Joswi.2635

Instead of having the bullets be in the buff bar there should be an icon above the attunements or above the health/endurance bar. That way it's not lost in all the other buffs and has a fixed spot for us to look. I like above the attunements, so if I have a fire bullet it'll appear above the fire attunement no matter what attunement I'm in so I always know what bullets I have. I'm not a big fan of the bullet mechanic in general though, feels too clunky and not rewarding enough to keep track of for the most part anyway.

A lot of these nerfs seem very heavy handed

This is so close. I just don't know why this trait doesn't just make Elemental Empowerment always be 100% more effective, it seems like a good way to raise the floor of damage without increasing the ceiling which has been said on stream is one of the goals with the new balance philosophy.

I love HAT too, I just wish it was as easy to play and heal with as some of the other heal/alac classes. I really dislike alac being tied to overloads but if they are going to keep it on there it would be nice if Lucid Singularity made overloads pulse alac and also reduced the base cooldown of overloads, to like 10sec, the normal attunement recharge. That way you could keep 100% alac uptime within one element. That would also make it not as punishing to leave water after overloading. The other thing would be to make a major overhaul to the conjures to make it so frost bow is a good healing weapon that you can use in any attunement without a timer on it.

Yeah, just what others have already said. Energy feels so pointless since there is already a cooldown on them. If they aren't going to get rid of energy I wish they would at least change up sphere specialist to increase boon duration of sphere boons and also make it so you can generate energy when a sphere is out. That would help the support builds a lot and not really change up the dps builds I think.

I mean of course you will see it used in ranged builds because the alternatives for off-hand are melee dagger or focus that is more cc/defense oriented. Makes warhorn the only thing for damage with any range but doesn't mean it's not better in melee range which is why most people consider it a melee weapon. So having an actual ranged dps option like off-hand pistol would be good, which is why it's so disappointing that we are only getting main-hand pistol.

Yes, it feels more energy intensive now to upkeep it. Removing the energy all together would be the best but at the very least they should get rid of no energy generation while a sphere is out. That would make it feel so much better.

Would be cool to get pistol but wish it was main and off hand like it looks like guardian is getting. It would be good to get another ranged option for main and off hand, not just main. Assuming they actually give us ranged pistols.

I guess we'll have to see how it plays but looking at the description it seems you can still pass through enemies as long as it's not the one you currently have targeted so I don't think either of those examples would actually stop you earlier than you were planning. But again, have to see how it actually functions in game

From the sounds of it on the actual post, it only stops on your target. So no target or hitting anything other than your target and you'll still pass through. I think it's a nice change to make sure you hit your target and can't accidently overshoot your target

This is getting better but still not great. This helps with not being as punished by interrupts or having to dodge but it still keeps it a very un fun way to play it, especially with it being the same total duration. It's still just spending way too much time channeling overloads rather than doing anything else. Spector got this treatment and now firebrand but still nothing for catalyst hammer 3 with it's double tap issues, are we going to get it? Are we going to get something like this with catalyst energy? It's so painful to lose all energy on downed state and have to build it all back up. Better yet would be to just remove energy on it all together but at least make it so we don't lose it on downed state. So much talk about removing traits that reduce cooldown on certain skills and it would be so nice to remove the element specific cooldowns on the elementalist traits for weapon skills and reduce the base cooldowns on them. There are so many long cooldowns, especially on staff, doesn't feel good when you aren't traited into the right element. Speaking of staff, there are some good changes in there but it still needs more work on it.

I've thought it should be tied to auras for a while now. My thought was that it could be something along the lines of you when apply an aura to yourself you apply alac to allies around you and not directly tied to giving auras to others. That way you wouldn't need powerful aura to apply it and could take soothing power to offset some of the healing you are losing by not taking elemental bastion.

From todays patch notes: Fixed an issue in which using some mount skins could cause the player to get visually stuck in place. Just checked and looks like this fixed it. At least so far it has worked for Aurora Blessed Noble skin, loads up the base model/skin until the skin loads instead of being stuck!

Too many to list them all. These are some of the bigger ones I would like to see though. A better way to apply alacrity then finishing an overload, it's so clunky and not fun. Have to be in an attunement for 6sec before even being able to overload then spend 4sec overloading, for 7sec base alac. My idea would be make it so every time you give yourself an aura you give alac in an area around you. Makes it more versatile, for both support and dps, with weapon skills, shouts, and still can work with overloads. As long as the base duration is good enough that you wouldn't need to spam all of those at once that is. A few things for catalyst, mainly get rid of energy for the sphere or make it much easier to get on all weapons. It just doesn't feel needed with cooldowns and is just annoying to deal though. Get the -10% reduced damage off of Spectacular Sphere, it's already enough that you lose out on damage traits to get quickness. No other class has just a straight up -10% damage in order to provide quickness. Make Empowered Empowerment just increase Elemental Empowerment effectiveness by 100% all the time and not just at 10 stacks, it would raise the floor without raising the ceiling like Anet keeps saying they want to do. Make the orb on hammer 3 no longer a projectile that can be blocked and destroyed, make it pulse it's damage like Astral Wisp is now. Would probably make it easier to balance too since you wouldn't have to worry about multi hits in bosses. There are definitely more that I can think of but these are some of the bigger ones I'm hoping for.

Only problem with putting it on auras is it would force you into water traitline to spread that around, which is fine for healers but not so much if you are trying to dps/alac. If they changed it to something like "When you give yourself an aura you give yourself and allies around you alacrity." that might not be too bad. With weapon skills, overloads, and shouts that can apply auras you'd have more freedom in how you apply it and what utility skills you are using depending on how long the duration would be.

Lot's of good changes in this patch. Is there more they could do and that I would want to see different? Sure but I'm happy to get these buffs. Still want a better way for tempest to provide alacrity other than just completing overloads and still want a better way to gain energy on catalyst or to remove energy all together on it. Overall I'm happy with these changes, definitely steps in the right direction.

Love all the ele changes. Definitely good for it. The way tempest provides alacrity still needs to be changed up somehow though, the end of an overload still doesn't feel good. And now with these changes they are giving up on even more damage to do it in a dps/alac role. But overall great changes to ele and really looking forward to this!

Before the patch I finally found a build that I was having a lot of fun with in open world stuff, didn't really take it into group content all that much. After the patch they definitely over nerfed it to compensate for the top 1% of players playing it the way they were. I really love the radius increase and having quickness on spectacular sphere but it feels terrible to have to give up 10% damage to take it when you are already choosing to lose out on damage traits anyway. It's just way too overboard especially with that on top of nerf to sphere and auto attacks damage. They keep talking about how one of their goals is to raise the floor for the game and catalyst has a couple of easy things they could to help with that but instead they just nerf it. Orb double tap is something they still haven't fixed and that would definitely help raise the floor without raising the ceiling since that double tap can throw off rotations pretty easily. Or changing empowered empowerment to just be each stack is 100% better, that way the difference between 9 and 10 stacks is only a 2% difference instead of 11% difference. Again raising the floor without raising the ceiling. Something else that would make the class easier be making energy much easier to get or removing it all together. It would alleviate one more thing to manage on the class and open up the class to being able to use other weapons a bit easier. Until they get rid of that -10% damage on spectacular sphere I'll probably just go back to using tempest. It's just too much on that.

Yeah, as far as boons go this really only affects solo play because in groups you are going to have them anyway so there isn't really a point to a limit to where you can only put out 3 spheres and that's the only thing energy does at this point. They really do need to just get rid of energy and just leave it with a cooldown.

I do like the swap of quickness and fury, especially since that means you get all of quickness frontloaded instead of with pulses. Also really love the expanded radius with the perk too. That 10% damage nerf on top of taking damage out of the spheres is too much though.

Yup, I want the option to play at range because if it is designed well and does decent damage I enjoy it a lot more than melee. Great I have to move into melee range to grab boons and for that it doesn't matter if I'm range or melee. When you throw in mechanics where the enemy teleports or moves around then it's much nicer to be ranged. I have definitely been having more fun on virtuoso than on catalyst because I can still play from range. Being ranged I don't lose anything for being up close to group up for boons but being melee I do lose out when there is movement or mechanics forcing you away, which is very important on a class without weapon swaps. There should be nothing wrong with people wanting a good option for ranged combat with eles. Not sure why someone has to complain that "ranged can't work" every time it's brought up when there are already ranged classes that do work in the game already. Yes, even with stacking for boons, ranged weapons can work.

Longbow was definitely what I was hoping for, would have loved to see elemental archery.

I appreciate seeing some sort of response to what has been going on but I totally understand why so many people are upset. We get a studio update blog post talking about how you want to raise the floor and then a few days later we see patch notes doing the exact opposite. Classes that are already very difficult to be effective with getting nerfed and adding important boons to classes in a way that makes it so they have to do perfect rotations to maintain 100% uptime, if they can even attain 100% at all. These things definitely don't help raise the floor like you say you want to do. I'm curious to see the reasoning you have for these change because I don't see how they fit at all with what was said to be the goal of balancing in the studio update.

Yes, currently if you use Spectacular Spheres and you place an air sphere you get fury and quickness, that doesn't change in the new version you still get both boons but you also lose 10% on all outgoing damage dealt. That is a nerf plain and simple.

Doesn't that example right there just prove that it is a nerf? You say Spectacular Spheres right now has more value for solo play, plus that is also a source of fury without going into air/arcane. After the patch if you use that same trait you'll get quickness instead of the fury, so just flipping those around but you'll also have the 10% reduced damage. So the new version of Spectacular Spheres would be worse than Empowering Auras which is worse than current version of Spectacular Spheres according to your example. Now throw on top of that losing another 7% due to the sphere damage being nerfed as well. Seems like quite a bit of damage lost, not sure how that isn't a nerf and where it's a buff.