How do I fight Holosmith?

Hi I am a top tier Soulbeast player (top 100, occasional top 10). I run variations of meta, mixing amulets and typically running paladin's with sword/warhorn and GS. I also swap weapons out for axe/warhorn, and lb for gs. Pets are also changed out depending on the team im going against (owl for condi, siamoth for power) and the map (raven for aggressive plays).

How do I fight Holosmith? They seem to be on the rise and I cannot compete 1 on 1 for very long depending on the skill of the player. They have a lot of sustain, a lot of CC, boon removal which KILLS the soulbeast's stances, and if I happened to get them low to a near death, they either shrink... twice. Stealth. And/or use their insane mobility, all of which puts them near 50% in no time. I've heard not to be aggressive with them, or get in their face. I classify this advice as "git gud" level of helpfulness, similar to "Reroll into another class". I do not know what "not in their face" means because they can easily close distance I put between myself and them, especially if I am using a lb or axe mainhand which severly cuts into my mobility, though the added stealth from lb gives me some breathing room if I am able to land it. And that is a big IF. Furthermore, not being able to challenge a class on point is very detrimental to the team's score and effectiveness of myself as a player.

This post is not trying to question the design of holo as being OP, Underpowered, or an assessment of my skill as a player, or the skill of anyone else really. I just want to ask the community if they have any build tips/strats to help dismantle an engi's Modus Operandi. I especially appreciate the skilled SB's of the forums to offer what has worked for them against holos, because I seem to be hitting a brickwall. Hell, I see a lot of people defending holo's against the assumption that they are Overpowered. If this post gets any attention, I hope to have their input at what they fear in a soulbeast, and what other soulbeasts do that may result in them being beaten as a holo.

Again, I hope responses focus on the topic: How do I fight a holosmith?

If you're talking 1v1, there's a soulbeast build that is designed for just that: https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Soulbeast_-_Boon_Beast

I have a very tough time killing soulbeasts running that build on my holo.

They have a lot of sustain, a lot of CC, boon removal which KILLS the soulbeast's stances, and if I happened to get them low to a near death, they either shrink... twice. Stealth. And/or use their insane mobility, all of which puts them near 50% in no time.

Holos don't have boon removal, unless you're specifically referring to stability? And their mobility is almost entirely constrained to swiftness.

You're also referring specifically to this build right? Your best bet is baiting out long cooldown skills (IE Elixir U and Elixir X) and kiting/blocking/evading. Then play aggressive when they're out of holomode, rinse, repeat.

PS -- the only skills in engineer's entire arsenal that remove boons are Throw Mine and Mine Field (attached to the same skill). Bunker down-generated mines also do that.

Holos do have boon removal. The utility skill Throw Mine is a personal bane. Everytime I pop Dolyak as a stun breaker for one of their many 2-3seconds knockdown/backs, the stab is immediately removed by their mines, throwing me back into a world of too many cc's to dodge.

I've used this build. It does not cut it against holos. They simply peel off for a hot second while shrunk or stealthed, and re-enter with longer sustain.

And their mobility is not at all constrained to swiftness. They have several jumps.

@The Night Fox.6018 said:Holos do have boon removal. The utility skill Throw Mine is a personal bane. Everytime I pop Dolyak as a stun breaker for one of their many 2-3seconds knockdown/backs, the stab is immediately removed by their mines, throwing me back into a world of too many cc's to dodge.

Wait, who the hell is running throw mine in their build? Are you fighting scrappers? Throw mine is not particularly meta.

@The Night Fox.6018 said:I've used this build. It does not cut it against holos. They simply peel off for a hot second while shrunk or stealthed, and re-enter with longer sustain.

And their mobility is not at all constrained to swiftness. They have several jumps.

What jumps? Are you talking about Rocket Boots?

If that's the case, then you are definitely not fighting holosmiths running anything close to a meta build. What you're describing is a gadgeteer engineer that's more of a +1'er than a meta engineer build.

Wait, who the hell is running throw mine in their build? Are you fighting scrappers? Throw mine is not particularly meta.

Tell that to the top tier holos. I would love them to follow your advice.

What jumps? Are you talking about Rocket Boots?

Rifle 5 is also a jump.

@The Night Fox.6018 said:

Wait, who the hell is running throw mine in their build? Are you fighting scrappers? Throw mine is not particularly meta.

Tell that to the top tier holos. I would love them to follow your advice.

I'm calling BS. I'm in Plat 3 right now... last time I saw an engineer with throw mine, it was a scrapper. If the engi wants another CC, there are way better choices than throw mine that don't require ground targeting. Thumper turret, personal battering ram, and prismatic singularity (attached to HLA) make more sense.

@The Night Fox.6018 said:What jumps? Are you talking about Rocket Boots?

Rifle 5 is also a jump.

If they're using rifle 5 to get away, that means they're giving up significant damage potential to escape.

I quote Vagrant, where the hell do you find engis running mines for boon removal?They are not seen even in unraked.

Watching top tiers streams, all engis are either Holo X, the new elixir x meta with dodge to reduce the cooldown of elite skill and 50% endurance regeneration, some casual holo still running static discharge and kinetic battery for really high burst, and third really good bunker hammer scrappers (not very popular) which runs elixir s, elixir u, a gyro, and stealth gyro, no way they can fit it the throw mine for boon removal.

One thing that really destroy holos more than any other profession is immobilize, they only have healing turret which removes two condis, and getting out of photon forge converts another 2 condis, and that's all, they usually have to be smart on the usage of photon walls to prevent conditions from being applied in the first place.

If you land a pretty good immobilize when they already got out of photon forge and just used healing turret you can outplay and holo pretty hard.Even maintaining poison and weakness on them helps a lot.

To kill an holo you need burst damage and not sustained damage, because with their heals they will outsustain your damage.

Unfortunately running axe/axe sword/warhorn soulbeast your only burst damage comes from axe5 which is not easy to land on good players, other than that your damage is thought autoattacks and it's sustained not burst, that's why you are having problems to deal with them.

Right now the only viable soulbeast build is boonbeast with axe/axe sword/warhorn, but you are a sidenoder holder, not really a duelist, you can avoid holos completely and kite on far if they plus one you, your role is not much taking 1vs1s.

And if you see an holo coming to you and you know you can't win, just go away and help another node, it's definitely better than dying and even giving the holo the node.

Not every profession can kill every single profession in the game, except of course condi mirage which is just a lame broken spec.

Hope it helped.

i run LB/GS and I seem to be doing ok against them. like others I have also not seen any holos with significant boon removal other than a sigil. most of them run their holo utilities and elixirs.

my build has a lot of quickness so if you know when to place your burst in consideration to THEIR rotation you can kinda force them to move off the point to stealth and recover or move behind walls etc. usually you have to use this burst when they think they have the upper hand like they pop stability and go into holo mode with 5 stacks and want to burst you down.. they usually expect you to dodge and kite them but that's when you hit them hard. ofc this kinda requires you to have stability as well with dolyak stance or sotp.

outside of holo mode they can't really do anything because GS is just such a god damned good weapon with all it's CC and dmg.

so idk if this is any help. one of your biggest issues seem to be boon removal but I have literally never experienced that from holos.. perhaps they're running a specific counter build to yours because they know you run the boonheavy axe build? hard to say.

What usually works for me is camp GS. Only swap into longbow when you see the chance to land a CC and burst or you see them without stability and need them to back off from you. GS has good defensive options such as evade on leap, block and the evade on auto attack which you should use the double evade trick thing.I usually save the the block for photo blitz( the shooting skill in forgemode) and make sure to dodge the aoe CC(skill 5), then go for burst and CC when they have no stab. If i have to step out of node for a while i do so, don't eat a full burst combo just to keep the node bar full.

Something I find useful against holos is how high soulbeast can stack stability with the trait Fresh Reinforcement. Dolyak alone will be 12 stacks (18 w/ stance sharing) for a nature magic build on merging. SotP nets 20 stacks (25 for a nm build) on merging. The pet also serves as boon battery for your own stability getting stripped or corrupted or expiring.

I have recently been trying Moa/Dolyak Stance with Fresh Reinforcement and I have found holos are not nearly as intimidating because of the stab uptime. The quickness uptime definitely helps put out pressure too. I feel like I can brawl with them now much more reliably.

@"Pterikdactyl.7630" said:I have recently been trying Moa/Dolyak Stance with Fresh Reinforcement and I have found holos are not nearly as intimidating because of the stab uptime. The quickness uptime definitely helps put out pressure too. I feel like I can brawl with them now much more reliably.

I run sword/warhorn and LB, along with Moa, Dolyak, One Wolf Pack, and Fresh Reinforcement - with QZ for good measure. As long as I am observant and just a little patient, I can usually burst most plat holos pretty easily. If I can force them into Elixir S, I have the speed on sw/wh to really get on top and harass them to death. Smart ones run off, usually taking pet or LB damage after their shrinks - but I get the node. Dumb ones stick around, and die rapidly.

Fight rifle holos at range. You can sidestep anything they throw at you from 600~900+ range.Pistol/shield or the few Sword/shields are more work.... but they got less burst..