Guild Wars 2

Skittledness.5106:

The funny part is that the people complaining on this forum would never even participate and even aim to win the top prizes offered in the Monthly Ats etc.

As a working professional I admit I don’t have the time to compete at a level necessary to win a monthly tournament. I doubt I much have the talent either, but that’s neither here nor there. The Abjured did a lot more to deface PvP than just selling the August monthly tournament win, and you of all people should be well aware just how rampant the match manipulation has been over the past several seasons of ranked PvP, which is what originally got them dishonored from participating in the August monthly tournament in the first place. The fact that you insinuate that the general population that doesn’t participate in monthly ATs hasn’t been affected by their actions is patently absurd.

But if y’all don’t care about any of that, or just see that as water under the bridge, that’s fine. I’ll make my point and take my leave. But season five is a perfect illustration of the inevitable fate of Guild Wars 2 and its community. No matter how large an influx in players we’ll get, ArenaNet can’t do anything to maintain it, and the top-end PvP community will do everything in their power to manufacture some kind of drama that will inevitably deface any progress made to build any real community.

Whether you like to admit it or not, you guys need low-plat players like myself to populate ranked PvP and ArenaNet and the Abjured are doing everything in their collective power to push us away. Otherwise Guild Wars 2 will continue to fall into the inevitable heat death of matchmaking trying to pair keyboard turners with ESL players.

choovanski.5462:

why did you even bother replying to Phineas Poe’s post? you’ve already said everything you said here in the post he only quoted part of. i don’t think saying the same thing twice is going to be impactful, i mean he thinks anet treat pvp like MLB. he’s living in an alternate reality.

I made an association, not a comparison—in a response to a question you made in your post that I saw fit to answer. You asked: “why would a game company ban popular streamers who make them money?” and I responded in kind.

That’s it, really.

If you want my honest opinion: I do not think that ArenaNet treats PvP seriously and I have truthfully lost faith that ArenaNet has the effort level or talent to even recognize the glaring problems this game is suffering from. It’s just critically broken in so many areas, and PoF does nothing to address them. WvW is dying out because of the condi meta on top of garbage server balancing and they saw fit to add Scourge and Firebrand to the game while advertising zero changes coming with PoF. PvP is dying out because of the lack of new game modes and Ben asserts it’s too much for them to balance even a 2v2 TDM game mode or give it its own queue.

The only area of the game that’s truthfully thriving right now is raids—content that really goes against a lot of what Guild Wars 2 originally sold itself as, which has subsequently resulted in a major shrinkage in friends list online activity following the launch of Heart of Thorns, even after the Path of Fire announcement.

You don’t have to talk down to me. I’ve been playing this game for five years and have thousands of hours invested in it. I’ve spent those years quite productively and had a great time playing it, but it’s becoming increasingly obvious that the ArenaNet that launched this game in 2012 is not the same ArenaNet that exists in 2017 and does not remotely exude the design philosophy or vision that got me to buy this game all those years ago. Yes, it still has horizontally flat PvP and WvW and there’s still some semblance of a living world on the PvE side of things, but at the end of the day it’s all incredibly surface-level content and ArenaNet has done very little to expand the game in any of these areas over the years, instead distracting the player base with pet projects and dead-ends.

If ArenaNet cared about curating PvP or maintaining any remote sense of its integrity they’d much more deliberately go after AFKers and match manipulators than they’ve exhibited in the past, which have done so much damage to the game mode and many players’ enjoyment of it.

Additionally, what Chaith is really failing to piece together in the collective outrage isn’t so much the fact that Chris accurately restated ArenaNet’s position on the matter but that such a position is being held in the first place. His comments from Reddit, verbatim:

> “If they break the rules again, they will be punished more severely. Is there a blacklist, yes. Are they on it, not yet.”

The comment appeared hallucinatory to me. They’re guilty of match manipulation and account sharing in ranked PvP, which they were subsequently dishonored for, and then circumvented that dishonoring by selling monthly wins playing on other peoples’ accounts—none of whom were banned from the game for this.

The Abjured literally ran an RMT/paid-service in Guild Wars 2 last month and Chris argues that while a blacklist exists, they are not on it “yet.” Zilent and Co., PvE players with accounts with thousands upon thousands of gold, are going to continue playing on their main accounts with no real punishment outside of not being able to queue into a game mode they never really played in the first place—or can simply play on an alt account.

I mean, seriously? What is it going to take for ArenaNet to sit up in their chair and even just act like they give a kitten? Because if any of you developers are reading this god awful thread, I just want you to understand that the only message being received right now is that it’s in my best interest to spend my time and money elsewhere, perhaps with a developer that actually values my investments.

Frankly, I just find it insulting that ArenaNet values the concerns and interests of other players so low that the actions of The Abjured appear passable to them; that having them win the August monthly on alternate accounts—after having been previously dishonored for their actions—is of no consequence to them. Or, to put it in Chris’ own words: the audacity of having “community opinion dictating player punishment” despite the completely legitimate criticism that Zilent and Co. cheated to obtain a title and promptly received a slap on the wrist for it.

It disappoints me to no end that the player base seems far more invested in this game than its developers are, and Guild Wars 2 years from now will likely be looked back on just like ArcheAge as the game that could’ve been if more talented, less short-sighted people were at the helm.

If nothing else, take under consideration the fact that the only post on the frontpage of the subreddit related to PvP defaces its significance beyond the reward scheme: https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/6wivt2/pvp_summed_up/

With the top comment reading: “If not for time gated rewards, this mode would be deserted.”

Natto.5819:

So what’s the purpose of a punishment, if it’s so easy to get around said punishment?

Well, Guild Wars 2, while free to play, does depend on the purchase of Heart of Thorns and soon Path of Fire to be truly competitive in PvP. The punishment is that they have to repurchase the game if they wish to continue playing it, I guess.

Whether or not that’s a good enough punishment given the severity of their crimes, that’s obviously up to personal opinion. But I think the intended effect was for ArenaNet to make a little extra money at the expense of these players.

That said, their handling of this situation, I can imagine, has put off a non-zero sum of players and pushed them away from purchasing Path of Fire. Whether or not this was the ideal route for ArenaNet to take remains to be seen, but after this response and the general crapshoot the beta weekend was, I’m more interested in putting money into my Destiny 2 preorder than buying Path of Fire.

I’m sure I’m not the only one that’s lost quite a bit of faith in ArenaNet’s handling of the game and their ability to be able to make well-intentioned, educated decisions for the sake of the game’s future over short-term profit.

choovanski.5462:

why would a game company ban popular streamers who make them money? especially with the expansion coming. it’s just a poor move. these people make anet money, & anet quite blatantly doesn’t care about the competitive pvp scene at all- so like why would they actually ban the new accounts they buy?

The same reason the “big four” sports strip athletes of any earned titles and/or accolades and ban them from future participation in any affiliated leagues if they’re guilty of any wrongdoing: preserving the integrity of the sport.

Granted, Guild Wars 2 isn’t baseball, and I don’t expect ArenaNet to hold their players accountable to the degree the MLB does theirs, but you have to admit it leaves a pretty bad taste in one’s mouths seeing a bunch of players that were intentionally dishonored on their main accounts winning this month’s monthly tournament and having Chris turn around and say there’s nothing wrong with that. The Steroid Era did a serious number on the popularity of baseball, but the outcry would have been far greater if they turned around and told McGuire he could keep playing under a pseudonym. (And there’s still a very large contingent of baseball fans that dislike the fact that he’s on a team’s payroll as a bench coach.)

I am not going to tell ArenaNet how to manage their own game mode, but I will say that their wishy-washy handling of this situation will negatively impact the game’s overall integrity and health—at least as it pertains to PvP.

Okhu.7948:

Holosmith Damage is fine. Its high rish and high reward. Everyone saying “the damage is too high” has no idea what they’re talking about.

The damage isn’t too high, but its cooldowns are way too low. Holo Leap needs to be a 4 or 5 second cooldown at least. Having a 2 second cooldown on such a high damage skill is simply absurd.

Bella Kim.4061:

Scrapper can play many roles.

I’d argue that Scrapper only has one role: being a side-point duelist that has the added advantage of quickly resurrecting targets when it does occasionally stumble into a team fight. It doesn’t bring as much support as a Tempest does nor does it bring as much damage as Heralds or Reapers do, but it can cause a lot of grief over a neutralized side point and easily rope-a-dope a 1v2.

What Holosmith brings to the table is a specialization that actually has a good deal of cleave damage and spike potential. It’s a far stronger team fighter than Scrapper is; it just requires a bit of support from its allies to be most effective, which is fine. Glass cannons aren’t really supposed to be self-sustainable.

I think a Holosmith with a pocket healer/banana rider covering their back would be quite formidable. In fact, if a Holosmith traits to run super speed on their Holo Leap, they can actually work in tandem with a Scrapper to help with their sustain at the same time through Rapid Regeneration.

Running two engineers in Heart of Thorns was a seriously bad time, but a Holo+Scrapper duo-queue has real potential to be viable. This, I think, is what you’re neglecting to consider.

Wow, my previous post got infracted? Did someone think I was trolling when I said it’s the most OP thing about Holosmith right now?

If you don’t know, Enhanced Capacity Storage Unit with Rune of Strength allows you to easily maintain 20+ stacks of might by just dropping in and out of the Forge. It’s easily the most overpowered grandmaster trait of the three, but I’m pretty sure it’s bugged: it says it gives might “periodically,” but it gives 2 stacks at a 1-second interval. It’s just way too easy with no real downside.

I was messing around with a Mender/Paladin “bruiser” Holosmith just to see if it was viable as well during the final night of the beta weekend. I played it a little bit differently, however, taking Elixir C, Elixir S, the Elixir Gun, and the Mortar Kit. My traits were largely the same, though I took the vigor trait in Alchemy due to Holo Leap’s low CD right now.

It survived most things just fine. The only issues I had last night were against Scourges and against Holosmiths running Enhanced Capacity Storage Unit, which are obviously due to be nerfed significantly.

It has potential, but I really only did it to mess around, and glass cannon Holosmith is obviously the way to go right now. If you want to play a bruiser type build, Scrapper is far better suited for that.

Dirame.8521:

I was right about the fact that the traits don’t matter. It doesn’t matter what you pick for the Holosmith traits, it doesn’t affect the build no matter if it’s condi or power.

The skills matter way more than the traits when they should be relatively equal.

I dunno, Ceimash. Holosmith plays very differently depending on which grandmaster trait you take. I agree that there’s a lot of weak traits in the setup overall, and I’m sure numbers will be adjusted to make some of them more attractive, but you can’t seriously tell me that Photonic Blasting Module doesn’t change how you manage your heat; it totally encourages you to brute force the entire mechanic, intentionally overloading to deal massive damage around you.

I really encourage you to try Thermal Release Valve as well, as it actually addresses a longstanding issue with the condi engineer in that it was far too reliant on Blowtorch. With a few tweaks and some longer theorycrafting sessions, I genuinely think Holosmith will make condi engi a legitimate thing again—and not just a one-and-done Kinetic Battery burster with double Incendiary Ammo. Sword/pistol had some genuine strength behind it, and I didn’t even have to run the Flamethrower.

Heck, there is some real possibility that you could even run the rifle with the Carrion build, as High Caliber and Hematic Focus both have real synergy with the Holosmith. 20% crit chance isn’t great, but it’s more than enough to proc No Scope and maintain a great deal of Fury with the help of Hard Light Arena and Reactive Lenses. It’s a bit obtuse, but it does work, and it does help maintain Incendiary Powder procs with a baseline 0% crit build without the use of an Intelligence sigil.

As I said before, I have a lot of issues with the specialization, especially as it pertains to its real lack of WvW utility, but I think you’re being unfair here.

ukuni.8745:

Since the utilitys are split for wvw they could increase the duration of photon wall for wvw and keep it the same for spvp in wvw i found that it wasnt long enough to close the gap from a safe distance befor it wore off, i agree with the cd increase on holo leap its really strong because of that 2 sec cd but i found the leap finisher super handy for a variety of tactics while i was doing 1v1 and 2v2s with buddys so id like to see a leap finisher added to the sword 3 skill so i can keep doing that but with obviously a bit more difficult since 6sec lock into photonforge.

I agree completely that Photon Wall in its current form is relatively useless. I’m honestly kind of surprised they even went the route they did with the exceed skills, as they fulfill a lot of the same purpose that the Bulwark Gyro does … while being exceedingly bad at it. If I’m being completely honest, I’d rather they just make the exceed skills do something else, as neither Photon Wall nor Spectrum Shield really mesh with the specialization and its play style. We already have projectile hate in the Scrapper and in Elixir U, and we already have a great deal of damage reduction in the Alchemy and Invention traitlines. What little defensive upsides they give are easily outshone by preexisting traits and utilities, which is why I thought reimagining exceed skills as support utilities would give them a broader use (with certain downsides attached to them). If anything, Photon Wall as it is currently designed really only serves to infringe on the potential usefulness of Elixir U in the first place.

ukuni.8745:

Im not sure how i feel about heat on the utilitys, i like the heat system atm but i can really spam and not pop my top easily so with increased cds on photon forges utilitys* would make it alot easier to manage the heat levels with even with heat on the utilites and it would give a way to generate heat for the skills that require heat for improved stats like the autos crit bonus without needing to spam threw photon forge.

I’m not really sure about how I feel with regard to the heat mechanic overall. You can either completely trivialize any need to manage it through Photonic Blasting Module, literally just mashing as many skills as possible until you overheat, offloading another 6-8K damage on nearby enemies, or you can run Thermal Release Valve, Tools’ Adrenal Implant, Rune of the Adventurer, and/or a Sigil of Energy to easily dump heat through the form of burning damage. The latter of the two I tried with a Carrion setup in PvP and it was honestly way more effective than it has any right being. (It’s also worth noting that with this heat-dump setup, super speed is easily maintainable through Holo Leap and has potential as the WvW spec.)

The idea behind making exceed skills generate heat is to (1) give them a buff while presenting some kind of drawback while also (2) giving engineers an option of how they play the Holosmith. Right now the Holosmith in its current form is a damage-only specialization—something of which, I’ve already noted, will be welcomed in both PvE and PvP. No matter what traits you take, that identity never really changes.

With a few minor tweaks, however, the Holosmith could easily address the biggest issue engineer has always had literally since 2012, and that’s a real lack of proper utility that affords them a slot in a raid group. I’m not entirely sold on the idea myself either, but I thought it was something that might help generate discussion and it seemed like something interesting ArenaNet might be willing to try.

ukuni.8745:

I think the iron blood trait should get jumped up to 3% per boon in wvw, in a zerg setup using elixirs for might isnt as such a big deal anymore since there will be boons aplenty as is, this would help it synergize with your idea for hard light arena better as well as synergies with the damage reduction trait in photon forge and with the utility that improves damage reduction which would make use of a currently unused trait and make engineer significantly tanky without it focusing as heavily into stats.

I don’t think Inventions or Alchemy need any buffs right now. They’re already over-represented. Last week’s Explosives changes were a welcome adjustment but not enough in the grand scheme. Holosmith, just like Scrapper, feels best with Inventions and Alchemy … whether that’s with Marauder or Mender (or in WvW’s case, Marauder or Celestial).

Rather than making the strongest PvP/WvW trees even stronger, perhaps they should take a longer look at making Firearms and Explosives worth taking.

Sly.9518:

Nilkemia.8507:

So basically any class that doesn’t have reflects is screwed. And for the ones that do, the Deadeye can just…you know…not shoot until the reflect’s over? This is the same class that can jump you, run off and reset any damage they take and still come back fully healed while the target is still recovering.

So nothing changed after. PvP is still only good for reward tracks and dailies, the classes that were already strong got stronger, and the ones that needed something got a few flashy things, that look neat at first until one realizes that they don’t really work.

Except Deadeye loses a lot of its mobility to even setup the Burst and you know there are other defenses besides reflects…… bronze must be hard…..

And again it’s not like there aren’t 3 large tells to it…….

It doesn’t matter how many “tells” there are. Having one skill do more damage than some classes’ entire health pools is simply bad for the game, especially in a video game with tons of crowd control and visual noise, and especially on a class that already has plenty of access to stealth.

I mean, let’s be real here. It’s just not fun or engaging to fight against those kinds of mechanics. It either comes across as really low-skill cheese or completely unfair.

It’s the same reason why Holosmith and Scourge need some major damage shaving. TTK needs to be long enough to make combat engaging. I am not interested in returning to 2004 where rogues globalled people in World of Warcraft.

I think I share a popular opinion with many when I say that the Holosmith feels very strong in PvP. It’s enjoyable to play, and it offers a very welcomed change of pace from the Scrapper. I think both Robert Gee and Irenio Calmon-Huang have a lot to be proud of with this specialization, as it seems to be one of the more popular ones according to the Reddit poll conducted over the weekend, and it is bringing a lot of non-engi players to the profession. I think the Holosmith will also be a genuine upgrade over core engineer in the PvE side of things, giving us a legitimate, engaging play style that’s quite a bit more active than spamming bombs in the core power engi build while being less frantic than the 4-kit core condi build. There’s a lot both PvE and PvP players have to be happy about with the specialization, but I think it’s important to address the elephant in the room here: five years into Guild Wars 2, the engineer is still an outsider to the WvW meta.

We had a brief stint in the meta when Heart of Thorns first launched, with Slick Shoes seeing very strong synergy with the Scrapper. And with Bulwark Gyro’s toolbelt skill, Defense Field, the Scrapper early on was one of the major contributors to finally disrupting the “pirate ship” meta. But now that Wall of Reflection has a base 30-second cooldown, which can be lowered to a 24-second cooldown with traits, alongside a major shift away from the “pirate ship” to the condi meta we have today, a lot of of our original appeal is gone. The Scrapper has no real defined role in WvW in 2017 outside of Sneak Gyro’s reveal, which admittedly has little utility outside of GvGs.

As such, we’re now entering this game’s five year anniversary and its second expansion release with another elite specialization that does nothing to address these issues. The engineer has struggled to maintain relevancy over the years as it pertains to WvW, and the Holosmith does nothing to fix this. It is yet another specialization that will be very effective in small-group/solo roaming while presenting little upside in a structured raid environment. But rather than sit here and complain about it, I’d like to offer some suggestions to “fix” the Holosmith without disrupting its balancing (i.e., no changes would make the specialization overpowered) while at the same time providing a more cohesive gameplay experience that may potentially translate to core engi skills/trait lines.

Please let me know what you think. Thanks.

Heapheaus.5238:

Phineas Poe.3018:

Honestly, it’s just becoming increasingly obvious having two people design eight of the nine specializations ended up being a mistake on ArenaNet’s part, at least not without having more feedback from the community in the design process.

No matter how talented Gee and Huang are at designing these specializations, there are severe issues with multiple specializations that need a lot more work before they’re truly ready. Obviously Deadeye is one of the more apparent examples, but you can really look at most of these specs and say there are fundamental design issues with most of them.

Dropping these specializations into the middle of a PvP season with the expansion launch will be an unmitigated disaster. They’re giving themselves so little time to polish these specializations, and I think the expansion and the game overall will greatly suffer for it.

None of the devs understand thief very well; at least not in pvp.

I wouldn’t go so far to imply that they don’t understand any of the professions so much that it’s obvious having only two guys working on almost all of the specializations (with Karl working mostly on Weaver) has made the new crop of elite specializations a lot rougher around the edges than having 1 dev work on 2 classes each.

I’m sure with time these elite specializations will get balanced out, but with how long it took them just to get the Heart of Thorns elite specializations worked out I’m just not very optimistic…

ukuni.8745:

If the holo leap trait dosent have a max limit for applying the swiftness wouldnt yoh be able to bring 2 engis that could provide perma super speed for an entire guild?

It has a max limit of 3 targets.

Honestly, it’s just becoming increasingly obvious having two people design eight of the nine specializations ended up being a mistake on ArenaNet’s part, at least not without having more feedback from the community in the design process.

No matter how talented Gee and Huang are at designing these specializations, there are severe issues with multiple specializations that need a lot more work before they’re truly ready. Obviously Deadeye is one of the more apparent examples, but you can really look at most of these specs and say there are fundamental design issues with most of them.

Dropping these specializations into the middle of a PvP season with the expansion launch will be an unmitigated disaster. They’re giving themselves so little time to polish these specializations, and I think the expansion and the game overall will greatly suffer for it.

ukuni.8745:

I was cracking a joke at dirames arguments hes used, but in the case of WvW solo roaming holosmith will be strong since we wont need to take as many kits to deal the damage anymore so that opens up some nice options there, small group roaming assuming our damage is still up there we can run with a high burst build with some power support hybrid players and we will be an absolute beast, in pug zergs well this is interesting we really hve no way of getting into a fight without backup to dish out our damage without getting wreaked but ill have to do some testing there to, in a gvg we will have to see we can bring a mobile wall and a spastic amount of aoe damage add in the other new skill that reduces damage we might just make it gvgs as the class with the best tank to damage ratio but once again we are left to the mercy of the final numbers.

First of all, no one is disputing that Holosmith will be a great small-group/solo roaming specialization. The issue is that we already have this with the Scrapper. But more importantly: who cares about how good it is at roaming? Our primary need is something that fills a role desired in WvW raid groups, and Holosmith brings even less than the Scrapper does.

Second of all, you’re really reaching here. Guardian already brings a “mobile wall” in their shield, which is larger, lasts longer, and can be traited to have a shorter cooldown … with a build that already provides AoE might, stability, condi cleanse, and now also resistance. And it’s not like other PoF specs like Firebrand and Scourge, which actually offer quite a bit of team utility, don’t also contribute a significant amount of damage themselves to a raid group.

ukuni.8745:

for wvw it dosent really matter

Why the heck does it “not matter” that Holosmith brings nothing to the table? Firebrand and Scourge both just bring more condi garbage to WvW, and Holosmith is just another roaming spec.

As someone that spends 90% of their time in WvW these days, this expansion really doesn’t seem like a good purchase at this point. I’ll be waiting to see what they say following community feedback from this weekend before I make my choice, but the outlook isn’t looking very good.

Holosmith feels very good when in Photon Forge. It has substantially better damage output than the Scrapper, and Holographic Shockwave (#5) is deceptively powerful.

But outside of it, I can’t help but say the experience is mediocre, if not kind of bad. Just comparing the Holo sword vs. the Scrapper hammer, the hammer absolutely edges out as the better weapon. It has a stronger auto-attack, a better leap (and on a shorter cooldown), and stronger defensive upsides than most of our options. While the shield is a particularly strong off-hand option for PvP/WvW, the sword just doesn’t have enough oomph to it. It’s a clear downgrade over the hammer, and it just doesn’t feel as impactful as a weapon as the Scrapper’s did.

I think with some adjustments Holosmith could be a pretty fun specialization to play, but outside of Photon Forge it feels pretty bland and ineffectual.

Dirame.8521:

After watching the Elite Specialization preview on Guild Chat, it seems they’ve taken into account that they only have Photon Forge traits.

Robert Gee says it’s intentional and feels it’s pretty cool. I guess this is where we disagree.

In actuality though, you could have traits that are all Photon Forge but the traits could also have secondary effects that also play with weapons, skills and the old traits we have. You can see examples of secondary effects on traits on every class.

I especially liked how Firebrand did upwards to 10K burning damage with 2K auto attacks while still having access to “massive AoE buffs” in each of the tome’s #4/5 skills.

If anything, the live stream only confirmed my concerns. I’ll reserve my final judgment until I play it this afternoon, but I can’t help but see that Holosmith is going to be very undertuned out of the gate for PvE/WvW, with the only real area it looks particularly strong in being PvP.

Chaith.8256:

Passive Elixir B, S, Healing Mist, Super Elixir, all equate to around 9 conditions removed a minute if spammed on cooldown, it amounts to something.

Just to add: don’t forget that blasting Super Elixir also cleanses conditions now with the light field change.

But just to reiterate, it’s not that Alchemy has zero condi cleanse; it’s just that with zero elixirs on our bar the condition cleanses of the tree are far less impactful than they used to be. It’s true that with the Elixir Gun we gain a lot of condi cleanse, both natively and through traits, but you do get access to most of that condi cleanse without Alchemy, and you can feasibly drop Alchemy entirely out of your build while running the Elixir Gun and still get ~6 cleanses per minute by just using Super Elixir → Acid Bomb in conjunction with each other.

Really, my broader point was just that there are much harder hitters that do the heavy lifting right now: primarily the Healing Turret and the Purge Gyro.

The Purge Gyro removes around 15 conditions per minute all by itself, and on a much more frequent and consistent basis to feasibly challenge condition warriors and mesmers that rely more on sustained attrition than old-school burst builds (e.g., condi engi). Elixirs made sense back when most condi builds were one-and-done, but these days condition builds are designed more with damage over time in mind, and are competitive with power specs (if not superior) in this regard.

The other big contributor comes with the changes to Inventions following Heart of Thorns. With the Cleansing Synergy minor passive, our healing skills now cleanse one additional (guaranteed high-damage) condition on a 10-second cooldown. Its low cooldown is one of the main reasons why, even with Medic Gyro’s superior healing potential overall, the Healing Turret pretty much will never leave our bar in PvP, giving us three condition removals every 15 seconds—further instilling the need to pick up your Healing Turret on every use. At ~12 cleanses per minute, it provides more condition cleanses on its own than the entire Alchemy tree does, on your count.

More importantly, a lot of the Alchemy condition cleanses, without elixirs on your bar, are far too unwieldy or inconsistent to get real “clutch” use out of them. Hidden Flask, even with HGH, still only procs every 32 seconds, and depends on you falling under the 75% threshold to activate. Self-Regulating Defenses, too, requires you to fall to a certain health threshold, and can potentially kill you if it procs at the wrong time in a team fight. Healing Mist, while genuinely good as a condi cleanse, is far more useful as a stun breaker, especially with our current play style of rope-a-doping far point and needing every escape we can get.

As such, as stated previously, the only trait/skill attached to the Alchemy tree that comes close to the efficiency of Inventions/Scrapper is Transmute—a non-conditional passive trait that procs every 15 seconds, or 4 times per minute.

To summarize, it’s not that Alchemy has zero condition cleanse, it’s just that the Purge Gyro and the Healing Turret are really where the majority of our sustain vs. condi damage comes from—with a little help from Adaptive Armor if you take it.

insanemaniac.2456:

eg 5 and toolbelt cleanse a condi too since they are elixirs

That’s still not very much in the grand scheme, especially with the Heart of Thorns condi spam.

Alchemy ultimately has much more identity than a “condi cleanse” tree, and it’s currently taken for much more than that.

Whether Holosmith can survive without it remains to be seen. But it won’t be explicitly because of a lack of condition cleanse without it.

ukuni.8745:

Dirame.8521:

ukuni.8745:

Dirame.8521:

I think we’ve gotten away from what the topic actually is about; THE TRAITS. The skills could be the best thing in the world, but the traits are a disservice to those skills.

All you need to do is take anyone of the builds you’ve apparently theorycrafted and ask yourself whether those builds would really be significantly different depending on the traits you selected in the Holosmith line. The answer I’m predicting would be; no.

What you will end up wishing is that you could use the Holosmith with a different trait line other than the Holosmith’s own trait line.

We’ve talked about this long enough. The preview weekend is on Friday. I will revisit this topic after that.

Literally dont have to take alchemy to deal with conditions anymore unless you really want to overkill it on condition removal

You can do that right now. Holosmith doesn’t need to be in the game for you to do without Alchemy.

lemme guess you doit by taking scrapper and purge gyro and this build still uses alchemy and inventions.

Scrapper runs literally zero elixirs most of the time. You get very little condi cleanse from Alchemy as a trait line outside of Transmute.

You run Alchemy primarily for HGH to reduce the cooldown on your Elixir Gun skills, and for the obvious defensive advantages of Self-Regulating Defenses and Protection Injection.

Condi cleanse in PvP is almost entirely covered by the Purge Gyro and the Healing Turret. I don’t see why Holosmith would be any different with the Purge Gyro replaced by the Photon Forge (with traits).

Whether we take Alchemy will depend entirely on whether or not we need survivability traits or if the spec depends on the Elixir Gun as much as the Scrapper does. Condi cleanse has very little to do with it.

Chaith.8256:

You keep going back to WvW group content, I’m just talking about Scrapper’s limitations in a small scale environment like roaming or PvP.

I do apologize that I keep going all over the place. But understand that WvW is a bit of a dynamic game mode and has shifting party sizes that greatly adjust the viability of certain builds. When talking about WvW it’s important to denote a class’s ability to perform in large-scale, small-scale, AND roaming. A staff guardian, for example, isn’t very useful in small-scale or solo roaming, but it’s a stalwart to every WvW raid group. That said, guard does have plenty of options for small-scale and solo roaming in both the Dragonhunter and core Meditations builds.

It’s important that when gauging the health of a profession, at least as far as it pertains to WvW, you grade it on the basis of all situations. I don’t mean to be so slippery with my argument, it’s just that the engineer as a profession has always been strong in small-scale and solo roaming and has almost always been relatively weak in WvW raid groups. This is the point I am (poorly) trying to deliver.

Chaith.8256:

But just to entertain the idea, if Scrapper is such a great frontline DPS that can murder people in WvW group content, why do you also claim Holosmith needs to fix the problem of no WvW groups want a Scrapper?

Because DPS is abundant in WvW and most professions have ample access to it while providing some kind of utility upside. Look at burn guardian, for example. It does a punishing amount of DPS while also providing AoE stability for their raid group, reduced condi damage and duration from the opposing zerg through Purging Flames, and easy might stacks through Empower.

Necromancer and revenant are really the bread-and-butter DPS classes of Heart of Thorns WvW though, and both of them offer great damage output while providing significant utility through boon stripping and resistance, respectively.

While the Scrapper does offer some team utility through Sneak Gyro’s reveal, a “big” water field through the Medic Gyro’s toolbelt skill, or the Elixir Gun/Elixir R, its skills never feel as impactful/useful as what other professions bring to the table, or its skills are crippled behind arduous gameplay mechanics.

Take, for example, Elixir R over Warbanner. Warbanner has 300 radius, immediately resurrects its targets, and even pulses boons on drop (including regen when traited). Elixir R, on the other hand, is a projectile that can be blocked/reflected, isn’t instant and pulses over time, and only has 180 radius. While this discrepancy is made up in their cooldown differences, Warbanner is a far more more impactful and effective skill, and warriors are now getting boon strip ability in the Spellbreaker. As such, when you come up with statements like this…

Chaith.8256:

Holosmiths can still bring Pinpoint Distribution.

…It almost, no offense, comes across as almost a joke.

Pinpoint Precision is, at best, a 2-3% damage increase for a single raid group. Compare this to Grace of the Land, a trait that the Druid, a healer specialization gets, which increases both power and condi damage by 2% per stack, for a total of 10% … to ten players.

No Druid obviously maintains 5 stacks, but they maintain more than enough to be competitive with Pinpoint Precision—on a profession specialization that also provides real, genuine boon support.

This class is going to be in pretty dire straits come the expansion unless Holosmith sees some radical changes. Heck, after last week’s patch condi engi does barely more DPS than a condi PS warrior does. In fact, condi PS warriors now do over 30K DPS.

Chaith.8256:

First we agreed earlier that it’s not the Scrapper’s role to land the killing blow on anything, it’s a tank. This creates the need for an updated DPS role who’s job is to do that, like the Holosmith. Now you’re claiming Scrapper is a tank that can chase down and murder things without any trouble.. needless to say you’re greatly exaggerating the Scrapper’s killing power or have gotten too used to killing up-levels in WvW. Contradicting your past posts just to act like Holosmith is redundant lol

Chaith, I am not contradicting myself. WvW and PvP are played very differently and have very different metas. Scrapper in WvW is not a tank. It’s a frontline DPS. It’s not uncommon to see people wear full Marauder or a mix of Marauder armor with Berserker jewelry/weapons. How glassy you get depends greatly on how much condi damage the other servers are running, the quality of your guardians and elementalists, and your own personal ability as a player.

I’m sure you were being tongue-in-cheek with regard to “killing up-levels,” but we are years removed from the GWEN/hammer-train meta where everyone ran PVT armor. Celestial is just about as tanky as builds get these days. Like I said, man. You’ve been gone a while and a lot has changed. We don’t need a melee DPS spec in WvW and we don’t need a roaming spec. We don’t need a selfish DPS spec for PvE either.

We need something that we can call our own.

It doesn’t have to be a unique boon anything, but it’s kind of pathetic that Druid, a support spec, gets Grace of the Land and we get jack. The only thing we contribute to a raid group is Pinpoint Precision, which is barely useful and is no where near as big a raid buff as other classes contribute.

Chaith.8256:

Perhaps I should have worded it: “Holosmith fills the gap in that Engineer has no DPS builds that are on par outside of PvE” I mention gap closers because Rocket Boots is not quite translating into melee uptime for Scrapper, as I’ve stated in previous responses. It’s also more beneficial to save half or more charges for running due to the loss of another defensive utility.

I mean, you have the right of it with regard to gap closers and what the Holosmith will do for us. I’m not disagreeing that it’ll offer a nice change of pace either. I just don’t think what you’re describing is necessarily “big enough.”

Dragonhunter added damage to the guardian, but it also added AoE boons through traps, a group heal in the F2, and a literal projectile wall in the F3. While Dragonhunter isn’t commonly taken in WvW, it does work effectively under certain GvG compositions and it is used in PvP and PvE quite extensively.

The treatment we’re getting with Holosmith is very similar to what warriors got with the Berserker line. You can look at the current WvW meta and where warrior stands in it and figure out very quickly how much “more damage” means to a profession in the long run. Its usefulness in PvP is incredibly fragile, and while it’s taken in PvE, warriors are still generally seen only as a buff bot with no feasible change in status with Berserker.

Selfish, damage-oriented builds just aren’t very useful or game-changing in the grand scheme, and the engineer doesn’t have the benefit of being the best might stacker in the game to overlook it like the warrior does.

Chaith.8256:

Also lol @ Glob shot comment and Roaming with Scrapper. So you roam with E-Gun, Tool Kit, and Rocket Boots, Sneak Gyro. Glob Shot is obstructed 75% of the time, Scrapper is the most frustrating spec in PvP/WvW roaming, it’s rendered harmless and only useful in running from 1vX encounters. Scrapper can only kill those who refuse to run and impale themselves on Hammer #1-#2.

Glob Shot has gotten much better pathing over the past couple years and I personally have no problems landing it. But just because you asked, no, my setup is not generally running the Elixir Gun and Tool Kit in tandem. I usually run one or the other with either double gyros with Final Salvo or double elixirs with Adaptive Armor.

Scrapper has no issues chasing down targets, Chaith. With Streamlined Kits you get super speed literally just dropping into your Tool Kit, which makes you move very, very quickly when also blasting gyros for additional super speed. Rocket Charge isn’t a great gap closer outside of combat, but in combat it is much faster than normal run speed, even when they have swiftness.

And what is this absurd implication that we’re harmless, or that “the engineer needs to ditch the Scrapper tank in PvP and WvW roaming for one with actual killing power?” A full Marauder Scrapper can straight 100-0 somebody with two Toss Elixir Xs through Kinetic Battery. Now that they’ve changed the trait I’ll have to readjust my build, but Tools/Alchemy/Scrapper has no issue chasing or killing targets while roaming. The only class/build that consistently is hard to kill is the condition mesmer. Everyone else, including necros, just gets absolutely trashed within the timespan of a moa or two.

WvW isn’t PvP where players are limited to 1K power. A full Marauder Scrapper demolishes people, and has the sustain/escapes necessary to bail out of bad situations. It’s one of the best roamers in WvW for that reason currently, which is why many of us scratch our heads at the fact that we’re getting yet another roaming specialization.

Chaith.8256:

Personally I’m happy that Holosmith addresses the problem of lack of gap closers for close range builds and lack of elite spec dps roles. In my view that addresses the engineers current needs equally or better than the daredevil addressed the thief’s lack of down cleave and survivability.

Dude, what? I think you owe to yourself to play the game a little bit longer before you make these kinds of statements. You’ve been gone a while and the game has changed a lot in your absence.

Not only does engineer not really need gap closures in the current state of the game, especially after the change made to Rocket Boots having 2 uses, but we’re also actually an effective roper/kiter.

Scrapper is actually used on certain raid bosses just on the basis of our significant access to super speed. But just to speak in terms I know you understand, Scrapper’s only real role in PvP currently is deliberately forcing 1v2s on side points. We have no role in team fights beyond power resses nor are we a traditional duelist. It’s not our job to chase anyone because we do not legitimately counter a single class in the current meta.

Just jump into WvW for a bit and see what it’s like while roaming. Between chained cripples with Box of Nails and Glob Shot, between our permanent swiftness and sizable super speed access, and between our stealth access, Scrapper is one of the most formidable roamers in 2017 and can just run away from any fights they’re losing so long as it’s not a thief.

I literally spend hours in WvW each week getting into 1v1s and then promptly kiting people so far away from me that I can even drop out of combat to teleport away when it turns into a 1v2 or 1v3.

Chaith.8256:

So many elite specs added a dps spec to already DPS focused professions, how is the rule definition that elite specs add a new role?

Elite specs don’t have to add new roles. I said they have to add new roles or at least build on a preexisting setup. The new guard and mesmer specializations are very good examples of elite specializations that don’t push the class in a new direction necessarily but at the very least enhance existing build setups (healway guard and illusion mesmer). It’s also why they’ll likely be two of the strongest elite specializations in Path of Fire, since ArenaNet has several points of inspiration to build off of, with traits and a play style that is natural to their given professions.

Chaith.8256:

Specs like Daredevil don’t do any change to a thief’s role in any mode nor get them out of the gutter in WvW boonshare squads – still objectively a great spec, viable, great flavor and fun. ArenaNet doesn’t conform to a rigid agenda of role diversity and certainly not trying to pump a new role out with each spec. Sorry it’s not suited to your ideals.

“Sorry it’s not suited to my ideals?” Why are you being so antagonistic?

The biggest issue with thief pre-Heart of Thorns was that they had almost zero cleave damage and very little sustain. They’ve always had exceptional single-target DPS, which made them quite effective duelists in PvP and roamers in WvW, but they never had a build that reasonably let them fight in the thick of battle or effectively cleave in team fights. The Daredevil trait line was like a straight injection of iron for a sustainability boost, and the staff gave them a significant, spammable PBAoE skill in Vault.

Daredevil addressed an obvious hole in the profession and effectively filled it. That thief is now getting a rifle to address their lack of ranged ability came as a surprise to nobody, as it was the obvious next hole to be filled for the profession. What holes is Holosmith filling, do you think? DPS, whether condi or power, AoE or single target, is not an issue for us. Team utility is a current issue for us, and they gave us an elite specialization that is purely selfish and offers zero utility.

To put it more bluntly, why it is okay that thief gets a DPS spec and why it’s not okay that engineer does is really simple: thief doesn’t have “support allies” in its job description.

Outside of venom share, thief just isn’t a support class and has no vague intentions of being seen as one. Their primary utility outside of dealing DPS is providing stackable stealth fields and blinds, which is why they were a dominant force of the dungeon speed-clear meta for three years. Do I need to review once again why engineer what made a contributing factor in dungeons and fractals too for years on end?

Chaith.8256:

Stacking group utility buffs isn’t the only way to provide value. If you are talking about some kind of min-maxed, highly discriminatory, fixed number GvG squad, I think giving up on equal representation of professions is a good starting point.

Group buffs are, actually, the only way to provide value in a WvW zerg. It’s the only real differentiating factor between the professions and their ranking in the hierarchy. Guardians are brought because of their AoE stability. Revenants are brought because of their increased boon duration and resistance. Elementalists are brought for might and water fields. Mesmers are brought for veils and alacrity. And so on. Whoever does “best” DPS is completely irrelevant, as dead DPS does no DPS. It’s all about what provides the greatest sustain while still having killing power. And the simple fact is, all nine professions are capable of putting out damage while only three to four of them provide boons/buffs necessary for survival.

And because boon/buff sharing is such an integral component to WvW success, and because most boons/buffs only have a 5-player limit, raid groups are generally structured with these professions in mind. This is why pretty much every raid group worth their salt has at least 2 guardians in every raid group, generally supported by a rev, necro, and mesmer/elementalist.

What results is a situation in which the professions that don’t provide much group utility, like thieves and engineers, end up in the “gutter” of the raid group, who don’t get very much if any of the boon support the main groups are getting—really only the proverbial scraps from the table. This only exacerbates the situation further, as it’s not a very fun experience being tossed around in WvW zerg fights because there’s no guardians in your group, nor is it when you’re going down to conditions because you have no necros, elementalists, or revs in your group either.

Just look at Holosmith vs. Spellbreaker. In what situation is a Holosmith preferred? Boon stripping is the single-most important offensive utility a class can provide, and they gave it to a class that already has shouts, banner res, and boons. The longer I look at it the more baffling it becomes. The gap in utility between engineer and other professions has only widened with Path of Fire.

Chaith.8256:

Holosmith will add on to PvE builds, yes, highly min-maxed raids will take a Holosmith because of the core Engineer’s Pinpoint Precision raid wide buff, but they will also take a Holosmith because the Holosmith traitline improves the core Engineer’s DPS! Here you give no credit, as if Holosmith would be not even be used in PvE.

I think I misrepresented myself or you misunderstood me; let me explain.

Holosmith will certainly be used in PvE. It will be fun to play. It will provide (hopefully) a new play style that finally gets us away from 4-kit builds in fractals and raids. None of these statements are in dispute.

What is in dispute is the fact that Holosmith as a tree does not add any layers to the profession with regard to its role—a profession that ostensibly is supposed to be a jack-of-all-trades. I know you don’t play PvE much and granted I don’t much these days either; but a big reason behind my exodus is the literal gutting of our utility over the past 3 years, shifting us away from being a jack-of-all-trades to a bland, run of the mill DPS profession.

I am not refusing to acknowledge that personal damage is a tangibly useful addition. I think you’re just refusing to acknowledge that personal damage is already something engineer is quite good at. The purpose of elite specializations is to introduce new roles for each profession, or at least build on preexisting setups. Is giving us a kit-less DPS elite specialization really nice? Absolutely.

Is it what this class truly needs right now? Absolutely not.

Chaith.8256:

I just can’t find the same disappointment when you don’t get a new role in an Elite Spec in every given mode.

I’d just like to remind you that Scrapper didn’t move the needle for engineer in PvE or WvW. We don’t even spec into it in PvE at all. So the idea that it’s some kind of faux outrage or misplaced self-entitlement that I ask that Holosmith actually does something measurable in those areas of the games—most specifically WvW—is kind of outrageous.

Engineer is brought into raids solely for Pinpoint Precision. This elite specialization will not in any tangible way build on top of that job security, especially if the condi meta falls off in Path of Fire and the need for it greatly diminishes. Heck, even now, while core engineer does top-tier DPS already in raids, its minimal raid buff contributions make it easily replaced in the current meta. I don’t see how it’ll be any different for Holosmith.

Chaith.8256:

“Ostensibly spending $30 to really only change up my damage rotation” is to me a horrifically pessimistic outlook on not getting a new role in PvE for example. Holosmith is regaining a new role in PvP which by some shared logic you should be very excited about then. WvW Engineer has always been awkward, Holosmith should be a fun, agile ganker though.

You know what else is a fun, agile ganker? Thief. Guess how valued they are in WvW raid groups?

I’ll give you a hint: it’s not very much.

Chaith.8256:

I’m still not convinced by the Holosmith QQ’r arguments that the elite spec isn’t going to be fun or viable, or game changing enough. I think it’s going to not change any roles other than PvP but will be hella fun and viable in various niches across the game.

I’d say my argument is fairly dispassionate, well-reasoned, and valid. I am not “QQing” and I am not saying the specialization won’t be fun. I’d appreciate it if you considered other perspectives on the discussion and at least acknowledged that there is some merit to our concerns.

I know we’ve historically butted heads on certain things, but we share a common goal here, and we’re on the same team.

Dirame.8521:

Just to clarify, the hope that some of us have is not an overhaul to the engineer but rather just a different playstyle and that does not need to be an overhaul. Deathly chill on the necromancer isn’t an overhaul, Static discharge isn’t an overhaul, none of the suggestions I gave are overhauls to what the original class is!

They could just focus on chills like they did for the Reaper or Dodges like they did for the Daredevil, but the main thing they have to do is make sure the traits can be tied back to the base profession or else you might as well just use Holosmith on its own without any of the other trait lines.

Well, as you can see from the post I just wrote to Chaith, I have a lot of issues with Holosmith too. I’m not sure that it lacking a different play style is one of them, though.

Right now, kits still dominate PvE. Holosmith should provide an alternative option. Just as Scrapper got us away from the bomb kit and grenade kit in PvP and WvW, Holosmith should—if designed properly—get us away from frantically swapping between kits mashing our keyboard and give us something that actually looks like a skill rotation in PvE.

If ArenaNet successfully gets engineers to stop needing to run 4 kits on their bar, that’s a far bigger overhaul than Reaper chill or Daredevil dodges gave to their respective professions.

Dirame.8521:

And you say “but they are being conservative with all the professions.”

I don’t remember saying that, but I do remember saying that the specs appear to be more mediated by design than their Heart of Thorns counterparts. What I meant by that wasn’t that the Path of Fire specializations will be any less cool or unconventional, but that they seem to fulfill a specific role and individually focus on that.

Scourge is a great example. It’s a support specialization. Sounds great. But they lose their shroud in the process—a major aspect of their damage and their survivability. It’s these trade-offs that ArenaNet needs more of, and it’s clear that Spellbreaker and Weaver, while dramatically different from their core playstyles, have similarly baked-in weaknesses that Tempest and Berserker did not.

As frustrating as it is to read as a warrior player, I did always find it patently absurd that Berserker F1s were not only universally stronger in damage than core F1s, but that they also cleansed more conditions and maintained Adrenal Health better. Berserker was an umbrella upgrade over core warrior in both offense and defense without really sacrificing any support. Spellbreaker, on the other hand, will be a glass cannon much like Holosmith will be.

Chaith.8256:

Pablo.3259:

Holosmith wont be meta anywhere.

We have healing, some kits some gadgets, turrets etc just make this viable instead of
.
..
…whatever I’m tired.
.

Hey? you guys checked that theif new spec ? Looks awesome no ?

Just amazed by how people so confidently know what will be useful and where,

you have no actual idea, best to wait and see

Chaith, you haven’t been playing Guild Wars 2 for a while, but I’m sure you remember very well the fact that engineer has pretty much never had a role in World vs. World outside of gimmick mechanics like magnet pulling commanders or having momentary usefulness with the Bulwark Gyro reflect bubble (which was very quickly rendered obsolete by shield-wielding guardians). As such, to get such a selfish, distilled elite specialization that serves no utilitarian purpose … you have to admit that’s a bit of a let down, no? If I’m a WvW-only engi-main (if any such people even exist in 2017 still), I’m supposedly spending $30 to unlock another roaming build that in no way moves the needle for the profession in any reasonable way.

Further to that point … Holosmith will likely have a plenty healthy presence in PvE, because PvE is only obsessed with damage output—which is really all Holosmith does. If Holosmith makes up a contributing factor in reaching the highest possible raid damage output, then that’s all that matters there. And because core engi already has a role as a DPSer, that’s very likely to be the case. But beyond that, again, it really doesn’t move the needle; if I’m a PvE-only engi-main, I’m ostensibly spending $30 to really only change up my damage rotation. Holosmith contributes nothing to the profession beyond that, and does nothing to reimagine or revitalize the profession in fractals, raids, or dungeon content beyond a single-minded DPS role.

I mean, sometimes you just gotta call a spade a spade. They took a jack-of-all-trades and neutered it.

leviathan.2148:

Phineas Poe.3018:

Shield doesn’t need any changes. It’s probably the best one aside from chronomancer’s in the game. The only reason it isn’t used in PvP or WvW is because the main hand pistol is just about the worst weapon at our disposal.

Shield isn’t used anywhere.

I’ll repeat myself for emphasis: The only reason it isn’t used in PvP or WvW is because the main hand pistol is just about the worst weapon at our disposal.

Rocket Boots change is very, very nice for WvW. I don’t think gadgets will still have much use in PvP or WvW though. Blast Gyro is still superior to Battering Ram with the Scrapper line.

Shield doesn’t need any changes. It’s probably the best one aside from chronomancer’s in the game. The only reason it isn’t used in PvP or WvW is because the main hand pistol is just about the worst weapon at our disposal.

Alchemy and Inventions don’t really need changes, and this balance patch wasn’t meant to really change Scrapper all that much. Explosives and Marauder is a fun time, but these changes are really more for Holosmith. We’ll get a better understanding of how good these changes are after the second beta weekend.

Genesis.8572:

leviathan.2148:

IMO the new heal seems to be actually competitive with Healing Turret.

Is it? Every single engineer build on Metabattle, save one PvP build rated at a 60 rating that uses Elixir H, has the Healing Turret equipped. It’s simply too good to not have. It has far more functionality and healing than the other healing skills.

Eh, it’s not really so much that. Elixir H is pretty competitive with the Healing Turret. The problem is just that Elixir H has a full 1-second cast time and gets interrupted very easily.

The Healing Turret used to be incredibly valuable for its water field, but that’s much less important now and is generally picked up over being blown up anyway.

I’m actually most interested in seeing whether or not AED makes an entrance with the elite specialization. The big problem before with it is that good players would see you activate it and then not kill you. But with the new overheating mechanic with Holosmith, it’d be very easy to self-inflict enough damage to kill yourself, causing AED to activate.

The only problem is that it’s a gadget, and it would require Gadgeteer to be a bit less cumbersome to use (ups to 8-second duration with ~22 second cooldown when Gadgeteer is active).

Dirame.8521:

What’s the point of a new specialization if it all it does is re-enforce the use of builds that are or were already popular?

Just to play devil’s advocate here—as I agree with a lot of what you’re saying in here—does every elite specialization have to be a major overhaul of the profession? If what ArenaNet said last year is true and they’re planning on these expansions being annual, I don’t think future elite specializations will be as crazy as the Heart of Thorns specializations—an indication of which, I’m sure, we’ll begin to see in today’s balance patch.

HoT specializations did far too much of everything, and the new specs seem much more mediated by design. Doesn’t it make sense, then, that Holosmith doesn’t massively overturn engineer gameplay? After all, isn’t what we hated about Heart of Thorns is that it changed far too much?

If we’re stuck being a damage-only class in PvE for the next 12 months, and if Holosmith will just be another duelist specialization in PvP, it will at the very least open up some new play styles different from the scrapper (PvP/WvW) and condi engi (PvE); if it at least succeeds in this goal, I’ll play it. But if scrapper continues to be our meta spec for the next 12 months, I’ll concede you probably had the right of it.

That being said, I don’t have faith that it will succeed—at least not in WvW. And as someone that primarily plays WvW these days, I find it really disappointing that Holosmith has zero utility in a raid setting and will likely only be useful as a roamer. I’ll probably be spending most of my time playing war, ele, guard, and necro there … just as I have the past five years.

UncleDrew.1763:

New traits – So you dont need to take alchemy anymore. Thank kitten someone is paying attention. Trait for condi loss on exit of forge and take the new heal for toolbelt skill. While we are here, so-kittening-long turret. RIP.

I don’t think Alchemy will be so easily replaced, because Alchemy is taken in WvW/PvP for a lot more than just condi clear. HGH reduces the cooldown of Elixir Gun skills, Inversion Enzyme actually gives us a purpose in zergs, and Iron Blooded, Protection Injection, and Self-Regulating Defenses are fairly massive survivability boosts. We haven’t ran any elixirs on our bar for 2+ years; the condi clear is kind of irrelevant at this point now that we run the Purge Gyro. I mostly take HGH for the might stacking on E-Gun skills.

UncleDrew.1763:

Now, stop being kittening boring and ditch Inventions. Now we have 2 traitlines we can use instead. Explosives/Firearms and Tools. Take firearms for condi with our new sword. Explosives and tools for more splosion dps. If you havent noticed most of our new skills do explosive dps.

There is nothing about the new specialization that encourages us to ditch Inventions, either. There are a couple survivability traits in the Holosmith tree, and that’s nice, but none of them really compare to Bunker Down, even after it was nerfed. The big thing to remember is that with the new specialization we’ll be getting access to a power-based main-hand weapon, giving the shield some actual use for once. The shield skill CD reduction trait is in Inventions.

I’m sure after the dust settles we’ll still be running Inventions and Alchemy together with Holosmith. Holosmith is much squishier than Scrapper and will also have significantly less stability to work with. I wouldn’t be surprised if Elixir B and Elixir S return to our bar when we run Holosmith for this reason—at the very least keeping Alchemy in the build.

It’s very well possible that sword/shield just won’t be as good as rifle or sword/pistol, thereby pushing a lot of the reason behind Inventions out of the build. If the rumors are true and today’s balance patch will be touching up on some gadgets and making them more useful, it’s also very well possible that Tools as a traitline will become an increasingly viable option; Tools/Alchemy/Holosmith would, in this instance, probably be ideal.

UncleDrew.1763:

Now for remaining utils, Maybe we dont need elix gun anymore cause we can cleanse more condis from the trait (gaining required heat and exiting forge) 6 sec cd for forge. Rinse, repeat. So now we can take Elix U for quickness autoattacks combined with a leap on a please nerf me level of cd (see where this is going) we become what power reaper has wet dreams of. Take the new util that breaks stuns and reduces dps. So now if you a kitten you can take Elix S. Or really whatever you need.

I think you’re really underselling the Elixir Gun here by implying its singular purpose is condi cleanse.

The Elixir Gun’s Acid Bomb is great area denial and is useful against downed targets for cleave damage. Fumigate doesn’t cleanse conditions on ourselves, but it does a hefty amount of cleansing on allies and can be traited to convert conditions into boons. Outside of Tool Kit’s Box of Nails, Glob Shot is one of the most effective ways to maintain cripple on a target while giving yourself swiftness (which with scrapper was also a survivability boost with Rapid Regeneration). Super Elixir is a light field, which can be leaped through for Light Aura, which is a massive damage boost when it is active. Both the sword and forge form have leaps, so I don’t really see the Elixir Gun going anywhere. This is also not taking into consideration the fact that its toolbelt skill is a stun breaker, and that its auto attack, Tranquilizer Dart, maintains permanent weakness on targets.

The Elixir Gun is literally the most powerful singular utility skill this class has, and it rarely leaves our bar for that reason. Every single skill on the bar, including its tool belt, has a valuable use in the right hands. And unless ArenaNet does some drastic changes to core engineer utility skills (e.g., gadgets) in today’s pre-PoF major balance pass, I don’t see that changing.

insanemaniac.2456:

and man, reddit is no more toxic than this forum. this forum is just more authoritarian and gets rid of kitten that is over the lines of “decency” and “normalcy” that they dictate.

I agree that we should not get ahead of ourselves and assume things we don’t entirely know. It’s very well possible that Holosmith will be the #1 DPS specialization in Path of Fire. There’s no real way of knowing right now. I do, however, think you’re underestimating the severity of a lot of their (and my) complaints.

Whether we like it or not, Guild Wars 2 is an MMORPG where its meta is defined entirely by DPS. Sure, there are damage-oriented support specializations in nearly every game: Discipline Priest literally deals damage to heal in the Legion expansion of World of Warcraft; and every White Mage in FFXIV is expected to make use of every global cooldown, spamming Stone IV and maintaining Aero so long as no one dies in the process.

The “holy trinity” concept of MMOs is long dead, and Guild Wars 2 pretty much led the charge in that transition when it launched back in 2012. I can’t think of a single modern MMO that has “healbots” or “meatshields,” reduced to a singular role and never stepping outside of it. But unlike other modern MMOs like World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy XIV, Guild Wars 2 is literally defined entirely by the raid’s cumulative DPS. There are no aggro mechanics to handle, and healers have next to zero resource management. If we’re being honest, the PvE content in this game is still a completely joke compared to Mythic+ runs in WoW or Savage runs in FFXIV … so it’s not all that surprising that raid DPS—the easiest role of the “trinity”—is the only thing that really matters in Guild Wars 2. And as a result, every class is hand-chosen to be a member of the “meta” in PvE based not on their personal DPS contributions (which for Holosmith, as you said, is still in the air) but entirely their raid contributions through boons, alacrity, vulnerability, and class-specific buffs.

There’s a reason why warrior overtook elementalist for might stacking. It’s not that scepter/dagger or lightning hammer+staff are any less legitimate. After all, an elementalist, when traited, for it is just as effective at it (if anything, the rotation has only gotten easier over the years); instead, it’s the mere fact that a phalanx strength warrior and a staff elementalist together elevate team-wide DPS higher than a DPS warrior and a scepter/dagger elementalist does. It’s not that a berserker does bad DPS or that a tempest does poor support (if anything it’s quite the opposite) but rather that, as a sum of their parts, a warrior playing a supportive role with their banners and an elementalist playing an offensive role more consistently produces raid clears with a lower time-to-kill.

Even the healers are evaluated entirely by how much they can elevate raid DPS, which is why druids and their Grace of the Land stacks have such an overwhelming presence in nearly every raid group. And the simple fact of the matter is, if Holosmith contributes literally nothing to a raid group, it’ll likely be passed over for other class specializations in raids, fractals, World vs. World, and even structured PvP.

This just isn’t a game where personal DPS really matters, and acknowledging this doesn’t make me “toxic,” “paranoid,” or “authoritarian.”

Cold Hearted Person.6154:

Everything is a subject to change.

This is kind of an empty statement. Obviously everything is “subject to change,” as this is a game with balance patches and skill revisions. We obviously saw many of our utility skills buffed and nerfed over the years—and some of them completely redesigned, like the Med Kit and Mortar.

That doesn’t make our concerns regarding the Holosmith’s COMPLETE lack of utility any less legitimate, especially when many of the revisions made to utility skills over the years have been less than favorably received with a mixture of both good and bad (e.g., Elixir B vs. Elixir R).

While the engineer has seen a number of changes over the years, I don’t expect them to really do all that much for the Holosmith over the course of the next six weeks, and—full disclosure—I don’t even know if I have the confidence in them to get it right when they laid such a poor foundation out of the gate.

Cold Hearted Person.6154:

In short, what you saw on the live streams was just first iteration of Holosmith.

You do realize the expansion is dropping next month with a preview weekend next week, right?

What you saw is pretty much what we’re getting.

Timo.1065:

If engi wont have that effect, doing legendary weapon is pointless for me.

It’s no different from kits, really.

insanemaniac.2456:

…oh yeah and it overwrites your elite toolbelt so you wouldnt have been able to detonate supply crate if they hadnt changed turrets lmao

Mortar Kit seems like the only core elite skill worth taking given the loss of the F5 skill. Certainly something to ponder.

I’m much more interested in seeing if there’s any potential synergy between AED and Holosmith. But yeah, that heal-per-heat-lost is pretty nice sounding too.

Stand The Wall.6987:

lol, we don’t even know the damage coefficients yet. pretty early to be getting the sads.

Damage is not our concern. That it provides zero team utility is our concern.

StrYdeR.2459:

Here is the issue….PvE IS the game; PvP and WvW are sidebars to keep groups entertained (to a degree).

LOL. Guild Wars 1 for all intents and purposes was a PvP-oriented title. And when Guild Wars 2 launched, PvE consisted of only dungeons, fractals, and open world content—most of which was mind-numbingly easy. Guild Wars 2 launched with no intention of having an “end-game.” WvW was the end-game, if anything.

So, I’d argue that the original vision of Guild Wars 2 was PvP-oriented just like its predecessor, and ArenaNet just happened to shift their focus over the years to PvE just because that’s what makes them the most money.

PvE is “the game” because, ostensibly, that’s how you view it. But for thousands of players, myself included, Guild Wars 2 was purchased for its horizontal PvP and large-scale fighting in WvW.

PvE is the side-content, in my view.

EdwinLi.1284:

I think more questions should be asked to Anet developers during their Q&A if players want to get any real results for pushing to a proper Utility/Support provided to Engineer or atleast get some real answers why Engineer has been going down this path of development.

I will be sure to ask. When is this Q&A happening?

Ithilwen.1529:

I fully expect Holosmith to gain Mirage ambush capability shortly after release.

I don’t think even that could make Holosmith better than Scrapper. Most engineers I know are pretty disappointed by the reveal. Hopefully it just gets the Dragonhunter treatment and gets completely overpowered after a few months.

EdwinLi.1284:

TeaPotty.5941:

---

I don’t think we will ever agree on how Holosmith should be judged considering our different beliefs on how to handle data (with you prefer hard math data and I prefer actual field tested data)

On that note:
As I said when I edited my last post. (Blasted forums edit updating are always so slow.)

I think people should just calm down until the 2nd Beta test when players can actually test the Elite spec for a decent amount of time.

Edwin, please understand that elite specializations are supposed to fill gaps in professions. The one thing engineer does not suffer from is lack of damage. What it suffers from is a lack of utility that makes it worth bringing to fractals, PvP, and WvW beyond serving one’s self-interest … and so they give us this? An elite specialization that literally offers zero teamplay?

I mean, even Dragonhunter traps at least shared their boons. I don’t need to playtest Holosmith to know we got shafted here.

Nilix.2170:

I agree with you a lot now that I’m looking at the traits more closely, but I feel that the changes that need to be made in respect to this issue should probably be done with the base Engineer and its traits rather than the Holosmith. Better Inventions and Alchemy traits or improvements to the ones there would be nice all around.

Neither Alchemy nor Inventions need any changes. They’re the only two core trees that actually keep engineer relevant in WvW/PvP. It’s Explosives, Firearms, and Tools that need some serious review.

The problem is that the engineer for as long as I can remember hasn’t been able to run a combination of two of the three trees in competitive content. It has pretty much always been Inventions/Alchemy/______, and the big reason behind that is the lack of sustain core engineer suffers from.

Scrapper as a tree is quite excellent at what it does, especially when it comes to filling out that lack of sustain—and I don’t think it’s a problem if Scrapper remains relevant in 2018… but it is a bit of a backhanded slap to the engineer community to give us a specialization that doesn’t address any of the gaps in the profession it’s currently suffering from and, given the context that engineer is already relegated to be a roaming class once again in WvW and is currently only surviving as a “1v2” fishing side-point duelist in PvP, they end up just giving us another one-dimensional, selfish build that provides zero utility to WvW raids or mid-point teamfighting in PvP.

It’s almost comical. As I said here or in another thread, Holosmith will be a welcome change of pace from the Scrapper, but it is not filling any hole in the profession; to use a common aphorism, they made swiss cheese of our profession in Heart of Thorns, and they’ve only left it to mold in Path of Fire.

I will buy Path of Fire, but as someone that has mained engineer for five years, it’s only because the elite specializations of necromancer, warrior, and guardian actually look much more fun to play over their current Heart of Thorns iterations.

tl;dr: In 2018 we’re still going to be a profession only brought for DPS (no matter how much more fun Holosmith is over core engineer), and we’re still going to be relegated to roaming in WvW and side-point duels in PvP. Gadgets are still useless, and gyros are far superior to exceed skills. This elite specialization advances the profession in no tangible direction in any aspect of the game.

They said when Heart of Thorns launched that future elite specializations would be exclusive to each other. You won’t be able to run Holosmith and Scrapper simultaneously, for example.

Chaba.5410:

TBH it isn’t shocking to me at all. It’s normal for engineer. Anet has always given engineer poor group support and hard-to-synergize traits and skills.

This isn’t entirely accurate. Engineer for years was brought into high end fractals and dungeons as the only class that could stack might and vulnerability, cleanse conditions, and provide stealth all under the same build. Obviously other classes were far more efficient at fulfilling each of these specific purposes, but that’s the drawback to being a jack-of-all-trades. It wasn’t really until Heart of Thorns where engineer became a DPS-only class, leaving it with very little class identity save being an amalgamation of needlessly obtuse skill rotations.

Unfortunately, it appears ArenaNet wishes only to double-down on this mistake, giving a once-jack-of-all-trades profession a bunch of utility skills that are either weaker variants of gyros or merely provide damage.

After reviewing the weapon skills and utility skills, I have to admit I’m a bit baffled that this is what they could come up with. It literally provides ZERO utility for a group and only contributes damage—something that the core engineer already offers more than plenty of.

I’m sure it’ll still be a fun build to play in PvE, but I just don’t see it being all that effective in PvP. Scrappers take the elixir gun and double gyros not by choice but by necessity, and I don’t see how a Holosmith is going to really win many 1v1s by loading up their bar with a bunch of damage utilities when damage isn’t our problem in WvW or PvP currently.

I’ll probably take the Holosmith as a raw damage gain with the transformation, but I don’t really see myself touching most of these utility skills. I really wouldn’t be surprised if, after the dust settles, Scrapper is still the best specialization for the engineer in PvP by a long shot.