Catalyst - Fresh Air Cata

Part of the current metagame

Our curator decided this build is in the current metagame regardless of rating. The community gave this build a rating, making it top-tier: Great

Focused on: Direct damage and Mobility

Designed for: PvP Conquest

Difficulty:

TBD

This build was last updated on April 27, 2023 and is up to date for the March 19, 2024 patch.

Overview

A Catalyts take on the Scepter Fresh Air archetype, this PvP build brings the usual burst damage while adding some extra sustain and a variety of boons/auras. FA Catas aim to kite their opponents with Superspeed and CC spam while keeping them pressured.

Skill Bar

Scepter/Focus

Utility

Skill Variants

Utility

• Armor of Earth over Signet of Air - Armor is a better defensive skill in general but it's on a longer CD. It's up to you to decide what's more important to you, a stronger defensive or more frequent access to a stun break. The Signet's Blind could also be used proactively to avoid incoming attacks.

Weapons

• Off-hand Dagger over Focus is also a viable option.

Template Code

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Equipment

Scepter

Focus

Sigil

Sigil

Rune

Amulet

Equipment Variants

Amulet

• - if you're not comfortable with the low HP, a combination of Marauder Amulet and Rune of Eagle for higher survivability at the cost of slightly lower damage would also be a viable option.

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

• The build's all about swapping in and out of Air Attunement every few seconds, made possible by Fresh Air which recharges Air whenever you land a critical strike.

• Swapping to Air triggers Electric Discharge which you should immediately follow up with a Lightning Strike for instant burst damage. Entering this attunement also grants you Ferocity from Fresh Air for a few seconds, which is why most of your heavy hitting skills should land in this small time frame. More on that later.

• Recharging Air: to recharge Air you need to score a critical hit. The fastest way to do it on attunements with slower skills is to start channeling the air autoattack Arc Lightning just before leaving Air Attunement. Swapping attunements doesn't break the channeling and Arc Lightning is almost guaranteed to critically hit at least once.
  • Jade Spheres are great for this too. While their damage is insignificant, they are instant cast ranged AoEs that strike multiple times and can crit.

• This build can self-stack Might by blasting the fire field created by the Fire Jade Sphere and Flamewall. Do not prioritize Might stacking, but do take advantage of the incidental opportunities which arise. Your blast finishers are:

• Dragon's Tooth
• Phoenix
• Comet
• Magnetic Wave
• The first dodge you perform after swapping to Earth attunement

• Gale is an excellent skill for setting up burst, use it right before swapping out of Air into another attunement.

• Elemental Celerity's main purpose is to reset/reduce the CDs on Magnetic Wave and Obsidian Flesh for extra sustain, but if you want to get greedy it could also reset burst and CC cooldowns in other attunements.
  • With Off-hand Dagger you should use the elite in Air for mobility/evasion, Water for cleansing/healing or Fire for burst damage.

• Gaining an aura grants you 1 stack of Stability. The first combo you perform in a given attunement always grants you an aura via Elemental Epitome.

• A common tatic is to cast Dragon's Tooth and burst enemies before it falls on them. This presents a no-win situation for many builds: they can either facetank your burst but dodge the tooth, or dodge your burst and facetank the tooth.

Notable burst combos

These are some potential combos you can use based on the techniques outlined above. The quicker you pull these chains off, the better.

From Fire:

1. Drop your Fire Jade Sphere to passively begin stacking Might.
2. Fire Shield ⇒ Transmute Fire for more Might.
3. Dragon's Tooth
4. Phoenix - optional: Lightning Flash right at your target before you finish casting Phoenix to make it near instant.
5. Air Attunement - swap to this just before Phoenix is about to hit the target.
6. Lightning Strike

From Earth:

1. Rock Barrier
2. Hurl then swap to Air Attunement during the channeling to make the projectiles land in the right attunement. Hurl is a guaranteed projectile finisher which has synergy with your Spheres, consider dropping one before doing this combo. Any Sphere except Water will result in a damage boost.
3. Lightning Strike

From Water:

1. Shatterstone
2. Water Trident - the trident does more damage to Chilled enemies which is important. Shatterstone should secure that but Freezing Gust can do the trick too.
3. Swap to Air Attunement while casting Water Trident, preferably even before the 2nd strike of Shatterstone goes off so that it may benefit from Air's damage modifiers.
4. Lightning Strike

Survival

• One with Air makes it easy to kite most specs. Avoid melee range whenever you can!

• Shatterstone is a source of spammable Chill which you can even place behind your back when running away. Chill is great at building distance.

• Needless to say other CCs can also be used for shaking off pursuers.

• Magnetic Wave and Swirling Winds provide excellent protection against enemies who use projectiles. These however do not work against unblockable projectiles, and some ranged builds - such as this one - are mostly unaffected by projectile reflects and blocks.

• Magnetic Wave is the build's best condition cleanse which can also be used while stunned.

• Obsidian Flesh offers protection against all kinds of pressure.

• Blinding Flash is great at avoiding crucial skills by blinding enemies, and it also shuts down Power-based specs in general with the Weakness.

• The first strike of Dust Devil Blinds enemies while the snare is useful for keeping distance.

Top Streamers

• Twitch: Zeolith

• Twitch: Grimjack

• Twitch: Zeus

• Twitch: Justanotherelemain

Related Builds

• Catalyst - Fresh Air Roamer - WvW version of the build.