Catalyst - Power Catalyst

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

Focused on: Strike damage

Designed for: Open World, Open World General, [[|]] and [[|]]

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

Normal

This build was last updated on August 02, 2023 and is up to date for the October 8, 2024 patch.

Overview

Power Catalyst is a mid-ranged Elementalist build that focuses on high burst damage and extremely high damage to bosses while potentially providing a large amounts of Might, Fury, Protection and Resolution to itself and the group. In addition It can trade damage to provide Quickness via the trait Spectacular Sphere, becoming a potent boon support build.

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Skill Bar

Hammer

Utility

Skill Variants

Healing

• Signet of Restoration - Passive healing.
• Soothing Water - Trades upfront healing for healing/cleanse over time.

Utility

• Conjure Lightning Hammer - Damage conjure for large bosses.
• Arcane Shield - for a block and stunbreak on demand at the cost of damage.
• Lightning Flash - instant mobility.

Elite

• Glyph of Elementals - The Fire elemental is less DPS potential than Fiery Greatsword but simpler to use. Can also be used in earth for a tanky frontline or water for extra healing.

Specializations

Trait Variants

• Blinding Ashes - For passive CC at the cost of some damage
• Stormsoul - Increased damage against Champions and other defiant foes.
• Spectacular Sphere - Trades damage for access to Quickness and other additional boons. Also increases the radius of Deploy Jade Sphere for ease of use.
• Sphere Specialist - Increases Jade Sphere boon duration and is a more reliable option than Empowered Empowerment

Arcane

Arcane can offer more boon duration and burst damage when you are supplied with many boons thanks to Bountiful Power, which means higher DPS in some situations. It also lowers the cooldown of the jade sphere.

• Final Shielding - Gain Arcane Shield when using an elite skill. This is most useful when using Glyph of Elementals since the command skill for the elemental also counts as an elite skill (be aware of the 20s ICD).
• Elemental Surge - CD reduction of Arcane skills and adds Immobilize in Earth Attunement for easier stacking of elemental empowerment via Vicious Empowerment.

Important Notes on Empowered Empowerment VS Sphere Specialist:

• Empowered Empowerment is a large boost to damage, however it has no effect when not at maximum stacks of Elemental Empowerment which can be difficult to maintain.
• Sphere Specialist is a more generally useful trait, greatly increasing boon output and is recommended if also using Spectacular Sphere.

Equipment

Ascended gear is not required.

Head
Berserker

Shoulders
Berserker

Chest
Berserker

Hands
Berserker

Legs
Berserker

Feet
Berserker

Backpiece
Berserker

Accessory
Berserker

Accessory
Berserker

Amulet
Berserker

Ring
Berserker

Ring
Berserker

Hammer
Berserker

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

Variant Equipment

Gear

• Diviner - For additional boon duration if playing the boon support build with Spectacular Sphere.
• Knight - defensive trinkets
• Marauder and/or Dragon_stats - defensive prefixes, be aware of crit cap when mixing these stats.
• Assassin - used to fine-tune crit chance.
• Elementalist is a low-health class, so having a jade bot core helps with survivability a lot; the higher the tier, the better!

Runes

• Rune of Superior Rune of Vampirism - Defensive runes
• Rune of Superior Rune of Strength - Budget runes

Consumables

Food

• Any ascended food is superior to any other food you could use. Steak for power, flatbread for conditions. Budget versions of these foods exist and are acceptable.
• - farming
• - DPS
• - defense

Utility

• (and variants) - farming
• - DPS

Usage

Damage/CC

• In open world,you can play at 600 range when alternating between Fire Attunement + Air Attunement.
• Make sure to use Glyph of Elementals in Earth Attunement to gain two additional stacks of Elemental Empowerment upon casting its active skill Stomp.
• The rotation for group content is a simplified variant (only using Air Attunement, Fire Attunement & Earth Attunement) that will get you within 10% of the current benchmark and loops nicely.
• Start in Fire Attunement, then swap to Air Attunement and then to Earth Attunement, and repeat.
• The pattern in the respective element is always similar: always use Hammer 2, then Hammer 3 while 2 is casting and then use the Sphere and finish with hammer 5 to make use of the combo field. Avoid using Wind Storm + Immutable Stone for damage purposes.
• Stay in Fire Attunement until Surging Flames is available a second time. Use Grand Finale in Fire Attunement and reactivate Flame Wheel as soon as possible to maintain the 10% damage buff.
• Your main sources of CC are Shock Blast and Ground Pound as well as soft CC through Weakness, Cripple and Blinded

Survivability

• Wind Storm is a large self-knockback that can put you out of danger; it can, however, also put you into it when used at the wrong time.
• Immutable Stone is a block on demand in Earth Attunement.
• Glyph of Elemental Harmony has a short cooldown and provides a very strong heal and boons, so make use of it.

• Detailed explanations on the general usage and the rotation are given down below.

Guide Video (as of May 2022)