Catalyst - S/F Condi Cata

Welcome to the Builds Archive. See the ones that gathered dust, were orphaned by their original writers, or became obsolete by balance patches. We keep the orphan builds together and salute the veteran builds that held a position in the good, great, or meta categories. Click here to view current builds.

Focused on: Condition damage

Designed for: PvP Conquest

Difficulty:

Easy

Overview

A highly defensive condition Catalyst build for PvP that aims to overwhelm its opponents by spamming

Flamestrike

with Quickness for rapid Burn stacking.

Archival note: made obsolete by signet buffs and the emergence of Signet Catalyst

Skill Bar

Scepter/Focus

Utility

Skill Variants

Utility

• Shattering Ice
  - excellent Chill uptime.

• Conjure Earth Shield
  - amazing boost to your sustain. Take
  Conjurer
  on Fire.

• Glyph of Lesser Elementals
  - adds a minion with decent damage to the build.

• Armor of Earth
  - very strong defensive skill that offers damage mitigation and defensive boons on top of being a stun break.

Elite

• Glyph of Elementals
  - the Fire elemental can do significant damage while Water's good for extra healing.

Template Code

[&DQYfKSUeQx90AHUA7xpPAZAAkAAcAesA9xqWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA=]

Copy Template Code

Equipment

Scepter

Focus

Sigil

Sigil

Rune

Amulet

Equipment Variants

Runes

• Rune of the Forge
  - more tanky option, sacrifices some condition damage but retains the Burn duration and adds a very useful aura proc on low CD.

Sigils

• Sigil of Cleansing
  - if you're struggling against conditions.

• Sigil of Doom
  - better condition variety and some healing reduction.

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
  (the elite) is usually used in Earth Attunement to reduce the CDs of
  Magnetic Wave
  and
  Obsidian Flesh
  under heavy pressure.

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 creates 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.

Top Streamers

• Twitch: Jeffies