User:Masel/Builds/Catalyst
Sc/F Fire Condition Catalyst [edit]
Criterion | Rating |
---|---|
Burst Damage | 2/5 |
Sustained Damage | 4/5 |
Utility Options | 4/5 |
Survivability | 5/5 |
Difficulty | 1/5 |
Fire Catalyst is not a build that’ll put you on the top of the dps charts everywhere, but does great damage nonetheless. It excels at doing harder content in OW, is fully ranged and provides itself with 25 stacks of Might and full Protection uptime. It is probably the easiest Elementalist build for beginners. It can be built with the same gear as my Condition Weaver or Tempest and can further be adjusted to supply Quickness and other Boons to allies, making it a decent support option. It's main downsides are a slow damage ramp-up and low Breakbar damage.
Links to Build Variants in the Build Editor:
Playstyle & Skills[edit]
Skill Type | Skills | |||||
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Jade Spheres |
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Fire Attunement |
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Utility Skills |
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In this build, we’ll be camping fire attunement all day, except for when defense or breakbar damage is needed, then we’ll go into earth, air or water briefly.
Elemental Empowerment and Auras[edit]
- Auras are effects that apply conditions, damage, stuns etc. to enemies and boons to you when you get hit. Auras are an integral part of Catalyst, since granting or gaining auras has additional benefits too. When using Earth with Written in Stone, any Signet you use applies an Aura to you.
- This is important, as Elemental Epitome gives you stacks of Elemental Empowerment whenever you grant yourself an aura.
- Combined with Vicious Empowerment, Fire Shield, Combos and the Immobile from Signet of Earth, you will maintain full 10 stacks of Elemental Empowerment.
- With 10 stacks, their effect is even stronger due to Empowered Empowerment!
Skill Usage & Choices[edit]
In Fire Attunement, you’ll want to use all skills on cooldown. They are all more or less there to apply tons of burning to enemies.
- Dragon's Tooth is a delayed attacks that does great damage. This is also a blast finisher, applying might to allies when used inside a fire field.
- Phoenix is a ground-targeted projectile that applies burning, and more burning to enemies that are already burning. Once it returns to you, it also cleanses a condition and grnats vigor, which is very nice.
- Flamewall is ground-targeted and another fire field. Fire fields are important as sources for additional burning and might, and will increase your strike damage via Persisting Flames!
- Fire Shield applies a Fire Aura to you and does not have a cast time. This will trigger all benefits of gaining an aura immediately after using it, so it grants increased damage and/or protection depending on which traits you use!
Skill Choice | Notes |
---|---|
Signet of Restoration | This will apply a Frost Aura to you and passively heal you whenever you cast something. Very strong skill when using Written in Stone. |
Signet of Fire | BIG DAMAGE and Fire Aura. |
Signet of Earth | Applies Bleeding, Immobile and a Magnetic Aura, which reflects Projectiles. The Immobile triggers Strength of Stone for even more Bleeding. |
Glyph of Lesser Elementals | Precast as many elementals as possible for a faster damage rampup! |
Glyph of Elementals | BIG DAMAGE. Use the secondary cast on cooldown. |
CC Skills for Breakbar Damage:
- Gale
- Comet
- Immobile from Signet of Earth.
- Shocking Bolt - This requires you to cast an air elemental first!
Gear[edit]
Important Stats (descending in Importance):
- 100% Burning and Bleeding Duration (~62% overall condition duration). The gaps are closed by Serrated Stones, Burning Precision and the stacks of Elemental Empowerment
- Maximize Condition Damage
Armor | Prefix | Rune |
---|---|---|
Head | Viper's | Superior Rune of the Trapper |
Shoulders | Viper's | Superior Rune of the Trapper |
Chest | Viper's | Superior Rune of the Trapper |
Gloves | Viper's | Superior Rune of the Trapper |
Legs | Viper's | Superior Rune of the Trapper |
Boots | Viper's | Superior Rune of the Trapper |
Trinket | Prefix | |
Amulet | Viper's | |
Ring 1 | Viper's | |
Ring 2 | Viper's | |
Accessory 1 | Viper's | |
Accessory 2 | Viper's | |
Backpack | Viper's | |
Weapon | Prefix | Sigil |
Scepter (Main Hand) | Viper's | Superior Sigil of Earth |
Focus (Off Hand) | Viper's | Superior Sigil of Bursting |
Purpose | Item Type | Source |
Damage | Ascended Food | Cilantro and Cured Meat Flatbread |
Damage | Non-Ascended Food | Plate of Beef Rendang |
Survivability | Ascended Food | Peppered Cured Meat Flatbread |
Survivability | Non-Ascended Food | Oysters Gnashblade |
Damage | Utility | Toxic Focusing Crystal |
Survivability | Utility | Potion Of Karka Toughness |
Damage | Relic | Relic of the Fractal |
- For a budget variant, simply replace all armor pieces of Viper's with rare/exotic Ritualist's and all Grieving with rare/exotic Carrion.
- Ascended gear is always ideal, but exotic gear is fine for everything aside from higher-tier fractals.
- Ascended Food is always ideal, but never required.
Traits[edit]
Fire | ||||||
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Earth | ||||||
Catalyst | ||||||
Important traits and options for the respective game mode are explained in the other sections!
DPS Rotation Showcase[edit]
You can find my most recent rotation showcase here.
Open World Build[edit]
[You can find my most recent open world build showcase here.]
Increasing General Survivability[edit]
- For OW, it can make sense to make a build more forgiving, so that you can sustain on your own.
- First, change to Elemental Shielding in Earth. Elemental Shielding will apply Protection with any aura you grant, allowing you to maintain a full uptime on it and reduce incoming Strike damage by 33%.
- Second, change to Hardened Auras in Catalyst. It will allow you to maintain another permanent 20% incoming damage reduction without having to think about it.
- These change alone will reduce incoming damage by ~50%
- For a Stun break on demand, use Signet of Air. This will grant you another Aura and applies Vulnerability and Blinded on cast. It further permament 25% movement speed, which is big since we dont cover Swiftness!
Boon Coverage[edit]
- To cover Might, swap to Pyromancer's Puissance in Fire. Using any skill will grant you Might this way. Combined with Deploy Jade Sphere, you will maintain a great amount of Might.
- As explained above, Elemental Shielding applies Protection every time you grant an aura to yourself or allies. This way, applying auras is a simple way to maintain protection, massively increasing survivability.
- You can cover a good amount of Quickness by using Spectacular Sphere and Sphere Specialist. It usually is not worth it on your own, but it can be if you have allies around you. Note that fully covering Quickness this way will require larger changes to gear or a more complex rotation that involves at least three elements.
- To cover more boons on yourself, make use of Jade Tech Offensive Overcharge and Jade Tech Defensive Overcharge.
- These give for 150 additional Toughness, Vitality, Condition Damage and Power as well as all boons aside from Stability, Resistance and Resolution on entering combat. These effects can be pre-stacked by using an Enchanted Snow Diamond Tonic repeatedly when out of combat. The Quickness and Alacrity from this increases damage noticeably!
- In story instances (or if you don't want the hassle of reapplying protocols), you can abuse the synergy between Relic of the Cavalier and Blast from the Skyscale to apply lots of Aegis, Resistance, Might and Quickness to yourself. It does not have an internal cooldown and applies the boons on every hit of Blast.
Dealing with Conditions and Control effects[edit]
- In case you need frequent condi cleanses, Smothering Auras in fire is worth looking at. This cleanses conditions whenever you grant an aura to an ally, and transmuting one via focus 5 cleanses 2 conditions in an aoe around you. This costs some damage, but can make your life in some situations much easier!
- If you use Protocols of the Cavalier Relic, take a look at using Armor of Earth. This grants Barrier for every unique boon on you, making this a very strong safety net with Protocols or the Cavalier Relic.
- Finally, using Staunch Auras gives you Stability on every ura. This allows you to ignore incoming Control effects frequently at the cost of a chunk of your damage.