Catalyst - Boon Support Power DPS

This is a test build. You may comment and rate it.

Focused on: Strike damage and Support

Designed for: Raids and Fractals

Difficulty:
TBD

Overview

A quickness-providing catalyst build.


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

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Specializations


Equipment

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
Infusion
x18


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 Fire and Earth are used to regain that energy as they have the strongest autoattacks. 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 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

You should always start in Air to start generating boons as quickly as possible. The rotation follows similar fundamentals to the DPS build, but you want to switch to air more frequently to use Deploy Jade Sphere (Air) nearly off cooldown (10.4s).


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. Hurricane of Pain
  2. Deploy Jade Sphere (Air)
  3. Fire Attunement Fire Attunement when available


Fire & Air

The second time you enter Fire, you need to use it to recover energy. You want to use Grand Finale as well as available cooldowns. Try to delay Grand Finale as long as possible in order to benefit from the circular projectiles, but make sure they don't expire! Once you are at full energy, you want to head into Air attunement again for Quickness Quickness:

  1. Flame Wheel
  2. Deploy Jade Sphere (Fire)
  3. Relentless Fire
  4. Any remaining cooldowns
  5. Air Attunement
  6. Crescent Wind
  7. Deploy Jade Sphere (Air)
  8. Hurricane of Pain


Water & Earth

As you've just used Fire and Air, you should go to Water then Earth to activate the circular projectiles. Make sure to pick up the Fiery Greatsword in earth and let energy get back to full, then it's time to head back to Air.


Air

In Air, use Grand Finale and once you can use Crescent Wind again, start from the beginning of the loop.


Video example


Ratings

This build has a rating of 4 stars based on 4 votes.
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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

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