User:Masel/Builds/Catalyst

Pistol + Warhorn Condition  Catalyst

Build Rating (Subjective)

Criterion	Rating
Burst Damage	3/5
Sustained Damage	4/5
Utility Options	4/5
Survivability	4/5
Difficulty	3/5

Condition Catalyst is a build that many people don't have on their radar, but with today's patch, it got a whole lot better. It's a great choice for both insatnced content and OW, is fully ranged and provides itself with full uptime on  Might,  Fury,  Quickness and  Protection. 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 good support option.

Links to Build Variants in the Build Editor:

Condition DPS

Playstyle & Skills

Skill Type	Skills
Jade Spheres
Fire Attunement
Earth Attunement
Water Attunement
Air Attunement
Utility Skills

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 while swapping attunements, 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!

Rotation Guidance & Video Showcase

You can find my most recent rotation showcase here
Link to Damage Log

Section	Notes
General Stuff	On the Pistol build, we'll use a rotation that alternates between   Fire Attunement and   Earth Attunement and squeezes   Water Attunement in between. Use Jade Spheres whenever they are available. They will provide Boons to allies and are instant cast = free damage and boons. Always use   Signet of Fire,   Signet of Earth,   Glyph of Elemental Power (ideally in   Fire Attunement) &   Flame Barrage on cooldown. The Bullet mechanic on the Pistols complicates things for ideal damage output, but for starters it's fine to use stuff on cooldown and start paying attention to it once you get used to the general flow:   Fire Attunement   Water Attunement   Earth Attunement Repeat from   Fire Attunement. When you're just starting, you can skip the   Water Attunement entirely at a moderate dps loss.
Opener	Start in   Fire Attunement. Precast   Glyph of Elementals and   Glyph of Elemental Power. Use all other skills aside from   Signet of Restoration. Then swap to   Water Attunement (or   Earth Attunement is you skip Water)
Section 1:   Water Attunement &   Earth Attunement	Frigid Flurry - try to generate water bullets with this. Just use this first every time you go into   Water Attunement.   Frozen Fusillade - try to consume an water bullet for this for extra  Bleeding. Swap to Earth and use the following skills:   Shattering Stone x2 - try to consume an earth bullet for this for extra  Bleeding.   Boulder Blast x1 - try to generate earth bullets with this.   Dust Storm x1 You can use   Sand Squall for almost free Boons on allies.
Section 2:   Fire Attunement	Use the following skills:   Wildfire x1   Searing Salvo x2 - try to stock Fire Bullets with this.   Raging Ricochet x3 - try to consume a fire bullet for this for 5% condition damage via   Raging Ricochet. Repeat from   Water Attunement (or   Earth Attunement is you skip Water).
CC Skills for Breakbar Damage	Tidal Surge   Cyclone &   Dazing Discharge - save   Air Attunement for these two!  Immobile from   Signet of Earth.

Alternative  Fire Attunement Camp Rotation

This alternative rotation camps  Fire Attunement to fulfil everyone's Fire Wizard dreams!
Link to the Fire Camp Build
You can find my most recent rotation showcase here. In   Fire Attunement, you’ll want to use all skills on cooldown, including your healing skill. That way, you maintain 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

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. More effective with  Quickness as it increase your rate-of-fire on skills.
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 Elemental Power	Precast this for a faster damage rampup!
Glyph of Elementals	BIG DAMAGE. Use the secondary cast on cooldown.

Gear & Traits

For gear, you can freely mix pieces of Viper's and Ritualist's. Each piece of Viper's gives you a slightly higher damage output than Ritualist's (~9-10% damage difference for a full set), but comes at the cost of more difficult coverage on  Quickness and other boons. If you can't afford two sets, my recommendation is to use Ritualist's Armor and Trinkets as the base variant and use Abomination Weapons. That will get you right between the two builds in terms of stats and provide a good allrounder setup of all kinds of PvE.

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

• To be able

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
Pistol (Main Hand)	Viper's	Superior Sigil of Torment
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 Tuning Crystal
Survivability	Utility	Potion Of Karka Toughness
Damage	Relic	Relic of the Fractal

Traits

Fire
Earth
Catalyst

• 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.

Open World Build

• For OW, it can make sense to make a build more forgiving, so that you can sustain on your own.

You can find my most recent open world build showcase here.
Link to the Build on the Editor

• On the Pistol build, we'll use a similar rotation as described above with  Spectacular Sphere and  Sphere Specialist: place three Jade Spheres to provide several Boons to yourself and allies.
•  Sphere Specialist allows you to generate Energy while another Sphere is active, making it easy to cover  Quickness by using the three spheres on cooldown with the very same rotation as described above!
• Using   Water Attunement gives you access to a noticeable amount of healing, while   Air Attunement provides  Vulnerability coverage for higher damage.
• You can use  Hardened Auras for a simple 10% decrease in incoming damage.
• Swap out   Glyph of Elemental Power for   Armor of Earth. This gives a Stun break,  Stability, lots of Barrier and additional  Protection uptime.
• For better Boon coverage (which entails better offense & defense), you can replace any piece of Viper's with Ritualist's or Celestial. Ritualist's can be used in all game modes and has a fairly low damage tradeoff compared to Viper's, while Celestial is a more defensive option.

Fire
Earth
Catalyst

• With these traits, this build has access to all Boons in the game aside from  Alacrity and  Resistance and shares most of them in an area!
• Make sure to use   Sand Squall to extend all Boons on yourself and allies!
• Let's go through the Boons one by one:

1.  Protection and  Aegis via   Sand Squall,   Armor of Earth and   Deploy Jade Sphere,
2.  Might via  Raging Ricochet,   Heat Sync,   Deploy Jade Sphere and  Pyromancer's Puissance,
3.  Vigor and  Resolution via   Deploy Jade Sphere,
4.  Fury when using   Heat Sync &   Deploy Jade Sphere,
5.  Quickness via the three Jade Spheres of choice.

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!
•   Armor of Earth grants Barrier for every unique boon on you and  Stability, allowin.
• Finally, using  Staunch Auras can give you  Stability on every Aura. This allows you to ignore incoming Control effects frequently at the cost of a chunk of your damage. You can't use this in the  Quickness variant though.

Optional Fire Camp Build in Open World

Link to the Build on the Editor

• On the Fire Camping build, 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%.
• For a Stun break on demand, use   Signet of Air. This will grant you another Aura and applies  Vulnerability and  Blinded on cast. It provides permanent 25% movement speed, which is big since we dont cover  Swiftness!
• 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.
• Since we dont leave   Fire Attunement unless we need CC, you'll stack up  Might all the time.
• I highly recommend getting used to the pistol build for open world, as it is the much better build: more burst, more boons (also shared with allies), more sustain etc.