Swiftwynd.1685

Anyone else feel a little off that we have "Blade Songs" but nothing actually music related? I'd love to see at least some F5 mechanic that gains a unique effect based on your last three shatters, similar to how Recital works in the Monster Hunter Hunting Horn! Would at least add some additional layer of complexity to an otherwise "mostly downsides" Shatter changes with the elite spec.

Catalyst certainly feels like it has good potential, but it is still not quite there. I suggest a reasonable overhaul that requires *minimal* changes to UI and no changes to visuals of current abilities, to realistically fit within the very tight 2 months deadline. Consensus of most of the feedback on this thread seems to be: F5 "orb summoning" should be moved to the Attunement buttons ala Overloads on Tempest, and that it should only have a SUPER brief delay after attunement, not the lengthy 1.5 seconds. Perhaps .5 seconds to prevent an accidental double click This would Free Up F5 to have a new mechanic. Most people seem to agree that the Orbs from Hammer 3 are super cool and iconic, BUT that they feel very weird to linked directly to the Hammer itself and that they feel much more like an Elite Specialization mechanic. The current theme does ***not*** match the very unqiue Canthan tradition of venerating celestial beings / starts / constellations. With minimal naming convention changes and focusing on the Orbs, you could make this elite specialzation exceptionally more "Canthan" in origin, more Closer to the Stars! Aura traits feel EXTREMELY out of place and cause visual clutter, and remove some of the unique aspects of playing Tempest. As such, I think a VERY cool feature to change the UI and mechanics with the least amount of effort for maximum playability and thematic improvement could be as follows: Celestial Spheres New Minor Adept Trait: Celestial Mastery "While Attuned you may Coalesce the elements into persistent Celestial Arrays to create fields that damage foes, enhance allies, and generate Celestial Energy. Expiring Arrays become Celestial Spheres that orbit you while consuming Celestial Energy. You may activate Convergence to hurl them at foes. Gain access to Augments." Full breakdown: You now now have a single, larger energy bar (similar to Adrenaline) above your attunements called Celestial Energy, and immediately below this new bar you have four circles similar to the Mesmer's Clones positioned above each Attunement. While attuned, you active Attunement is replaced with "Coalesce Fire/Air/Water/Earth" to summon the Celestial Array field at the ground target location, just as we currently can by using F5. The Coalesce abilities share a 5 second cooldown, with a 5 second field duration. These otherwise remain completely unchanged (besides no longer having an energy cost). The Celestial Energy bar energy bar fills as the Celestial Array deals damage to foes and applies boons to allies. After your Celestial Array field expires, you automatically draw a Celestial Sphere of the corresponding Element into your orbit, exactly like Hammer 3 currently on live, but it consumes Celestial Energy over time to maintain (replacing the current "duration" of the Hammer 3 style orbs.) This is displayed in the UI as filling the clone-like circle above each Attunement. If your Celestial Energy becomes depleted, you lose your orbiting Celestial Spheres. By default, you can only have one Celestial Sphere of each attunement active at a time, so no multiple Fire Celestial Spheres for example. Mechanically, each Celestial Sphere will only impact each foe once per revolution (really only matters for larger targets such as raids) to make hit-box variation not impact damage performance. F5 now becomes Convergence, launching all Celestial Orbs at your foe (unchanged from Live's Hammer 3 Finale). You gain a bonus effect for launching four unique elements. Augments: Instead of gaining bonuses while inside your Celestial Arrays like live, these provide their bonus effects while you have a Celestial Sphere of the corresponding element in your orbit. This significantly improves their capabilities in mobile situations, and requires advanced planning / player skill in the dynamic of determining to "wait" for the Celestial Sphere or to use it without it for an emergency. Hammer: This frees up Hammer 3 to fill in any "gaps" the weapon is missing, particularly for PVP/WvW where the lack of engage/disengage/sustain mechanics harm the weapon's viability. Sadly, this would require new abilities and art / reused animations to be designed and implemented, but at least it is only four skills. Trait Revamp: The new theme and mechanics open up a wealth of cool trait space, as another criticism players have noted is a lack of interesting Traits that change the playstyle and are just "numbers." Minor Traits Celestial Mastery - (new) Minor Adept - See above. Basic core of the Elite Spec. Closer To The Stars - (new) Minor Master - While a Celestial Sphere is in orbit, it provides passive benefits. Fire - +5% improved Strike and Condition Damage, gain 10% Power and Condition Damage. Air - +7% Critical Chance, 10% Precision and Ferocity, gain 10% Precision and Ferocity. Water -5% Incoming Condition Damage, gain 10% Healing Power and Concentration, Earth - 5% Incoming Strike Damage, gain 10% Expertise and Vitality Catalyze Elements (new) - Minor Grandmaster - Executing a combo finisher in your Celestial Array, generates 10 energy. Limit of once per Array. Major Traits Major Adepts - These augment the basic playstyle of your Celestial Arrays and how they generate Celestial Energy. Domain of Destruction (new) - Your Celestial Arrays have an increased radius when harming foes and can target additional foes (10) but no longer generate Celestial Energy from applying boons and have a 33% increase cooldown. Domain of Enervation (new) - Your Celestial Arrays have reduced cooldown (33%) and generate additional Celestial Energy when simultaneously harming foes and providing boons to allies (+33%). Domain of Compassion (new) - Your Celestial Arrays have an increased radius when applying Boons to allies and can target additional allies (10) but no longer generate Celestial Energy from harming foes and have a 33% increase cooldown. Major Master - These augment the basic playstyle of your Celestial Spheres. Provides options for raw damage builds, ranged builds, and condition/boon enhancing builds (which work even as a primary dps who just wants to help aid their raid at a small damage loss!) Wheel of Ages - Gain 2.5% additional strike and condition damage for 10 seconds each time you generate a Celestial Sphere, refreshing this duration and stacking up to 4 times. Gain double this effect for 5 seconds after using Convergence with four spheres. Apex Apogee (new) - Celestial Spheres now project outward 900 units in an elliptical orbit the direction you are facing and rapidly return as part of their revolution. Damage, conditions, and boons are extended by 33% on foes hit beyond 600 units on the apogee of the orbit. Convergence deals 50% increased strike damage and condition duration on targets beyond 600 units and becomes Unblockable and 1200 unit range. Universal Catalyst (new) - Celestial Spheres now extend boons and conditions on all targets once per revolution by 1/4 second per sphere on up to 10 allied and 10 enemy targets. Major Grandmaster - These capstone traits provide extremely unique changes, promoting certain build options that can work with any of the other traits. This enables a playstyle option of "playing all attunements" vs "playing one attunement" vs "support of boons." Singularity (new) - Celestial Spheres may now stack from a single element and reduce the cooldown of the Attunement Weapon Skills by 10% per matching Celestial Sphere. Closer To The Stars has 50% reduced effect but can now stack. Augment skills gain 100% increased duration from their additional duration effects if used with four matching spheres. (E.G. 4 Fire Celestial Spheres = +6s bonus to Relentless Fire instead of +3s) Ancestral Syzygy (new) - Celestial Spheres consume less Celestial Energy while four unique Spheres are in orbit and the effects from Closer To The Stars are doubled. Convergence becomes "Alignment" which consumes all active Spheres to enhance your attributes by 30% for 3 seconds per unique Sphere consumed. (Syzygy is a REAL word for planetary alignment and one of my favorite words in existence!) Sphere Empowering Specialist - Remains the same, but additionally applies to all boons from Celestial Spheres and Celestial Arrays, and gains the additional boons effects previously noted on Spectacular Sphere.

From a pure PVE raid benchmark perspective, and to potentially balance it in other modes, I think Hammer 3 skills should have a limit of hitting each foe ONCE per rotation. It looks like from preliminary testing from Roul that standing inside of a hitbox causes significantly more impacts per second from the orb rotations. If this was changed to once-per-revolution-per-foe then it would likely standardize the DPS for all hitboxes I'd think, and would let you not have to be literally up the foe's butt for it to function well lol.

I disagree entirely. There *is* room for multiple "damage focused" elite specializations on a single class provided that: 1. They play distinctly from each other. 2. They have pros and cons, and situations where one is superior to the other. If we compare berserker and bladesworn, we have: Berserker: Viable Condition Spec, decent Power Spec. Playstyle is fast and frenetic, quickly dishing out bursts Relies on damage windows of opportunity during Berserk. Has good CC contribution for break bars. Suffers little to bring Banners. Works fairly well in mobile encounters for raids/strikes and fairs well in open world. Very good AOE. vs. Bladesworn: Viable only as a Power spec, no Condi option that is playable. Playstyle is slow and deliberate, building up to huge damage spikes, but is all or nothing. Relies on steady playstyle of Flow and generating damage in bursts, but has no "downtime" of the flow. Has poor CC contribution for break bars. Significantly suffers in Flow generation if taking Banners. Works very poorly in mobile encounters for raids/strikes, but excels in stationary / telegraphed fights. Very good AOE as well provided the foes are clumped and stationary. They are distinct enough to work well together, and offer very different playstyles. Its like comparing Dual Blades vs Longsword in Monster Hunter World. One is more "spamy" ala Berserker and the other is very methodical and timing based, ala bladesworn. I'm really enjoying bladesworn as it is, and with some more tweaks, I feel like it will have a good place. I don't think it can replace Berserker as the Banner Boi, so it shouldn't make them obsolete in Raids.

Honestly not a bad idea. The idea of how it would function (since the current is ground target) could be wonky, but it definitely would be good. I played a bit more today vs constant hydra vets in Oasis, and I really got the hang of it after a while and it DOES feel exceptionally satisfying to land your stuff and avoid the hydras. That said, I was using Marauder with health shouts and the stability stance. That made it significantly easier than going without the Stab stance. Building flow with shout heals and ult is *very* easy to do, didnt even need Flow Control... and it was absolutely tanky as hell. Several times I survived two hydras + a dustmite, something almost no other build I've tried can reliably do.

Reading through the feedback and with some play time myself, I think one consistently requested feature / feedback is being unable to dodge during Dragon Trigger stance. I think it would be amazingly cool and in-theme if using dodge during Dragon Trigger did a quick "shift" of your position with a unique animation, like a "zipping" forward, sideways, or backwards, which is a common trope in the Iai stance in anime and other games. Similar to how Revenant has their themed dodge with their misty step, or thief with their base dodge having a unique sound effect (not to mention Daredevil's unique dodges!) Basically a "faster" dodge, with less evasion time, but that repositions you quickly, similar to what the short range blink is trying to accomplish. If implemented well, you may be able to remove that skill entirely and introduce something else. I think having the following 5 skills in Dragon Trigger would be really awesome to improve its Flow and potency in PVP and make it more usable in PVE as well: (totally ripping from Monster Hunter longsword) 1. Dragon Slash - Force - Keep this as is, obviously addressing the abysmally low damage in PVP. 2. Dragon Slash - Boost - Same as above, address PVP damage. Please consider making this end at the foe when hit, OR slash through them and about-face the camera if ending up past the foe after the hit. (MHW does this with its version) 3. Dragon Slash - Reach - Consider adding a brief control element. Cripple, Immobilize, and Stun depending on the charge. 4. Dragon Slash - Triggerguard - Replace this with a Block counter attack that teleports you to the foe, dealing increased damage based on charge. Have this refund Flow or Bullets to make the next charge quicker to access. This is great for situations with unavoidable raid damage interrupting your attack, or when someone tries to counter you in PVP. 5. Dragon Slash - Flow Control - Interrupts Dragon Slash charge, gain Evasion and Superspeed for .5 second per bullet charged, and granting Flow or Bullets for each Evaded attack. This would be the ultimate "kitten I HAVE to move" option, allowing you to reposition and rejuvenate some Flow or Bullets to reset for the next attempt. With the above changes, you would still have a very stationary weapon design for the burst that rewards being able to get off a full charge in melee range, but also allows for "less great options" when the situation changes during that attempt. It would enable quick reactions to a changing battle situation, while still heavily rewarding good timing of when you attempt to get off the perfect hit.

Ight, feedback brief, suggestions a bit more detailed: Pressing an additional skill, F5, feels terrible after playing years of Elementalist/Tempest/Weaver. It just does. There is no rational for why a new button was added when, Weaver, proves we can just tack it on to an existing attunement button. We get a new mechanic, Energy, that is not explained well. The UI bar is tiny, and gives no numerical data on the amount without moussing over it. Generating Energy from empty feels absolutely abysmal, and resetting to zero in-between fights even more so. The Jade Sphere mechanic is stationary, slow to build, and does not play nice with the rest of the kit. It is a mechanic without ... mechanics to interact with it. This is a huge missed opportunity for making the specialization more interesting, complex, and fluid! The Hammer has fantastic *potential* but needs value adjustments, more Finishers where they make sense, and for the 3 skills to be standardized to be "valuable" in each attunement and on different sized hitboxes to prevent Raid Target viability swings. The variable "ranges" of melee to mid range is a fantastic idea, and will need some modest tweaks to make it work better than what we have now. Augments currently offer nothing of strategic value, and really don't "interact" with the Jade Sphere other than "missing out" on value if not used inside it *while* in an specific attunement. Absolute missed opportunity to have them impact the Jade Sphere itself. To address all of the above, with minimal changes needed to respect the workload of the development team, I propose the following: Jade Sphere and Energy Changes Deployment - Jade Sphere is deployed by pressing the attunement button you are currently attuned to, which spawns the Jade Sphere at your location. Repositioning - While the Jade Sphere is Deployed, pressing the Attunement button allows the sphere to be Repositioned up to 900 range to a ground targeted location at a cost of 10 Energy. (Ventari Tablet style movement) This helps with both movement and with using the Sphere on ranged weapons. Energy Bar UI - moved above the attunements, structured like Revenant resource mechanic. Energy Threshold - Energy resets to 25 while out of combat, with a maximum Energy cap of 50 while in combat (current is 30). Energy Generation - Energy is now gained strictly from gaining Elemental Empowerment. Each new stack +5 Energy. This includes the 15s cooldown that adds 3 Elemental Empowerment stacks baked into the minor trainline (So a free 15 Energy every 15 seconds essentially.) Energy Consumption - The current consumption of 2 Energy per second to maintain the Jade Sphere would remain, but the option to reposition the Sphere as mentioned above provides a new strategic energy cost if needed . Hammer 3 Orb Adjustments Variable Orbit Radius - The orbital radius of any active orbs now adjusts based on the currently active Attunement. The rotational velocity adjusts to ensure the same rate of application is achieved at both close and mid range. Fire and Air - The current orbital radius remains unchanged. Water and Earth - The orbital radius is reduced by 50%, and the rotation speed is reduced by 50% Hit Cap Limit - Each orb now has a maximum hit cap of 3 times per orb per target, and this resets when new orbs from another attunement are added. This ensures the same or close to the same values on small and large hitbox targets. This also rewards good timing on activating the next attunement's orb. Duration - Each orb now has a base duration of 8 seconds, which resets with the next orb application. Rotation velocity should be sufficient that an orb would be able to hit a stationary target three times over its 8 second duration. Addressing Missing Combo Finishers on Hammer: Hammer 2: Finishers - All hammer 2 skills will now include a Finisher, to ensure each Attunement has access to at least two Finishers total: Surging Flames (Fire) - Projectile Finisher Rain of Blows (Water) - Blast Finisher - add a final hit similar to 100-Blades on Warrior to improve damage and add blast. Hurricane of Pain (Air) - Whirl Finisher Whirling Stones (Earth) - Whirl Finisher Hammer 3: Grand Finale - Each Orb is a Projectile Finisher Augments - Making them Useful and Interesting! Modal Usage - Augments now have two primary uses, each of which supports the Jade Sphere and Energy system by either repositioning the Sphere or generating Energy depending on the context. Base Effects - Augments will have a base effect that happens no matter what, which matches the current live Augment's "if used in right attunement and inside orb" effect baked into them as their core functionality. Positioning - When any Augment is used while the Catalyst is outside of their Jade Sphere, it will immediately position the Sphere to their current location. It will activate its normal ability components as well. Energy Generation - When an Augment is used while the Catalyst is inside their Jade Sphere and it matches the element of the Attunement, the Augment will generate 2 Elemental Empowerment stacks (+10 Energy) in addition to its normal effects. This rewards good management of your positioning and Attunement / Augment matching with additional Sphere uptime and stat bonuses. Elemental Celerity (elite) - Now has two Modal effects. It will always reduce weapon cooldowns, will reduce them further Always: Reduces Cooldowns of Weapon Skills by a flat 4 seconds Inside Sphere - Reduces Cooldowns of Weapon Skills by an additional 4 seconds and generates Boons. Outside Sphere - Immediately generates 25 Energy and deploys the Sphere if it is not already deployed (bypasses the normal 15s cooldown). Small Trait Adjustments Depth of Elements (minor) - wording changed to "Build up elemental energy when you generate Elemental Empowerment. Energy is consumed to imbue the Jade Sphere with different elements, creating combo fields and granting boons to allies in the area. Energy can be spent to reposition the Sphere. Gain access to Augments. Elemental Empowerment (minor) - wording changed to "Gain Elemental Empowerment while in combat, which grants a stacking increase to all attributes and generates Energy." The above changes take care of 90% of the "clunky" and unintuitive aspects of Catalyst and allow for the remaining numeric balance adjustments to be tailored as needed to ensure it is viable in raids, open world, pvp et al. The core "idea" behind the Catalyst is fantastic, and with the above changes, it should enable a much more fluid gameplay loop of setting up your combo fields, moving them as needed, managing your energy, ensuring you are landing those finishers, and keeping those Empowered Elements flowing in depending on how you select your Traits and how well you match your Attunement and Augments to manage energy.