Catalyst - Power Catalyst

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

Focused on: Strike damage

Designed for: Open World and Open World General

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

Normal

This build was last updated on August 11, 2025 and is up to date for the August 19, 2025 patch.

Overview

Power catalyst rotates through all four Attunements dealing damage in a large AoE. It's also slightly more durable thanks to Elemental Empowerment improving all your attributes, and provides some boons to itself and nearby allies - most notably, permanent Quickness and Fury.

As a downside, the playstyle is very fast and requires you to be constantly swapping attunements pretty much off cooldown to spam their Spheres such as Deploy Jade Sphere (Fire), and you need to stay inside the Spheres to receive the boons, making the build somewhat static and vulnerable to enemies that move around.

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Skill Bar

Spear

Utility

Weapon Variants

Usage of spear requires Janthir Wilds. Other weapon options you can consider are:

• Scepter + Dagger
• Hammer

Skill Variants

Heal skill

We default to Signet of Restoration as it provides good passive healing and works great with a fast-paced playstyle, but very weak heal on demand, leaving you vulnerable to burst damage. Other alternatives are:

• Glyph of Elemental Harmony - strong burst healing and a boon based on attunement.
• Arcane Brilliance - weak heal by default, but is greatly increased if it strikes nearby enemies. Performs a blast finisher, and heals for more when doing so. Excellent synergy with water combo fields. (See: Guide:What are Combo Fields).
• Ether Renewal - very high healing and condition removal throughout its long channelling time. Great option for raw healing if you can afford the cast time.

Utility skills

• Shattering Ice provides extra damage if a stunbreak is not needed.
• Glyph of Lesser Elementals - spawn a small elemental army that dies when you mount up, good for fighting strong bosses.
• Cleansing Fire - condition cleanse and stun break.
• Lightning Flash - more mobility
• Glyph of Elemental Power - very flexible skill that can do damage, or cleanse conditions, or daze enemies, or give barrier, depending on your current attunement, and breaks stun.

Elite skill

Elemental Celerity lets you use your Etching: Volcano into Volcano a second time.

Specializations

Variants

• Empowering Auras + Empowered Empowerment: when playing in groups and someone else is already providing Quickness.

Equipment

Ascended gear is not required.

Head
Assassin

Shoulders
Berserker

Chest
Berserker

Hands
Berserker

Legs
Berserker

Feet
Berserker

Backpiece
Assassin

Accessory
Berserker

Accessory
Berserker

Amulet
Berserker

Ring
Berserker

Ring
Berserker

Spear
Berserker

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

Relic

If you are gearing this character from zero, start with exotic quality gear. Search the trading post for "Zhed" armor, "Impaler" spear, "Ironfist" hammer. See also: Guide:How to Gear a Character.

• You can use Relic of Zakiros to trade a minor amount of damage for sustain, Relic of the Cavalier to start combat with boons, or Relic of Durability for a little extra defense.
• For defense, equip the highest tier Jade Core you can afford. Use defensive food or skills if

Consumables

Budget consumables are acceptable for use in open world.

DPS

• Prioritize Steak Ascended food.
• /
• /

Farming

• Prioritize Steak Ascended food.
• /
• (and variants)

Usage

Jade Sphere

The Jade Sphere is the profession mechanic of the catalyst. Hitting enemies generates energy, and you spend this energy to summon a sphere that deals minor damage and provides yourself and nearby allies with boons, most notably permanent Quickness thanks to Spectacular Sphere and Sphere Specialist . Each attunement has its own sphere, and their cooldowns are not shared. Thanks to the trait Sphere Specialist, you can generate Energy even while a sphere is deployed.

You also gain improved attributes from Elemental Empowerment effect from traits like Elemental Empowerment.

Damage

The playstyle is easy to explain, but not so much to execute. You want to rotate through all four attunements while using their Sphere and their spear Etching skills. If you are spending more than 5 seconds on an attunement, you are too slow. Cast Relentless Fire (preferably inside the fire Sphere) and Glyph of Storms (on Air or Fire) off cooldown for damage.

In long fights, if you do not have Alacrity from another player, your spear Etchings will not be ready once you attune to an element for a second time. When that happens, you have to skip the Etching, cast whatever weapon skills are off cooldown, and move to the next attunement to cast its Sphere off cooldown in order to maintain permanent Quickness. Note that you want to always cast the fire etching, Volcano, right after Seethe to increase its damage.

If not using spear, the idea is the same: rotate through all four attunements off cooldown to use their Sphere while casting all your damaging weapon skills.

Elemental Empowerment

As a catalyst, you gain stacks of Elemental Empowerment which increase all your attributes. This obviously increases your damage and survivability a little bit, but they are also important to increase boon duration.

Elemental Empowerment provides 3 stacks of Elemental Empowerment. To get more, you need to inflict crowd control due to Vicious Empowerment. Pretty much all your cc skills on any weapon are also damage skills and thus part of your normal rotation, so you don't need to worry about this trait. Elemental Epitome will also give you an aura periodically, and every time you get an aura you get one stack of Elemental Empowerment, such as when you attune to Fire Attunement due to Sunspot.

Quickness

You provide quickness with the traits Spectacular Sphere + Sphere Specialist. You want to swap attunements off cooldown and use their Sphere immediately. This also provides other boons, namely permanent Fury and some Might.

Sphere Specialist lets you generate energy even while a sphere is deployed, so you won't have energy problems.

Consider using one or two Diviner trinkets if you're struggling to maintain permanent Quickness.

Defense

• Protection and Aegis via Deploy Jade Sphere (Earth).
• Jokulhlaup provides healing.
• Ripple evades.
• Haboob stability.
• Elemental Empowerment passively increases toughness and vitality

CC

• Harden
• Wind Storm
• Lesser Derecho / Derecho
• Twister
• Undertow