Holosmith - Power Tools Holo

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

Focused on: Strike damage, Mobility and Control

Designed for: PvP Conquest

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

Hard

This build was last updated on August 04, 2025 and is up to date for the July 18, 2025 patch.

Overview

A Holosmith PvP build focusing on burst damage with very little downtime but equally little sustain.

The build itself boasts one of the highest levels of customization amongst all PvP builds and can be tailored to many different playstyles by swapping out weapons, skills and traits.

Skill Bar

Shortbow

Utility

Skill Variants

Utility

Viable choices for the optional slot:

• Spectrum Shield - damage mitigation and stunbreak.

• Tool Kit - CC, block and some good damage on Pry Bar.

• Slick Shoes - offensive skill that also has a stunbreak on toolbelt.

• Utility Goggles - breaks stuns and adds much needed Protection. Grants Detection Pulse for more Revealed.

• Rifle Turret - it's mostly for the toolbelt skill, Surprise Shot is an instant trigger for Static Discharge and improves your burst damage. Works best with Sword & Shield.

Weapons

• Sword/Shield - well-rounded set with 2 quick burst damage skills and 2 defensives, not to mention plenty of combo potential.

• Hammer - this is an equally viable alternative to Sword/Shield for people who own the Secrets of the Obscure expansion. The two sets offer very similar things - block, projectile-reflect, CC, leap finishers. Hammer is a slower weapon but has more damage.

• Shortbow - versatile weapon with good AoE, also has the highest Protection uptime out of the 3. Requires SotO, just like Hammer.

Heal

• Healing Turret - decent healing and cleansing, but the best part are the 2 water fields it offers.

• Med Kit - worse cleansing but higher healing thanks to the toolbelt skill Bandage Self and the water field the kit offers.

Elite

• Elite Mortar Kit - kit provides more ranged, healing and sustain options.

• Supply Crate - a different kind of AoE CC, and the combo field could even be used for Stealth stacking.

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Specializations

Variants

• Blast Shield trades damage for sustain.

Variants

• Lock On - Use against Stealth reliant teams.

• Take Adrenal Implant if you want more sustain.

Variants

• Solar Focusing Lens could increase your damage in games where Tools is enough to deal with conditions.

• Enhanced Capacity Storage Unit - Use with Sword. This version offers higher burst damage whilst over 100 Heat.

Equipment

Shortbow

Sigil

Sigil

Rune

Amulet

Relic

Equipment Variants

Relics

• Relic of Mistburn - better Might stacking and a crit chance boost. Take Sigil of Courage over Sigil of Intelligence.

• Relic of Leadership - improved condition cleansing. Works best with Mortar Kit as your elite because of the low CD and no cast time.

• Relic of Surging - another great option for Mortar Kit. The instant aura access could stun attackers on demand, stopping enemy burst attempts and thus increasing your survivability. The stun could also set up counterbursts.

• Relic of Isgarren - higher burst potential but less consistency.

Sigils

• Sigil of Cleansing over Sigil of Intelligence - better defense against conditions, worse damage.

Runes

• Rune of Fighter - better sustain in power matchups.

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 until heat goes back to 0. This can be avoided by dodging for Thermal Release Valve.

• 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 at least 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.

Forge skills

• The autoattack chain can do considerable cleave damage especially with Quickness.

• Holo Leap should be used on CD most of the time as this is an incredibly loaded skill on a very short CD. This skill provides mobility/cleansing via Crystal Configuration: Zephyr, does decent damage, and even functions as a Leap Finisher.

• Corona Burst tends to be the first skill Holosmiths use in combat right after entering holo mode. This is a two-parter that also stacks Might. The second strike goes off after a delay, making it ideal to combo with other skills for burst damage. Try to squeeze in 2 Corona Bursts before exiting the form.

• Photon Blitz offers some ranged pressure on an otherwise melee-focused set. You could combo this with the toolbelt skills Particle Accelerator and Surprise Shot for ranged burst damage if going into melee is too risky, but it's worth using for the damage regardless of range.

• Holographic Shockwave is an excellent AoE CC and also a Blast Finisher. You may also fake cast it by stowing your weapon right after activation in order to bait dodges from enemies.

General

• Be mindful of your defensive CDs before entering Holo mode! Activating Photon Forge replaces your weapon skills and locks you out of swapping back for a few seconds. Many of your defensives are located on your equipped weapon (be it Hammer or Sword/Shield), making you an easy target especially when your toolbelt and utility skills are on CD.

• Coolant Blast and Photon Wall are best used above 50 heat for maximum effectiveness. For Sword skills you should be aiming for 100+ heat.

• Superspeed on toolbelt is the only stun break in the build by default, but at least it recharges quickly. Slick Shoes could also be used while stunned in hopes of CCing enemies.

• Tool Kit is a versatile kit useful for it's block(Gear Shield) and it's burst damage (Pry Bar). However it's other skills are equally strong with Smack being the strongest melee autoattack on engineer, Box of Nails being great when used while running away for it's Cripple duration and Magnet being a hard to hit but very rewarding CC.

• Elite Mortar Kit is another versatile kit useful in just about any situation and has a lot of combo potential. It has a Poison field for healing reduction (that could also make it harder for enemies to rez their downed allies), Blind and Chill to avoid damage or kite enemies, and a Water field to combo extra healing. Most skills also do solid damage and could be used to pressure targets both in melee and range, further reducing your downtime between burst combos.

• Rifle Turret has low damage and gets blown up quickly in a real fight, it's really only taken for its toolbelt. That being said it still has some niche uses - for example you could place the turret at choke points and use it to get enemies into combat in order to slow their movements, or you may deploy it near downed enemies to prevent them from self-rezing while you move on to the next fight.

Damage

• The more heat you have, the more damage you do thanks to Laser's Edge and Enhanced Capacity Storage Unit.

• After every dodge roll you gain Explosive Entrance which adds a decent damage proc to your next attack.

• Particle Accelerator and Surprise Shot are the best skills for proccing Static Discharge. These provide frequently available instant burst damage and should be used as often as possible.

• Every 5th toolbelt skill you use gives you Quickness and Superspeed via Kinetic Battery.

• Photon Wall is primarily a defensive skill, but its chain skill lets you shoot it at nearby enemies for extra damage. Using this skill only for the damage is hardly ever worth it (as it's one of your few defensive CDs and doesn't hit that hard), but you should consider using Launch Wall when Photon Wall is about to expire.

• If taken Prime Light Beam is a powerful unblockable ranged AoE CC on low CD and works great for setting up bursts. The skill is very telegraphed and somewhat easy to avoid if you don't have Quickness, but you could even pull some mind-games with it. PLB roots you in place and makes you face towards your target - with skill retargeting enabled under Combat/Movement Options you're able to cast it on target A, bait out a dodge and then switch to target B in the last moment, hitting them with the beam.
  • If target A dodges and there is no target B simply stow your weapon to cancel it and try again a few seconds later, don't waste your elite.

• Once your heat is back at a reasonably low level enter holo mode and spam those skills, that's really all there is to it.

Sustain

• Healing Turret is a powerful but tricky heal to use. Once the turret is spawned you need to wait a short moment for the water field to appear. After which instantly cast Detonate Healing Turret doing this beigns the cooldown and heals for 1300HP. For 3 seconds while the water field is present you can use blasts or leaps such as Holo Leap or Essence of Animated Sand to heal an additional 1300HP every combo.

• Regenerating Mist ⇒ Holo Leap similarly you can use this combo every 15 seconds to heal for 2000HP, further improving your re-sustain.

• Slick Shoes is great at turning things around. The instant unblockable AoE CC could stop most burst attempts made by enemies without Stability while also creating the perfect opening for counterpressuring targets. Really good at immediately punishing teleport skills like Phase Traversal or Steal too.

• Toolbelt skills remove conditions. Since you're going to be spamming Surprise Shot and Particle Accelerator quite a lot you should be able to keep them at bay just by playing offensively. When conditions start to overwhelm you use Cauterize (preferably at high heat).

• The only stunbreak in the build is found on toolbelt skill Superspeed (not to be confused with the effect of the same name).

• Photon Wall is an extremely valuable blocking skill that allows you to keep pressuring targets without having to worry in most cases.

• Standing inside any of the AoE fields created by Elite Mortar Kit is already going to make you a less attractive target, but Flash Shell and Endothermic Shell are especially useful when used defensively. Elixir Shell isn't scary but being a water field you could use your many leap/blast finishers like Detonate Rifle Turret or Rocket Charge to get even more healing out of it.

Mobility

• Hammer-only Stack Swiftness for your team using Thunderclap ⇒ Holographic Shockwave ⇒ Detonate Rifle Turret.

• Keep spamming Holo Leap while moving between capture points if you don't have Swiftness, but don't overheat.

Top Streamers

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