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I honestly miss the separate path options in Zhaitan arc. I know the end result is the same but it atleast gave a feeling the story exploring into how the Commander ended up where he or she is and which ally they made themselves while the other NPCs the Commander did not meet joined due to their own reasons without the Commander’s influence.
Sorry if I sounded rude and I do not believe I am above anyone else. I do not ignore those opinions but I just believe some are over exaggerating a bit too much now because of personal expectation.
I am just tired of all this paranoia going around when the actual testing of the Elite Spec has not even begun yet.
Everything, as you said, is just theorycrafting but none of the results have been actually tested in the game. To be a caution level is fine but directly calling the Holosmith out because it did not meet personal expectations is a bit extreme when only a select few people got a chance to test it.
To react this way now without actual testing of the data is still a bit much and is something that should be hold back until there been real experience and testing of the information.
The Anet developers even stated they are still adjusting the Professions in PoF currently because during the time when they got a few people testing thing, woodenpotato being among them, they did tell them that the Power Build based skills balance has some issues during the beta test and is still under adjustments.
As for the streaming, I would not take those seriously because I do not believe these players were testing out Holosmith properly since they were given a very limited time to test things. At best there should be actually given maybe 2 or 3 days of testing to mix and match trait trees together and test out certain Stats gears.
I think everyone just need to calm down a bit until 2nd Beta testing since that is when players can test out the new Elite Specs for a decent amount of time.
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So in the developer video talking about PoF expansion we see glimps of the allies we will have with us for PoF and one of them is Canach.
Yes Canach is back to bring on more of his sassy comments.
Are you ready for more of it?!
I know I am.
This is easily the weakest of all new elite specs. Subpar damage, and yet for some reason you must damage to attain this. If you think otherwise, you havent looked at the new Ele/Necro/Mesmer/Ranger/Thief/Guardian/Warrior specs, which all easily have better DPS and utility. On top of this self-dmg insult, you also lose your F5 skill, and not the weapon-swap button. Bc reasons and excuses.
I’m not gonna waste my time anymore on what is my favorite class in terms of mechanics. Engineer is always a string of disappointments. They get little resources for proper development by Anet devs since launch. Nerfs and new ideas are always hastily implemented, with little concern for overall class feel and performance relative to other classes. Posts on this forum with suggestions are always ignored.
The past day saw TWO front-page threads on GW2’s subreddit with Holosmith being laughed at by everyone: Fidget-smith, and Jihad-smith. Well done, Anet.
Reddit is a has toxic community to begin with. Only select few people actually got the chance to test out the new Elite spec for a very limited time while everyone else is screaming wolf over speculations rather than having actully tested the Elite Spec and gotten the actual data.
This entire paranoia going around is just unhealth for the community over pure specualtions and it not turning out as they wanted it to be is just causing unneeded anger issues.
There is also talk on Reddit that Holosmith tree may replace tool tree or make a perm place in the meta by taking a place of one of the current Meta trees.
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I’ve only seen that we can explode. That’s all I care about.
A do a F lot of damage with it to enemies, while removing the effect the explosion harm the player, if we trait to with a certain Grand Master trait.
Though don’t keep it up too long because the low slow Burn DoT effect when overheating will still be active even with that Grandmaster trait.
I say Eye of the North would have set it quite standard to know who Livia is for all Races since EotN is the events that lead the world of Tyria to become what it is now.
EotN is basically History 101 at this point except for the part that the GW1 Hero identity has been lost to time itself since no one remembers the GW1 Hero and only Knows about the Hero’s Companions due to time and different interpretations altering the story to their own views.
Engineer is a bit of a mess due to how at Core it started as a “Jack of All Trades but Mastery of None” design.
Then Scrapper came in focusing on crowd control and Tanking
Now Holosmith is introduced to focus on DPS.
From how things are going the development team are just filling in Role Focus using Elite Spec now instead of revamping the entire Core Profession from its “Jack of All Trades but Mastery of None” design.
A lot of down side does go with this choice of development direction such as not revamping the Core weapons and Core skills to the more current gameplay experience along with having to wait for certain Role Focus gameplay Elite Specs.
I wonldn’t be surprised if 3rd expansion introduced the Support/Healer Elite Spec since we already got a Tank (HoT expansion) and DPS (PoF Expansion) Elite Spec now.
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it might replace zerk, but id wait for other sets to show up before ditching viper.
plus we gotta math it out since engi has a few skills that are high priority for both power and condi.
Certainly going to have some fun with Grieving Set for once the Open beta happens next weekend.
Using this set may have Sword/Pistol combo for the Holosmith quite useful and it may go well with Holosmith due to how certain skills is a mix of condition and power damage.
May even open up more build options involving kits for Core and Scrapper as well due to Kit’s nature being a mix of Power and condition skills as well.
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As such, there may not be a need for a replacement of Balthazar – one likely already exists. The question there, then, is “will the replacement show up?”
I am going to guess we may get that answer once we learn the conclusion of FIssue of Woe events since they never revealed who won that battle nor the aftermath of that battle.
So during WoodenPotato 3 hour livestream he showed one of the new Gear Stat set for the 2nd expansion being Grieving Set.
Grieving has High Power and Condition Damage with Medium Precision and Ferocity .
How do you think this may be used in upcoming Engineer Builds?
So who else plans to test Holosmith out using the Power build and the new Grieving Build.
Grieving Stats is Power (High), Condition Damage(High), Precision(medium), and Ferocity(medium).
Grieving is probably going to benefit the Holosmith the most next to power if players want to utilize both the condition and power damages since Holosmith already have a natural Crit increase chance on Sword.
It may be very useful for the Sword/Pistol combo.
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Which is awesome if your only aspiration in gw2 is to play outdated dungeons or the odd snowflake scenario featuring a static fight.
If it were Asuran we’d be getting a huge, honking robot- a GIANT ROBOT- that either follows us around or allows us to ride on its shoulder _ALL THE TIME- (not on a long cooldown) and which beats the literal snot out of anyone who gets near us. We’re not getting that.
Isn’t that a bit biased to only one side of Asura culture?
Asura culture has shown to focus more than just golems. Another part of their technology and advancements is through holographic projection which they use to create a lot of holographic objects and interactive consoles.
Holosmith is a Elite Spec that focus on the College of Dynamics in Asura culture which about highly experimental technology half of them being holographic technology while the other half focusing on advancements of Golems.
As for WvW, I would save judgement until actually testing out the Elite Spec. Holo Form can be trated into a Range Attack form instead by using the Crystal Configuration Trait.
It also comes with a Utility skill that reduce damage from both power and condition by 50% that has cooldown reduce to 15 sec above 50 heat with a Healing skill that also reduce incoming damage by 10% if above 50 heat.
All this paranoia going around, in my point of view, seem to be just paranoia itself over not having actual test out how Holosmith works nor what builds can be built yet while also putting person belief on what the player individually believe Engineer should be.
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Not me!
It is everything I always wanted for my Engineer Profession!
You don’t want to switch now, thief’s deadeye is some kind of a joke, kitten compared to holosmith in terms of design and dmg.
He will learn how weak Deadeye is later :p
On that note:
It was quite clear Engineer will never get a Rifle theme Elite Spec since Elite Spec is based on providing new weapons for the Engineer with new mechanics.
Rifle can work with Holosmith since Holoform is a Melee auto Form but can be traited to a Range auto attack form.
No one said you can’t play Rifle Holosmith nor have to use sword as your primary weapon. From skill and traits Holosmith is very versatile with Primary weapon choice so players can easily play Rifle Holosmith, Sword/Pistol, Sword/Shield, or Pistol/Pistol Holosmith.
Holosmith skills does not have a weapon base trait and focus more on the Holo form and Overheat mechanic for its trait.
Rifle Holosmith may be a good choice for players if they aim for Rifle for long range Auto and Holo Form for melee Auto. Providing a mix of now having both range and melee auto attacks switching between rifle and holo form to adjust to demands in combat.
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Looking at the skills, Power and Hybrid may favor Holosmith the most due to the Crit chance boost, Decent Direct damage, and condition added on to certain skills.
Pure Condition builds may have to remain kit focus since the Holosmith basic use focus on Power builds with Condition added on to the Power skills as extra damage.
Power and Viper gears will certain get the most out of Holosmith if they aim only to focus on Holo Form and not use Core Profession kits on utility.
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spoiler about the first instance and open world below
In the first instance you see the streamers play, one of the forged, the ‘herald of balthazar’ has combat dialogue where she says “every life i claim is another conscript in Balthazar’s army!”
I also think somewhere she states somewhere Balthazar chose her, inclining she was human before, and you see Zaishen in the open world trying to recruit people to join him as well. Given all that I reckon we can predict the Forged are mercenaries, or just souls in constructs.
Certainly follow how Balthazar has built his army in the past since his original army, the Eternals, had always consisted of people who are dead rather than his own creations. The more he kills the more are sent into the mist where they become part of Balthazar’s army. Considering this the Eternal Army may not be gone but may currently remain in the Mist as his Forces to deal with threats from the Mist while the Forge maybe Eternals given Forge Bodies so they can have a Physical Form to remain in the world of the living.
Yep a combination of Power and Condition skills which will be useful for players who have Viper Gear.
As the story goes on it seems are are slowly moving South into Cantha if this keeps up.
Cantha may be a good spot for the “Bubble” Arc of GW2 if we learn more about Bubble’s recent progress.
Wouldn’t you just.. keep using Pistol/Rifle if you wanted Range DPS?
Am I the only one that plays Scrapper with a rifle?
We yet to learn how this may add to the Engineer choice of combat.
Sword is a melee weapon of choice but with this trait Engineer can now have both Melee and Range combat without using Kits.
They can stick with Rifle/Pistol for range and then use Holo Form for their melee combat or Sword for Melee combat and Holo Form for Range combat.
Or they can go pure melee or pure Range combat.
All of this without using a single Kit in their Utility slot.
This looks really cool. Might have to start playing GW2 again. What happens when u over heat? It said you explode but will it damage everything around you. Also can you discharge your built up energy before you explode as a form of damage?
Overheating will cause you to explode and take damage but you gain some damage boost during Overheat and more boost based on the trait you take.
You can remove the exploding self damage effect and replace it with a Exploding Enemy damage attack that cause burn, direct damage, and vulnerability debuff to all enemies around you with the Photonic Blasting Module trait. However, the slow DoT still in effect but it is a useful trait for those who aim for Viper gear set.
Holsmith seems very versitile in combat choice since you can trait Holosmith into a Melee or Range DPS Spec thanks to Heat Theropy Trait and choose between traits making it into a Condition, Power, or Hybrid damage Spec.
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One thing I hope is that the overheating “explode” doesn’t actually hurt the engineer. I’m not a fan of when a class mechanic is “don’t use to much or you’ll kill yourself”.
It only harms the Engineer if they don’t have Photo Blasting Module Trait which is a Grandmaster trait.
With Photo Blasting Module Trait the self damage explosion is replaced with a Attack that damage all enemies around the Engineer causing Direct damage, Burn condition, and Vulnerability Debuff.
Edwin, can you please share your source? I would love to see that numbers!
here
The blast is removed but the slow DoT still can be fatal if it is on too long. It can be easily ignored if Overheat does not last too long.
With Heat Theropy you can turn the Holosmith into a Range DPS Job as well.
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One thing I hope is that the overheating “explode” doesn’t actually hurt the engineer. I’m not a fan of when a class mechanic is “don’t use to much or you’ll kill yourself”.
It only harms the Engineer if they don’t have Photo Blasting Module Trait which is a Grandmaster trait.
With Photo Blasting Module Trait the self damage explosion is replaced with a Attack that damage all enemies around the Engineer causing Direct damage, Burn condition, and Vulnerability Debuff.
Self damage because that’s always so popular in pvp.
Well kitten.
Take Photo Blasting Module Trait then since it removes the self damage on overheat and replace it with a AoE attack that hits all enemies causing Direct damage, Burn Condition, and Vulnerability Debuff.
. He is the god of war and fire. It will always be*evil* in some way. However there is a difference between neccessary evil and evil evil. Right now he is the latter.
I’m no master lore master, but he was never evil in GW1.
We never met Balthazar in GW1 anyways. Only his Avatar which was just another Eternal.
However, from lore he was always a big jerk to begin with. He literally murdered a person for beating him in a bet instead of honoring that bet after he lost.
In the aftershow Bogotter revealed that the Holosmith is a high risk/reward POWER glass-canon, with the heatmechanic giving you more dps as heat increase but with a chance that you may explode if too much heat is generated. A new specific heal skill was mentioned as a counter to overheating.
But pistol offhand is condi
Yeah, I’m perplexed by the use of pistol offhand with a sword. Seem counter-intuative to being a power based build. Who knows, maybe it’s not power, but he meant “Power” as in DPS focused in general.
If the sword can be used as a condi mainhand weapon, I will be extremely happy. I dunno why, but power builds bore me to tears, i go nuts for DoTs.
There is Trait in the Holosmith tree that makes it into a Power/Condition fighter.
From what it looks like the player can spec the Holosmith into either a Condition, Power, or Hybrid Power/Condition DPS Elite Spec based on the chosen traits.
First Condition trait is Solar Focusing Lens which apply Burn on first few attacks when entering Holo Form.
2nd is Photo Blasting Module is tier 3 trait where it causes Overheat attacks to damage enemies now instead of the player thus cuasing explosions that apply stacks of Fire condition.
It is a interesting option for this Elite Spec because players can choose if they want to go Power, Condition, or Hybrid in damage making use of Viper Gear more valued.
For Power builds players would want to not overheat a lot to avoid damaging him or herself a lot but maintain a proper amount of damage to Max their Power damage build. It is a more consistant means of damage without requiring build up a lot.
For Condition/Hybrid you want to overheat because with Photo Blasting Module Trait you no longer take damage from Overheating but instead cause Condition damage during Overheat to enemies only around you thus players want to always be overheating for maximum Condition or Hybrid Power/Condition damage. A High damage choice of combat that requires building up resources, being heat, a lot but rewards with a moment of high Burst Power/Condition damage.
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Those are actually Holoskills most likely their Utility skills. From what it seems the Elite Spec heavily focus on using the new Holo Form and Primary Weapon over the Core Kit of Engineer to build up Heat then use their Utility skills for massive Damage.
The design so far appears to be based on making a Core Kitless Elite SPec that does not need to depend on Kits which Engineer currently depends greatly on but instead Utility skills and their Primary weapons instead.
So Holosmith!
Holy F! This is a Holo Kit Weapon based Elite Spec! Full of Holo Weapon goodness!
So new trailer and we get Balthazar’s reason for all of his actions.
Balthazar seeks to become the One and Only God of the World thus has begun a campaign to build up his army in Tyria and absorb all Elder Dragon’s Magic so he can become powerful enough to kill the other Gods thus becoming the One and Only God of the World.
This also implies that Balthy becoming this weak is the result of the other Gods banishing him to this state due to his attempt to take control of their domains.
The trailer also shows his main base of Operations is in Elona!
If you’re hoping to get the Fearless achievement where you have to beat it without the buff then Condition Damage will be your greatest ally here.
ya not easy to solo past this part because of how weak the NPC is.
To survive this you will need to slap on a lot of protective buffs and HP regen on her.
I made it past this fight as a Engineer after 3 attempts because of my Healing Turret and Healing AoE field keeping her HP up and throwing potions to provide her with defensive buffs.
Killing the Adds fast will also be required because it is very difficult to make the enemy mobs not focus on the NPC.
It is beautiful and has that illusion effect to it.
I would love to work my way to get it but sadly my Precurser craft Mastery is still at 0 becuase I focused on the other Mastery for Fractal and PvE support Mastery.
I hope future Legendary Weapons are not locked behind Mastery because it can become a issue when Mastery points gets stretched thing into the harder or long term or costly Achievements
Pact Leader is going to spend majority of their time behind a desk filling out paper work only.
I am glad the Commander did not become the leader of the Pact because it would go against what the Player character does by going out on adventures instead of being a active “commander” of the Organization. Not to mention all the Paper work he or she would have to constantly fill out daily while dealing with constant request.
Being a Adventurer in a small group is more suited for the Commander.
SPOILER below….
Was that Grenth and Dwayna I spotted in the Trailer?
Trailer is out and we are going to Orr!
one word….
LIVIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We are most likely going to confront Braham in Hoelbrak at the beginning of this episode, as the finale for last episode hinted, since we learned last episode that the Norn has not even begun making preparations to move North yet. They have spent their entire time partying all day 24/7.
Most likely when we arrive the Norn are still partying in Hoelbrak and we find Braham angry that the Norns are just partying instead of preparing to move North. (or Braham is in a complete drunk state about how disappointed he is with himself and how he failed everyone)
After that we most likely get word about heading to the new Map then head to that area after we dealt with Braham in probably a very quick manner since the Norn are too busy Partying.
Also, i believe both Balthazar and the death of Jormag are both Nuclear bombs ready to blow since we learned that balthazar plans may not stop at just gaining power from one Elder Dragon which wold means he is going after the other Elder Dragon and may kill one but right now it is a choice between either the active Nuclear bomb (Balthazar and his plans to gain more power from other Elder Dragons that most likely end up killing a Elder Dragon) or the current self delaying Nuclear Bomb (Braham plans to cause Jormag’s death but currently being delayed by the Norns partying 24/7).
The Commander is currently at a cross road right now between acting against two Nuclear Bombs but the ideal choice would be to go after the active one being Balthazar since he has already begun preparations and action to take Elder Dragon’s Magic to empower himself which will kill the Elder Dragon once they are fully drained compared to Braham who has yet to actually begun preparations and direct action against Jormag.
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I can’t think of another location.
If we’re somehow gonna ignore Braham, the next logical place is Orr to literally dig up dirt on Balthazar
Most likely the Norn are still partying their heads off. From what we heard in last episode they have not even prepared to ready supplies to move out yet. Just partying all day and night with no care in the world.
Pistols will be the best choice if you go kitless/1 kit because the condition damage it quite good in PvE.
I blame being so close to expansion release because “why release new Hair styles now when they can release it on Expansion when a flood of old player return and new players join the game.”
I hate to destroy hope for a new profession but Anet did say they only released Revanent because it was the last Soldier Profession to fit the 3 per Profession type.
They want to focus on Elite Spec from now on using them to alter and adjust Professions in ways that would make them New Classes while having some relation to the Core.
The new Maps are hinted to be more than just Crystal Desert from the leak info but let us just wait and see since these are just rumors and what is Beyond Crystal Desert is more for the GW1 players.
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Are my eyes playing tricks on me? Praise for outfits?
Your eyes are fine, I suppose, there are players who actually like the outfit system and specific outfits. Myself included. If only the settings were less rudimentary.
/em edits signature and points at Outfit overhaul.
Well it is on both players who hate the outfit system and like it that are praising it.
This outfit is just so well deisgned and players would love this type of detailed armors for future design that have this type of special effects like the exosuit.
This is basically almost Legendary Armor level of design though it is sad the holo parts can’t be toggles off and on based on combat stance but guess that is just Legendary Armor exclusive effects.
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DragonGuardian: Inquisitor (daggers, stances, shoulder)
You’re really not giving much input for what you wish to see. In this example, you’re saying you’d like to see Guardian use dagger (is that main or off-hand, I don’t think you get both), stance skills (described in general above), and shoulder — whatever that means?
You didn’t give any indication of what that Elite looks like. Are the dagger skills off-hand and thrown? Main hand and melee? Is this a power or condi build or something else entirely, such as stab your allies in the back to heal them? Tossing out there weapons for elites but providing no insight doesn’t give a dev much to work with.
What do stances look like for an Inquisitor compared to a warrior? What makes them unique to an inquisitor? Again, generalizations can lead to disappointment when you find out that “cool! anet’s making an Inquisitor” but then discover it is nothing at all like you imagined.
And… Shoulders. No idea what that even means.
Getting both Off-hand and Main Hand may be possible now for Elite Spec.
Leaks hinted that Warrior maybe getting a main/off hand Dagger elite spec as a example but for now that is just speculation based on the leak info.
You people are so picky about everything that you failed to realise that the Exo-suit outfit is a Asura theme Outfit.
The design actually follow the Asura cultural outfit for warrior types
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Electromagnetic_armor
July 25th is the release date.
I suspect it may be Orr but a new Map for Orr made to show how the cleansing went. The other Orr Map are stuck in Pre-Zhaitan defeat after all but there is still a area in Orr we have yet to explore that can be used for Season 3 timeline.
A part of me wish the Order Mentors are still alive some how and make a return but that is not going to happen ebcause that would “ruin” their sacrifice and a large story will need to be covered about where they have been all this time.
However, i would love to see Razah as a ally since is one of the few to be still alive from GW1.
I hope it is called “Guild Wars 2: Club Elona”
Sword being power and pistol being condition is perfectly fine. Don’t forget that Celestial is already a very strong stat allocation on the engineer in WvW, and you could easily run Carrion with Intelligence sigil in PvP.
Not to mention Viper is quite the popular choice for Engineer option as well due to how certain kits mix power and condition skills.