Catalyst - Spear Backline

This is a rough draft. Once adequately written, it will progress to the testing stage, where it can be rated by the community. You can help by proposing changes with a comment.

Focused on: Strike damage, Utility and Crowd control

Designed for: WvW Zerg

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

Normal

This build was last updated on August 04, 2025.

Overview

A backline zerg WvW DPS build for Elementalist providing damage, CC and field support. Requires a precise usage of skills and positioning to survive.

Skill Bar

Spear

Spear

Utility

Variants

Weapons

• Staff see Build:Catalyst_-_Staff_Backline

Utilities

• Signet of Fire - if you want to play without Lightning Flash this is the best choice for damage
  • Will require gear adjustment to stay below crit cap

Template Code

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Specializations

Variants

• Energized Elements if Elemental Empowerment can be maintained
• Evasive Empowerment only if you can't keep 10 stacks of Elemental Empowerment without it

Equipment

Head
Dragon

Shoulders
Marauder

Chest
Marauder

Hands
Dragon

Legs
Dragon

Feet
Dragon

Backpiece
Dragon

Accessory
Dragon

Accessory
Dragon

Amulet
Marauder

Ring
Marauder

Ring
Marauder

Staff
Dragon

Sigil

Sigil

Staff
Dragon

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

Infusion
x18

Relic

Equipment Variants

Relics

• Relic of Speed
• Relic of the Thief

Sigils

• Sigil of Superior Sigil of Fire
• Sigil of Superior Sigil of Frenzy
• Sigil of Superior Sigil of Strength

Consumables

• • personal option

Usage

General

• As soon as you get 25 stacks of Sigil of Superior Sigil of Bloodlust and get out of combat, swap back to the Spear without a stacking sigil
• You are much stronger with full stacks of Elemental Empowerment and Empowering Auras
  • Make sure to use a combo finisher in every attunement to proc Elemental Epitome
    • If you start the cast of a skill with a finisher then swap attunements before it finishes casting you'll get the Elemental Epitome in the new attunement instead of the one you started the cast in
• Your combo finisher skills are:
  • Arcane Brilliance
  • Fire Attunement
    • Blazing Barrage
  • Water Attunement
    • Ripple
  • Air Attunement
    • Twister
  • Earth Attunement
    • Earthen Spear
• Spear has Etching skills as the skill 5 in each attunement.
  • You must stay inside the field the etching creates for three skill casts to charge the powerful flip skills.
    • These casts do not need to be weapon skills, your Jade Sphere, heal, utilities and elite also count
    • You do not need to stay inside the field to cast the flip skill once it is fully charged

Priorities

High

• Burst damage

Moderate

• Sustained damage
• CC

Low

• Jade Spheres

Surviving

• This build has low passive defense
• This build has moderate mobility skill access
  • Avoid using Lightning Flash for mobility unless necessary to survive
• This build has moderate active defenses

Active defense priority

• Ripple
• Harden
• Dodge
• Lightning Flash
• Arcane Brilliance

Detailed Explanations

Burst damage

• In Fire Attunement combo Etching: Volcano ⇒ Seethe ⇒ Deploy Jade Sphere (Fire) ⇒ Relentless Fire ⇒ Volcano ⇒ Meteor
  • Make sure to only use Etching: Volcano when you can safely stay inside it for the three casts needed to fully charge the skill
  • Blazing Barrage can be cast before and after the combo to add damage
• Use Elemental Celerity in Fire Attunement once all your weapon skills are on cooldown when its available
  • Since Deploy Jade Sphere (Fire) and Relentless Fire you'll need to replace them with Blazing Barrage and Meteor to charge Etching: Volcano
    • Make sure to use Seethe last so its effect buffs Volcano
  • Don't force yourself to use Elemental Celerity every time you're in Fire Attunement. If you can't get a good Volcano off, save the cooldown for the next time
• Using Seethe on Meteor instead of Volcano is more burst damage, but a significant loss in sustained damage. Usually the tradeoff isn't worth it, but if your group is ranged spiking or you're not able to consistently get good Volcano casts off it can be worth doing

Sustained damage

• When using ground AoEs like Fulgor or Volcano, place them so that one edge is on the enemy group and the other edge is in the direction they are moving to
• WIP

Skill priority

• 
• Autoattacks

CC

• WIP
• 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

Support

• WIP