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

Difficulty:
Hard
This build was last updated on February 05, 2024 and is up to date for the March 19, 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

  • over - 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 Blind could also be used proactively to avoid incoming attacks.
  • over - 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 on Fire.


Heal

  • - better condition removal.


Template Code

[&DQYfKyUeQx90AHQAHAHvGpAA6wDvGo4A9xr3GgAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA=]
Copy Template Code


Specializations


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

  • - defense option.


Sigils

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


Relics

  • - more damage.
  • - less damage than Isgarren but you have more control over it.
  • - helps with both kiting and sticking to targets.


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 Might stacking.


Utility

  • , , or


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 .


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:
    • on Fire increases your damage
    • on Water grants condition damage reduction.
    • on Air increases crit chance.
    • 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 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 Poison. The healing reduction could be important when fighting other bunker specs.
  • Because of 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 Confusion stacks in which case you'd take more damage then the signet could heal.
  • You gain Stability Stability whenever you gain an aura thanks to . The easiest way to get an aura is to swap to for a 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 or using .
    • 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.
  • (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 and active when unloading your harder hitting skills.
  • grants a short duration of Fury 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 , every skill here hits hard.
  • is a cone attack best used in melee range to make sure all 3 projectiles hit the target.
  • 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.
  • is rather straightforward, just a big smash you should aim to land when the target has Burning Burning. All the other Fire skills apply Burning so that shouldn't be hard.
  • Air is mostly about CC, but skill #2 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 Quickness from your Air Jade Sphere.
  • and are also worth a mention on Earth. The latter could even set up other burst skills with the Immobilize Immobilize.


Sustain

  • All of your utility skills are defensive by nature.
  • The build only has 1 stun break in the form of so use it wisely. If you're good at reading your opponent this could even be used preemptively for the Blind 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.
  • 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 pretty much on CD for the barrier and the aura.
  • Water provides much needed healing and cleansing. 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 for further damage mitigation).
  • is your best cleanse, this too scales with the number of enemies it hits.
  • cleanses a condition whenever you apply an aura to yourself.
  • 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 synergy. As the Jade Sphere is instant you could even drop a combo field on the middle of your dodge.


Related Builds


Ratings

This build has a rating of 4 stars based on 3 votes.
Log in or register to rate this build.
5 stars
Bati gave this build 5 stars • September 2023
The change to Windstorm now giving superspeed, and not distancing the player between their target, lowers the difficulty in setting up and landing hammer combo damage. Power hybrid hammer variants benefit from the greater ease in lock down; however, mobility becomes a must when considering dropping celestial stats (e.g. speed relic, lightning flash). The build maintains itself as a potent 1v1 spec regardless.
2 stars
Hotnickels gave this build 2 stars • April 2023
Highly susceptible to immob and kiting, but otherwise fine. Most other ele specs are just flat out better for roaming
5 stars
Hanz gave this build 5 stars • August 2022
Extremely strong 1v1 spec, Hammer was just made for Cele and we know already how well ele works with that stat in general. Makes good use of every stat, great hybrid damage, condition cleansing is not that faceroll and fighting condi specs takes some caution. Mobility's kinda bad but the rune might help.

Comments

Get MetaBattle Premium
Enjoy an ad-free experience & support the website, for less than $1 per month! Upgrade to Premium