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PvE Power holosmith. On Explosive Temper and Crystal configuration traits.


Arkanthor.2307

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This is mainly in the fractal/raid/strike mission context.So, playing power rifle holo I´ve noticed that photon forge doesn´t have many explosions to keep the Explosive Temper stacks outside of using Grenade barrage toolkit skill. I noticed that most meta builds use Crystal configuration: Eclipse on holosmith traitline that grants barrier on Corona burst cast wich while it contributes to our sustain it isn´t a DPS upgrade. However in the same trait choice there is Crystal configuration: Storm turns Photon forge´s autoattacks into a proyectile that is classified as an explosion(and could help with Explosive temper stacks as well as benefiting from explosion traits) at the cost of faster heat generation.So my doubts would be:-1: Is there a way to keep Explosive Temper stacks while on photon forge that I´m not noticing?-2: Maybe Explosive Temper stacks aren´t as important as iI believed?-3: Is Crystal: Eclipse meta because a slower heat generation is more beneficial that the advantages provided by Crystal: Storm or this last option could be a viable improvement? (I´m terrible at testing builds and have not the ingame tools or experience to do it in a reliable way).Thank you for your answers in advance!

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I don't fully know what is the meta build for holosmith, but you can still have a nice number of explosions without necessarely using kits;

Indeed, there is a trait that makes your photon forge skill 1 an explosion, but yes, your heat will climb faster and you'll lose the barrier of Corona Burst. But, if you're more confortable with that, why not?

Speaking of Corona Burst, this skill is an explosion.

There is a trait in Explosive trait line that makes your next attack an explosion after your dodge.

Some usefull exceed skills are also explosive and can contribute to Explosive Temper, but again, I'm not fully aware of what people says is meta.Hard light arena's toolbelt skill is a cc with an explosion, photon wall has a second skill when activated that launches projectiles (up to 3) and each of them is an explosion.Prime light beam is an explosion.

This was covering explosions for holosmith only (explosive trait line included), there is sure to have other skills / trait that creates more explosions.

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From my personal observations, focusing on maxing any cosmetics (buff stacks) usually comes with a loss in DPS. You sacrifice vital parts of your rotations for maintaining those effects. This comes with might-stacks, quickness uptime and even some of our damage-multipliers which require certain conditions. In instanced group-content, Holo is just a DPS machine - which is one of the reasons why I do not consider the Holo a true engineer.

I use a hybrid damage Holosmith with Grieving gear, the official term is burn holo (?), with CC Storm and Vent Exhaust. Elixir R for higher dodging-frequency. That way I can maintain the Photon Forge even longer than the meta. But as explained above, this cosmetic-upgrade comes at a cost of damage-output.

If you want to give Explosive Temper a try, focus on stacking it up for extreme bursts only. Maintaining it the entire time will probably lead to a greater damage loss. The above suggested Grenade Barrage can be an option. If you are not using the Grenade Kit in your build at all, Mine Field might be an option as well. It has way shorter cooldown than the GB and grants access to a powerful CC, which also detonates. It works best in melee-fights and grants instant charges. I use it in my PVE Scrapper build, works fine.

Another good option to stack up ET can be to activate Explosive Entrance and use Corona Burst when surrounded by several enemies. My early field-tests already showed that Explosive Entrance has no target limit. What ever attack you use with this buff, only the number of impacts decides how many ET stacks you gain. With good aiming and enough adds arround you may be able to generate a stack of 10 with a single Corona Burst, I usually gain around 7-8.

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1 - Corona Burst is likely your main source of explosions along with Grenade Barrage.2 - It's nice but not entirely crucial, you'll definitely lose DPS trying to maintain it.3 - Eclipse is "meta" because it's the one configuration that affects the skills the least. Heat Generation may be troublesome with the Storm configuration but most importantly: You'll shoot explosive projectiles even in melee range and it messes up your cleaving abilities pretty badly., it also seems to cap the attack speed somehow. Zephyr could be nice though some people have a benefit having swiftness instead of super speed.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Your stacks last 10 sec at a time. In rifle holo, you drop at 50% literally as soon as you possibly can, which is after doing corona burst twice (4 stacks)—then you do a bomb and a shrapnel grenade (4 more stacks) before going back in. Functionally, you have an overall average of like 9.9 stacks across a whole benchmark. Running storm is no tangible benefit but does mess up your rotation by overheating you faster. Being at a distance will also make it cancel the third hit of the chain by casting the first hit too quickly.

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