Catalyst - Fresh Air Cata - MetaBattle

The community gave this build a rating, making it top-tier: Great

Expansions required: End of Dragons builds

Difficulty: Normal

This build was last updated on June 05, 2026 and is up to date for the June 2, 2026 patch.

Overview

A Catalyts take on the classic Scepter 清新气流 archetype, this PvP Elementalist build brings the usual burst damage while adding some extra sustain through a variety of boons and auras to the mix. FA Catas aim to kite their opponents with 奔驰疾速 and CC spam while keeping them pressured using ranged attacks.

Skill Bar

Scepter/Focus

Utility

Skill Variants

Utility

空气纹章 over 大地护甲 - Armor is a better defensive skill in general but it's on a longer CD. It's up to you to decide what's more important for you, a stronger defensive or more frequent access to a stunbreak. The Signet's 目盲 could also be used proactively to avoid incoming attacks while the damage portion could score you a crit for 清新气流.
秘法波动 over 电光火石 - as a mobility/defensive tool Arcane Wave is worse than Lightning Flash, but it's better at everything else. Has multiple charges, good AoE damage, dazes enemies and even acts as a Blast finisher which is a highly valuable thing on Catalyst builds.

Heal

抚伤流水 - worth considering when you're facing a condition-heavy comp, as condi cleansing is one of the weaker aspects of the build.

Weapons

Off-hand Dagger over Focus is a somewhat viable, albeit more greedy and harder option. Dagger offers better damage and mobility, but worse survivability.

Template Code

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Specializations

Variants

秘法复苏 trades 活力 uptime for more self-healing.

Equipment

Scepter

Focus

Sigil

Rune

Amulet

Relic

Equipment Variants

Runes

战士符文 - higher HP, slightly lower stats overall.

Usage

Elite specialization basics

Catalysts gain access to Deploy Jade Sphere which drops an AoE combo field with pulsing boons depending on the attunement they were used in.
The Jade Sphere costs energy to deploy, you build energy by hitting enemies or swapping attunements thanks to 强能元素.
Jade Spheres are instant and can be used while casting skills or sitting in a CC.

General

The build's all about swapping in and out of 空气协调 every few seconds, made possible by 清新气流 which recharges Air whenever you land a critical strike.
Swapping to Air triggers 电力激发 which you should immediately follow up with a 闪电打击 for instant burst damage. Entering this attunement also grants you Ferocity from 清新气流 for a few seconds, which is why most of your heavy hitting skills should land in this small time frame. More on that later.
Recharging Air: to recharge Air you need to score a critical hit. The fastest way to do it on attunements with slower skills is to start channeling the air autoattack 弧光闪电 just before leaving 空气协调. Swapping attunements doesn't break the channeling and Arc Lightning is almost guaranteed to critically hit at least once.
- Jade Spheres are great for this too. While their damage is insignificant, they are instant cast ranged AoEs that strike multiple times and can crit.
This build can self-stack 威能 by blasting the fire field created by the Fire Jade Sphere and 烈焰之墙. Do not prioritize Might stacking, but do take advantage of the incidental opportunities which arise. Your blast finishers are:
巨龙之牙
浴火凤凰
寒冰彗星
磁力脉动
The first dodge you perform after swapping to Earth attunement
狂风涌流 is an excellent skill for setting up burst, use it right before swapping out of Air into another attunement.
元素迅捷's main purpose is to reset/reduce the CDs on 磁力脉动 and 黑曜石肤 for extra sustain, but if you want to get greedy it could also reset burst and CC cooldowns in other attunements.
- With Off-hand Dagger you should use the elite in Air for mobility/evasion, Water for cleansing/healing or Fire for burst damage.
The first combo you perform in a given attunement always grants you an aura via 元素典范.
A common tactic is to cast 巨龙之牙 and burst enemies before it falls on them. This presents a no-win situation for many builds: they can either facetank your burst but dodge the tooth, or dodge your burst and facetank the tooth.
Try to aim 浴火凤凰 slightly behind your target whenever you can. This skill passes through targets while doing damage, explodes on the ground, then returns to you once again damaging targets it passes through. The goal here is to hit the target with all 3 parts of the skill, not just the explosion damage.
- Because of the slow travel time it's also best used in melee.

Notable burst combos

These are some potential combos you can use based on the techniques outlined above. The quicker you pull these chains off, the better.

From Fire:

Drop your Fire Jade Sphere to passively begin stacking 威能.
巨龙之牙
火焰护盾 ⇒ 逆向转化火焰 for more Might (it also does good damage in melee). Both the transmute and Dragon's Tooth have a delay, your goal is to get into Air by the time these go off
浴火凤凰 - optional: 电光火石 right at your target before you finish casting Phoenix to make it near instant. You don't have to do that if you were already in melee.
空气协调 - swap to this while casting Phoenix
闪电打击
目盲之光 to avoid taking damage in melee, but it's not required

From Earth:

岩石屏障
Optional: if you're in melee range of an enemy you may throw in a 磁力脉动 which can proc 烟花古物 if it hits something.
岩石碎片 + 投掷岩石 then swap to 空气协调 during the channeling to make the projectiles land in the right attunement. Hurl is a guaranteed projectile finisher which has synergy with your Spheres, consider dropping one before doing this combo. Any Sphere except Water will result in a damage boost.
闪电打击

From Water:

寒冰碎石
寒冰叉戟 - the trident does more damage to Chilled enemies which is important. Shatterstone should secure that but 刺骨寒风 can do the trick too.
Swap to 空气协调 while casting Water Trident, preferably even before the 2nd strike of Shatterstone goes off so that it may benefit from Air's damage modifiers.
闪电打击

Survival

Swapping to Air is just as important for defense as it is for offense. Even when you're running away you should try to get some Fresh Air procs just so you can abuse blinds and superspeed.
风灵附体 makes it easy to kite most specs via 奔驰疾速. Avoid melee range whenever possible! Don't stay in melee unless the target is blinded, CC'd or you're about to burst them.
目盲之光 is great at avoiding crucial skills by blinding enemies, and it also shuts down Power-based specs in general with the Weakness. Being an instant cast skill this can also be used while CC'd. 空气纹章 fills a similar purpose, so does 魔尘沙暴 although that one has a cast time.
寒冰碎石 is a source of spammable Chill Chill which you can even place behind your back while running away. Chill is great at building distance and the damage could recharge Air, and swapping to Air gives you 奔驰疾速 which makes it even easier to run away.
- Swapping to Water, dodging for healing/cleansing then dropping Shatterstone on top of your target and using its damage to go back to Air is a common defensive rotation.
Needless to say other CCs can also be used for shaking off pursuers.
大地要塞 is one of your most powerful reactive skills for defense. It's a low CD block that can be used in any attunement, don't hesitate to use it the moment you're getting focused by an enemy, especially if your current attunement isn't defensive enough. It's great for stalling a bit and giving you some time to figure out your next move.
磁力脉动 and 回旋风流 provide excellent protection against enemies who use projectiles. These however do not work against unblockable projectiles, and some ranged builds - such as this one - are mostly unaffected by projectile reflects and blocks.
磁力脉动 is the build's best condition cleanse which can also be used while stunned.
黑曜石肤 offers protection against all kinds of pressure.
The first strike of 魔尘沙暴 Blinds enemies while the snare is useful for keeping distance.

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