Ace.1784

I wasn't playing with Tempest, but interesting to see I was on the right track with the rotation I came up with for Pistol Catalyst. When I get some free time, I'll see how it compares to this.

My first use of pistol, I hated it and it was weird. However, I start running it around (this is open world btw) and it's pretty strong. There's a massive DPS difference between my early play of just trying random things and to the rotation I typically use now. All in all, I'm okay with it. I'm playing it with catalyst currently, since Weaver felt a little weird.

Confirming it is the boons, ability to swap to water without losing dps, and the AOE weakness access Catalyst has that makes it much easier to sustain. The heal is also very useful at clearing condi's without the channel penalty of ether renewal. That said, AliamRationem is right about trailblazer weaver being high reward with a lot of extra cushion, especially compared to berserker/power builds.

Ah that's true for sPvP. The build is just a weaver build iirc, but it's definitely adapted for PvE rather than PvP environments.

Isn't there a condi staff build that's pushing like 41k dps? And it's like a 2k dps loss if you don't use burning retreat?

This makes sense, Catalyst has a ton of survivability baked in. I usually only play Weaver if I'm in a role play mood. The weaver specific advice you got here is correct though, if you're having trouble with condis then add a condi clear from either Fire trait (Burning Fire), utilities (Cleansing Fire), heal (Ether Renewal), or sigil (Cleansing Sigil). Don't be rigid, adapt to what you're fighting.

Catalyst is incredibly strong and provides several key boons in various game modes. In open world (without offensive/defensive jade bot buffs), you can critically provide self quickness with damage to speed up those "slow 2 skills". I saw someone mention you may want to drop air sphere, but do note that ALL spheres give quickness now, not just air. You also get aegis, fury, might, vigor, resolution, and protection (PvE), vigor/aegis/protection/resolution helping you avoid damage and fury/might improving your output. I play Hammer Catalyst full zerker in PvE and nearly never go down because of this combined with the self utility (heals, condi clears, blocks) on the weapon itself. Moreover, through these fields, you can get even MORE utility (might, heals, damage reduction). I also play catalyst with sword/warhorn and scepter/warhorn, to much to the same effect. In WvW, Catalyst provides Resistance, allowing you to avoid immob bombs and helps your team escape soft CC effects. In WvW, only air sphere provides quickness, but you can use that on bomb call. Even if you're playing DPS, these capabilities can provide the necessary support in a pinch and if you're playing support, they further augment your ability to provide utility to your team. If you can get these boons from somewhere else, you can align yourself with the snowcrows build; however, it's worth taking the sphere traits if you don't have access. When I started playing this game, I only wanted to use staff (and sometimes, I still do use only staff) because it aligned with what I thought a mage was. However, upon playing D/D, it opened my mind up to what this class could really do. That is to say, +1 to this. Be open to new ideas and explore them. Hammer is easily one of the most fun weapons on Elementalist currently.

It's important to note that the opposite is also true. If ele was the "above and beyond" highest dps class, then players would be punished for not being able to play/perform with that class. If the elementalist DPS is incrementally better, then we have the same discussion as now, where it's not worth it over the "utility". Believe it or not, there are people who do enjoy something for the sake of enjoying it. Personally, the only reason why I play GW2 is because of the elementalist's design and how unique it is to anything else out there. Since the beginning of this game, Elementalist has ALWAYS been advertised as the class where, "you have double the buttons. Individually, they're weaker, in concert, you can pull of some effects". If this idea aligns with you, Elementalist is probably a good class for you to play. This is to say, by design, Elementalist is the class that doesn't have a singular, "i win" button but rather, a sequence of actions. When you view the balance of Elementalist from this perspective, the choices, elite specs, and weapons make sense; moreover, you can then begin to offer feedback inline with the goals of the class. If you don't like these ideas, then it's not a problem of Elementalist being bad game design, but rather, you don't like the goals of Elementalist--and that's okay. The reward is that you play well. To answer the prompt for myself, I think Elementalist shines in situations where flexibility is needed. For me this is most obvious in medium-large scale WvW, where you can alternate between support and damage, strategically identifying when to augment CC efforts, bombs, and recovery/positioning. When I play other classes in WvW, I often feel like I'm not doing anything because of how context specific their actions are. I also notice this in open world PvE, where you can solo various levels of content and can quickly adapt to a situation by swapping traits. Someone mentioned celestial gear as a way to enhance this identity and I agree (but I tend to use a pure offensive setup or mix an offensive setup with some celestial).

Because the goal wasn't to get an unbiased sample on pistol. With the current poll options, one can report "100% of respondents think pistol is ok or worse. Anet failed at making an engaging weapon!11!!!1!!"

For the 11 years I have played this game, this forum has non-stop complained about ele. In the very beginning, I rolled mesmer on release just cause of the advice, hated it, went ele and it was busted (D/D). When Tornado gave you stats and you could literally solo wipe a zerg with meteornado, I was reading posts on this forum about buffing staff because it lacks damage. When Catalyst came out and was buffed several times, this forum complained about how bad it was when it was, busted (I play PvE/WvW and it was oppressive). Even after the nerfs, Catalyst was still incredibly strong. Some people were advocating for Weaver as the better build. I played it for a bit and it has absolutely none of the survivability catalyst has in solo play. All this to say, you can't really listen to this forum. There are some really great/informed opinions here and there, but an overwhelming majority are not useful.

This is all going to be a PvE context, open world and instanced content There's a flow to maintaining quickness on Catalyst and it's quite consistent. There's several variations of this based on different attunement orders. You'll almost always want to visit air off cooldown because it contains some of your highest damaging skills and utility. I think Hammer is much more interesting weapon than this forum gives it credit for. I think a lot of the issues people have with Catalyst is also based on the core profession. Elementalist has 4 attunements. Each attunement features varying degrees of damage and utility. I would argue that Catalyst is a better personification of the Elementalist profession because it's one of the few builds where it's actually viable to visit all the attunements unlike the other rotations that swap between 2 elements unless Weave Self is off cooldown. One of the biggest let down for other Elementalist especs for me was that going outside of particular attunements was almost always a dps loss (unless for Weave Self, which entire point is to just extend the duration of the relevant buffs, not all of them). To demonstrate, when's the last time you were like, "I need to Weave Self for Woven Water" or "I need to Weave Self for Woven Earth". Air is more relevant now with the damage bonus on top of the movement speed, but Weave Self was primarily for Condi builds until this change. The orbs on hammer are relevant because they A: Generate Energy and B: Provide survivability along with damage. Catalyst is at its best when it's surrounded by enemies to cleave. Energy can be weird when you're only hitting 1 target as mentioned above, but you'll find yourself with more energy than you know what to do with when you have orbs + multiple targets around you. If you'll allow me to shift to a WvW Staff context for a second, one of the most interesting parts of Catalyst is that you're rewarded for setting up your group through CC and if you choose, dodging abilities. The flow of maximizing EE stacks in WvW is quite satisfying, as once you've performed the setup stage, it's typically time to bomb. Weaver often has more damage/abilities than what is necessary for organized play and it's more of a chore to access your CC abilities while also trying to ensure your rotation can maximize your self buffs for the bomb. I've done statistical analysis of the damage outputs, normalizing for some other metrics, and found that the damage difference between Catalyst and Weaver is not statistically relevant (but we can discuss more on that later). Personally, I have no interest in really playing Weaver after playing Catalyst. This is coming from someone who only played Weaver prior to Catalyst. I did momentarily visit it after some buff patches, but Hammer Catalyst just has an overall nicer playstyle and smoother rotation. This forum has been upset with Catalyst for a while, even when it was one of the strongest builds in the game. I've been playing this game for over 11 years now. I've nearly always found Elementalist to be fine (a few cases do exist where this is not true) and I come to this forum and it seems like the sky is falling. There was also a period of time where people had a weird obsession with longbow. Not necessarily accusing you of this, because we've had great interactions in the past, but I feel like the most of the problems with Elementalist is the forum just not giving it a honest chance. --- For some context, Elementalist is not the only class I play. Currently, I'm playing (but have played more in the past): DPS Catalyst (PvE, WvW) Boon Catalyst (PvE, WvW) Boon Herald (PvE) DPS Vindicator (PvE) DPS Herald (WvW) DPS Harbinger (PvE, WvW) Boon Harbinger (PvE, WvW) Strip Scourge (WvW) This list is organized by my favorite to least favorite to play. I want to highlight this because of the comments on other boon dps and I think Catalyst has the smoothest application of quickness outside of the just sit there Harbinger.

Honestly, I think Catalyst is the best and most interesting elite spec we have. I do play it primarily with hammer in PvE and staff in WvW, but it's pretty strong and has always been strong since its release. With no more elite specs, I'm pretty content with the options we have, even though I rarely play Weaver nowadays and Tempest only when I need to alac.

Spiced peppercorn cheesecake is the ascended food that gives this stat combo

With the orbs, the key is to cast them while another ability is channeling, this prevents the accidental shootoff. A delay would certainly make this easier to deal with, but it also removes the burst aspect of grand finale (quickly popping off the fourth orb to spike someone down). I've been pretty much playing hammer exclusively for open world and instanced pve content since it came out (some swaps to staff here and there when needed), and I find it gets easier the more I use it. I hope you try it out again in the future, I think it's the most enjoyable elementalist weapon. I don't think it's weird, I too think Weaver is easier than Catalyst (exception being Condi Weaver), for all the reasons you listed here.

I think Catalyst has the capabilities for team support, at least good considering it's damaging outputs. It is weapon dependent and I'm typically talking about staff and sc/d in WvW groups. There are ways to generate EE stacks, whether it's through dodges, cc, or arcane for immob. This depends upon how a guild plays and their general strategies, but possible while still outputting a good amount of dps whether its backloaded (staff) or more spike (sc/d). In some cases, we have builds that forego Empowered Empowerment for Sphere Specialist and ignore the EE game. The advantage comes from quick access to staff's hard and soft cc or scepters damage abilities, when compared to weaver. Yes double meteor is niche, but a well placed one in a coordinated spike applies a lot of pressure. I don't think Catalyst and Tempest are competing for spots. Tempest typically takes the support role for heal and cleanses. Catalyst is a dps slot.

Infusion catching an L wasn't on my 2022 bingo card. Infusion has great insights, but I have some disagreements. When this thread initially came out, I rolled my eyes for reasons already listed (They nerfed from 47k/46k -> 42k/43k). The initial post in this thread is very hyperbolic in how the nerf impacts Catalyst's overall damage. But my biggest disagreement is one cannot main Catalyst and Catalyst has no use in WvW. I've been playing Catalyst pretty much exclusively when I can, switching only when needed and for me, it's definitely the strongest elite spec Elementalist has access to, especially in WvW. If QoL is added, that's fine with me; however, I don't see anything wrong with Catalyst right now. --- With that out of the way, thanks for the Earth Elemental tech, that's genius and very similar thought process I used to maintain EE stacks in WvW. For those having bench issues with Catalyst, the mistakes I commonly see is: not simultaneously casting spells and cancelling the 2 abilities in Air, Water, and Earth. Get a keybind setup that makes it convenient to simultaneously cast abilities, bonus if you can get a mouse with some buttons on it (I have about 5 abilities keybound to my mouse).

You need to simultaneously cast abilities more, that's probably your first blocker. The second is animation cancelling. Overall I agree Catalyst's rotation is easier than Sword Condi Weaver because it's less to memorize. Sword Power Weaver is much easier than both though.

Look at Roul's channel if you haven't already lol dagger/dagger tempest is already incredibly good at healing without aura healing.

Duplicated post - removed

This caught me off guard because I feel like anyone who plays WvW would recognize the backloaded damage of staff and see how these scepter changes would benefit those spike centric fight. Even before this patch, ele's in my guild would run scepter as a "meme setup" for the spike damage. Moreover, I'm not the only one thinking this. In the other thread on this subject, WvW and sPvP players are pointing this out. On reddit and within my guild, people are also thinking in the same direction. Low channel time, damage abilities (in the case of Ele, it's likely we need to stack a few because of the nature of the class) is favored in WvW. Once again, even if you doubt the capabilities of these builds on the patch release, you're choosing to sacrifice their ability for a single build that utilizes a single ability (Water Trident) for the possibility of builds that use multiple Scepter abilities for a Spike Damage oriented play style. You're not even considering the possibility of buffing other healing options, on top of the already buffed Elemental Bastion. I probably should have combined the two sentences, but the sentence you are reacting to is a continuation of the previous sentence. You say you have 5k hours in WvW, so it should feel pretty obvious that no one is dying at 900+ range with the proper support in party.

To give you a chance to reply without double posting. In addition to my post above, there are ways for Ele to provide utility and support while being a potent damage dealer. I'm not going to further elaborate on my ideas in this regard. I'm not sure what tier you're playing in, but my guild hovers in tier 1/tier 2 and the fights follows specific phases I outlined above. The large bombs are typically melee range where the two groups are colliding with each other. Sometimes, the groups aren't touching, but you are certainly closer than 900 range 100% of the time.

These skills already had meaningful damage and from the notes, some of these skills have damage boosts based on certain conditions. I don't have time to explain all the phases of WvW fights to you, but this youtube video does a really good job of it. 900 range is pretty good, but majority of the spike damage will happen in melee range. Meaning scepter's 900 range isn't a big deal. Something else to note, you can drop this damage while being mobile. Which is huge. Video: It's not a fraction of a fraction. As Infusion mentioned, there's already DPS Scepter builds that just need a bit of a boost to be relevant. Now you're adding sPvP and WvW. This has the potential to be relevant in all game modes. To give you a bone, even if the numbers are bad, these things are easily tweakable. Note that in a group setting, no one is relying on a single player to provide all of the damage. Generating downs in WvW is a GROUP effort. It's about the ability to layer multiple damage abilities in one spot at the correct time. The fact these Scepter changes let ele do this means that it is EASIER for people who want to play Ele in WvW to get groups. Staff required the Ele player to be EXTREMELY competent at understanding and predicting movement of the groups. The new Scepter abilities, at least from the stream preview, are in line with other spike classes that are heavily desirable in WvW. Not relevant to the discussion imo and having a single ability to keep a weapon viable sounds much worse compared to having 12 abilities keeping the weapon viable. Tempest is huge in WvW right now. Just an fyi. Staff Ele requires the Ele player to understand WvW dynamics really well. These scepter change are going to give a little more leeway. I only play Ele in PvE and I don't feel like I'm being hindered at all. I'm typically running Catalyst nowadays. This is also not relevant. Overall, a build that is relying on a SINGLE ABILITY from a weapon, two abilities if we want to stretch the blast finisher, is not worth the effort to keep when we can unlock a NEW PLAYSTYLE for elementalist that would make it more desirable in PvP settings. This forum complains about how Ele is not viable in X, Y, and Z game mode, but this scepter change is one that will actually unlock capabilities in WvW and PvE. Correct as always Infusion; however, I do want to note that staff's capabilities in large scale coordinate fights is dependent upon the Elementalist player. These changes will encourage WvW fight centric guilds to add Elementalist as a DPS slot for shade spikes and bombs since it reduces the backloaded nature of Elementalist. Even if the damage is slightly off, these things are easy ratio tweaks.

Flamestrike has a faster and smoother channel Dragon's tooth is now mobile Phoenix (it can be blocked by projectile hate) Ice shards has a faster and smoother animation, aftercast removed (can be blocked by projectile hate) New shatterstone that slows New Trident New Lightning strike that is now AOE New Blinding Flash that provides sustain Rock barrier provides resistance and barrier, not spike damage, but huge for a quick moment of self sustain in WvW New Dust Devil that is now ground targeted. ---- From the preview, all of these skills had a pretty small cast time as well, meaning you can apply multiples from several attunements at once. In the context of organized WvW, where coordinated bombs are called, this is huge. It's essentially making Elementalist into a similar niche as Dragonhunter and old Herald. Other users are talking about it's potential in roaming and sPvP. I'm not an expert in those areas, so I will leave it to those users to come here and add their perspectives.

I'm fine with losing the healing on Scepter. With this update, Scepter fills the niche of a burst weapon that Elementalist is missing. Also, the added damage in Water will add some synergy to existing water traits. By not reverting this change, we're increasing the diversity of Elementalist options. Staff has some ranged healing options and dagger can provide some extra healing when used in conjunction with warhorn. Even the WvW tempest build runs d/d due to the high amount of cleansing and healing the setup can provide. These benefits are worth the loss of a build that only cares for 2 abilities out of the 12 and opens up builds that will utilize all 12 of those abilities. From a utility perspective, the correct choice is obvious.