Casual reminder.

[Stalima.5490]

On 9/7/2022 at 9:22 AM, Nephalem.8921 said:

Please explain. How is holo more versatile than mech? Because you know the dps build is fully ranged with a ton of utility and self boons. What kind of versatility does holo bring? It cant really range, it does not have a blink and it cant really do anything besides melee dps.

Your only nice support skill which mech can not take is hardlight arena. Some aoe fury and prot. Thats some S tier versatility right there.

Im not even sure anymore if all the mech defenders are just trolling or serious. Rifle mech is one of the most versatile dps builds in the game. Thats why its played everywhere and why it is such a problem. It can also bring its own boons and aoe might + fury + tons of cc. You could full clear raids with 8 mechs + 2 fb within less than 2h. Have fun doing that with holos. Even if you only take dps holos you would need special strategies for some encounters like qtp kiters. Mech can do that in its basic dps build. But sure holo is the versatile spec..

It's more versatile because it is far more open to kit gameplay, a single kit gives a holo 3 seperate weapons to play with while most mechanists would not even use one kit leaving them with a single weapon and 2 less toolbelt slots, the level of versatility holo has is not even comparable between holo and mechanist.

Versatility is all about the amount of options you have available in a give situation to which the mechanist would generally only have one straight forward option in comparison to the holo who will always bring 2 seperate weapons with various capabilities, it would be increadibly unfair for the holo to do more damage given this factor.

Edited September 10, 2022 by Stalima.5490

[Infusion.7149]

2 hours ago, Stalima.5490 said:

It's more versatile because it is far more open to kit gameplay, a single kit gives a holo 3 seperate weapons to play with while most mechanists would not even use one kit leaving them with a single weapon and 2 less toolbelt slots, the level of versatility holo has is not even comparable between holo and mechanist.

Versatility is all about the amount of options you have available in a give situation to which the mechanist would generally only have one straight forward option in comparison to the holo who will always bring 2 seperate weapons with various capabilities, it would be increadibly unfair for the holo to do more damage given this factor.

Are you still talking about PVE rifle mech or making gross generalizations?
When do holos use more than grenade kit or bomb kit (rifle)? How is having more weapons relevant if the power mech does 1200 range DPS on par with your weapon's autoattack regardless of what you are doing?
If you compare like for like, the heat mechanic locks you out of photon forge if you play PBM , so realistically you are looking at two weapons in that case which is no different than any other class. If you play sword mainhand it isn't even comparable to rifle mech whatsoever since it takes time to build heat for the sword's heat tiers and ECSU. It is highly possible a mechanist with mace can outDPS a holo with no heat because the mech on autopilot does ~14K benchmark which is more or less the entire DPS of a sword with no heat. To put it in perspective you can meme and use elixir gun on mechanist and pretend to be a "HAM" and the mech will still put you at 20K+ DPS assuming 10 conditions on the target because it does that much.

To further illustrate the problem, here's a two kit core power engineer rifle benchmark which reaches 35K. A holo gains nearly no DPS over core while having innately higher risk.

Power holo probably hasn't been in a worse state in recent history.

Edited September 10, 2022 by Infusion.7149

[draxynnic.3719]

3 hours ago, Stalima.5490 said:

It's more versatile because it is far more open to kit gameplay, a single kit gives a holo 3 seperate weapons to play with while most mechanists would not even use one kit leaving them with a single weapon and 2 less toolbelt slots, the level of versatility holo has is not even comparable between holo and mechanist.

Versatility is all about the amount of options you have available in a give situation to which the mechanist would generally only have one straight forward option in comparison to the holo who will always bring 2 seperate weapons with various capabilities, it would be increadibly unfair for the holo to do more damage given this factor.

Nothing's stopping mechanist from running three utility kits and mortar if they want to. If they aren't, it's because they have something better to take in those slots. Generally speaking, the kits you take to deal damage don't bring much utility to the table, they just mean that you have to press more buttons to get whatever DPS you end up with.

If anything, not requiring kits in the base build (even if the suggested SC build for both holosmith and power mech uses exactly the same kits) means mech has more flexibility to slot other utilities. Part of the reason guardian is versatile is that it's usually a fairly low DPS loss to slot some powerful utility like Stand Your Ground, Advance, or Sanctuary.

[Stalima.5490]

I don't understand why you keep trying to compare them doing nothing, the holo is specifically designed to benefit from highly active gameplay, some people like that and many others do not and regardless of what you say, the holo always has more functions than a mechanist and the most possible of any engineer, the specialisation is simply too versatile to reasonably be the highest dps engineer spec.

 

And for another matter, nobody is forcing you to play sword which if I recall is more for tankier roles, paired with the shield and top line the evidence of this is fairly obvious in that you have no power offhand to support a power build via sword and thus should reasonably be using a rifle for power centric builds and not the sword.

[thaniretouni.4762]

People complain about one spec doing worse in dps in PVE. LMAO. Anet has changed tactics and optimise certain specs for certain aspects of the game. Also, there are whole classes like thief that are supposed to be dps yet they do very little dmg in every aspect of the game. After numerous nerfs even in WvW where they once were very good roamers now they are just clowns who hit u with  abilities that barely do dmg (there are tons of classes who outburst even, true shot hitting for 12.5k aoe whereas thief's backstab hitting for 8-9 lol ) and barely do anything other than stealthing and running away. Thief is one of my most played toons. Do I still play it despite how kitten it has become? Yes. Do I complain that others do more dmg than me in strikes or fractals? No. Do I complain about others doing more dmg while having more cc/utility and having almost the same number of escapes as the thief? No. Do i complain that WvW zergs almost always considered Thief a joke? No. I have learned to suck it up and try my best to make the class work. Anet will always nerf things to the ground (except their favourite children, aka Guardian and Elementalist) in order to promote new staff and make you or others the new expansion.

[draxynnic.3719]

11 hours ago, Stalima.5490 said:

I don't understand why you keep trying to compare them doing nothing, the holo is specifically designed to benefit from highly active gameplay, some people like that and many others do not and regardless of what you say, the holo always has more functions than a mechanist and the most possible of any engineer, the specialisation is simply too versatile to reasonably be the highest dps engineer spec.

 

And for another matter, nobody is forcing you to play sword which if I recall is more for tankier roles, paired with the shield and top line the evidence of this is fairly obvious in that you have no power offhand to support a power build via sword and thus should reasonably be using a rifle for power centric builds and not the sword.

You've failed to demonstrate how holosmith possibly has more versatility than a spec that is known to be able to do power damage, condi damage, healing, and alacrity.

Apart from damage, there's really nothing holosmith can do that scrapper and/or mechanist can't do better. You're not going to try to support on holosmith, because if you actually care about toolbelt scrapper is better support, and metanist is BiS alacrity. The holoforge is pretty much all damage (it can generate a bit of mobility and barrier, but scrapper beats it hands down in both). How about utilities? Laser Disk is damage. Prime Light Beam is CC and, in PvE, damage. Spectrum Shield is self-defence, but you're not going to tank as holosmith. Hard Light Arena grants boons, but they're the sort of boons you want when playing solo or in competitive, nobody's going to make a role out of it. That leaves Photon Wall, that provides a bit of projectile blocking... but scrapper (Bulwark Gyro toolbelt) and metanist (Barrier Signet) do it better.

Sorry, but the only thing holosmith brings to the table in instanced group PvE is damage. It's also mostly melee damage with a complex rotation, so the percentage of their benchmark damage that they'll actually do in practice is less than metanist's easy rotation. If holosmith still benches lower than metanist, there's literally no reason to bring holosmith unless you really like the theme and your group doesn't mind you playing something that's objectively inferior, or the encounter has some serious projectile hate.

At the bottom line, holosmith needs to outbench metanist or it's purely a roleplay spec. That could be scaling metanist down or scaling holosmith up. I personally don't care which. Heck, holosmith is far enough down on my list of favoured specs that I don't really have a personal stake in it at all. But for the good of game balance overall, one of those needs to happen.

If you're going to continue this claim that holosmith deserves less damage than metanist because it's more versatile, you're going to need to demonstrate HOW. And no, just having more buttons to push doesn't count when they're mostly just 'press in the right order to do more damage' buttons.

Edited September 11, 2022 by draxynnic.3719

[Stalima.5490]

1 hour ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

You've failed to demonstrate how holosmith possibly has more versatility than a spec that is known to be able to do power damage, condi damage, healing, and alacrity.

Apart from damage, there's really nothing holosmith can do that scrapper and/or mechanist can't do better. You're not going to try to support on holosmith, because if you actually care about toolbelt scrapper is better support, and metanist is BiS alacrity. The holoforge is pretty much all damage (it can generate a bit of mobility and barrier, but scrapper beats it hands down in both). How about utilities? Laser Disk is damage. Prime Light Beam is CC and, in PvE, damage. Spectrum Shield is self-defence, but you're not going to tank as holosmith. Hard Light Arena grants boons, but they're the sort of boons you want when playing solo or in competitive, nobody's going to make a role out of it. That leaves Photon Wall, that provides a bit of projectile blocking... but scrapper (Bulwark Gyro toolbelt) and metanist (Barrier Signet) do it better.

Sorry, but the only thing holosmith brings to the table in instanced group PvE is damage. It's also mostly melee damage with a complex rotation, so the percentage of their benchmark damage that they'll actually do in practice is less than metanist's easy rotation. If holosmith still benches lower than metanist, there's literally no reason to bring holosmith unless you really like the theme and your group doesn't mind you playing something that's objectively inferior, or the encounter has some serious projectile hate.

At the bottom line, holosmith needs to outbench metanist or it's purely a roleplay spec. That could be scaling metanist down or scaling holosmith up. I personally don't care which. Heck, holosmith is far enough down on my list of favoured specs that I don't really have a personal stake in it at all. But for the good of game balance overall, one of those needs to happen.

If you're going to continue this claim that holosmith deserves less damage than metanist because it's more versatile, you're going to need to demonstrate HOW. And no, just having more buttons to push doesn't count when they're mostly just 'press in the right order to do more damage' buttons.

you literally just described the definition of versatility when describing holos abilities... so i don't need to demonstrate anything.

 

It isn't really anets fault if they designed holo as a tank and you are trying to convert it into a dps after all.

Edited September 11, 2022 by Stalima.5490

[anbujackson.9564]

5 minutes ago, Stalima.5490 said:

you literally just described the definition of versatility when describing holos abilities... so i don't need to demonstrate anything.

 

It isn't really anets fault if they designed holo as a tank and you are trying to convert it into a dps after all.

You are quite naive or you are just trolling. The "tank" spec is scrapper. And all it needs for this is the minor trait that converts damage into barrier. Meanwhile overheating as holo damages you (25-50% depending on your trait). So I dont even know what you are smoking to say this.

 

13 hours ago, Stalima.5490 said:

 

And for another matter, nobody is forcing you to play sword which if I recall is more for tankier roles, paired with the shield and top line the evidence of this is fairly obvious in that you have no power offhand to support a power build via sword and thus should reasonably be using a rifle for power centric builds and not the sword.

This just hurts to read and it proves that you have no idea about engineer. Sword is a dps weapon, scaling with your heat level. And you dont use shield as tank, you use it for cc because sword holo lacks cc otherwise. But hey guess what? Mech has all his cc frontloaded in his dps skills! So he doesnt have to sacrifice anything! Cool right? No need to change weapons or skills for that.

Also sword does more dps than rifle. It did more damage before the removal of unique buffs and the gap is greater now.

To me it seems like you just play mech and never any other engineer spec. Then you see someone outdpsing you as holo players for whatever reason. Else I cant imagine how you can say this.

[Stalima.5490]

4 hours ago, anbujackson.9564 said:

You are quite naive or you are just trolling. The "tank" spec is scrapper. And all it needs for this is the minor trait that converts damage into barrier. Meanwhile overheating as holo damages you (25-50% depending on your trait). So I dont even know what you are smoking to say this.

 

This just hurts to read and it proves that you have no idea about engineer. Sword is a dps weapon, scaling with your heat level. And you dont use shield as tank, you use it for cc because sword holo lacks cc otherwise. But hey guess what? Mech has all his cc frontloaded in his dps skills! So he doesnt have to sacrifice anything! Cool right? No need to change weapons or skills for that.

Also sword does more dps than rifle. It did more damage before the removal of unique buffs and the gap is greater now.

To me it seems like you just play mech and never any other engineer spec. Then you see someone outdpsing you as holo players for whatever reason. Else I cant imagine how you can say this.

you do know holo has like 2 selectable dps and one mandatory dps trait right? The entire rest of the tree is dedicated to tanking, utility or support, it also has 3 utility skills and a heal which are all tanking oriented, the simple fact is, holo primarily consists of tanking traits and abilities, and from the traits and abilities it has been given it is quite clear that it simply isn't designed to be a dedicated dps specialisation, the sword traits are rather puzzling however as they do not reflect the entire rest of the specialisation, they may have just made it that way to let you use power tank armour as opposed to condition tank armour like core would have to.

 

For example if the sword gave you resolution or protection rather than quickness it would completely solidify the specialisation as a dedicated tank in a single go.

Edited September 11, 2022 by Stalima.5490

[anbujackson.9564]

15 minutes ago, Stalima.5490 said:

you do know holo has like 2 selectable dps and one mandatory dps trait right? The entire rest of the tree is dedicated to tanking, utility or support, it also has 3 utility skills and a heal which are all tanking oriented, the simple fact is, holo primarily consists of tanking traits and abilities, and from the traits and abilities it has been given it is quite clear that it simply isn't designed to be a dedicated dps specialisation, the sword traits are rather puzzling howerver as they do not reflect the entire rest of the specialisation, they may have just made it that way to let you use power tank armour as opposed to condition tank armor like core would have to.

 

For example if the sword gave you resolution rather than quickness it would completely solidify the specialisation as a dedicated tank in a single go.

There are 4 traits in total that you may call "tanky". One is heat therapy as minor trait, two are in your adept tier traitline so you have to choose between a condi conversion when leaving photon forge or less incoming damage for increased heat generation (which you dont want) and then you have eclipse for meme barrier. I could go more into scrapper but I dont have to. He doesnt need to take other tanky traits he could you because the barrier Generation is so high that it outvalues all traits from holo together.

And by the way, to quote the official wiki: 

 

Holosmith is an elite specialization for the engineer unlocked with the Path of Fire expansion. Holosmiths have learned to use zephyrite crystals to construct their Photon Forge, a device capable of turning the light of the sun into weapons of hard light to cauterize their enemies. The Photon Forge heats up with use, becoming even more effective. But reckless use will end in overheat, which damages the holosmith and prevents the usage of the Photon Forge until it cools down. They have learned to use that heat into exceed skills, which become more powerful at higher heat levels. They can wield a sword in their main hand, which they also imbue with hard light for greater effectiveness when heated up. Holosmiths excel at damage dealing.

 

I want to stress that last sentence.

Edit:

Mechanist is an elite specialization for the engineer unlocked with the End of Dragons expansion. The advances in Canthan technology and the capacity for storing energy of the Dragonjade have been the cornerstone for the mechanists' cutting-edge Jade Mech CJ-1, their very own battle bot. They replace their tool belt with Mech Command skills to control their mechs. Mechanists have learned signet skills, which augment both themselves and their mech, and can be consumed for greater effects. They can wield maces in their main hand for both damage and support. Their mechs are highly customisable, gaining different abilities based on the mechanists choice of traits. This makes mechanists very versatile, letting them specialise into damage dealing, or support, providing boons and healing.

Edited September 11, 2022 by anbujackson.9564

[Stalima.5490]

Really, your pulling up what anet said? does anyone actually take that seriously at this point, i mean if their idea of versatile is hard locked condi dps hard locked power dps or hard locked support then they may need to reevaluate what the concept of versatility is.

[draxynnic.3719]

22 hours ago, Stalima.5490 said:

you literally just described the definition of versatility when describing holos abilities... so i don't need to demonstrate anything.

 

It isn't really anets fault if they designed holo as a tank and you are trying to convert it into a dps after all.

Nope. I'll give you the short form: Everything holo can do that isn't just damage, scrapper or mechanist can do better. Including tanking. Sure, holosmith has some versatility because it's based on engineer, and all the core professions are designed with a bit of versatility in mind, but scrapper and metanist are much more versatile.

With that being the case, damage needs to be the reason you take holosmith.

Specifically melee damage. Holosmith having a better benchmark isn't going to kill power metanist, since power metanist having a simpler, ranged rotation means it will stay useful in situations where holosmith will fail. The current situation, though, does render holosmith into being a roleplay spec.

If you want to claim otherwise, provide an example of something that holosmith can do that neither scrapper or metanist can do better.

Edited September 12, 2022 by draxynnic.3719

[Infusion.7149]

7 hours ago, Stalima.5490 said:

you do know holo has like 2 selectable dps and one mandatory dps trait right? The entire rest of the tree is dedicated to tanking, utility or support, it also has 3 utility skills and a heal which are all tanking oriented, the simple fact is, holo primarily consists of tanking traits and abilities, and from the traits and abilities it has been given it is quite clear that it simply isn't designed to be a dedicated dps specialisation, the sword traits are rather puzzling however as they do not reflect the entire rest of the specialisation, they may have just made it that way to let you use power tank armour as opposed to condition tank armour like core would have to.

 

For example if the sword gave you resolution or protection rather than quickness it would completely solidify the specialisation as a dedicated tank in a single go.

If you join an instanced content squad as a "tank holo" expect to be kicked by all but the most clueless people. The only specialized role holo has is W5 River superspeed holo, which you can easily replace to a great degree with heal scrapper since otherwise you still need a healer.

You're probably confusing old prot holo in PVP (not any other mode) with PVE. That only removed condis and applied prot, it barely did any other support since it was on berserker amulet. If you try to run something like that in PVE you would probably be laughed at just as if you try to run a sword water weaver.

Edited September 11, 2022 by Infusion.7149

[squeegee.4320]

I play celestial (condi focus) Holosmith in open world content because I think it's fun. But i always have to switch to Mechanist when doing anything with groups. 😕

[Ashgar.3024]

On 9/10/2022 at 11:19 AM, Infusion.7149 said:

Are you still talking about PVE rifle mech or making gross generalizations?
When do holos use more than grenade kit or bomb kit (rifle)? How is having more weapons relevant if the power mech does 1200 range DPS on par with your weapon's autoattack regardless of what you are doing?
If you compare like for like, the heat mechanic locks you out of photon forge if you play PBM , so realistically you are looking at two weapons in that case which is no different than any other class. If you play sword mainhand it isn't even comparable to rifle mech whatsoever since it takes time to build heat for the sword's heat tiers and ECSU. It is highly possible a mechanist with mace can outDPS a holo with no heat because the mech on autopilot does ~14K benchmark which is more or less the entire DPS of a sword with no heat. To put it in perspective you can meme and use elixir gun on mechanist and pretend to be a "HAM" and the mech will still put you at 20K+ DPS assuming 10 conditions on the target because it does that much.

To further illustrate the problem, here's a two kit core power engineer rifle benchmark which reaches 35K. A holo gains nearly no DPS over core while having innately higher risk.

Power holo probably hasn't been in a worse state in recent history.

 

Yep can confirm this works lol. Its pretty funny and sad at the same time.

[Ashgar.3024]

4 hours ago, squeegee.4320 said:

I play celestial (condi focus) Holosmith in open world content because I think it's fun. But i always have to switch to Mechanist when doing anything with groups. 😕

I used to play Cele Holo in openworld but now i just use my quickscrapper build. Just as durable and much burstier.

[Eekasqueak.7850]

First time I've seen anyone call holo a tank spec. Aren't those not even a thing in most content? 

[draxynnic.3719]

1 hour ago, Eekasqueak.7850 said:

First time I've seen anyone call holo a tank spec. Aren't those not even a thing in most content? 

And when they are, they're usually support builds in Minstrel's, since they can run Minstrel's gear with less of an impact on their overall performance than a DPS build running Soldier's or even Trailblazer's, and it's easier for the healer to know when to heal the tank when the healer IS the tank. So... scrappers and metanists have a clear win there too.

[Ashgar.3024]

17 hours ago, Eekasqueak.7850 said:

First time I've seen anyone call holo a tank spec. Aren't those not even a thing in most content? 

They are in a few raid encounters but nobody ever uses Holo for it. Scrapper is much better tooled for it but honestly even mecanist is better since you can role compress Healer + Tank using a Minstrel HAM build.

Edited September 12, 2022 by Ashgar.3024

[Ghos.1326]

On 9/5/2022 at 12:26 PM, anbujackson.9564 said:

Calling holo more versatile is really stretching it for me. You choose between ESCU/PBM (more sustained vs more burst) and thats pretty much it? The mid tier is basically useless for power holo. You got only one choice in adept. 

Mech abilities and signets are so broken that these alone make it already more versatile. You dont need to take grenades, so you can take any other utility you want. 

Both holo versions need to be 100% melee. Both have to manage heat in their own way. What is there to manage on mech? Not falling asleep? How can you even say with a straight face that mech should be top dps.

Choosing between ESCU and PBM is not a bad thing however. If we start overloading traits with benefits, we will be right back to where we didn't want to be: build diversity death.

Middle traits, top can be used for some explosives synergy as the attack counts as an explosion.

First traits, you can choose to clear condis every 10 to 15 seconds, be a little more physically tanky by reducing damage by 10% while in forge at the cost of more heat gen, or more burn from focusing lens.

But one thing I will say and agree with, while both in PvE are pretty diverse, mech is probably a little more diverse than holo simply because mech's overall theme is the jack of all trades playstyle, while holo focuses more on offense.

[Ghos.1326]

On 9/11/2022 at 5:41 AM, anbujackson.9564 said:

There are 4 traits in total that you may call "tanky". One is heat therapy as minor trait, two are in your adept tier traitline so you have to choose between a condi conversion when leaving photon forge or less incoming damage for increased heat generation (which you dont want) and then you have eclipse for meme barrier. I could go more into scrapper but I dont have to. He doesnt need to take other tanky traits he could you because the barrier Generation is so high that it outvalues all traits from holo together.

And by the way, to quote the official wiki: 

 

Holosmith is an elite specialization for the engineer unlocked with the Path of Fire expansion. Holosmiths have learned to use zephyrite crystals to construct their Photon Forge, a device capable of turning the light of the sun into weapons of hard light to cauterize their enemies. The Photon Forge heats up with use, becoming even more effective. But reckless use will end in overheat, which damages the holosmith and prevents the usage of the Photon Forge until it cools down. They have learned to use that heat into exceed skills, which become more powerful at higher heat levels. They can wield a sword in their main hand, which they also imbue with hard light for greater effectiveness when heated up. Holosmiths excel at damage dealing.

 

I want to stress that last sentence.

Edit:

Mechanist is an elite specialization for the engineer unlocked with the End of Dragons expansion. The advances in Canthan technology and the capacity for storing energy of the Dragonjade have been the cornerstone for the mechanists' cutting-edge Jade Mech CJ-1, their very own battle bot. They replace their tool belt with Mech Command skills to control their mechs. Mechanists have learned signet skills, which augment both themselves and their mech, and can be consumed for greater effects. They can wield maces in their main hand for both damage and support. Their mechs are highly customisable, gaining different abilities based on the mechanists choice of traits. This makes mechanists very versatile, letting them specialise into damage dealing, or support, providing boons and healing.

I agree here. Many people don't realize that the passive traits also kinda set the direction of the spec (or trait line), so they completely undermind or ignore them.

Holo's passive traits consist of an offensive and a very weak defensive, the latter being you gain health while dissipating heat. Then there's the first passive, which allows the engineer to use the sword. While it may not seem like an offensive trait, looking at the sword skills, all of them gain some kind of damage boost from higher heat levels, and we all know that higher heat levels increase your damage thanks to the other offensive passive trait.

Spot on brother.