Haven't Seen A PvP Holo Since the Nerf

[Gotejjeken.1267]

1 hour ago, Last Crab.6054 said:

i dont see that many, was watching plenty of fotm rangers tho

I said in g3, not g1

[arazoth.7290]

2 hours ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

I said in g3, not g1

lets be fair, you can be g3 and get plat 2 players and same time gold 1 or high silver players mixed up and it's noticeable 

[Sahne.6950]

In high elo you see a DE almost every game.    its mainly Zeolith or Sindrener i see.

DE takes less skill to play than holo in low and high elo.

 

That being said..... Holo isnt too difficult.   Its the same boat as ele.        Tons of buttons, but once you know them, its pretty easy.

Edited June 4 by Sahne.6950

[Kyraios.8954]

4 hours ago, Last Crab.6054 said:

i dont see that many, was watching plenty of fotm rangers tho

Are we playing the same game? Just about 3-4 thieves every match g3+. Holo I almost never see. 

[Rdm.3186]

2 hours ago, Sahne.6950 said:

That being said..... Holo isnt too difficult.   Its the same boat as ele.        Tons of buttons, but once you know them, its pretty easy.

Holo/ Engi has way more skill ceiling mechanically than ele, like waaaaay more. And as long as Ele cannot switch attunements more freely (while balancing it around that buff, means nerfs on other places) it will stay the braindead rotation spam and facetank class it is. Hell, even the glass builds on Ele are easy and unhealthy, LR FA... 🤮

Anyway Holo is clearly not weak now,  meta is just stronger. Nerf meta.

Edited June 4 by Rdm.3186

[Flowki.7194]

6 hours ago, Rdm.3186 said:

Holo/ Engi has way more skill ceiling mechanically than ele, like waaaaay more. And as long as Ele cannot switch attunements more freely (while balancing it around that buff, means nerfs on other places) it will stay the braindead rotation spam and facetank class it is. Hell, even the glass builds on Ele are easy and unhealthy, LR FA... 🤮

Anyway Holo is clearly not weak now,  meta is just stronger. Nerf meta.

Holo is no more difficult than hammer cata mechanically, yet it is slightly less risky/punishing becuase the active mitigation, mobility, and cleanse flows better than hammer cata. Scepter cata the kinde levels out more, its less risk more inline with holo. I was going to play holo or the older power untamed a lot more, both difficult specs that would be rewarding.. but then the direction of the game was becoming obvious. Lower effort specs being boosted in effectiveness, why get good at a harder punishing spec? I mean, imagine I took the time to get good on older power untamed, then mace meta hits, or got good on holo, then nerfed. What was the point.. does not serve to play hard specs in this game anymore. Consistant pattern of them being nerfed, indirectly buffing brainded dmg like DH trap block spam+unblockables.

 

It makes no sense for you to kitten on specs that are clearly very punishing in the hands of <p1. Holo, cata, herald, older power untamed, chrono even, all die in 2 seconds for the type of big mistake many other specs can make multiple of, and recover.

 

 

Edited June 4 by Flowki.7194

[shion.2084]

21 hours ago, N A T E.3108 said:

Pre-patch, Holo was relatively high damage in the right hands, but it's heavily telegraphed, largely melee-range-dependent, and very squishy. It also wasn't over performing in comparison to any other meta class before the patch. Damage was its one saving-grace, but with the 50% SD nerf, the Flashbang nerf, and the consequential compounding amount of sustain loss, it inevitably will go sit the bench the rest of the engi specs in oblivion. There are just too many other classes that deal heavy damage, have considerable CC capabilities, sustain like bunkers, and require half the skill to pull off effectively.

Such is the engi way of life.

ALIEN

To be fair, I wouldn't say that the toolbelt skills of surprise shot and the photon wall one were really telegraphed.   I mean one of them even fires behind you, you don't even see the holo turn and face you to use it.   But yeah photon forge is pretty clunky.  A gigantic jump in the air, obvious pistol animations, etc.   Slick shoes isn't that easy to avoid if its played right by the engi... so another very effective skill against squishy folks that can be used quite sneakily.

[shion.2084]

16 hours ago, Shagie.7612 said:

ok i'll go with the unpopular opinion
holo being utterly immune to conditions was dumb and it really wasn't proportionally weak to strike in exchange for it. it's still really good against them, but it was excessive.
and having a bunch of random zero animation zero cast time damage through traits/toolbelt is also really silly, quite honestly

but i dunno if a 50% nerf to the cooldown of surprise shot/accelerator and a nerf to lock on are the way to go about changing those, rather than some sort of larger overall changes

Holo's were immune to conditions?   I primarily spent my time CC ing them with stuns and what not... they were glassy and it's how you kill them.   They die very quickly once you get past the photon shield.. .they're literally running with like 17k health, one stun break, and prayer.   How are they resistant to strike damage?     What they have is two active defences, a slick shoes and a shield.  Then they're done to a physical burst or any sort of CC chain.   They got nothing.  What Stab did you see the holo's you were fighting running?

Edited June 4 by shion.2084

[Frequency.6407]

holo and WB look the same to me. When they're attacking they're unattackable, when they're attackable they're running away.

[shion.2084]

2 minutes ago, Frequency.6407 said:

holo and WB look the same to me. When they're attacking they're unattackable, when they're attackable they're running away.

what makes a holo un-attackable?   Are you talking about the photon wall and the slick shoes?  Or is it that you get hit by the CC, so they aren't attackable because you're  being juggled?

I actually find it a fairly reasonable match up against holo's and WB's.  You do have to it both out a bit for them to run out and time your counter right.  I find that my bulwark toolbelt does wonders against holo CC burst chains...not that those are a thing anymore really with the toolbelt nerf.   For WB's its CC and range nades.

I can't deal with virtuoso mesmers to save my life.  A good Ele is unbeatable V1 as is a decent bunker Warrior.  You only kill theives if they push to hard and make a mistake, cut its on them to screw up as they always have the option to disengage and you can't do anything about it.  At least with Holo and WB they don't have infinite evade/invuln/invis chains.   And are somewhat susceptible to CC strategically applied.   WB's do get annoying when chaining their ports... typically 2.   And if your off CD it will be a problem for sure, best run and dodge roll

[Flowki.7194]

31 minutes ago, shion.2084 said:

what makes a holo un-attackable?   Are you talking about the photon wall and the slick shoes?  Or is it that you get hit by the CC, so they aren't attackable because you're  being juggled?

I actually find it a fairly reasonable match up against holo's and WB's.  You do have to it both out a bit for them to run out and time your counter right.  I find that my bulwark toolbelt does wonders against holo CC burst chains...not that those are a thing anymore really with the toolbelt nerf.   For WB's its CC and range nades.

I can't deal with virtuoso mesmers to save my life.  A good Ele is unbeatable V1 as is a decent bunker Warrior.  You only kill theives if they push to hard and make a mistake, cut its on them to screw up as they always have the option to disengage and you can't do anything about it.  At least with Holo and WB they don't have infinite evade/invuln/invis chains.   And are somewhat susceptible to CC strategically applied.   WB's do get annoying when chaining their ports... typically 2.   And if your off CD it will be a problem for sure, best run and dodge roll

I don't think he understands how WB works, passive blocks just for hitting dps/gap closer buttons, then an immune, and more passive blocks for hitting dps/gapcloser buttons. Imagine if WB blocks were seperate from smashing such buttons, you might see them die in 2 seconds like bad holos.

Edited June 4 by Flowki.7194

[Voegelin.5642]

16 hours ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

Why would anyone play holo over DE anyway unless bored? It was far less forgiving no matter what scenario, why would you just choose it to be hipster? 

So, say a person is an engineer main. 12 or 13 bags, 24, 28 slots. Plays Holo, knows the skills, some of them automatic.  Plays WvW as holo as well. Played for a few years. Comes back. Getting back in the groove. Barely knows how to play dead eye, doesn't particularly want to learn and switch mains.  Holo is hard enough to learn, much less excel. Why nerf it?

[Vancho.8750]

18 hours ago, Shagie.7612 said:

ok i'll go with the unpopular opinion
holo being utterly immune to conditions was dumb and it really wasn't proportionally weak to strike in exchange for it. it's still really good against them, but it was excessive.
and having a bunch of random zero animation zero cast time damage through traits/toolbelt is also really silly, quite honestly

but i dunno if a 50% nerf to the cooldown of surprise shot/accelerator and a nerf to lock on are the way to go about changing those, rather than some sort of larger overall changes

Engie as a whole would have been better if it didn't have so much tacked on kitten procs from traits and instead its actual skills did the thing. Would have been also nice if it actually had identity instead of being replica of some other profession or on itself. Holo and scrapper kinda do the same thing and carried by proc skills from core, fun bit core engi sucks kitten cause it can't activate the op traits easily as the elites, cause the kitten traits were made fore the elites, the even funnier thing is that all this garbage design got added to engie when the procs for every other profession got nerfed to useless. 
Scrapper is kinda core+ and it doesn't really have strong identity, like all other elites that buff the utility skills so this one is wishy woshy at best and needs rework to get a personality.
Holo on other hand has identity but all the garbage from the reworks ruins it. The holo forge needs a some work cause the heat mechanic is just a cooldown it needs to be affected by other players like necro shroud but also be strong as necro shroud.
Mech is a mess it could have been cool, if the mech was mostly utility with kitten all damage but have power mode  where you enter the mech DVA from overwatch style, yeah it kinda feels like shroud, but Power Armor looks cooler then having flouting turret next to you.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

2 hours ago, Voegelin.5642 said:

So, say a person is an engineer main. 12 or 13 bags, 24, 28 slots. Plays Holo, knows the skills, some of them automatic.  Plays WvW as holo as well. Played for a few years. Comes back. Getting back in the groove. Barely knows how to play dead eye, doesn't particularly want to learn and switch mains.  Holo is hard enough to learn, much less excel. Why nerf it?

Play holo then? 

I've always played Ranger and have basically mained Druid for forever now and it has gotten more nerfs than buffs, and rarely makes it into AT unless it's some niche support build (last time I saw one there it was using glyph of tides).  

My posts were referring to the 'top duos' or what AT comps would run--even in the daily AT's I see DEs fill out the DPS role far more than holo.  Not that holo wasn't prevalent for a bit, Naru for instance liked to run that in duo earlier in the year, among other 'top' alts that I fought who I can't be bothered to trace back to actual names.  

Guessing that's why it was nerfed.  As someone else said, anet likes to nerf top 1% builds to 'bring them in line' with the rest of the trash mobility/boon/defense puke builds.  Same thing happened to ranger's Unnatural Traversal, basically had to have a macro to get that burst to work but it's been nerfed badly for over a year.  

[Shagie.7612]

9 hours ago, shion.2084 said:

Holo's were immune to conditions?

Yeah? That's like, their thing and has been forever? Like, cleanses even while CCed because they can instant cast toolbelt skills. Don't see how anyone could deny that.

9 hours ago, shion.2084 said:

How are they resistant to strike damage?

Literally nobody said that bud.
I said given how abundant and frequent their condition cleansing was, a balanced weakness to strike damage would involve them instantly dying if a strike damage build so much as thought about them, and that was certainly not the case. Their vulnerability to strike damage was not nearly that low considering the availability of tools to avoid that. Even if you think Holo was weak to power it was certainly not proportional.

[Flowki.7194]

20 hours ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

As someone else said, anet likes to nerf top 1% builds to 'bring them in line' with the rest of the trash mobility/boon/defense puke builds.  Same thing happened to ranger's Unnatural Traversal, basically had to have a macro to get that burst to work but it's been nerfed badly for over a year.  

Just look at hammer cata, it is hard to play, punishing for mistakes, and even if good at it, it doesn't compete with most of the current used specs, most of which are catigorically less difficult and less risky to play. If people put aside all biases and look at that.. the game is in a shocking state when one of the most difficult specs is now also one of the most useless.

 

If you guys want to see that for yourself, play hammer cata for a month, and youll see exactly how crept in mobility/sustain many lower effort/risk specs got over the last year. Hammer cata was meta at that point or so, its a real eye opener if you have the time to try it..

Edited June 5 by Flowki.7194

[EnderzShadow.2506]

On 6/3/2024 at 3:51 PM, whooot.5784 said:

As a thief I personally really enjoy this holo nerf. Lock-on gave me ptsd

A lot of nade scrappers still run it.

[WhoWantsAHug.3186]

Eh, tools SD holo is still playable with toolkit + mortar IMO. Really need to utilize ur combo fields efficiently and effectively for a less bursty, but higher sustain playstyle. Swap to mortar for a combo field or to hit a chill, then swap back out. 

Edited Wednesday at 07:42 PM by WhoWantsAHug.3186

[Kuya.6495]

I personally miss holos. It was basically free lunch on willbender. Now instead I got to deal with godforsaken deadeyes

Edited Friday at 06:03 PM by Kuya.6495

[N A T E.3108]

Let's face it. Holo is by far still the best class for engi in PvP, and Holo is underpowered in this meta.

Anet has gutted engi as a whole. Us poor non-holo engis are getting crapped on.

ALIEN

[Terrorhuz.4695]

was not a fan of tool holo but it got D E S T R O Y E D. Excessive.

[WhoWantsAHug.3186]

7 hours ago, N A T E.3108 said:

Let's face it. Holo is by far still the best class for engi in PvP, and Holo is underpowered in this meta.

Anet has gutted engi as a whole. Us poor non-holo engis are getting crapped on.

ALIEN

Most classes kinda suck right now TBH

[N A T E.3108]

3 hours ago, WhoWantsAHug.3186 said:

Most classes kinda suck right now TBH

Obviously, there are other classes with specs that are underperforming in this meta, but I think it unreasonable that engi does not have access to a single competitive build for this meta among any of its specs.

ALIEN

[Koensol.5860]

15 hours ago, N A T E.3108 said:

Let's face it. Holo is by far still the best class for engi in PvP, and Holo is underpowered in this meta.

Anet has gutted engi as a whole. Us poor non-holo engis are getting crapped on.

ALIEN

It didn't just get gutted. It also got powercrept by most other classes and is in a perpetual state of decay. Literally 50% of our abilities aren't worth using or there is no space on our bar to use them. 

Turrets are all trash, and even the somewhat useful rifle turret got nerfed even further.

Most gadgets are trash/meme/not worth the slot except for slick shoes. 

Elixirs are a mixed bag. Elixir B is okayish, elixir C is decent in theory but has never been worth the slot, elixir R is a meme, elixir S got gutted with the cooldown reduction changes, elixir U is still decent but still often not worth the slot. Elixir X elite is an RNG meme. It could be good, but the random factor kittens it over.

Kits are also a mixed bag. Nades are anets favoured child. Everyone SHALL AND MUST USE NADES! Bomb kit has always been a joke. Flamethrower is okay for condi, but condi engi is bad. Toolkit is still good/decent, but also got nerfed somehow and imo could still use a bit of an update. Egun is good but the builds it's good on are not in the meta atm. Mortar is good. 

So most of the core utility skills are either ancient, trash or not worth the slot. So whenever something gets nerfed, the problem is not just that, but that there's NO kittenING ALTERNATIVE. Anet keeps nerfing all forms of offense aside from nades. In both pvp and pve. And I don't kittening get it. Fix this class. Overhaul/buff the ocean of underused useless skills. It is so frustrating to be an engi main rn.

Engi only having 1 weapon means we need to get both damage and survivability from our utility skills, whereas other classes get it from their weapon swap. This means we need to be extremely picky in our utility skills. Especially in this high damage meta, we are often forced to play with 1 stunbreak in order to do enough damage. There is never any place for utility picks like rocket boots, elixir R or C, because these things neither do meaningful damage, nor are stunbreaks. And the toolbelt skills hardly make up for it tbh, because some good skills have bad toolbelts and some bad skills have good toolbelts. It's a huge mess overall.

On top of this our weapon choices are also limited. Hammer and sword/shield are the only viable picks. Rifle is just bad and is only played for the memes, shortbow is not viable since it has no defense, mace has potential but is not good enough yet, pistol offhand makes it so you don't have enough defense. Pistol mainhand is condi... So yea... that's it for engi. Tbh I'm afraid the new spear will also be purely offense focussed, making it a meme like shortbow where you just can't survive.

A combination of many factors make any nerf to this class extra punishing. Between all the trash and outdated skills, it is so hard to find any combination of skills that give you both the damage to compete, and survivability to not insta die under focus/pressure. And then it just gets nerfed again like... Anet are you even in the kittening game??! 

Edited Saturday at 07:11 AM by Koensol.5860