Catalyst - Spear Cata - MetaBattle

Elite specialization basics

Catalyst gains access to Deploy Jade Sphere, which is an AoE skill that grants boons and provides a combo field depending on the attunement.
The Jade Sphere requires energy to deploy, which is generated through striking enemies.
Jade Spheres are instant and can be used while casting abilities or while suffering from CC. This is especially useful when you're trying to land an important weapon skills but you either got 目盲ed or the target has 圣盾 - dropping the sphere in the middle of casting something else could get rid of these effects.

Spear basics

Here's a quick rundown of the weapon in case you're new to it.
The 3rd skill of every attunement boosts the effectiveness of your next weapon skill in some way, ranging from extra damage to CD reduction.
The 4th skill of every attunement is a ground targeted AoE with a bonus effect if you can catch someone near the center of it. This rewards those with good aim.
The 5th skill of every attunement is an etching. An AoE combo field will be placed below your character, granting boons to allies inside. For a few seconds you'll gain access to their chain skills which are ground targeted AoE skills. These chain skills can be empowered by casting other weapon skills while the etching is active, but it's also fine to use them for their base effect.

General

Role: your job is to roam the map and assist in team fights or +1 sidenodes. You should generally avoid 1v1s, but you can handle some of them due to the range of your abilities.
Everytime you land a CC, you proc (LR) for extra damage and . This is important both for defense and offense, as Weakness spam is your first line of defense against Power-based builds.
Your 4 skills on Spear are significantly stronger if you can hit enemies within the 120 radius circle instead of the 240 radius one. This even allows for skills such as to activate for additional damage.
Generally speaking, you should try to get your etchings charged up, but getting greedy and staying inside the AoE field spamming skills while you're being focused could quickly get you killed.
The etchings are valuable enough on their own, especially with healing over time or providing for your team, and their chain skills are reasonably strong even without further empowerment.
Catalyst has a trait called , which essentially enhances all your combo finishers depending on your attunement. This means you can use skills such as to blast one of your Etchings or Jade Spheres to gain an aura.
- Fire Attunement ⇒
- Water Attunement ⇒
- Air Attunement ⇒
- Earth Attunement ⇒
- Note: building energy for Jade Spheres is harder on this build due to some trait choices, but you can make use of your etchings instead.
recharges every skill of your current attunement. This can be beneficial for escaping a bad situation or dishing out extra damage in a fight.
- Fire provides raw damage.
- Water has healing, cleansing and mobility.
- Air has CC and some mobility.
- Earth is usually not something you want to use EC on. The attunement isn't weak, but for specific things like damage or sustain other attunements simply offer more. Earth is relatively tanky due to the barrier/Weakness/Stability package with good damage and minor CC.

Damage

Spear is a fairly simple weapon when it comes to damage. Other than trying to catch people in the inner circle of the 4th skills, there's not much else to worry about. Most skills are simple AoE damaging abilities that were made to be spammed, and there aren't really any big combos or rotations you should be aware of.
Most of the damage comes from , as usual.
's damage buff is best used on , especially if you can hit targets in the center of the AoE.
Earth has several hard hitting skills, they're almost on par with those on Fire.
Water only has which you could (and should) set up with . It's very important that you try and catch people in the inner circle of Undertow so they'll be pulled in - this will proc LR and cause Ice Beam to hit multiple targets once they're balled up.
Air and Water are relatively low damage, although Air at least has 2 CC skills for synergy.
can be considered unusual, as it actually makes the entirety of your next skill critically strike, not just the first strike of it. This gives it good synergy with , although Fulgor is a small and slow AoE skill that usually won't even land 50% of its max damage in a real fight. Therefore the best target for it on Air is arguably , the chain skill of your etching. Alternatively you could carry over the crit chance buff to another attunement, like Fire or Earth.
gives you a damage boost while doing heavy damage on its own, which also includes proccing LR. If you bring someone to low HP and need a quick AoE finishing move, this could get the job done.

Sustain

Water shines here.
creates a long duration water field with passive healing. You can increase this healing by performing blast and leap finishers inside like or .
is your best defensive skill. Heals, evades, cleanses conditions, acts as a leap finisher, and even offers some much needed mobility so you may safely reposition yourself. You can follow this up with an cast behind your back to leave enemies even further behind.
Earth is your second most defensive attunement, mostly due to various forms of damage reduction such as or barrier.
pulses AoE which can make it easier to resustain yourself under pressure.
makes your next skill your target.
- Only 1 target will be dazed, even if you use it with an AoE skill.
- If you don't trust your aim, use it on skills 1-2. These aren't ground targeted.
Air is good not only for LR procs but also disengaging. Attuning to air gives you , so does .
Every skill on the right side of the bar can be used defensively, including which is a mobility tool, CC and blast finisher all in one.
- Your elite has inherent defensive value because it procs a lesser from traits when used. Even if your current attunement isn't ideal for defense, if you don't have anything else available then using your elite just for the shield proc could still save you.
and are both skills that break stun, give and reduce incoming damage in some capacity.
is your best source of condition removal.
- Using it inside your Water Jade Sphere reduces its CD! That doesn't mean you shouldn't use your healing skill if you can't get a CD reduction on it, but do try to benefit from this interaction whenever possible.