Hammer is weak and slow, two things that spell doom for anything when put together on them. Hammer should either be slow and harder-hitting than average or it should be faster and even still with higher damage than it has now. Hammer also has far less interactivity than other mainhand/fullhand weapons elementalist has access to. It doesn't feel good without actual payoff for how slow it all is nor the seemingly minimal amount of effects hammer projects. There's nothing but damage and a couple conditions, and Water attunement has only one healing skill which leaves it with a lower survivability than average for ele.
The Jade Sphere isn't worth its trouble at this point. Other than quickness there isn't really any value to be gotten from it that can't be had more easily from other sources. Even at full energy it doesn't last long enough to matter in extended fights, it doesn't help in shorter fights because it needs energy to be built up first which you can't do if you or everything else is already dead, and since it changes attunement with you you can't keep whatever buff you want from it for long if you switch off the relevant element. On top of that when the jade sphere does fizz out it goes on another long 15 second cooldown before it can be used again, which is a big problem since augment skills need it for their full effects. With all of the supposed interactions Catalyst is supposed to have with fields and combos it seems very odd that it doesn't actually get very reliable field projection when the sphere is supposed to be something it can rely on.
Augment skills also take too long to cast and their effects don't match the magnitude of other utility skills. The heal skill is especially notable for being extremely weak. The elite augment is extraordinarily underwhelming. It might be passable if the cooldown affected all cooldowns instead of just weapon skills, but at the moment it's not worth using in place of any other elite. The secondary effects of the augments have issues of their own on top of the jade sphere's overall lack of reliable presence. There are too many factors that need to be taken into consideration to have them activate which are unfeasible in proper combat. There are very few scenarios, especially in 80+ content, that allow you to stay in one place enough to get reliable augment casts even if you have your jade sphere active. Augments honestly feel a bit like traits shoved into the form of utility skills rather than actual full abilities.
The traits are lackluster, and for some reason no traits exist that interact with the energy generation mechanic of the jade sphere, something that no other class than elementalist has to deal with. All other energy-reliant classes have ways to augment and customize their resource generation, but now that elementalist has a resource of its own it doesn't have anything meaningful to do what other resource-based classes and specializations can. Aside from that the traits for Catalyst overall don't seem impactful in any way.
Overall it feels like the Catalyst is an elite spec constructed out of good intentions that mash horribly with each other, creating a huge and unfulfilling mess. The ideas are good, but the execution is downright awful and it makes one question if these specs are actually tested outside of benchmarking in ideal, safe conditions with golems that aren't also trying to kill you as hard as you are them.
