Where Did Prot Holo Come From?

[ThrakathNar.4537]

Prot holo has been getting a lot of complaints as an overpowered build across all GW2 platforms, but the real question is where has it been all this time?

 

Prot holo is actually now at the weakest point it has been since the February 2020 megapatch. Since then, the build has only been nerfed. Mortar kit damage/blind has been nerfed, and hard light arena's duration and effect has also been nerfed. As well as this, none of the traits have received any significant overhauls that drastically change their behaviour.

 

So why are people only just complaining about it now? Prot holo provides a hard counter to Burn DH, but even when that was meta, prot holo hardly saw use. Back when mender's amulet was a thing, prot holo was probably one of the least used sidenoder duelists. Weaver, renegade, and even druid were much more common picks than prot holo. If prot holo was OP back then (remembering it was at the same power level then as now), just how overpowered were those other builds?

 

So is the removal of menders what triggered this change, or is it ultimately a perception issue? As far as I can tell, the complaints about prot holo started around about the same time that Worms used a prot holo to win Monthly AT, which would suggest that the "meta" is not actually what the strongest build is, but rather what people think the strongest build is, even if there are stronger, less-used options out there.

[Bazsi.2734]

Prot holo was always here. Last few patches just destroyed the competition. Sidenoder builds relying on the healing power stat investment are bad now, so obviously the one sidenoder build that has the best sustain without any investment in healing power will rise to the top.

[Math.5123]

1 hour ago, ThrakathNar.4537 said:

Prot holo has been getting a lot of complaints as an overpowered build across all GW2 platforms, but the real question is where has it been all this time?

 

Prot holo is actually now at the weakest point it has been since the February 2020 megapatch. Since then, the build has only been nerfed. Mortar kit damage/blind has been nerfed, and hard light arena's duration and effect has also been nerfed. As well as this, none of the traits have received any significant overhauls that drastically change their behaviour.

 

So why are people only just complaining about it now? Prot holo provides a hard counter to Burn DH, but even when that was meta, prot holo hardly saw use. Back when mender's amulet was a thing, prot holo was probably one of the least used sidenoder duelists. Weaver, renegade, and even druid were much more common picks than prot holo. If prot holo was OP back then (remembering it was at the same power level then as now), just how overpowered were those other builds?

 

So is the removal of menders what triggered this change, or is it ultimately a perception issue? As far as I can tell, the complaints about prot holo started around about the same time that Worms used a prot holo to win Monthly AT, which would suggest that the "meta" is not actually what the strongest build is, but rather what people think the strongest build is, even if there are stronger, less-used options out there.

The few builds that could contest it has been removed, as stated above. Big symbols got removed, burn procs halved. Fire weaver got nerfed. 

[Disney.7826]

By most of players all builds are considered as trash until someone wins mat with it

It can be good, but it wont be on metabattle if it doesnt win mat. If its not on metabattle, no one plays it.

Edited May 30, 2021 by Filip.7463

[Quadox.7834]

attention shifted to explo holo, which kept prot holo in check

[Kuma.1503]

Short Answer:

 

Reverse Power Creep. 

 

Long-winded answer:

 

Imagine you wanted to remove sustain on healing skills across the board, so you hit Ctrl + A and changed the base healing and heal coefficient of every heal skill in the game to zero. 

 

Skills like Signet of Restoration become useless. 

 

Meanwhile heal skills that give you value outside of the heal such as Withdraw become insanely bloated in comparison to the competition. 

 

While Signet of Restoration does nothing, Withdraw when traited would:

 

Evade ☑

Stealth ☑

Grant mobility ☑

Cleanse ☑

 

Now imagine this same scenario on a broader scale. People complain about tankiness so you remove tanky amulets from the game. People complain about boons so you reduce boon durations to 1-2 second durations. People complain about tanky traits so you nerf (most) of those too. 

 

Most builds now lack the tools to make an effective side noder. 

 

In comes holo. It has natural sustain thanks to Heat therapy. 

It has good boon uptime thanks to it's multiple sources of protection and easy access resolution with light aura

It has built in durability and cleanse. It takes reduced strike damage in forge and it can cleanse movement impairing conditions. This is on top of improved protection. 

 

This lets it make an effective tanky build even without relying on a tanky amulet to do so. Prot holo does all of this while wearing a berserker amulet. 

 

Compared to side noders of the past, Prot Holo isn't very tanky at all. Try playing it in a teamfight and you'll explode if people focus you and/or strip your boons. It's overperforming simply because it has enough tools to do it's job. It can compensate for the removal of tanky amulets and general toning down of boons and sustain with traits and utilities alone. 

 

As a bonus, it has a good matchup into Scourge, so on top of everything I just mentioned, it's well suited to handle the current meta. 

 

A small fish in an even smaller pond. 

 

Edited May 30, 2021 by Kuma.1503

[ThrakathNar.4537]

13 minutes ago, Kuma.1503 said:

 

I appreciate the long answer, it does confirm a lot of what I thought was the case.

 

Although there is one more thing I'm not sure on, and that's about when Burn DH was meta. Due to the frequent and strong cleansing potential, prot should have an easy time into Burn DH (at least when that was common, before it received heavy nerfs). Is the reason prot holo wasn't meta as a counter to that just because other sidenoders (like fire weaver) could counter DH and be tankier?

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

7 hours ago, ThrakathNar.4537 said:

Where do holosaiyans come from?

 

A long long time ago in a galaxy far far away, there was this guy who fought an alien emperor on a planet called Namek. To be able to beat the alien emperor he had to evolve and change form so he could gain broken amounts of sustain & dps to do it. This new form was called a holosaiyan.

 

It is said that when he returned home from Namek, he began teaching other people how to become holosaiyans.

Edited May 30, 2021 by Trevor Boyer.6524

[Grimjack.8130]

Weaver Renegade beat Prot Holo Renegade in the 2v2, Weaver became meta.

Minionmancer Renegade beat Weaver Renegade in the 2v2. Minionmancer became meta.

Prot Holo beats MM 1v1 and 2v2, so it became meta.
Prot Holo has no losing matchup, be it 1v1s or 2v2s. Especially practical ones that don't open up plenty of holes in a competitive comp.

And here we are. You could try to force 2v2s on it with Weaver like you used to, but they just let you 1v2 it and win the teamfight and its VERY punishing to do that because Scourge exists so that node is not getting nueted anytime soon, and then Prot Holo will push the Weaver on its full cap and nuet it eventually via no cast time Shield 4.  Also if Renegade isn't the meta Roamer you're playing against then Weaver's 2v2s are much worse.

 

[Sereath.1428]

That's what happens when you do nothing but go for nerf after nerf. Their race to kill off metas is ridiculous because it's a never-ending fight, "true" balance is impossible.

Edited May 30, 2021 by XxsdgxX.8109

[Kuma.1503]

2 hours ago, ThrakathNar.4537 said:

I appreciate the long answer, it does confirm a lot of what I thought was the case.

 

Although there is one more thing I'm not sure on, and that's about when Burn DH was meta. Due to the frequent and strong cleansing potential, prot should have an easy time into Burn DH (at least when that was common, before it received heavy nerfs). Is the reason prot holo wasn't meta as a counter to that just because other sidenoders (like fire weaver) could counter DH and be tankier?

 

You're spot on actually. There was a period where Burn Weaver was complained about frequently as the #1 side noder that needed to be nerfed asap. Prot holo wasn't even on people's radar back then. I reckon it could have been but people were too busy complaining to theory craft how they could evolve the meta. 

 

(Even now there's barely any discussion on how to beat Scourge/ Prot holo. Just discussions on how to nerf it. Most people copy what they see the streamers/MAT players do, they don't try to push boundries themselves.)

 

In much the same way that prot holo can be tanky with an aggressive set up thanks to runes/traits. Fire weaver could achieve something similar by blasting water fields for sustain and giving themselves plenty of barrier. 

 

Then on Feb, 23, 2021 Anet cut the barrier on stone resonance in half. 

 

Precisely one month later on March 23, 2021 Anet nerfed burn DH, significantly reducing the frequency that they'd run into this favorable matchup.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 30, 2021 by Kuma.1503

[Ragnar.4257]

People always bring up this argument of "its been nerfed recently", or "it hasn't been touched, why everyone complain now".

 

Which as an argument, it should be obvious with 0.1s of thought as to why it is a bad argument.

 

If you get nerfed 20%, and everyone else gets nerfed 50%, relatively it is a buff. You cannot say whether a class/build has been made stronger or weaker only by looking at the changes made to the class/build itself. You also have to look at all the other changes made around it.

 

I would also challenge the notion that prot-holo has only "recently" become meta, or that people are only complaining about it now. It's been floating around top-tier play for the last 6 months at least. Go back and watch tournaments from the end of last year, or start of this year, and you'll see it there. It just wasn't quite as broken as renegade, is all.

Edited May 31, 2021 by Ragnar.4257

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

7 hours ago, Ragnar.4257 said:

Which as an argument, it should be obvious with 0.1s of thought as to why it is a bad argument.

 

If you get nerfed 20%, and everyone else gets nerfed 50%, relatively it is a buff. You cannot say whether a class/build has been made stronger or weaker only by looking at the changes made to the class/build itself. You also have to look at all the other changes made around it.

 

Wow I'm actually astonished that you finally get it.

 

But, it took you a few months to understand that concept...not .01 seconds.

Edited May 31, 2021 by JusticeRetroHunter.7684

[ThrakathNar.4537]

8 hours ago, Ragnar.4257 said:

 

It was a genuine question, not an argument in defence prot holo. I don't play the build in ranked, nor have I found it particularly fun to play when I was testing it out in unranked (at least compared to explosives). That being said I don't think it should be nerfed into oblivion, otherwise it'll just expose the next sidenoder build that people complain is "tanking 1v3 like a raid boss".

 

Also, while people may still have been complaining in the past, there are more forum posts from May 2021 talking about it than there are from the entirety of 2020. Additionally, the metabattle page for it (which, let's face it, is where the majority of players just copy-paste their builds from) only recently moved it up the categories into the meta section, so its reemergence is definitely a fairly new thing.

 

And while a lot of builds have definitely been nerfed harder than prot over the last year, there are other things that haven't. It's just that judging by the comments of some people on this forum (people saying it can survive 1v3, that sic'em+OWP barrage hardly pressures it) it makes it out to be an immortal god rather than simply an overperforming build, which would suggest that holo was the tankiest sidenoder even before the relative power-creep (which made me wonder why people even bothered to use fire weaver, renegade, or druid).

Edited May 31, 2021 by ThrakathNar.4537

[Crozame.4098]

1) Prot Holo vs ranger / fireweaver. It will be a stalemate. No one can kill each other.

2) I doubt it will survive +1s without kiting around. It has no stab to cover the PB:) And if you start kiting around, many builds can survive quite long. Even Slb. 

 

Prot holo is strong without any doubt, but saying its immortal that can tank 1v3 forever is exaggeration.

 

I would say first fix other more braindead builds/mechanic (I,e., scourge, trapper rune, Jacaranda and Entangle) first and then see how it goes.

 

[Ragnar.4257]

6 hours ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

 

Wow I'm actually astonished that you finally get it.

 

But, it took you a few months to understand that concept...not .01 seconds.

I've been saying the same for years. I can go and dig out quotes from years back if you really want.

 

It has nothing to do with your BS assertion that "nothing can ever be changed by adjusting numbers". Infact, it contradicts it. You assert that nerfing one class by 20% and another by 50% results in no change; I assert that it results in a relative buff to the former. So allow me to congratulate YOU on finally getting it.

6 hours ago, ThrakathNar.4537 said:

It was a genuine question, not an argument in defence prot holo. I don't play the build in ranked, nor have I found it particularly fun to play when I was testing it out in unranked (at least compared to explosives). That being said I don't think it should be nerfed into oblivion, otherwise it'll just expose the next sidenoder build that people complain is "tanking 1v3 like a raid boss".

 

Also, while people may still have been complaining in the past, there are more forum posts from May 2021 talking about it than there are from the entirety of 2020. Additionally, the metabattle page for it (which, let's face it, is where the majority of players just copy-paste their builds from) only recently moved it up the categories into the meta section, so its reemergence is definitely a fairly new thing.

 

And while a lot of builds have definitely been nerfed harder than prot over the last year, there are other things that haven't. It's just that judging by the comments of some people on this forum (people saying it can survive 1v3, that sic'em+OWP barrage hardly pressures it) it makes it out to be an immortal god rather than simply an overperforming build, which would suggest that holo was the tankiest sidenoder even before the relative power-creep (which made me wonder why people even bothered to use fire weaver, renegade, or druid).

Metabattle is always 2-3 months behind the curve. If they've only just moved it up, well, that would suggest its been meta for a while. Various flavours of Prot-Holo have been wavering in and out of meta for the last 3 years, so its hardly something new. There were outcries against it at various points over the last 3 years. It's like a cockroach, it won't ever die, it just sometimes gets eclipsed by the outrage over some other meta build.

Edited May 31, 2021 by Ragnar.4257

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

20 minutes ago, Ragnar.4257 said:

I've been saying the same for years. I can go and dig out quotes from years back if you really want.

 

It has nothing to do with your BS assertion that "nothing can ever be changed by adjusting numbers". Infact, it contradicts it. You assert that nerfing one class by 20% and another by 50% results in no change; I assert that it results in a relative buff to the former. So allow me to congratulate YOU on finally getting it.

 

Dang dude...so close but I think you need a bit more time in the oven.

 

The very definition of Relative means that things vary in order to keep something a constant. I'm not starting a second war. if you are struggling to understand what is constant in this picture, then there's not much else to say.

[Stalima.5490]

I can only assume that it became more prominent as people started using conditions less because of resistance 100% invalidating them, paired with condi cleanse it would mean that the majority of condition builds would be almost completely useless outside of ultra fast stacking/stun builds like burn DH.

 

This in turn means that with more power builds around, the holo's 40% protection + cleanse would become far stronger in contrast with less conditions to deal with, after all, when something gets weaker, something else can become alot more viable.

[Ragnar.4257]

19 minutes ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

 

Dang dude...so close but I think you need a bit more time in the oven.

 

The very definition of Relative means that things vary in order to keep something a constant. I'm not starting a second war. if you are struggling to understand what is constant in this picture, then there's not much else to say.

I understand exactly what you mean, there is no understanding I'm missing.

 

You're saying that whether build A > B or B > A is all meaningless, because ultimately however you arrange them relative to each other, you'll always only have 2 builds A and B.

 

It's like saying that if you set your house on fire, it doesn't result in a change to the mass/energy sum of the universe.

 

I mean...... okay? But is that helpful or relevant?

 

 Just because from some distant vantage point it doesn't look like a meaningful change, doesn't mean that it isn't a pretty friggin meaningful change to the people closer to it. Having your house burn down is pretty meaningful to the people affected, they aren't going to be consoled by you declaring it "meaningless" while smoking your pipe. Likewise bringing down scourge and bringing up berserker (as examples) would be of benefit to the playerbase, regardless of whether or not you deem it to be "meaningful".

Edited May 31, 2021 by Ragnar.4257

[Ragnar.4257]

13 minutes ago, Stalima.5490 said:

I can only assume that it became more prominent as people started using conditions less because of resistance 100% invalidating them, paired with condi cleanse it would mean that the majority of condition builds would be almost completely useless outside of ultra fast stacking/stun builds like burn DH.

 

This in turn means that with more power builds around, the holo's 40% protection + cleanse would become far stronger in contrast with less conditions to deal with, after all, when something gets weaker, something else can become alot more viable.

Wouldn't it be the opposite of that? One of prot-holo's big selling points is that its very effective at dealing with condition pressure.

 

The weakness of Prot-Holo is that it doesn't contribute a whole lot to a team-fight. So if it's seeing an increase in usage now, that would suggest that teamfighting is becoming regarded as less important than camping side-nodes. Which would make sense, seeing as teamfights have been reduced to stalemates recently by the scourge+support endless pillow-fights, and games are increasingly being determined by who does a better job on the sides.

Edited May 31, 2021 by Ragnar.4257

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

15 minutes ago, Ragnar.4257 said:

I understand exactly what you mean, there is no understanding I'm missing.

 

You're saying that whether build A > B or B > A is all meaningless, because ultimately however you arrange them relative to each other, you'll always only have 2 builds A and B.

 

And there will always be, one build that is better then the other, until they are equal.

 

Being equal entails A being exactly the same skill as B. There is no way around that... and for this reason, trying to make things equal always means the heat death of player choice and diversity.

 

You simply can't have, the world that you want to live in. It doesn't exist.

Edited May 31, 2021 by JusticeRetroHunter.7684

[Ragnar.4257]

25 minutes ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

 

And there will always be, one build that is better then the other, until they are equal.

 

Being equal entails A being exactly the same skill as B. There is no way around that... and for this reason, trying to make things equal always means the heat death of player choice and diversity.

 

You simply can't have, the world that you want to live in. It doesn't exist.

And as I've said before, it is not necessary to make them exactly equal.

 

Provided they are within acceptable margins of each other, such that player skill and other in-match variables become more significant than build choice.

 

A scenario where berserker is +/- 5% of scourge, is a better scenario than one where berserker is 90% weaker than scourge. Because a 5% variation can be compensated for by player skill, whereas a 90% variation cannot. Or a player who simply prefers that playstyle may accept being 5% weaker, because they enjoy it more, but they would never accept being 90% weaker. Which is borne out by the evidence that people DO play builds that they know are objectively weaker, just because they're more fun.

 

The only one here invoking the idea of perfect equality (which as you point out, is an unattainable goal) is yourself.

Edited May 31, 2021 by Ragnar.4257

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

4 minutes ago, Ragnar.4257 said:

And as I've said before, it is not necessary to make them exactly equal.

 

Provided they are within acceptable margins of each other, such that player skill and other in-match variables become more significant than build choice.

 

A scenario where berserker is +/- 5% of scourge, is a better scenario than one where berserker is 90% weaker than scourge. Because a 5% variation can be compensated for by player skill, whereas a 90% variation cannot

As you make each side "more equal" you are just making it "less different," and by proxy you make it easier to find the optimal strategy.

 

You are asking for stuff that you can not actually do...You want a diverse game? Well you won't find much diversity at all in an environment where 95% of all classes and their skills are the same.

 

The truth is, that you don't want a diverse game. You want a FPS shooter, Tic Tac Toe, Fortnite Clone. You want "fairness" and things to be equal to some imaginary level that you have in your head...

 

So long as there is differentiation, there is no line.... That's the truth you have to come to terms with. The world we live in, is highly diverse...not perfectly equal. Take a clue from the actual world not the one in your head. 

 

 

[Kuma.1503]

https://i.imgur.com/PelQS0i.jpeg

Edited May 31, 2021 by Kuma.1503

[Crozame.4098]

6 minutes ago, Kuma.1503 said:

https://i.imgur.com/PelQS0i.jpeg

Haha, I had my share .