scerevisiae.1972

Downed state is just dumb full stop, just remove it completely and increase base player HP to compensate. It's a stupid mini-game with mostly pointless skills (that you can't change) that you're forced to play after losing. The whole concept of downed state is dumb. It's probably a good part of the reason why the PVP format failed so hard in this game. Just get rid of it entirely.

i was pretty pissed off at the time but now, it's fine, it's not worth the effort to pursue it, but I'm just going not going to ever pre-purchase an expac again, and I would encourage everyone not to pre-purchase again in the future. Hammer catalyst was such a huge kitten you to the community who had been asking for a new ranged weapon since forever. When that horrible piece of PVE-only garbage arrived, all my respect for Anet devs dissolved. The elite specs are literally the only thing of value to me in the expac.

I agree it sounds dramatic but I didn't like it at all, so asking for a refund seemed like a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Played first 2 betas. I think the expac differed significantly from the (hyped) description, but there is also a statutory warranty in Australia that also applies that the product in question is of merchantable quality, I don't think it was.

yeah that's why you see lots of hammer catalysts in WVW, roamers and in zergs. oh wait, there aren't any.... or like how the community has consistently rated catalyst as terrible in mutiple polls: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/109394-how-would-you-rate-catalyst/ https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/102004-rate-catalyst/ honestly idc if you roam with hammer for the novelty value, just don't pretend it's anywhere close to sword/sceptre/dagger builds cause it isn't. even aurashare support cata builds are worse than plain old tempest. D/D catalyst is pretty decent but hammer, hammer is just pure garbage everywhere except raid golems, and it isn't even that good there anymore now too.

sorry but noone good is using hammer cata in WVW for roaming or for zerg DPS. i and others have done the benchmarks and the lack of range and limited number and small radius of available AOEs and close to zero utility make it one of the worst possible zerg specs.

This. Story content is a waste of resources, didn't enjoy any part of it. ZERO WVW content. WVW is the only thing I play the game for. Super disappointing Ele spec (hammer catalyst). So bad i tried to get a refund but they refused, even though it's against the law in Australia (anyone want to join me for class action, PM me). I will never pre-purchase an Anet expac again, that's for sure.

What really irks me about hammer cata is that they deliberately designed it to only be useable in 1 game mode. Seriously, how bad of a design team do you have to be to design a spec that only really works in 1/3rd of your game.

This. Catalyst is just lazy design, but hammer is the true piece of design garbage. Everything about it is wrong - the concept of a medium range caster is ok but the implementation is just a slightly different version of sword. Pure kitten garbage.

Energy is a pointless mechanic, no reason for it to exist, per-attunement CD already fulfills the necessity to limit field use. Hammer also a pointless weapon, its only niche is PVE tank/spank fights, and only gets used because quickness. Garbage weapon.

I was so disappointed by hammer I quit the game. It was just *that* bad - i couldn't find the will to play the game anymore.

Harsh but fair

I enjoy your content a lot but have to hard disagree that hammer is "actually decent". It's a worse version of sword basically, whose only possible niche in WVW is a cele-based roamer, a space that sword already fills really well. For the life of me, I can't understand WHY Anet would choose to give Ele another melee-based bruiser weapon after the last expac added one. Sword and hammer now directly compete for the same design space, it's super dumb. Thing is, if they had actually gone all-in on the concept of a 600 range caster hybrid, it probably could have worked, but that's not what hammer is. Only 6 of the 20 skills are 600 range, so it's really just a melee weapon with a couple of poke skills. Honestly one of the biggest design fails I've witnessed in 20+ years of playing MMOs.

PVE only changes. sorry but i don't much care about PVE. Please fix hammer so it's useable in WVW. It really irritates the kittne out of me that Catalyst was created without any regard for WVW players who've already been playing staff/sceptre/dagger for 9 freaking years.

yes this is the worst expac by far. most of the elite specs have no appeal for me, and my favourite class (Ele) got IMO the worst-designed, least-useful weapon in the game (hammer). I was already getting bored of the game and Ele hammer just has absolutely no value in my preferred game mode (WVW). Outside of hammer, Catalyst is just core Ele with a field. I feel like the expac has very little actual content and is little more than a vehicle for monetising gem store skins for skiffs/fish rods/jade bot/turtle, which irritates me to the max. expac so bad I gave up on the game. OTOH, elden ring is awesome.

actually D/D catalyst is actually pretty good. hammer was garbage except vs raid golems, and now post-nerf it's garbage everywhere!!!11

That's the thing. Hammer IS the Catalyst's identity, because if you don't use hammer, you're playing core Ele with 1 extra field, it sucks (read: sucks because many of us have been playing Ele since release and have played core Ele to death). Which brings us back to hammer as the core problem of the spec because it's just Sword again in disguise, which is to say, it's only really playable in a tiny fraction of the game - raids/golem benchmarks and AB duels. I would be overjoyed if they could just add a few more ranged skills to hammer such that it didn't totally suck in my favourite game mode - WVW. Nearly 170 votes in the poll, and just under half rate hammer as terrible; 2/3rds voted bad or terrible. If that's not enough to bring major/urgent changes then there's really something very wrong.

I don't think the meta is too hard, it's more a case of needing a full map of semi-decent players with decent gear... which is hard unless you're part of a mega guild. I would prefer NOT to nerf the difficulty but rather to hjave the boss "soft enrage" instead of a hard time limit to complete. ie, instead of just losing at 00:00 the boss gets harder (and/or the rez WP is removed) and then at 02:30 over the time limit, harder again, and then full wipe at 05:00 over. That way the baddies can die off and get carried by those remaining if the fight is close. Also having zero rewards on failure after a 2hr event feelsprettybadman. ps: PLEASE rework Catalyst Hammer into an actual hybrid ranged weapon, the majority of Eles hate it: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/109394-how-would-you-rate-catalyst

This. Earth shield is way better. Even the elite augment is kinda bad in practise cause staff weaver is way better than staff catalyst and that was really the only place where resetting your current attunement CDs was potentially really good. Double ride the lightning is alright ofc but it's not any better than Fiery Greatsword, and FGS has other applications besides. The stunbreak augment and heal augment are potentially usable, but all the other augments are just flat-out bad, or worse versions of existing things we already have.

Why not? What was the point of making hammer at all if it only gets played for raids and benchmark videos and basically just makes Sword obsolete?

I don't want hammer buffs, I want hammer CHANGES, so that it can be viable in WVW. This means adding some more ranged skills and making the AOEs more impactful, cause right now even the ranged skills on hammer SUCK in WVW. Make fire 5, earth 5, water 2 into 600 range cone AOEs. Make water 1 a 600 range projectile. Rework all the 3 skills into something actually useful.

Actually I think dagger catalyst isn't terrible in WVW, though tempest is better. However, after nearly 10 years of playing dagger, THE LAST THING I could possible want is to be forced to play dagger for another 2 years because the design team weren't capable of making a weapon that is at least minimally viable in all 3 major game modes.

I hate hammer, really really hate it. Mainly because it's just another melee weapon that's EXACTLY LIKE SWORD. No amount of number tweaks will make it more appealling, it will just make sword more obsolete. I particularly hate that fire/air have ranged skills but earth/water doesn't. The only possible way you can stop me hating hammer is to make it into the hybrid ranged weapon it should always have been. In practise this means reworking a few currently melee skills into ranged skills. I would like to see earth 5, fire 5, and water 2 made into ranged skills, maybe cone AOE skills as has been suggested elsewhere.

TBH who cares what the weapon is, it's just a skin. The only thing that matters is having an interesting and unique new weapon that differentites itself from existing weapons. Hammer doesn't do that, it's just sword with a few new animations.

I tried it. FA Weaver is considerably better. At least for sceptre.

See above. I've seen 1 catalyst in WVW since release, and I farmed him relentlessly on virtuoso. He/she couldn't even get close enough to me to land any damage and quite frankly he was a free bag. It's not like he was bad or anything, he was doing all the right things, just that hammer is just a really badly designed weapon.