Catalyst - Boon Support Power DPS

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 and Support

Designed for: Raids and Fractals

Difficulty:
TBD

Overview

A quickness-providing catalyst build. Testing is required to figure out the best rotation to maximise damage.

Following the standard DPS catalyst rotation requires ~65% boon duration.

Skipping the Water Sphere (and possibly dropping Shattering Ice) would allow for a faster loop and probably only require ~35% boon duration.

Arcane feels like bad value as it wouldn't then line up with Grand Finale.


Skill Bar

Hammer
Utility

Skill Variants

  • Arcane Blast will provide more burst damage than Shattering Ice.
  • Conjure Lightning Hammer will be more damage than Shattering Ice on large hitboxes.
  • Glyph of Elementals is a minor DPS loss if you prefer to avoid conjured weapons, or you think you won't get use out of the second one.


Template Code

[&DQYfHSkbQzYXARcB+Br4Gu4a7hq+AVABlwD3GgAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA=]
Copy Template Code


Specializations


Specialization Variants

Replacing Fire with Arcane provides you with extra boon duration and a cooldown reduction of attunements and the jade sphere. This means you could technically provide Quickness Quickness without adjusting your gear, though it would require a different rotation and may not be reliable in real encounters.

  • When providing Quickness Quickness, you will also need to use Spectacular Sphere and Sphere Specialist.


Equipment

63.7% boon duration

Head
Diviner
Shoulders
Berserker
Chest
Diviner
Hands
Assassin
Legs
Diviner
Feet
Assassin
Backpiece
Diviner
Accessory
Assassin
Accessory
Berserker
Amulet
Diviner
Ring
Diviner
Ring
Diviner
Hammer
Diviner
Sigil
Sigil
Rune
x6
Infusion
x9
Infusion
x9


38.1% boon duration

Head
Diviner
Shoulders
Berserker
Chest
Diviner
Hands
Berserker
Legs
Diviner
Feet
Berserker
Backpiece
Diviner
Accessory
Berserker
Accessory
Berserker
Amulet
Berserker
Ring
Diviner
Ring
Diviner
Hammer
Berserker
Sigil
Sigil
Rune
x6
Infusion
x17
Infusion
x1


Consumables

Food:

  • or ascended versions


Utility:


Usage

Rotation fundamentals

Catalyst's rotation can be varied quite a lot, so an outline is provided rather than a strict skill usage. The fundamental goal is to cycle through all four elements, activating the Circular Projectile in each element before releasing them all with Grand Finale and starting the loop again.


Jade Sphere use

During the loop, you also want to deploy your Jade Sphere in Fire, Air and Water. You do not regain the energy needed to cast them while they are active, so Earth is used to regain that energy. The sphere does the same amount base damage in each element, but thanks to the damage buffs you gain while in Fire and Air, these attunements are higher priority. Deploy Jade Sphere (Fire) also generates stacks of Persisting Flames, and Relentless Fire and Shattering Ice will last longer if used while standing in Deploy Jade Sphere (Fire) and Deploy Jade Sphere (Water).

If you are not using Shattering Ice, you could deploy your Jade Sphere in Earth instead of Water if the Protection Protection would be more valuable than Resolution Resolution.


Glyph of Storms use

Glyph of Storms should be used either in Fire or Air attunement. Optimal use will depend on phase timings as well as hitbox size - Fire favouring small hitboxes and Air favouring large. Given the damage and cooldown, Fire should be the more efficient option, but the rotation lines up somewhat awkwardly compared to using it in Air, so consider the following:

  • A rule of thumb for elementalist is that your last Glyph of Storms in each phase should be used in Air, so try to keep an idea of how long you have left when deciding where to use it.
  • As the more powerful option, if you can line Air up with your target gaining Exposed Exposed this will be greatly beneficial - particularly useful in fractals.
  • If your rotation is not particularly tight, you may be better off just casting Glyph of Storms at the earliest possible opportunity, whether you are in Fire or Air.


Fiery Greatsword use

With the Whirling Stones trick (see the Earth section below), Earth has the fewest cooldowns to use, and so is the best time to Conjure Fiery Greatsword. Summon after using Rocky Loop and Ground Pound (if available) and use Fiery Rush → Firestorm then drop the weapon and continue your rotation. The next time you reach Earth, pick the second Greatsword up and repeat.


Fire

In Fire you want to use:

  • Deploy Jade Sphere (Fire)
  • Surging Flames
  • Flame Wheel
  • Triple Sear
  • Molten End
  • Relentless Fire


Water

In Water you want to use:

  • Deploy Jade Sphere (Water)
  • Icy Coil
  • Crashing Font
  • Cleansing Typhoon - use if available, but don't delay your attunement swap for it
  • Shattering Ice


Air

In Air you want to use:

  • Deploy Jade Sphere (Air)
  • Hurricane of Pain
  • Crescent Wind
  • Shock Blast.


Earth

In Earth you want to use:

  • Whirling Stones - as Stonestrike is your most powerful autoattack, it is a good idea to delay this until your attunement swap is available, then use Whirling Stones and immediately swap (this will not interrupt the cast)
  • Rocky Loop
  • Ground Pound - use if available, but don't delay your attunement swap for it


Rotation example

While you have opportunities to adjust the element order as needed, in most cases you want your first two attunements to be Fire and Air, followed by Water and lastly Earth. Your choice of starting attunement is largely up to you, but it might be best to base it upon which Glyph of Storms you wish to open with. If you are providing Quickness Quickness, you should always start in Air to start generating boons as quickly as possible.


Opener in Air

  1. Glyph of Storms
  2. Crescent Wind
  3. Deploy Jade Sphere (Air)
  4. Shock Blast
  5. Hurricane of Pain - swap to Fire Attunement Fire Attunement once the cast begins


Fire

  1. Flame Wheel
  2. Deploy Jade Sphere (Fire)
  3. Relentless Fire
  4. Molten End
  5. Triple Sear
  6. Surging Flames
  7. Water Attunement


Water

  1. Icy Coil
  2. Deploy Jade Sphere (Water)
  3. Shattering Ice
  4. Cleansing Typhoon
  5. Crashing Font
  6. Earth Attunement


Earth

  1. Rocky Loop
  2. Ground Pound
  3. Conjure Fiery Greatsword
  4. Fiery Rush
  5. Firestorm - drop Fiery Greastword immediately after the cast
  6. Stonestrike until Air Attunement is available
  7. Whirling Stones - swap to Air Attunement Air Attunement once the cast begins


Air

  1. Grand Finale
  2. Shock Blast
  3. Hurricane of Pain
  4. Crescent Wind as soon as it becomes available again
  5. Deploy Jade Sphere (Air) as soon as you hit maximum energy
  6. Fire Attunement Fire Attunement when available
  7. Return to the start of the Fire Section

Keep looping between the four elements, following the advice in the Rotation fundamentals section and adjusting as necessary.


Video example (different rotation)

Retrieved from "https://metabattle.com/wiki/index.php?title=Build:Catalyst_-_Boon_Support_Power_DPS&oldid=5699"


Ratings

This build has a rating of 4 stars based on 4 votes.
Log in or register to rate this build.
5 stars
Velkix gave this build 5 stars • December 2023
Arcane precision doesn't provide much value, but this build is pretty solid. People can pick S/D and tweak some traits to solo open-world bosses. Bountiful Power is a perfect match for Catalyst and the best for daily usage. You can provide 20+ mights, perm quickness, decent protection, vigor, and minor regen. I personally prefer S/D because hammer has a fixed rotation, and you may lose Sphere energy due to some circumstances. Update: Fire/Air is better and easier. Pick cele/divin trinkets except rings. You get 100% cirt chance and 25-35% boon duration. Enough for stikes.
3 stars
Wolfsen gave this build 3 stars • November 2023
A kinda mediocre build due to energy management not fitting well with a support role.
3 stars
OfficerAndyGentleman gave this build 3 stars • August 2023
On paper, a very strong option that provides a range of useful boons and deals great DPS. Unfortunately, the nature of its rotation makes it rather inflexible in its quickness provision and it struggles noticeably on bosses that move a lot.
5 stars
MechaOG gave this build 5 stars • August 2022
This build can easily keep up perma quickness while managing to do a very decent dps. The cleave is amazing as is with Catalyst in general, so in fractals, you can mow down mobs. It works amazingly in most fractals, so I will only be rating it based on the fractals where it can work (Looking at you sunqua peak). It is easy to maintain quickness on it, so even if you mess up your rotations and get little less dps, you can still keep quickness up. One of the biggest thing with catalyst is, understanding combos. You put down many combo fields and have many finishers. Learning what each does, will allow a player to use the most out of this build. Can it go toe to toe with other quickness builds? I'd say, yes for the most part. You will have to spend sometime to learn it, but once you manage to understand it, you will be able to challenge the meta.

Comments

Get MetaBattle Premium
Enjoy an ad-free experience & support the website, for less than $1 per month! Upgrade to Premium
Builds by Game Mode
Builds by Profession
Guides
Tools
General
Metabattle