+10 For Arena Net (Power Holo - PvE) - Personal Opinion

[ZolracAtrox.2908]

First Thing First) I read wrong(English isn't my main language), I thought the range was +450 to activate the missiles.; but nope, so I'm sorry for bother me in forum posts.

Second Thing Second ) Good work; new Holo is amazing (maybe autosustain is a littlle broken in PvE due to passive healing) but we have back High DPS + CC with rifle build; I really don't know if Holo is actually stronger or weaker than DH, but Holo isn't totally useless like after that senseless nerf in toolbelt while overheating, so even if he's will not enter to the meta(fact that I don't know), nor is it a class that only occupies space in groups/squads, isn't more that DPS class with less dps than a BS... I just hope that it will not be a class with mediocre dps compared to the others, because at the moment it seems that it is no longer ... Maybe I am wrong and yes it is, time will tell [snowcrows xD]

Last thing last) Ty Anet !for remembering that we don't all want to use DH :), thanks for listening the PvE engineer community. I'm sorry for those professions that didn't get a buff and they were left with a low power dps, or those professions that got unfair nerfs, I hope you also get your buff soon.

[Nephalem.8921]

They buffed power Chrono to 42k so there goes engis viability. oh and you can stack chronos for quickness.Holo is in a decent spot now but with unchanged dh numbers, buffed slb and op pChrono i dont it fits in the meta. I really hope this chrono trait gets nerfed fast.Also the barrier is quite ridiculous in pve. 10k on a 6sec cd when adds are around.If this stays engi could become a good tanky dps bruiser for pugs.

[ZolracAtrox.2908]

@Nephalem.8921 said:They buffed power Chrono to 42k so there goes engis viability. oh and you can stack chronos for quickness.Holo is in a decent spot now but with unchanged dh numbers, buffed slb and op pChrono i dont it fits in the meta. I really hope this chrono trait gets nerfed fast.Also the barrier is quite ridiculous in pve. 10k on a 6sec cd when adds are around.If this stays engi could become a good tanky dps bruiser for pugs.

Obviously they will change that. I don't think those 42k will stay, if they do it would be pretty stupid.Once the deadeye also did 44k after a recent buff and a few days later got a nerf.

[Nephalem.8921]

After further testing i have to admit that holo is in a good spot now.pChrono got already nerfed aswell. Holos selfish nature makes it still subpar in optimized speedruns probably but it has the dps to be a selfish dps now and could be good on some bosses. Holo is at least very powerfull in normal, not min maxed comps now.It brings high damage but no stance share, spotter or something like that so it should keep the damage.Also it still struggles in high end fractals compared to slb/dh/weaver but everything that cant burst in 3seconds does. It is at least strong in pug fractals where stuff lives long enough to get more than 1-2 attacks out. This is more an exposed debuff and too low health pool problem than class design though.

[Infusion.7149]

I was complimented on DPS by a PUG dragonhunter in a noncomped group because I exceeded their damage by around 15% or something ( I wasn't running arc). Must be the new patch combined with Zealous Blade nerfs (bugfix) along with the change to "Feel My Wrath".I enjoy playing holo in PvE because it's more active and not reliant on AI compared to mesmer/unmerged soulbeast and less boring compared to dropping traps / sword of justice on DH.There's some drawbacks though if you're serious about instanced content: the photon forge doesn't allow you to pick up crystals in Solid Ocean for example, overheating without Photonic blasting Module damages you & locks you out of toolbelt + PF , unless you run sword or grenade/bomb kits you won't have decent damage outside of PF , if you don't run a kit you don't have a good way to get out of photon forge without exiting it.

[phirefox.2568]

For me it's the opposite. I don't know about "standing-on-top-of-a-boss-with-a-druid-healing-you-and-occasionally-evading-a-boss-mechanic"-modes, but for all of my open world PvE combat builds (core, scrapper and healing) the damage was reduced as a result of the completely unnecessary changes to the Explosions Traitline.

One Adept Trait, Blasting Zone, used to grant +120 power and 20 seconds of Might for each of your Explosion-finishers. In my case it would usually be 3-4 Stacks (through this trait) in combat situations, resulting in 210 to 240 extra power, which translates into ~8.4% to ~9.6% flat bonus damage, seeing as how my gear (asc. zerker trinkets + ex. armor + asc. or ex. weapons) pushes the power stat to just about 2500 power by itself. With the new updates, I lose out on that extra damage. The downsides get canceled out mostly by Explosive Temper and Big Boomer (with a small net win for power-based grenade spammers), but maintaining the ferocity stacks is really annoying (you engage without them, and unless you are running grenades, you will need to hope for the Mine field to be off cooldown or camp on the bomb kit, which would ruin your damage), and Big Boomer is ill suited for open World PvE in HoT or PoF due to the damage done by mobs to anyone not running condibunker builds, WaRrIaH or GuArdiAN (my hp usually fluctuates between full and close to 50% in large group engagements since most veteran mobs have attacks that easily shave off 50% when they hit, so the bonus isn't particularly reliable), unless you are running around in a party with other players diverting attacks from you.

But even if these two traits can offset the damage loss of losing out on Blasting Zone, they cannot compensate the damage loss through the removal of Minesweeper. That trait was awesome for open world PvE. In case you haven't used Sigils or Runes with a "bonus on death" effect yet: They trigger whenever a mob you striked dies at some point. Runes Of Vampirism, for instance, heal you for 10% of your hp whenever a mob tagged that way dies. The Sigil of Stamina refills your endurance completely whenever it does. These runes and sigils are relatively useless in immediate PvP situations, but the second one was amazing in PvE when combined with Minesweeper. Due to all the AoE engineers are throwing around, any group of Trashmobs you were facing became endurance, and thus Minesweeper fodder. Better yet, lower-hp Trashmobs dyeing to your Mine-fields would fill up your endurance, and allow you to put out more of them and (as a side effect) evade further cross-fire through dodging, which can (and would) put you down otherwise. That way it was possible to clear out the trash around the more durable Veterans and Elites. And unlike the sad excuse for an on-dodge trait we got now, the trail of mines persisted for a useful period of time, meaning you could concentrate and stack a few lines of them while trashmobs around you die (maybe from ranged attacks or allied attacks), making melee mobs stampeding through a highly concentrated trail-of-death. It also allowed you to damage foes following you, which was the trademark difference between the Explosive powder keg / Minesweeper traits compared to something like the Warriors damage-on-dodge one. I don't buy the "nobody used minesweeper" explanation by the devs, either. If nobody used it, they could have modified it with extra effects to make it more viable, not just remove it entirely. Seems like some dev got tired of running into mine trails when hunting down power-based engineers or something :p

Even if I took up the glass cannon trait instead of the fury one (in adept explosives), it would not be able to compensate for the damage loss. And it's not like the combination was terribly OP, either - in single target engagements (like bosses), the minesweeper advantages were pretty much zero; in PvP and WvW it would be near useless (either to to the infrequency of player deaths, or due to their high passive defenses), so facing a lot of low-hp trashmobs was THE usecase for it, which would not negatively impact other players in any way.

Hell, my core-shout-heal Warrior in a mix of Zerker and Knights Gear already did more consistent (and generally more) damage in most open world PvE situations than my fullzerk Engineer variants (which can and will drop the moment you stop paying attention) before the removal of minesweeper, while being far more durable and easier to play; now the difference will be even larger.

As for core, I don't always run it with Minesweeper (playing power core), but mostly with shrapnel for might generation, short fuse for fury and either the grenadier or the +120 power-and-might trait. And while the new traits slightly increase it's damage, the introduced need to decide between fury (very important) and grenadier makes the build pretty unwieldy.

Of course all this doesn't matter if I limited myself to playing holo, changed the build a bit (traiting for the projectile-based, explosive AA), and played "standing-on-top-of-a-boss-with-a-druid-healing-you-and-occasionally-evading-a-boss-mechanic"-modes instead.

In summary,

• my core build became more cumbersome to use (or would be much weaker than before if i chose the grenadier trait, forgoing fury) to the point where playing it became quite unfun/sluggish feeling. It was always on the less viable side, but combined with speed runes it used to be fun at least...well, not anymore. Thanks for that, a-net!
• my scrapper buid got it's damage and survivability reduced
• my holo build got hit the same as the scrapper variant
• the changes are really only useful for my holo in a "stand-in-front-of-a-mob-with-tons-of-external-heal-and-just-dish-out-a-dps-rota" context
• bonus: the bomb kit (especially Big Ol' Bomb) is really awkward to use with forcibly untraited fuse-times

[Nephalem.8921]

@"phirefox.2568" said:

• the changes are really only useful for my holo in a "stand-in-front-of-a-mob-with-tons-of-external-heal-and-just-dish-out-a-dps-rota" context

And i just did t4 fractals without a healer doing much more damage than before. the ferocity trait is on explosions hit so a single firebomb hitting 2 targets gives you full stacks.Forge 3 with the barrier trait gives you 10k barrier inside adds which is quite a lot. capping might is also very easy. strength sigil 1-2 blasts + forge 3 does the trick or even strength runes and the sigil alone gives you 15 stacks.And of course your warrior does more damage if you play with vampirism, endurance runes and sigils and just spam dodge.

Engineer has access to blinds so everything without a breakbar cant hurt you. holo has just insane barrier generation open world so i dont know why it should have survivability problems.holo forge 3 barrier got more than tripled, have you tried that yet? the loss of extra might from finishers is sad but the use was so niche and it is outclassed by perma fury so i dont see it as a loss.

[phirefox.2568]

@Nephalem.8921 said:

@"phirefox.2568" said:

• the changes are really only useful for my holo in a "stand-in-front-of-a-mob-with-tons-of-external-heal-and-just-dish-out-a-dps-rota" context

And i just did t4 fractals without a healer doing much more damage than before.Should have re-formulated into "stack on top of a boss" modes. Ofc you don't really need a dedicated healer outside raid content, but usually you don't need to be self sufficient since your party is going to pull out lots of boons anyway (both offensive and defensive). And yes, as I stated the changes are good for this type of situation.the ferocity trait is on explosions hit so a single firebomb hitting 2 targets gives you full stacks.The fire bomb ticks (counting the initial explosion) 4 times, resulting in 8 out of 10 possible stacks when two targets are present. Fair enough, though.Forge 3 with the barrier trait gives you 10k barrier inside adds which is quite a lot. capping might is also very easy. strength sigil 1-2 blasts + forge 3 does the trick or even strength runes and the sigil alone gives you 15 stacks.Yes, might capping is easy if you chose the Sigils and Runes necessary to make it so. Point being I was able to stack them fairly simple without pigeonholing myself into using default sigils and runes, which it now requires to get the same stacks. Reducing sigil/rune diversity is not always a great thing.And of course your warrior does more damage if you play with vampirism, endurance runes and sigils and just spam dodge.It's not about "just spamming dodge". For many encounters you would not even need to dodge, but for combinations of

lots of

trashmobs and veterans, where the trashmobs are guaranteed to add a nontrivial "background noise" to the overall damage (large, infrequent attacks can be dodged, lots of weak but drawn out or frequently occurring ones can't by normal means), the minesweeper/infinite dodging worked wonders. In some constellations, just proceeding the normal way (attack mobs by normal means to get them out of the way before your hp dwindle down too far) is okay and definitely quicker to do, in others (groups of trashmobs spread out while attacking) you would just drop before that happens. You can bridge the distances with active defenses, but most of these mean you are missing out on damage you would instead. "infinite" Minesweeper dodging reduces the required active defense (or allows you to keep it off cooldown entirely for "later" use against the veterans if you have enough trash following you through the trails) while doing damage to your foes, thus increasing your damage in these situations.

And no, it's no "of course" either. You see, I never bothered equipping my Warrior fully with anything useful. At one point in the past I made a joke-build involving the rune of the pack and signets (as I said, a joke build) to get a permanent 100% crit chance without outside help, but not only did the runes change their stats since then, I also removed a backpack and one of the earrings. So the Warrior i'm comparing my engineer (and other alts) to is running around with Zerker Weapons/Armor, Pack Runes (whose improvement over Vampirism is negible in the offensive department) and a zerker/knights trinket mix with two of them

missing

. I think I didn't even bother putting sigils on the Weapons, either, which makes the results of the comparison even more amusing.Engineer has access to blinds so everything without a breakbar cant hurt you.And there are plenty of Break-Bar possessing Veterans in HoT, PoF and the LS maps :/holo has just insane barrier generation open world so i dont know why it should have survivability problems.holo forge 3 barrier got more than tripled, have you tried that yet?In some situations you have to stack defensive skills to bridge the distances between subgroups of foes (or individuals), with a few weak ones following you and running into your trails. In such a case, minesweeping makes sure to give you more time to recharge active defenses for the veterans while you are taking care of the trash - an example would be the Griffon-Event with Warden Jabari. Due to party size (and the event mechanics) you will have lots of trashmobs and a whole bunch of angry veteran canids spawning on top of you - each of the canids being capable of knocking you down at least 3 times in a short period of time with relatively low cooldowns (for reference: a normal fullzerk engineer would lose between 90- and 100% hp from the beating of a single canid without stunbreak). You can mitigate some of their attacks by using Stunes/Dazes (mostly useful against single ones, not 2 or 3), blocks, Smokebomb or the phosphorous rounds on your mortar, but as soon as those defenses run out, you are going to be in for a world of virtual pain. If you instead attack the trashmobs and dodge around while waiting for the next batch of active defenses, you can at least avoid their attacks for longer, and either strike back whenever the defenses are up, or handle the boss and just use the newly won active defense to stay alive while doing so. The same goes for Veterans spamming un- or hardly strafe-able ranged attacks... or groups of chaks.

I usually run the superspeed trait for #2 (for getting rid of cripple or frost), but yeah, 3 does increase survivability a bit (it's like a mini scrapper built into the holo). Unfortunately it doesn't help too much in the situations described above, since even a considerable 10k health buffer (in practice it would be at most 3-4k In these situations) will melt down quickly once the veteran's or the groups attacks (or chak attacks) come in. A buffer is simply not the same as the ability to easily clear out the "background noise" until only the heavy hitters are left :(

the loss of extra might from finishers is sad but the use was so niche and it is outclassed by perma fury so i dont see it as a loss.I used to trait both (perma fury was the major trait, extra might an adept). Well, the other damage related traits compensate for the loss of +power and might stacks, but now i'm forced to chose between perma fury and the grenadier trait for my core-grenade engineer, while before it was a choice between the extra power (which I can theoretically forgo since my grenades already generate a lot of might) and the grenadier trait - which basically means I cannot chose the grenadier trait anymore, since perma fury is simply so much more potent :(