Lunateric.3708

I casted a MaT ten days ago, see it for yourself. https://www.twitch.tv/videos/503056018 1:37:52 That's not the October Monthly. The October Monthly hasn't happened yet. Pretty sure that one there is the August one. https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/91663/october-monthly-tournament-on-11-16#latestArguing about what month the MaT corresponds to is nothing but a poor attempt at not answering the original line of thought. Unless there was a major balance shift that will somehow make "holosmith dominance" a thing for next MaT. Spoiler alert: it won't.

I casted a MaT ten days ago, see it for yourself. https://www.twitch.tv/videos/503056018 1:37:52 Can't wait to see a response. Gonna be tough making a case against a video

Lemme start by saying this was one of the most expected QoL additions to the game for me and I envisioned at the very least similar functionality to previous admittedly third party solutions. That isn't the case, there are several grievances with current implementation of build "templates" and I'll list them here: They aren't really templates, any modifications you apply to your current loadout alter the loadout itself, it doesn't save it as a real template, so to speak.Their monetization is too aggressive. I expected them to cost gems but their current prices make them equally worth to a couple years of MMO subscription (see FF and perhaps WoW) assuming I go for them on every class.Their release is currently plagued with bugs, it's particularly obvious on revenant and its utility skills, they get their order changed constantly. There are more egregious one like funky interaction with infusions but those are in some instances borderline exploits. It can actually eat infusions.The base number of gear templates is too low for people that PvX. It's a non issue for people running fewer builds but here I'm talking from my side of the road.There are probably more things to point out but overall I feel like this release isn't the kind of QoL release we normally get from the company, expected more, could say I personally hold you in a higher regard.

That's the general consensus. It's too tight and the DPS gains are minimal, still plenty more classes with simpler mechanics out there. The hotfix buff we got did basically nothing in the grand scheme of things, Laser's Edge is such a big mod and it's so incredibly binary, the toolbelt change really messed things up too. Here's to hoping they go for a second take on Holosmith.

It's gonna be great, the trailer is extremely well made.

Engineer turrets and Herald's shield of course.

I thought the exact same thing. Gotta wonder what other people play and how meme it can be.

They didn't fix Holo raid DPS, it's still overshadowed by the meta picks and the new ECSU build is very gimmicky, you have to preheat before the boss but pulling the boss is not on you most of the time as a non-tank. Kit lockout is still there and it's still horrible to have with PBM.

I think they buffed the wrong things, kit lockout with PBM shouldn't exist and ECSU builds need to preheat to have any semblance of burst and that's pretty gimmicky. Sword skills have this disgusting aftercast too. Holo is in a better spot damage wise but not sure they were the right buffs.

Team comps for every boss were updated too and Holo was completely erased from all of them. It's official boys, Holo is worse than prepatch in every regard.

I'm okay with Holo getting a stat penalty if it also gets more damage in return. As it stands it's completely underwhelming compared to almost every other class.

Reason why I don't think this is simply oversight is because this is just too huge of a change. It's clear they wanted a downside that actually mattered and this really does matter a lot. Letting PBM go free would make just about every Holo run PBM, if you weren't running it already. But the change to overheating was intended to punish PvP players. So either they're lying, incompetent, or both. Was the meta ECSU? Even then, they probably didn't want it to end up as "Everyone migrates to PBM to get around this pretty big change" and kept it across the board. The PvP meta has always been Thermal Release Valve. ECSU has never had a place in either game mode except in niche builds.Now it's probably the more consistent PvE choice but still abysmally bad compared to basically every other class.

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

That's terrible news, how crippled is cHolo?

Not sure about scrapper since its theme was never my cup of tea and I haven't played scrapper in months but Holo changes were incredibly bad, I was thinking they missed half the patch and we were getting some other things to make the whole implementation make sense but that's not the case.

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 think no kit Holo was hit the hardest by the toolbelt lockdown because those CDs are fairly short and you spend a fair amount of time with no access to them with PBM. You could try Enhanced Capacity and juggle the heat but from my testing it has two major issues: Burst is lackluster and you'd have to compete with two burst monsters that got buffs, DH and Weaver.You lose all the Laser's Edge mod when leaving forge. If it worked similar to Soul Barbs it would probably be less egregious.But they didn't think that when implementing the change so let's stick with this until next balance patch (actually no, I'll just play something else)I hated these changes and the worst part is we'll have to wait a whole balance cycle to see if it maybe gets addressed. Both power variants of Holo are parsing low 30k in best scenarios.

making core mesmer the go-to power DPS build is very interesting. They would have to nuke Chrono's DPS and then heavily buff core traitlines though and I find it difficult to believe they can do that sensibly. As it stands core mesmer's DPS is pitiful low and Chronophantasma+Danger Time is a giant chunk of your damage.

In the March EU MAT Scrapper was on both finalist teams. In April it was on the winning EU team. For NA's April MAT it was on both finalist teams. https://www.twitch.tv/videos/417223573 MAT's are not the end all be all indicator for balance, that's true. But at the end of the day if it's winning MAT's against some of the best players in the game, if it's represented on every single winning team, it's well beyond some meme build where all you have to do is go wherever it isn't and GG. Scrapper is anywhere from an A-tier to an S-tier build in effectiveness. And even the best players in the game are either losing to it or are using it in their team composition. It's not some gold tier meme build that struggles once you get out of platinum. And it's not just only in organized play where it shines the way support Firebrand really only becomes S-tier in an organized composition. It's doing excellent in NA's ranked with plenty of showings in the top 100 that I personally know of. It it without a doubt a top tier build. Memory is short for some people like you but there were rules that had you prohibited from stacking heralds in tournaments, for example, because stacking 4 of them was the most efficient way of winning. You're just showing that having one scrapper in your team is good since it's a solid build and that's absolutely fine. That's right, not 2 or 3 or a whole team of scrappers: just one. I don't think you understand PvP or how meta team compositions work. Being a plat/legend player myself I know what it means, I also know and understand like every top player that scrapper isn't "omg broken please nerf to the ground". The videos you posted just showcase that. Thanks for saving me time. Just checked both the EU and NA leaderboard. I don't see you anywhere. Both of them bottom out in plat 1. I'm going to go ahead and say you aren't telling the truth about your own skill. I don't have minimum games required. Now that you brought leaderboards why don't you make an analysis on how many scrappers are actually there though, prepare to be surprised.

In the March EU MAT Scrapper was on both finalist teams. In April it was on the winning EU team. For NA's April MAT it was on both finalist teams. https://www.twitch.tv/videos/417223573 MAT's are not the end all be all indicator for balance, that's true. But at the end of the day if it's winning MAT's against some of the best players in the game, if it's represented on every single winning team, it's well beyond some meme build where all you have to do is go wherever it isn't and GG. Scrapper is anywhere from an A-tier to an S-tier build in effectiveness. And even the best players in the game are either losing to it or are using it in their team composition. It's not some gold tier meme build that struggles once you get out of platinum. And it's not just only in organized play where it shines the way support Firebrand really only becomes S-tier in an organized composition. It's doing excellent in NA's ranked with plenty of showings in the top 100 that I personally know of. It it without a doubt a top tier build. Memory is short for some people like you but there were rules that had you prohibited from stacking heralds in tournaments, for example, because stacking 4 of them was the most efficient way of winning. You're just showing that having one scrapper in your team is good since it's a solid build and that's absolutely fine. That's right, not 2 or 3 or a whole team of scrappers: just one. I don't think you understand PvP or how meta team compositions work. Being a plat/legend player myself I know what it means, I also know and understand like every top player that scrapper isn't "omg broken please nerf to the ground". The videos you posted just showcase that. Thanks for saving me time.

In the March EU MAT Scrapper was on both finalist teams. In April it was on the winning EU team. For NA's April MAT it was on both finalist teams. https://www.twitch.tv/videos/417223573 MAT's are not the end all be all indicator for balance, that's true. But at the end of the day if it's winning MAT's against some of the best players in the game, if it's represented on every single winning team, it's well beyond some meme build where all you have to do is go wherever it isn't and GG. Scrapper is anywhere from an A-tier to an S-tier build in effectiveness. And even the best players in the game are either losing to it or are using it in their team composition. It's not some gold tier meme build that struggles once you get out of platinum. And it's not just only in organized play where it shines the way support Firebrand really only becomes S-tier in an organized composition. It's doing excellent in NA's ranked with plenty of showings in the top 100 that I personally know of. It it without a doubt a top tier build. Memory is short for some people like you but there were rules that had you prohibited from stacking heralds in tournaments, for example, because stacking 4 of them was the most efficient way of winning. You're just showing that having one scrapper in your team is good since it's a solid build and that's absolutely fine. That's right, not 2 or 3 or a whole team of scrappers: just one.

Whatever they (devs) do to eventually address power Chrono better not be an instinctive, knee-jerk reaction towards the current benchmarks. It's true it's a high number but it's also true the peak of its burst takes so disgustingly long to wind up for a power class that things like DH, soulbeast and Weaver still have the upper hand for shorter phase fights. I think your approach on giving the crit chance portion of the trait to core Mesmer is on point, I also think danger time as a whole should emulate what retal traits on the radiance traitline for DH do: benefit for a boon that you are able to readily apply, in this case slow for Chrono should be more readily available in PvE is what I mean. I sincerely want them to sensibly balance here, would hate it if they completely gut power Chrono.

PvP high rated players already found out you either let the scrapper sit on node and win the rest of the map since it can't freely move around or just +1 and it's over. Don't get me wrong, it's a great bunker but a bunker centric meta hasn't been a thing for a while. I think you gotta start thinking outside the box.

You're wrong in many ways but just to give you a perspective, FT2 and pistol 4 do several times over what incendiary ammo does on much shorter cooldowns. You can verify this yourself with any log viewer that can extract logs through arcdps (applies even to WvW). Incendiary ammo being in an ammo system would be interesting though a very unremarkable change.

The issue with Chrono as a whole isn't CS, it's the obviously stronger than every other trait Chronophantasma. It will take a rework sensitive enough to not destroy power Chrono and to offer interesting choices.