Catalyst - Scepter Condi Cata

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

Focused on: Condition damage

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 condition S/D Catalyst build making use of the new Scepter buffs.

Skill Bar

Scepter/Dagger

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.

Template Code

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Equipment

Scepter

Dagger

Sigil

Sigil

Rune

Amulet

Equipment Variants

Runes

• Rune of Forge - more tanky option, sacrifices some condition damage but retains the Burn duration and adds a very useful aura proc on low CD.

Sigils

• Sigil of Smoldering - improves your strongest condition.

• Sigil of Doom - better condition variety and some healing reduction.

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

• Because of Signet of Restoration 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 stacks in which case you'd take more damage then the signet could heal.

• Whether you need to get around the map faster or want to disengage from a lost fight, Ride the Lightning is a very strong mobility skill. Just make sure you have "auto-targeting" disabled in the options and use it without a target selected if you want to escape a fight, otherwise it's going to take you right back into the action.

• Elemental Attunement grants you Swiftness whenever you swap into Air. Swapping in and out of Air as much as you can while roaming the map increases your mobility.

• Elemental Celerity (the elite) reduces the recharge of every weapon skill on your current attunement. Use it on:
• Air if you need mobility/CC/evasion.
• Fire for extra burst damage.
• Water for healing/cleansing.
• Earth for CC and minor sustain from Blind and barrier.

Auras

• You gain Stability and cleanse 1 condition whenever you gain an aura thanks to Staunch Auras and Smothering Auras.

• Elemental Epitome grants an aura based on your current element when you execute a combo.

• The spread of combo finishers on S/D isn't optimal for aura stacking with Elemental Epitome - Air and Water don't have any while Earth has 5. This however can be remedied with good timing and a little bit of creativity by switching attunements at the right moment, causing some finishers to land in a different attunement.

• An example of spreading out finishers would be dropping the Jade Sphere on Earth, following up with Hurl and swapping to Air for Shocking Aura.

• Combo finishers in the build:
  • Dragon's Tooth and Phoenix on Fire.
  • Comet on Water.
  • Hurl (chain skill of Rock Barrier), Earthquake, Churning Earth and the first dodge you perform after swapping to this element thanks to Evasive Arcana. There's also the autoattack Stone Shards but that's a bit random.

• Aura combos like this from Elemental Epitome 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're also some less complicated ways of obtaining auras. Water #4 creates a Frost Aura (and flips over into a chain skill which lets you transmute it for extra effects or more cleansing via Smothering Auras). Another easy one is to simply swap to Fire Attunement for a Sunspot 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.

• Flamestrike 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 from the Air Jade Sphere can help a lot with that, so dropping the sphere on Air before switching to Fire is always a good idea.

• Every skill used on Fire stacks Might for you, even the autoattack. A good opener on this attunement would be Dragon's Tooth followed by Flamestrike spam to buff yourself while waiting for DT to go off, and then unloading your other skills with sufficient Might stacks before falling back on the Flamestrike spam.

• Dragon's Tooth and Phoenix 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 which increases your damage.
  • Both of these skills work on targets behind your character, allowing you to effortlessly pressure enemies even while kiting them.

• Ring of Fire (elementalist) is a simple AoE that burns foes when cast (and whenever they cross the ring). It's also a combo field.

• Fire Grab should always be used when the target has Burning for the extra damage. Considering how every other weapon skill on this attunement inflicts burning that shouldn't be hard.

• Air skills don't do a whole lot of damage compared to Fire but Lightning Strike and Blinding Flash offer good cover conditions to make your Burning stacks harder to cleanse.

• While Rock Barrier offers a passive stat increase, most of the time people tend to go immediately for its chain skill Hurl to deal damage. Hurl launched 5 projectiles which apply Bleeding that are guaranteed projectile finishers, these are best used inside the Earth Sphere to combo Poison or a Fire Field for Burning.

• Dust Devil adds more condition variety to your bursts on top of being a great defensive skill.

• Stone Shards isn't quite as good of an auto as Flamestrike 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 from Elemental Attunement. Earth Jade Sphere grants the same boon plus Resistance.

• Water is the best attunement when it comes to dealing with condition pressure.

• The first dodge you perform on Water cleanses 1 condition and heals for a small amount.

• If you need to cleanse a lot of conditions do the following chain:

1. Cast any of your finishers that can be carried over to another attunement, for example Phoenix in any Jade Sphere while swapping to Water Attunement in the middle of the cast. The goal is to make it land on Water for Elemental Epitome synergy, creating a Frost Aura. This cleanses 1 condition.
2. Transmute Frost - cleanses 2 conditions.
3. Dodge, Evasive Arcana heals and cleanses 1 condition.
4. Use Dagger #4 for another Frost Aura, removing yet another condition.
5. Transmute again for another 2 cleanses.
6. Cleansing Wave for another 3 (and some healing) if still necessary.

• Water Trident 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. While Water doesn't have any such finishers, swapping to Earth right after and following up with a dodge + Earthquake for 2 blasts is a common play. You could even try adding a Churning Earth but this has a rather long cast time while making you stationary, so not ideal under pressure.

• Chill from Shatterstone and Frost Aura can help you kite enemies.

• Blinding Flash and Dust Devil mitigate damage via 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).

• Rock Barrier and Fortified Earth are both strong barrier sources for damage mitigation, and Fortified Earth even has a rather long block duration.

• Conjure Earth Shield 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.

• Signet of Air is your only stun break, luckily it's on short CD and the build has plenty of Stability. If you're good enough at reading the field you could even use it preemtively, Blinding an incoming CC (or any other impactful attack skill) instead of reacting to it after you've been hit.

• Other than just being a powerful CC tool Updraft also has an evade frame which is quite useful if you're out of dodges and need to avoid something important.

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