Dagger Catalyst

February 2023

Build Fundamentals

Dagger Catalyst is a more complicated version of the classic d/d ele duelist build. Catalyst relies on aura generation for utility and healing, and takes advantage of new traits to upkeep high Stability uptime, something Elementalist has always lacked. Catalyst also has an easy reset of either an offensive or defensive attunement from Elemental Celerity which lets you either panic and heal if you take too much damage or play hyper aggressively for a kill.

Damage

Catalyst’s damage is concentrated in Fire Attunement and Air Attunement. Both the skills in these attunements and the Quickness and Might provided by Deploy Jade Sphere let Catalyst do considerable damage despite a fairly defensive build, but chaining skills with cc is critical to locking your opponents into your damage.

Your hardest hitting abilities are Convergence, Burning Speed, and Fire Grab. Try to land as many of these abilities in sequence as possible and weave parts of the DPS opener into your attunement swapping.

Lightning Whip is an excellent filler skill with Quickness. Try to never have any ‘downtime’ while you are waiting for cooldowns, if you have no skills to use, at least auto-attack for the damage and proc your Signet of Restoration.

Sustain and Healing

Auras make up the bulk of your sustain and utility. Shocking Aura and Magnetic Aura provide particularly valuable unique effects that can win matchups for you by themselves. Keep in mind that applying an aura removes conditions and transmuting one removes two thanks to Smothering Auras.

Catalyst generates auras by using combo finishers inside of a combo field. While this has a 10-second cooldown, the cooldown applies per attunement, meaning you can blast a fire field and you’ll get another aura if you swap to water and blast again. Try to keep this in mind if you need to clear conditions or resustain quickly. For ideas on how to sequence healing skills and blasts, see Healing Rotation 1 and 2 (keep in mind these are ideas, not absolutes. Adjust based on your cooldowns and health).

Your best defensive cooldown is Conjure Earth Shield. Conjure Earth Shield is an additional weapon set that has cc, barrier, a block, a reflect, and an invuln. Your ‘panic button’ is Fortify, which will make you invulnerable, but keep in mind that you will be losing ticks on your node whenever you use it. Conjure Earth Shield can also be dropped to support an ally, since they can pick it up and take advantage of its abilities. You can use this to save pressured teammates, but keep in mind some of them won’t understand how Conjure Earth Shield or know to pick it up, especially at lower ratings.

You can also switch your Lightning Flash for Fortified Earth to forgo extra mobility and get an extra 3 second block.

Tips

• Elemental Celerity has a very low CD so don’t be afraid to use it. Use it in Fire Attunement after already having cast Burning Speed, Ring of Fire, and Fire Grab once a fight has been going on for a while, it may be all you need to do to win!
• Use Elemental Celerity in Water Attunement if raw health is more valuable than disengaging with casting Ride the Lightning twice.
• As mentioned above, using Ride the Lightning twice in a row is one of the best things you can do to survive since most classes can’t keep up with you.
• Using Elemental Celerity in Earth Attunement is a lot less common, but you can set your team up with a back-to-back Earthquake to CC lock or Immobilize lock with Earthen Rush; you do the same with a double Updraft in Air Attunement.
• You can use your Evasive Arcana‘s Earth Attunement Dodge finisher so you don’t have to waste Earthquake for an Aura or sit there casting Churning Earth.