Difference between revisions of "Catalyst - Power Hammer Cata"

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* {{Trait|Smothering Auras}} cleanses a condition whenever you apply an aura to yourself.
 
* {{Trait|Smothering Auras}} cleanses a condition whenever you apply an aura to yourself.
  
* {{Skill|Evasive Arcana}} heals and cleanses when used on Water while the first dodge on Earth turns into a blast finisher. Once again, try to land inside a combo field for that sweet {{Trait|Elemental Epitome}} synergy. As the Jade Sphere is instant you could even drop a combo field on the middle of your dodge.
+
* {{Trait|Evasive Arcana}} heals and cleanses when used on Water while the first dodge on Earth turns into a blast finisher. Once again, try to land inside a combo field for that sweet {{Trait|Elemental Epitome}} synergy. As the Jade Sphere is instant you could even drop a combo field on the middle of your dodge.
  
  

Revision as of 11:38, 15 August 2022

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 Sustain

Designed for: PvP Conquest

Difficulty:
TBD
This build was last updated on August 15, 2022 and is up to date for the March 19, 2024 patch.

Overview

A high damage PvP Hammer Catalyst build with good sustain, primarily made for taking 1v1s and other smaller skirmishes.


Skill Bar

Hammer
Utility


Skill Variants

Heal

  • - better condition cleansing.


Template Code

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Specializations

Variants

  • offers better defense against conditions.


Equipment

Hammer
Sigil
Sigil
Rune
Amulet


Equipment Changes

Amulet

  • - if you're feeling really confident in your abilities while piloting the build, this makes it harder to play the build for a bit better payoff.


Rune

  • - better chase and disengage potential on a build that doesn't have a lot of mobility tools.

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 .


General

  • Your role is primarily to be a sidenoder, holding the point and winning smaller skirmishes.
  • Skill #3 on each attunement is an orb skill, consider this your secondary profession mechanic. Air and Fire grant offensive bonuses while Water and Earth supply you with defensive ones. All 4 orbs also pulse damage and apply conditions around you while active:
    • on Fire increases your damage
    • on Water grants condition damage reduction.
    • on Air increases crit chance.
    • on Earth reduces direct damage.
  • Each orb has a duration of 8 seconds, but whenever you add a new orb to the mix the duration of all previous orbs is refreshed. Once you've rotated through all 4 attunements the orbs will inevitably fall off - this is when you should use the chain skill which shoots them at your target for damage.
    • Try to use Grand Finale in your Earth Sphere's field whenever you can to combo 24px Posion. The healing reduction could be important when fighting other bunker specs.
  • passively helps with reviving allies.
  • 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.
  • You gain Stability Stability whenever you gain an aura thanks to . The easiest way to get an aura is to swap to for a proc. This is instant and can even be done while casting skill or sitting in a CC, preventing enemies from piling more CCs onto you.
  • Other sources of auras include performing any combo in your Jade Sphere via or using .
    • is a channeled block - the aura is applied after you block something. This gives you a little bit of time to swap attunements before that happens and get an aura of your choice as the aura is granted based on your current attunement.
  • (the elite) is used mainly to reset the CD of skills 4-5 of a given attunement, usually Water or Earth for defensive purposes.


Damage

  • Try to have and active when unloading your harder hitting skills.
  • grants a short duration of Fury Fury whenever you swap attunements. It's not much, but just enough to cover your next 1-2 skills so consider using some harder hitting skill right after swapping.
    • As swapping elements doesn't interrupt your casts, you could even boost your crit chance through this while casting a skill. All you need to do is swap attunement before the skill lands.
  • Most of the burst comes from , every skill here hits hard.
  • is a cone attack best used in melee range to make sure all 3 projectiles hit the target.
  • creates 3 AoEs on the ground - try to position this in a way that your opponent is in the center of this skill so they get hit by all 3.
  • is rather straightforward, just a big smash you should aim to land when the target has Burning Burning. All the other Fire skills apply Burning so that shouldn't be hard.
  • Air is mostly about CC, but skill #2 hits rather hard. Only downside is, this is has a rather long cast time and you'll have a hard time landing it without proper setup. Try to CC targets beforehand and make sure to have Quickness Quickness from your Air Jade Sphere.
  • and are also worth a mention on Earth. The latter could even set up other burst skill with the Immobilize Immobilize.


Sustain

  • All of your utility skills are defensive by nature.
  • The build only has 1 stun break in the form of so use it wisely. If you're good at reading your opponent this could even be used preemptively for the Blind Blind, making the incoming attack miss instead of waiting to get hit only to break the CC. If CC isn't a concern in the matchup then the same logic applies, the signet could save you from getting hit by something dangerous.
  • is for buying time and surviving heavy pressure. With a block, an 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.
  • Use pretty much on CD for the barrier and the aura.
  • Water provides much needed healing and cleansing. heals you for each enemy struck with the first one healing for more. Against enemies like Mesmers try to hit as many clones as possible for bonus healing. Consider using it inside your Water Sphere to combo even more healing (and for further damage mitigation).
  • is your best cleanse, this too scales with the number of enemies it hits.
  • cleanses a condition whenever you apply an aura to yourself.
  • heals and cleanses when used on Water while the first dodge on Earth turns into a blast finisher. Once again, try to land inside a combo field for that sweet synergy. As the Jade Sphere is instant you could even drop a combo field on the middle of your dodge.


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Ratings

This build has a rating of 5 stars based on 3 votes.
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5 stars
Hanz gave this build 5 stars • January 2024
Strong yet not very popular, likely due to its above average difficulty to pull off. Great damage and survivability, but a bit weak to conditions and lacks mobility.
5 stars
Necro master gave this build 5 stars • July 2022
best 1v1 side even tf no one help team value over than another class so much but u need paid alot time to learn this
4 stars
Faler gave this build 4 stars • July 2022
Lucky condi specs aren't in the meta other than harbinger because cleansing is definitely a problem here. Damage is there, sustain is a bit iffy but boon uptime helps quite a lot. Earth shield carries otherwise gets deleted easily. Cata/5, improving but still not there yet.

Comments

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