Catalyst - Celestial S/F Roamer

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Focused on: Hybrid damage and Mobility

Designed for: WvW Roaming

Difficulty:

Easy

Overview

A hybrid/condition focused Scepter/Focus Catalyst build for WvW Roaming.

Skill Bar

Weapon 1: Scepter

Weapon 2: Focus

Weapon 3:

Weapon 4:

Healing skill: Signet of Restoration

Utility skill 1: Fortified Earth

Utility skill 2: Lightning Flash

Utility skill 3: Signet of Air

Elite skill: Elemental Celerity

Skill Variants

Utility

• Armor of Earth over Signet of Restoration - Armor is a better stun break but on a longer CD. It's up to you to decide what you want more, a strong defensive CD or more frequent stun break access.

Lightning Flash can be replaced by:

• Shattering Ice - excellent Chill uptime.

• Glyph of Elemental Power - adds a bit of burst damage when used on fire but could also work as a stun break.

• Conjure Earth Shield - amazing boost to your sustain.

Heal

• Soothing Water - if you're struggling against conditions.

Template Code

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Specializations

Fire: Top, Mid, Mid

Arcane: Top, Mid, Top

Catalyst: Bot, Bot, Top

Equipment

Rune: 6 Superior Rune of Balthazar

Infusion 1: 18 Malign WvW Infusion

Infusion 2:

Relic:

Weapon 1: Scepter

Weapon 2: Focus

Sigil 1: Superior Sigil of Doom

Sigil 2: Superior Sigil of Energy

Weapon 3:

Weapon 4:

Sigil 3:

Sigil 4:

Main stats: Celestial

Sigils

• Superior Sigil of Torment - adds a new condition to the build, making it harder for enemies to cleanse your more important ones while also doing some damage.

• Superior Sigil of Cleansing - if you're having trouble dealing with conditions.

• Superior Sigil of Geomancy - AoE damage proc that could be used to instantly apply the Poison from the Doom sigil the same time this sigil strike an enemy, but the proc has melee range so sometimes it could go to waste if you're too far away from the targetwhen swapping attunements.

Rune

• Superior Rune of Antitoxin - way better cleansing, strong synergy with various traits like Smothering Auras or even Soothing Water if you chose that heal.

Consumables

Food

• Spherified Peppercorn-Spiced Oyster Soup - passive damage mitigation and a boost to all of your stats, goes well with all Celestial builds.

• Bowl of Orrian Truffle and Meat Stew - defensive option with more evasion.

Utility

• Tuning Icicle

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.

• Jade Spheres are instant and can be used while casting skills or sitting in a CC.

General

• 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.

• Elemental Celerity's main purpose is to reset/reduce the CDs on Magnetic Wave and Obsidian Flesh for extra sustain, but if you want to get greedy it could also reset burst and CC cooldowns in other attunements.

Auras

• You gain Stability and cleanse 1 condition whenever you gain an aura thanks to Staunch Auras and Smothering Auras.

• Elemental Epitome grants an aura based on your current element when you execute a combo.

• Combo finishers in the build:
  • Dragon's Tooth and Phoenix on Fire.
  • Comet on Water.
  • Hurl (chain skill of Rock Barrier), Magnetic Wave and the first dodge you perform after swapping to this element thanks to Evasive Arcana. There's also the autoattack Stone Shards but that's a bit random.

• As you can see Air has no combo finishers, but that doesn't mean the build has no access to Shocking Aura. All you have to do is make one of your finishers land while you're attuned to Air, for example a Phoenix which has a travel time.

• Aura combos like this from Elemental Epitome can only happen once every 10 seconds per attunement, so while it's possible to swap attunements for a different aura keep the CD in mind!

• There are also some less complicated ways of obtaining auras. Fire #5 directly applies a Fire Aura (and flips over into a chain skill which lets you transmute it for extra effects or more cleansing via Smothering Auras). Another easy one is to simply swap to Fire Attunement for a Sunspot proc. These are both instant and can even be done while casting skills or sitting in a CC, preventing enemies from piling more CCs onto you.

• As the Jade Sphere is instant you could even drop a combo field in the middle of your dodge in Earth to obtain an aura.

Damage

• Fire is your strongest element.

• Flamestrike is an autoattack which is more dangerous than it looks, capable of rapidly stacking burning on enemies if you're allowed to freecast for a few seconds. Quickness from the Air Jade Sphere can help a lot with that along with Glyph of Elemental Power when used in Fire, so dropping the sphere on Air before switching to Fire is always a good idea.

• Dragon's Tooth and Phoenix both do good damage and are Blast finishers. Other than stacking auras they have inherent value as combo tools, for example if used inside the Fire Jade Sphere these two are going to stack Might which increases your damage.
  • Both of these skills work on targets behind your character, allowing you to effortlessly pressure enemies even while kiting them.

• Flamewall can sometimes be hard to get value from, but it's good against CC'd or downed enemies.

• Air skills don't do a whole lot of damage compared to Fire but Lightning Strike and Blinding Flash offer good cover conditions to make your Burning stacks harder to cleanse.

• While Rock Barrier offers a passive stat increase, most of the time people tend to go immediately for its chain skill Hurl to deal damage. Hurl launched 5 projectiles which apply Bleeding that are guaranteed projectile finishers, these are best used inside the Earth Sphere to combo Poison or a Fire Field for Burning.

• Dust Devil adds more condition variety to your bursts on top of being a great defensive skill.

• Stone Shards isn't quite as good of an auto as Flamestrike but it's an okay filler skill when you've got nothing better to do.

Sustain

• Simply swapping to Earth can already help you out against direct damage as you'll gain Protection from Elemental Attunement. Earth Jade Sphere grants the same boon plus Resistance.

• Fire and Earth are the best attunements when it comes to dealing with condition pressure. Fire has 2 auras, one from Sunspot and another on skill #5. Gaining auras removes conditions and transmuting an aura removes 2. Phoenix also removes a condition.

• If you need to cleanse a lot of conditions do the following chain:

1. Fire Attunement - cleanses 1 condition as you gain an aura.
2. Transmute Fire - cleanses 2 conditions.
3. Use Focus #5 Fire Shield, removing yet another condition.
4. Transmute again for another 2 cleanses.
5. Phoenix if necessary for another cleanse.

• Earth's Magnetic Wave instantly cleanses several conditions and reflect projectiles. This plus Swirling Winds can make you quite durable against projectile-based specs.

• The first dodge you perform on Water cleanses 1 condition and heals for a small amount.

• Water Trident is rather straightforward, heals when it strikes an enemy.

• Water Attunement's Jade Sphere is a Water field, dropping blast finishers inside it is a good way of resustaining yourself. Comet has nice synergy with that while the Daze creates a bit of breathing room for your. Swapping to Earth right after and following up with a dodge + Magnetic Wave for 2 more blast finishers is a common play.

• Chill from Shatterstone and Gust can help you kite enemies.

• Blinding Flash and Dust Devil mitigate damage via Blind spam, but Blinding Flash also has Weakness which is quite nice against power-based specs (and it's instant so could even be used while CC'd).

• Rock Barrier and Fortified Earth are both strong barrier sources for damage mitigation, and Fortified Earth even has a rather long block duration.

• Obsidian Flesh is the ultimate defensive skill in the build, protecting you from all types of damage except for fall damage.