Build:Catalyst - S/F Condi Cata

The community gave this build a rating, making it top-tier: Great

Focused on: Condition damage

Designed for: PvP Conquest

Difficulty:

TBD

This build was last updated on June 17, 2023 and is up to date for the October 8, 2024 patch.

Overview

A highly defensive condition Catalyst build for PvP that aims to overwhelm its opponents by spamming Flamestrike with Quickness for rapid Burn stacking.

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

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Equipment

Scepter

Focus

Sigil

Sigil

Rune

Amulet

Equipment Variants

Runes

• Rune of 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