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Introduction I once again return to both Reddit and the forums to bring my take on GW2 competitive balancing. I managed to remain mostly silent since the release of EOD, the promised quarterly patches were supposed to fix the current issues plaguing the competitive balance. But the current post reveals the painful reality that the competitive community is forced to endure this unhealthy meta for at least 3 more months till the next patch. My silence is broken because the preview is ultimately unsatisfactory and because of that, I will bring my feedback. My previous feedback focused exclusively on Catalyst, but this time I will bring feedback on the entire patch. I will largely follow the same format as the controversial forum post . Armor, Weapons, and runes. Minstrel: The PVP gear balance is fairly healthy. Supports aren't too tanky with 0 toughness afforded to the gentle souls choosing to main these classes. While they can still be difficult to kill, it is not an outlandish decision to decide to focus the support. This unfortunate remains untrue in the WvW balance, the issues go largely unnoticed with large-scale combat but swiftly begin to show their ugly head in smaller-scale combat. Where specifically power classes have to deal with massive dmg reduction and absurd self-healing. Minstrel supports could remain difficult to kill with their massive ability to sustain while removing the toughness stat from the gear in exchange for something more fitting, perhaps outgoing healing? Celestial: This gearset is absurd. 5 defensive stats all equaling the same bonus stats as a minor stat in a 4 stat piece. (Concentration, expertise, toughness, healing power, vitality.) And don't let it be disputed that both expertise and concentration double as offensive and defensive stats. Concentration increases the duration of damaging boons and defensive boons. Expertise increases the duration of debilitating conditions and damaging conditions. This set also has 6 offensive stats, concentration, and expertise making their return in this category, totaling 9 stats all equal to a minor stat of a 4 stat piece. It is a complete stat overload that works with nearly every build. I would suggest significantly reducing the number of each individual stat. And removing the ability for EXPERTISE to increase non-damaging condition duration. Trailblazer: Expertise once more makes a return in this stat set, once more increasing non-damaging conditions and thereby buffing the defense of an already extremely tanky set. Condition damage overperforms if it needs only 2 stats to do damage far exceeding power classes in any fights. Simply because power classes cannot bypass toughness. Trailblazer specifically effectively runs 3 defensive stats in exchange for high damage. Even with the prior discussed expertise nerf would still run 2 defensive stats. Perhaps the answer is not to nerf trailblazer, but instead, to require crits for maximum condition damage, bringing condition builds in line with power builds by requiring 3 offensive stats. Classes Elementalist. Elementalist remains largely unchanged in the PVP/WvW context, save a minor staff Elementalist buff. None of which I have a particular problem with. Save perhaps support tempest and core Elementalist, none of the specializations overperform or significantly underperform. This will force me to focus on the biggest issue of catalysts in their current form. Catalyst: The catalyst hammer is suffering significantly into projectile block/reflect builds. The orbs supposedly stay for 10 seconds if their duration isn't increased by the following orb summon but many elementalism can attest that this is simply untrue. A buff that can last up to 40 seconds get completely removed by standing near any projectile block/reflect in that time. The orbs simply disappear, and worse yet the catalyst is forced to blow the Grand finale to toss away nothing and allow a build-up of soon-to-be-removed orbs once more. To keep the catalyst competitive in PVP the orbs should lose their projectile status until they actually get fired using the grand finale. Allowing some play from currently the easiest countered skill in the game. Engineer Most changes are relatively fine considering engineering is in a decent spot with most professions save core engineer. But the unfortunate truth is that mechanist has no place in the PvP. A complete rework is unfortunately necessary. The reasoning is simple, the build is completely not interactive for the player. The general game plan of a sidenoder mechanist is to exist while the golem kills. It would completely dominate the lower ranks because anyone can near-AFK with a mechanist and pull out a win in the lower ranks. Until mechanist becomes more interactive it has no place being strong. Guardian Counterplay is the biggest issue of Willbender. F1 is an AOE blind + damage. F2 is an evade. F3 followed with any damage is massive block spam nonsense. sword 2 is a blind and spinning my foot around will somehow weaken enemies. And the list goes on and on. The biggest issue with will bender is that it doesn't allow counterplay. Most counter-offensives have difficulty dealing with defensive components allowing little to no counterpressure. Removing the defensive components from Willbender's offensive kit allows for much-needed counterpressure opportunities. Remove the weakness from Whirling Light and remove the slow from Advancing Strike . Seriously consider further nerfing troublesome conditions on offensive skills on other Willbender skills. Firebrand Mantra of Solace: This skill now grants aegis instead of protection and resolution in PvP and WvW. And I don't know why this still has to be said but DON'T buff firebrand in WVW. The only solace we had during the rocky balance of post-EOD WvW was the ability to actually consistently damage zerks instead of having to deal with an unhealthy amount of blocks. Mesmer Virtuoso in both PVP and especially WvW does way too much damage considering how tanky the specialization is in any class that has a low amount of unblockable skills. Combine that with the occasional cheeky Oneshot from dueling/illusions and we simply have an unhealthy class. The cover conditions simply allow little ability to cleanse the massive bursts. While the burst is fairly obvious, despite sometimes going through walls, it is mostly unhealthy because of the inherent tankinessof the build that can be amplified with trailblazer gear. The reduction of bleeding is a healthy step but should perhaps be followed up with the removal of the vulnerability of Deadly Blades . It is simply one more condition to cleanse and only exists to cover conditions. Power builds never had vulnerability problems using domination making this trait nothing more than a glorified cover condition applier. Tankiness could perhaps be addressed by adding an ICD of 10~ seconds to Bladeturn Refrain . A more significant nerf is perhaps necessary but I feel like the class could swiftly become unplayable if the balance team goes too hard on the defensive capabilities. Necromancer Harbinger is an absolute beast. The celestial build makes this wannabe glass cannon an absolute tank with little to no counter. Especially with the current state of expertise. The biggest problem of this class is not the damage that it does, it is that it is the undisputed king of sustain among all the necromancers. The mobility easily keeps the necromancer alive and the massive sustain from the carapace makes it blindly tank all incoming damage. I have seen a harbinger casually tank a fully charged 25-might dragon trigger, it hitting for only 2.5k with a critical hit. This class can casually kill most builds in about 2 seconds if they don't pay attention. And once more, I don't really mind the damage. Alchemic Vigor : Simply shouldn't heal. Vital Draw : is an elite skill on a 25 seconds cooldown. An increase to perhaps 40/50 seconds would be in order. Armored Shroud : Shouldn't give carapace. The mechanic should build up the necromancer's toughness upon inflicting damage, and active gameplay. Shrouded Removal : Shouldn't give carapace. The mechanic should build up the necromancer's toughness upon inflicting damage, and active gameplay. Ranger No comment. In a fairly healthy spot. Revenant Vindicator is the obvious, oppressive class. Of any PvP build in the game, this one feels like a rotation most. Simply dodging, blocking, dodging on a near-endless loop. When two vindicators meet they sometimes don't even bother fighting, instead afk'ing on a point till a +1 arrives. That's why I propose the following changes. Selfish Spirit / Selfless Spirit : Reduce healing. The absurd sustain of the vindicator allows the class to mostly follow a rotation. Damage will get in from time to time but the ability to heal 3 times if not more will probably top up any mistake made. If the ability to sustain is nerfed it will force the vindicator to be more reactive with its dodges because any damage taken is more difficult to heal up. Reaver's Rage : Increase energy cost. I casually spam it from time to time before legend swapping, the cost is simply too low. Eternity's Requiem : Reduce initial damage and reduce the damage penalty per consecutive hit. It often feels like I only need to hit once for this to do significant damage while I believe the vindicator should be rewarded for landing multiple hits. Thief PvP changes seem mostly fine but the developers chose to buff shadow arts in WvW. If there was ever anything a thief didn't need it was a buff to shadow arts. It probably wouldn't be much of a challenge to achieve 100 hours without dying on thief in WvW. The biggest problem with the class is that it is near impossible to punish. Unhindered Combatant and Marauder's Resilience effectively give daredevil full-time 20% damage reduction. Combine that with the possibility of dodging food and stealth, you have a nigh immortal build that has significant damage potential. Deadeye somehow got the tradeoff that it is extremely fast with the significantly overpowered Death's Retreat . Combined with dodges that grand stealth and a simple way to remove the revealed debuff. But there is still hope. Meld with Shadows was worded vaguely and could potentially be significantly nerfed. All they need to do is remove the component that increases stealth duration because it is beyond busted. Meld with Shadows : Remove stealth duration increase. Marauder's Resilience : Remove damage reduction Death's Retreat : Reduce range Daredevil: Reduce toughness as a tradeoff for the increased sustain granted by mobility. General rework: Make stealth healing have a low base heal and a high healing power coefficient. Warrior Bladesworn is way too tanky thanks to shouts and might spam yet it was decided that shouts will be buffed. Nerf shout healing without healing power, have a low base heal and a high healing power coefficient. Vigorous Shouts have a low base heal and a high healing power coefficient.

Near non-existent nerfs to both harbinger and willbender in pvp. Nothing about celestial Harb in wvw And a SA BUFF in wvw? And shadowportal still not disabled after 3 years of breaking wvw. Ait...

Currently it 3 of the 5 augments are often used. The fire and Water augment, both having their merits in PvE and WvW. And the elite one in near all game modes. The air augment is the shortest cooldown stunbreak if you can pull it off. Since Sphere's are insta-casts you can often stunbreak with the 20 second cooldown which is a solid. I do agree that they definetly need to add runes that fit the new specialisations, but that has little to do with Catalyst.

Introduction I myself love Elementalist and therefore have played it thousands of hours across all the game modes at a high level. I must admit I have spent most of my game time in both WvW and PVP and therefore will be harsher on the components of the class that are troublesome in those areas. The Catalyst follows the tradition of previous Elementalist specs and remains mechanically demanding, it is one of the things that attracted me to the class in the first place and therefore I won't be suggesting many changes that would make the class more accessible. Elementalist specs have previously always enjoyed a smooth gameplay feel, which in my personal opinion is robbed from the Catalyst. I will be talking about the class mechanic, augments, weapon skills, and traits in that order ending off with a conclusion. Jade Sphere The idea of a Jade Sphere is good but in its execution flawed. It's nice to have access to a Waterfield on every weapon set. Specifically, Dagger/ focus or dagger/ dagger comes to mind. And it's a good idea to change the composition of the field every time an attunement is swapped. This also allows the cooldown of Elemental Epitome to not be too oppressive. Static Gameplay However, issues come to play (mostly in WvW) when you are not allowed to move the sphere. In my previous post regarding the Jade Sphere, it would drain all energy upon deactivation. This has luckily been somewhat remedied by the fixed cost and fixed duration. However, the cooldown remains 15 seconds now in ALL game modes. This makes the mechanic near useless in any and all fights with a lot of movement, including fights in the PvE game mode. Quickness Catalyst cannot reasonably keep up quickness in any of such fights, making it underperform compared to quickness Harbinger. Elementalist always had the problem that they can't keep up with most classes in WvW and being forced to stay static to make use of your professional mechanic is a terrible idea. It can also be said that the 15 seconds cooldown cannot be justified with the 3 damage coefficient that has been chosen for WvW and PvP. Especially because these game modes are known to be less static. Energy The biggest elephant in the room is the energy management of the Jade Sphere which takes away any of the flexibility the mechanic should have. What I am referring to is the fact that a Catalyst cannot gain energy while A sphere is active. This in PvE results in an awkward rotation where the catalyst gains 30 energy and then rapidly switches all attunements while spamming multiple Spheres. A ' luxury' that PvP and WvW players do not really have. The reason behind this change is most likely that the development team doesn't want the Jade Spheres to snowball by granting energy with each hit resulting in gameplay where you can spawn a Jade Sphere pretty much with just the damage of a Jade Sphere. This is all fine, but hits from other attacks also don't grant any energy during the deployment of a Jade Sphere. Fix: Discussion is probably needed but I would make the sphere act similar to engineer wells (gyros) where it simply follows the player. This change would also allow the Elementalist to move while playing. And I cannot stress this enough, the Catalyst really needs the ability to move more fluently through the battlefield without making major concessions. Also, the energy management needs to be fixed, a Catalyst should be able to gain energy while spheres are deployed to maintain more fluent gameplay. To avoid the energy snowballing with multiple Jade Sphere's the developers can look into a way to filter out Jade Sphere hits for energy generation. If it isn't possible to make the Jade Sphere mobile it is imperative to reduce the cooldown back to the original 5 seconds across ALL game modes. Augments I have been incredibly critical of augments during the first Beta event, as seen in one of my previous posts. I can however say that most changes that have happened over the course of the past months have improved the flued gameplay of augments. I can honestly admit that this part of the Catalyst is near perfect. But I will go through every skill that I believe needs some improvement regardless. Elemental Celerity: In my opinion, this is the only augment that needs a change. It is great fun to play but the cooldown is incredibly high and is mostly reserved as a glorified Hurricane of Pain cast. I assume this cooldown is chosen to avoid Obsidian Flesh resetting too often which could prove oppressive in combination with an earth shield using Fortify But this is uniquely problematic in WvW. In PvP, it would at the very least prevent capture point participation. Fix It would be ideal to reduce the cooldown to 50 seconds in the PvE game mode. The cooldown is long enough to avoid any cheesy rotations of Meteor Shower. And would probably also avoid any other overpowered rotations from entering the game. Hammer I was incredibly happy with most of the changes added to the Catalyst in preparation for its release. Hammer however seemingly escaped the most necessary fixes to make it a smooth and effective weapon. The weapon has unfortunately been exclusively reserved for PvE play with no prospects in PvP and WvW. Hammer lacks both defensive and offensive skills in those game modes and will need serious changes to reach a viable state. Fire: Singeing Strike: This skill lacks cleave. While the damage is fine enough for an AoE skill, it turns out this is just a single target skill. This makes it weak to the point that it often isn't worth auto attacking unless you can literally do anything else. I would make the attack pierce. This would fix hammer energy management issues in competitive game modes somewhat. While adding some cleave to the weapon. Surging Flames: Alright in my personal opinion. Although a slight damage buff could be welcome in competitive game modes. Flame Wheel: The damage in competitive game modes is incredibly low with just a damage coefficient of 100. It is an undisputed fact that Hammer catalyst has an incredibly tough time landing damage in competitive game modes due to the slow weapon being combined with a lack of mobility. If the developers prefer to keep Catalyst slow in movement and action then it should at least be expected that the catalyst has the damage presence to back up all those downsides. Grand Finale: Damage coefficient in all game modes seem incredibly lacking for the amount of effort necessary to get the maximum potential out of the skill. I would at least think of a 50% damage buff in competitive game modes and perhaps more in PvE. Perhaps a 100% in that game mode would be a decent increase. Triple Sear: PvE damage seems fine, although in competitive game modes it is lacking. You cannot expect enemies to be static since this skill requires incredible precision for moving targets. It seems incredibly bad that the damage doesn't back up the difficulty of hitting the skill. The damage coefficient is only 750 on a perfect hit. A 50% damage buff seems fair for competitive game modes, due to the difficulty of hitting the skill paired with the incredibly squishy state of Hammer Catalyst. Water: Stream Strike: Considering how slow the chain of the auto-attack is I would at least double the chill duration in competitive game modes. But this skill seems mostly fine. Rain of Blows: Hitting all strikes is not realistic in a competitive game mode. Random aegis, dodges, and movement skills can easily take care of that. So a 3 second chill on the final attack and only if everything has hit, is not enough. Combine that with the low damage and it's a non-skill. So to fix this I would double the range, which is now just 130. And I would add half a second of chill on each hit to make it easier to hit all of them. Perhaps even add weakness if all attacks are hit since it is an accomplishment really. Icy Coil: Same as Flame Wheel. Crashing Font: This is the only mobility skill on the hammer so I would consider reducing the cooldown to perhaps 15 seconds in competitive game modes, making it available almost every cycle if used correctly. Cleansing Typhoon: Fine in my opinion. Air: Wind Slam: Make it pierce, it's just an auto-attack so I won't ask for much more. Except for maybe a single stack of vuln added. Hurricane of pain: I would at least double the radius in competitive game modes since in a setting where enemies constantly move and on a weapon with no long-term lockdown it won't hit. Another fix would be to add the same circle of damage around the Elementalist in addition to the location they targeted. Of course similar to shades it shouldn't be possible to hit with both on the same target. Crescent Wind: Same as Flame Wheel. Wind Storm: All I would do with this one is add an evade frame. Hammer desperately needs more sustain and this would be a welcome addition. Also, this skill has a tendency to get the user stuck in a wall. It happens incredibly regularly (once every 5 or so PVP games) and results in 90 seconds if not more of inactivity while you wait for the /stuck command to go through. So that is probably worth fixing. Schock Blast: Add a passthrough CC, it's extremely hard to hit with enemies that are paying attention to the circle. This would also be a nice damage addition for lightning rod players who can get 2 cc's like this. Earth: Stonestrike: Add bleeding, fire is the only weapon with some condition damage and even that is a pretty disappointing amount. Whirling Stones: A bit of an odd one but with a cast time of over 3 seconds I would add damage reduction while spinning. Perhaps 33%-50% Less damage during the animation, else it would just be a suicide button with how little damage it currently does. The addition of a projectile block seems insufficient to give the Catalyst adequate sustain. A wise player would choose to ignore the hammer 2 of a catalyst and simply damage through it, tanking the fairly weak AOE pressure. Rocky Loop: Same as Flame Wheel. Immutable Stone: Make it more than a single block. Catalyst is a sitting duck in most combat situations, and at least one actually decent defensive skill on the weapon set seems necessary. Ground pound: This one is fine in my opinion Traits minors: Elemental empowerment: Perhaps to make it a bit more interactive I would add a single stack for each attunement swap, and remove the while in combat application. Elemental Epitome: Remove the internal cooldown, blasts are already pretty forced into the Jade Sphere this removes even more fluidity the build could have. Also, it makes it less rewarding to cast hammer 5 in earth, switch to fire for a fire field and follow it up with fire 5. While the entire idea of the skills mentioned is to swap while casting. Majors: Adapt: Hardened Aura's: Fine in my opinion, although it struggles with the same issue that most Catalyst traits have. It is a simple buff that doesn't impact gameplay much. Vicious Empowerment: Love the trait, especially for lightning rod kind of builds so I wouldn't mind this one staying unchanged. Energized Elements: Fine in my opinion. Master: Empowering Auras: Same comment as Hardened Aura's Evasive Empowerment: I like this one, especially since vigor can be troublesome to get in some builds. And since the hammer is pretty static it probably needs this as a defensive supply. Spectacular Sphere: Fine in my opinion. Grandmaster: Staunch Auras: Fine in my opinion. Empowered Empowerment: Fine in my opinion Sphere Specialist: Fine in my opinion Conclusion Most changes I suggested primarily have fluid and flexible gameplay in mind. I must say I didn't much comment about the interaction with alternative Elementalist weapons but they for sure have been taken into consideration, it's just that this is already a huge amount of text and it would be even bigger if I mentioned every possible interaction. I believe that catalyst with a hammer would be playable and even good in certain situations with the changes I mentioned. I have also not taken benchmarks into consideration for most of my comments, although my suggested changes would somewhat increase the damage of the class. Power Catalyst currently does 500 damage more than quickness harbinger. And in any realistic situation would be out dps'd by a quickness harbinger because of the fact that the rotation of Catalyst isn't flexible. Catalyst definitely needs a massive buff to be competitive in PvE raids, strikes, and the like.

I Introduction (I have posted this on reddit aswell and it was pretty wel recieved so I thought it would be a good idear to also place it here) I unlike some Elementalist players was pretty hyped during the Livestream. While most were asking for a ranged specialization, I liked the close-range fighter classes way more. I have played Elementalist since launch, starting with the famed dagger/ dagger setup and currently enjoying dagger/ focus lightning rod weaver. I am well aware of the current state of Elementalist in the meta of both pvp and wvw but I won't go into that in this discussion unless it's relevant. I will be talking about the class mechanic, augments, weapon skills, and traits in that order ending off with a conclusion. Jade Sphere The idea of a Jade Sphere is good but in its execution flawed. It's nice to have access to a Waterfield on every weapon set. Specifically, Dagger/ focus or dagger/ dagger comes to mind. And it's a good idea to change the composition of the field every time an attunement is swapped. This also allows the cooldown of Elemental Epitome to not be too oppressive. However, issues come to play (mostly in wvw) when you are not allowed to move the sphere. It's stuck in place and deactivating it for some reason costs all of your energy. This is all fine with point gameplay in pvp where you can just drop it on the node. But it's completely unplayable in wvw where fights are more dynamic and less static. Elementalist always had the problem that they can't keep up with most classes in wvw and being forced to stay static to use your professional mechanic is a terrible idea. Fix: Discussion is probably needed but I would make the sphere act similar to engineer wells (gyros) where it simply follows the player. I would as well reduce the cooldown and remove the effect that all energy is drained upon deactivation. Especially since it's hard to gain energy in wvw and pvp while running a slow weapon like a hammer. This change would also allow the Elementalist to move while playing. Augments They were mentioned to be wells in the trailer but I assumed Arenanet would be afraid of the interaction it would have with Runes of the Chronomancer, allowing quickness on well usage. Especially on hammer quickness would almost be mandatory to use the weapon in a competitive setting so I would revert this change back to wells. The idea of Augments is that they become stronger if you cast them while staying In the Jade sphere, once more forcing static gameplay on a melee weapon. Even worse is that they force you to be in the respective attunement in line with the augment, forcing not just static play but also inflexible play, not allowing any swapping if you would like to get the stronger effect. It also must be mentioned that the Jade sphere has a cooldown of 15 seconds so even with perfect energy management the stronger effects can't be used for that duration of time. Before I talk about each individual skill I will recommend a quick fix to make these skills more flexible. General Fix: I would make it that the stronger effect of the augment remains for the duration of the augment buff if it's cast in their respective sphere element. This way you can leave the sphere or swap attunements while enjoying the buff. Mostly making it more flexible and less static. I would also consider turning augments into wells to allow the use of rune of the chronomancer but this mostly depends on other buffs the class would get, since we don't want to over tune the class. Soothing Water: The catalyst heal skill will heal the Elementalist for 1340(0.2) every pulse for 5 pulses. In addition to this, it would cleanse one condition a second as long as the Elementalist stays in a water jade sphere. The cooldown is 25 seconds. In a competitive setting, you would be happy to cleanse one or two conditions in this way. It's competition Glyph of Elemental Harmony heals instantly on completion of the cast time for 6494(1.0) While giving a boon depending on your current attunement. Soothing water over its duration heals for 6700(0.2). So without healing power, it's barely edging out and with healing power, the glyph of elemental harmony would easily output more healing instantly. Elemental harmony also has a lower cooldown of just 20 seconds which can be traited. Burst healing is also way more useful since it applies more of a buffer when you are low. This means that elemental harmony is just straight up a better heal if it wasn't for the cleanse. And the cleanse is a lot less accessible how it's designed now. Fix Soothing Water: In addition to the general fix I would recommend increasing the healing power coefficient. It's a really low heal and it isn't even a burst heal. Relentless Fire: I actually like this skill, Although I would nerf it if, and only if, the general fix is applied. 5 seconds of unblockable attacks can be extremely oppressive mostly in a wvw group setting. Fix Relentless Fire: Only if the general fix is applied, I would change the 5 seconds of unblockable attacks to simply the next 5 attacks, the simple ranger treatement. Shattering Ice: I wouldn't change this augment if the general fix is applied. I don't see anyone using this in pvp but in wvw it could get some good use. I must admit I have not tested it in a group setting, for instance, combining it with a meteor shower on a zerk but the damage value is pretty low so it shouldn't be oppressive. Combine this with the fact that scrappers exist and the chill wouldn't be too bad either. Invigorating Air. I wouldn't change this augment if the general fix is applied. Elementalists are starving for good stun breaks and this is actually a nice addition. Cooldowns on mist form and armor of earth are so insanely high that most players have been using signet of air, which mostly only is used for the stun break and an alternative is always welcome. Fortified Earth. I wouldn't change this augment if the general fix is applied. Mostly for pvp, I like a defensive skill on Elementalist that doesn't stop point capturing or defending. The cooldown is also completely reasonable. Elemental Celerity: I like the idea of this skill, I really do but it's just terrible. The cooldown is completely insane especially considering the terrible interval. In a perfect world, which won't happen, You would need to hit an enemy every second at the exact interval to get 8 seconds less cooldown on only your current equipped kit. The cooldown also doesn't impact anything other than your current shown weapon skills. Fix: In my fixes, I attempt to propose realistic fixes that can be done for release, and with this skill, the only thing I can think of is reducing the cooldown to 30 seconds in pvp and wvw. Especially with the attunement swapping the cooldown will barely be noticeable. Hammer This will be a challenge since 20 skills are mentioned. So I won't go into too much dept with each skill. What I will say is some general pointers on the hammer weapon. The damage is absolutely terrible for how little the weapon can actually do outside of doing damage. For a weapon that should be focused on blasting fields, it doesn't create any! And with the massive cooldown of jade sphere and the trouble hammer has in getting the energy it will just not have a great time in blasting anything. Aside from that, the weapons cleansing option is very sad. Cleansing is mostly gotten out of the fire trait line which is mostly condition-focused and this weapon has terrible condition damage. Easy access to auras is only for a little bit during the jade sphere with a 15-second cooldown where aura cleansing is not done. Even more so you can't transmute any of the auras. For a class that is supposed to be a bruiser, it has no good cleansing options to deal with condi classes especially since some can effortlessly put up 4 or more cover conditions. Fire: Singeing Strike: I would make it pierce, it's an auto-attack so I would not change much more. Surging Flames: The damage coefficient is extremely low and it only applies a single stack of burning making it also a terrible skill for any condi build. I would perhaps think about increasing the coefficient and doubling the burning stacks. Flame Wheel: Honestly a great skill! But one issue with it is that if the flip-over - Grand Finale is interrupted, the wait is long enough that you can't ever cast it realistically within the same cycle. My biggest fix would be increasing the duration of this skill to 7 seconds. This also allows for more freedom in the playstyle instead of being forced to swap often. Considering the orbs only hit the enemy in a particular range I don't believe it's too oppressive and can be easily countered. Triple Sear: Make it a combo field probably, this way you don't have to completely rely on your Jade sphere. I would also recommend 50 to 100% more damage. It now barely affects downstate corpses and that is what the skill should ideally be able to deal with. Molten End: A very slow skill for how low the damage coefficient is so I would think about a 30-50% Increase. Aside from that, it's very unlikely to hit multiple people in a pvp/ wvw setting so the might per target should probably be increased. Water: Stream Strike: Considering how slow the chain of the auto-attack is I would at least double the chill duration at the end, else it would just not be used. Perhaps a slight damage increase would also be welcome. Rain of Blows: Hitting all strikes is not realistic in a competitive game mode. Random aegis, dodges, and movement skills can easily take care of that. So a 3 second chill on the final attack and only if everything has hit, is not enough. Combine that with the low damage and it's a non-skill. So to fix this I would double the range, which is now just 130. And I would add half a second of chill on each hit to make it easier to hit all of them. Perhaps even add weakness if all attacks are hit since it is an accomplishment really. Icy Coil: Same as Flame Wheel. Crashing Font: This is the only mobility skill on the hammer so I would consider reducing the cooldown to perhaps 15 seconds, making it available almost every cycle if used correctly. Perhaps add a single condition cleansed per target hit to allow Catalyst the condition cleanse it desperately needs. Cleansing Typhoon: Currently the only cleanse on the hammer and it can't even reliably cleanse. I would make it cleanse 3 conditions regardless of enemies hit. Perhaps 2 conditions + 1 if an enemy is hit. Air: Wind Slam: Make it pierce, it's just an auto-attack so I won't ask for much more. Except for maybe a single stack of vuln added. Hurricane of pain: I would at least double the radius since in a setting where enemies constantly move and on a weapon with no long-term lockdown it won't hit. Another fix would be to add the same circle of damage around the Elementalist in addition to the location they targeted. Of course similar to shades it shouldn't be possible to hit with both on the same target. Crescent Wind: Same as Flame Wheel. Wind Storm: All I would do with this one is add an evade frame. Hammer desperately needs more sustain and this would be a welcome addition. Schock Blast: Add a passthrough CC, it's extremely hard to hit with enemies that are paying attention to the circle. This would also be a nice damage addition for lightning rod players who can get 2 cc's like this. Earth: Stonestrike: Add bleeding, fire is the only weapon with some condi damage and even that is a pretty disappointing amount. Whirling Stones: A bit of an odd one but with a cast time of over 3 seconds I would add damage reduction while spinning. Perhaps 33%-50% Less damage during the animation, else it would just be a suicide button with how little damage it currently does. Rocky Loop: Same as Flame Wheel. Immutable Stone: I would perhaps add a condition cleanse or 2 on the block. Hammer does really need it if it would want to survive into condition matchups. Ground pound: This one is fine in my opinion Traits minors: Elemental empowerment: Perhaps to make it a bit more interactive I would add a single stack for each attunement swap, and remove the while in combat application. Elemental Epitome: Remove the internal cooldown, blasts are already pretty forced into the Jade Sphere this removes even more fluidity the build could have. Also, it makes it less rewarding to cast hammer 5 in earth, switch to fire for a fire field, and follow it up with fire 5. While the entire idea of the skills mentioned is to swap while casting. Majors: Adapt: Hardened Aura's: Without outside help, it's incredibly hard to keep this up for the 10% reduced damage. Considering that thief has Marauder's resilience which reduces inc dmg by 10% most of the time (only melee range) + adding a ton of vitality to the thief (I don't like this trait btw). It seems almost troublesome how hard it is for the Elementalist to reach this 10%. I would probably buff it to 3% per stack or increase the time you have to get an aura to refresh the buff to 7 or 8 seconds. Vicious Empowerment: Love the trait, especially for lightning rod kind of builds so I wouldn't mind this one staying unchanged. Energized Elements: It's fine I suppose, but I would perhaps add an increase to the maximum energy in this trait. Would be fun to see longer jade spheres if you trait towards it. Master: Empowering Auras: Same comment as Hardened Aura's Evasive Empowerment: I like this one, especially since vigor can be troublesome to get in some builds. And since the hammer is pretty static it probably needs this as a defensive supply. Spectacular Sphere: If the Jade Sphere is updated in line with what I suggested I believe this trait would be completely fine and fun. Grandmaster: Staunch Auras: Elementalist really needed a trait with good access to stability, especially since the hammer is static and unmoving. Empowered Empowerment: Fun, wouldn't change anything about this! Sphere Specialist: If the Jade Sphere is updated in line with what I suggested I believe this trait would be completely fine and fun. Conclusion Most changes I suggested primarily have fluid and flexible gameplay in mind. I must say I didn't much comment about the interaction with alternative Elementalist weapons but they for sure have been taken into consideration, it's just that this is already a huge amount of text and it would be even bigger if I mentioned it every possible interaction. I believe that catalyst with a hammer would be playable and even good in certain situations with the changes I mentioned. It would still lose pretty much every matchup in wvw but unfortunately, there are no easy number changes to fix that. Mobility is way more important in wvw(roaming) than in pvp, and it won't be easy to change anything to adjust to that.

I appreciate the developers starting a conversation and listening to the community. Before it could seem like shouting in an empty box and this is a welcome change. My thoughts on the current pvp meta will be split in a class by class basis. Ele:Weaver- Fighting a weaver can be frustrating due to its high re-sustain and evade uptime. While dishing out a lot of damage. However, I feel like nerfing the evade uptime from weaver should come with a buff for either the weavers condipool wich is very low making it practically useless against classes with frequent cleanses or the weavers mobility. A lot of mobility sidenoder can be problematic due to its easily being out rotated and for that reason forced to stay on the point. Tempest- I really like that tempest can switch between fire, earth and air. to make aura sharing either heavy on the condi cleanse, high protection uptime or fury. However, With the relatively low healing value and firebrand often being able to do ALL of the above it falls short. I do like the build choices tempest has but I do feel like it should compete. Maybe by increasing the effectiveness of aura's? Mesmer:mirage- The biggest problem with mirage is that you can't effectively cleave the clones. making it 4 heavy-hitting characters with high evade uptime. My change would be simple: make infinite horizon only cast the ambush skill on clones and don't give them the evade. Necromancer:Scourge- The shade change made scourges really weak in the current meta. Which is a shame since they did provide a welcome counter to boon spam. While their offensives are hardly touched they have become a very easy target. Shades skills will still spawn on the necro if they don't have any shades on the field so my solution is simple. Give the scourge a skill to destroy their own shades. Ranger:pets- One of the strongest things in the game is CC and pets having a passive cc that the ranger has no control over ads randomness that can be very frustrating. I feel like pets shouldn't be playmakers without the direction of the ranger. In my opinion, all heavy cc's should be either removed from the pets or cast by the ranger. Thief:Daredevil- This is the worst outlier in the current meta- with 2 very toxic builds. the change to deadly arts giving thiefs free poison on hits made a place for this horrifying playstyle. The condipool is way too big and the thief is never forced to burst any initiative for damage, making the strongest offensive playstyle of thief also the most defensive and passive. I would remove the free poison on damage and force the thief to do damage in non-evade frames. Staffbunker thief just doesn't die due to nearly infinite dodge frames. Perhaps increase initiative of dodge abilities from staff. engineer:holosmith: Primelight beam is a very frustrating skill to stop. Either u dodge or you interrupt the engineer. It's fine that it's an unblockable skill. However, tracking is more than unnecessary. I feel like moving behind the engineer should stop you from getting damaged, however, the aggressive tracking won't let you escape. Aside from that the quickness uptime is perhaps too high skills otherwise with very good tells harder to dodge. Warrior:tactics: mostly fine but the 50% dmg to barriers removes classes from the game. Perhaps make the damage buff a % of the barrier the player has (20% of health = 20%buff) which scales nicely to the 50% @ max barrier. being able to get Oneshot because I have 300 barrier is very unhealthy and removes scourge weaver and scrapper, already weak classes completely from any game with a tactics warrior. Rev:Renegade-The class can only do damage when it's not being attacked, and since revenant doesn't offer a lot of ways to stay at range. Any aggressed renegade is effectively useless till they die. Guard:Fine in my opinion.

I feel like this is an improvement since it forces condi thiefs to be more aggressive. But I still feel like just hitting an enemy is too low of a bar for such a strong effect, especially due to the combination with potent poison and lotus poison making it 2 poison + weakness by just hitting someone. The current rotation is either steal in or use sword 2, dodge, and then disengage repeat. Perhaps poison on interrupt or stealth attack instead of giving it for free?