User:Masel/Builds/Catalyst

Sc/F Fire Condition  Catalyst

Build Rating (Subjective)

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:

Open World Build

Condition DPS

Playstyle & Skills

Skill Type	Skills
Jade Spheres
Fire Attunement
Utility Skills

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

• 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

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!

Utility Skills (DPS)

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

Important Stats (descending in Importance):

1. 100%  Burning and  Bleeding Duration (~62% overall condition duration). The gaps are closed by  Serrated Stones,  Burning Precision and the stacks of  Elemental Empowerment
2. Maximize Condition Damage

Gear

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

Fire
Earth
Catalyst

Important traits and options for the respective game mode are explained in the other sections!

DPS Rotation Showcase

You can find my most recent rotation showcase here.

Open World Build

[You can find my most recent open world build showcase here.]

Increasing General Survivability

• 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

• 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

• 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.