Photon Forge and 78 Blue Weapon Issue Will Not Be Addressed

[Vagrant.7206]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/74qjlh/path_of_fire_devs_here_ask_us_anything/do0cfah/

I'm rather saddened to read that response from ANet. They can't fix a bad code for some reason, and so all holosmiths will do equal damage in photon forge regardless of rarity.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

There's a simple solution to this: make it so photon forge is always scaled toward ascended. Done.

[jonG.8369]

"It isn't possible." - IrenioHow so exactly? When I'm playing Necro and go into Reaper Shroud, do I have the power of a level 78 blue weapon? Why should forge mode be any different?

I remember 4 years ago when players wanted a fix to the condition damage cap, the answer we always got was that a fix "wasn't possible". If the condition cap issue was fixed, I'm sure that this can be as well.

[insanemaniac.2456]

I'm under the impression they reused code from lich/rampage/tornado/plague form, not really the same as death shroud. but as an outsider it doesn't make sense and it looks bad and idk why they would do that.

[lorddarkflare.9186]

Man, the obsession with this is so weird.

Guys/Gals, they do not need to 'fix' the fact that transforms do not scale with weapons. It would be nice, but not required.

They just need to change the damage modifiers on skills. In the end, the fix is the same: the class gets a buff.

Harping on the '78 Blue Weapon Issue' is just getting unnecessarily lost in the details.

[Vagrant.7206]

@lorddarkflare.9186 said:Man, the obsession with this is so weird.

Guys/Gals, they do not need to 'fix' the fact that transforms do not scale with weapons. It would be nice, but not required.

They just need to change the damage modifiers on skills. In the end, the fix is the same: the class gets a buff.

Harping on the '78 Blue Weapon Issue' is just getting unnecessarily lost in the details.

It makes a difference because it changes gear progression. The effort you put into getting an ascended weapon versus a rare or exotic is much smaller. The guy who spends 20g on his weapon won't see much difference versus the guy who spends 1g on his weapon.

[Kamahl.3621]

@Vagrant.7206 said:

It makes a difference because it changes gear progression. The effort you put into getting an ascended weapon versus a rare or exotic is much smaller. The guy who spends 20g on his weapon won't see much difference versus the guy who spends 1g on his weapon.

But they'll see a difference, case closed. If Anet takes the lazy route of balancing this out, that's their decision. It'll ultimately end up the same way and allow people to feel Holosmith's full potential a li'l sooner. Whether fixing transform scaling to care about weapon strength, adjusting Photon Forge to not be a transform (particularly frustrating when using any transform tonic), or bumping the power coefficients on these skills, it all accomplishes the same end result.

[LilBiM.3581]

@Kamahl.3621 said:

@Vagrant.7206 said:

It makes a difference because it changes gear progression. The effort you put into getting an ascended weapon versus a rare or exotic is much smaller. The guy who spends 20g on his weapon won't see much difference versus the guy who spends 1g on his weapon.

But they'll see a difference, case closed. If Anet takes the lazy route of balancing this out, that's their decision. It'll ultimately end up the same way and allow people to feel Holosmith's full potential a li'l sooner. Whether fixing transform scaling to care about weapon strength, adjusting Photon Forge to not be a transform (particularly frustrating when using any transform tonic), or bumping the power coefficients on these skills, it all accomplishes the same end result.

Is there a difference? I think the problem is that there is no difference between having a lvl 78 blue and ascended / legendary. That's the problem, there is no difference.

Either way I've learnt that Engineer won't amount to much of anything since you only need a handful of people to cry about x and it will get nerfed to the ground. Haven't bought PoF and as long as this remains the modus operandi for ANet then that will remain the same for me. I'll check back in two years or so, hopefully for them they still send out emails so I remember this game still exists.

[lorddarkflare.9186]

@LilBiM.3581 said:

@Kamahl.3621 said:

@Vagrant.7206 said:

It makes a difference because it changes gear progression. The effort you put into getting an ascended weapon versus a rare or exotic is much smaller. The guy who spends 20g on his weapon won't see much difference versus the guy who spends 1g on his weapon.

But they'll see a difference, case closed. If Anet takes the lazy route of balancing this out, that's their decision. It'll ultimately end up the same way and allow people to feel Holosmith's full potential a li'l sooner. Whether fixing transform scaling to care about weapon strength, adjusting Photon Forge to not be a transform (particularly frustrating when using any transform tonic), or bumping the power coefficients on these skills, it all accomplishes the same end result.

Is there a difference? I think the problem is that there is no difference between having a lvl 78 blue and ascended / legendary. That's the problem, there is no difference.

Either way I've learnt that Engineer won't amount to much of anything since you only need a handful of people to cry about x and it will get nerfed to the ground. Haven't bought PoF and as long as this remains the modus operandi for ANet then that will remain the same for me. I'll check back in two years or so, hopefully for them they still send out emails so I remember this game still exists.

There is a difference.

Unless you somehow intend to magically camp Forge and never use any utilities or toolbelts.

[hoeppy.4567]

Yep, it's kinda silly how obsessed some people are about the weapon rarity they scale off.

You get more stats with ascended gear and you benefit from weapon damage outside of Photon Forge. More importantly you lose nothing when they scale off blues and you have an ascended weapon, because they can and have made coefficients bigger to get abilities to deal more damage.

[LUST.2305]

I don't know why he said "It isn't possible."

They made kits exotic later, didn't they?Damage shouldn't be capped to blues when we are at level 80 and 2 specializations in...and then nerfed by 20% in PvP because it did too much damage, no combo finishers, combo fields, useless exceed skills, terrible sword main hand, long-cooldown shield...

"It isn't possible."

[cat.8975]

they already partially fixed this

photon forge uses 1015 WS in all gamemodes now (and the 20% nerfed coefficients)end result is an approx ~5% dps gain for pve/wvw over the previous numberspf4 skill also has a 5.12 coefficient in PvE (pvp/wvw is only 2.4)

while not ideal, it's better than nothing

[ZyniX.3589]

@jonG.8369 said:"It isn't possible." - IrenioHow so exactly? When I'm playing Necro and go into Reaper Shroud, do I have the power of a level 78 blue weapon? Why should forge mode be any different?

I remember 4 years ago when players wanted a fix to the condition damage cap, the answer we always got was that a fix "wasn't possible". If the condition cap issue was fixed, I'm sure that this can be as well.

Reaper Shroud has dhuumfire which gives autos burning that scale with stats as well as the 5 - 4 combo that applies bleeds and poison that does too. Not even remotely the same.

[kaesebrezen.3104]

@cat.8975 said:they already partially fixed this

photon forge uses 1015 WS in all gamemodes now (and the 20% nerfed coefficients)end result is an approx ~5% dps gain for pve/wvw over the previous numberspf4 skill also has a 5.12 coefficient in PvE (pvp/wvw is only 2.4)Where did those numbers come from?

[GottFaust.5297]

@cat.8975 said:they already partially fixed this

photon forge uses 1015 WS in all gamemodes now (and the 20% nerfed coefficients)end result is an approx ~5% dps gain for pve/wvw over the previous numberspf4 skill also has a 5.12 coefficient in PvE (pvp/wvw is only 2.4)

while not ideal, it's better than nothing

When did this happen?Where are the patch notes?

[cat.8975]

@GottFaust.5297 said:

When did this happen?Where are the patch notes?

dunno tbh, may have been with the expac, may have been with one of the updates afteri can't remember if i tested it on expac launch or not

[cat.8975]

@kaesebrezen.3104 said:Where did those numbers come from?

my wiki page has some research on transforms

PvP transforms used 1015 weapon strength, while the PvE/WvW ones generally use 772.5 (lich, rampage, etc still act like this afaik)This means PvE/WvW photon forge skills were doing 772.5/1015 = 76.108% of the damage their PvP counterparts did. They nerfed the PvP coefficients by 20%, but at some point they just made it use the PvP version in all gamemodes. End result for PvE is 0.8 / 0.76108, or approx a 5.11% gain in damage.

Photon Blitz is also split between PvE and WvW/PvP. It has a 5.12 coefficient in the former and a 2.4 in the latter.

[Adamantium.3682]

Is this sort of a moot point if it's been this way since launch (which it has)? The damage has been tested extensively and compared to other professionse, and it's not good enough.

[Afearthenrut.9154]

@insanemaniac.2456 said:I'm under the impression they reused code from lich/rampage/tornado/plague form, not really the same as death shroud. but as an outsider it doesn't make sense and it looks bad and idk why they would do that.

Because engi...

[cat.8975]

Even if they somehow could copy+paste the same implementation of necro shroud, it would bring in another issue. Shroud skills inherit the weapon strength of the equipped weapons (123 use MH, 45 use OH). This would make your PF skills do 15% more damage with a rifle equipped over the other MH options (and OH shield would lower it even further).

While not perfectly ideal, I'd say their compromise of making it use 1015 WS in all gamemodes is good enough. If only they could extend the same fix to lich, rampage, tornado, and cele avatar...

[Horan.7013]

Wow, I am actually shocked by Dev response in that Reddit link.

So just like that? "It isn't possible."No explanation or nothing. Just a simple short statement.

So I can simply assume that the game design is horrible and Dev is incompetent.

There must have been a lot of PR disasters in the past if this is how Dev communicate with the community.

Anyway, this is a problem because although you can't camp in forge mode to deal damage, it is still your main source of dps.
As a holosmith, you will try your best to stay in the forge mode to deal damage as much as possible. It is the class design.However, as a gamer, people who play Holosmith may feel cheated that their holosmith is not doing more damage when they get ascended, compared to other classes. It is unfair.
Of course, unless they crank up the damage coefficient or whatever the term they use to boost up the forge mode damage as if they are equipped with ascended.Since Dev is incompetent to fix the scaling issue, I guess this is the only solution.I mean, Holosmith is all about high risk/high return, right?
Since overheating and going boom~! will cause significant HP loss, I say give the forge mode some good damage coefficient.Wouldn't it cause OPness of holosmith?Well, I guess we could use slight O.P.ness of POWER base ENGINEER for the first time ever.Seriously, with all this CONDI meta and OP scourge and firebrand and etc running around, let holosmith do some more damage.

[miriforst.1290]

How come they could fix kits but not this? It could also help power reapers a little as well if i understand it correctly.

[Sagramor.7395]

I have a hard time believing that it's "not possible". Didn't they say that about condition stacks being limited to 25?

[lorddarkflare.9186]

@Sagramor.7395 said:I have a hard time believing that it's "not possible". Didn't they say that about condition stacks being limited to 25?

The dev that responded is one of the designers, not a programmer as far as I am aware. This issue seems to be an engine issue.

Ultimately, 'not possible' probably means not worth the effort for the gain. Especially since they can up the coefficients for effectively the same fix.

@miriforst.1290 said:How come they could fix kits but not this? It could also help power reapers a little as well if i understand it correctly.

Shrouds and kits are NOT the same as most other transforms. Shroud actually scales with equipped weapons.

[Carighan.6758]

@Vagrant.7206 said:It makes a difference because it changes gear progression. The effort you put into getting an ascended weapon versus a rare or exotic is much smaller. The guy who spends 20g on his weapon won't see much difference versus the guy who spends 1g on his weapon.

So grinding or spending on an asccended weapon is much less of a necessity? Well, perfect then. Win/win!