User:Masel/Builds/Holosmith

Sword + Pistol Power Holosmith

Build Rating (Subjective)

Criterion	Rating
Burst Damage	5/5
Sustained Damage	4/5
Utility Options	3/5
Survivability	2/5
Difficulty	3/5

Power  Holosmith is a very bursty elite specialization with a great damage output and a straightforward playstyle. It's a great pick for all kinds of Group PvE and a solid pick for solo gameplay. It can provide itself with  Might,  Fury,  Quickness,  Protection and maintain full  Vulnerability stacks on enemies, making it a great damage build for open world once you learned the basics.

Link to the Build on the Editor

Playstyle & Skills

Skill Type	Skills
Photon Forge
Toolbelt
Sword + Pistol
Utility

Photon Forge

• On Holosmith, the last Tool belt skill is always replaced by the   Engage Photon Forge, while the others are utility skills that you can freely swap in and out:

#	Skill			Description
Photon Forge
1	Light Strike			Swing a holographic blade.
1	Bright Slash	0.5½		Slash with a blade of light energy.
1	Flash Cutter	0.5½		Cleave through all foes in front of you twice.
2	Holo Leap	0.75¾	2	Create a holographic launch pad and leap to your foe. The pad remains behind for a short duration, granting increased movement speed to allies who touch it.
3	Corona Burst	0.5½	6	Strike nearby foes and begin to store up energy, gaining boons and heat each pulse. After charging, the energy explodes, inflicting conditions on nearby foes.
4	Photon Blitz	10.5½	10	Fire multiple piercing blasts at your target.
5	Holographic Shockwave	0.75¾	15	Create a deadly holographic shockwave that launches foes upward. This attack always deals a critical hit.

• While in Photon Forge, you will consistently generate Heat (2% per second) and more whenever you use a Photon Forge skill. With increasing heat, you will gain additional benefits on your Exceed skills, related Tool belt skills and Sword skills. This is mostly going to be damage, so try to stay above 50% heat at all times.
• You need to be careful though: if you reach the heat limit, you will overheat, causing you to take damage and being unable to enter Photon Forge for quite some time. It's crucial that you leave Forge before this happens.

Rotation Concept

You can find my most recent rotation showcase here.
Damage Log

Rotation Flow

Section	Notes
General Stuff	Careful:This build scales with the number of conditions on the enemy. For guidance on setting up the training area, see my guide for it The rotation centers around maintaining more than 50% heat and alternating between Photon Forge and Sword + Pistol, while using   Corona Burst to maximize heat levels outside of Photon Forge. Always use   Surprise Shot,   Particle Accelerator and   Blade Burst on cooldown. They're instant cast, so you can always cast them without disrupting other skills. For range, you can use   Elite Mortar Kit or   Grenade Kit.   Grenade Kit replaces   Rifle Turret
Opener	Start in Photon Forge and pre-heat to ~50 Heat by casting   Holo Leap x2 and   Holographic Shockwave x1, then place your   Rifle Turret. &   Engage Photon Forge right after.
Section 1: Photon Forge	Use   Corona Burst +   Photon Blitz Once you reach 100% heat, cast   Photon Wall (both casts),   Laser Disk and   Prime Light Beam. The latter is a priority skill, so don't interrupt your other skills by pressing this early. As soon as you get close to maximum Heat, use   Corona Burst and exit Forge right after.   Corona Burst produces additional heat after its cast, but it will not cause you to overheat if you exit Forge early enough. That way, you can maintain high heat levels after exiting.
Section 2: Sword + Pistol	Your auto attack chain recharges your other two sword skills on the final hit. Try to complete the chains while casting all other sword and pistol skills on cooldown. Once you drop to ~75% heat (the middle of the entire bar), enter Photon Forge and repeat from there. As long as you are above 100% heat, cast   Photon Wall (both casts),   Laser Disk and   Prime Light Beam even when they come off cooldown outside of Forge.
CC Skills for Breakbar Damage	Static Shock   Holographic Shockwave   Throw Mine can replace   Rifle Turret for additional Stuns.

Gear & Traits

Important Stats in Hero Panel (descending in Importance):

1. At least 45% Critical Chance:  Fury gives 25% ,  High Caliber adds another 15% against enemies within close range and  Hematic Focus adds another 15% against foes affected by  Bleeding.
2. Maximize Power
3. Maximize Ferocity

• Ascended gear is always ideal, but exotic gear is fine for everything aside from higher-tier fractals. On a  Power build, prioritize getting Ascended Weapons because of their impact on Weapon Strength.
• Most of the gear in this build is shared with  Power  Scrapper, allowing you to play both with one gear set.

Gear

Armor	Prefix	Rune
Head	Berserker's	Superior Rune of the Scholar
Shoulders	Berserker's	Superior Rune of the Scholar
Chest	Berserker's	Superior Rune of the Scholar
Gloves	Berserker's	Superior Rune of the Scholar
Legs	Berserker's	Superior Rune of the Scholar
Boots	Berserker's	Superior Rune of the Scholar
Trinket	Prefix
Amulet	Berserker's
Ring 1	Berserker's
Ring 2	Berserker's
Accessory 1	Berserker's
Accessory 2	Berserker's
Backpack	Berserker's
Weapon	Prefix	Sigil
Sword (Main Hand)	Berserker's	Superior Sigil of Force
Pistol (Off Hand)	Berserker's	Superior Sigil of Impact
Shortbow (Main & Off Hand)	Berserker's	Superior Sigil of Force & Superior Sigil of Celerity
Purpose	Item Type	Source
Damage	Ascended Food	Cilantro Lime Sous-Vide Steak
Damage	Non-Ascended Food	Bowl of Sweet and Spicy Butternut Squash Soup
Survivability	Ascended Food	Peppercorn-Crusted Sous-Vide Steak
Survivability	Non-Ascended Food	Oysters with Zesty Sauce
Damage	Utility	Potent Superior Sharpening Stone
Survivability	Utility	Potion Of Karka Toughness
Damage	Relic	Relic of the Thief
Survivability	Relic	Relic of Zakiros

Traits

Explosives
Firearms
Holosmith

• For a budget variant, simply replace all ascended armor pieces of Berserker's with rare/exotic Berserker's.
• The secondary weapon set (Shortbow) is mostly there for ranged gameplay whenever it is needed in open world; more on this down below.
• Superior Sigil of Air is cheaper than Superior Sigil of Impact and yields similar results on the golem, but it is only single-target and lower damage against bosses with frequent breakbar phases.

Open World Build

You can find my most recent open world build showcase here.

LInk to the Build on the Editor

For OW, it can make sense to make a build more forgiving, so that you can sustain on your own.

• A first step to increase survivability is to use Relic of Zakiros . This is a massive boost to survivability when playing alone, as you will heal for 4 % of your damage dealt. With at least 15k dps, that amounts to 600 health per second with a fairly small damage tradeoff.
• On top of that, make use of   Light Density Amplifier for a 15% damage taken reduction. This costs some damage, but is worth it for the additional safety.
• Change some of your trinkets to exotic Diviner's for easier boon coverage. You have a spare 5% critical chance anyway, so the dps loss from that isn't too large. Just make sure you still hit 45% critical chance.
•   Radiant Arc &   Elixir U provide a full  Quickness uptime on yourself with the mentioned Diviner's trinkets.
• Finally, you can use Shortbow instead of Sword + Pistol for fights where being in melee is too dangerous. That provides ranged gameplay, self-healing, Barrier and  Protection. Note that the  Power scaling of the weapon is fairly poor, so it will reduce your damage output noticeably. Put a Superior Sigil of Celerity on it to cover  Quickness.
• If you can, make use of   Jade Tech Offensive Overcharge and   Jade Tech Defensive Overcharge.
• These give for 150 additional Toughness, Vitality, Condition Damage and Power as well as all boons aside from  Stability,  Resistance and  Resolution on entering combat every 30 seconds. The  Protection from this is another free massive gain to survivability!
• If those changes are not comfortable enough for you, you can use the survivability food and utlity item listed above for another -10% damage taken and 150 Toughness and replace any piece of Berserker's with Knight's!

Utility Skill Options (Open World)

Skill Choice	Notes
Healing Turret	Strongest self-heal you have available and further maintains  Regeneration on you and allies. Use both casts to blast the Water Field for additional healing.
Photon Wall	3 second Block that blocks all attacks from the front (also blocks for allies behind the wall). The second cast does good damage and a good chunk of {{vulnerability), try to not let it run out.
Elixir U	Stun break and source for  Quickness and a 30% uptime on  Stability. We're using it on cooldown for the  Quickness, but you can also save it for the Stun break if needed.
Hard Light Arena	Allows you to fully maintain  Fury with   No Scope and partial uptimes on  Protection and  Regeneration. Also comes with a Pull in the form of   Prismatic Singularity.
Prime Light Beam	Strong damage and some Defiance bar damage. Can be replaced with   Elite Mortar Kit for range on demand.