Yeah for me it has been trials, got 11 in a row from wins but there are a lot of catalyst such as the rat king that can only be "found in strikes against the most challenging opponents" so I'm up to 158 now and whoopee I got 1 catalyst to drop and it was wardcliff coil so guess ill go back to the monotonous brain cell erasing task of doing the same nightfall over and over. Next week is double nightfall rewards and everything I've seen online says it doesn't affect catalyst chances but its the only slight shard of hope i have so if i don't get it by next week i might have to find another game to play for the sake of my sanity.

So pro tip, you don't need to use them... they just need to be in your inventory... so just fill it up with all the weapon cats that require ritual playlist progress. For kills, "In the Deep" is great... guides on the tube that show how to utilize that mission on the Moon.

You definitely don't have to have them in your inventory, I've had almost every catalyst I've acquired drop with the weapon either in my vault or collections. Also that mission is decent but id recommend shuro chi or the breakneck lightfall mission as they are a decent bit faster

So there are certain catalysts that require ritual playist progress as the first step. They've never progressed for me unless the weapon was in my inventory. Maybe they changed it. By the numbers, In the Deep is still the fastest, no stop kills... you never need to wipe. And that ends up being the fastest. Shuro Chi, you need to wipe... Breakneck you need to wipe... and that time in transition is the difference. I've leveled up manually about 80% of my crafts, there is no better consistent kill farm in the game... and it doesn't waste flags either, never had an issue with ammo. Shuro Chi is still great, breakneck is good... neither is as efficient as In the Deep.