Nice video! I‘ve now decided to dedicate my full roaming time to Ele. Close to finishing a leggy dagger👍 I hate that we have to adress so much of the build to condi cleanse as ele…
Thanks : ) yeah, the amount one needs to invest into cleansing is telling of how spammy and abusable condi in this game generally is IMO. Sweet enjoy your dagger when you get it man & happy roamz o/
ngl, game was dead to me but seeing this really hyped me up to re-download and give Catalyst roaming a go and it's incredibly fun. I wish I wasn't such hot garbage but button mashing seems to work. I just need to stop interrupting my own skills. :P
Great gameplay as always. I was just curious if the healing infusions are necessary? I currently have all Might infusions, Thanks again for all the work you put into this community.
Thanks yw labour of love :) Any stat infusion will work just fine, I originally ran half healing infusions just for the % defense vs wvw NPCs so I could solo tower lords more easily. Never really thought about changing them after that lol
I primarily go S/D celestial water weaver in wvw which works pretty fine for me, antitoxin. Falls apart in 3v1+ in my experience, but I'm not insanely good by any means. I saw in the middle of your vid that you swapped out of what looked to be a S/D Fresh Air build to go Catalyst (see: 2:05 & 3:49). What was the underlying rationale? CDs? #'s? Classes? Lulz? Can you give some small amount of thought process behind your play in Catalyst, to someone who has never played it before? IMO it seems to be: Fire > Earth > Wind > (Water as needed) Always drop sphere ASAP after attunement swap Prioritize putting up #3 in new attunements, but don't "throw" them (#3 again) excepting maybe for kills? Any other thoughts / general rules? Any tips on good combos (e.g., lining up a Fire 5 with an Earth 4 in order to blah blah massive damage or some such)? What are the main DPS/finishers? What are the main sustain options? Any tips on using your utilities/ults that are specific to Catalyst? I know these are a lot of questions, but you can generally assume I know a lot about Ele as a whole and just ~nothing about Catalyst in particular if that helps save you some time. Thanks! EDIT: Oh and, finally, can you give some insight into why you chose the stat pieces you chose? It's got a decent mix of Celestial, Dragon, Marauder, and even a Zealot weapon?
I swapped builds to catalyst because it can actually hold up to EoD builds, necro, and soulbeast. In my experience, and mind you that I'm assuming the opponent is equal or greater competence here, most Ele builds have an inherent disadvantage vs anything EoD, necro/condi spam and ranger. FIre arcane cele Catalyst performs very well vs almost everything, so I swap to it to give me a fair chance at winning. As far as attunement rotations go I just keep in mind a few things and "wing" the rest. I'm sure there are some patterns I repeat in attunement selection that is unconscious but I don't really pay attention to it, I just follow the following guidelines usually: save earth 4 + elite + (earth 4 again) for barrier spam/blocking the opponents larger bursts or when I need to buy time to heal in water attunement afterward, try to build might in fire before going for the true attempt at bursting, if possible make sure flame expulsion hits them in melee range after leaving fire. Water dodge once when in water, try to only use water 4/5 when inside a water field/sphere. And like you said keep #3 up as much as possible, but one thing you don't see me do much that is a good idea: throwing the #3 orbs inside an earth jade sphere will apply poison to the target - good to do this before they expire if you can. Fire 5 is easiest to hit with lightning flash and is the biggest hitter for damage. Fire 4 hits almost as high as fire 5 but you have to predict where they'll move to use it effectively. Don't waste it. Spamming fire autos is enough to burn down most opponents if you're in cele gear, but obviously most of them won't let you do this for long - try spamming fire autos in a quickness field though, it's fun. For utilities just try not to be too wasteful, if you go with earth shield be sure to pick it up again when convenient to get the most out of it, if you go with the catalyst block utility (I forget it's name already) always try to use it in an earth field. Zealot was kind of a random choice tbh, I like having the healing power and being slightly tuned toward power/precision for a lot of builds though. The dragon/marauder mixed in is optional but helps you be slightly more offensive with a small cost on sustain, something that I prefer in most of my builds if I'm taking cele. No worries cheers gl : )
@@SolemnGW2 Thanks for the elaborate response, man. I played around with this a bit today and have a few follow-ups, if you don't mind: 1. Have you considered // what are your thoughts on fire/air (fresh air) instead of fire/arcane? I effectively use Fresh Air to swap into Air as an intermediary between swapping into other attunements, which doubles the effectiveness of Energized Elements as a result (I think the hit from Electric Discharge is also +1 energy, so even more than double). Due to having ~infinite Fury anyway, I also take One with Air and end up with like 80% superspeed uptime. Obviously you lose a fair bit of synergy from losing Arcane (vigor is the hardest to maintain; but also Protection uptime... it's possible that dropping Fire instead of Arcane could be better for these, but losing aura condi cleanse is brutal unless possibly swapping heal? See #3 below) 2. Have you considered non-Hammer weapons as Catalyst? Working from the above assumption, I've been a fan of Scepter MH because of the ultra-short cooldowns on the #2/#3 instant-cast abilities. Since you're swapping into Air every few seconds as a transitionary attunement, dealing a free hit with Air 2 is pretty neat and lots of free energy/DPS. Sc/D, Sc/F and even DD all look fairly interesting. Have you explored these and decided that Hammer is just far better? 3. Have you tried the Catalyst-specific heal and have any opinion on it? It feels like an Ether Renewal with 1/10 of the cast time. I fucking love it, feel like it doubles my sustain - especially when used in a water sphere, and soo much condi cleanse. Any reason you prefer the signet*?
@@far2ez539 Lol glad you're enjoying Catalyst! 1. Yes, check out my last stream on my channel DD Fire/Air Catalyst, I'll have another catalyst video uploaded sometime relatively soon and it will have a decent number of fire/air clips as well. I run it for the same reason as you described, it makes rotating easier, but also it's just a huge DPS increase and running superspeed trait + D/D for full mobility helps with what I intend to use the build for. (edit: Fire 322 Air 222 Cata 331, Torment/Doom sigils currently; signet/LF/earth shield/arc shield/cata elite) 2. I've tried Scepter on Catalyst and it's definitely good. How good I'm not sure as I've only used it a little bit, but I can attest to it being at least viable for some matchups. As I mentioned in #1 I've been using D/D and it's been great, but a little note on both D/D and fire/air: the two builds I'm using for Catalyst in WvW rn both have very different purposes. I run fire/arcane with Hammer as a duelist when I know that I'm fighting something (notice: not someone) OP, like a mechanist. Simply, fire/air will die to a good player. Fire arcane with hammer is much more well-rounded currently. Yes, it's generally a better weapon compared to the other options, as far as duelists go. But for general roaming/running around causing chaos and being a bit glassier, I use fire/air D/D now, as it allows me to run away from 3v1 if I can't win and otherwise is still quite strong, though not as good of a duelist as fire/arcane. I've tried arcane/air Cata and it's as brutally under equipped to cleanse condi as you imagine. 3. I've enjoyed that heal as well, I don't really think it's much worse/better than signet but rather it's just different. I don't really need the extra cleanse most of the time due to running antitoxin and rotating so many auras alongside Cleansing+Generosity sigils (generosity will remove 2 condis with antitoxin). The Catalyst heal is good but ultimately I chose to stick with signet of restoration because it allows me greater freedom (not having to cast anything/not needing to pay attention to an extra skill needing to be in a specific field, losing those 5 seconds on CD can change the outcome of a duel)
@@SolemnGW2 I will definitely check out the DD stream, and I guess if you think that Fire/Arcane hammer is the best duelist I will need to get me an Aurene hammer and LARP as a hammerdin to try it out. Thanks for the tip bud. Final big post, I promise - this time I actually have some good(?) ideas that I think you'll be interested in. > Torment/Doom sigils currently Have you ever tried Sigil of Celerity when using OH Dagger? I've used it in my Weaver build for the last ~year and _MAN_ I'm a big fan. You get something like 25-30% Quickness uptime and the big combo here is Dagger earth4 -> earth5, where earth5 is now fast enough to hit them when they're still knocked down. For Cata, my flow would work like: Earth sphere => Earth4 blast it to get magnetic aura & quickness on knockdown => earth5 => swap air during cast => Scepter 2/3 casted while earthquake is happening => earth5 finishes and blasts the earth field to give Shocking Aura => swap Attunements again. Again, I know this is unconventional (and I may have even recommended it to you like a year ago in another video, not sure) but I'd love to hear your take on it. I'm not speaking purely theoretically here; people DO NOT expect Earth4->Earth5 to work and so many will just wait out the knockdown planning to roll afterwards.. and instead they get destroyed. > I don't really need the extra cleanse most of the time due to running antitoxin I mentioned to you a ~year ago about Runes of the Forgeman. To refresh your memory: +175 Toughness & +50% Burning Duration & Fire Aura when hit every 20s. It ostensibly offers _both_ more offense AND defense compared to Antitoxin _if_ you can compensate for the loss of Antitoxin condi cleanse, but the extra Fire Aura every 20 seconds will yield +1 condi cleanse. That can be combined with the Catalyst heal to compensate for dropping antitoxin. Just something to keep in the back of your mind if you're currently avoiding the Cata heal due to "too much condi cleanse" heh > edit: Fire 322 Air 222 Cata 331 Fire 3** (Condi cleanse)? #1 comes with 15% more burning duration and #2 can also be great if you said you're taking Earth Shield [shorter CDs & free aura every time you pick up the shield, what's not to love?]. What's the thought process here? Can I ask about the love for Fire **2 (Pyromancer's Puissance)? I've always had a love/hate relationship with it.. with Fresh Air I tend to swap as aggressively as possible for the +3 energy, and so I tend to consume more might stacks than I benefit [especially since I tend to have 25 stacks...] so it just isn't clear to me what the benefit is. Blinding every 8 seconds passively feels pretty good for sustain, on the other hand (especially if using Scepter -- Scepter Air3/Earth3 both blinding as well, just insanely annoying to play around). And have you considered Air \*3\* (Stormsoul)? I know this is probably fucking madness in the conventional meta over Raging Storm but just hear me out. You'll already have Fury 100% uptime anyway due to swapping attunements so much, so you're looking at 180 Ferocity VS 33% stun duration increases. Now consider how many stuns we have: how often do you get a Shocking Aura? Dagger 3 comes to mind and ANY combo in Air. This means dagger earth5 into air swap with a pre-existing earth field down OR scepter fire2 [due to it being delayed] swap into air with any field down [focus fire4, dagger fire4, old fire sphere, or new air sphere] OR focus5 [water blast due to it being delayed] etc etc. You can reasonably end up having a new Shocking Aura every 10 seconds for 3 seconds -- closer to 50% uptime if you are MH Dagger due to Dagger3 -- 10% more [strike] damage during that might outweigh the 180 Ferocity on its own, but the sustain it offers is nuts. Or am I living too far in theorycrafting/winmore land here? Have you reconsidered Catalyst \*3\* (Spectacular Sphere) recently? In WvW/PvP you get Fury instead of Quickness, which is garbage if you're Fresh Air. Might is OK but I've found that it's easy to obtain 25 stacks due to all the Fire Aura we've got [though that might be because of not taking Puissance?] and Resistance is a little on the side of "unreliable" -- Vigor is great but I don't exactly put up water sphere constantly. Overall I found the PvE/WvW split on Quickness to be devastating to it, but I'm curious about your thoughts here. The other two are both very good -- contrast #1 in this tier (10% more dmg/condi dmg) or, my preference, #2 (easy 100% vigor uptime and faster 10 stacks of Elemental Empowerment, and this is what enables me to justify dropping Arcane's vigor - meaning I'm only _really_ missing Protection from Arcane). Final side-thought: I'd love for Earth/Air to be viable. Earth 3*1 (321 for stab, 311 for condi) feels so close to being decent when compared against Arcane/Air -- it gives protection that we lost from losing Arcane and it makes you ~immune to condis if you can stay high HP, but Earth is just really lacking in the well-rounded department, losing virtually ALL of the offensive components of fire, but if you ever find a way to make this work I'd give you a reach-around. Also, judging by people you're against in your videos, I'm guessing you're on BG too, or some other T1 server? If so I probably run into you in WvW all the time. My char is How Am I Happening and I'm in [FANS], so hopefully I'll see you around in-game.
@@far2ez539 Typing this while buzzed (went to bar with coworkers after a long day), so forgive me, doing my best to be coherent LOL. Celerity is a nice choice. I like using it on scepter builds, I like it but I find it's not completely necessary on Catalyst considering that you can just pop air quickness field > churning earth instead. Rune of the forgeman: a fire aura every 20s is, realistically speaking, very low uptime for a rune effect and little value for ele. You're popping auras left & right already and so it just makes something that is effective even more effective - great, but that's also just it, you don't need a fire aura every 20s when you already have enough auras to maintain 6-10 stacks of elemental empowerment by rotating normally. As for burn duration, you won't need it with cele *but* it's still nice to have, so it certainly has that going for it, not bad at all, and the toughness is welcomed but really elementalist should be more concerned by healing power than toughness as most meta specs will blast through whatever toughness you have whether it's 2450 or 3000 regardless, soulbeast power bursts hardly discriminate vs an extra 175 toughness, you'll still be in downstate if it hits. Honestly there is no such thing as too much condi cleanse on catalyst, I just don't take the heal because I don't need it - not that the extra cleanses wouldn't be welcome - simply put, signet is more reliable and allows me to focus on DPS/other forms of healing. But as I said it's still a very good heal and certainly worth using - I've just started to lean more toward signet on this build. To build on "no such thing as too much condi cleanse": you really can't escape from antitoxin rune in WvW roaming, I've tried many times. You'll do great for a few matchups and then out comes a wild condi spam harbinger/mesmer and you'll be shredded without it unless they're very bad. I once fought Bred, well known for her condi mesmer exploits and very good at it, and I could hardly even get any damage in because I was focusing on cleansing so much *on fire/water/weaver antitoxin cleansing+generosity*; literally the most cleanses you can possibly get in an elementalist build - still barely enough to fight a condi mesmer that knows what they're doing. If you're ok with losing to players like this, then you can avoid antitoxin rune. I take Fire 2** sometimes in combo with earth shield. Sometimes I don't, it just depends what I want. Trust, it's been considered. There are advantages to both and it's hard to say which is better. On pyro pussy vs blind trait: blind trait is defensive, pyro pussy allows you to absolutely yeet people with 25 might stacks + flame expulsion hitting for large power+condi hybrid dmg. This one is harder to describe and will take some personal experimenting to see what I mean. Sometimes the enemy is at 25% health and you know all you have to do is attune fire + lighting flash on them, hit them once or twice, fresh air attune, and they're down. Sometimes it's better to charge up might stacks autoattacking and then go for the big skills > fresh air, etc. Depends. Blocking one attack every 8s is strong. But absolutely deleting people from the game is IMO stronger. Stormsoul: definitely worthwhile and good trait over raging storm. Still, not incredibly different in the final estimation of things - cata fury is accessible in bursts but not sustainable long-term, without air fury you have to think about it. The less thinking about buffs I have to do, the more thinking I can do movement/rotation wise and just focus on the things that differentiate me from other players, not my build, which does not differentiate me at all. Most people I fight have too many stunbreaks anyway, but you're not wrong - certainly worth taking. Just not my style :P Spectacular sphere: I only take this for the bigger sphere radius. The extra boons are nice but I'd still take this if not for them. Playing catalyst with a small sphere feels extremely limiting and was one of the reasons why the beta catalyst suffered so much - enemies aren't going to stay within range, too easy to kite. Larger sphere = people understand that they cannot simply kite out of your sphere because you'll just make a second one wherever they go afterward. Absolute game changer. Again, less theoretical, more "I can focus on what makes me stand out as a player instead of my build". Earth/aire compared to arcane/air: that's just the problem though, both will suffer vs anything spamming even a minute amount of condi. VS each other they seem viable, vs harbinger you'll re-roll another build very quickly. I would love if this were to change somehow, though, if ele had more access to cleanses in traitlines other than fire/water. My main is on Tarnished Coast, alt is on Gates of Madness. See you around :) good & productive talk. Chat in game any time if you like. Cheers
(stats approximate) Hammer Fire/Arcane Catalyst: en.gw2skills.net/editor/?PGQAIlZw8YusW2LOSXaxPA-zVhYVRQt2VXUAihgCcOERInRsSgeVAS+SIgGi18izIA-w
1:15 the amazing gnomefart jump
Solemn, bless us with more hammer catalyst gameplay. Its been months 😢
omg seriously wow I need to try that class, very well played bro and good video as always 👑😎🚬
Thanks dude : )
Came for the kills, Stayed for the music 😎
His choice of music is sometimes questionable imo
Like that one song..
New main detected 🔝♥️
Lol awesome!
This shit went so fucking hard my man
Well played Solemn! That was to the extreme hehe,
Catalyst is the new roaming meta for ele or at least should be 😆
Nice video! I‘ve now decided to dedicate my full roaming time to Ele. Close to finishing a leggy dagger👍
I hate that we have to adress so much of the build to condi cleanse as ele…
Thanks : ) yeah, the amount one needs to invest into cleansing is telling of how spammy and abusable condi in this game generally is IMO. Sweet enjoy your dagger when you get it man & happy roamz o/
Great vid Solemn! Catalyst actually looks like fun to play. Also, stop getting banned.
never, i'm wearing it like a badge of honour
ngl, game was dead to me but seeing this really hyped me up to re-download and give Catalyst roaming a go and it's incredibly fun. I wish I wasn't such hot garbage but button mashing seems to work. I just need to stop interrupting my own skills. :P
Great gameplay as always. I was just curious if the healing infusions are necessary? I currently have all Might infusions, Thanks again for all the work you put into this community.
Thanks yw labour of love :)
Any stat infusion will work just fine, I originally ran half healing infusions just for the % defense vs wvw NPCs so I could solo tower lords more easily. Never really thought about changing them after that lol
You make ele look strong! But arent they pretty nerfed?
Hammer cata is prob the best ele spec in the game atm for WvW/PvP, but yeah ele in general is very high effort for medium to low reward
I primarily go S/D celestial water weaver in wvw which works pretty fine for me, antitoxin. Falls apart in 3v1+ in my experience, but I'm not insanely good by any means.
I saw in the middle of your vid that you swapped out of what looked to be a S/D Fresh Air build to go Catalyst (see: 2:05 & 3:49). What was the underlying rationale? CDs? #'s? Classes? Lulz?
Can you give some small amount of thought process behind your play in Catalyst, to someone who has never played it before? IMO it seems to be:
Fire > Earth > Wind > (Water as needed)
Always drop sphere ASAP after attunement swap
Prioritize putting up #3 in new attunements, but don't "throw" them (#3 again) excepting maybe for kills?
Any other thoughts / general rules? Any tips on good combos (e.g., lining up a Fire 5 with an Earth 4 in order to blah blah massive damage or some such)? What are the main DPS/finishers? What are the main sustain options? Any tips on using your utilities/ults that are specific to Catalyst?
I know these are a lot of questions, but you can generally assume I know a lot about Ele as a whole and just ~nothing about Catalyst in particular if that helps save you some time.
Thanks!
EDIT: Oh and, finally, can you give some insight into why you chose the stat pieces you chose? It's got a decent mix of Celestial, Dragon, Marauder, and even a Zealot weapon?
I swapped builds to catalyst because it can actually hold up to EoD builds, necro, and soulbeast. In my experience, and mind you that I'm assuming the opponent is equal or greater competence here, most Ele builds have an inherent disadvantage vs anything EoD, necro/condi spam and ranger. FIre arcane cele Catalyst performs very well vs almost everything, so I swap to it to give me a fair chance at winning.
As far as attunement rotations go I just keep in mind a few things and "wing" the rest. I'm sure there are some patterns I repeat in attunement selection that is unconscious but I don't really pay attention to it, I just follow the following guidelines usually: save earth 4 + elite + (earth 4 again) for barrier spam/blocking the opponents larger bursts or when I need to buy time to heal in water attunement afterward, try to build might in fire before going for the true attempt at bursting, if possible make sure flame expulsion hits them in melee range after leaving fire. Water dodge once when in water, try to only use water 4/5 when inside a water field/sphere. And like you said keep #3 up as much as possible, but one thing you don't see me do much that is a good idea: throwing the #3 orbs inside an earth jade sphere will apply poison to the target - good to do this before they expire if you can.
Fire 5 is easiest to hit with lightning flash and is the biggest hitter for damage. Fire 4 hits almost as high as fire 5 but you have to predict where they'll move to use it effectively. Don't waste it. Spamming fire autos is enough to burn down most opponents if you're in cele gear, but obviously most of them won't let you do this for long - try spamming fire autos in a quickness field though, it's fun.
For utilities just try not to be too wasteful, if you go with earth shield be sure to pick it up again when convenient to get the most out of it, if you go with the catalyst block utility (I forget it's name already) always try to use it in an earth field.
Zealot was kind of a random choice tbh, I like having the healing power and being slightly tuned toward power/precision for a lot of builds though. The dragon/marauder mixed in is optional but helps you be slightly more offensive with a small cost on sustain, something that I prefer in most of my builds if I'm taking cele.
No worries cheers gl : )
@@SolemnGW2 Thanks for the elaborate response, man. I played around with this a bit today and have a few follow-ups, if you don't mind:
1. Have you considered // what are your thoughts on fire/air (fresh air) instead of fire/arcane?
I effectively use Fresh Air to swap into Air as an intermediary between swapping into other attunements, which doubles the effectiveness of Energized Elements as a result (I think the hit from Electric Discharge is also +1 energy, so even more than double). Due to having ~infinite Fury anyway, I also take One with Air and end up with like 80% superspeed uptime.
Obviously you lose a fair bit of synergy from losing Arcane (vigor is the hardest to maintain; but also Protection uptime... it's possible that dropping Fire instead of Arcane could be better for these, but losing aura condi cleanse is brutal unless possibly swapping heal? See #3 below)
2. Have you considered non-Hammer weapons as Catalyst? Working from the above assumption, I've been a fan of Scepter MH because of the ultra-short cooldowns on the #2/#3 instant-cast abilities. Since you're swapping into Air every few seconds as a transitionary attunement, dealing a free hit with Air 2 is pretty neat and lots of free energy/DPS. Sc/D, Sc/F and even DD all look fairly interesting. Have you explored these and decided that Hammer is just far better?
3. Have you tried the Catalyst-specific heal and have any opinion on it? It feels like an Ether Renewal with 1/10 of the cast time. I fucking love it, feel like it doubles my sustain - especially when used in a water sphere, and soo much condi cleanse. Any reason you prefer the signet*?
@@far2ez539 Lol glad you're enjoying Catalyst!
1. Yes, check out my last stream on my channel DD Fire/Air Catalyst, I'll have another catalyst video uploaded sometime relatively soon and it will have a decent number of fire/air clips as well. I run it for the same reason as you described, it makes rotating easier, but also it's just a huge DPS increase and running superspeed trait + D/D for full mobility helps with what I intend to use the build for. (edit: Fire 322 Air 222 Cata 331, Torment/Doom sigils currently; signet/LF/earth shield/arc shield/cata elite)
2. I've tried Scepter on Catalyst and it's definitely good. How good I'm not sure as I've only used it a little bit, but I can attest to it being at least viable for some matchups. As I mentioned in #1 I've been using D/D and it's been great, but a little note on both D/D and fire/air: the two builds I'm using for Catalyst in WvW rn both have very different purposes.
I run fire/arcane with Hammer as a duelist when I know that I'm fighting something (notice: not someone) OP, like a mechanist. Simply, fire/air will die to a good player. Fire arcane with hammer is much more well-rounded currently. Yes, it's generally a better weapon compared to the other options, as far as duelists go.
But for general roaming/running around causing chaos and being a bit glassier, I use fire/air D/D now, as it allows me to run away from 3v1 if I can't win and otherwise is still quite strong, though not as good of a duelist as fire/arcane.
I've tried arcane/air Cata and it's as brutally under equipped to cleanse condi as you imagine.
3. I've enjoyed that heal as well, I don't really think it's much worse/better than signet but rather it's just different. I don't really need the extra cleanse most of the time due to running antitoxin and rotating so many auras alongside Cleansing+Generosity sigils (generosity will remove 2 condis with antitoxin). The Catalyst heal is good but ultimately I chose to stick with signet of restoration because it allows me greater freedom (not having to cast anything/not needing to pay attention to an extra skill needing to be in a specific field, losing those 5 seconds on CD can change the outcome of a duel)
@@SolemnGW2 I will definitely check out the DD stream, and I guess if you think that Fire/Arcane hammer is the best duelist I will need to get me an Aurene hammer and LARP as a hammerdin to try it out. Thanks for the tip bud.
Final big post, I promise - this time I actually have some good(?) ideas that I think you'll be interested in.
> Torment/Doom sigils currently
Have you ever tried Sigil of Celerity when using OH Dagger? I've used it in my Weaver build for the last ~year and _MAN_ I'm a big fan. You get something like 25-30% Quickness uptime and the big combo here is Dagger earth4 -> earth5, where earth5 is now fast enough to hit them when they're still knocked down. For Cata, my flow would work like: Earth sphere => Earth4 blast it to get magnetic aura & quickness on knockdown => earth5 => swap air during cast => Scepter 2/3 casted while earthquake is happening => earth5 finishes and blasts the earth field to give Shocking Aura => swap Attunements again.
Again, I know this is unconventional (and I may have even recommended it to you like a year ago in another video, not sure) but I'd love to hear your take on it. I'm not speaking purely theoretically here; people DO NOT expect Earth4->Earth5 to work and so many will just wait out the knockdown planning to roll afterwards.. and instead they get destroyed.
> I don't really need the extra cleanse most of the time due to running antitoxin
I mentioned to you a ~year ago about Runes of the Forgeman. To refresh your memory: +175 Toughness & +50% Burning Duration & Fire Aura when hit every 20s.
It ostensibly offers _both_ more offense AND defense compared to Antitoxin _if_ you can compensate for the loss of Antitoxin condi cleanse, but the extra Fire Aura every 20 seconds will yield +1 condi cleanse. That can be combined with the Catalyst heal to compensate for dropping antitoxin. Just something to keep in the back of your mind if you're currently avoiding the Cata heal due to "too much condi cleanse" heh
> edit: Fire 322 Air 222 Cata 331
Fire 3** (Condi cleanse)? #1 comes with 15% more burning duration and #2 can also be great if you said you're taking Earth Shield [shorter CDs & free aura every time you pick up the shield, what's not to love?]. What's the thought process here?
Can I ask about the love for Fire **2 (Pyromancer's Puissance)? I've always had a love/hate relationship with it.. with Fresh Air I tend to swap as aggressively as possible for the +3 energy, and so I tend to consume more might stacks than I benefit [especially since I tend to have 25 stacks...] so it just isn't clear to me what the benefit is. Blinding every 8 seconds passively feels pretty good for sustain, on the other hand (especially if using Scepter -- Scepter Air3/Earth3 both blinding as well, just insanely annoying to play around).
And have you considered Air \*3\* (Stormsoul)? I know this is probably fucking madness in the conventional meta over Raging Storm but just hear me out. You'll already have Fury 100% uptime anyway due to swapping attunements so much, so you're looking at 180 Ferocity VS 33% stun duration increases. Now consider how many stuns we have: how often do you get a Shocking Aura? Dagger 3 comes to mind and ANY combo in Air. This means dagger earth5 into air swap with a pre-existing earth field down OR scepter fire2 [due to it being delayed] swap into air with any field down [focus fire4, dagger fire4, old fire sphere, or new air sphere] OR focus5 [water blast due to it being delayed] etc etc. You can reasonably end up having a new Shocking Aura every 10 seconds for 3 seconds -- closer to 50% uptime if you are MH Dagger due to Dagger3 -- 10% more [strike] damage during that might outweigh the 180 Ferocity on its own, but the sustain it offers is nuts. Or am I living too far in theorycrafting/winmore land here?
Have you reconsidered Catalyst \*3\* (Spectacular Sphere) recently? In WvW/PvP you get Fury instead of Quickness, which is garbage if you're Fresh Air. Might is OK but I've found that it's easy to obtain 25 stacks due to all the Fire Aura we've got [though that might be because of not taking Puissance?] and Resistance is a little on the side of "unreliable" -- Vigor is great but I don't exactly put up water sphere constantly. Overall I found the PvE/WvW split on Quickness to be devastating to it, but I'm curious about your thoughts here. The other two are both very good -- contrast #1 in this tier (10% more dmg/condi dmg) or, my preference, #2 (easy 100% vigor uptime and faster 10 stacks of Elemental Empowerment, and this is what enables me to justify dropping Arcane's vigor - meaning I'm only _really_ missing Protection from Arcane).
Final side-thought: I'd love for Earth/Air to be viable. Earth 3*1 (321 for stab, 311 for condi) feels so close to being decent when compared against Arcane/Air -- it gives protection that we lost from losing Arcane and it makes you ~immune to condis if you can stay high HP, but Earth is just really lacking in the well-rounded department, losing virtually ALL of the offensive components of fire, but if you ever find a way to make this work I'd give you a reach-around.
Also, judging by people you're against in your videos, I'm guessing you're on BG too, or some other T1 server? If so I probably run into you in WvW all the time. My char is How Am I Happening and I'm in [FANS], so hopefully I'll see you around in-game.
@@far2ez539 Typing this while buzzed (went to bar with coworkers after a long day), so forgive me, doing my best to be coherent LOL.
Celerity is a nice choice. I like using it on scepter builds, I like it but I find it's not completely necessary on Catalyst considering that you can just pop air quickness field > churning earth instead.
Rune of the forgeman: a fire aura every 20s is, realistically speaking, very low uptime for a rune effect and little value for ele. You're popping auras left & right already and so it just makes something that is effective even more effective - great, but that's also just it, you don't need a fire aura every 20s when you already have enough auras to maintain 6-10 stacks of elemental empowerment by rotating normally. As for burn duration, you won't need it with cele *but* it's still nice to have, so it certainly has that going for it, not bad at all, and the toughness is welcomed but really elementalist should be more concerned by healing power than toughness as most meta specs will blast through whatever toughness you have whether it's 2450 or 3000 regardless, soulbeast power bursts hardly discriminate vs an extra 175 toughness, you'll still be in downstate if it hits.
Honestly there is no such thing as too much condi cleanse on catalyst, I just don't take the heal because I don't need it - not that the extra cleanses wouldn't be welcome - simply put, signet is more reliable and allows me to focus on DPS/other forms of healing. But as I said it's still a very good heal and certainly worth using - I've just started to lean more toward signet on this build. To build on "no such thing as too much condi cleanse": you really can't escape from antitoxin rune in WvW roaming, I've tried many times. You'll do great for a few matchups and then out comes a wild condi spam harbinger/mesmer and you'll be shredded without it unless they're very bad.
I once fought Bred, well known for her condi mesmer exploits and very good at it, and I could hardly even get any damage in because I was focusing on cleansing so much *on fire/water/weaver antitoxin cleansing+generosity*; literally the most cleanses you can possibly get in an elementalist build - still barely enough to fight a condi mesmer that knows what they're doing. If you're ok with losing to players like this, then you can avoid antitoxin rune.
I take Fire 2** sometimes in combo with earth shield. Sometimes I don't, it just depends what I want. Trust, it's been considered. There are advantages to both and it's hard to say which is better.
On pyro pussy vs blind trait: blind trait is defensive, pyro pussy allows you to absolutely yeet people with 25 might stacks + flame expulsion hitting for large power+condi hybrid dmg. This one is harder to describe and will take some personal experimenting to see what I mean. Sometimes the enemy is at 25% health and you know all you have to do is attune fire + lighting flash on them, hit them once or twice, fresh air attune, and they're down. Sometimes it's better to charge up might stacks autoattacking and then go for the big skills > fresh air, etc. Depends.
Blocking one attack every 8s is strong. But absolutely deleting people from the game is IMO stronger.
Stormsoul: definitely worthwhile and good trait over raging storm. Still, not incredibly different in the final estimation of things - cata fury is accessible in bursts but not sustainable long-term, without air fury you have to think about it. The less thinking about buffs I have to do, the more thinking I can do movement/rotation wise and just focus on the things that differentiate me from other players, not my build, which does not differentiate me at all. Most people I fight have too many stunbreaks anyway, but you're not wrong - certainly worth taking. Just not my style :P
Spectacular sphere: I only take this for the bigger sphere radius. The extra boons are nice but I'd still take this if not for them. Playing catalyst with a small sphere feels extremely limiting and was one of the reasons why the beta catalyst suffered so much - enemies aren't going to stay within range, too easy to kite. Larger sphere = people understand that they cannot simply kite out of your sphere because you'll just make a second one wherever they go afterward. Absolute game changer. Again, less theoretical, more "I can focus on what makes me stand out as a player instead of my build".
Earth/aire compared to arcane/air: that's just the problem though, both will suffer vs anything spamming even a minute amount of condi. VS each other they seem viable, vs harbinger you'll re-roll another build very quickly. I would love if this were to change somehow, though, if ele had more access to cleanses in traitlines other than fire/water.
My main is on Tarnished Coast, alt is on Gates of Madness. See you around :) good & productive talk. Chat in game any time if you like. Cheers
Good job brotha 😊
Thx man : )
Great plays as always ❤️
And how is your opinion on cata after some month?
catapults still op man, gravel shot needs nerf
@@CandySugarspell gravel shot honestly not good enough i keep winning 5v1 with it
it's great! not the best for mobility/running from Xv1 but it can *easily* hold its own 1v2 and is an excellent 1v1 duelist build
@31s. So, how high is ur hater club??
i have a few Relentless Ones
Great music 🤘🤘🤘🤘