Holosmith - DPS Holo

The community gave this build a rating, making it top-tier: Great

Focused on: Strike damage

Designed for: WvW Zerg

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

Hard

This build was last updated on October 31, 2025 and is up to date for the October 28, 2025 patch.

Overview

A power damage Holosmith WvW build meant to do massive damage within melee range, overwhelming the enemies with copious amounts of burst hits, causing great pain and harm to their bodies and souls and health bars, while having no meaningful downtime, unlike their other DPS such as reaper or berserker which struggle outside of Reaper's Shroud and Berserk.

Skillbar

Rifle/Rifle

Utility

Variants

Weapon

• Hammer
• Spear

Heal

• Med Kit more team utility but less personal survivability

Utility

• Bomb Kit
• Elixir S

Template Code

[&DQMGOyYvOS0qDwAAVxYAAJMBAACVAQAA8BUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA=]

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Specializations

Variants

• Crystal Configuration: Eclipse
• Photonic Blasting Module

Equipment

Head
Dragon

Shoulders
Marauder

Chest
Marauder

Hands
Dragon

Legs
Dragon

Feet
Dragon

Backpiece
Dragon

Accessory
Marauder

Accessory
Marauder

Amulet
Demolisher

Ring
Marauder

Ring
Marauder

Rifle
Marauder

Sigil

Sigil

Rifle
Marauder

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

Relic

Variants

Stats

• Feel free to use as much Berserker's gear as you can without dying
  • Swap out Dragon gear first
• The given setup aims for maximum Effective Health
  • You can swap Marauder's to Demolisher's to make healing more efficient in exchange for increasing your chance to be spiked from 100%

Sigil

• Sigil of Superior Sigil of Stamina for activating Explosive Entrance

Usage

Quick Guide

• Holosmith is a short range pure DPS with very high burst
• Set up ticking damage effects to increase your burst

Ticking Damage Skill List

• Prime Light Beam
• Acid Bomb
• Laser Disk

• Aim to land as many of your hard hitting skills within as short a time window as possible while those ticking effects are active

Burst Damage Skill List

• Napalm
• Jump Shot
• Corona Burst

• Use holosmith's exceptional filler skills to finish enemies off

Filler Damage Skill List

• Light Strike
• Flame Jet

General

• As soon as you get the 25 stacks of Sigil of Superior Sigil of Bloodlust and get out of combat, swap back to the Rifle without it

Surviving

• This build has low passive defense
• This build has moderate mobility skill access
• This build has low active defenses

Defensive Skill List

• Healing Mist - Stunbreak
• Smoke Vent - Stunbreak
• Overcharged Shot - Clears Immobilize/ Chill/ Cripple
• A.E.D.

• Use A.E.D. when you expect high spike damage to occur inside its duration
  • Let your group heal you instead of using A.E.D. to heal yourself

Priorities

High

• Burst Damage

Moderate

• Damage

Low

• Superspeed
• CC

Detailed Explanations

Burst Damage

• Holosmith has four different ways to burst, listed here in order of priority:
• The Napalm burst:

1. Prime Light Beam
2. Napalm

• The Acid Bomb burst:

1. Laser Disk
2. Jump Shot
3. Acid Bomb

• The Filler burst:

1. Flame Blast
2. Blunderbuss
3. Function Gyro

• The Engage Photon Forge burst:

1. Corona Burst
2. Light Strike
3. Corona Burst

• If possible you want to combine these bursts into each other as follows:

1. Prime Light Beam
2. Napalm
3. Laser Disk
4. Jump Shot
5. Acid Bomb
6. Flame Blast
7. Blunderbuss
8. Engage Photon Forge
9. Corona Burst
10. Light Strike

• The goal is prioritize your higher damage, easier to execute and lower cooldown bursts first, to increase your overall damage and allow you to burst more frequently
• Try to hold your burst and use it at the same time as the rest of your group to more effectively generate down states
• If you can't use the highest priority burst combo safely, move to the next one
  • If you can't use any of them safely, just swap to sustained damage and wait for a good time to burst
• Don't view this as a strict order every time you burst. The key skills to burst around are Napalm, Acid Bomb, and your Morph skills, as long as one of the them will land effective damage you can go for the burst
• Laser Disk can be added onto any burst, preferably at the start
  • If you don't think you'll have enough melee uptime for Laser Disk to provide value when casting Napalm, just hold it and use it before any other combo, ideally the Engage Photon Forge combo
• Flame Blast combines very nicely into other skills due to its travel time, it can be added before any burst combo if you're in range
• If you don't need Jump Shot to get in range for Acid Bomb it can be used at any time for a large hit
• Don't be afraid to move the Engage Photon Forge burst above the filler burst in priority if you'll only have limited melee uptime and can land it right away

Damage

Skill priority

• Prime Light Beam - over 50 Heat
• Acid Bomb
• Napalm
• Engage Photon Forge - Do not overheat
• Corona Burst
• Laser Disk - over 50 Heat
• Light Strike
• Jump Shot
• Blunderbuss
• Dodge - for Explosive Temper (Explosive Entrance)
• Flame Blast
• Flame Jet

• Priortize syncing your burst skills up when possible as described above, but otherwise your priorties are to:

1. Use Acid Bomb and Napalm as often as possible
2. Engage Photon Forge use Corona Burst ⇒ Light Strike ⇒ Corona Burst then leave forge
3. Fill with weapon skills and Flamethrower

• In Engage Photon Forge prioritize Corona Burst and Light Strike for damage
  • In general you should use two Corona Burst before leaving forge
  • Use Holo Leap as needed for mobility
  • Watch your Heat carefully, overheating must be avoided at all costs
  • Keep your Heat above 50 (past the first bar) always, especially when using your Exceed skills
    • Holographic Shockwave is helpful for quickly gaining Heat, even while out of range for its primary effects
  • Around 95 Heat is a sweet spot for entering Engage Photon Forge without overheating
  • You should preheat your Engage Photon Forge before engaging the enemy to around 100 heat when possible
• UseLaser Disk whenever you are sure you are going to be able to sit in melee for a long time
• Prime Light Beam is best suited for chokes or scenarios where the enemy is pushing at you, since it goes beyond the standard 5man target cap
  • Prime Light Beam roots you for a while during the cast so be careful to not greed
• Use Acid Bomb whenever the enemy group will be in the AoE for multiple ticks, the CD is very short
  • The backwards leap must be canceled by using a Weapon Swap keybind during the animation
• Use Stoke the Flames before Napalm if you don't already have Quickness
• During Photon Forge downtime:
  • Use your rifle skills, mainly Blunderbuss and Jump Shot for burst damage
  • Use Flame Blast then spam Flame Jet

Superspeed

• Holo Leap gives Superspeed to an unlimited amount of allies
  • Use Holo Leap in the direction your commander is pushing whenever you use it
  • Cast Holo Leap behind the commander to keep the group together
  • Pair Holo Leap with Veil if your group isn't out of combat on Veil cast

CC

CC Skill List

• Holographic Shockwave - AoE Launch
• Net Shot - Single target Immobilize
• Overcharged Shot - Single target Launch

• Holographic Shockwave adds 25% Heat, be careful not to overheat when using it
• Net Shot and Overcharged Shot are generally not worth casting
• Use your CC when:
  • Your group calls a spike such as Wells - (Well of Corruption)
  • On top of enemy downs (while alive enemies are on top of them)
  • Enemy groups move defensively while your group is pushing