Build:Catalyst - Support Catalyst (GvG)

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Focused on: Control, Support and Condition cleanse

Designed for: WvW GvG

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

Normal

Overview

The main purpose of this build is to maximize the amount of auras and boons shared by the Elementalist. Tempest can also be used instead for the same role, see here for a comparison

Compared to D/F Fire Tempest builds, it does not bring significant healing. Therefore it cannot be used as direct replacement but needs to be paired with a powerful healing spec in the party, such as a Vindicator.

The advantage of Catalyst is that it brings more access to auras, similar cleanses, access to Quickness from

Deploy Jade Sphere

for a faster

Glyph of Renewal

cast as well as access to ranged Resistance and Protection from

Deploy Jade Sphere

for powerful ranged support among other boons.

Skill Bar

Staff

Utility

Weapon Variants

Dagger/Dagger

Skill Variants

Utilities

• If you are being targeted you will not consistently survive without a second stunbreak, so you need
  Armor of Earth
  , or, alternatively,
  Lightning Flash
• If you don't get targeted you can get away with picking any of the following instead:
  • Signet of Water
    - Catalyst lacks healing so this skill is quite nice. It also fits very nicely into the staff playstyle.
  • Signet of Earth
    - The single target immobilize from this skill is insanely good, but it is tricky to fit into the playstyle, as you don't typically target enemies a lot.
  • Conjure Lightning Hammer
    - Provides very good CC and a knockback for downed enemies, as well as an extra leap finisher for
    Elemental Epitome
    .
  • Conjure Earth Shield
    - Provides a strong pull and an invulnability skill. It also provides an extra Magnetic Aura that can be transmuted with
    Transmute Earth
    .

Specializations

Template Code

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Equipment

Head
Minstrel

Shoulders
Minstrel

Chest
Minstrel

Hands
Minstrel

Legs
Minstrel

Feet
Minstrel

Backpiece
Minstrel

Accessory
Minstrel

Accessory
Minstrel

Amulet
Minstrel

Ring
Minstrel

Ring
Minstrel

Staff
Minstrel

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

Infusion
x18

Relic

Build Variants

Stats

• Nomad stats on the helmet. Your boon duration is capped by
  Elemental Empowerment
  most of the time

Runes

• Superior Rune of Durability

Consumables

• Plate of Peppercorn-Spiced Poultry Aspic
• Magnanimous Maintenance Oil

Usage

General/Energy Management

• To generate energy for Catalyst's Jade Sphere abilities make sure to hit enemies with skills that have a high number of hits:
  • Lava Font
  • Flame Burst
• You want to rotate through elements quickly to get as many boons as possible
  • You can be quite flexible with your rotation, but make sure to always have a blast lined up to proc
    Elemental Epitome
    in
    Air Attunement
    • This is easiest if you swap from
      Earth Attunement
      while casting
      Transmute Earth

Skill Usage and Rotation

• • • Edit after balance patch 2023/06/27: After the latest patch, if you use
      Magnetic Aura
      ⇒
      Transmute Earth
      to proc
      Elemental Epitome
      , you cannot
      Transmute Earth
      again, as the aura duration from
      Elemental Epitome
      got stealth nerfed. You now need to proc it instead with a delayed
      Ice Spike
      or hope to get a finisher from
      Stoning
      or
      Shock Wave
      instead. !
• The main goal of our gameplay loop is to provide a high boon uptime:
  • On
    Deploy Jade Sphere
    and
    Deploy Jade Sphere
  • On auras by utilising
    Elemental Epitome
    • For this we need to complete finishers in Air and Earth and Water. Blasting in Fire is not required as we gain Fire Aura from
      Sunspot
• This means that we want to rotate through all attunemts at a quick pace, roughly once every 15 seconds.
• A good order to go through attunements is
  Earth Attunement
  ⇒
  Air Attunement
  ⇒
  Fire Attunement
  ⇒
  Water Attunement
  ⇒
  Earth Attunement
  .
  • Note that many skills on staff have a cooldown higher than 15 seconds, so that these skills will only be up every other time.

1. In
   Earth Attunement
   • Unsteady Ground
     - use this to CC the enemy. Place on own backline to slow enemy pushes or on the enemy while pushing.
   • Magnetic Aura
     ⇒
     Transmute Earth
     - this will proc
     Elemental Epitome
     and give us another Magnetic Aura
   • Eruption
     - not strickly necessary but a delayed backup finsher for
     Elemental Epitome
     in
     Air Attunement
2. While
   Earth Attunement
   ⇒
   Air Attunement
   • Deploy Jade Sphere
     - place on whoever needs the Resistance from the initial proc of
     Spectacular Sphere
     and such that your team will spend maximal time in it.
   • Transmute Earth
     - starting this cast in Earth while swapping to Air will proc
     Elemental Epitome
     in Air for the Shocking Aura
   • Deploy Jade Sphere
     - place on DPS players. Place it right after the Earth sphere, to minimize the time where you don't generate energy.
3. In
   Air Attunement
   • Windborne Speed
     - extra cleanses and Superspeed
   • Static Field
     - use this to CC the enemy. Place on own backline to slow enemy pushes or on the enemy while pushing.
   • Gust
     - an extra knockback
   • Lightning Surge
     - AoE blind
4. While
   Air Attunement
   ⇒
   Fire Attunement
   • When using a delayed blast finisher (
     Eruption
     or
     Ice Spike
     ) to proc
     Elemental Epitome
     in Air for the Shocking Aura, make sure that the finisher goes off before swapping our of Air
   • You might want to delay swapping out of Air a bit, if you want to have access to
     Glyph of Renewal
     in Air soon
5. In
   Fire Attunement
   • Lava Font
     - AoE for energy generation
   • Flame Burst
     - AoE for energy generation and AoE blind. Note that there might still be a Sphere active at the start, so delay a bit for Energy.
   • Burning Retreat
     - Repositioning
6. While
   Fire Attunement
   ⇒
   Water Attunement
   • Make sure you have more than 10 Energy before swapping out of Fire. If not, place another
     Lava Font
     .
   • If you have more than 20 Energy before swapping, you can place
     Deploy Jade Sphere
     or
     Deploy Jade Sphere
7. In
   Water Attunement
   • Ice Spike
     - delayed blast for
     Elemental Epitome
   • Geyser
     - for targeted healing
   • Frozen Ground
     - for Frost Aura
   • Healing Rain
     - big AoE cleanse and healing. Place towards the direction your team is moving.
8. While
   Water Attunement
   ⇒
   Earth Attunement
   • We can time the blast on
     Ice Spike
     so that it procs
     Elemental Epitome
     in Earth. This is good since the staff skill
     Magnetic Aura
     will be on cooldown still

• On the second loop:
  • Magnetic Aura
    on Staff will be on cooldown, so we need to proc
    Elemental Epitome
    for Magnetic Aura differently:
    • Use a delayed
      Ice Spike
    • Use
      Stoning
      or
      Shock Wave
      - These are projectiles and need to hit to count as a projectile finisher. Inconsistent because of projectile block.
    • Use
      Arcane Brilliance
      - Backup finisher
    • Use
      Eruption
      - Takes a long time to proc, so it's better to use a quicker method.
  • Frozen Ground
    will be on cooldown, so we want to proc
    Elemental Epitome
    in Water with
    Ice Spike
  • Healing Rain
    will be on cooldown, so our cleanses will be lower this round.

Overall Priorities

High

• Glyph of Renewal
• Aurashare/Condition clear

Moderate

• Boon share
• CC

Low

• Healing
• Superspeed

Surviving

• This build has moderate passive defense
• This build has moderate mobility skill access
• This builds has low active defenses

Active defense priority

• Burning Retreat
  - this is your main mobility skill. If you use Hold down LMB, Lift RMB ⇒ About Face ⇒
  Burning Retreat
  ⇒ Lift LMB, Hold down RMB during dodge ⇒ About Face this will move you in the direction you are facing
• Invigorating Air
  - for Stunbreaking
• Armor of Earth
  - for Stunbreaking and Stability
• Windborne Speed
  - for cleansing and Superspeed
• Dodge

Detailed Explanations

Glyph of Renewal

• Focus on reviving allies who are far away with
  Glyph of Renewal
  , don't waste the skill on players that can be hand rezzed.
  • If possible, use
    Deploy Jade Sphere
    on yourself while casting for Quickness
  • This still speeds up the cast if you use the sphere after you started casting the glyph
• Use
  Glyph of Renewal
  in
  Air Attunement
  on single players and
  Earth Attunement
  on multiple players
  • If you can't be in a good position, don't cast in
    Air Attunement
• Under General Options / Combat/Movement turn on Allow Skill Retargeting and set Ground Targeting to Instant Cast, this will make
  Glyph of Renewal
  cast at the location your cursor is at the end of the cast, instead of where you initially targeted

Aurashare/Condition clear

• Most of your condition clear is reliant on
  Smothering Auras
  and comes passively while rotating through the attunements while blasting
• Healing Rain
  also cleanses many conditions - place this when your party is pushing forward
• You can apply Resistance on a long range using
  Deploy Jade Sphere
  due to
  Spectacular Sphere
• Prioritize
  Water Attunement
  for burst condition clear, see the burst healing rotation below
• Elemental Epitome
  has a per-attunement cooldown of 10 seconds
  • You can start casting a blast in one attunement then swap to a different attunement before the cast ends to proc
    Elemental Epitome
    • It is easy to swap attunements during
      Ice Spike
      ,
      Eruption
      and
      Transmute Earth
    • This also works with
      Stoning
      and
      Shock Wave
      , but these skills proc a projectile finisher only when they hit an enemy.
      Stoning
      does not track the enemy, so its impossible to hit.
      Shock Wave
      is a skill shot, but unreliable due to reflects.
  • Prioritize getting auras from
    Air Attunement
    for
    Shocking Aura
    and from
    Earth Attunement
    for
    Transmute Earth
• Use
  Frozen Ground
  on your group before or during pushes to give
  Frost Aura

List of combo finishers

• Ice Spike
• Eruption
• Magnetic Aura
  ⇒
  Transmute Earth
• Arcane Brilliance
• Shock Wave
  - projectile finisher on hit (unreliable with reflects)
• Stoning
  - projectile finisher on hit (impossible to hit)

Condition clear priority

• Water Attunement
  • Healing Rain
  • Frozen Ground
    -
    Frost Aura
    +
    Smothering Auras
• Fire Attunement
  -
  Sunspot
  +
  Smothering Auras
• Earth Attunement
  • Magnetic Aura
    -
    Smothering Auras
  • Transmute Earth
    -
    Smothering Auras

Boonshare

• Prioritize
  Deploy Jade Sphere
  and
  Deploy Jade Sphere
  • If you have spare energy use
    Deploy Jade Sphere
    for Vigor or
    Deploy Jade Sphere
    for Might
    • You don't gain energy from attacks while a Jade Sphere is deployed. Thus, you want to use
      Lava Font
      and
      Flame Burst
      after the spheres from earth and air have run out. Regardless, you passively gain three energy from
      Energized Elements
• Make sure to land the Jade Sphere cast on top of allies for the boons from
  Spectacular Sphere
  • Deploy Jade Sphere
    can be used to save allies caught with Immobilize with the Resistance and Protection from
    Spectacular Sphere
• Place your spheres so that one edge is on your allied group and the other edge is where your group is moving to
  • Optimally leave it somewhere your group is regrouping
• Make sure you are close to allies when swapping out of fire to give them Might with
  Pyromancer's Puissance
  • Go into fire whenever there is time to trigger
    Pyromancer's Puissance
    as often as possible
• Try to fill any gaps in your guardian's Stability uptime with
  Magnetic Aura
  ⇒
  Transmute Earth
  , especially when your group is pushing

CC

• Use your CC when:
  • Your group calls a spike:
    • Winds -
      Winds of Disenchantment
    • Wells -
      Well of Corruption
      +
      Well of Suffering
    • Shades -
      Desert Shroud
    • Traps -
      Procession of Blades
      +
      Test of Faith
  • On top of enemy downs (while alive players are on top of them)
  • Enemy groups moving defensively while your group is pushing

CC priority

• Air Attunement
  • Static Field
• Earth Attunement
  • Unsteady Ground
• Tornado
• Conjure Earth Shield
  - Skill 4
• Conjure Lightning Hammer
  - Skill 5

Healing

• Catalyst healing is very limited, but significant enough to save people if comboed
• Use
  Geyser
  to heal from range
• You can blast the fields created by
  Geyser
  and
  Healing Rain
  for healing

Burst Healing Combo

1. Water Attunement
   -
   Healing Ripple
2. Ice Spike
3. Geyser
4. Healing Rain
5. Ice Spike
6. Earth Attunement
7. Eruption
   - Water Field Blast

Superspeed

• Focus on using
  Windborne Speed
  when your group is pushing or disengaging from the enemy

Settings

• Under General Options / User Interface check Always show squad health bars and Always show party health bars. These will make it much easier to keep track of who needs your support.
• Also under General Options / User Interface turn on Thick party health bars
  • Thick squad health bars can be used too as a matter of personal preference, but is not recommended for large numbers
• Under Squad Options check View as a grid. This will allow you to keep track of your allies' health and be quicker in using
  Glyph of Renewal
  . While this doesn't allow you to see conditions on allies, most of your cleanses are passively applied anyway.