Shadow Phage.9084

Catalyst was one of the beta specs I was most interested in trying. It, unfortunately, became one of the most disappointing beta specs that I've tried. Thoughts on Catalyst: --Played it a little bit; stopped playing it because I did not like it as it currently exists. --Pointless complexity. Could have renamed it from Catalyst to Excessive Resource Management. --Catalyst reads as an Auramancer spec, but Tempest already does that and arguably does it better. It also reads like it wants to be a combo-centric(field and finisher) spec, but doesn't really have the tools to do it. --It ends up feeling like a bit of Tempest mixed with mostly Core-spec with extra steps and nothing truly gameplay changing. --It also feels like its trying to do too many different things simultaneously, and has come out mediocre at all of them. Specific Gripes: --For a class designed around combos and auras, it has a decidedly limited ability to generate either with its E-Spec specific weapon and utilities. --Hammer has four finishers, one for each Attunement (3 blast, 1 leap), no fields, and no way to transmute your auras. --I don't get why Hammer 3 needs a 4-Attunement mini-game. --I also don't understand why Jade Sphere is triply resource taxed by: Energy (twice), and a longish cooldown. You are taxed to deploy it (Energy, i.e. Ele Adrenaline); taxed again if you recall it early (lose all Energy), and taxed a 3rd time by cooldown. --Augments don't seem to have the proper power levels for jumping through all the hoops to get their bonus effects (Jade Sphere deployed + Attunement + matching Augment.) That's a lot of opportunity cost for what are generally poor payouts. --Augments do not interact with your traits. At all. --Hammer skills have enormous tells. Not really a problem in PvE, but in PvP it does matter. Personal Suggestions: --Don't tax Jade Sphere so heavily. Especially get rid of the recall tax. That tax has no place in a game based on mobility. --Give augments some traits. Also, make them less dependent on aligning the stars for their bonus effects. --Give augments finishers, or something else to spice them up. --Go HAM on the combo-centric part of the spec. Make Catalyst THE combo specialist of Elementalist, instead the sorta-Tempest/sorta-Core/sorta-combo-master its currently trying to be. Move some of its aura power into fields and finishers. ----Try crazy stuff, such as allowing Catalysts finishers to combo off of each type of field present, simultaneously. ----Make Jade Sphere STACK field types on Attunement swap, rather than replacing them. Don't need to stack damage ticks. ----Make Hammer THE combo field/finisher weapon set for Elementalist.

Initial thoughts (general PvE, though some will apply to sPvP/WvW as well): TL:DR: Spec has mobility, but doesn't have anything to follow that mobility up with. Skills are clunky. Traits are largely a set of bad trade-offs with some being obvious upgrades. Animations, VFX, and SFX are ok. None of the Willbender Utilities can be used underwater. -Off-Hand sword skills feel bad. Sword 4 is slow. Its almost feels like its not worth using at its current animation speed. Sword 5 fails to best-effort shadowstep toward the target unlike pretty much every other teleport attack. -Virtues aren't that usable. Willbender Flames' damage is low. Virtues are giving up a lot of utility for what is basically extra damage and boon procs, but the damage just isn't there, and the procs can sometimes be hard to come by. Trading their passives buffs/boons for actives and triggers is fine, but the odds of triggering them against anything mobile is near zero. F1 is super clunky. The lag time between the dash and the punch is enormous. The range is also not great. F2 is mostly just a condi cleanse, unless you take Phoenix Protocol. F3 Honestly, not entirely sure why its a shadowstep. -Right-side skill bar skills Reversal of Fortune: It only stops the damage, none of the secondary effects, such as knockdowns/knockbacks/conditions. The healing is laughably low if you don't get hit. Honestly not sure why I should take it over Litany of Wrath or Shelter. Flash Combo //Repose: Flip-over skills needing everything to hit are fine, but where's the payout? It is significantly weaker than Fist Flurry in exchange for what, a shadowstep and a return shadowstep? Feels like it needs something more, maybe unblockable or cripple. Roiling Light: Honestly, needs to remove movement impairing effects like most backwards evade skills have. That's my largest complaint. Whirling Light: Feels like it needs more damage, and/or longer range. Animation is cool though. Heaven's Palm: Range is short, damage is low, utility (KD and KB) honestly aren't worth the cooldown. 4sec KD in PvE is largely pointless, and overkill in PvP (if its not immediately stun-broken.) Animation is ok. Feel like the hand needs to be a bit larger though. -Traits Adept tier: I would only use 2 of these. --Boon Pact: Useful with Phoenix Protocol. Spec is already fairly selfish, seems like the obvious choice. --Power for Power: If not going Phoenix Protocol, seems like the obvious choice. --Conceited Curate: Honestly don't think this is worth taking. Master tier: Somewhat usable. --Restorative Virtues: Largely only good if you're constantly cancelling active virtues. --Holy Reckoning: I guess it would be good against hordes of enemies? The damage increase doesn't mean a lot since Flames don't have high base damage anyways. The healing obviously scales better with more targets. The problem is that the spec wants to move around, while Flames wants you to largely sit in one spot and have your target sit in one spot. --Vanguard Tactics: I can see it being usable for the extra boons, and Resistance on shadowsteps is nice. Related: you need to update the guardian teleport skills of Symbol of Blades(MH sword 2) and Judge's Intervention to say they shadowstep. Grandmaster tier: The good, the bad, and the ugly. --Phoenix Protocol: This feels like an obvious PvE choice. the healing on Resolve is not great, and trading it for Alacrity honestly feels like a clear upgrade. Probably will be pointless in PvP as you won't be able to trigger it very often. --Tyrant's Momentum: Honestly, the damage buff probably isn't worth the trade-off of harder to maintain stacks. You gain a 10% increase in damage for a 33% reduction in buff time. Yes, it is theoretically offset by Justice having a 2 second longer duration, but you need to be proc'ing it for that to matter. --Deathless Courage: Going to be honest; haven't played with it, but it looks bad. You are trading a guaranteed block (1 aegis from activation, and X number of proc aegis) for the ability to not go into down-state. You are trading negating 1 attack and all its secondary effects for not going into down state. I am struggling to see a scenario where this is a good trade-off.

Early Impressions (general PvE): -The not great: Blight feels not great. The %HP lost feels far too high and the stacks persist for too long, especially on a class with relatively low defensive power and no Blight Stack management. Also, it just kind of...exists. Its not something you actively feel building and fading like Holosmith Heat, Druid CA Form, Warrior Adrenaline, etc. That said, the green corruption VFX on the character model is nice. Elixir icons tell me nothing about what they do. They give no clues as to their effects/function. Smaller nitpick, they don't share the Necromancer theme of green icons. Traits are too unfocused. The Power ones (top line), feel out of place. From a gameplay perspective, power Harbinger feels weaker than power Core, and significantly weaker than power Reaper. I would suggest reworking the power traits into something more in-line with the thematics of the spec (which seem to be condi damage and utility). Perhaps a more self-defense focused line instead of power would be better. -The needs-something-more: Blight needs a better health bar indicator, maybe something like Barrier, but green to be thematic. Blight stack management is nonexistent other than "Don't go into shroud; don't use elixirs". Active management with skills/traits that could add/remove stacks would be nice. Elixirs are underwhelming, and, unfortunately, uninteresting. I feel they need something else to make them more interesting. -The good: Harbinger Shroud healing mechanic is an interesting take. Sustain is quite high with certain trait combos. Visuals are great. Pistol seems like a solid condi damage weapon, and the skills feel nice. That said, it kind of feels out of place. The rest of the spec seems like it wants to be melee, while the pistol wants you to sit at range. Maybe main-hand mace/sword would be a better fit?