Holosmith - Bunker Holo

The community gave this build a rating, making it second-tier: Good

Focused on: Control, Direct damage and Bunkering

Designed for: PvP Conquest

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

Normal

This build was last updated on September 08, 2026 and is up to date for the July 20, 2026 patch.

Overview

Bunker Holo is a control-focused direct damage build that sports moderate sustain. Its versatility allows for a lot of flexibility when it comes to roles, as the build can be quite strong in teamfights but also has 1v1 potential.

Skill Bar

Mace/Shield

Utility

Skill Variants

Utility

Utility Goggles and Throw Mine can be replaced with

• Thumper Turret - Overcharges twice in short succession for strong AoE knockdown, adds another stunbreak
• Hard Light Arena - Allround defensive option with a powerful pull but can be difficult to play as both skills are fairly weak below 50 heat.
• Photon Wall - Best option to play more aggressively while in Forge

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Specializations

Variants

• If your team has no dedicated support and you are running Thumper Turret, the support from Experimental Turrets may be more valuable than personal resistance and movement speed. While the reflect is too slow to reflect on reaction, it can be strong for securing downs or resses.

Variants

• Static Discharge if you are sure the enemy team is low on conditions and you are running Photon Wall
• Lock On against Stealth reliant teams.
• Adrenal Implant is good on paper even when playing Gadgets but it has some frustrating quirks that make it difficult to work with Holo
  • It triggers at the end of your dodge and affects the cooldown of Engage Photon Forge, reducing it from 1 to 0. This means that if you exit at the end of a dodge you may accidently exit and reenter Photon Forge with a single button press which is often lethal.
  • Deactivate Photon Forge is replaced by Deactivate Photon Forge (hot) above 85% Heat. Adrenal Implant only affects the present skill, so if you dodged to reduce the cooldown of the former and then go above 85% heat, the cooldown goes up as if you had never benefitted from the cooldown reduction.

Variants

• Crystal Configuration: Zephyr is always viable and the superior option if you expect to get kited a lot but the loss in sustain is not insignificant. Probably preferable if you are actually good at the game.

Equipment

Mace

Shield

Sigil

Sigil

Rune

Amulet

Relic

Equipment Variants

Runes

• Rune of Spellbreaker - Greedier option, going more greedy than this makes you susceptible to burst.
• Rune of Traveler - only if running Experimental Turrets and even then not strictly necessary: You lose your base speed and outside of Holo Leap you have no access to Swiftness, making the extra base movement speed valuable while adding trace amounts of boons and healing.

Sigils Sigil of Savagery loses a lot of value whenever you replace Throw Mine so consider to instead use

• Sigil of Absorption: Low internal cooldown and can swing some sidenode matchups more than Savagery can
• Sigil of Cleansing: More cleanse is always welcome

Usage

Elite specialization basics

• Holosmith grants access to the Photon Forge (sometimes referred to as holo mode) and introduces a new resource: heat. Heat is generated passively while the forge is active and also by activating forge skills. Higher CD skills generate more heat.

• Reaching maximum heat (100) should be avoided as Overheating damages you and locks you out of the forge and your toolbelt until heat goes back to 0. Heat slowly decays outside of Photon Forge but it can also be reduced by dodging thanks to Thermal Release Valve (TRV).
  • Overheat is triggered on a per-tick basis and does not instantly trigger on reaching 100 heat. This means if you have a dodge left and you are at 95 heat, you may be able to use Holographic Shockwave and then immediately dodge without Overheating as TRV reduces the heat from 100 to 85 before Overheat kicks in. It's not reliable so only try this when your death is certain otherwise.

• Engage Photon Forge is used to activate the forge, after which your weapon skills will be replaced by 5 new ones. You can't exit the forge for 6 seconds, so think twice before reentering with high heat levels. Be careful when entering it above ~70 heat as you may risk overheating.

• Both Engage Photon Forge and Disengage Photon Forge count as toolbelt skills and will work with related traits. Both skills can proc weapon swap sigils too.

General

You lack the mobility for decapping in most scenarios but otherwise your role is flexible and changes based on your own team, your enemy team and your exact loadout.

The primary features of the build are huge amounts of lockdown and control alongside moderate damage on top of self-sustain and defensive tools that let you (and your team) survive long enough to land your lockdown and generate downs or hold points.

The Inventions traitline grants you a huge amount of bonus stats through Energy Amplifier which can be kept up permanently and amplifies your damage while helping to drive your sustain.

Damage

• Disabling an enemy triggers Relic of the Midnight King for offensive boons and Bunker Down for damage and Vulnerability once per second. You have a lot of them:
  • Rocket Fist Prototype
  • Magnetic Inversion
  • Static Shield
  • Throw Shield
  • Holographic Shockwave
  • Prime Light Beam
  • Throw Mine
  • Slick Shoes
  • Flashbang
  • Prismatic Singularity (if taken)
  • Thumper Turret CC (if taken) is attributed to the turret, not to the player, so it unfortunately does not trigger them :-( pls fix anet

• All your Photon Forge skills deal solid damage, note that the second hit of Corona Burst hits a lot harder than the first.

• Prime Light Beam deals solid damage but is hard to land, use it to punish blocking enemies, extend a CC combo or disrupt stomps/resses.

• Energizing Slam hits quite hard on a low cooldown and has a big impact area.

• Bunker Down does not work on opponents with Stability so don't just blindly slam all your control into stability or hard mitigation.
  • If your target doesn't have a lot of cover boons, you can try to use Throw Mine to strip them.
  • Slick Shoes is Unblockable but it only affects moving enemies so it cannot be used to break through Crystal Hibernation.
  • Prime Light Beam on the other hand is an excellent option to break through blocks in this way.
  • The reaction stun of Static Shield is unaffected by Blind. The initial Bunker Down hit cleanses it and produces a hit that removes Aegis, making it an excellent tool to lock down Guardians that try to burst you down with Judge's Intervention.
  • Be mindful of the internal cooldown. Most of the skills don't deal damage on their own so unless you have someone else with you to take advantage of a CC chain it may be better to space out your control skills. Weakness from Sapping Device ensures they will have less endurance available and make it easier to land the next one.

• Rocket Fist Prototype has slow travel speed and can easily be avoided at range. The slow speed however makes it ideal to cast on enemies dodging away from you as they get stunned right when they come out of the dodge.
  • Contrary to the description, the fist always explodes at maximum range even without hitting an enemy, giving it slightly more reach than the range indicator would suggest. In this scenario the fist animation will actually fly past the center of the explosion but the explosion still occurs at 600 range.

• When using Throw Mine against an enemy in melee range you will already hit with the mine at your position.
  • When kiting away, throw the mine into your running path, ideally a choke point so that they get stunned by both the mine on you and then later the mine in the choke point.
  • Prioritize stripping Stability whenever you aren't forced to kite.
    • The proximity radius is significantly shorter than the blast radius. You may want to detonate instantly if you can guarantee stripping Stability even if it wastes the second mine.
  • When chasing, throw the mine into their running path.
  • The cooldown of this skill starts running on placement so whenever you are alone on a neutral/enemy node, throw a mine towards an escape route while standing on a node. Standing on the mine assures that any adventurous Guardians / Thieves porting onto you will immediately get stunned and you immediately have the skill available again. If you get a ranger instead, stand away from the mine so the pet does not clear it.
  • The flipover for manual explosion disappears once one mine was triggered but the second mine will linger for proximity explosion even after using the skill a second time.

• Mine Field is an unreliable skill, the random spread from the mines makes it difficult to land effectively and the proximity radius is very small. Unlike Throw Mine it only goes on cooldown once all mines have detonated so you cannot precast it like Throw Mine without losing immediate access after you move. The damage however is quite respectable so it is best used as follow up to CC.

• Magnetic Inversion is the flipover for one of your most important defensive skills. It's fine to use it when you can knock an enemy into a mine, you are sure that the use will secure a kill/cap/decap or interrupt a vital cast (like warrior banner) but whenever relevant, the reflect is usually much more valuable as you have tons of options for control but not tons of projectile hate.

• Static Shield is a powerful option against opponents that deal persistent damage in an uncontrolled manner, for example guardian symbols and willbender flames, engineer's Lightning Rod, Flux State, Fire Bomb or warrior's Flames of War. If they don't have an out, you can lock them down for a whole 3 seconds.

• Thumper Turret (if used) has a small delay between being placed and performing its overcharge and can be destroyed in that time frame so only place it within multiple enemies if you are sure it will go off. Following up the first knockdown with another CC assures that the second knockdown of the turret hits as well.

Sustain

• This build is low on stability, making you very susceptible to lockdown via chain CC and ward traps such as Hunter's Ward. You have enough stunbreaks to play somewhat aggressively but don't be wasteful and keep an eye out.
  • If you find yourself focused in teamfights, use your mobility to kite away and don't hesitate to use hard mitigation early so you don't have to immediately resort to Slick Shoes.

• Regeneration and Vigor are the primary drivers of your sustain. Energizing Slam provides both boons to you and nearby allies while also granting 640 barrier (to allies too!) and dealing solid damage. Use it as often as you can! Insanely broken skill.

• Regenerating Mist is another great contributor to your regeneration uptime on a relatively low cooldown. Combo the water field with Energizing Slam or Holo Leap for extra healing whenever you are not at full health. (Notably, the blast from Holographic Shockwave is too slow to work with this water field)

• Healing Turret provides a wide area cleanse, heal, regeneration and water field.
  • Combo the water field with Energizing Slam and/or Holo Leap every time
  • In certain scenarios you will want to also combo with Holographic Shockwave
  • Reconstruction Enclosure has no internal cooldown and activates on both placing the turret and overcharging, granting a full 6 seconds of AoE Protection
  • Reactive Lenses has no internal cooldown and activates on both placing the turret and overcharging, granting a full 6s of personal Resistance, 1960 barrier and cleansing 2 conditions + Blind.
  • If using Experimental Turrets it grants AoE Vigor and spawns a reflect bubble after 1 second. The bubble immediately disappears on picking up or detonating the turret.
  • Detonate the turret for additional AoE healing or pick it up for cooldown reduction. You need to wait a brief moment after placing the turret for the overload to go off so don't detonate / pick it up too quickly.
  • Don't be afraid to use it early against power builds as the boons help you a lot with fighting. Use it primarily for cleansing 5 conditions in condi matchups. Due to the amount of beneficial effects that only apply upon placing, picking it up is a really good option if you think you can get away with it.

• Every dodge heals you for 600 through Heat Therapy unless you are out of heat. High Vigor uptime and Sigil of Energy ensure you can do it often.

• Corona Burst grants you 1800+ barrier if you can land the first hit. Opponents will rarely dodge this on reflex as they prioritize avoidance of the second hit of the skill. Abuse against pets and clones.

• Disabling an enemy causes Bunker Down to drop a Bandage in front of you that heals you for 648, cleanses a condition and applies Regeneration. It also applies Weakness through Sapping Device which makes you less susceptible to power damage until it is cleansed.

• Holographic Shockwave is a strong defensive tool as the evade combined with the CC gives you a brief moment to line up your next skill.

• While rarely applicable Throw Mine is also a Blast finisher and can be used in conjunction with either Water field.

• If used, Hard Light Arena is great to use in team fights when above 50 heat for the extra barrier and to support your allies. It is however also a strong personal defensive skill that you should not hesitate to use when under pressure even below 50 heat. The Protection helps you against power damage but it also provides a Light field that you can combo with Energizing Slam or Holo Leap for 5s of Light Aura which in turn grants you Resolution when hit for a total 40% condi damage reduction. Blasting it also removes conditions in an area.

Dealing with ranged builds

• Energizing Slam and Holo Leap both make okay distance in combat, you can chain them in a Mace-Forge-Forge-Mace combo for considerable chase potential or use them to get out of the Pelt AoE.

• If you don't run Crystal Configuration: Zephyr it is usually not enough to catch up to mobile snipers like Galeshot unless they somehow let you hit Mace 3 on them. You primarily rely on reflects to fend off their ranged pressure then

• Most of your reflects have too much windup to pose a true threat. Magnetic Shield (engineer) is the only skill that can reliably reflect high priority skills on reflex such as Bluster, Hawkeye and True Shot. Don't use them preemptively as the users all have access to unblockable projectiles as well and can simply punch through your block / reflect if they see you use it.

• If taken, the reflects from Experimental Turrets act more as area denial while you destroy the sniper's teammates but if you track Galeshot's Wind Force, you can anticipate Hawkeye and reflect that with a turret as well. Even if they dodge the reflected projectiles, getting turret reflected will shatter their mentality and make them afraid.

• If a Galeshot is pressuring a side node and you're losing, you may often just want to tell your team to swap. You're really useful in team fights and committing to the bad matchup means that your team has to win the game for you. It's possible to hold the node or at least keep it neutral but you will have to use terrain a lot to avoid free Cyclone Bow damage.

Support Overview

Numbers assume that Energy Amplifier is active.

• Regenerating Mist grants 6s of Regeneration in a 480 radius

• Healing Turret heals for 2645, cleanses two conditions and grants 8s of Regeneration in a 480 radius
  • It triggers Reconstruction Enclosure twice for 6s of Protection in a 360 radius
  • It triggers Cleansing Pulse once for 4s of Regeneration and 1 cleanse in a 360 radius
  • If taken, it triggers Experimental Turrets for 3s of Vigor in a 600 radius

• Thumper Turret with Experimental Turrets grants 3s of Protection in a 600 radius.

• Energizing Slam grants 641 barrier, 3s of Vigor and 3s of Regeneration in a 360 radius

• Relic of the Midnight King grants 3s of Fury and 8s of Might in a 300 radius once per second on hitting a disable

Overall you grant effectively permanent Regeneration around you which ticks for 161 health every second. With Experimental Turrets you can achieve >50% uptimes on Vigor on top of the general disruption you bring.