Catalyst - Celestial Hammer Roamer

The community gave this build a rating, making it second-tier: Good

Focused on: Hybrid damage and Sustain

Designed for: WvW Roaming

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

Hard

This build was last updated on November 21, 2024 and is up to date for the October 8, 2024 patch.

Overview

A hybrid Celestial Hammer Catalyst build for WvW roaming, offering a strong mix of damage and sustain. While the build is quite durable when played right, condition cleansing is rather scarce in Hammer (mainly due to the lack of aura transmutes) and much of the healing is tied to executing combos, which can make this a bit harder and less straightforward to pilot than a build like D/D Catalyst.

Skill Bar

Hammer

Utility

Skill Variants

Utility

• Armor of Earth over Signet of Air - Armor is a better defensive skill in general but it's on a longer CD. It's up to you to decide what's more important for you, a stronger defensive or more frequent access to a stun break. The Signet's Blind could also be used proactively to avoid incoming attacks.

• Conjure Earth Shield over Lightning Flash - great defensive skill with decent damage and CC. The invulnerability could help you out a lot especially against conditions which is something the build can struggle against. Take the trait Conjurer on Fire.

Heal

• Soothing Water - better condition removal.

Template Code

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Equipment

Head
Celestial

Shoulders
Celestial

Chest
Celestial

Hands
Celestial

Legs
Celestial

Feet
Celestial

Backpiece
Celestial

Accessory
Celestial

Accessory
Celestial

Amulet
Celestial

Ring
Celestial

Ring
Celestial

Hammer
Celestial

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

Infusion
x18

Relic

Equipment Variants

Runes

• Rune of Superior Rune of Durability - defense option.

Sigils

If you're having trouble surviving condition pressure consider going for more defensive sigils:

• Sigil of Superior Sigil of Cleansing

• Sigil of Superior Sigil of Energy

Relics

• Relic of Isgarren - more damage.

• Relic of Fireworks - less damage than Isgarren but you have more control over it.

• Relic of Speed - helps with both kiting and sticking to targets.

• Relic of Antitoxin - if you're desperate for more condi cleanse.

Consumables

Food

• - Ascended food which boosts all of your stats much like Celestial gear while also reducing incoming damage.

• - provides a general stat boost just like the other Ascended food, but reduces incoming condition duration instead of strike damage. Could be a good option if you're struggling against conditions more than Power-based damage.

• - extra endurance regen and Might stacking.

Utility

• , , or

• Budget: either from Canned Food Crates found in WvW s or purchased from the Permanent Portable Provisioner.

Usage

Elite specialization basics

• Catalysts gain access to Deploy Jade Sphere which drops an AoE combo field with pulsing boons depending on the attunement they were used in.

• The Jade Sphere costs energy to deploy, you build energy by hitting enemies or swapping attunements thanks to Energized Elements.

General

• Your role is primarily to be a sidenoder, holding the point and winning smaller skirmishes.

• Skill #3 on each attunement is an orb skill, consider this your secondary profession mechanic. Air and Fire grant offensive bonuses while Water and Earth supply you with defensive ones. All 4 orbs also pulse damage and apply conditions around you while active:
  • Flame Wheel on Fire increases your damage
  • Icy Coil on Water grants condition damage reduction.
  • Crescent Wind on Air increases crit chance.
  • Rocky Loop on Earth reduces direct damage.

• Each orb has a duration of 8 seconds, but whenever you add a new orb to the mix the duration of all previous orbs is refreshed. Once you've rotated through all 4 attunements the orbs will inevitably fall off - this is when you should use the chain skill Grand Finale which shoots them at your target for damage.
  • Try to use Grand Finale in your Earth Sphere's field whenever you can to combo Poison. The healing reduction could be important when fighting other bunker specs.

• Because of Signet of Restoration you should almost always be casting something for the passive healing, even if it's just an autoattack that's not even hitting anything. An exception to this would be having high enough Confusion stacks in which case you'd take more damage then the signet could heal.

• You gain Stability whenever you gain an aura thanks to Staunch Auras. The easiest way to get an aura is to swap to Fire Attunement for a Sunspot proc. This is instant and can even be done while casting skills or sitting in a CC, preventing enemies from piling more CCs onto you.

• Other sources of auras include performing any combo in your Jade Sphere via Elemental Epitome or using Immutable Stone.
  • Immutable Stone is a channeled block - the aura is applied after you block something. This gives you a little bit of time to swap attunements before that happens and get an aura of your choice as the aura is granted based on your current attunement.

• Elemental Celerity (the elite) is used mainly to reset the CD of skills 4-5 of a given attunement, usually Water or Earth for defensive purposes.

Damage

• Try to have Flame Wheel and Crescent Wind active when unloading your harder hitting skills.

• Energized Elements grants a short duration of Fury whenever you swap attunements. It's not much, but just enough to cover your next 1-2 skills so consider using some harder hitting skill right after swapping.
  • As swapping elements doesn't interrupt your casts, you could even boost your crit chance through this while casting a skill. All you need to do is swap attunement before the skill lands.

• Most of the burst comes from Fire Attunement, every skill here hits hard.

• Surging Flames is a cone attack best used in melee range to make sure all 3 projectiles hit the target.

• Triple Sear creates 3 AoEs on the ground - try to position this in a way that your opponent is in the center of this skill so they get hit by all 3.

• Molten End is rather straightforward, just a big smash you should aim to land when the target has Burning. All the other Fire skills apply Burning so that shouldn't be hard.

• Air is mostly about CC, but skill #2 Hurricane of Pain hits rather hard. Only downside is, this has a rather long cast time and you'll have a hard time landing it without proper setup. Try to CC targets beforehand and make sure to have Quickness from your Air Jade Sphere.

• Whirling Stones and Ground Pound are also worth a mention on Earth. The latter could even set up other burst skills with the Immobilize.

Sustain

• All of your utility skills are defensive by nature.

• The build only has 1 stun break in the form of Signet of Air so use it wisely. If you're good at reading your opponent this could even be used preemptively for the Blind, making the incoming attack miss instead of waiting to get hit only to break the CC. If CC isn't a concern in the matchup then the same logic applies, the signet could save you from getting hit by something dangerous.

• Conjure Earth Shield is for buying time and surviving heavy pressure. With a block, an aura, a CC and an invulnerability frame this could bridge the gap in your defenses until your other CDs come back up or help arrives.

• Use Immutable Stone pretty much on CD for the barrier and the aura.

• Water provides much needed healing and cleansing. Crashing Font heals you for each enemy struck with the first one healing for more. Against enemies like Mesmers try to hit as many clones as possible for bonus healing. Consider using it inside your Water Sphere to combo even more healing (and Frost Aura for further damage mitigation).

• Cleansing Typhoon is your best cleanse, this too scales with the number of enemies it hits.

• Smothering Auras cleanses a condition whenever you apply an aura to yourself.

• Evasive Arcana heals and cleanses when used on Water while the first dodge on Earth turns into a blast finisher. Once again, try to land inside a combo field for that sweet Elemental Epitome synergy. As the Jade Sphere is instant you could even drop a combo field on the middle of your dodge.

Related Builds

• Catalyst - Power Hammer - sPvP version.

• Catalyst - Cele D/D - double dagger variant.