Hemdale.1520

I don’t doubt that this could be done when only considering how stats pair with a weapon, but then you would have to scale the weapons baseline so high that the spec didn’t matter. The question is, where does air and water fit within a condition build? Are people going to pick these trait lines for a condition build even if the weapon has conditions in those attunements? And vice versa, would people still pick those traits knowing that water isn’t going to heal and that air isn’t going to have any burst damage? Since that would be the price for having those attunements have alternative strengths. At that point I feel like it’s changing dead attunements for dead traits/specs, which can be fine and work, but I’d rather have a more universal weapon that isn’t trying to homogenize each attunement, although that opinion might be different if the pistol felt more dynamic in other ways the begin with… who knows. Yep, and this is one of the reasons it is not very dynamic. The bullets are not very exciting and feel more like a routine. It was actually the same situation with hammer and orbs, but I guess anet disagrees.

I think both of these illustrates the flaw and conflict with the pistol not being more of a hybrid. Yes weapons usually have specific roles but there's a reason why anet has avoided that design with all previous weapons for ele, ele is inherently a hybrid and it's not the weapon that dictates this, it is the attunements and the traits that are tied to them. Sure they can put confusion on air or whatever other condition but what's the point when all the condition traits are tied to earth and fire, they are still going to be the go to for condition builds. The traits them selves tell the direction of which attunements you are going to blend and which you are sacrificing and the weapon as well as the elite specs need to follow suit to that or otherwise be as universal as possible. Even if they did somehow manage to make pistol one specific role, I feel like it would take away the motivation even more than it already is to even switch between attunements with the pistol lacking so much in utility.

Despite pistol being a bit disappointing I still think there's hope for it, unlike hammer it doesn't have a convoluted concept that not even anet understands. The main issues that stand out imo are: Why is there such strict design on it being a condition weapon? every single ability is all about conditions it feels more like playing a necro than an ele. Where's the hybrid feel? The lack of utility. Where's the defense, mobility, boons, or anything. Have pistol offer something new that the other weapons don't have and also to offer it a more dynamic feel rather than "im just a turret shooting damage over and over" Bullets. It's a whole new mechanic that you have to keep track of... somehow. And yet all it really offers is a slight modifier that is either some minor utility or just some more of the same damage, it doesn't feel impactful to use, it doesn't even look different using them. There's a lot more mechanical issues like the air 3 and where's the healing in water, but these three points are the general issues that have withheld being the most disappointing from when first trying the pistol till now.

Yes let’s instead have it give 1000+ vitality and some barrier from something and then throw some aegis in there too, I mean why be a pain to just one build when you can be a pain to all of them.

You must see it from anets point of view, you see the bot is actually the mechanist and the player is the pet, which makes it pretty much on par with ranger pets.

Yess 👌 that would work nicely. That's a good assumption, and yea it displays how contradicting the concept of hammer is, I mean fire is supposed to be a ranged attunement and yet hammer 5 is a melee. This ranged/melee mix really emphasizes how important it is the have the utility of hammer be as universal as possible.

Ahh it is awful, I refer to it as the rubber band lag simulator since it feels just as confusing and causes just as many problems. The easiest solution would be the op’s suggestion which of course would be to just get rid of the knock back, I mean… why is it there? It defeats the whole point of a cc… if that is the abilities purpose, who knows. I personally would like to see air 4 turn into an ability that leaps the ele in whichever direction it’s moving using a gust of air and would cc on landing and/or on take off. This ability would then give the player the options on whether to utilize it as an escape, gap closer, or setting it up for a cc.

I’m more so trying to address the op’s issue and problems with catalyst, as the issues were mainly about the sphere being too restrictive due to energy to be able to provide boons properly or consistently. although it is probably strange to be focusing on augments for that, but the idea is is to try to extend the utility behind sphere into the augments, although it doesn’t have to be exactly what the sphere does, but just something to provide some assistance outside of sphere and more into the baseline. Essentially to strengthen catalyst’s utility support without sphere so it doesn’t have to depend on it every time, and hopefully indirectly result in relieving some energy gain in the mean time as well. Aura’s is one way of doing this but as you said before catalyst and tempest already have similar roles and I would hate to border on that even more by investing catalyst further into them, also I feel like if there were any issues with auras and catalyst anet would more than likely just adjust the numbers on the effects/buffs of the traits that are utilizing them and not the auras themselves. Auras should always be part of elementalist maybe some utilizing them more or less, for support or self buffing, but I feel like anet’s intentions for separating catalyst’s theme from the rest was the varied boon support and I would like to see augments reflect that as they are the abilities of catalyst. Nevertheless, I support your suggestions as well and yes please on the weapon swap. 🙏

This is true in a sense, but a bit off topic unless you’re referring to it as a fix to alleviate catalyst dependency on energy/sphere by changing a specific current utility role into a different one. In that case, I don’t really see the aura utility in a way that it’s tied down to any spec as a theme but more of a theme for elementalist itself, as long as the aura’s are utilized in a different way I don’t see a problem. Is that difference enough though? I’m not sure, but I’d rather focus on how it’s tied to the energy/sphere since that is the problem topic of the thread. Overall that is kind of the reason why I would focus on augments as the fix, as it is specifically tied just to catalyst already and wouldn’t need to change any of the current roles of catalyst that are already implemented and have trait lines committed to them. But instead, would like augments to assist in utility and add to the theme of catalyst that is outside the restriction of energy>sphere = boons, augments, combos, auras, etc.

You are right in that the same design problems with energy when catalyst was released in beta is still the same issues that are plaguing it now. The most obvious examples being, why doesn’t hammer have any combo fields and why does augments have to function with sphere? The main conflict with these designs is that it funnels everything into the use of sphere and therefore makes anything else revolve around them and the energy required to use them. The energy system is inherently flawed as it is, since it is just a rehashed and more simplistic version of systems that are already in the game, any solution would just be implementing one that already exists. The main problem is this increased emphasis and dependency on sphere, there needs be something to alleviate it and… frankly just give something else for the catalyst to do besides waiting for sphere or comboing in it. Imo the target for this fix would be to revamp augments from a function and utility perspective to do something more interesting to where they can stand alone outside of the use of sphere or straight number modifiers, and instead assist on adding better function/utility to the baseline rotation and the catalyst spec as a whole.

Yea that would be weird, it would probably be the equivalent of someone replying to a post without actually reading it, no idea who would do that.

Despite the fact that you can view that the item is a skin from the vendor it is still lame that it doesn’t offer anything beneficial to aim for other than an ascended skin, which doesn’t make much sense to begin with, I mean it can be a grey and it wouldn’t make a difference.

The only reason wow got rid of flying is so they could use it as a carrot on a stick to make people do their horrible content through flying achievements. It was such a bitter response towards the fact that players didn't want to get rid of flying and the developers did so they just went and found some loop hole to still try and make themselves look good anyways. Either way I understand your point of having a different type of immersion without flying, actually it's one of the reasons why I like the raptor taxi's, but i feel like that type of immersion can still be achieved through design rather than restricting and taking things away just to make make people earn them again... lets leave that sort of thing to blizzard.

I kind of thought the bar on the right when you have your fishing pole equipped could serve as a tacklebox. You would be able to see the number of bait/lures you have and then could just hit the tab on the button to view or equip other bait/lures when needed and also could add some additional “option” button to view other features for fishing. as a feedback note, I really hope they expand on fishing and skiffs more, they have a good foundation just needs more depth with things like fishing levels, quality of fish, more use of utility with fishing pole that could expand on how you fish, and more utility uses of skiff other than it being a floating log.

Out of all the new especs I would have to say specter is probably the most balanced, it scales off of player ability more than anything and can’t just auto cheese everything. Although I do think specter could still use some work with some quality of life changes, it is still a far more interesting concept than most of the especs anet came up with. anyways carry on with the qq…