Here is why Holosmith is good design in my opinion (pve dps)

[Jopettaja.7451]

Holosmith is a good spec for both complete beginners and experienced players, you can chose if you want to go simple build and do decent damage or go all in with the most complicated version and top the dps charts. It is very good spec to progress with, you will feel powerful right from the start and you can increase the difficulty slowly, for example,

 

1. Doing only sword and Photon forge auto attacks gives you around 20k dps

2. Adding your most important weapon skills like Photon forge 3,4 and sword 2 gives you already around 25k dps (this is already strong base for the damage)

3. Going simple kitless Holo, adding your utilities and toolbelt, even with some mistakes in the rotation you can do 30k dps

4. Adding harder to use utilities like grenade kit and better rotation you can do 35k dps

5. After that you can still keep min maxing your dps, like going back and fort with grenade kit, doing the rotation faster and smoother, just all around refine it going already closer to 40k

 

These numbers are not exact real numbers, I tried to keep them simple and they are there more to make the point. The point being, you can start from very simple and keep going more and more complicated and harder rotation and it will reward you every time, but also very importantly and this is very important part: the damage on the most important holosmith base skills are so strong it is easy to start with and even if you make mistakes in your rotation your dps wont go down into oblivion. But at the same time for the max dps the difficulty increases significally, you can still see the difference between the new and the more experienced Holosmith, it is good for both new and expericend players, both can get a lot out of it

 

The opposite build for this in my opinion would be Catalyst, the base damage of the build is very low, your auto attacks are barely 10k and non of the weapon skills are actually very strong on their own you just have a lot of them, lot of the damage also relies on the utility skills, Catalyst still has a huge dps, but it is all based on speed from the start, you have a lot of skills and you need to use them fast, there is not really easy and hard build on Catalyst, there is just one hard build and the difference with good and bad player is if you do it just fast or slow (you could drop water attunement, but i would not count that as easy build and all what i mentioned before would still apply)  if you fail your rotation or you simply are unable to do it fast enough there is not much you fall onto since even your auto attacks and individual skills are so low damage and your dps goes way down, it is very punishing. I understand some might like this so they can show their superior dps and/or have a challenge, (and i do think it is also very important to reward players who put the work into it) but in my opinion this is bad design and alienates a lot of new and maybe not as skilled players. (Looking my Holosmith progression example i made before, catalyst progression is bit like starting with rotation on 5th part but doing dps of the 2nd part) With Holosmith design you can still see the difference between player skills but the difference is just not as big and it is way easier to start with

 

And on the other hand the far opposite to the other way would be power rifle Mechanist on its peak damage, it is like the rotation of the easiest version of Holosmith, but with the dps of the hardest version of Holosmith. There is no real progression and there is little to no difference between less and more skilled players, you just start from the top.( Looking the Holosmith progession example again, Mechanist is kind of like rotation of the 2nd part and damage of the 5th part right from the start) I do understand easier builds are needed in the game and i definitely do think so, but i think Holo offers both of these ends in more healthy way for the game, works for any skill level, but still the more you put work into it the more you get out of it

 

On top of all this, Holosmith has wide variety of skills and tools it can use to keep it more interesting, you can use shield instead of pistol for minor dps loss but better self defence and cc, you can go even rifle for completely different weapon and new kind of rotation, there are a lot of choices for utilities, you can go with kits or kitless, personally Photon forge is not my favourite thing on the looks but i can see why many would like how flashy and cool it is, you can even change the whole aim of Holosmith upside down and take Photonic Blasting Module instead of Enhanced Capacity Storage Unit trait and explode your Photon forge on purpose giving all new twist for the build. The base of Holo always stays the same but there are a lot of variety and options you can chose from and there is real progresson and reward in learning the elite spec

 

Holosmith is still not perfect elite spec, but it is definitely one of the better designs what comes to the game play whether you like the theme or not

[Sensations.9507]

Its pretty dishonest to throw numbers around like this.  One of, if not the best, Holosmith player with perfect boons and scenario hitting a single target dummy barely gets 38k.  So to say that someone who masters the classes pushes 40k+ is really terrible.  First of all only power holo can get above 35k on a perfected scenario benchmark.  Given than both condi and power holo were good specs for 5 years and are now shadows of themselves I would be false advertising the strength of a pure dps class that doesnt do good dps...  Before anyone freaks out about ALLLL of the great kit utility engineers bring.  Stop.  Boons are all that matter in groups for the last 7+ years now as far as aiding a group.  Holosmith does not bring any of the important boons to the group under any loadout or kit.  It needs to do damage and it doesnt.

 

Now as far as gameplay goes I think Holosmith is one of the best specs in the game.  Near perfect.  Thats why I advocate for it so much and try to bring it the buffs it needs to get back to its old glory.

[Jopettaja.7451]

17 hours ago, Sensations.9507 said:

Its pretty dishonest to throw numbers around like this.  One of, if not the best, Holosmith player with perfect boons and scenario hitting a single target dummy barely gets 38k.  So to say that someone who masters the classes pushes 40k+ is really terrible.  First of all only power holo can get above 35k on a perfected scenario benchmark.  Given than both condi and power holo were good specs for 5 years and are now shadows of themselves I would be false advertising the strength of a pure dps class that doesnt do good dps...  Before anyone freaks out about ALLLL of the great kit utility engineers bring.  Stop.  Boons are all that matter in groups for the last 7+ years now as far as aiding a group.  Holosmith does not bring any of the important boons to the group under any loadout or kit.  It needs to do damage and it doesnt.

 

Now as far as gameplay goes I think Holosmith is one of the best specs in the game.  Near perfect.  Thats why I advocate for it so much and try to bring it the buffs it needs to get back to its old glory.

 I think you read only half of the post and missed the whole point

[Sensations.9507]

52 minutes ago, Jopettaja.7451 said:

 I think you read only half of the post and missed the whole point

I did.  Read you comments about numbers and supposed huge utility...

 

Apparently you didnt read and comprehend my post..

[Jopettaja.7451]

9 minutes ago, Sensations.9507 said:

I did.  Read you comments about numbers and supposed huge utility...

 

Apparently you didnt read and comprehend my post..

Again I think you did not read the post, and you are mispresenting what I said, there was no dishonesty, i never did any false advertising, I never said you can do "40k+" dps, I never even said you can do 40k dps, I said you can get closer to 40k, Holosmith bench is currently around 38k which is getting closer to 40k like I said, >>>and all that doesnt even matter because right after this I clearly said "These numbers are not exact real numbers, I tried to keep them simple and they are there more to make the point" <<<

The point is not how much holosmith can do dps, you are talking about the exact dps numbers which is not the point of the post at all but instead how the damage is distributed in the holosmith skills and the design of holosmith, how it is easy to progress with and how it offers something for both less and more experienced players through this kind of design, I also compared holo to less well made designs in my opinion to make the point more clear, why is holo type of design better and more healthy for the game and Id wish to see more design like holosmiths instead

 

And what comes to the utilities i never talked anything about Holosmith having "supposed huge utility" or how Holo brings something for the team, I said: "Holosmith has wide variety of skills and tools it can use to keep it more interesting" and the last word is the key part here, "Interesting",  I was talking how holo has options to keep the build interesting longer, it was literally in the first sentence of the whole paragraph, i was not talking how good or great they are but how fun and interesting they are

 

You are completely missing the whole point of the post in every part and picking up my words here and there out of context in addition to telling that i said things that i actually never did

[Sindust.7059]

Why it's a horrible design: the difference between max. damage and killing yourself is less than 1 second. Or alternatively, depending on the traits you pick, you actually do try to kill yourself to do max damage. This design does not feel good, and the fact that this spec is outclassed by other elite specs on every level without them killing you as you try to do damage, makes it just bad in general. Power holo is the masochist's version of scrapper. It adds nothing in comparison, you in fact lose utility. And if you want to play condi, you're better off going mechanist that also does not try to kill you if you have to delay a skill by 1 second due to movement.

 

And in comparison to other classes it's not even a competition. Soulbeast wins in every aspect. It can do all the same things as holo, but also do so at 900 range. Same burst, same sustained dps, same if not more group utility (with stance share) and all without worrying about killing yourself.

 

Without the killing yourself part, I'd think this discussion would be a matter of opinion and I would have ignored the thread (though personally I would still dislike holo). But as long as that part exists, holo will never be good design, unless it absolutely dominates everyone in raw numbers when it's used well to compensate for the risk. But that is far from being the case, so you're just wrong. It is not good design.

Edited February 9, 2023 by Sindust.7059