Tempest.8479

So I've seen a few people speculate that the new mechanic could work like rev energy or CA, but I think it would be interesting if it works more like holo's heat. It could be something where channeling this raw, primal magic grants the wielder increasing power/defense, but maintaining it too long runs the risk of being consumed by it's untamed nature. That way they could make the power of the "primal form" really strong with the trade-off being the risk of downing yourself or your pet if you're not careful. It seems like the ranger has resistance at the very start of the video, so maybe you start pulsing defensive boons at certain thresholds. I can also see a stacking damage reduction buff or something that massively increases damage output the closer you/your pet are to being consumed if it worked like this. I think it could be a fun balancing act if executed well.

I think there might be some miscommunication here because we seem to be closer to the same wavelength than you might think. As it currently stands, I largely agree with both of these statements. Between aura-based effects, elemental empowerment, hammer coils, and energy/sphere mechanics, Catalyst has too many micromanagement systems. These effects also don't synergize particularly well, and create a situation where the spec is being pulled in too many directions for it to feel cohesive. That's why I think those systems need to be pared down and refocused around the energy/sphere and 1 other buff that can be modified via traits. That would free up the design space to make the process of gaining/spending energy more of the central mechanic while creating a stronger mechanical identity that sets it apart from tempest and weaver. What I don't agree with is the assumption that the spec can't be saved or that energy as a mechanic is better off being used on something else. Several other specs have been reworked over the years to make them more distinct and/or cohesive (see: deadeye, scrapper, herald, chrono, berserker). Granted, these reworks have all had varying degrees of success. Even if the execution hasn't always been perfect, however, the devs have shown that they've been willing to make sweeping changes to an elite spec before. Hopefully with the betas occuring much earlier than we've ever had, there's more room for big changes that wouldn't have to wait until after launch. And while energy can surely be used for something like an arcane attunement/arcane archer, that's not to say that energy can't be fit for purpose on Catalyst. So long as the right considerations are made with regards to refocusing the spec, I think that there's plenty of potential for energy to be an interesting and worthwhile mechanic.

I'm going to have to disagree with you on this one. Introducing a new secondary resource can actually be interesting to design around if they gave it the proper focus, and the devs have actually shown they can do it successfully with holosmith. If you look at Holo and Catalyst, the heat and elemental energy both serve as a new, secondary resource for managing the new mechanic (photon forge and jade spheres, respectively). If you look at how heat works, however, you can see the difference between an integrated, interesting resource that adds complexity and interesting build decisions and one that just kind of exists without a real purpose at the moment. All of the Holo GM traits modify how heat functions in interesting, meaningful ways. Both of the minors interact with heat, and all 3 adept major traits do as well. I think if you remove energy altogether, you'd actually be robbing the Catalyst of some really interesting design space that the devs have already proven can be taken and molded to create one of the best designed elite specs imo. I think the Catalyst would be best served by actually refocusing the entire spec around energy and the sphere mechanic, as well as combining and focusing the variety of disparate buffs into a more unified and cohesive mechanical identity. I actually made a thread about it not that long ago. If you don't want to read the whole long post about how I think Catalyst should be conceptually reorganized, though, I mocked up a sample traitline that uses those ideas to make energy more interesting a few posts later as a proof of concept, if you're interested.

I actually think energy has the potential to be a pretty interesting mechanic, but there is too little interaction between energy and the traits and utilities for it to feel like it works right now. As it stands, there's a grand total of 1 trait that interacts with or modifies energy, and not a single utility. That leaves it feeling like a secondary resource that's just tacked on rather than a core part of the new profession mechanics. There are several missed opportunities that, if corrected, could help integrate energy and make it feel genuinely interesting. For starters, every adept major trait should focus on energy generation in different ways. That would immediately alleviate some of the biggest pain points with maintaining energy. Then other effects can be filtered in throughout the rest of the traitline that directly modify or enhance gaining/spending energy. These effects can include (but are not limited to): Healing per energy point spent Gaining a stacking damage buff per energy point spent Increased energy capacity Increased energy drain in exchange for more powerful/faster/more mobile spheres Boons/conditions pulsed at specific energy thresholds Stat bonuses for maintaining/expending energy Incorporating some of these ideas could make energy as a resource a worthwhile addition to an ele's arsenal. As for the utilities, I think the elite skill is a good place to add energy gain or bonuses for using/spending energy.

As much as that would be awesome from a biased perspective, I would ideally want that not to be the case haha I've proposed elemental accelerator to have a fixed duration of 4 sec that would refresh every time a new stack is applied. The 1/2 second ICD is for the cooldown reduction interval. That way if you have the buff baseline, you'd be getting max 8 sec of cooldown reduction over 4 sec. By taking fortified accelerant, you would be getting a bigger window to maintain the buff in exchange for less overall cooldown reduction. The stab and aegis only apply on gaining a new stack, however, and access to new stacks would be a bit of a challenge to get to. As I've proposed it, you can only refresh duration by: Refresh in combat baseline (25s ICD) Your choice of master trait generation Gaining an aura (10s ICD) Ideally, being able to maintain it would be relatively difficult, and you wouldn't be able to refresh duration faster than a stack would run out. They would mean that at best you should only be able to get stab and aegis every 6-7 sec. Now is getting 1 stack of stab and a 1s block every 6-7 sec pretty strong? I think so. Is it OP? Not in my opinion, but maybe I'm just as biased lol

Sorry for the double post, but just as a proof of concept I mocked up a full traitline for the Catalyst using my aforementioned changes. I feel that something along these lines would go a long way to create a well-defined mechanical identity that combines the two central mechanics to carve out specific playstyles, while giving players choices to mix and match in order to hybridize. Minor Traits Adept: Depth of Elements Build up elemental energy when you strike foes. Energy is consumed to imbue the Jade Sphere with different elements, creating combo fields and granting boons to allies in the area. Gain access to Augments. Master: Elemental Accelerator Gain Elemental Accelerator while in combat. All non-weapon skills and attunement swaps have increased cooldowns. Elemental Accelerator (Effect): Successful attacks reduce the cooldown of all non-weapon skills by 1 sec. This effect refreshes in duration when a new stack is applied. This affects attunement cooldowns. Interval: 1/2 sec Duration: 4 sec ICD: 25 sec Non-weapon skill cooldown increase: 20% Attunement swap cooldown increase: 50% Grandmaster: Elemental Epitome Gain an aura based on your current attunement when you combo. Gaining an aura grants you Elemental Accelerator. Auras can be gained this way once per attunement per interval. Interval: 10 sec ICD: 10 sec Adept Major The adept major traits would focus primarily on elemental energy gain. Sharing this across all adept traits would eliminate a huge pain point in energy generation across all builds. Top: Vicious Reprieve Disabling or immobilizing a foe grants energy and barrier. Energy gain: 2 Barrier: 550 Middle: Furious Elements Gain Energy and Fury on attunement swap Energy gain: 3 Fury (2s) Bottom: Energized Auras Gaining an aura grants energy. Heal per energy point spent once a Jade Sphere is active. Energy gain: 4 Healing per energy point: 150 Master Major The master major traits would primarily focus on gaining Elemental Accelerator, as well as gaining bonuses for maintaining it. Top: Safe Zone Blocking or evading an attack grants Elemental Accelerator. Gain damage reduction standing inside of your active Jade Sphere while under the effects of Elemental Accelerator. 10% reduced strike damage, 10% reduced condition damage Middle: Cascading Catalyst Successful attacks refresh Elemental Accelerator. Your active jade sphere pulses a condition based on your attunement while under the effects of Elemental Accelerator. Attacks to trigger: 15 Bottom: Augmented Acceleration Using an Augment refreshes Elemental Accelerator. Your Jade Sphere grants a boon to nearby allies based on your current attunement when it is deployed or recalled. ICD: 10 sec Grandmaster Major These traits would define a given playstyle through a combination of further enhancements to Elemental Accelerator and/or the capabilities of the spheres themselves. This is where I would incorporate drastic changes to how the spheres behave to suit a given playstyle. Top: Fortified Accelerant Elemental Accelerator duration is increased, but cooldown reduction pulses slower. Gain aegis and stability when the duration of Elemental Accelerator is refreshed. Maximum energy capacity is increased. Increased duration: 2 sec Cooldown reduction interval: 1 sec 1 Stability (2s) Aegis (1s) Capacity increase: 10 Middle: Empowered Spheres Gain increased outgoing damage per point of energy spent once your Jade Sphere is active. When this triggers, the duration of all stacks is refreshed. Your active Jade Sphere becomes a moving combo field centered around the caster. Energy drain is increased while your Jade Sphere is active. Recall Jade Sphere becomes Detonate Jade Sphere. Empowered Spheres (6s): 1% damage, 1% condition damage Max stacks: 15 Energy drain increase: 1 per sec Detonate Jade Sphere: Detonate your Jade Sphere in a massive burst that deals damage and an additional effect based on your current attunement. Damage and effects are greater the longer the Jade Sphere has been deployed. Max scaling: 10 sec deployed Bottom: Sphere Specialist The pulse interval of your active Jade Sphere is reduced while under the effect of Elemental Accelerator, but pulse effects are reduced. Jade Spheres now have a maximum duration and reduced number of targets. Energy can be regained while Jade Spheres are active. Recall Jade Sphere becomes Duplicate Jade Sphere. Pulse interval: ½ sec Effect reduction: 33% Max duration: 10 sec Number of targets: 3 Duplicate Jade Sphere: Duplicate your Jade Sphere at your location. Energy drain is increased per active sphere. 600 range Energy Drain Increase: 1 per active sphere Max spheres: 3

Thank you so much! I'm an aspiring writer so that means a lot haha. As for not really liking the idea behind the Catalyst, I can definitely understand that. Before any of the betas I was hoping for a mid-to-long range spec myself. That being said, I do think that a tighter focus on mechanical identity could make this work for what it is. And hey, it still leaves the design space open for that long range beast we want lol

Over the course of the beta, I made several posts on the main feedback thread on how to improve or rework certain elements of the Catalyst, but there's still been something that's felt off about the spec as a whole. Looking back at everything now that the beta is over, I think my biggest dissatisfaction with the way it plays is a lack of a mechanical identity. While the Jade sphere is not bad as a concept, in execution it doesn't really feel like it changes the mechanical identity of core ele in a meaningful way. Unlike previous elite specs, the flow of combat is largely unchanged. Weaver is the best example of this, with it's dual attunements and changes to attunement cooldowns creating a strong mechanical identity that carves out a new way to play ele. Even Tempest, although a bit lacking in playstyle-altering mechanics, still creates an interesting dynamic between using overloads at the cost of a long attunement cooldown. Echoing what a lot of people have said on the main thread, the Catalyst's sphere feels like a supplementary mechanic at best. Its traits seem to want to create three distinct mechanical identities that are somewhat at odds with each other, and the utilities do little to help define a unique playstyle. When all the pieces come together it struggles to distinguish itself from core or the other two elite specs. With all that being said, however, I actually think there's a lot of untapped potential if the mechanical identity of the spec was refined and the design goals were more clearly defined and integrated across the mechanics and traits. Mechanical/Thematic Identity As it stands, the Catalyst is essentially a core ele with access to a new field mechanic. There is no mechanical interplay with any of the core components of how an ele functions. The traits attempt to do a bit of this by adding interplay with auras, but end up creating too many buffs to juggle at once and steps on the mechanical identity of Tempest in some ways as a spec that modifies and improves how auras work. Interactions with the sphere are relegated to the bottom trait line, and elemental empowerment, while strong, is cumbersome to stack up and a bit generic in its passive stat accumulation. Most importantly, however, none of these things can be considered a defining mechanical identity. In order to create a cohesive identity, I think Catalyst needs to be refocused around these themes: The Catalyst as an engine for combos and effects The Catalyst as an accelerator Catalyst as an Engine for Combos and Effects These two thematic identities would combine to create a unique feel for the class if implemented correctly. The first half of this identity is already in-game, so it's the most straightforward to tackle. As an engine for combos and effects, the jade sphere mechanic should be front and center. This starts by addressing how a sphere can become more central to a Catalyst's playstyle. I've already made some suggestions on how to improve the QoL of the sphere and its related traits, but I think this can be pushed even further. Modifications to how a sphere works, from energy gain/degen to different effects when it is deployed or recalled or even changes to how the sphere behaves as a more static/mobile field, should be incorporated across several trait lines within the spec itself. Rather than taking the bottom row of traits if you want to use the sphere to it's greatest potential, a Catalyst should be able to pick and choose different modifications across different lines to tailor their sphere to their respective needs. This extends to the utilities as well. Augments should focus on the decision between personal buffs and expending them to augment the sphere itself, which I detailed here. The only refinements I would make to those suggestions would be to give the self-buffs an energy cost and to rework the elite skill in accordance with the new mechanic I think Catalyst needs. The cooldowns on the active effects would also need to be increased in accordance to this new mechanic. Catalyst as an Accelerator The second half of this thematic identity would be accomplished by introducing a new mechanic and trade-off that would combine with the sphere to create a new playstyle focusing on a Catalyst's ability to accelerate elemental effects. This would come in the form of a unique, duration-refreshing effect called Elemental Accelerator. Borrowing from the elite skill and reworking it to become a central mechanic, the new effect would read as follows: Elemental Accelerator (Effect) Successful attacks reduce the cooldown of all non-weapon skills by 1 sec. This effect refreshes in duration when a new stack is applied. This affects attunement cooldowns. Interval: 1/2 sec Duration: 4 sec This mechanic, as well as additional modifications and enhancements to its effects, would be integrated into many of the traits. This would largely serve as a replacement for the aura-based traits and elemental empowerment traits, unifying all of those effects under traits that rely on maintaining this new buff, as well as granting new ways to apply it. The most important of these would be the new master minor trait, which would give the spec its initial access to the buff in combat, as well as introducing a trade-off that would create a very defined playstyle. Elemental Empowerment (trait) would be replaced with Elemental Accelerator: Elemental Accelerator (Trait) Gain elemental accelerator while in combat. All non-weapon skills and attunement swaps have increased cooldowns. ICD: 25 sec Non-weapon skill cooldown increase: 20% Attunement swap cooldown increase: 50% This would immediately create a defined mechanical identity that can both synergize with the sphere, and create a brand new flow to how a Catalyst plays as compared to core ele or the other elite specs. This would create a momentum-based playstyle that would start off significantly slower than core ele, but would incentivize chaining together successive attacks and maintaining the elemental accelerator effect as long as possible to build into something with the potential to be significantly faster than almost any other ele playstyle. Breaking this momentum, however, could spell disaster for a Catalyst, opening up the door for counterplay in competitive environments. In order to demonstrate the potential of a mechanic like this, I've reworked the Staunch Auras grandmaster trait into Fortified Accelerant that could go a long way in creating a role for the Catalyst as a "steady presence in melee combat." Fortified Accelerant Gain stability and aegis each time the duration of elemental accelerator is refreshed 1 Stability (2 sec) Aegis (1 sec) This also opens up design space for the interplay between the jade sphere and elemental accelerator. For example, an effect could be added to Sphere Specialist that improves elemental accelerator to decrease the pulse interval on the sphere from 1 sec to 1/2 sec in addition to its cooldown-reducing effects. This could also still retain its synergies with combos by changing the elemental empowerment on aura to applying elemental accelerator on aura. These changes would obviously require a redesign of the elite skill, likely to something that provides passive energy gain while in combat that could be expended to give a burst of energy, a refresh of elemental accelerator, and some attunement-based boons. Design Goals By implementing changes like these, I think the Catalyst can be refined to excel in each of 3 roles: An aggressive damage-dealer A steady defensive presence A premiere zoning specialist, capable of creating areas supportive to allies and dangerous to enemies My vision for Catalyst would be the ability to specialize in each of those roles, or take a more hybrid approach that incorporates some of 2 or even all 3 of those roles as needed. The traits, mechanics, and skills should all be designed around serving 1 or more of theses approaches to how a Catalyst would define its niche in all game modes. I would imagine that several traits would gain access to damage modifiers or offensive/defensive boons from elemental accelerator, and the proliferation of sphere enhancements and modifications could allow for different variations to fit it into these different roles. EDIT: As a proof of concept, I mocked up an entire trait line for the Catalyst that's been molded by these guiding principles here. TL;DR The Catalyst lacks a unique mechanical identity, and should be refocused around its ability to be an engine for combos and effects, as well as its ability to accelerate elemental effects. This can be accomplished by making the jade sphere more central to gameplay via trait and utility reworks, as well as introducing a new, duration-refreshing effect called Elemental Accelerator that would define a new momentum-based playstyle while unifying the effects currently being juggled by auras and elemental empowerment. Congratulations on making it to the end of this post! So what do you guys think? I wanted to make this a different post from the main feedback thread in order to create a space to discuss enhancing the overall mechanical and thematic identity of Catalyst without focusing on general impressions and balance tuning.

Saw this thread on the subreddit and thought I'd post this here because I can replicate it nearly every time on my sword Weaver. Running on dx11, there is a significant frame skip almost every time you cast earthen vortex. Tried it out in different maps, running at different framerates, and it still happened with almost guaranteed certainty. I was playing near 60 fps cap on desert highlands and it would appear as if I suffered a massive stutter as it was cast that would immediately correct itself after the animation finished. No other skill on my Weaver gave me this problem.

So there's been plenty of posts that have suggested replacing the sphere mechanic with the orbs found on hammer, but I think it would be interesting if they combined the 2 ideas. Forgive me if this has already been suggested but it's tough to follow a thread this lengthy. This could work by moving the 3 skills into flip-over skills on attunements that only become active when a sphere is deployed. These skills could then work more like scourge shade abilities, where they create an effect around the Catalyst and the sphere itself. The spinning projectiles would appear around the caster and the perimeter of the sphere, but the buffs would only be applied to the Catalyst. In place of these buffs, the sphere could be modified with a new pulsing effect. A sample tooltip could look something like this: Air Attunement > Crescent Wind Attune to air magic. Summon projectiles of air that circle you and your active jade sphere, damaging and weakening foes they pass through. While this projectile is active, gain increased chance to critically hit. Your active jade sphere now pulses vulnerability in addition to it's current effects. Damage: 141 Crescent Wind: 7% critical chance Weakness (2s) 1 Vulnerability (8 sec) per pulse Duration: 8 sec (duration is refreshed if another projectile is summoned) 18 sec cooldown Notice that the duration has been increased for greater flexibility. Also worth noting that each new skill would still function as an attunement swap, but they could also be used while attuned to that element. The skill would then swap back to regular Air Attunement once cast, using the ammo recharge UI to show the cooldown of Crescent Wind around the border until swapping back if a sphere is active. If a sphere expired before the effects did, then only the effects localized around the sphere would disappear; the Catalyst would retain all accumulated buffs and projectiles until their duration expired or a new one was cast to refresh the duration with a newly deployed sphere. This could create interesting synergies across the profession, and would allow the Catalyst to further modify and enhance their sphere by "catalyzing" the elements for additional effects regardless of what weapon they chose. Grand Finale would be an interesting skill to balance with the new dual effects. I think an interesting trade-off for the extra power would be to make it flip over on the F5 skill only once all 4 orbs have been summoned. This skill would then fire all projectiles orbiting the Catalyst with the effects they have now, while detonating all projectiles orbiting the sphere in a blast that deals big damage and applies all the new pulsing effects at once. It would also have a longer cooldown to compensate for the greater effects. Lastly, this would free up room for 4 new skills on hammer that could allow for any combination of better field use, combos, sustain, cc, or additional pressure.

So in my last post I made some suggestions on how to improve the jade sphere/related traits within the framework of how the Catalyst is currently designed, but I'll use this post to move into a hypothetical design overhaul of the augment utility skills. I think their usability could be vastly improved if they lost their secondary benefits for being used in a matching elemental sphere in exchange for a more universal trade-off. This would work by redesigning them so they'd function more like powerful, situational signets, with conditional passive effects that only activate once a jade sphere is active. Once deployed, these skills would flip over into a new active effect that expends the passive for a more powerful immediate benefit. I tried to incorporate synergies with combo finishers and the positioning of the jade sphere on the actives, while trying to keep the passives pretty similar to what they are now. The only exception being the heal skill, which remains largely unchanged save for the more universal application of it's secondary effect. This is what I came up with (note: all the active effects would be able to stack with each other and the baseline/traited effects of the jade sphere): Soothing Water Regenerate health over time. While a jade sphere is active, cleanse a condition with each pulse. Relentless Fire While a jade sphere is active, gain 10% outgoing damage Flip-over: Relentless Recall Expend your augment, recalling your active sphere to your location in a massive burst of damage that also burns foes. 600 range Unblockable Combo finisher: blast 30 sec cooldown Shattering Ice While a jade sphere is active, successful attacks will trigger an additional strike on nearby enemies. 1/4 sec interval Flip-over: Shattering Pulse Expend your augment, causing your jade sphere to pulse chilling projectiles that shatter upon impact. Duration: 5 sec Combo finisher: physical projectile 25 sec cooldown Invigorating Air While a jade sphere is active, gain increased endurance regeneration. Flip-over: Invigorating Return Expend your augment and teleport back to the location of your jade sphere, dealing damage to nearby enemies and gaining superspeed per target struck. 600 range Combo finisher: leap Breaks stun 35 sec cooldown Fortifying Earth While a jade sphere is active, successful attacks grant aegis. 3 sec interval Flip-over: Fortify Area Expend your augment, temporarily increasing the radius of your jade sphere and causing it to pulse barrier. Radius increase: 25% Duration: 5 sec 45 sec cooldown Elemental Celerity Gain energy in combat. Energy gain: 1 per sec While a jade sphere is active, successful attacks reduce the cooldown of your equipped weapon skills up to 8 sec. Attack interval: 1 sec Effect Interval: 60 sec Flip-over: Elemental Accelerator Expend your augment, gaining 10 energy and a boon based on active attunement. Apply the Elemental Accelerator effect. Elemental Accelerator (Effect): Reduces pulse interval of an active jade sphere to 1/2 sec and increases pulsing damage by 25%. Jade sphere now pulses a condition based on active attunement. Duration: 5 sec 90 sec cooldown

As it pertains to the sphere/sphere-related traits specifically, I have some suggestions for how to improve them: Jade Sphere Eliminate sphere cooldown Reduce energy drain to 1 per sec Casting the sphere flips the skill over to Recall Jade Sphere Recall Jade Sphere Recall the Jade Sphere to the caster's current location. 600 (900?) range 10 sec cooldown Energy cost: 10 Traits Spectacular sphere: This trait additionally increases the radius of the sphere by 25% Sphere Specialist: This trait additionally grants an attunement-based effect that triggers once the sphere expires. This would allow the sphere to become a more present part of the Catalyst's gameplay while giving the ability to strategically reposition it at a significant energy cost. The new additions to the traits would help smooth out and enhance gameplay interactions for all builds looking to maximize the sphere's potential. Bonus: All augments should become blast finishers for added synergy with the mechanic/traits.

If you're careful enough with your positioning I think you can get away with dropping mist form, especially because you can get pulsing protection with earth sphere along with good aura uptime. Even if you only had one though, it would still be big for staff if you could make your meteor shower unblockable or make it a super aoe that can shatter per meteor. Even just using the elite skill could be huge if you can reduce your weapon skill cooldowns for better access to big hits. Pulsing quickness on air sphere could also address the biggest issue with staff feeling slow and difficult to land.

I think you might be misunderstanding how augments work. Each one has a unique effect baseline, and a second that triggers in range of the sphere. Relentless Fire Base: 15% increased damage Sphere: attacks are unblockable Shattering Ice Base: trigger an aoe attack on successful attack Sphere: that attack also chills Invigorating Air Base: gain endurance regeneration Sphere: gain superspeed Fortified Earth Base: channeled block Sphere: gain barrier at the end Elemental Celerity Base: reduce weapon skill cooldown per strike Sphere: gain boon based on attunement It's important to remember that even when you aren't in range of a sphere, some of the effects are pretty strong. While I don't think the air one is particularly strong, stacking a unique endurance regen buff that can stack with vigor and superspeed could give very strong mobility and evasion. Earth is a very useful defensive utility, with barrier as a cherry on top. The other two are legitimately awesome. I already wrote about it in another thread, but just imagine a staff Catalyst using those 2 combined with casting the sphere directly on top of itself to drop an unblockable meteor shower that triggered a second aoe strike per meteor on an enemy zerg. I think a combination of these 2 could create insane gameplay potential for a Catalyst using any weapon. Edit: the elite is also pretty strong. While not super crazy, it can stack an 8 sec cooldown reduction on weapon skills with alacrity. That's pretty great cooldown reduction in group environments. It's also a great thematic skill that pushes the idea of a Catalyst being able to accelerate elemental effects.

Based on what I can gather, I think there's probably less cause for concern than you might think. Auras I think aura generation should be fine with this spec. There's 4 finishers on hammer and quite a bit on other ele weapons as well. You can also gain an aura on hammer earth 4, as well as taking additional finishers with arcane skills or evasive arcana if you need to supplement that aura generation. Taking fire spec also grants fire aura on fire attunement. It's also important to keep in mind that the buffs on hardened/empowering auras refresh duration on all stacks every time you gain an aura, so 6 sec can actually stretch a lot longer. I think if you play to maximize aura generation, so long as you're generating at least 1 aura every 6 seconds you can comfortably maintain 80-90% uptime on multiple stacks, if not max stacks. Defense I think you're overlooking how powerful a defensive tool elemental empowerment can be. Getting to max stacks grants 100 (200 if traited) toughness/vitality baseline. If you were to run something like celestial gear + divinity runes, even without traits or infusions those numbers go up to about 171 and 343, respectively. Not to mention that it could also increase healing power as well. Investing in defensive stats via gear and traits can easily create a bruiser spec with elemental empowerment alone because the bigger the initial number, the larger raw increase in stats. Stab on aura is also extremely potent, as it would make for a pretty unshakable bruiser. The hammer 3 skills also grant 5% reduced incoming condi/strike damage in water/earth. There's also barrier on the earth utility when in range of the earth sphere, and the sphere itself pulses protection. Hammer Combos While the water leap and fire blast do seem like they'll have to be used in their respective elements, the air/earth finishers were specifically described to be on a delay so you could switch attunements before blasting. I feel like with the first point, this could also be augmented with arcane utilities or evasive arcana. That being said, there might be some cause for concern here. A few more traits Energized elements is literally one of the best minor traits they could have added. Ele players have been clamoring for a way to regain the fury-on-attunement-swap functionality of the old arcane fury trait since it was removed. This creates a way maintain access to fury while being able to move away from the air line for something more defensive or utility focused for bruiser builds. I agree with you on spectacular sphere. It doesn't seem that impactful to me, but it might actually be pretty good on boon support builds. Empowered empowerment seems awesome to me, but you're right about it being tricky to stack. That being said, I think you might be able to get to max stacks relatively easily with 1 stack per aura and only taking 1 of the 2 other traits. With 3 disable/immobilize skills on hammer and good uptime on shocking aura I think you should be fine, but you can also use arcane surge to help out like they said on stream. Staunch auras isn't really in conflict with the other aura traits because you only need to generate 1 every 6 seconds. So long as you do that, you can get to max stacks of the 2 other buffs while spacing out stab.

I can't wait to go into WvW as a staff Catalyst, cast shattering ice and relentless fire, place the sphere directly on myself, and then drop an unblockable meteor shower that creates an additional aoe strike per meteor on an enemy zerg. Should be extremely satisfying lol

After seeing the press release yesterday I said I was cautiously optimistic, and after seeing the preview I'm actually impressed. As a Weaver main who went into this round of elite specs not expecting to get anything from ele that would make me consider switching, I feel that Catalyst has exceeded my expectations. Between hammer and it's mechanics, I think it strikes the right balance between mid-range and melee to carve out and interesting space for itself and had my mind racing to think of all the possible combos and synergies that make ele the best class to me. It also feels good to be right about people underestimating the ranged potential of hammer on Thursday lol

I actually had a similar idea way back, but instead of only granting the reduction if you have both specializations, my suggestion was to add a new effect to each of the cooldown reduction traits that reduced the cooldown of all dual skills associated with that element by 10%. Still the same function as your suggestion, just with a little bit more splitting across all specs that would let you get some benefit even if you take arcane/x/weaver. Regardless, I agree with the sentiment wholeheartedly.

I think everyone arguing about the efficacy of ranged vs melee weapons should read this post and the PDF linked in the quoted post. There's a lot more insight on how all three beta specs work. Most relevant to this thread, however, is the part about hammer sounding like a mixed-range weapon that switches between melee focused earth/water to mid-range focused fire/air.

Wow this is actually pretty cool. Hammer as a mixed ranged weapon depending on attunement sounds like a blast, and the interactions between augments and spheres sound like they create the kind of interesting complexities that make me an ele main. Also, as a side note, all three of these specs sound like they're a tier up in complexity from the first beta. Bladesworn and Vindicator sound bananas lol

So here's an interesting interaction I have questions about. In the trailer it says that casting augment skills within range of a sphere enhances their effects. But what constitutes within range? Does a Catalyst need to be standing inside the radius, or can they enhance the effects standing outside of the radius so long as they are within a certain distance threshold? Assuming that wells would function like other wells in-game as ground targeted aoe skills with some range to them, still being able to augment them without needing to stand directly inside a radius could create interesting options for a more ranged playstyle. If paired with a staff or scepter, it could end up feeling more like a Scourge than a Scrapper.

So might have an unpopular opinion, certainly in this thread from what I've read, but I think Weaver's playstyle is easily the most enjoyable elite spec in the game, both mechanically and aesthetically. So much so that even if Catalyst proves to be a good spec, I don't think I'll be switching my main spec from Weaver. That being said, I can recognize some of the deficiencies in it's design, namely around the tradeoff between damage and survivability. I think with the new info that Catalyst might be more than just close range and could have the potential to be a bit more supportive, with some refinements to Weaver traits/skills eles could get to a good place.

If you look around the :30 sec mark of the trailer, it also looks like you can fire the augments from wells at range. I think we might be underestimating the ranged potential of the spec.

Idk I think you might be underestimating the ranged capabilities of the spec. If you look around the :30 sec mark of the trailer, it also looks like you can fire the augments from wells at range.

Just thought I'd post in this thread as well to break up some of the negativity, but according to this press release, it looks like hammer has some mid-range capabilities as well. For those that haven't seen it: “Catalysts were casters from a bygone era, working to protect Cantha and the throne from enemy threats. They wielded intricate apparatuses called spheres that were used as conduits to channel their immense power. This technology has been revitalized once again—with a couple of improvements! Catalysts imbue ancient magics into their jade tech spheres, calling upon imagery from all over Tyria to concentrate into a powerful burst of elemental energy. The catalyst is primarily a damage dealer that is adept at controlling areas of the battlefield. After building up elemental energy through combat, it can be expended to deploy and maintain the Jade Sphere, creating an area of power that bolsters allies and damages enemies. Wielding a hammer, the catalyst gains access to a mix of midrange and close-range abilities, allowing it to adapt to the situation at hand.”