Buff Holosmith openworld and make it the burn specialist for Engineer

[Atmaweapon.7345]

After restarting the game during PoF, I really liked Holosmith open world gameplay. Then the PvP nerfs attacked and completely butchered aspects of the kit that made for great quality of life for a melee, like losing stability on Corona Burst and halving the radius of Holographic Shockwave. I swapped to Scrapper after the Gyro change so that I had a more comfy time on everything but I still liked Holo gameplay more.  Then Mech comes in here in EoD and is way better at everything Holo does and has a niche all to its own.

 

I want Holo to be brought up to date with other specs when it comes to just doing open world content and as a Pure DPS focused elite spec, and I'd like for it to have its own build niche, one that can be tuned independently of every other spec without needing insane damage bonuses on the traitline. I believe that Holo would be great if it could be turned into Engineer's premiere "Burning spec",  basically just being Flamethrower on overdose; a high power and high burning damage combo. No other elite spec can really match Holo's fire/light theme for Engineer so I feel like not capitalizing on this was a waste in the first place. Also, with how they're now splitting actual effects between PvE and PvP like with the Druid stability change, Holo can get a lot of help back to make it feel better.

 

Ideally, this build uses the Grieving set, achieving 100% Burning duration through runes and traits and then scaling Power when Condition damage isn't available.

 

Some specific stuff I'm thinking:

 

-Stability, Quickness, and Alacrity for 3 seconds on entering Photon Forge.

-Increased healing from Heat Therapy.

-Laser's Edge bonus no longer requires Photon Forge and affects Burning.

-General buffs/changes to the Crystal Configuration set of Major traits so that they're less just PvP/utility focused.

 

The 3 boons on entering PF are vital for it to making it function properly because right now there's a bit of an awkward playstyle difference for when you have these boons vs. not having them. Stab is mainly so that the melee focused elite actually has some way to stay in melee without getting knocked around. The buff to Heat therapy gives Holo a more pronounced "cooldown" phase while also making its sustain not lag so far behind Scrapper and Mech.

Also assume that no buffs to Holo will make to PvP. The new design philosophy seems to allow extreme differences between PvE and PvP iterations of skills to the point that you can have skills grant boons in one mode and not the other.

Edited August 28, 2022 by Atmaweapon.7345

[SleepyBat.9034]

2 hours ago, Atmaweapon.7345 said:

No other elite spec can really match Holo's fire/light theme for Engineer

Except you know, Firebrand.

 

Quote

-Stability, Quickness, and Alacrity for 3 seconds on entering Photon Forge.

Elixir U is a thing, also why do you need Alacrity? Holosmith has like no cooldowns in Forge.

Quote

-General buffs/changes to the Crystal Configuration set of Major traits so that they're less just PvP/utility focused.

The only one that is PvP Focused is really Crystal Configuration: Zepher, and we don't want that changed.

They should really add the stability back into Crystal Configuration: Eclipse though.

Edited August 29, 2022 by SleepyBat.9034

[Atmaweapon.7345]

Keywords: "For Engineer" regarding theme.

Alacrity affects how fast you can turn forge off. Adding it natively to Photon Forge helps to prevent catastrophic failure by overheating and makes the rotation more consistent when playing solo or in a group (like in map wide metas).

Elixir U is an incredibly poor substitute for when Holo had Stability on CC: Eclipse. Adding it to Photon Forge toggle helps keep key abilities from being interrupted if you mistime something or fight unfamiliar enemies in the open world.

As for Crystal Configurations, they're kind of stuck in this balancing limbo where the choice is really only there for PvP. In PvE you don't want to generate extra heat from Storm, and super-speed from Zephyr is rarely helpful so everyone just defaults to Eclipse for that bit of sustain.

If, for example, Storm didn't generate extra heat, Zephyr increased Holo Leap's damage (to match the auto-chain in dps with quickness) and/or gave it an evade for increased cooldown, and Eclipse gave barrier to your party, now there's some interesting options for PvE. Storm makes general uptime easier, Zephyr lets you add Holo Leap into your dps rotation and lets you keep dps through certain attacks rather than being ignored almost entirely, and Eclipse becomes the support option, they could even add boons onto Eclipse in this case given their reasoning for the Corona Burst change.

 

Recent balance as it pertains to Druid demonstrates the devs willing to entertain a larger separation between PvE and PvP effects. PvP Holo won't get easy stab back or evade or anything like that. Because of this, I think it's the perfect time to make Holo more casual/open world friendly again.

 

Edited August 29, 2022 by Atmaweapon.7345

[SleepyBat.9034]

Very interesting.

[Matoro.9708]

I would say that thematically I'd like to see more reveal effects from holo skills, given the massive emphasis on light.