I can’t be the only one who sees a problem with how to equip holosmith.
Don’t get me wrong, the traits and stuff look amazing, and I’m aware that since It hasn’t been released yet, I shouldn’t jump to conclusions and its subject to change, however…
Weapon wise, we can assume based off the wiki that the traits and abilities holosmith provides will be power based, meaning pistols would seem to be rather ineffective as a main weapon due to their focus on condition damage.
So, whats the leave us? Underpowered rifles, or sword + offhand shield. The options don’t seem very appealing.
Am I missing something here? Would Sword + Pistol actually be strong together?
since sword is building up heat as well, I think it’s mandatory for running holosmith (unless photon forge becomes a true weaponswap eventually).
so that leaves us with pistol or shield.
both are cc, while one offers limited protection (which always is a nice supplement to glassy power-builds), and the other comes with a nice load of mellee-burning.
If you run condi-smith with sword, you will feel a strong synergy to pistol #4 since sword comes with a gapcloser, ensuring that #4 hits hardest.
And if you run sword / shield, you will have a nice amount of cc to burn boss / lord breakbars even faster.
I was thinking sword/shield as soon as I knew Holo was more power, though I do see you point for using pistol as you have the immob and a decent attack in blowtorch, though, I’ll probably be running shield myself.
since sword is building up heat as well, I think it’s mandatory for running holosmith (unless photon forge becomes a true weaponswap eventually)…
This is not the case according to the tooltip. The sword gains higher critchance at higher levels of heat, but does not generate heat by itself. Same is true for the utility skills. The only way to generate heat is in the photon forge.
I was thinking sword/shield as soon as I knew Holo was more power, though I do see you point for using pistol as you have the immob and a decent attack in blowtorch, though, I’ll probably be running shield myself.
My main point I was trying to make however is that both shield AND pistol seem to be ineffective in a damage-focused build.
Pistol because of its lack of strength without Condi gear, and shield because of its general lack of damage.
However, I feel sword+shield will probably end up being my preferred gear combo too, if not for the shield’s reflect, then for the added defense.
You can use any weapon you like, holosmith allows the use of them all… by the power of PF.
Wait a sec there, fam’. I don’t think I understood you.
Do you mean that Photon Forge overrides whatever weapon you use so it doesn’t matter anyway (Factual) or that its skills change dependent on the weapon you use (Fantasy)?
The fantasy is brilliant. If the Devs gave half a toss about Engineer like they do for Elementalist, yeah. That’d happen. But no. They don’t. They don’t care about our class, and they don’t know how to handle it nor what to do with it any longer. It’s gotten so far from the original vision and intention that it’s a joke.
In other words, it’d take too much effort and time, therefore, we get the shaft.
Theres a photonforge skill that can apply a lot of burns short duration but great for reapplication since a short cd i think that one could potentially run a p/s build and rely on that burning skill to apply the burns that off hand pistol would giving us more self defence without sacraficing damage output compared to a core p/p condi build, alternativly you can use p/p and not use flamer for incin ammo bursting or yolo maximum burning and set the world on fire
Theres a photonforge skill that can apply a lot of burns short duration but great for reapplication since a short cd i think that one could potentially run a p/s build and rely on that burning skill to apply the burns that off hand pistol would giving us more self defence without sacraficing damage output compared to a core p/p condi build, alternativly you can use p/p and not use flamer for incin ammo bursting or yolo maximum burning and set the world on fire
So what your saying is, even without condi stats, photonforge has enough condi skills that make taking pistol/sword viable?
Might need to end up going celestial stats in that case O_o
Theres a photonforge skill that can apply a lot of burns short duration but great for reapplication since a short cd i think that one could potentially run a p/s build and rely on that burning skill to apply the burns that off hand pistol would giving us more self defence without sacraficing damage output compared to a core p/p condi build, alternativly you can use p/p and not use flamer for incin ammo bursting or yolo maximum burning and set the world on fire
So what your saying is, even without condi stats, photonforge has enough condi skills that make taking pistol/sword viable?
Might need to end up going celestial stats in that case O_o
It has SOME potent Condi. I wouldn’t.. base an entire build around it, unless you’re specifically going to focus on Burn condi and nothing else.
Theres a photonforge skill that can apply a lot of burns short duration but great for reapplication since a short cd i think that one could potentially run a p/s build and rely on that burning skill to apply the burns that off hand pistol would giving us more self defence without sacraficing damage output compared to a core p/p condi build, alternativly you can use p/p and not use flamer for incin ammo bursting or yolo maximum burning and set the world on fire
So what your saying is, even without condi stats, photonforge has enough condi skills that make taking pistol/sword viable?
Might need to end up going celestial stats in that case O_o
It has SOME potent Condi. I wouldn’t.. base an entire build around it, unless you’re specifically going to focus on Burn condi and nothing else.
Fair enough. Here’s hoping actual testing goes to show that pistol can be effective without a condi build.
Theres a photonforge skill that can apply a lot of burns short duration but great for reapplication since a short cd i think that one could potentially run a p/s build and rely on that burning skill to apply the burns that off hand pistol would giving us more self defence without sacraficing damage output compared to a core p/p condi build, alternativly you can use p/p and not use flamer for incin ammo bursting or yolo maximum burning and set the world on fire
So what your saying is, even without condi stats, photonforge has enough condi skills that make taking pistol/sword viable?
Might need to end up going celestial stats in that case O_o
It has SOME potent Condi. I wouldn’t.. base an entire build around it, unless you’re specifically going to focus on Burn condi and nothing else.
Fair enough. Here’s hoping actual testing goes to show that pistol can be effective without a condi build.
Nope. Not even in the slightest.
If you’re taking Sword, you pretty much are guaranteed to take Shield. There’s really little to no reason to take an OH pistol if you aren’t building for the burns. With how little defence Holosmith gives you, I’d strongly suggest it, anyway. It’s a very selfish, balls-out DPS glass-cannon type of spec. You get in, you make things dead (Stack the bejeezus out of Crits if you know what’s good for you), you move on in life/recover between rounds. If you’re in over your head, drop HoloForge and cover with shield, then slip back into Forge and… rinse, repeat.
Berserker/Assassin seems like an easy burst build to kit one out. Go Viper’s if you want to spice up your life and work a little harder (AKA: “Mummy, I’m booooooooored! I want something to do!”).
Theres a photonforge skill that can apply a lot of burns short duration but great for reapplication since a short cd i think that one could potentially run a p/s build and rely on that burning skill to apply the burns that off hand pistol would giving us more self defence without sacraficing damage output compared to a core p/p condi build, alternativly you can use p/p and not use flamer for incin ammo bursting or yolo maximum burning and set the world on fire
So what your saying is, even without condi stats, photonforge has enough condi skills that make taking pistol/sword viable?
Might need to end up going celestial stats in that case O_o
it has a skill that shoots 8 times stacks 8 burns and not sure on the duration but id say its pritty short and it also pierces and has 600 range so technically its more reliable then blowtorch burn since you dont have to be in range of your enemy and since it peirces it puts it somewhat on par with blowtorch as far as how many people you can hit it with theres also the factor of speed of application which blowtorch wins and can be a pritty big thing in pvp, it dosent do more damage in the long run then blowtorch since they last such a short duration but since you have 2x as many stacks of burning you have a better chance of getting more damage out of it in pvp since there is alot shorter time frame for people to clear the burn befor the damage is applied.
over all both skills are pritty on par when it comes to the outcome with the problem being how the enemy reacts to the use of either skill except taking an off hand pistol locks you out of taking a shield where as relying on photonforges burn allows you to take shield in the off hand giving you a huge bonus to your defensive capability’s but thats assuming your just trying to maintain roughly the same damage output as a core engi condi build with holosmith.
and yes i can see celestial gear working amazingly well in WvW for small group or solo roaming with holo smith.
Given how short on choice Engineer is for weapons and the extreme focus of Elite traitlines, I think completing Elites on Engi should unlock the elite weapons for the core class. Scrapper is basically dead after PoF launches, shame to lose the hammer. It’s pretty much the only good thing about engi’s beta-elite.
I’m thinking Sword / Shield for holosmith, it needs defence and it’s damage output will be nerfed at the first post launch balance anyway, negating any point to the pistol OH.
I have never left rifle. It is my favourite weapon. But I would like to see some real synergy between the new elite spec and rifle (All scrapper ever gave me was more might with juggernaut… nothing for weapons except Hammer)
“Only problem with the Engineer is
that it makes every other class in the game boring to play.”
Hawks
There’s a post on reddit with some tooltip screenshot taken at 2261 power and are not really encouraging for power as it seem that sword auto is about 530 damage and photonmode #1 is 750 damage per hit, both less than the bomb auto that is about 1k.
So even with the 25/50% crit chance boost, if it remain as it is, sword is really underwhelming for both power and condi because aside from the sword#2 that launch 1/3(7) blade that stack a bleed each(+ proc based on crit) there’s nothing else; it’s probably tricky unless I try it because autochain#3 reduce the cd of the other sword skill of 3 sec, and with the help of our chronofriend maybe sword 2 can become decent(even it has to be noted that if you have the 7 blade you lose 3 stack of burn on dodge, so it need testing).
With a trait photonforge #1 become an explosion so it benefit from some explosive trait and laser disk inflict a lot of stacks of bleed so there’s the chance that we’ll be viper/grieving but with less kits(disabled for 6 sec when we enter photon mode) or maybe the “rotation” will become even more crazy in the end is not like “we cannot use kit” is more like “kit have a 6 sec when you enter in pmode”.
I’m really eager to try this elite spec this weekend and try it with different stat and rune.
I am still confused about holosmith. Sword is Power based weapon sure, but some burning options and meaby pistol in off hand force me into hyrid build. Hmm, berserk gear with balthazar runes and sigil of smoldering?
“Doctor suggest me, to stop play with engi because my fingers are broken.
So.. I start play scrapper. "
I am still confused about holosmith. Sword is Power based weapon sure, but some burning options and meaby pistol in off hand force me into hyrid build. Hmm, berserk gear with balthazar runes and sigil of smoldering?
I’ve never seen a true hybrid work though, it always ends as either Power based with condition damage as a bonus, or condition based, with power used in some few skills that naturally have high power numbers
PvP Rifle Engi player no matter how dark the meta is.
I am certainly going to try out Sword/Shield combo.
As much as I would see the hybrid choice for Sword/Pistol, there is something about S/S combo that may work out better for Holosmith if they go pure Berserker Gear over the new Grieving Gear.
100% rifle guy here. CC is king in this game, more so with breakbars in PvE. Photon forge will provide all the melee you need, so sword is overkill in the melee department. Rifle will provide the perfect opener with net shot or overcharged shot if you have stability. Once your foe is locked down, go go gadget photon mode and swing your light stick. Rifle will also provide an extra gap closer with leap shot, in addition to your holo leap. Plus, having a predator strapped to your back is so much more badkitten compared to anything else. Gotta look good for all those corpses you’ll be standing over.
100% rifle guy here. CC is king in this game, more so with breakbars in PvE. Photon forge will provide all the melee you need, so sword is overkill in the melee department. Rifle will provide the perfect opener with net shot or overcharged shot if you have stability. Once your foe is locked down, go go gadget photon mode and swing your light stick. Rifle will also provide an extra gap closer with leap shot, in addition to your holo leap. Plus, having a predator strapped to your back is so much more badkitten compared to anything else. Gotta look good for all those corpses you’ll be standing over.
You know, you actually make a very persuasive point. I suppose I’m just a tad salty at having to give up using hammers, but Rifle does seem the best option for holosmith.
I was enjoying it with dual pistols as well.
Photon forge really is all the melee we’ll ever need.
Sword /shield has even lower dmg than rifle (if you take bombkit AA into consideration) and you should have 100% crit rate in a decent group anyways…
so yea, condi stays double pistol for me, and powerbuilds will be rifle.
So screw Bolt, I build H.O.P.E. to accompany my predator^^
one thing tho, sword is more mobile than rifle, and good defense.
Might be interesting for a pvp tank build.
But then again, why not scrapper instead?^^
>Not sure that sounds right.
Because I was being stupid…
Tested it again on the golems.
Bomb AA has indeed higher dps than the sword AA, so leaving sword out to favor rifle seemed intuitive. Until I noticed Skill 3 on sword…
