Category: Anthem

Cataclysm – General guide

The Cataclysm is a 7 week long seasonal event in Anthem.
Located in a new area, the task is not only to kill stuff but also to rack up points. Those points translate to crystals and are required to open war chests.

War chests will contain new items, currently melee and gear, that come as masterworks or legendaries. The chance for a legendary item is roughly at 10%.

The chests provide a nice and convenient way to upgrade your gear and therefore maximizing points should be your goal.

In order to maximize points in a run, you should not only go for kills, especially not wasting time with mobs. Finishing an arena, killing the respective Valkyrie and discovering secrets will get you way more points than killing mobs.
If you are able to kill Vara during the final encounter, your points will be doubled.

You start off with 15 mins on the clock in which you have to complete the event. Each arena adds 3 to 4 mins to that timer, discovering secrets may increase this timer as well.

Strategies

  • first, finish all arenas to maximize your multiplier
  • should be at 10x after all arenas, as there are 4 live as of writing
  • then start discovering secrets, which are
    • time runes, add 1 minute to your remaining time
    • notes in different colours, will give points and improve the stability of your javelin
    • echoes, deliver those to the respective devices to lift the sphere and collect lots of notes
    • statues, there are multiple statues located across the map, step on the near up pressure plate to unlock a golden note
    • relics, can be picked up to open doors or lift rocks from the sands, those contain notes as well
    • crystal blocks, have to either be destroyed by a beam or by bombs found nearby
    • grabbit king, there’s a secret cave under water where you need to kill grabbits to receive notes and some grabbit ears for your helmet
  • by doing so, you’ll get the max multiplier for all the secrets and thus more points

Outcome

When following those strategies on e.g. GM3, you should be somewhere between 450k and 500k right now (week 3). After killing Vara, this should get you around 7mil points, equaling 7,000 minor crystals. That’s good for about 10 to 11 war chests.

Inscriptions & combos

Your gear, components, weapons, etc. all come with perks and inscriptions.
Perks are static per rarity level of an item, the inscriptions vary on RNG. Several items also function as a primer or as a detonator, the ingredients of combos.

Inscriptions come in two types, indicated by a corresponding icon.
Gear –
The inscription only applies to that very item
Javelin –
The inscription applies to all of your gear

In the above example, this specific item has +225% damage and grants a +15% damage increase to all your gear.

Combos are the preferred method of dealing increased amounts of damage. To create combos, you’ll need a primer and a detonator .
The icons are shown ahead of the item’s name and also on your HUD on the corresponding abilities.

Creating a combo doesn’t just simply add up all base damage values, it also applies your javelin’s unique ability.
Which are:
– Ranger deals critical damage on the target
– Colossus triggers an AoE explosion
– Storm spreads the elemental effect on targets nearby
– Interceptor creates an Aura that spreads the elemental effect to other targets over time

You don’t need to prime the target yourself, if anyone on your team applied a primer then you are still able to detonate for a combo and deal increased damage. A red circle above the health bar details the prime debuff currently applied to the target.

Gear that is not marked as a primer or detonator may still have higher base damage values, so take some time to evaluate the best combinations for your play style.