thetwothousand.5049

It works in combat and always has.

First off, if I'm responding to someone complaining about benchmark totals, then yeah I'm only going to address the difference in benchmark numbers. Particularly in cases where someone is trying to act like a different build is wildly outperforming the one we're discussing and the reality is the difference is not even statistically different. Second, literally all that changed in this patch is the numbers. So if power weaver was fine mechanically for people before this patch, then its going to be fine for them this patch. Literally the only thing that changes was how much DPS this build was doing, and bringing a build with an upper ceiling of 52K down to 44K is not something to panic about.

But they didn't do that this time, which is why warhorn is still going to be a good pick, best pick a lot of the time. They more than tripled the initial damage of strikes but slowed the speed of hits and put a cap. So it's actually better now on smaller hitboxes where it used to be quite bad, and on large hitboxes that eat every hit its no longer an absurd DPS outlier like it was. Sitting at 42-44K for dps is great and that what warhorn puts you at.

After getting almost a week with the new version of Lightning Orb I have to say its fine. I admit the diminishing return effect is not my favorite thing to see in balancing, but the buff they gave to the initial strikes is more than enough to keep it competitive. Ultimately that is what I wanted in the first place, to have Lightning Orb have a place in the meta but not just be uber strong on large bosses. This change keeps it competitive in the meta, likely BiS for any boss that doesn't move too much for condi and power builds, and is roughly as effective on small bosses as it is on large ones. Overall I'm fine with where the skill has ended up.

It does a resounding LESS than 200 dps more than power weaver now. I don't really think we need to act like the sky is falling. Scourge may be absolutly nuts right now, but that won't last. They'll get bopped hard in the next balance patch or sooner!

The Shared Destruction mechanic in Skywatch Archipelago is a real headache right now. Like most people I saw the green circle and knew, intuitively and from previous encounters, that I needed to stack with as many other people as possible. Looking at damage its clearly not scaling right, or has been significantly over tuned for encounters with lower population counts. I've also noticed that certain encounters indicators are off by a wide margin. The Tiraeus the Everlasting for example has a forward cone attack that will hit me even when I'm standing directly behind the boss. Very irritating to have the game tell you visually what you're margins are and then have the reality be completely different, especially when you are trying to play melee.

Maybe its because they got help, or maybe its because OP is exaggerating. Regardless the runes pets were weak as anything other than handy fluff to have around for RP reasons. They weren't tanky enough to survive anything but trash mobs, and the dps increase that they brought was negligible. IF ops roommate really does need exactly one AI unit to to take aggro there are plenty of class based options that provide significantly better options than the rune golem or rock dog were capable of. Elementalist elemental summons, necro minions, mechanist, mesmer illusions, and ranger pets would all provide the same benefit and then some over what the golem gave. OP's roommate even gets a new better rune+relic combo out of it! But honestly most of the complaints about missing runes are way overblown. Are there missing runes? Yes, but we've known that was going to be the case literally since the relic announcement, anet was very clear that they were going to take this opportunity to remove bad options. They've also been clear that they're going to try and bring back every unique option that is currently missing, like the golems and rock dogs, after workshopping them so that they are less of a trap-pick for new/uninformed players.

I mean, its just swapping dagger for wh? if you could handle that for weaver before then you can handle it now. And I personally find sword rotations to be easier to manage than hammer, so from my pov cata is easier than ever.

After popping into a testing discord, doesn't seem to be the case at all. Weaver and Cata still both look to be benching around 42-44K. Still waiting on finalized gear and rotations, but looks like sw/wh is still on.

Well RIP to this endeavor. Lightning Orb: Reduced the number of projectiles fired per interval from 2 to 1. Increased power coefficient from 0.36 to 1.0. This skill now deals 10% less damage on each subsequent hit against the same target, down to a minimum power coefficient of 0.05. I haven't played with it yet, or seen any concrete numbers from SnowCrow types, so we'll have to see if this a nerf that brings LO in line with the meta or takes it into unusable territory.

I actually think we're in luck in that department. People don't play catalyst in the most important game mode, pve. I pug exclusively and see other elementalists all the time, but I never see catalysts. People only play weaver and tempest, and I'm no different. Catalyst is just not fun to play in pve, and until it is I won't and I think a lot of people feel the same. So between that, the negitive focus it pulls in pvp/wvw, and the fact its ele's quickness spec I think an actual overhaul is plausible in the nearish future. I wouldn't bet on it this year with the launch of the expansion, but the first major balance patch of next year I could see.

I don't want to touch on the rest of your suggestions, because this is really the key piece that needs to be solved first and I think you've got it wrong here. The single biggest problem with catalyst is that it doesn't have a specific wheel to reinvent in the first place. Compare it to weaver and tempest that have clear mechanical differences between themselves and core ele, and those mechanics specifically bring additional advantages and disadvantages. It makes them play differently and have specific strengths and weaknesses that develop into balanced builds. Catalyst on the other hand has absolutely none of that. If you ask somebody what the mechanic of catalyst is you're going to get a multiple answers. Is it the jade orb itself? Is it the energy? Heck some people point to the orbs on hammer being the mechanic, which should tell everyone how big a problem the class has. Even if you can get a solid consensus on what the mechanic is then you start to ask what is the trade-off for getting access to this beneficial mechanic and there really isn't one. So with no specific mechanic that changes how the elementalist plays, and no drawback for taking it anyways, what you're left with is a basic elementalist with a bunch of goodies in the form of stats and boons piled on top. That's impossible to balance in a way that is fun to play and play against. I honestly thing catalyst should be the number one balancing priority for the team right now, and I don't see how they get it balanced properly without fully developing an actual mechanic for the spec.

With the upcoming expansion Secrets of the Obscure every class will be able to undergo Weapons Training to gain access to elite specialization weapons without having the spec equipped. This, as pointed out directly by anet in their marketing, is going to allow for a wide number of new build combos to enter the game. Now that we've gotten out of the beta we've seen that there will be several new interesting combos that will likely become the new meta. Some performed well enough that people are already predicting that they will be severely nerfed prior to the expansions release to avoid overpowered builds entering the game. For elementalist sword/warhorn is that combo, and I want to talk about solutions now that will help preserve it without adding to the games power creep. So first lets talk about the combo and why its being assumed that it will be nerfed to the core of the earth. Simply put when combined with either the Weaver of Catalyst the numbers first being reported out of the beta were off the charts; Snow Crows discord had more than one tester report back bench's at 50k dps. For a game where the average dps is ~40k, the current highest is 43k, and the balance teams statements and actions show that's the upper range they want its clear that a 50k is not going to make it into the game long term. Some people will point to sword as part of the problem, but given that it is the weapon generating the current top benchmark anet is clearly ok with where it is at. It's only when combined with the powerful skills of warhorn, particularly Lightning Orb, that it becomes over powered. So if that weapon is adding 10k dps to a class the obvious answer is lets nerf it. But in this case that is the wrong answer, because the problem isn't being framed right in the first place. That 50k bench that everyone is excited about IS ONLY ACHIEVABLE ON HUGE HITBOXES because of Lightning Orb. Lightning Orb is a unique skill that launches a projectile forward and rapidly hits targets when in range. This means it can hit anywhere from 1 to 42 times depending on the target, vastly changing the amount of damage it will inflict on a target. Huge hitboxes, which are rare in actual game scenarios, that will take all 42 hits will see bloated and unrealistic logs. Normal and small logs that were done during the beta on the other hand were clocking in at ~44k dps, a new high to be sure but not ground breaking compared to the current high of 43k. I point all this out because Lightning Orb isn't going to work in its current form, but a basic numbers reduction will not resolve the issue. Any number they nerf Orb to that makes it acceptable for huge hitboxes will make it unplayable in any other scenario. This is unacceptable given that said scenarios make up the fast majority of content in the game. Instead Anet needs to look to redesigning the skill, something like capping the number of hits per target or making it function like Barrage. Warhorn is a fun weapon that could provide a lot a unique build options for elementalists in the future, and Lightning Orb is a key skill that makes it that way. It would be a shame to see the weapon get sent to the garbage because of a benchmark that is not even possible in most scenarios.

It was clear from the first beta that cata didn't have enough time in development. You can just look at the history of how energy has worked in the spec to see that it was not created with a clear and useful vision in mind. At this point the balancing team just needs to go all in on this spec the way they did with FB a few months back. Frankly it needs even more work than FB did. FB has a clear mechanically distinct vision with clear drawback and advantages and cata simply does not have that in anyway. Its a combo field with juiced with boons and stat bonuses and that just doesn't work. You end up with a spec that either doesn't provide enough boons and stats to be worth playing, or it does and it overshadows everything else. Catalyst is a boring spec that is actively hurting the balance of the entire rest of the profession.

This was a really bad balance patch for elementalist, and frankly none of the nerfs that happened should have. Virtually every nerf targeted the FA variant of cata that was well in hand in pvp and wvw, and has been for months. After two rounds of heavy nerfs it was well positioned in both metas to be a strong build, but able to perform its role and excel in skilled players hands. With its current state this build is nothing but noob bait. You won't have the sustain to handle any fight you cant insta-burst someone down on, and after these damage nerfs I think you would have to find someone afk to pull that off. The build people were complaining about was the new condi/cele full signet build. That got barely bopped by the changes they pushed through, and really the only reason it got so strong in the first place is because they added auras to the signet trait. There was no need to add auras to that trait in the first place and if they had just removed that interaction the OP signet build would no longer be a problem and FA catas would have been fine. No other build is benefiting from the trait having auras anyways so I dont understand this decision. The next patch should remove auras from signets and undo all the nerfs to scepters and catalyst from yesterdays update. In the meantime I guess I'm off ele for the foreseeable future. I'm sure the signet build is still good enough, but I never found it fun and if it is still strong people will moan until its nerfed into the ground too. I'm better off playing something that is healthy for the games balance like harbringer, willbender, any thief build, or that stupid druid immobilize build. Getting the signal loud and clear from Anet that those builds are totally balanced and I should have no problem roaming with those.