Holosmith's Grandmaster traits need some work.

[Calen.8945]

Currently Enhanced Capacity Storage Unit is the best GM trait for Holosmith, IMO. Not only can you stay in forge mode longer, it also enhances most of your other HS skills.

Photonic Blasting Module would be worth taking if you no longer took damage from overheating, even with the toolbar lock out, but as it is now it make your too squishy for a minimal damage aoe. The only other way I've seen this trait used is to get about the heat requirement for your skills than never use forge mode again.

Thermal Release Valve is... not that great to be honest. Being able to vent heat is nice, but only being able to do so with dodge is very limiting. It needs more ways to vent heat to be worthwhile.

 

PBM and TRV are not necessarily bad, but they are overshadowed by how much better ECSU is.

Edited February 16, 2023 by Calen.8945

[coro.3176]

TRV being a bad choice highlights how power-crept PvE damage has gotten.

You look at it, and it's like (don't have game in front of me, so guessing from memory) 12,000 damage on dodge roll. Holy skritt. 12k damage? Huge! But then when you think about it, that's actually not good because the opportunity cost to do that 12k damage is being locked into a 0.75s dodge where you're not otherwise attacking while giving up ECSU and PBM, whose power damage scale with alacrity, fury, etc where TRV can't crit, and the condi only scales with might & duration, which you'll always have capped anyway.

It's insane, but a flat ~15k damage per dodge roll ends up being a *loss* of dps.

[Inverse.5817]

Something I'd love to tack on for PBM is to have it grant a nice % power buff to photon forge skills. Like how ECSU buffs your sword and exceeds, let PBM whack your big bursty PF skills up. In the same vein, maybe give TRV something similar to help it be the choice for condi holo? Like an aoe pulse every x seconds that does half the damage and burning of the dodge skill whilst in forge?

[Calen.8945]

1 hour ago, Inverse.5817 said:

Something I'd love to tack on for PBM is to have it grant a nice % power buff to photon forge skills. Like how ECSU buffs your sword and exceeds, let PBM whack your big bursty PF skills up. In the same vein, maybe give TRV something similar to help it be the choice for condi holo? Like an aoe pulse every x seconds that does half the damage and burning of the dodge skill whilst in forge?

Yeah, I would love for TRV to be the go to for condi builds.

[Kstyle.5829]

They mostly balance traits for PVP because that's where balance is important, and they don't even do a good job at that.  It's not that important for things to be fully balanced in PVE because you're not supposed to be competing against your teammates for dps. You're trying to beat some ez raid or strike boss which you can already do taking the worst builds in the game. 

 

If the argument is that you're hardcore into fractals then something will always be objectively better and people will ALWAYS take the best dps talent. Anyways nobody cares honestly... Fractals are a boring repetitive waste of time that don't present rewards worth the time spent. They don't even give better armor for higher lvl like wow mythic+ scaling does. So if you're complaining about all your talents not doing competitive dps then nobody is listening. 

 

The dodge roll and the might one are both really good in PvP depending on the build you run.  That's a better position than most classes are in where you just choose what sucks less.  But complaining about talents not being equal in PVE just based on one metric of measurement is a really pointless complaint. 

Edited February 16, 2023 by Kstyle.5829

[Jerus.4350]

2 hours ago, Calen.8945 said:

Yeah, I would love for TRV to be the go to for condi builds.

I would also love for TRV to be a real thing, unfortunately it's just kind of a poorly designed skill in terms of how it synergizes with the rest of the spec. 

 

TRV is 2 things, a heat management tool to stay in Forge longer, and a Condi application.  Problem is the condis that Holo does have are more focused on dipping in and out of Forge than sticking in it.  Solar Focusing Lens gives us burning when entering or exiting forge.  Photon Blitz is on a longer cooldown, not something you want to sit in a weapon and wait for.  So the Heat Management aspect just doesn't really benefit condi at all. 

 

I think it's more reasonable to push PBM to be Condi and just rework TRV all together, or just let it be that fun option that isn't very effective outside of PVP maybe.

[wasss.1208]

PBM recently fell out of the meta in PvE, because A-net worked on ECSU interactions, but didn't buff PBM at the same time. Some small changes could bump this trait back up, to be on par with ECSU. In PvP/WvW, it's only used for meme montage oneshot plays, so it kind of fills a niché.

TRV on the other hand wasn't part of any popular builds, that I am aware, since the mine-dodge spammer holo, and maybe the old tools holo, during early PoF (PvP). This trait needed love for years now. It has no use in PvE, it has no use in PvP, it has no use in WvW.
I understand, that they don't want a damage-on-dodge trait to be good in competitive modes, but they could increase its heat reduction aspect there, to make it the staying in holoforge grandmaster trait. In the meantime, they could slap some crazy damage on it in PvE, or some crazy burn, or even an additional effect, like others already proposed here.