Catalyst - D/D Duelist

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Focused on: Direct damage and Sustain

Designed for: PvP Conquest

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

TBD

Overview

D/D Elementalist makes a return with a bunch of shiny new tools. A duelist build with good sustain.

Archival note: became less popular after Scepter buffs then completely disappeared when Catalyst got nerfed.

Skill Bar

Dagger/Dagger

Utility

Skill Variants

Utility

• Fortified Earth over Lightning Flash - sacrifices mobility to make the build more tanky.

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Equipment

Dagger

Dagger

Sigil

Sigil

Rune

Amulet

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 used mainly to reset the CD of skills 3-5 of a given attunement:
  • Water for cleansing and healing.
  • Air for CC and an excellent mobility tool.
  • Earth for CC and combo finishers.
  • Fire for raw damage, combo fields and an evade frame with some mobility.

• Jade Spheres do insignificant damage, but that can still be useful because these are instant skills. Dropping a new sphere to remove Aegis from an enemy or consume Blind on yourself right as you're about to land an important attack can make all the difference.

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.

• The spread of combo finishers on D/D isn't optimal for aura stacking with Elemental Epitome - Fire and Air don't have any while Earth has 4 (skills 3-5 + the dodge from Evasive Arcana). This however can be remedied with good timing and a little bit of creativity by switching attunements at the right moment, causing some finishers to land in a different attunement.

• Some examples for spreading out your finishers inside the Jade Sphere:
  • Cast Earthen Rush then quickly swap to Air to end up with a Shocking Aura.
  • Dodge on Earth inside a Jade Sphere for Magnetic Aura, use Earthquake but swap to Water before the animation ends for a Frost Aura. Cast Frozen Burst but immediately swap to Air for a Shocking Aura.

• 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's no point in carrying a finisher from earth to combo on water if you were going to use Frozen Burst on water anyway.

• There are also some less complicated ways of obtaining auras. Water #4 and Air #3 are skills that directly apply auras (and flip over into a chain skill which lets you transmute them 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 all instant and can even be done while casting skills or sitting in a CC, preventing enemies from piling more CCs onto you.

• Combo finishers in the build:
  • Water's Frozen Burst.
  • Earth's skills 3-5 and the first dodge you perform after swapping to this element.

• 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 where most of the damage comes from, followed by Air, Earth, and finally Water.

• Drake's Breath and Burning Speed can both do good damage without any real setup. Burning Speed does the most damage 600 range from your initial positon so you're going to want to use that one slightly farther from the target than you would other skills on D/D.

• Ring of Fire (elementalist) is a quick attack that drops a combo field and could quickly get some Burning on enemies to set up Fire Grab.

• Fire Grab should only be used on burning foes as it does significantly more damage that way.

• Ring of Earth, Convergence and Frozen Burst are more on the filler side of things in terms of pure damage but they are quite useful in their own right and much more versatile than most Fire skills.

• Air's Jade Sphere grants Quickness which increases your DPS in general. This combined with Lightning Whip spam can dish out some decent damage especially against downed and CC'd enemies.

• Shocking Aura, Earthquake and Updraft are all great CC tools for setting up burst.

• Churning Earth hits hard but can be rather difficult to land. If you're going for a Churning Earth then try to do it right before or after dropping the Jade Sphere on Air for the Quickness. Another thing you could do is start channeling the skill from out of range and teleport in with Lightning Flash in the last moment. In a 1v1 this is way too obvious but in a larger fight people might not see it coming.

Sustain

• Water and Earth are the most defensive elements here as usual, but Fire and Air have a couple of defensive CDs as well such as evade frames on Burning Speed and Updraft.

• 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.

• Water is the best element if you want to cleanse or heal.

• Cleansing Wave is a simple but effective heal that also cleanses conditions. A lesser version of this skill procs on your first dodge after entering Water Attunement, healing for a similar amount but only cleansing 1 condition.
  • Both of these are AoE skills so if you see an ally in need you can provide some support for your team.

• Frost Aura's passive mitigates direct damage while transmuting it (using the chain skill) cleanses 2 conditions.

• Cone of Cold is still a good heal but slower than the other skills, making it worse in emergency situations.

• Water Attunement's Jade Sphere is, you guessed it, a Water field. While you can blast it for AoE healing with Frozen Burst, it's best used shortly before switching to Earth where most of your combo finishers are. Unloading Earth 3-4 + the dodge is a great way of recovering a large chunk of health. The sphere itself pulses Resolution to help mitigate condition pressure.

• Signet of Air is the only stun break in the build so use it wisely, but all the Stability synergy with the auras should help you deal with CC.

• When damage starts to overwhelm you D/D offers quite a few escape tools. Most obvious one is Ride the Lightning, just make sure you don't have an enemy targeted. Chaining Burning Speed into Earthen Rush would be a good idea too, these are 2 mobility skills with evade frames that also have combo synergy - Burning Speed leaves behind a fire field while Earthen Rush is a leap finisher. This results in both a Fire Aura and a Magnetic Aura!

• Ring of Earth is a low CD anti-projectile skill.

• Conjure Earth Shield is for buying time and surviving heavy pressure. With a block, a Magnetic Aura, a CC and an invulnerability frame this could bridge the gap in your defenses until your other CDs come back up or help arrives.

Top Streamers

• Twitch: Grimjack

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Related Builds

• Hammer variant

• WvW version of the build with Celestial gear