Guild Wars 2

So over the course of the beta (I know it was awhile ago I just took forever to get aorund to making a thread on this) I tried out a heavy burst focused on the overheat mechanic. The idea of the build was to max out heat generation and, when combined, with rifle and rocket boots have massive amounts of mobility to move that burst around the map. The heat generation allowed you to fill the form very fast and then put out a single very hard hitting AoE (upwards of 12k on a crit) which was awesome and really could snowball a teamfight if people were actively trying to res around you. The huge drawback was how much degeneration you were hit with after the overheat itself happened. Often times you’d die to that or be left with about 1k health if you didn’t have a heal up which kinda killed the idea of the build after people caught on to it.

The point of the thread: Would it be worth tweaking the overheat trait to deal less damage (12k is a bit much imo) but in addition to stopping the self damage, have a damage reduction on the degeneration of overheating? I don’t want to fully get rid of it because then there’s still an aspect of self punishment and timing your overheats for when you expect little follow up damage but maybe a 25%-50% reduction built into the trait to make it more appealing in areas of pvp outside of like a full zerk gimmick build.

Um the selfdmg over time is about 4k dmg (in 2.5s) how do you have 1k afterwards. You even get selfheal from Heat Therapy which is 6500 heal over time (10s or so?).

So yeah if you run full berserk jump on the point to trigger overheat in 4 people to see some big numbers then yeah you gonna die. But then again if you jump on the point with enemys on it in full berserk you gonna die anyway those 4k extradmg really doesn’t matter much then.
Best thing you could do with the trait is quickly trigger it when enemys are low to put several into downstate and then dissengage a bit and let the team do the rest the bit of dmg you get shouldn’t be a problem then.

I don’t want to nerf the self damage at all. It allows them room to tune the damage from PF higher. Bigger reward for a bigger risk.

If anything I could stand to see it go up a little if it brings the skill damage output higher (especially in PvE where PF is nerfed due to the way transforms work).

I think when balancing these specs in the coming months the devs should take every opportunity to go further into what makes the spec unique rather than just nerfing the unique things back towards vanilla.

Adamantium.3682:

I don’t want to nerf the self damage at all. It allows them room to tune the damage from PF higher. Bigger reward for a bigger risk.

If anything I could stand to see it go up a little if it brings the skill damage output higher (especially in PvE where PF is nerfed due to the way transforms work).

I think when balancing these specs in the coming months the devs should take every opportunity to go further into what makes the spec unique rather than just nerfing the unique things back towards vanilla.

Pretty much this.

The reason Reaper got nerfed so hard was that it was both a tank (with extra health to boot) and a major DPS contributor. The holosmith looks like they learned their lesson — don’t give an extra health bar AND massive DPS. It’s one or the other, which I’m ok with.

Agreed. Holosmith skips out on Reaper’s massive health pool in exchange for truly ridiculous mobility. It’s a very fair trade off, and still extremely powerful to boot.

Mercurias.1826:

Agreed. Holosmith skips out on Reaper’s massive health pool in exchange for truly ridiculous mobility. It’s a very fair trade off, and still extremely powerful to boot.

Holosmith is pretty slow. Core Engineer with rocket boots is ridiculously mobile.

Holosmith Holo Leap is not any significant swiftness, about as much in combat mobility as a spammable skull grinder.

Chaith.8256:

Mercurias.1826:

Agreed. Holosmith skips out on Reaper’s massive health pool in exchange for truly ridiculous mobility. It’s a very fair trade off, and still extremely powerful to boot.

Holosmith is pretty slow. Core Engineer with rocket boots is ridiculously mobile.

Holosmith Holo Leap is not any significant swiftness, about as much in combat mobility as a spammable skull grinder.

holosmith with rocket boots

Milan.9035:

Chaith.8256:

Mercurias.1826:

Agreed. Holosmith skips out on Reaper’s massive health pool in exchange for truly ridiculous mobility. It’s a very fair trade off, and still extremely powerful to boot.

Holosmith is pretty slow. Core Engineer with rocket boots is ridiculously mobile.

Holosmith Holo Leap is not any significant swiftness, about as much in combat mobility as a spammable skull grinder.

holosmith with rocket boots

Yeah I guess he was comparing the tradeoffs from going from Reaper to Holosmith. Also from what I understand no EU Holosmiths went with Rocket Boots on the demo weekend..

Chaith.8256:

Milan.9035:

Chaith.8256:

Mercurias.1826:

Agreed. Holosmith skips out on Reaper’s massive health pool in exchange for truly ridiculous mobility. It’s a very fair trade off, and still extremely powerful to boot.

Holosmith is pretty slow. Core Engineer with rocket boots is ridiculously mobile.

Holosmith Holo Leap is not any significant swiftness, about as much in combat mobility as a spammable skull grinder.

holosmith with rocket boots

Yeah I guess he was comparing the tradeoffs from going from Reaper to Holosmith. Also from what I understand no EU Holosmiths went with Rocket Boots on the demo weekend..

Rocket boots still needs to be a stunbreak IMO for it to be viable. The charge system goes a long way to making them more viable, but their lack of stunbreak cripples them.

I like to picture Star Lord’s boots from Guardians of the Galaxy.

Vagrant.7206:

Chaith.8256:

Milan.9035:

Chaith.8256:

Mercurias.1826:

Agreed. Holosmith skips out on Reaper’s massive health pool in exchange for truly ridiculous mobility. It’s a very fair trade off, and still extremely powerful to boot.

Holosmith is pretty slow. Core Engineer with rocket boots is ridiculously mobile.

Holosmith Holo Leap is not any significant swiftness, about as much in combat mobility as a spammable skull grinder.

holosmith with rocket boots

Yeah I guess he was comparing the tradeoffs from going from Reaper to Holosmith. Also from what I understand no EU Holosmiths went with Rocket Boots on the demo weekend..

Rocket boots still needs to be a stunbreak IMO for it to be viable. The charge system goes a long way to making them more viable, but their lack of stunbreak cripples them.

I like to picture Star Lord’s boots from Guardians of the Galaxy.

Stunbreak with Gadgeteer I think is what would really make the skill great.

But at that point, it simply does too much.

Vagrant.7206:

Chaith.8256:

Milan.9035:

Chaith.8256:

Mercurias.1826:

Agreed. Holosmith skips out on Reaper’s massive health pool in exchange for truly ridiculous mobility. It’s a very fair trade off, and still extremely powerful to boot.

Holosmith is pretty slow. Core Engineer with rocket boots is ridiculously mobile.

Holosmith Holo Leap is not any significant swiftness, about as much in combat mobility as a spammable skull grinder.

holosmith with rocket boots

Yeah I guess he was comparing the tradeoffs from going from Reaper to Holosmith. Also from what I understand no EU Holosmiths went with Rocket Boots on the demo weekend..

Rocket boots still needs to be a stunbreak IMO for it to be viable. The charge system goes a long way to making them more viable, but their lack of stunbreak cripples them.

I like to picture Star Lord’s boots from Guardians of the Galaxy.

Not true at all about needing a stunbreak. Holosmith with Rocket Boots and 2 stunbreaks…..?

Chaith.8256:

Vagrant.7206:

Chaith.8256:

Milan.9035:

Chaith.8256:

Mercurias.1826:

Agreed. Holosmith skips out on Reaper’s massive health pool in exchange for truly ridiculous mobility. It’s a very fair trade off, and still extremely powerful to boot.

Holosmith is pretty slow. Core Engineer with rocket boots is ridiculously mobile.

Holosmith Holo Leap is not any significant swiftness, about as much in combat mobility as a spammable skull grinder.

holosmith with rocket boots

Yeah I guess he was comparing the tradeoffs from going from Reaper to Holosmith. Also from what I understand no EU Holosmiths went with Rocket Boots on the demo weekend..

Rocket boots still needs to be a stunbreak IMO for it to be viable. The charge system goes a long way to making them more viable, but their lack of stunbreak cripples them.

I like to picture Star Lord’s boots from Guardians of the Galaxy.

Not true at all about needing a stunbreak. Holosmith with Rocket Boots and 2 stunbreaks…..?

Why not?

They don’t provide any evade/defensive frames and they take up a valuable utility skill slot. The toolbelt for rocket boots is relatively weak already (I think 3 burning?), especially for power builds (which holo is built around).

The problem with most of the gadgets is that they don’t do enough when compared to other skills. If you feel that is unbalanced, then give the rocket boots evade frames or some defensive utility ala block.

Of all the classes, our mobility is weakest, with necros in second place. By not including any defense built into our only true mobility skill (unlike most of the other classes), it’s even worse.

Rifle SD holosmith !!! / hyped

Rocket Boots breaks immob, chill, and cripple. That is enough for it to do it’s job 99% of the time for me. It’s job being: get me out of danger or chase down a low health target. Or both one with each charge

It may not evade but it puts you out of range really fast. It has good synergy with other Engi stuff (stealth, fields, Rapid Regen). I’m not a pro in WvW by any definition… but while roaming I have found it to be MVP of my skill bar on many occasions.

I think it would be OP if RB had stun break or evades, and it would end up being a worse skill if cooldown, range, ammo, or ammo reload got nerfed to fit in what you’re asking for.

Other gadgets? No argument from me! RB is a good skill if a situational one, the other gadgets aren’t so much. Slick Shoes is another very situational skill which has been nerfed repeatedly. Gadgeteer tried to help AED but it’s still nowhere near taking over HT or rarely the gyro/elixir H. Maybe Holo can save it somehow.

I guess to try and get back on topic to Holosmith I would say it does have pretty good mobility just considering it’s exclusive stuff not RB. Two low cooldown leaps I think is fair to define as “good mobility”, not many specs or weapons or builds or whatever you want to define have that.

Vagrant.7206:

Why not?

They don’t provide any evade/defensive frames and they take up a valuable utility skill slot. The toolbelt for rocket boots is relatively weak already (I think 3 burning?), especially for power builds (which holo is built around).

The problem with most of the gadgets is that they don’t do enough when compared to other skills. If you feel that is unbalanced, then give the rocket boots evade frames or some defensive utility ala block.

Of all the classes, our mobility is weakest, with necros in second place. By not including any defense built into our only true mobility skill (unlike most of the other classes), it’s even worse.

Clearly you have not used Rocket Boots since they added two charges..

Rocket Boots is an extremely defensive skill able to disengage you from any fight with two taps. I don’t want to play Holosmith without them, practically.

Chaith.8256:

Clearly you have not used Rocket Boots since they added two charges..

Rocket Boots is an extremely defensive skill able to disengage you from any fight with two taps. I don’t want to play Holosmith without them, practically.

I’ve tried it since then.

Typically a DH will throw a spear of justice at me and yoink me right back to where I was, if I was in a groupfight and try to lock me down because they are aware that I’m trying to escape. Not having those evade frames or a stunbreak makes it not that great of an escape option.

It may not evade but it puts you out of range really fast.

Only if nobody is focusing you… which is pretty easy to get out of range pretty quickly as is. The problem is that if you are getting focused and need to escape, RB fails pretty spectacularly against skilled opponents.

Vagrant.7206:

Only if nobody is focusing you… which is pretty easy to get out of range pretty quickly as is. The problem is that if you are getting focused and need to escape, RB fails pretty spectacularly against skilled opponents.

Maybe after one out of one hundred uses of Rocket Boots during the demo weekend I was yanked back by a pull. Maybe about one in ten times I got stunned or dazed the millisecond I used Rocket Boots. But y’know what I did right after that? Used Rocket Boots again and got away. It’s seriously great, you can poopoo it because counterplay exists but it will save your life most every time.

Chaith.8256:

Vagrant.7206:

Only if nobody is focusing you… which is pretty easy to get out of range pretty quickly as is. The problem is that if you are getting focused and need to escape, RB fails pretty spectacularly against skilled opponents.

Maybe after one out of one hundred uses of Rocket Boots during the demo weekend I was yanked back by a pull. Maybe about one in ten times I got stunned or dazed the millisecond I used Rocket Boots. But y’know what I did right after that? Used Rocket Boots again and got away. It’s seriously great, you can poopoo it because counterplay exists but it will save your life most every time.

Demo weekend isn’t exactly a great point of comparison, because everybody is testing out new content. Try using rocket boots in current pvp, and you’ll see it’s not that potent as an escape skill.

If you ran HoT builds against the new PoF builds, the old HoT builds were actually still extremely strong — I tried my DH during the demo weekend, and wrecked a lot of people. Scrapper hammer wiped the floor with holosmith in duels.

Vagrant.7206:

Demo weekend isn’t exactly a great point of comparison, because everybody is testing out new content. Try using rocket boots in current pvp, and you’ll see it’s not that potent as an escape skill.

If you ran HoT builds against the new PoF builds, the old HoT builds were actually still extremely strong — I tried my DH during the demo weekend, and wrecked a lot of people. Scrapper hammer wiped the floor with holosmith in duels.

Yes, HoT elite specs can be equally useful or in many cases MORE useful than PoF specs so far, with the clear exception of Berserker.

Look, I’m not going to try and convince you to slot rocket boots, but for a high DPS roamer with no added mobility in traits, sword, or Photon Forge, who needs defensive utility slots, Rocket Boots being as strong as they are will seriously help the Holosmith survive. You’re a little too scared of Spear of Justice.. (which you can Elixir S)