Catalyst Black beginner's guide: How to conquer the latest mobile hero shooter

By Faith Leroux

Published May 30, 2022

Learn how to defeat your foes in the new 12v12 hero shooter developed by the Vainglory team

The Vainglory team's newest title, Catalyst Black, has come through on releasing an epic action-packed free-to-play battleground shooter. The game delivers on a solid performance, various game modes to share between friends and an abundance of customization options for your theory-crafting loadouts. Our beginner's guide aims to get new players up to speed with the hero shooter by teaching you gameplay basics and each game mode's objectives while detailing the title's upgrade system.

Getting started

When launching Catalyst Black for the first time, you'll jump straight into the tutorial that walks you through the game's touch controls. As you progress further, you'll earn Ascension. Ascension is equivalent to your player level, so as you increase your Ascension level, more options and game modes become available to you.

Gameplay

Catalyst Black plays in the third person with a top-down view, and the primary control method is the touchscreen, where you'll navigate using the virtual joy-con while tapping on the screen's corresponding buttons to activate your weapons and abilities.

You'll spam attacks with your primary weapon, and the ammo is tied to a cooldown. So you won't have to worry about reloading and acquiring ammo on the map, though you'll want to keep an eye on your cooldown, so you aren't caught off guard. In contrast, your secondary gun is classed as heavy, and this one has a finite amount of ammo it can hold, which you'll need to pick up as you traverse the map. You can customize your weapon choices from the 'Loadout' menu to dial in your weapon preferences.

You can roll and use a jump pad to maneuver around the map. You also have access to a swappable ability in the 'Loadout' menu that can help with map traversal.

One of the most exciting features is each character's capability to transform into a primal. Your primal form has access to two unique abilities (ranges from damage-based to utility) tied to the ability equipped in your loadout. It takes time to recharge your primal form, but the recharge time is cut down by collecting blue masks around the map. You'll be able to infinitely stay in primal form unless your opponents take you down.

Game modes

Slayer PvP: Unlocked by default. Your bread and butter team deathmatch mode. The first team (5v5) to earn 25 points wins.
Hydra PvP: Unlocked at Ascension 4. Fulfilling one out of three win conditions declares your team the winner (5v5 mode). The first win condition will see your team collecting and harvesting 20 shards, the second is to kill your opponents three times each, and the third is to slay your opponent's Overseer, a giant boss monster.
Colosseum PvE: Unlocked at Ascension 8. The primary PvE mode (5 players) spits five waves of monsters to exterminate. Depending on how your team performs, you receive a rating that can influence the rewards you'll earn.
Eventide PvP: Unlocked at Ascension 15. Arguably the primary attraction; this is a competitive (ranked) PvP and PvE mode consisting of 12 players on each side. Each team is tasked to complete objectives while competing against each other and the environment.
Capture The Flag PvP (rotating): Unlocked at Ascension 20. PvP mode focused on capturing flags at the other team's base that can be returned to your own. The first team to score five flags wins.
Core Rush PvP (rotating): Unlocked at Ascension 20. The closest version to a King of the Hill mode. Two teams slay monsters to capture cores. Cores are captured by staying in a single position for a select amount of time; the first team to 20 cores wins.
Flag Hunters PvP (rotating): Unlocked at Ascension 20. Teams look to capture 10 flags across all players, and the first team that has 10 flags and holds those flags is victorious.

Quests

Complete your dailies, weeklies, campaign, and companion quests to claim rewards to improve your account. If you earn enough shards, you can open up chests to receive new equipment, currency, and XP.

Upgrading your loadout

To access your loadout, tap on Loadout on the main screen.

Your loadout slots

You have seven slots to work with for upgrades and swaps. An associated rarity for each piece of gear, ability, or primal form can range from common (green), rare (blue), epic (purple), and legendary (yellow). Better rarity pieces will scale well when you perform upgrades. Upgrades unlock traits that are bonuses to your pieces. You'll obtain a 'Might' score at the top left as you perform upgrades on your loadout.

Heavy: Your secondary weapon slot, typically equipping heavy variations of guns such as mortars, miniguns, and rocket launchers.
Ability: Your ability slot can range from healing your allies, dealing damage with an elemental, teleportation, and adding traps.
Trinket: Adds a passive ability tied to a condition or a trigger. Examples include using your secondary weapon, taking damage, or picking up ammo.
Primary: The weapon you'll mainly use. It's based on personal preference and requires experimenting to find your best fit. The assault rifle is an example of an excellent beginner weapon for sheer speed and versatility.
Relic: Tied to your equipped primal form grants you access to an ability.
Power: Tied to your equipped primal form grants you access to an ability.
Mask: Equips your selected primal form. Your primal forms will have a unique fighting style.

How to change your loadout

Tap on Loadout on the main menu.
Tap on any loadout slot, select your new piece, and tap on Equip.
Now your old piece is replaced with the new piece on your loadout.

How to upgrade

On your 'Loadout' menu, tap on a piece you plan to upgrade.
Tap Upgrade; you'll have a choice to level up or infuse. Skip the next step if you don't have the materials to infuse your equipment.
Scroll to 'Infuse' and tap on the Infuse button. Note: You'll consume available duplicate equipment to perform this type of upgrade. Always infuse if you're able to; it unlocks stat boosts that's beneficial for your character and gameplay.
Scroll to 'Level Up' and tap on the Level Up button. Note: You'll consume Dust to perform this type of upgrade. The cost for Dust ramps up the higher level your equipment becomes. Dust is important to level your upgrades, so it gains more potency over time.
If you don't have enough resources to infuse or level up your equipment, tap on Find Resources to check how to locate more.

Catalyst Black is a stylish arena shooter

The latest game from the Vainglory developers delivers a promising stylish hero arena shooter on mobile. The chaos of 12v12 PvP mode and exterminating monster hoards is an addictive experience, and thankfully the game's performance doesn't seem to tank, even when taking part in these huge battles. Considering the solid start since release, we predict that this title will quickly make our list as one of the best free-to-play games to hit mobile. If this type of gameplay is your jam, you should definitely check out Catalyst Black by grabbing the install below.