[Engineer] Game Release Notes - November 7, 2017

[LUST.2305]

Engineer:

Engineer updates are focused around the holosmith and improving the synergy of the Photon Forge mode with other skills. To that end, the sword is seeing some improvements to smooth out rotations and to make heat stocking more valuable. Additionally, several holosmith skills are gaining combo finishers to synergize with core engineers' variety of fields.

Holosmith Rewards: Updated available stat combinations to use Berserker, Marauder, and Marshal options. This change will reset your current shoulder pieces and weapons and will require you to reselect your stat preference.

Skills

• Sun Edge/Sun Ripper/Gleam Saber: Removed heat bonuses that increased critical-hit chance. Added a new heat bonus that increases damage by 10% while above 50 heat and 20% while above 100 heat.
• Gleam Saber: Increased damage by 10%.
• Refraction Cutter: Increased blade projectile damage by 25%. Projectiles fired by this skill are considered projectile finishers. Increased projectile width and effect size.
• Radiant Arc: Reduced casting time by 0.1 second. Reduced aftercast by 0.1 second.
• Holo Leap: The swiftness or superspeed applied by this skill is now applied at the end of the leap rather than at the start.
• Photon Blitz: This skill is now a 20% chance projectile finisher.
• Holographic Shockwave: This skill is now a blast finisher. This skill will now go on interrupt cooldown instead of full cooldown if it is interrupted before the shock wave is created.
• Coolant Blast: This skill is now a blast finisher. Chill duration increased from 2 seconds to 4 seconds.
• Cauterize: Increased number of conditions removed from 2 to 3. Conditions removed while above 50 heat increased from 4 to 6.
• Photon Wall: Reduced aftercast by 0.25 seconds.

Traits

• Crystal Configuration: Storm: Projectiles fired by this trait are now 20% chance projectile finishers.
• Solar Focusing Lens: The effect granted by this trait now also increases the outgoing damage of your next few attacks by 10%.
• Photonic Blasting Module: Increased damage by 25%.
• Vent Exhaust: Increased damage by 120%. Lowered burning stacks from 3 to 1. Increased burning duration from 3 seconds to 6 seconds.

~ https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/14429/game-release-notes-november-7-2017

[LUST.2305]

We got some much needed combo-finishers (can check many of these off) and damage buffs to sword and traits. Coolant Blast/Cauterize seems much more valuable.The projectile finishers will make Hard Light Arena much more useful against condi, can't wait to try it out.

While no major changes to Exceed skills yet (was hoping to see a Whirl finisher with Laser-Disk), a victory for now nonetheless!

[lorddarkflare.9186]

The cauterize buff is pretty awesome. Certainly worth taking sometimes, although I think a 20 recharge would be ideal.

Coolant blast is better, but the secondary heal should be AoE.

It is however a major bummer that with this patch, there is no way in hell this class will ever not be a pure power one. Shame.

[Adamantium.3682]

Great job by Anet IMO with what they did. I think they missed some core changes but this is good for holo. Some more things I would do but this is fair. I still don't like the heal...

[guildabd.6529]

Med kit dodged again. Why they keep dodging med kit? It's crap. Waited for years to be able to use that kit. Even made full ascended magi.

[Vagrant.7206]

@guildabd.6529 said:Med kit dodged again. Why they keep dodging med kit? It's crap. Waited for years to be able to use that kit. Even made full ascended magi.

Honestly, I think that's one of the least of our problems. Our core weapons still have no interaction with heat.

[ParadoX.3124]

Except some finishers and physical dammage on SWORD, nothing has really changed.We still don't have condi specialisation.

[GottFaust.5297]

@ParadoX.3124 said:Except some finishers and physical dammage on SWORD, nothing has really changed.We still don't have condi specialisation.

Holosmith is intended as a power spec. Why would they "balance" it by completely swapping it to condi?

[ParadoX.3124]

Cause core condi is still better than Holosmith or scrapper Power or Condi in terms of dammagesI expected more burn on holosmith for this update, or all weapons interacting with heat (longer duration, more stacks, I don't know)No change on exceed skills except this : "Photon Wall: Reduced aftercast by 0.25 seconds." what a change wow

[Adamantium.3682]

@ParadoX.3124 said:Cause core condi is still better than Holosmith or scrapper Power or Condi in terms of dammagesI expected more burn on holosmith for this update, or all weapons interacting with heat (longer duration, more stacks, I don't know)No change on exceed skills except this : "Photon Wall: Reduced aftercast by 0.25 seconds." what a change wow

Before this patch, Holo power and Core condi were so close as to be negligible. Condi was ahead a little bit. Now Holo is probably ahead a little bit. Engis have two viable dps builds that are actually different from each other. What more could you possibly want?

Holosmith is not a condi spec. It just isn't. They're not going to redesign it into one either. If you were expecting that you should re evaluate your expectations for balance patches.

There are some things I wish they would have touched, like shield, but overall I don't see how this is anything but a positive patch for Engis.

When this is the type of response Anet gets for a very fair balance patch to Engineers, sometimes I wonder why they even bother.

[bambi.6214]

@ParadoX.3124 said:Cause core condi is still better than Holosmith or scrapper Power or Condi in terms of dammagesAnd what's wrong with that?

[GottFaust.5297]

@ParadoX.3124 said:Cause core condi is still better than Holosmith or scrapper Power or Condi in terms of dammagesI expected more burn on holosmith for this update, or all weapons interacting with heat (longer duration, more stacks, I don't know)No change on exceed skills except this : "Photon Wall: Reduced aftercast by 0.25 seconds." what a change wow

The answer to that isn't to turn holo into condi. The answer to that is to buff holo as it is: which they did.

[Atmaweapon.7345]

I tried testing the new Solar lens, but I don't think the damage increase works at all.

[Arimas.3492]

These changes are good for sure, but I'm still disappointed it takes 3 or more months to churn out this little amount of changes per patch. Like others have said med kit again gets the slip, no heat on weapons for Holo, etc.

Overall I'm disappointed like always.

[Lunateric.3708]

@Atmaweapon.7345 said:I tried testing the new Solar lens, but I don't think the damage increase works at all.

It seems to not work at all, not sure where to put a bug report.

EDIT: left a bug report post already over the bug report subforum!

[insanemaniac.2456]

no patch will be able to address all unused things. the balance team is 3 devs. this was a good patch at face value and i look forward to playing around with things that got buffed.

[Dediggefedde.4961]

I like the changes to sword. Usually I'm in a WvW zerg group (sometimes roaming a bit) and the additional blast finishers (Holo-5 & Coolant blast) feel nice.Sword-3 over 100% heat is impressive on close-combat... high burst damage, even when players stack. 3 also feels more fluent with the 0.1s changes and 1 feels like doing a lot more damage...

Light-field + projectile finisher is condition cleansing projectiles (cleanse 1 ally near the enemy struck).Sword 3 above 100% heat has 5 piercing projectiles with up to 3 targets.With a light field and 2 enemies in front of you, that would remove up to 15 conditions (in total) from "nearby allies", which probably includes yourself.one enemy would still be 5 conditions... other fields are not that great or present... maybe dark-field for life drain burst...

Holo-4's projectile finisher is nice as it's also piercing! Holo-2 makes sense since you can not walk while jumping, but it feels more clunky now... as if there is a 0.2s delay between finishing the jump and receiving the boon/superspeed.

Since cauterize removes more conditions, for me coolant blast became an option. Though, if our heals and resistance have problems, Healing turret is still the best for group play. I guess healing turret / coolant blast is a trade between group-heal (+ short water field) and AoE-Freeze... It's nice to have a blast finisher there that doesn't put down a field, though. ^^

Vent heat, thermic blast module, solar lence... with a power build with sword, hard light arena, laser disk, light beam and maybe coolant blast, 150% heat capacity is pretty much a given. And in WvW the condition conversion at leaving forge is too neat to give up... So, no idea about those traits.

I'm a bit sad that the exhausts weren't really toughed... lazer-disc and hardlight arena feels nice, but spectrum shield and photon wall are somewhat meh...spectrum shield is the best stunbreaker if heat is abve 50%, since low CD and dmg reduction... In zergplay you are only stunned in enemy-bombs, though, but this happens not so frequently, so elixier S is a better alternative, even untraited. photon wall... creates a reflecting wall in front of you and people that stand inside the wall are also reflecting projectiles... which won't reach them as they stand in a reflecting wall... the launch doesn't seem very dangerous, too... both of their toolbelts are not really impressive either...

So, as a zerg player this patch was useful (despite some things that I ignore because of the setup I play in).Lower shield-CC, heat mechanic for pistol and rifle, stability instead of regeneration at hard light arena... medical kit rework... Those would be nice ideas for the next patch ;)

[Ardid.7203]

By comparison, IMO, this was a positive patch. Not enough, but much better than previous ones. They showed us they are at least aware that Holosmith needs to be a true high risk/high reward DPS spec. They didn't nerf Holo, which honestly was what I was almost sure will happen. They tried to make better some lacking areas, and slightly buffed some decent others, rising the overall spec a bit: more or less what we were discussing in the forums, that for a self damaging Glass Cannon, Holo still needed more Cannon.

@Vagrant.7206 said:

@guildabd.6529 said:Med kit dodged again. Why they keep dodging med kit? It's crap. Waited for years to be able to use that kit. Even made full ascended magi.

Honestly, I think that's one of the least of our problems. Our core weapons still have no interaction with heat.

Frankly, I think the lack of work in Core problems (from med kit to turrets, from gadgets to lack of group support, from useless traits to insufficient basic weapons) is WAY more important than any further spec (Holo or Scrapper) improvement. The profession still needs a thorough revision in its foundation. Without it any change will be made without any guarantee, subject forever to sudden nerfs, unexpected OP exploits and continuous build rigidity.It would be nice if our specs could truly interact with our core. But we need a fixed core first.

[Ten.2617]

Still without see the heat mechanic...

[gannondorf.7628]

@Ardid.7203 said:By comparison, IMO, this was a positive patch. Not enough, but much better than previous ones. They showed us they are at least aware that Holosmith needs to be a true high risk/high reward DPS spec. They didn't nerf Holo, which honestly was what I was almost sure will happen. They tried to make better some lacking areas, and slightly buffed some decent others, rising the overall spec a bit: more or less what we were discussing in the forums, that for a self damaging Glass Cannon, Holo still needed more Cannon.

@Vagrant.7206 said:

@guildabd.6529 said:Med kit dodged again. Why they keep dodging med kit? It's crap. Waited for years to be able to use that kit. Even made full ascended magi.

Honestly, I think that's one of the least of our problems. Our core weapons still have no interaction with heat.

Frankly, I think the lack of work in Core problems (from med kit to turrets, from gadgets to lack of group support, from useless traits to insufficient basic weapons) is WAY more important than any further spec (Holo or Scrapper) improvement. The profession still needs a thorough revision in its foundation. Without it any change will be made without any guarantee, subject forever to sudden nerfs, unexpected OP exploits and continuous build rigidity.It would be nice if our specs could truly interact with our core. But we need a fixed core first.

I still hope ANET will hear you (and all fellow engi who ask for a core rework) but i wouldn't put to much faith in it...