Catalyst - Celestial S/F Roamer

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

Focused on: Direct damage and Mobility

Designed for: WvW Roaming

Difficulty:
TBD
This build was last updated on January 22, 2023 and is up to date for the March 19, 2024 patch.

Overview

A hybrid/condition focused Scepter/Focus Catalyst build for WvW Roaming.


Skill Bar

Scepter/Focus
Utility

Skill Variants

Utility

is more or less mandatory, but there are several viable options for the other two slots:

  • - excellent Chill uptime.
  • - adds a bit of burst damage when used on fire but could also work as a stun break.
  • - amazing boost to your sustain.


Heal

  • - if you're struggling against conditions.


Template Code

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Specializations


Equipment

Head
Celestial
Shoulders
Celestial
Chest
Celestial
Hands
Celestial
Legs
Celestial
Feet
Celestial
Backpiece
Celestial
Accessory
Celestial
Accessory
Celestial
Amulet
Celestial
Ring
Celestial
Ring
Celestial
Scepter
Celestial
Focus
Celestial
Sigil
Sigil
Rune
x6
Infusion
x18

Sigils

  • - adds a new condition to the build, making it harder for enemies to cleanse your more important ones while also doing some damage.
  • - if you're having trouble dealing with conditions.
  • - AoE damage proc that could be used to instantly apply the Poison Poison from the Doom sigil the same time this sigil strike an enemy, but the proc has melee range so sometimes it could go to waste if you're too far away from the targetwhen swapping attunements.


Rune

  • - way better cleansing, strong synergy with various traits like or even if you chose that heal.


Consumables

Food

  • - passive damage mitigation and a boost to all of your stats, goes well with all Celestial builds.
  • - defensive option with more evasion.


Utility


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 .
  • Jade Spheres are instant and can be used while casting skills or sitting in a CC.


General

  • Because of 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 Confusion stacks in which case you'd take more damage then the signet could heal.
  • (the elite) is usually used in Earth Attunement to reset the CDs of and under heavy pressure.


Auras

  • You gain Stability Stability and cleanse 1 condition whenever you gain an aura thanks to and .
  • grants an aura based on your current element when you execute a combo.
  • Combo finishers in the build:
    • and on Fire.
    • on Water.
    • (chain skill of ), and the first dodge you perform after swapping to this element thanks to . There's also the autoattack but that's a bit random.
  • As you can see Air has no combo finishers, but that doesn't mean the build has no access to . All you have to do is make one of your finishers land while you're attuned to Air, for example a which has a travel time.
  • Aura combos like this from 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 are also some less complicated ways of obtaining auras. Fire #5 directly applies a Fire Aura (and flips over into a chain skill which lets you transmute it for extra effects or more cleansing via ). Another easy one is to simply swap to for a proc. These are both instant and can even be done while casting skills or sitting in a CC, preventing enemies from piling more CCs onto you.
  • 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 your strongest element.
  • is an autoattack which is more dangerous than it looks, capable of rapidly stacking burning on enemies if you're allowed to freecast for a few seconds. Quickness Quickness from the Air Jade Sphere can help a lot with that along with when used in Fire, so dropping the sphere on Air before switching to Fire is always a good idea.
  • and both do good damage and are Blast finishers. Other than stacking auras they have inherent value as combo tools, for example if used inside the Fire Jade Sphere these two are going to stack Might Might which increases your damage.
    • Both of these skills work on targets behind your character, allowing you to effortlessly pressure enemies even while kiting them.
  • can sometimes be hard to get value from, but it's good against CC'd or downed enemies.
  • Air skills don't do a whole lot of damage compared to Fire but and offer good cover conditions to make your Burning stacks harder to cleanse.
  • While offers a passive stat increase, most of the time people tend to go immediately for its chain skill to deal damage. Hurl launched 5 projectiles which apply Bleeding Bleeding that are guaranteed projectile finishers, these are best used inside the Earth Sphere to combo Poison Poison or a Fire Field for Burning Burning.
  • adds more condition variety to your bursts on top of being a great defensive skill.
  • isn't quite as good of an auto as but it's an okay filler skill when you've got nothing better to do.


Sustain

  • Simply swapping to Earth can already help you out against direct damage as you'll gain Protection Protection from . Earth Jade Sphere grants the same boon plus Resistance Resistance.
  • Fire and Earth are the best attunements when it comes to dealing with condition pressure. Fire has 2 auras, one from and another on skill #5. Gaining auras removes conditions and transmuting an aura removes 2. also removes a condition.
  • If you need to cleanse a lot of conditions do the following chain:
  1. - cleanses 1 condition as you gain an aura.
  2. - cleanses 2 conditions.
  3. Use Focus #5 , removing yet another condition.
  4. Transmute again for another 2 cleanses.
  5. if necessary for another cleanse.
  • Earth's instantly cleanses several conditions and reflect projectiles. This plus can make you quite durable against projectile-based specs.
  • The first dodge you perform on Water cleanses 1 condition and heals for a small amount.
  • is rather straightforward, heals when it strikes an enemy.
  • Water Attunement's Jade Sphere is a Water field, dropping blast finishers inside it is a good way of resustaining yourself. has nice synergy with that while the Daze creates a bit of breathing room for your. Swapping to Earth right after and following up with a dodge + Magnetic Wave for 2 more blast finishers is a common play.
  • Chill Chill from and can help you kite enemies.
  • and mitigate damage via Blind Blind spam, but Blinding Flash also has Weakness which is quite nice against power-based specs (and it's instant so could even be used while CC'd).
  • and are both strong barrier sources for damage mitigation, and Fortified Earth even has a rather long block duration.
  • is the ultimate defensive skill in the build, protecting you from all types of damage except for fall damage.


Ratings

This build has a rating of 5 stars based on 1 votes.
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5 stars
Hanz gave this build 5 stars • December 2022
Newest addition to the list of broken Cele builds. This one can even burst targets by spamming only fire autos, quickly achieving 10+ burning and 25 Might stacks. Elite can reset Obsi Flesh and other strong defensive CDs, condi variety is quite good as far as ele builds go, it can even combo Poison. Has frequent access to 4 different auras and almost every boon in the game with solid uptime thanks to Cele. Only downside is maybe the mobility, if someone decides to run and Lightning Flash isn't enough to catch up then it can't chase the kill, but that's it. Doesn't get much better than this and it's very easy to play.

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