Build:Holosmith - Power Holo

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

Focused on: Strike damage and Mobility

Designed for: Open World and Open World General

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

TBD

This build was last updated on April 14, 2022 and is up to date for the March 19, 2024 patch.

Overview

A power-based Holosmith build for open world. This build features extremely high burst damage and excellent mobility.

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Skill Bar

Sword/Shield

Utility

Skill Variants

Healing

• Elixir H - ease of use
• A.E.D. - stronger heal with good CC

Utility Skills

• Laser Disk - toolbelt skill deals strong single target damage
• Spectrum Shield - extremely powerful defensive tool
• Photon Wall - provides a block on demand and a toolbelt skill that deals good damage.
• Personal Battering Ram - heavy crowd control on a short cooldown.
• Rocket Boots - for running away from things.
• Flamethrower - for tagging mobs in group events with Flame Jet.

Elite Skills

• Prime Light Beam - more raw damage if you don't need the utility of Elite Mortar Kit.

Specializations

Variants

• Light Density Amplifier - trades some damage for defense
• Prismatic Converter - more condition cleanse.
• Crystal Configuration: Storm - turns the auto-attack into a 600-range projectile while in forge, also makes it an explosion; this has extreme synergy with the explosives traitline & is great for tagging
• Thermal Release Valve - can be combined with a Sigil of Stamina in zergs or chain-farming situations for nearly permanent forge.

Alchemy Variant

This variant deals much lower DPS but provides much higher durability. This typically should replace Firearms, though to keep the high crit chance you can also replace explosives.

Equipment

Berserker

This set uses gear similar to Build:Holosmith_-_Power_Sword_DPS, making it excellent for general PvE

Head
Berserker

Shoulders
Berserker

Chest
Berserker

Hands
Berserker

Legs
Berserker

Feet
Berserker

Backpiece
Berserker

Accessory
Berserker

Accessory
Berserker

Amulet
Berserker

Ring
Berserker

Ring
Berserker

Sword
Berserker

Shield
Berserker

Sigil

Sigil

Variants

Fast Tagging

In events that require fast AOE damage, take Thermal Release Valve and Crystal Configuration: Storm with a Sigil of Superior Sigil of Stamina for higher tagging potential.

Gear

• Marauder - trade some damage for a moderate boost to HP
• Knight, Soldier - can mix a few pieces of this into your gear for extra defense.
• Rune of Superior Rune of the Eagle - higher solo DPS but less useful in groups
• Rune of Superior Rune of Durability, Rune of Superior Rune of Vampirism - defense
• Sigil of Energy - defense

Consumables

Food

• Any ascended food is superior to any other food you could use. Steak for power, flatbread for conditions. Budget versions of these foods exist and are acceptable.
• - farming
• , - DPS
• - defense

Utility

• (and variants) - farming
• , - dps

Usage

Damage

This build's usage breaks down into two Loops: Your Forge Loop and your Sword Loop. As a note, you should always try to be between 50% and 150% heat; you should be entering forge before falling below 50%.

Opener

Open fights at 50% heat with the Forge opening. If you are not at 50% heat at the start of the fight, before performing your Forge opener use Holographic Shockwave to gain a lot of heat quickly, then proceed with your normal forge opener.

Forge Loop

Enter Forge at around 50% heat. During this loop, you will want to use Corona Burst first, and then off cooldown while using Photon Blitz off cooldown as well. Auto-attack between skill uses, and try to avoid using other forge skills to conserve heat. If done correctly, you can fit 3x Corona Burst and 2x Photon Blitz into this loop.

Sword Loop

After your Forge Loop, you will enter Sword Loop. During this phase, spam Refraction Cutter, Radiant Arc, and auto-attack. Weave in utilities as you see fit, and use CC when appropriate.

Utilities

For Toolbelt skills and Utilities, try and use them off cooldown but only ever above 50% Heat. If you are trying to buy some time for a skill to come back up in Forge but have high heat and don't want to auto-attack, this is the perfect time to weave in a DPS utility like Grenade Barrage or Prime Light Beam.

Defense

Holosmith is a DPS spec at its heart and does a poor job of face-tanking mobs due to low sustain. For defense you will rely on a handful of skills and your ability to dodge to survive.

This build features a few defensive variants and options. Generally, the best defense for Holosmith is quickly terminating your attacker, but when that is not a possibility consider skills such as Hard Light Arena, Spectrum Shield, and Flash Shell for powerful defensive utility. When possible, try to CC enemies and burst them down; they can't kill you if they don't get a chance to attack.

If this is not enough, defensive gear options such as Rune of Superior Rune of Durability and Sigil of Energy can greatly boost your personal survivability, though these come at a loss to DPS.

Cleanses

• Healing Turret
• Prismatic Converter

Crowd Control

• Magnetic Inversion
• Static Shield
• Throw Shield
• Prismatic Singularity
• Holographic Shockwave