Holo Needs Buffs and Nerfs (Formerly: The recent changes to Holo were good but they weren't enough.)

[shadowpass.4236]

@shion.2084 said:

@shadowpass.4236 said:

Prot Holo is oppressive because, even though I can see every single animation they do, the amount of damage reduction/tankiness/immense amount of sustained damage they have is too much for almost every single build to fight against in a 1v1. Like if they swap to conversions instead of phys damage counter, condi builds (like mirage) in a 1v1 will do little more than give the Prot Holo more boons.

So, Prot Holo should get looked at but for entirely different reasons than Tools Holo. Tools Holo needs better animations and a change to Lock On at the very least. Prot Holo is absurdly tanky and hard to kill without requiring the user to do anything particularly special asides from simply SLOTTING the build.

I feel the need to point out the fact that I multiclass because I enjoy playing DIFFERENT classes. I get bored of ranger 7 years into the game. With that being said, it should go

without saying

that I completely support more build diversity and would much rather other classes' having access to a plethora of viable builds to mess around with than other classes being nerfed to the point of unusability at higher ratings/against better players (where I am/who I enjoy fighting).

I don't really see a lot of effective Prot holo's holding points indefinitely. I find the Tools Holo's much more effective in swinging games. I mean once a prot holo runs out of HLA (which only has a longer duration if their heat is up), they are left with invuln or stealth options, both of which force them to loose the node they are standing on. Do you really have a hard time with them holding a node for long durations? I ask in sincerity, maybe they are much more effective at higher tiers than the plat 1 and gold 3 levels.

Incidentally I play a non-meta zerker holo that uses shield / sword, with the inventions / alchemy / and Holo. So maybe I just have an advantage against prot holos. It could be a matter of build compatibility. You shouldn't expect any given build to deal with every given other build. There are some matchups I just can't win and I figure that out and go somewhere I'd be more useful. I think that's the way things should be. You generally should be able to own some folks, be on par with some, and relatively ineffective against some when in a 1v1. Figuring it out should come early, and then you play with what you got.

I watched Helio play a different variant of the build. I think the new version is fine but I feel like it's more cooldown dependent than the old one Drydude gave me. Basically, we did a test where we dueled on a node, he was running the knights version and I went a very high damage ranger build. After several duels on a side node on Foefire, I simply couldn't deal enough damage to bring him under 80% health. We did another test where he stood completely still (with boons) and I was free to fully dps him and it took AGES to bring him to low health even though he wasn't even using any skills. To put it in perspective, my mauls were critting for well under 2k (maybe around 1.6k crits iirc) even though they normally crit for around 3.4k.

The raw % damage mitigation coupled with multiple sources of passive regen and crazy high armor through knight's amulet was too much for me to out-damage as a single DPS oriented soulbeast build. Also, he had extremely high uptime on 25 stacks of might so between the sword/Photon Forge autos and mortar AoE (poison, weakness, chill, blind) spam, I was forced to pull off node or risk dying. Furthermore, even though knight's amulet doesn't have any ferocity, perma max might, fury, and laser's edge (22.5% max flat damage increase) still enabled him to hit fairly hard, very consistently.

Prot Holo doesn't have a crazy amount of ways to close the gaps to a target so he wouldn't have been able to keep up with my ranger if I chose to run away. With that being said, there was honestly no way I could've killed him, no way to force him off node due to stability and projectile denial through shield/turret bubbles from Experimental Turrets, and if I did decide to stay and fight him, I would've died. Plus, I've played this build before and the only times I've ever died were 3v1s. I don't think I've lost a single node 1v1 and 1v2s have a very slim chance at doing enough damage to kill me as I kite away.

It's also very effective in team fights due to the mortar kit utility/AoE damage and skills like Fumigate allow the Prot Holo to cleanse 5 conditions (or more if a condi gets converted to prot) every 12 seconds and convert them all to boons. It also has very high sustained damage, projectile denial, AoE CC, etc. etc. to make a pretty big impact in a team fight. One of the nice things about the build is that it can blast, many, many times so you can actually heal your allies a pretty significant amount as well coupled with all of the passive regen you're flinging around.

[shadowpass.4236]

@wasss.1208@"shion.2084"

[wasss.1208]

@shadowpass.4236 said:@wasss.1208@"shion.2084"

Why am I mentioned with this?

[shadowpass.4236]

@wasss.1208 said:

@shadowpass.4236 said:@wasss.1208@"shion.2084"

Why am I mentioned with this?

"Barely offtopic: you said that you would do a holosmith gameplay video (series?). Please do. I like to listen to GW2 videos during work."

I'll record more. This game wasn't that exciting in the middle cause the scrapper decided to match me in a 1v1 on my node even though he would never have been able to decap me. I literally could just stand still and auto attack while healing occasionally and letting regen + tankiness keep me alive. This match is just an example of why/how Prot Holo is so hard to kill. I could basically facetank every single one of his attacks + Contra's thief both times he plussed me and only died cause I overheated in a 1v3 at Stillness that I was contesting against 2 players (different ones cause people rotated away once they realized I wasn't going to die).

[wasss.1208]

Ah, I assumed it was just random video to prove something to someone else, and I got mentioned, because reasons. Anyways, I expected tools holo, since your original post wants to nerf aspects of that, while this build would barely get hit by your original proposal. Also expected it to be done similarly to the mantra mesmer one.Still, the amount of holos in that video is odd. I just played three matches, with 0 holos in any of them, and I listened to Vallun's stream all day, and it barely had any holos too. Even the daily tournament today only had one holo in it. Probably because of a regional difference?

[kamikharzeeh.8016]

holos aren't that common at all. and hell with classes like ranger, necro, mesmer+its specs, ele, thiefs who can all out-dps and range/faster stunlock ... we shouldn't even start talking about nerfs for any engi spec. also warrior is way more broken in terms of its rotation, specifically talking about pvp here. and we better not mention guardian overall.my last 10 ranked matches had like 3 holos overall in it, outside of mine that is. i found warrior easier but kinda boring since it played him for pretty long and it feels really strong in the meta (referring to warrior both times here).

[Avatar.3568]

Are you playing on na? At eu in most games were holos at p2

[Exalted Quality.8534]

what is your obsession with nerfing holo? do you have repressed memories of being violated by a holo or what?

[Dante.1508]

Wow these people.. I guess Holo will be another unused class like Chrono in pve soon.

[shadowpass.4236]

@Exalted Quality.8534 said:what is your obsession with nerfing holo? do you have repressed memories of being violated by a holo or what?

I'm fine with buffing Holo too. I just don't think instant cast hard CCs are fine. People should be able to see attacks before they happen, at least if they do a decent amount of damage/CC them in some way. Same thing with healing skills like Healing Turret, Troll Unguent, and False Oasis. They are difficult to interrupt because of the 3/4s cast times while other weaker healing skills often have 1s cast times. It doesn't make much sense imo.

Lock On is just straight up overpowered. Long stealths like Toss Elixir S should have an interruptible cast time like Mass Invis because 6s every 30s is already nuts. Etc. etc. I'm not going to say everything again. Again, I didn't think Elixir U stab duration should've been nerfed and it should be added back in as long as some of the other stuff gets addressed.

[Vagrant.7206]

@Dante.1508 said:Wow these people.. I guess Holo Engineer will be another unused class like Chrono in pve soon.

FTFY

@shadowpass.4236 said:

@Exalted Quality.8534 said:what is your obsession with nerfing holo? do you have repressed memories of being violated by a holo or what?

I'm fine with buffing Holo too. I just don't think instant cast hard CCs are fine. People should be able to see attacks before they happen, at least if they do a decent amount of damage/CC them in some way. Same thing with healing skills like Healing Turret, Troll Unguent, and False Oasis. They are difficult to interrupt because of the 3/4s cast times while other weaker healing skills often have 1s cast times. It doesn't make much sense imo.

Bruh, are you talking about holo, or mesmer and thief?

@shadowpass.4236 said:Lock On is just straight up overpowered. Long stealths like Toss Elixir S should have an interruptible cast time like Mass Invis because 6s every 30s is already nuts. Etc. etc. I'm not going to say everything again. Again, I didn't think Elixir U stab duration should've been nerfed and it should be added back in as long as some of the other stuff gets addressed.

Bruh, the clip you shared shows you stealthing like five times. Lock On is only "OP" if your build relies on stealthing a lot. I think ranger stealth needs some nerfing.

[shadowpass.4236]

@Vagrant.7206 said:

@Dante.1508 said:Wow these people.. I guess

Holo

Engineer will be another unused class like Chrono in pve soon.

FTFY

@shadowpass.4236 said:

@Exalted Quality.8534 said:what is your obsession with nerfing holo? do you have repressed memories of being violated by a holo or what?

I'm fine with buffing Holo too. I just don't think instant cast hard CCs are fine. People should be able to see attacks before they happen, at least if they do a decent amount of damage/CC them in some way. Same thing with healing skills like Healing Turret, Troll Unguent, and False Oasis. They are difficult to interrupt because of the 3/4s cast times while other weaker healing skills often have 1s cast times. It doesn't make much sense imo.

Bruh, are you talking about holo, or mesmer and thief?

Instant cast dazes like steal and headshot are fine with low/instant cast times. Mantra of Distraction daze lasts a long time... more than needed for an interrupt. So, even if you don't interrupt a skill, you still get value off of it.

Hard CCs should never be instant cast and should always have an animation.

[Virdo.1540]

@"shadowpass.4236" said:

1. Lock On needs to have the double proc removed (keep the cc one, remove the on-hit one) and increase the cooldown from 25s to 30s.
2. Toss Elixir S stealth needs to get reduced from 6s to 3s. The cooldown is only 30s and it's basically a free reset every time a holo uses it. The current iteration literally gives more stealth uptime than a traited Mass Invisibility on mesmer and the cast time is only 1/2s.
3. Net Shot needs a cast time of 1/2s or 3/4s with a visible animation tied to it.
4. Blunderbuss needs a cast time increase to 3/4s with a bigger animation tied to it.
5. Overcharged Shot needs a cast time of 1/2s or 3/4s with visible animation tied to it.
6. Photon Forge autoattack range needs to get reduced to match other melee auto attacks.
7. Healing Turret needs it's cast time increased from 3/4s to 1s.

stop whining if u dont know how to play against holos.

Its not like they were really good... they are ok, if in the right hands

[shadowpass.4236]

@Virdo.1540 said:

@"shadowpass.4236" said:

1. Lock On needs to have the double proc removed (keep the cc one, remove the on-hit one) and increase the cooldown from 25s to 30s.
2. Toss Elixir S stealth needs to get reduced from 6s to 3s. The cooldown is only 30s and it's basically a free reset every time a holo uses it. The current iteration literally gives more stealth uptime than a traited Mass Invisibility on mesmer and the cast time is only 1/2s.
3. Net Shot needs a cast time of 1/2s or 3/4s with a visible animation tied to it.
4. Blunderbuss needs a cast time increase to 3/4s with a bigger animation tied to it.
5. Overcharged Shot needs a cast time of 1/2s or 3/4s with visible animation tied to it.
6. Photon Forge autoattack range needs to get reduced to match other melee auto attacks.
7. Healing Turret needs it's cast time increased from 3/4s to 1s.

stop whining if u dont know how to play against holos.

Its not like they were really good... they are ok, if in the right hands

I'm fine against Holos if you look at my streams or videos.

Also, I play Holo. The stuff I've listed feels too strong from a user standpoint as well. Like I can consistently immobilize, decap, or chunk them with Static Discharges + Blunderbuss after evade frames. It doesn't feel very fair for my opponents.

Or if I know someone is about to back away and attempt to stealth, simply spamming rifle autos with quickness forces the enemy to use 2-3 defensive cooldowns to avoid getting revealed. And even then, simply looking in their general direction and using Blunderbuss can usually reveal them because the animation is too subtle and hard to dodge.

[Nilkemia.8507]

Stop. Just stop. It's clear by now you have no idea what you're talking about, or this is secretly a "render engineer worthless" thread in disguise.

[shadowpass.4236]

@"Nilkemia.8507" said:Stop. Just stop. It's clear by now you have no idea what you're talking about, or this is secretly a "render engineer worthless" thread in disguise.

"Clearly."

• If I play a mantra mesmer and I oneshot 20 people in a single game without them even knowing I was there, I feel like it's unfair.
• If I play a bunker boonbeast and get 3 plasmas in a row and the enemy can't stop my Healing Skill, I feel like it's unfair.
• If I play a tools holo and I land every single immobilize and launch my opponents off node without them being able to react, I feel like it's unfair.
• If I play a prot holo and I'm consistently facetanking 2-3 people all by myself, I feel like it's unfair.

Now, maybe you don't multiclass and have only played engineer your entire time on GW2, that's fine. But these are my opinions and I'm allowed to share them. If you or any other people get triggered and upset because I provide counter arguments to points they bring up, that's on you guys. Even against better players, these specs were/are built in a way that has disproportionate amounts of risk vs. reward. And, when better players use them, the majority of the population will not be able to react/deal with/have a chance at fighting back when (in some cases) they don't even know what hit them.

I get reported for macros almost every time I play mantra mesmer. For example, a funny tactic I use is when I 100-0 people as they drop out of base because they can't dodge while mid-air. Gameplay like that just causes people to leave the game. There's nothing for them to learn from because no matter what they do in any scenario, there's not much they can do to counterplay some of these things. I don't complain about things without playing them first, and, when I feel like I (or my opponents) are fighting against the build more than the player, I consider it an issue.

Anyways, thanks for expressing your thoughts. Have a nice day. :)

[Avatar.3568]

Honestly I really do not get where everybody see's those holo who can tank 3 people.

There are 2 ways what went wrong, first this 3 people need to play tank.

Or second you need to be super bad

[shadowpass.4236]

@"Avatar.3568" said:Honestly I really do not get where everybody see's those holo who can tank 3 people.

There are 2 ways what went wrong, first this 3 people need to play tank.

Or second you need to be super bad

I was outnumbered for about 4 minutes at stillness vs various combinations of:

1. Scrapper (bruiser)
2. Power Mirage (damage)
3. Marksmanship Soulbeast (damage)
4. Scourge (damage)
5. S/D Core Thief (damage)

I literally only died in the 3v1 cause I accidentally overheated trying to stop them from channeling bell while my team 4v2'd on the rest of the map.

[Avatar.3568]

This still sounds like there are super bad

[shadowpass.4236]

@Avatar.3568 said:This still sounds like there are super bad

Seeing as how I'm quing in Plat 2 for ranked and this match wasn't AT finals, a scrim, or MAT, these opponents were around the same rating as me and were about as good as matchmaking could find.

The score was also pretty close so the enemy team was contesting my team pretty well on the rest of the map considering I was holding outnumbered/heavily outnumbered several times over the course of the match.

[Virdo.1540]

@shadowpass.4236 said:

@"Nilkemia.8507" said:Stop. Just stop. It's clear by now you have no idea what you're talking about, or this is secretly a "render engineer worthless" thread in disguise.

"Clearly."

• If I play a mantra mesmer and I oneshot 20 people in a single game without them even knowing I was there, I feel like it's unfair.
• If I play a bunker boonbeast and get 3 plasmas in a row and the enemy can't stop my Healing Skill, I feel like it's unfair.
• If I play a tools holo and I land every single immobilize and launch my opponents off node without them being able to react, I feel like it's unfair.
• If I play a prot holo and I'm consistently facetanking 2-3 people all by myself, I feel like it's unfair.

It is what every class can do too. Its not called unfair to play a build, that not many people can do something against, nor is it unfair to be because every class can play such.It is a balanced fight between holos and other classes. Holo is just a class that is decent against everything, and not extremely good&bad against others.

Like rev... tons of damage reduction, but almost nothing against conditions

[shadowpass.4236]

@Virdo.1540 said:

@shadowpass.4236 said:

@"Nilkemia.8507" said:Stop. Just stop. It's clear by now you have no idea what you're talking about, or this is secretly a "render engineer worthless" thread in disguise.

"Clearly."

• If I play a mantra mesmer and I oneshot 20 people in a single game without them even knowing I was there, I feel like it's unfair.
• If I play a bunker boonbeast and get 3 plasmas in a row and the enemy can't stop my Healing Skill, I feel like it's unfair.
• If I play a tools holo and I land every single immobilize and launch my opponents off node without them being able to react, I feel like it's unfair.
• If I play a prot holo and I'm consistently facetanking 2-3 people all by myself, I feel like it's unfair.

It is what every class can do too. Its not called unfair to play a build, that not many people can do something against, nor is it unfair to be because every class can play such.It is a balanced fight between holos and other classes. Holo is just a class that is decent against everything, and not extremely good&bad against others.

Like rev... tons of damage reduction, but almost nothing against conditions

That's the same mindset that led to powercreep and the decline of PvP.

Revs don't have much damage reduction. They have a lot of active defenses and there are condi and core rev builds that are pretty strong against conditions.

[Virdo.1540]

@shadowpass.4236 said:

@Virdo.1540 said:

@shadowpass.4236 said:

@"Nilkemia.8507" said:Stop. Just stop. It's clear by now you have no idea what you're talking about, or this is secretly a "render engineer worthless" thread in disguise.

"Clearly."

• If I play a mantra mesmer and I oneshot 20 people in a single game without them even knowing I was there, I feel like it's unfair.
• If I play a bunker boonbeast and get 3 plasmas in a row and the enemy can't stop my Healing Skill, I feel like it's unfair.
• If I play a tools holo and I land every single immobilize and launch my opponents off node without them being able to react, I feel like it's unfair.
• If I play a prot holo and I'm consistently facetanking 2-3 people all by myself, I feel like it's unfair.

It is what every class can do too. Its not called unfair to play a build, that not many people can do something against, nor is it unfair to be because every class can play such.It is a balanced fight between holos and other classes. Holo is just a class that is decent against everything, and not extremely good&bad against others.

Like rev... tons of damage reduction, but almost nothing against conditions

That's the same mindset that led to powercreep and the decline of PvP.

Revs don't have much damage reduction. They have a lot of active defenses and there are condi and core rev builds that are pretty strong against conditions.

not good against conditions, maybe decent with a complete build based on that, what makes it crappy .( https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_Damage_Adjusting_Traits#Traits_that_decrease_damage_taken - and other skills)Its like a triangle Dmg Handling - Condi Handling - Damage

[wasss.1208]

@shadowpass.4236 said:

Now, maybe you don't multiclass and have only played engineer your entire time on GW2, that's fine. But these are my opinions and I'm allowed to share them. If you or any other people get triggered and upset because I provide counter arguments to points they bring up, that's on you guys.

I'm still waiting for you to acknowledge all of my earlier points, and not only respond to the ones we agree with. If you don't agree with the things I said, explain why. If you do, then you should realize that the nerfs you suggest in the original comment wouldn't solve the problem, and nerfs are needed elsewhere.

Also, if you think prot holo is the problem, edit your OC, and include nerfs that aim towards that build, because the current list doesn't touch anything, but the healing turret from that specific build. Editing the OC would help devs, who are looking for feedback, as well as people who are lazy/don't have time to chew through all of the arguing going on here.

Furthermore: you are complaining about a spec, that has two defensive traitlines, 3 defensive utilities, a defensive/utility elite, and probably defensive amulet and runes. As others pointed out before, it doesn't have the killing power, and even lacks the CC to actually decap or cap a point. It is just a better version of the old bunker scrapper.

[shadowpass.4236]

@wasss.1208 said:

@shadowpass.4236 said:

Now, maybe you don't multiclass and have only played engineer your entire time on GW2, that's fine. But these are my opinions and I'm allowed to share them. If you or any other people get triggered and upset because I provide counter arguments to points they bring up, that's on you guys.

I'm still waiting for you to acknowledge all of my earlier points, and not only respond to the ones we agree with. If you don't agree with the things I said, explain why. If you do, then you should realize that the nerfs you suggest in the original comment wouldn't solve the problem, and nerfs are needed elsewhere.

Also, if you think prot holo is the problem, edit your OC, and include nerfs that aim towards that build, because the current list doesn't touch anything, but the healing turret from that specific build. Editing the OC would help devs, who are looking for feedback, as well as people who are lazy/don't have time to chew through all of the arguing going on here.

Furthermore: you are complaining about a spec, that has two defensive traitlines, 3 defensive utilities, a defensive/utility elite, and probably defensive amulet and runes. As others pointed out before, it doesn't have the killing power, and even lacks the CC to actually decap or cap a point. It is just a better version of the old bunker scrapper.

I have a lot of people to respond to in these threads so forgive me if I don't address every single point everyone brings up in-depth.

I think both builds have their issues but could definitely see buffs in certain areas as well. The only reason I'm talking about Prot Holo is because it got brought up earlier and people were continuing to discuss it.

Later, when I have time I might edit the OP but what would you like me to include in it?