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gandlethorpe.2641

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Everything posted by gandlethorpe.2641

  1. Here are my final thoughts after clocking 40+ hours on catalyst, mostly in PvE but a bit in sPvP and WvW. I'm a longtime ele main since GW1 and have endured a lot of frustration during that time, and I know I'm not alone there. However, I do feel like I'm in a minority who greatly enjoys catalyst. With that said, I think it has incredible potential, though I understand the frustrations that I believe turn people off of it before getting to see its strengths. My impression of what the design team was going for with this spec: Catalyst is essentially core ele with access to a steroid skill through its Jade Sphere, notably through the previously unobtainable (for eles) quickness boon. However, the defensive boons it provides also play a key role in allowing it to play more aggressively. While these boons are already very powerful in solo play, the ability to provide them to allies makes the catalyst even more effective in group scenarios. These powers come with a highly demanding playstyle, requiring extensive attunement swapping and (new for eles) resource management for the sphere. The hammer is designed particularly with the sphere in mind, having an advantage over other weapons in generating energy due to having many multihit attacks. It also encourages using every attunement, which plays well in acquiring all the sphere's boons. However, catalyst offers great tools for all weapons. With practice, catalyst can be a very rewarding experience both in solo and group play. Whereas ele has generally felt like a lot of work for moderate reward to me in the past, I feel like catalyst has finally achieved that high reward for the amount of work put in. Room for improvement: Catalyst has an extremely high learning curve, even by ele standards. On top of that, there are a few ways that feel needlessly punishing when trying to work with its mechanics. These two factors, I believe, were the biggest in turning away many players from exploring it further and seeing its strengths. Additionally, there are quite a few skills that simply feel underpowered. In my opinion, only a modest amount of mechanical changes and skill buffs are needed to make this truly an amazing spec. Jade Sphere and Energy First things first, the attunement swap ICD applying to the sphere is one of the worst feeling parts about catalyst. I can't count how many times I interrupted deploying my sphere and only realizing a few seconds later that it never went out. This absolutely must be removed. I see a lot of suggestions that the sphere should be mobile. I don't quite agree with this, but I do think it should be easier to reposition. This leads to the next issue. Recalling the sphere and losing all energy (and going on full cooldown) feels awful, especially when you miscast, misplace, or simply used it when there weren't many enemies left. I think it would solve a lot of issues if recalling gave some sort of compensation based on the amount of energy left over. For example, lowering the cooldown would make it easier to reposition. Energy decaying to 10/30 out of combat also feels a bit restrictive. I'm not sure if removing it completely would be balanced, but 15/30 would feel much more comfortable. No way to generate energy out of combat. Oftentimes, you end an encounter with the sphere active, meaning it will drain to 0 and you'll have to start the next combat with nothing. If this is meant to be a balancing factor, perhaps augmentations would be a good place to provide additional energy generation, as they are very underwhelming otherwise. When downed, all energy is lost and the sphere is recalled if you rally. This puts you at 10+ seconds not having access to your spec mechanic after rallying. The sphere and energy should not be affected at all by getting downed. Trying to use the sphere at 0 energy also puts it on full cooldown. There should be a minimum threshold for activating it. Hammer Overall, a solid foundation, but needs a bit more payoff across the board Orb projectiles are a fun mechanic but need way too many things aligning to be used effectively. Several ways to buff them, but I'm not sure what is best. If they were instant-cast, I think all other numbers could stay the same. However, if they kept the cast time, then they definitely need a duration buff. It's very easy to run the timer out waiting for other skills to finish casting. AoE could be bigger so that they still hit while in a melee attunement. One nice addition would be to make them fly out straight before orbiting, so that one hit can be guaranteed. Notably lacks fields, which I think is fine considering it's the best weapon for powering the sphere. However, it does need a few more finishers, and a few skills would be perfect as whirls (Earth 2 and Air 2). Since it lacks fields, Persisting Flames is a completely dead trait when using hammer (unless you take Conjure Flame Axe). If a field isn't added to, say, Fire 4, then please consider making the trait buff apply to non-weapon fire fields. Earth 2 has an incredibly slow cast time, yet doesn't feel that powerful. Could use a bit more breakbar damage as well as more than one block. Augmentations As mentioned earlier, these are very underwhelming, even when the condition is met. However, simple numbers buffs can easily make them worth the opportunity cost of taking one of the stronger core utilities. Again, being able to generate energy when the sphere is inactive would be a very appreciated effect. Perhaps this could be tied to a trait if too powerful. Traits This is actually the area that I feel is strongest with nothing particularly in need of improvement. As issues with the sphere, hammer, and utilities are fixed, the traits will naturally improve indirectly. UI I'm sure this has been brought up countless times, but the energy bar needs to be bigger and more prominent. Holosmith has already solved this layout issue. The deploy and recall icons should be more distinct, as it can be hard to tell if your sphere is up when moving around. This might be solved with a bigger bar, as you'd be able to tell if it's draining energy. The sphere itself can also be hard to track during chaotic events with lots of effects on screen. sPvP and WvW considerations I understand that the sphere is very powerful and that is why the numbers were well below PvE levels for these modes. It did feel a little excessive, with significantly lower boon durations and higher energy drain. In these modes movement is much more erratic, so it is more difficult to take full advantage of the sphere as well as land hits to charge it. That said, I can see how difficult it is to balance for these modes given the potential for the sphere to go from unusable to brokenly overpowered. I think the above usability improvements for sphere and hammer would go a long way to help it in all game modes before the numbers should be looked at. Conclusion: That about sums up all my thoughts after 40+ hours of catalyzing. I see the potential this spec has, and it saddens me that I haven't seen more people enjoying it as I have. I do understand the barrier of entry though, as catalyst didn't really start to click for me until at least 5 hours of playing it. Once improvements are made to make it more accessible and effective for all players from beginners to experts across all game modes, I'm confident this will become a very popular spec.
  2. I have soloed HoT champs. Maybe not as comfortably as I can with weaver at the moment, but we've had 4 years to master it while this have been out for 3 days. I'm getting there though as I'm actually put in time to learn how it works with 30+ hours. The vast majority of PvP is standing in circles, so I don't see how a spec that makes its own personal OP boon circle will be bad. Sure it doesn't have the CC that weaver does, but maybe it's not meant to chase down things as opposed to holding down an area. I'll admit I haven't played it much yet in PvP/WvW, but I need to be comfortable with the skills before trying it against people who are playing things have been out years. I'm not claiming it's going to be the best thing ever, but the amount of snap judgements here saying it's trash and ANet should scrap the entire thing is disheartening. So much certainty about something that players have barely scratched the surface with.
  3. It's actually plenty tanky and is capable of stacking an obscene amount of boons, both defensive and offensive. But a lot of people here seem to completely avoid using the sphere that enables it.
  4. The more I play this spec, the more I love it. I honestly feel sad for the devs that something this fun is getting so much hate
  5. 9/10 - Just needs a few QoL changes to be perfect I honestly feel bad for the designers that something so fun is getting so much hate
  6. As someone who really enjoys both catalyst and hammer, I think the spec is fundamentally sounds and mostly in need of QoL and minor buffs. After spending a good amount of time absorbing the mechanics and skills, I think these are the most critical areas: Augmentations are probably the weakest part. There's not a huge reason to use them compared to the strong utilities eles already have, and they are heavily dependent on the sphere to have an acceptable effects. A good buff would be for them to provide energy when the sphere is not up. Hammer is solid, but could use a few more finishers. Some would clearly do well as a whirl, like Earth 2 and Air 2, moreso the first as it's the weakest hammer skill overall. Orbs could use a small duration and AoE buff to make them more consistent. Air 4 is also a bit too heavyhanded with the recoil. It's easy to accidentally use it and put yourself in a very inconvenient place, including stuck inside objects. Sphere does not need an ICD when swapping attunements. This is one of the worst feeling parts of it as it is very easy to interrupt your cast over and over. Recalling sphere should have some type of refunding effect when you have energy. Possibly lowering the recharge by how much you had left over. This would also make it easier to reposition.
  7. Sounds like you didn't read this part then In any case, it sounds like you've got the perfect build that does it all, so what do you need catalyst for?
  8. Not every mob has a bug to abuse where it doesn't fight back
  9. After a several hours wrapping my head around it, hammer is starting to grow on me. Soloing champion mushroom king Build: [&DQYlHikpQzd0AHQATgEAAL4BAAAcAQAA9xoAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA=] Gear: Armor/Weapon-Grieving, Trinkets-Celestial, Runes-Leadership, Sigils-Force/Concentration We've had access to the catalyst and its hammer for only about a day and a half. Please keep that in mind before calling it unusably bad. I'm not gonna say it's god tier or anything, but we surely have not seen it being used to its potential yet. Even a non-elementalist weapon set takes time to learn and develop muscle memory and intuition. Hammer catalyst is that multiplied by at least 4, plus another completely new and complex mechanic on top of that. I think I've spent an above average time learning the mechanics and nuances of this weapon and spec compared to the player base (and even ele mains) and still feel like I've barely scratched the surface. Still, in the clip I managed to start off pretty strong before fatigue kicked in a bit past the halfway point. And I know some other professions can pew pew this thing down easily with a few buttons, that's not the point. This is the damage it can do without even considering the strong AoE boon support. I used to think hammer needed a field on its weapon skills, but now I'm not so certain (but plz ANet fix Persisting Flames to make the sphere give the buff). It was clearly designed to have the most synergy with the sphere. Many of its skills hit multiple times to generate energy. I see orbs getting a lot of flack for being weak, but clearly they're for utility and not damage. Overall, the kit also seems balanced on having quickness, as the skills can be excruciatingly slow without it. Luckily, permaquickness is absolutely achievable. Finally, its dual melee/ranged nature lessens the impact of the field being stationary, and in the most important attunement (air) you'll be ranged. The only big issue I see with hammer is that orbs have issues hitting things on uneven terrain. They could also maybe use a small duration increase and/or faster cast time, but they're honestly just something to cast when the heavy hitter skills are on cooldown for the passive energy generation and minor buffs. As flashy as it is, the barrage isn't meant to be a nuke. Though not needed, it would be nice to get a few more combo finishers as well, so we aren't totally dependent on the situational lasts. With catalyst as a whole, the ICD of attunement swapping applying to sphere is pretty painful and unnecessary. Removing this would be a single biggest improvement in its current state, imo.
  10. Hammer is basically scepter on steroids It could use a few QoL tweaks, but it's solid.
  11. Nope. I tested this on tempest recently in preparing my future catalyst build. It only works on the skills affected by the duration increase (so weapon skills and conjures). It would be nice if it affected all fields, and it would also be nice for hammer to get its own fire field (slot 4 would be perfect).
  12. I'm very happy with catalyst's fundamental design, and my D/F definitely loves all the aura support. It even lets me dust off my berserker gear in open world! That said, I think there are several areas for improvement: Hammer and augmentations are curiously lacking in trait support. Spheres have some but not much for being a major mechanic. Hammers can't generate fields on their own, so they are totally dependent on the sphere. Fire 4 would be a great slot to generate a fire field. (Side note: Persisting Flames is a dead trait with hammer because it doesn't provide the buff on fields generated by non-weapon skills. Tempest is also affected by this. Can we have it work on any fire field please? 😉) The hammer orbs are a neat design, but last far too short for the amount of setup they require to use effectively. Augmentations have rather underwhelming effects, even when getting the bonus effect. They also have cast times and have stiff competition with instant-cast time utilities. The sphere ICD when swapping attunements feels really unnecessary. For the most part, it's a very enjoyable and rewarding spec. I didn't think ANet would be able to make another spec as cool as weaver, but they succeeded for me! It feels the furthest developed of the specs so far, and it's really close to being excellent.
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