Catalyst - Power Hammer Cata

(the elite) is used mainly to reset the CD of skills 4-5 of a given attunement, usually Water or Earth for defensive purposes.

Auras

• You cleanse 1 condition whenever you obtain an aura thanks to .

• Hammer doesn't really provide easy access to auras, comboing them via is a very important part of the build.

• Every attunement has at least 1 combo finisher, using them in any of your Jade Spheres is going to create an aura based on your current attunement. This lets you tailor the aura more to your needs, for example using in a combo field and swapping to before the skill finishes its animation is going to combo a instead of a fire one.

  • Aura combos like this can only happen once every 10 seconds per attunement, so while it's possible to swap attunements for a different aura keep the CD in mind! If you're going to use a combo tool on your next attunement anyway and you haven't combo'd an aura on your current one yet, you might want to wait with switching attunements in order to get more value.

• The easiest way to get an aura is to swap to for a proc. This is instant and can even be done while casting skills or sitting in a CC, with a little luck you might even be able to break out of with the help of Smothering Auras.

• Combo finishers in the build:

  • The 5th skill of every attunement.
  • The projectiles you launch once you unleash skill #3.
  • on Water.
  • Arcane version Your healing skill.
  • Non-Arcane version Your first dodge on Earth thanks to . As the Jade Sphere is instant you could even drop a combo field in the middle of your dodge.

• is a channeled block - the aura is applied after you block something. This gives you a little bit of time to swap attunements before that happens and get an aura of your choice as the aura is granted based on your current attunement.

Damage

• Try to have and active before beginning to unload your harder hitting skills. Start with if neither of these orbs are active because Air only really has 1 skill that does damage and it's a channeled one. You can simply activate Crescent Wind, cast and immediately swap to Fire to grab Flame Wheel to cover HoP. With this you'll have both of the damage modifying orbs active for the damaging skills of all attunements.

  • Starting with Fire wouldn't be ideal as you'd have to make a choice between swapping out of Fire after 1 skill to get the orb from Air, or using multiple Fire skills without the buff from Crescent Wind.

• grants a short duration of whenever you swap attunements. It's not much, but just enough to cover your next 1-2 skills so consider using some harder hitting skill right after swapping.

  • As swapping elements doesn't interrupt your casts, you could even boost your crit chance through this while casting a skill. All you need to do is swap attunement before the skill lands.

• Most of the burst comes from , every skill here deals good damage.

• is a cone attack best used in melee range to make sure all 3 projectiles hit the target.

• creates 3 AoEs on the ground - try to position this in a way that your opponent is in the center of this skill so they get hit by all 3.

• is rather straightforward, just a big smash you should aim to land when the target has . All the other Fire skills apply Burning so that shouldn't be hard.

• Air is mostly about CC, but skill #2 is capable of doing high damage. Only downside is, this has a rather long cast time and you'll have a hard time landing it without proper setup. Try to CC targets beforehand and make sure to have from your Air Jade Sphere.

• and are also worth a mention on Earth. The latter could even set up other burst skills with the .

Sustain

• All of your utility skills are defensive by nature.

• Both of your stunbreaks could also be used preemptively. negates incoming CC via while blocks incoming attacks.

  • You can use Arcane Shield more freely as a blocking skill if you still have Armor of Earth ready to break you out of stuns. This could even include offensive applications - Arcane Shield can allow you to keep pressuring targets while tanking a few hits, which is useful for securing kills.

• is for buying time and surviving heavy pressure. With a block, an aura, a CC and an invulnerability frame this could bridge the gap in your defenses until your other CDs come back up or help arrives.

• Use pretty much on CD for the barrier and the aura.

• Water provides much needed healing and cleansing. heals you for each enemy struck with the first one healing for more. Against enemies like Mesmers try to hit as many clones as possible for bonus healing. Consider using it inside your Water Sphere to combo even more healing (and for further damage mitigation).

  • This is something of a mobility skill, could even be used offensively as a gap closer - or a gap builder if you need to run away from the fight. Leaping away from the target without hitting anything means you won't get any healing though, unless you use it in the Water Sphere as it's a Leap finisher.

• is your best cleanse, this too scales with the number of enemies it hits.

• cleanses a condition whenever you apply an aura to yourself.

• heals and cleanses when used on Water.

• Jade Sphere being an instant source of boons is quite useful on Water and Earth, providing easy access to and . Swapping to Earth Attunement could also grant you Protection from .