Explosive engi has gone too far

[Kodama.6453]

@"UNOwen.7132" said:

Why would a spec that is focused on a heat mechanic that builds up over a long time and has to be carefully managed be a "glass cannon spec"? Hell it straight up has a damage reduction trait, a barrier trait and various defensive traits in its traitline. And a melee weapon. Its pretty clear it was supposed to be a bruiser.

Holosmith is not supposed to be a bruiser, it is supposed to be a melee dps spec.It has damage reduction and sustain, but these tools are just there to let the spec be a damage dealer in melee range. It has to survive in some way.

I don't know if you are familiar with the game League of Legends, but I would explain it with their terminology.Holosmith in LoL terms would be a skirmisher, which is a melee glass cannon class of champions. They have defense built into their kit to let them survive in melee range while dealing damage. But they are no bruisers, bruisers would be divers or juggernauts.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

@Shiyo.3578 said:Holosmith should not have superspeed, at all, or any form of protection, at all. Also reduce it's sustain by 50% because its bruiser level sustain. It should be a pure glass cannon spec as it's intended to be.

No. It's perfectly fine as is. It definitely should have the sustain of a Mender Staff Bunker Druid while wearing full DPS amulets.

[Jekkt.6045]

@UNOwen.7132 said:

@"Shiyo.3578" said:If it's intended to be a bruiser then it needs to lose tons of mobility and burst. Also why would eng have two bruiser specs? That's very weird.

Bruisers, especially melee bruisers, usually have mobility. Rangers greatsword does, Warrior does, Rev certainly does, even guardian has a fair bit. As for burst, bruisers do have spikier skills, but not outright burst. Thing is, neither does Holo. Grenade Barrage is spiky, but its not full-on burst.

I don't think it was intended to be a bruiser, I think they just messed up and gave it everything.

It was intended to be a bruiser, and thats exactly what it is. It really doesnt have "everything", and its not like it needs to lose much. Pretty much just the might generation from the grandmaster trait needs to be toned down.

grenade barrage can hit up to 10k damage.. how's that not burst? that's worldly impact level damage before the feb balance patch.. grenade barrage isn't even the problem skill which goes to show how much is wrong. it's not the skill, it's enhanced capacity storage unit + laser's edge + shaped charge + steel packed powder that make a skill which would normally hit around 5k hit up to 10k.

[Shiyo.3578]

@UNOwen.7132 said:

@"Shiyo.3578" said:Superspeed, high sustain, stealth, invul, blocks, reflects, ranged damage, melee damage, burst damage at either range or melee, converts condis to boons.

Almost all of those are things core Engineer has. Actually, scratch that.

All

of those are things Engineer has. The thing is, thats not inherently an issue. Also, "High sustain" is honestly a stretch, Holos sustain isnt anything special, its just that damage right now is so low any healing at all amounts to high sustain. Bring back damage to the game, and that gets fixed.Does base engi have superspeed?

Also, you just explained the EXACT issue. Picking an elite spec is supposed to have a trade off - when Holosmith has everything base eng has AND THEN MORE the class is bloated and needs to be brought down back to earth.

I also routinely watch holo's full heal from 10%, if that isn't insane sustain then I don't know what is.

Jack of all trades master of all does not belong in a PvP game.

[Widmo.3186]

Holo being unbalanced again? Who wouldve guessed...Heat mechanic non existent? Check. Big healing and sustain without bunker stats? Check. Big damage from passive traits, not from actual skills? Check.But hey, at least theres no more rifle pewpew, thats something!

[Kodama.6453]

@Shiyo.3578 said:Does base engi have superspeed?

Also, you just explained the EXACT issue. Picking an elite spec is supposed to have a trade off - when Holosmith has everything base eng has AND THEN MORE the class is bloated and needs to be brought down back to earth.

I also routinely watch holo's full heal from 10%, if that isn't insane sustain then I don't know what is.

Jack of all trades master of all does not belong in a PvP game.

Yes, core engineer does have superspeed, several sources for it even:

• Slick Shoes toolbelt skill
• Elixir U toolbelt skill
• Kinetic Battery (tools grandmaster trait)
• Streamlined Kits + Tool Kit
• Gadgeteer + Rocket Boots

And holosmith does not have everything core engineer has. Core engineer has the elite toolbelt skills, holosmith doesn't.While the toolbelt skill of the Mortar Kit is not really useful, the skills for Supply Crate and Elixir X are quite strong.

[Shiyo.3578]

I know they don't have f5. You should tell chronomancers how miserable your life is not having your toolbelt elite skill as a trade off so they can laugh.

The issue with engineer in general is that it has too much. Ele has to pick between sustain or damage. if it picks one, it loses out ENTIRELY on the other. Eng, on the other hand, gets everything at all times no matter the choices it makes. Eng goes against the entire design philosophy of the Feb mega patch and needs to be re-examined and hard nerfed in many ways.

[MrForz.1953]

@Shiyo.3578 said:I know they don't have f5. You should tell chronomancers how miserable your life is not having your toolbelt elite skill as a trade off so they can laugh.

The issue with engineer in general is that it has too much. Ele has to pick between sustain or damage. if it picks one, it loses out ENTIRELY on the other. Eng, on the other hand, gets everything at all times no matter the choices it makes. Eng goes against the entire design philosophy of the Feb mega patch and needs to be re-examined and hard nerfed in many ways.

I don't know about the everything part but I'd gladly drop Holosmith if I had a decent trait line to replace it with. Right now there's no point, the trait line gives so much in comparison to everything else. I honestly had a better time playing core before February.

[Leonidrex.5649]

To all holo monkeys out there.Explosive entrance with Grenade barrage deals equal if not more damage then entire "1shot" mesmer combo.Just a food for thought for you people out there

[UNOwen.7132]

@Jekkt.6045 said:

@UNOwen.7132 said:

@"Shiyo.3578" said:If it's intended to be a bruiser then it needs to lose tons of mobility and burst. Also why would eng have two bruiser specs? That's very weird.

Bruisers, especially melee bruisers, usually have mobility. Rangers greatsword does, Warrior does, Rev certainly does, even guardian has a fair bit. As for burst, bruisers do have spikier skills, but not outright burst. Thing is, neither does Holo. Grenade Barrage is spiky, but its not full-on burst.

I don't think it was intended to be a bruiser, I think they just messed up and gave it everything.

It was intended to be a bruiser, and thats exactly what it is. It really doesnt have "everything", and its not like it needs to lose much. Pretty much just the might generation from the grandmaster trait needs to be toned down.

grenade barrage can hit up to 10k damage.. how's that not burst? that's worldly impact level damage before the feb balance patch.. grenade barrage isn't even the problem skill which goes to show how much is wrong. it's not the skill, it's enhanced capacity storage unit + laser's edge + shaped charge + steel packed powder that make a skill which would normally hit around 5k hit up to 10k.

10k is exceptionally unusual, usually after maxing out on might, but the thing is, Rangers burst wasnt just worldy impact. It was maul and worldy impact and maybe a second maul. Thats proper burst. Holosmith can spike, but grenade barrage is the only spiky skill, so they dont burst. Also Grenade Barrage hitting for 8k is pretty normal even on core engineer.

[UNOwen.7132]

@Shiyo.3578 said:

@UNOwen.7132 said:

@Shiyo.3578 said:Superspeed, high sustain, stealth, invul, blocks, reflects, ranged damage, melee damage, burst damage at either range or melee, converts condis to boons.

Almost all of those are things core Engineer has. Actually, scratch that.

All

of those are things Engineer has. The thing is, thats not inherently an issue. Also, "High sustain" is honestly a stretch, Holos sustain isnt anything special, its just that damage right now is so low any healing at all amounts to high sustain. Bring back damage to the game, and that gets fixed.Does base engi have superspeed?

Yup. Slick Shoes. Toss Elixir U. Possibly streamlined kits but no one uses tool kit.

Also, you just explained the EXACT issue. Picking an elite spec is supposed to have a trade off - when Holosmith has everything base eng has AND THEN MORE the class is bloated and needs to be brought down back to earth.

The tradeoff is supposed to be equivalent to what they gain. Holo doesnt lose much, just F5, but it doesnt really gain that much. Holo Forge, ignoring the traits (since you trade traitline for traitline) is at this point pretty meh. Holo Leap is decent for mobility, Corona Burst is ok damage, and the skill 5 is occasionally worthwhile. But for the most part? Its just there to build up heat, if you want damage you dont use it.

I also routinely watch holo's full heal from 10%, if that isn't insane sustain then I don't know what is.

Thats just a healing skill. Thats something every class can do. The issue is that getting them to 10% takes forever with how low damage is right now, so their healing skill is just back up.

Jack of all trades master of all does not belong in a PvP game.

Holosmith is hardly a master of all. It doesnt CC as well as dedicated CC classes, doesnt burst as well as dedicated burst classes, has lower sustain than dedicated bunkers and lower mobility than dedicated roamers. The problem is, due to how much the big patch fucked up PvP, with how low damage is now, none of that really matters. Holo is unkillable and has a knockback, and can spike a bit harder for the case of +1s. Still a deadlocked class in a 1v1 like all other sidenoders, but slightly better in +1s.

[Aeolus.3615]

@"Leonidrex.5649" said:To all holo monkeys out there.Explosive entrance with Grenade barrage deals equal if not more damage then entire "1shot" mesmer combo.Just a food for thought for you people out there

I have some questions!

Cant be relfected nor obsorved?If they fail how often can be repeated(spammed?, for what i remmembers its a 25-30 cd???)?Is thiis a problem of every one building for the same meta and theres no on playing counters for this? ( i can remember quite some counters for the engi nades?)

[UNOwen.7132]

@Shiyo.3578 said:I know they don't have f5. You should tell chronomancers how miserable your life is not having your toolbelt elite skill as a trade off so they can laugh.

The issue with engineer in general is that it has too much. Ele has to pick between sustain or damage. if it picks one, it loses out ENTIRELY on the other. Eng, on the other hand, gets everything at all times no matter the choices it makes. Eng goes against the entire design philosophy of the Feb mega patch and needs to be re-examined and hard nerfed in many ways.

Yeah, like Cele Ele, HoT Tempest, or Weaver, all of which had both sustain, and damage. Ele is no different from Engineer. Also, given how badly the Feb mega patch screwed up PvP, going against its design philosophy isnt a bad thing. The whole bloody patch needs to be reverted. But even if we assume that we would rather kill the gamemode than fix the bad mega patch, there isnt much to nerf about holo. He is pretty interchangable with condi rev and power ranger. All that matters for a sidenoder is that they have a healing skill and a knockback. So what, are you gonna nerf the knockback?

[Leonidrex.5649]

@Aeolus.3615 said:

@"Leonidrex.5649" said:To all holo monkeys out there.Explosive entrance with Grenade barrage deals equal if not more damage then entire "1shot" mesmer combo.Just a food for thought for you people out there

I have some questions!

Cant be relfected nor obsorved?If they fail how often can be repeated(spammed?, for what i remmembers its a 25-30 cd???)?Is thiis a problem of every one building for the same meta and theres no on playing counters for this? ( i can remember quite some counters for the engi nades?)

its dodge or die, reflects are not reliable since nades explode under your feet and damage you anyways + its not the only skill that deals dmg, most things hit like a truck due to high might stacks and berk amulet

[wasss.1208]

@"UNOwen.7132" said:Also Grenade Barrage hitting for 8k is pretty normal even on core engineer.

While this is technicly right, you have to run a glasscanon core engi build, against a light armored target, hit every 'nade with barrage, and "prestack" might with Sanguine Array. My highest hit was 6k during an actual fight, and I used to play core engi quite a lot.

[Widmo.3186]

@UNOwen.7132 said:

@Shiyo.3578 said:I know they don't have f5. You should tell chronomancers how miserable your life is not having your toolbelt elite skill as a trade off so they can laugh.

The issue with engineer in general is that it has too much. Ele has to pick between sustain or damage. if it picks one, it loses out ENTIRELY on the other. Eng, on the other hand, gets everything at all times no matter the choices it makes. Eng goes against the entire design philosophy of the Feb mega patch and needs to be re-examined and hard nerfed in many ways.

Yeah, like Cele Ele, HoT Tempest, or Weaver, all of which had both sustain, and damage.

Ele is no different from Engineer.

Also, given how badly the Feb mega patch screwed up PvP, going against its design philosophy isnt a bad thing. The whole bloody patch needs to be reverted. But even if we assume that we would rather kill the gamemode than fix the bad mega patch, there isnt much to nerf about holo. He is pretty interchangable with condi rev and power ranger. All that matters for a sidenoder is that they have a healing skill and a knockback. So what, are you gonna nerf the knockback?

And here Id like to disagree on whole line. Yes, vanilla time cele ele was jack of all trades and it was nerfed to the ground. Then we had HoT times, Tempest? B.. please, support class at its best, i dont remember any proper damage dealing builds in ranked at this time (except memes). Weaver? Since PoF beginning, holo was better IN EVERY SINGLE ASPECT than Weaver. The only exceptions were teleport (air sword 2 of weaver, holo lacks ports) and maybe later on condi (fireweaver was a thing, holo was rather power only). And even to compete with holo, Weaver had/has to pick healing traitline or some healing stats, otherwise its sustain is shit. Holo will just go mara or zerker and smash keyboard. Try doing same with ele, should I try to bet in how many seconds you gonna get deleted?

[UNOwen.7132]

@wasss.1208 said:

@"UNOwen.7132" said:Also Grenade Barrage hitting for 8k is pretty normal even on core engineer.

While this is technicly right, you have to run a glasscanon core engi build, against a light armored target, hit every 'nade with barrage, and "prestack" might with Sanguine Array. My highest hit was 6k during an actual fight, and I used to play core engi quite a lot.

Well, no, just standard explosives alchemy tools setup. You do however need to start with Elixir B and usually need the enemy to be stunned or otherwise ccd.

[UNOwen.7132]

@Widmo.3186 said:

@UNOwen.7132 said:

@"Shiyo.3578" said:I know they don't have f5. You should tell chronomancers how miserable your life is not having your toolbelt elite skill as a trade off so they can laugh.

The issue with engineer in general is that it has too much. Ele has to pick between sustain or damage. if it picks one, it loses out ENTIRELY on the other. Eng, on the other hand, gets everything at all times no matter the choices it makes. Eng goes against the entire design philosophy of the Feb mega patch and needs to be re-examined and hard nerfed in many ways.

Yeah, like Cele Ele, HoT Tempest, or Weaver, all of which had both sustain, and damage.

Ele is no different from Engineer.

Also, given how badly the Feb mega patch screwed up PvP, going against its design philosophy isnt a bad thing. The whole bloody patch needs to be reverted. But even if we assume that we would rather kill the gamemode than fix the bad mega patch, there isnt much to nerf about holo. He is pretty interchangable with condi rev and power ranger. All that matters for a sidenoder is that they have a healing skill and a knockback. So what, are you gonna nerf the knockback?

And here Id like to disagree on whole line. Yes, vanilla time cele ele was jack of all trades and it was nerfed to the ground. Then we had HoT times, Tempest? B.. please, support class at its best, i dont remember any proper damage dealing builds in ranked at this time (except memes).

It was a "support" that also did ridiculous damage with things like Overload air. It was a jack of all trades. Moreso than even holo is now, because holo cant even heal his teammates.

Weaver? Since PoF beginning, holo was better IN EVERY SINGLE ASPECT than Weaver. The only exceptions were teleport (air sword 2 of weaver, holo lacks ports) and maybe later on condi (fireweaver was a thing, holo was rather power only).

And yet Weaver was better than Holo multiple times. Weaver had teleports as you say, but also just better active defenses, since it had invuln, multiple evades and a bunch of healing, while holo has a block and a bit of barrier.

And even to compete with holo, Weaver had/has to pick healing traitline or some healing stats, otherwise its sustain is kitten. Holo will just go mara or zerker and smash keyboard. Try doing same with ele, should I try to bet in how many seconds you gonna get deleted?

No, thats when Weaver outperformed Holo by a pretty big margin. For that matter, Weaver didnt really use Water. And no, pre-patch Holo had to pick an entire full defense traitline to be survivable (prot holo). As for right now? Well, if you took a look at Holo, you would notice they dont really run much healing, if any. Just their healing skill. They also dont have a lot of damage reduction, or active defenses. So yeah, try the same with Sword Zerker Weaver, and you will survive just as well (which is to say, infinitely because damage isnt there). Thats not why weaver isnt good. Weaver has a much bigger issue. It doesnt have a good knockback.

[Widmo.3186]

Okay, I see we play/played a bit different game in all 3 aspects you quoted, so I wont continue arguing.

[wasss.1208]

@UNOwen.7132 said:

@wasss.1208 said:

@UNOwen.7132 said:Also Grenade Barrage hitting for 8k is pretty normal even on core engineer.

While this is technicly right, you have to run a glasscanon core engi build, against a light armored target, hit every 'nade with barrage, and "prestack" might with Sanguine Array. My highest hit was 6k during an actual fight, and I used to play core engi quite a lot.

Well, no, just standard explosives alchemy tools setup. You do however need to start with Elixir B and usually need the enemy to be stunned or otherwise ccd.

Yep, tried the build, getting the numbers. It is pretty awesome.

[Aeolus.3615]

@Leonidrex.5649 said:

@Aeolus.3615 said:

@Leonidrex.5649 said:To all holo monkeys out there.Explosive entrance with Grenade barrage deals equal if not more damage then entire "1shot" mesmer combo.Just a food for thought for you people out there

I have some questions!

Cant be relfected nor obsorved?If they fail how often can be repeated(spammed?, for what i remmembers its a 25-30 cd???)?Is thiis a problem of every one building for the same meta and theres no on playing counters for this? ( i can remember quite some counters for the engi nades?)

its dodge or die, reflects are not reliable since nades explode under your feet and damage you anyways + its not the only skill that deals dmg, most things hit like a truck due to high might stacks and berk amulet

But besides reflects, for example a ventari dome nor guardian dome wont counter it?

NOTE: Asking this cause i always felt that gw2 spvp format was very limited to only bursty builds with some mobility and defense, IMO the gw2 pvp never made me want or feel the need to work as a full team to counter enemy skills like we had in gw1, gw2 pvp is very inforior to gw1 pvp, its more like 4 soloist playing together rotating the nodes with what their builds offers best.

[Shiyo.3578]

You still take explosive entrance damage even if the projectile is deflected by the way.

Also one of the grenades is unblockable(poison?).

[Leonidrex.5649]

@Aeolus.3615 said:

@Leonidrex.5649 said:

@Aeolus.3615 said:

@Leonidrex.5649 said:To all holo monkeys out there.Explosive entrance with Grenade barrage deals equal if not more damage then entire "1shot" mesmer combo.Just a food for thought for you people out there

I have some questions!

Cant be relfected nor obsorved?If they fail how often can be repeated(spammed?, for what i remmembers its a 25-30 cd???)?Is thiis a problem of every one building for the same meta and theres no on playing counters for this? ( i can remember quite some counters for the engi nades?)

its dodge or die, reflects are not reliable since nades explode under your feet and damage you anyways + its not the only skill that deals dmg, most things hit like a truck due to high might stacks and berk amulet

But besides reflects, for example a ventari dome nor guardian dome wont counter it?

NOTE: Asking this cause i always felt that gw2 spvp format was very limited to only bursty builds with some mobility and defense, IMO the gw2 pvp never made me want or feel the need to work as a full team to counter enemy skills like we had in gw1, gw2 pvp is very inforior to gw1 pvp, its more like 4 soloist playing together rotating the nodes with what their builds offers best.

big dome blocks/reflects will block it.but as far as I can tell only playable dome is from thief ( smoke screen ) and from fb, cuz its free built into the thome.but even if you use it they just go use their other skills and toss nades when dome is down

[Aeolus.3615]

@Leonidrex.5649 said:

@Aeolus.3615 said:

@Leonidrex.5649 said:

@Aeolus.3615 said:

@Leonidrex.5649 said:To all holo monkeys out there.Explosive entrance with Grenade barrage deals equal if not more damage then entire "1shot" mesmer combo.Just a food for thought for you people out there

I have some questions!

Cant be relfected nor obsorved?If they fail how often can be repeated(spammed?, for what i remmembers its a 25-30 cd???)?Is thiis a problem of every one building for the same meta and theres no on playing counters for this? ( i can remember quite some counters for the engi nades?)

its dodge or die, reflects are not reliable since nades explode under your feet and damage you anyways + its not the only skill that deals dmg, most things hit like a truck due to high might stacks and berk amulet

But besides reflects, for example a ventari dome nor guardian dome wont counter it?

NOTE: Asking this cause i always felt that gw2 spvp format was very limited to only bursty builds with some mobility and defense, IMO the gw2 pvp never made me want or feel the need to work as a full team to counter enemy skills like we had in gw1, gw2 pvp is very inforior to gw1 pvp, its more like 4 soloist playing together rotating the nodes with what their builds offers best.

big dome blocks/reflects will block it.but as far as I can tell only playable dome is from thief ( smoke screen ) and from fb, cuz its free built into the thome.but even if you use it they just go use their other skills and toss nades when dome is down

So, this means a support with ventari could actually nullify the barrage(due ventari dome upkeep and dome free movement), altough game has no place for support herald/ventari acording to wath people say (i wont desagree cause game is more towards soloist playing together and rotating).

I'll keep saying its a gamemode "design issue" rather than a balance issue. :\

[Kuma.1503]

What do you guys think the role of each Engineer Spec should be?

From what I can tell the current design of Engi is as follows:

Holosmith - BruiserCore - DPSScrapper - Support Discount Bruiser

Unfortunately, due to a combination of repeated nerfs core took to tone down Holo and unnecessary nerfs to Scrapper in the Feb patch, neither is functioning as well as they should. Everyone is left wondering, what is the drawback of running Holosmith over the other two options?

You could argue, less support than running Scapper, but support scrapper has been nerfed into the ground. Scrapper was reworked to play more of a bruiser role, but that role is already performed better by Holo. Anet also nerfed scrapper's damage and sustain, resulting in a double-nerf to scrapper's sustain. Why would you play Bruiser scrapper, when Holo heals more and does more dps?

You could argue, less dps/versatility than running core, but core engi has been repeatedly nerfed in order to bring down Holo. It lacks that "something" that makes you want to pick it over over Holo.

What needs to happen? Remove some of the power from Holo and put it back into core. If done properly, we should see real trade-offs for choosing to go Holo.We need to establish a direction for each engi spec, or we'll just end up creating an even wider gap between Holo and... the two inferior specs.