a time constraint.
3. Your statement implies that it is never the right choice to use your dodge offensively. This is not the case, sometimes you will vent heat in order to squeeze out one last PF skill.

@Kuma.1503 said:There's three things wrong with your statement.

1. If a holo is using their dodges with good timing and foresight, they are playing well. That should be rewarded, not punished.
2. Mirage is not a good comparison to holo because Mirage does not need to dodge under a time constraint.
3. Your statement implies that it is never the right choice to use your dodge offensively. This is not the case, sometimes you will vent heat in order to squeeze out one last PF skill.

1. So if a Soulbeast is merging with their pet with good timing and foresight, they're playing well and should be rewarded, not punished. But one of their pets is getting removed even though they already lose pets while merged.
2. Both Holos and Mirages have dodges that affect their elite specs' mechanic.
3. You can assume what you want but I never stated that. If you want to put words in my mouth, feel free to argue with yourself.

@Kuma.1503 said:The difference between a holo that preheats and a holo that doesn't is huge.

Not that I disagree with your main post, but this part I do disagree with. I never pre-heat in PvE, and I almost always out-DPS the holos that do.

Why? Because preheat is only a slight boost to your DPS if you can maintain a proper rotation. But that tiny boost is insignificant on long fights. Since I know the rotations by heart, that tiny DPS boost doesn't really matter, because I'm not aiming for benchmark levels of DPS.

@shadowpass.4236 said:Holosmith gets 5 new skills from Photon Forge so remove the 5 they get from Toolbelt Skills (engi class mechanic) as a tradeoff. (Obvi keeping one of them to enter PF)

They can still use kits if they want more skills.

Engineer doesn't have weapon swap, bub. Your point might be valid if it did. Since PF effectively locks out kits, it's the closest thing holos have to a weapon swap. You don't hear of other classes getting their core mechanics locked out for a weapon swap, do you?

@Vagrant.7206 said:

@shadowpass.4236 said:Holosmith gets 5 new skills from Photon Forge so remove the 5 they get from Toolbelt Skills (engi class mechanic) as a tradeoff. (Obvi keeping one of them to enter PF)

They can still use kits if they want more skills.

And other classes don't have kits, bub. Also, prot holo used to run Elixir Gun. If you want to use kits on Holo, all you have to do is use the kit first before you enter PF because there's no global cooldown on it like that.

If you choose to enter PF and complain that you can't access your kit, there's a solution but you choose not to use it.

Isnt the overheating mechanic and the follow up damage a good enough trade off? Granted its not as brutal as I first thought it would be but it can still down you.

@Xervite.5493 said:Isnt the overheating mechanic and the follow up damage a good enough trade off? Granted its not as brutal as I first thought it would be but it can still down you.

Hey let's give one class an elite spec. Its special mechanic is a single button, no cooldown. If you use it once, it kills everyone on the enemy team instantly. If you use it twice within a 10 second time frame, your team dies.

Good tradeoff right? Just play skillfully, don't press too many buttons during the interval and you'll be fine!

Anyways, overheating would be a tradeoff IF it affected the Holosmith 100% of the time. However, any Holo that understands how to dodge won't overheat.

Honestly, Heat Therapy should be reversed while in Photon Forge. Gaining heat should damage the Holosmith. Losing heat it should give health back with half the healing value of the damage per point of heat gained. In other words, if the Holo takes 60 points of damage per heat gained, he'd gain 30 health back per heat lost. It should get min 3s of stab back on Elixir U. That's enough for a stomp or a heal skill and it's the same duration for the cooldown as some other stab skills (around 8.3% uptime base). Also, both stacks of stab from Corona Burst should be moved to the initial hit so it doesn't require 2 defensive skills to prevent giving stab to the Holo, will be stronger upfront and should scale up to 2 targets (max 4 stacks of stab). Holo Leap should get a cooldown increase to 5s. Lock On double proc (on-hit specifically) should get removed.

@toxic.3648 said:

@shadowpass.4236 said:Holosmith gets 5 new skills from Photon Forge so remove the 5 they get from Toolbelt Skills (engi class mechanic) as a tradeoff. (Obvi keeping one of them to enter PF)

They can still use kits if they want more skills.

i say anet shot themselves in the foot by buffing condi instead of toughness, if condi had stay what it was intended to be, which is supposed to be a dmg mechanic against toughness builds, it would be in the right place

@shadowpass.4236 said:

@Xervite.5493 said:Isnt the overheating mechanic and the follow up damage a good enough trade off? Granted its not as brutal as I first thought it would be but it can still down you.

Who hurt you, bud? People like myself have explained the different dimensions of Holo trade offs before, it seems like you stubbornly ignore.

Patch coming out in one week that'll remove traited stability from Corona burst

Holosmith is an incredibly unremarkable spec. Your nerf suggestions are all overkill, Holo use will already sharply drop after next week's patch.

Problem with buffing kits is that they become even more dominant over other utilities.

Perhaps the problem with engineers is having to balance wearing 5 kits versus a standard build with a heal, elite, and three utilities (that's the extreme, but the only way to go without kits is holo). That's why I'd change the profession mechanic from being just the toolbelt to being kits + toolbelt. As it stands, toolkits are just a must have which don't have anything to do with the profession mechanic. And perhaps that's why they are so underwhelming.

Make kits part of the profession, and then finally they can be buffed and make them work as a replacement to weapon swap?

@Chaith.8256 said:

@shadowpass.4236 said:

@Xervite.5493 said:Isnt the overheating mechanic and the follow up damage a good enough trade off? Granted its not as brutal as I first thought it would be but it can still down you.

Anet giving soul beast the most obvious trade off in the world since it didn't have one.

A harder hitting tradeoff without buffing the core lines or other abilities on Holosmith would just give Holo the Chrono treatment, aka deletion from PvP, the difference being that Mes still has other viable specs while Engi clearly does not. The TE is pretty right about how useless kits and generally mose core skills are on Engi rn, and for the vast majority of those it won't change with the coming patch. It's not like this is limited to Kits, most Gadgets and Turrets are equally useless and stuck on a 2012 powerlevel. If anything, the new philosophy of no dmg on CCs, only very limited dmg on instant skills but fairly high damage on the "big hits" is going to hurt the class more, because aside from Grenade Barrage there aren't really any big, hard hitting telegraphed skills on Engi while there are several smallers hits in the toolbelt. PLB probably came clostest, but since it's a CC it also gets the 0 dps treatment.

On Shadowpass I just won't comment anymore, idk how biased and hateful towards a class you can possibly be, all the more while abusing one of the most broken skills in the game right now (Counterattack).