Hey peeps – just thought I’d throw up an explanation of what I’ve figured out about Katalina by spending way too much time with the practice dummy.
Guide to Katalina Mechanics
Foreword
This is not a build guide in any way as I haven’t seen all the endgame yet, but this info should be useful for making and testing builds at any level.
One element missing here is frame counts for combos as I accidentally recorded at 30 fps this evening for the frame counts and skill cooldowns. My original intention was to figure out the fastest gauge-filling combos, but that’ll have to wait until I’ve recorded at 60fps and spent time in a video editor.
The TLDR of Katalina is that you want to have maximum uptime on your Ares summon as it provides more damage, more survivability, and substantial super armor uptime. Maximizing Ares uptime and extending Ares as long as possible should be the goal.
Building Ares Gauge
Katalina’s Ares Gauge has 2 bars that you need to fill to summon Ares. I subdivided a single bar into 10 because it fits nicely with all ways to fill her gauge, but keep in mind that you have to fill 2 bars with no overflow between them, so it is a 2 step process. Using the chart below, you can mix and match combos as you see fit. Once I get the frame data for these combos, I’ll be able to figure out the fastest compete uninterrupted gauge filler, but in practice, usually a link attack, dodge/block, or gap closer will determine the optimal combo to finish the next bar.
This is a Katalina with her offense mastery tree filled out – there are some nodes which increase gauge gain. If there are other ways to increase gauge gain, that is not included in this analysis. A Katalina without those nodes filled may not be able to use the chart below, but I cannot test this as I cannot turn off mastery nodes.
Note: The 10 subdivisions are just an abstraction as an ease of use for designing combos and is not how the actual gauge gain works, so if there are other ways of improving her gauge gain beyond just her masteries, then the chart below is probably misinformation and useless.
1xy would be pressing (x → y); 2xy is (x → x → y) and so on. Things get a little weird with the 4x+y string combo – in terms of gauge gain, it is actually 2 separate events. First there is the 4+x and then a “combo finish y”. The game shows it as a single combo (x → x → x → xxxx → y), but there are two separate times the gauge is filled. That final “y” is the same animation as any “combo finish y” after a skill use, and it fills a gauge bar almost all the way. The full 4+xy combo fills a whole bar because literally anything plus a “combo finish y” will max out a gauge bar, and the 4+x itself gives some gauge.
Gauge Fill per Combo
So, for example, you can use (1xy →3xy) to max out a bar. It would take (1xy→1xy→1xy→1xy) to max a bar. It takes (2xy→2xy) to max the bar, etc.
There is no overflow from the first bar to the second, so if you use (3xy→3xy), that would be 9/10 + 9/10 = 18/10, or 1 bar filled, “wasting” the remaining gauge of the second combo. It is much faster to use 1xy to finish a gauge bar if it’s almost full.
Additionally, you can use a “combo finish y” for 9/10 gauge bar after some skills – usually the ones that are directly attacking an enemy.
Skills and their Approximate Cooldowns
A couple notes on the skills – Frozen Blade only uses half of its cooldown bar on activation, so you can use it twice, but the cooldown is combined. If you use it twice, the total cooldown for both is ~30 seconds, but you can use another one once the bar is halfway filled at ~15 seconds.
I had been using Azure Sword since I liked the idea of having a way to instantly max gauge to improve my Ares uptime and provide teamwide invincibility at any moment regardless of my gauge state. However, the cooldown is so long that it is only useful for the latter if you actively hold it for those moments. This means you are locking two skill slots to long cooldown skills that you only use at specific moments which severely hurts your ability to extend Ares (see next section). It is probably good for a support-oriented Katalina, but not for Ares uptime throughout an entire fight.
Note: Do you want to always win or be practically immortal? Then this guide to immortal build in Granblue Fantasy: Relink will help you with that. It will tell you in detail how to achieve god mode!
Ares Extensions
You can summon Ares once the gauge is full through a combo finisher, using a skill, or by using a link attack. This opens up a new combo Ares Pactstrike (y+). Ares can be continually extended by chaining together any action that would summon Ares in the first place. If you weave Pactstrike (y+) in between these actions, you can even get some low cooldown skills back again.
I don’t have the sigils to test this yet, but it may be possible to infinitely extend Ares on a dummy with enough cooldown reduction and low cooldown combo-capable skills like Enchanted Lands, Frozen Blade, and Winter’s Rain.
Here is an example starting with Enchanted Lands once the gauge is full to summon Ares:
Enchanted Lands → cfy → y+ →Winter’s Rain → cfy → y+ → Frozen Blade 1 → cfy → y+ → Frozen Blade 2 → cfy → y+ → Light Wall → Enchanted Lands (if off cooldown) → etc.
- cfy = combo finish y
- y+ = Ares Pactstrike
Skills that can lead into a “combo finish y” can be chained into Pactstrike, but skills that cannot (like Light Wall in the above example) need to have skills used directly afterward, or Ares will fall off.
If a link attack happens while you are in the middle of an Ares Extension, you can chain a “combo finish y” and a Pactstrike to continue your Ares Extension.
Since Katalina has super armor during Pactstrike using Ares, and she gains a lot of defense while Ares is summoned, it is pretty easy to go ham unless there is a high-damage mechanic or really telegraphed attack.
Note: I’ve learned that the super armor is only during Pactstrike, so it is not continuous during an Ares Extension and you can get knocked out of a skill or “combo finish y”. Pactstrike is the lengthiest animation though so you are spending much of your time with super armor, but a dodge or block ends Ares so there is no real way to adjust.
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