scerevisiae.1972

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.

I didn't even like hammer in PVE. It plays exactly like sword, with a slightly different rotation. From the poll results I'm relieved to see I'm not the only one who hates it, which means there's a slim chance they might actually try to fix it.

I get the distinct impression that people voting "good" are pure PVE players, and people with significant playtime/interest in WVW/PVP are the ones voting "terrible".

as a WVW-roaming virtuoso, inspiration is pretty much mandatory for the cleanse, reflects, and invuln.

Maps are pretty but very dead/empty. It's rare to even see another player. Gives me very "dead game" feeling. Specs are REALLY hit'n'miss. Harb is satisyingly great, Catalyst is perplexingly and exceedingly terrible. Fishing I don't care about at all. Skiffs I don't care about at all. Story I don't care about at all. Copypasta legendaries close to kills the game for me, don't like the new strategy at all. Nothing added to the content I actually play this game for (WVW) so overall the expansion is a huge failure for me, I wish they had taken 6+ months extra to get into proper shape. I worry that EOD and its lack of long-term replayability especially around some badly-designed especs (untamed, catalyst) and lack of interesting new mechanics like gliding/mounts ala previous expansions may have killed the game.

All the new maps feel very dead/empty and it's rare to even see another player. Feels like dead game to me.

Virtuoso - great, a new way to play the class. I think dagger is not up to other mesmer weapons because the #3 is waaaay too slow but the traits are decent, the utilities are good and I feel like a wide variety of specs are possible. I like it a lot, overall good. Catalyst - horrible, just horrible. Hammer is kittening terrible unless you're hitting a raid boss or golem, the spec mechanic is dull asf, the traits are similarly uninspired, the utilities are also terrible with the elite being just barely decent. Overall terrible. Harbinger - great, I like everything after the elixir change, overall great. Untamed - I can see a lot of potential but it's very very clunky to play. I don't think the direct pet controls work at all - some skills you want auto-casted, others you want to control. Ambushes were a significant improvement but there's no way to see ambush CDs, which sucks HARD as it's the best thing in the spec. I think leash/unleash should just be 5sec CD and ambush always available after unleash (ie: effective 10sec CD). Hammer is OK but I think flip skills should have their own CDs. Utilities and traits are good. Overall bad but lots of room for improvement.

I don't think that's true at all. The true mark of a good elite spec is the extent to which it makes existing weapons relevant again by providing interesting new ways to play. This is one of Catalyst's biggest design failures. It's just a field, which makes it like core Ele, traits borrow heavily from tempest, and augments are really bad as well. That's before you consider Hammer as a PVE-only melee weapon, which just obliterated Sword PVE specs.

I'm coming to the same conclusion. Hammer is an absolute design failure that clearly shows Anet is not in touch with their game or the Ele community in general.

Hammer is absolute hot garbage in WVW - 2/3rd melee skills, only 6 short-range skills, all of them weak and small AOEs. Compare with e.g. scavenger burst on vindicator - this is a near-spammable, cheap 240 radius 900 range AOE on a 3sec CD. Just one of several good ranged skills on Vindicator when Rev already has multiple good WVW specs. suggested solution: make Hammer earth #5, fire #5, and water #1 skills 600 range cone AOEs, make fire #4 radii 240 not 180, widen angle of fire #2. Staff catalyst is core Ele with an additional field and 2x meteor storms. Problem is a single weaver meteor storm outperforms 2x meteor storms because of multipliers, plus weaver's dual attacks. Other augments are really weak to the point of not being remotely competitive with core ele options, let alone stances. Staff catalyst falls well short of staff weaver as a benchmark. suggested solution: unnerf the coefficient on water augment to not be garbage in WVW. Fixing hammer though to be playabl;e in WVW is probably overall the better option. Dagger catalyst has the most synergy with catalyst because of dagger's auras but it still feels exactly like core Ele with a field. Again, augments and traits do not change the playstyle AT ALL. suggested solution: water augment change above; dagger catalyst probably doesn't need changes. It's prob fine for those who haven't already been playing D/D since release and were hoping for something new to play. Overall as a WVW player, catalyst is really hot garbage in WVW and I'm super disappointed/angry that the design team completely disregarded WVW when working on Catalyst. Especially hammer whose only apparent niche is static raid golems/bosses. Unlike untamed, prob the other worst spec in EOD, untamed has a lot of potential, it's just clunky to play. Hammer OTOH has no potential to be anything other than a raiding weapon, where it will push out marginalise Sword further. It's just horrible design, pls fix.

NO! just remove energy as a mechanic completely. The CD on the field is enough. The energy mechanic SERVES NO PURPOSE as energy is retained between fights anyway. It only serves to make a bad spec worse by forcing you to farm energy on crappy mobs before going for your real fight.

Agree and it's why I'm so incredibly angry and disappointed with hammer being yet another melee bruiser weapon. A super clunky one at that.

Agree. It's really hammer that is the real suck, though having to think about energy and having to place field (instead of point-blank) are both unnecessary.

I think the 3 skills should just be deleted, or at the least triggered by something less obnoxious like on element swap. Already a lot of negative feedback on hammer 3s and hammer in general since beta1 but no substantive changes. Hammer fire 2 is broken and frequently misses targets that are right in front of you. Bug reported in beta2 but still not fixed. 2/3rds melee 1/3rd short-range with 2 melee elements and 2 ranged is a frankly stupid combination that restricts hammer to pve-only. Which means sceptre/staff are still the only ranged options made available to ele in 9 years. Just want to restate that out loud cause still can't believe this is the best that anet can come up with.

This. The whole mechanic is dumb. And what is the point of energy while we're at it. It's totally pointless, since you keep energy between fights. It should just be a CD. Hammer is still total garbage. I can't find a single thing I like about the entire spec.

Hammer is *not* a ranged weapon. 6 of 20 (30%) skills are 600 range, rest are melee. It's a melee weapon.

or maybe you're just inexperienced and craving the new shiny. I don't know any experienced/high-level Eles who think this will be anything but a pure PVE/golem benchmark weapon. It just doesn't have the toolset to be anything but another cele duellist/bunker spec in PVP/WVW, like sword/X but worse.

yeah existing options for Ele are pretty decent like you say. however, many of us have been playng those specs you mention since release. fact is, there hasn't been a new ranged weapon for Ele for ***9 years***. hammer could have been a novel take on a ranged weapon -- 600-900 range, however Anet totally failed to deliver that, instead they made yet another melee weapon that just happens to have a few (kinda bad) ranged skills thrown in as an afterthought. don't get me started on the stupid #3 skills which seem to only exist to pump up practise golem DPS benchmarks.

weaver. catalyst kittening sucks.

I think you're saying it's fun because it's new. The playstyle is not unique, it's just another melee weapon with different animations. The weak mobility and sustain make it weak in sPVP. The lack of range and weak AOE damage make it unuseable in WVW. It's a practise golem weapon good at nothing but PVE benchmarks.

It was given literally at the start of the post:

yeah the thing i was thinking of is warrior hammer #3 - https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Hammer_Shock approx 30 degree, 600 range cone AOE.

the #1 is 3 skills not 1, so while the #2 and #3 are ranged, the 3x #1 skills tip it into the melee bucket IMO. Ele warhorn is a tricky one cause all the "ranged" skills start at melee range and slowly progress to 750 range. I get that this is an imperfect analysis but I was trying to stay as objective as possible. Regardless it's pretty clear that Ele skews more melee than ranged, and that Ele is by far the most melee-oriented of the light caster classes.

mistype, my bad. was supposed to be t'other way round. fixed.

yeah i agree 600 range has its own set of limitations but just having at least a couple more AOE skills (eg: cone AOEs for earth #5, water #1 and maybe fire #5, earth #1) would make a huge difference. agree that it would still be kinda weak/disavantaged in a lot of situations. But with the above changes and maybe 900 range air #2 I think it might be ok. I also think the #3 skills are basically useless but I can't see them ever changing those.