Shadowflare.2759

This whole thread is just pointless because a hybrid range weapon is a good idea, hammer was just implemented horribly because the "ranged" skills are barely ranged and hammer 3 skills screwed the flow of the weapon. The Catalyst hammer could have had skills like the revenant hammer; long range and delivers damage quicker instead of aoe over time or delayed explosion spells, and more gapclosers/cc to allow for switching between melee and range. Instead they basically wasted all their development effort on the gimmick of hammer 3, and now are probably too attached to the idea to actually give 4 individual skills that has unique identities. That being said, there's no reason to believe that if we had gotten bow as the new weapon, that it would need to be purely ranged. It can definitely have been made hybrid as well.

More like the feedback really comes down to "This whole thing has fundamental design flaws", and the devs decided that they don't have the time to fix it properly so just released their crappy vision instead even if they recognize the problem. And maybe there's a ton of "sunk cost" thinking where they probably hacked their code to force the hammer 3 skills to be able to retain state beyond its own attunement and didn't want to just give it up. You're right that there's potentially reasons why feedback wasn't implemented in the release, but it's most likely compromise to meet the deadline than "sticking to their vision".

Honestly just sounds like a lack of imagination to me. Especially on a class like elementalist that has 4 elements and therefore more skills to adapt to different scenarios, with some creativity Anet could have definitely came up with traits/weapon skills/utility combos that function better for pve, some that function better for wvw/pvp. Not to mention with the fact that they're willing to add an f5 means that there could have been entirely new mechanics here to further add to the flexibility. The basic idea of a hybrid range hammer honestly wasn't even bad. They just made some really poor decisions on how to implement the actual thing.

Hammer 3 is absolutely lazy design. Instead of giving us 4 unique skills that each can help with the flow of skills either within a single attunement or between attunements, they gave us 4 skills that are 90% the same as each other: a boring buff toggle for the first cast, and a projectile finisher(s) for the second cast. They hardly provide any meaningful utility. Either the initial cast of the skills or the grand finale skill needs to be changed to be unique for each attunement, something like fire 3 "gives fire orb and dash a short distance", because as it stands the 3 skills are just wasted potential. And on top of that, the ironic thing about this skill is that it probably is way more difficult for the devs to implement, and yet you can already see that it will be a balancing nightmare since in some situations it will outperform, while in others, it's practically useless.

Catalyst is just a disappointment for anyone looking for a new way to play elementalist. There are builds that can work for both pvp/pve, but at the end of the day it's just more of the same. Spam boons, spam combos, spam auras. How about we have an elementalist that ISN'T reliant on boon spam? If we were to have an energy-system for our new class mechanic, why couldn't it have been more like Necro shrouds or Druid Celestial form? Or maybe instead of relying on spam heals and boons for sustain, why couldn't we gain barrier passively or take reduced damage, which increases in efficacy when our %HP is low? As a spec that should be "a steady presence in melee combat" why couldn't we have effects like "Gain aegis every 20 seconds, cd reduced by 1 second per strike (1s icd)" or something more interactive? Not to mention the idea of "drone and hammer" literally already exists in the form of Scrapper, which makes it even more awkward for Anet to try and differentiate the spec, so anything Scrapper has is now probably forbidden for Catalysts, which is a shame because they have some cool stuff. The traits are the biggest culprit because aside from the "aura-on-combo" trait, pretty much everything else is just boons or stat buffs, either directly or as modifiers. Not a single trait even interacts with the augment skills or hammer. We need traits that actually provides a different way to play with existing things, kind of like Power Block, Master of Fragmentation for mesmers, or Lingering Curse for necromancers, just to name a few off the top of my head. Hammer is also just a mess, primarily because the #3 skills are just so frking boring. press a button for an orb that is simultaneously doing too much damage on static enemies and is useless in actually making the hammer flow against mobile enemies. Furthermore in 20 skills, you only get 2 hard cc skills, one immobilize in melee range, and only one gap closer. Just like always, someone with disengage would run circles around you. Augments are now usable, but they still don't really live up their name, since they're just stances in a different name, they don't interact with our actual elemental attunements. Not a functional problem in itself, but again, it just doesn't feel like we're getting a different way to play ele. I think the elite is actually interesting due to the fact that it allows refreshing on skills like Obsidian Flesh, but then it makes me wary for nerfs on those skills due to the possibility of abuse. Can't speak for everyone but I wanted something different that can address weaknesses that eles always had, even if it means giving up some strengths that existing eles specs have. I didn't want core ele +, and yet that's basically what we got.

It functions well when used with D/D or D/F. It's just boring as hell because it's basically just core Ele+. Not having a usable hammer means we use the same weapons we've been using since 2012, and the traits are mostly 1 dimensional and doesn't change the playstyle. And ofc aura is the gimmicked scapegoat on yet another spec.

This right here is how I feel. Hammer 3 is a cop-out to say "look a weapon skill that acts persists through attunement swaps, so innovative!" But in reality because of its presence, we lose access to 4 skills that could have the potential to make the hammer flow so much better. As I see it, the devs need to either remove Grand Finale and replace it with different skills that bridge the gap between melee or range, or they need to make the initial cast of skill 3 be something more than just "turn on orbs". for example fire 3 activates the orbs AND dashes a short distance...etc.

To be honest I'd rather they stick with the hybrid range approach, except making the range skills actually 900+ range, and giving us more skills in the 3 skill slot than grand finale to smooth out the transition between melee and ranged. One of the largest issues with elementalists is that because we can only use one weapon set in combat, we're stuck at a certain range, so a hybrid playstyle is welcome.

You're talking about something a bit different. The reality for the past 2 expansions is that at the end of the day, Anet wants to sell as much of the expansion packs as possible, so they have an interest in making the elite specs better to incentivize players to buy them instead of just sticking to the core specs that they give away for free. What I'm saying is that even if they didn't have that financial interest, why would they ever release something new that is worse? Players definitely won't be interested in playing a kitten spec (as you yourself pointed out with your example), so what benefit would there be for anyone for Anet to spend all those hours and effort working on a strictly worse spec for an expansion? A strictly worse spec has no reason to exist.

you literally said Being worse than core means worse, not just different because of trade offs. There is literally no reason an elite spec should ever be worse than a core spec. at worst it should be equal. So I'm not sure why you'd be happy that some of them could be worse than core.

if new elite specs are straight up worse than core, as opposed to just being different via trade-offs, then there's literally no reason to have those elite specs.

As things stand the Catalyst is a joke compared to other elementalist specs, so of course it's also a joke compared to other classes.

I'd rather they just make the orbs appear on attunement swap and put much-needed skills in the hammer 3 spot so we don't have such a clunky weapon. If they can't do that, maybe just get rid of grand finale and make it so that after activating the orb by casting hammer 3, the 3 skill changes from the orb to something actually helpful for the attunement, for example once you activate the fire orb, fire 3 is now a leap attack that lets us gap close to use fire 5.

I know what you mean. Looking at Specter's traits and comparing them to Catalyst...you realize just how uninspiring Catalyst traits are. Basically 7 out of 9 major traits are just stackable boons/stat boosts that are granted in a niche situation (and being stackable just means more hoops to jump through to get the most out of a boring mechanic), compared with Specter where they have so many traits that unlock legitimately interactive ways of playing the spec. There are just so many things wrong with Catalyst.

I don't go over everything that needs changing but here's what I think could be done to improve the Catalyst while being able to re-use many of the things that are already in place for the Catalyst.

So, like many others, I am disappointed with what the current catalyst has to offer. I won't go into details there because many people have already gone very in depth with the issues in the feedback thread. This is my proposal for fixing the spec while reusing a lot of the things that have already been made for Catalyst (and therefore I hope is more doable than people who want a full rework). Changes to Jade Sphere (F5): Get rid of the energy system and replace the jade sphere with the hammer 3 orb skills. Replacing the current f5 jade sphere with the hammer 3 skills make a lot of sense because 1) the current mechanic with the hammer 3 orbs already feel much more like a multi-attunement class mechanic rather than something that should be specific to a single weapon and 2) The orbs are literally spherical, so why not have each cast of the F5 skill conjure up a jade sphere of the corresponding element? One more thing I would add here is that the orbs shouldn't only hit things in its path, because it's honestly just really awkward to play with and you'll have a nightmare trying to balance this when it starts over-performing against large hitboxes and under-performing against small hitboxes. Just have the orb pulse damage around the catalyst, it will be consistent and predictable. Grand finale can also be reworked, but for simplicity sake let's keep it the same. Another huge reason why we want to move the Hammer 3 skills to F5 is because this frees up 1 skill slot in each attunment for a total of 4 new skills. I cannot understate how important this is, because that is 4 skills that we can then use to fill in the clunkiness that is Catalyst hammer. While I recognize that existing skills on hammer may also need changes to make them feel better to use, I'm going to mainly focus on the skills that should replace the current hammer 3 skills. Changes to the Hammer: Keep the hammer a hybrid melee/ranged weapon, but increase most of the ranged component as well as movement abilities to be 900 range. This will be important later when I go over the utility skills changes. Notably, movement skills will now be associated with the #4 skill, and we will now add more ways to create combos without relying on the jade spheres. For the empty slot in fire: Move the current #4 skill to #3, and in the #4 slot, add a leap skill (with a leap finisher). This is to bridge the awkward gap where #1-3 skills are ranged and yet the Catalyst has no way to get into melee range for the #5 skill. Cherry on top would be if "Molten end" the old #4 skill (new #3), now leave behind a short fire field. For the empty slot in air 3: Add a long range attack sort of like the revenant hammer 2, except it leaves behind a lightning field in a line for a short duration. This solidifies air as the full ranged attunement alongside the #4 and #5 skill. For the empty slot in water 3: Add a close range attack that knocks back enemies nearby and conjures up a water field under the Catalyst (some sort of spin might fit the aesthetic).. This gives even more combo opportunities. For the empty slot in earth 3: Add a shorter range pull skill that pulls in enemies to the front in a cone. This also bridges the gap between the ranged and melee skills, but does so in a way that thematically emphasizes the magnetism of earth. Changes to Utility Skills: So now onto the utilities. Let's face it, as things stand, the augments are pretty boring. Their base effects are mostly pretty bland and the interaction with the existing jade sphere feels really lackluster...and now with the old jade sphere combo field gone, we need somewhere to reuse the beautiful animations made for those fields. Well...remember in the trailer where they said Catalysts "use jade tech spheres to create wells of immense power"? That's right, augments can be changed into wells, and catalysts can become well-ementalists! This also resolves a common complaint that you can't move the jade sphere combo fields because wells as a skill type are never supposed to move in the first place, and the combo field generated by the wells will not change even as your attunements change, which is another complaint I saw often. Here's what I propose for the new wells (with rough numbers that can be adjusted): All of the following wells have 900 range, which should combo better with the hammer. Well of healing Jade (healing skill): Gives an initial self heal of ~3.5k Hp, and for each jade spheres currently active, the well pulses an extra second, where each pulse gives an AOE heal of ~1.5k HP and removes one condition. Also creates Light field. This shouldn't compete directly with the tempest "Wash the pain away" or "Ether renewal" because the front loaded heal is a self heal, and the additional effect is based off of the active jade spheres similar to the mesmer "ether feast" is based on the number of active clones. Well of Relentless Fire: Pulses 5 seconds, each pulse deals medium damage to enemies within the well, and provides +10% damage increase to up to 5 allies standing in the well. If the fire jade sphere is active, the catalyst's own attacks are unblockable. Also creates fire field. This is essentially the fire augment converted to a well, with slightly reduced effects but granted to allies, as well as adding the small damage ticks that used to be on the old jade sphere combo field. Well of Fortified Earth: (Stun break) Pulses once every 2 seconds for 6 seconds, each pulse applies Aegis and Protection to allies standing in the aoe. If the Earth jade sphere is active, apply 1500 barrier to the catalyst. Also creates poison field. -combined the old earth f5 pulsing protection with a slightly modified earth augment to provide blocks in a different way and be able to apply to allies. The additional effect is nice bonus. Well of Invigorating Air: Pulses for 3 seconds, each pulse deals medium damage to enemies and applies 1.5 seconds of quickness to allies in the aoe. If the air jade sphere is active, apply 100% endurance regeneration to the catalyst for 5 seconds. Also creates static field. Combines the quickness from the old air f5 with the old air augment endurance regeneration. Well of Soothing Ice: Pulses for 5 seconds. Each pulse deals low damage and applies Resolution and regeneration to allies in the aoe. If the water jade sphere is active, the catalyst's successful attacks applies chill to enemies for 5 seconds. Also creates water or ice field. Combines the resolution from the old water f5 with the chilling effect from the old water Augment. Well of Elemental Chaos: Unleash our elemental fury, supported by our jade spheres. Initial hit deals medium damage and stuns enemies in the aoe for 1.5 second. Pulses for 3 seconds, each pulse deals medium damage, and applies burning, chilled, bleed (2 stacks), and vulnerability (2 stacks). For each of the catalyst's active jade spheres, the corresponding condition stack applied is doubled (with chilled the duration is increased). Also creates ethereal field This should give Catalyst an elite skill to be respected even when used without jade spheres, but in order to get the best results and turning it into something to be feared, the catalyst has to have as as many of their jade spheres active as possible. Ethereal field is not as thematic of elementalists, but I was thinking in the direction of getting a chaos aura when you combo with it. I do also have some thoughts about traits, namely that we can have traits for the hammer and the wells, but it's getting pretty late and I've already written a lot, so I'll leave that for another time. I believe the changes above can make Catalysts much more effective and more fun to play as well, but there probably is a lot of other stuff that can be done address the shortcomings of the elementalists being a relatively fragile class. TLDR: Move the hammer 3 skills to F5 and replace the current jade sphere combo fields, add new hammer skills in the empty slots to bridge the gap between melee and ranged, and combine the concept of the combo field jade spheres with the augments to create wells that are augmented by the new jade spheres.