As a long time engi player, the Holosmith changes are very concerning. A while back the damage boost while in photon forge mode was reduced, for really no good reason. Today Holo stands as one of the lowest DPS for open world, and mediocre at best for PvE. It's currently not even on Snowcrows. What's concerning is the further nerfing of Holo in this patch.
Seeing refraction cutter buffed a little is great, although the impact will be small and hardly change anything it's certainly welcome for those who use sword (most Holos).
The damage buff to radian arc, however, is confusing. That ability has never been a damage ability due to it's low damage combined with it's long cast time. Instead, it's used as a source of quickness. What would've been better is to make the ability execute faster (making it more viable for damage) or increase the quickness time either directly, or even better, make is so you get access to the 6s boon duration at a lower heat level. Either way, the change for this ability, while it's nice to have any DPS boost for holo, is largely useless as, again, this ability isn't used for damage and this tiny damage boost isn't going to change that.
Finally corona burst. This one really has me confused. Traditionally Holo has been fine at providing area might, this change doesn't due much for party support but it does significantly reduce personal DPS. Although Holo can provide might, it's almost always done by other classes better, as they can do more DPS and provide more might along with other boons at the same time. Moving already poor DPS from yourself to others while not being a support build, and therefore you have minimal access to even personal boons, makes any DPS class feel really poor to play.
TL;DR:
The change to refraction cutter is great. The changes to radiant arc and corona burst don't make any sense and are minor nerfs to a class which certainly doesn't need nerfing seeing as it's so bad it's not even on Snowcrows. If I had a say in it, I would say to apply the refraction cutter change and bring the photon forge damage back up a bit. Maybe then a DPS focused Holo could be on the DPS charts even if it's a the bottom.
