New Elementalist Elite Spec: The Catalyst

[Draconerus.9867]

Super disappointed 😞

[CETheLucid.3964]

4 hours ago, Dracomet.3648 said:

Tempest: Support

Weaver: Melee DPS

Catalyst: Tank/Bruiser?

 

People saying they want ranged DPS spec cause Weaver was too squishy, well, Anet just gave everyone a melee spec that, I am assuming can probably spam protect/block/barrier or something.

You get it. And like every other spec, you very likely don't need to use the hammer and can build something around another weapon set that utilizes the new mechanics of this spec.

[bluberblasen.9684]

what do you think was the range of the hammer ( in the video )?

 

the auto attack could be 180 ( i think it was not 130  ) ?

the jump attack ( with fireshield ) was 180 range ?

the immobilize skill was 360 or little more ?

the celestial creatures ( attunements ) were up to 600 range?

the 100blade animation attack was again 180 range ?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Teratus.2859]

Man I am seeing so many annoyed ele players all over the internet atm.. largely because this is another melee spec.

I can't say I blame them, although I do admit this spec does look fun, I like the whole summoner element and the little magic creatures look pretty cool.

I can't really say I agree with the choice of giving Ele's Hammer.. I do agree with the masses that what Ele needs more than anything is good ranged options.
But hammer.. on a light class?
And not just that but on a light class which is notorious for being super squishy?
That's a real oddball combination if you ask me.. Necro would have been a better fit for Hammer and even then it would have felt a bit off on them too.

At least some of the skills look fun on it, even if the visual element of an Ele swinging a big metal hammer looks a bit dumb lol
Got a good laugh from the start of the video when the Ele went and yolo/yeeted itself off the screen, I expect people are going to have a lot of fun with that one.

[Ya Ya Yeah.7381]

The attack speed looked good and that's the key with melee hammers. I wondering if you get free roam within the wells for enhanced damage, because the wells looked good sized. I'm hopeful for a good beta for this one. 🙂 It looked power oriented. 

Cross your fingers for a trait that will allow them for more HP.

[Gorani.7205]

If I had to pick one thing from the trailer, than it is the re-skin  of  the"old Overcharged Shot" from Engineer (the one with the knock back on yourself), which I see myself throwing me off platforms and bridges in the future, wondering why Anet removed such a mechanic from Overcharged Shot and that Ranger sword attack in the past (for good reasons). 😂

[Nubilus.9156]

My two cents after playing 1000 hours of Elementalist and both elite specs over the last 6 years:

 

Elementalist is a very squishy, relatively hard to learn (with all the elements and such) and support reliant class.

If you want to deal damage you die if someone looks at you weird. If you want to be tanky your damage suffers greatly.

And playing support feels weak. Theres better options.

 

Tempest (Mid to close range): While being aimed as a support class it feels outmatched with others like druid or chronomancer.

Not quite enough boon giving skills to be effective on their own. Decent with a team.

 

Weaver (All ranges, Melee most effective): Very complex rotation of elements, High Risk, High Reward. If you can catch something off-guard it dies. If it notices you halfway through your combo and sneezes in your general direction... You die. Also most fun I had playing elementalist when I WASN'T dead lol.

 

Now, seeing just ANOTHER melee oriented DPS (taken from the press post earlier in this topic) elite spec is breaking my heart.

It seemed full of potential. Slinging orbs like Lacrosse or playing tricks with the ball like a Kendama, which honestly would've been culturally apropriate with the asian theme of Cantha. Give us either ranged hammer or more survivability in melee.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

At this point I am wondering how exactly they're going to differentiate this from the weaver without just making it a better weaver.  It takes an awful lot just to make the weaver function at a basic level.  They need a bunch of extra health to survive (whether that be in barrier or real health), enhanced swiftness and superspeed to catch and kite things, or barring all of that so much vigor to dodge endlessly.  Their utilities include a double dodge + stunbreak + superspeed, and double stability + 5k extra health.  Nobody takes Elements of Rage or Weaver's Prowess in PvP/WvW, because the other traits are outright necessary to survive.  All of these will still pose a challenge for the Catalyst:  How will you catch things to melee them, and how will you survive given Ele's inherent squishyness?

 

From the PVE side, my only concern is that the catalyst will just make everything else obsolete.  I went over this in another thread, but ele utilities and traits are extremely selfish.  To maintain competitive damage the ele has to build themselves like this:

Traits: 3 selfish damage buffs, repeat for each line

Utilities: 3 highest damage inflicting utilities. 

There is no toolbox.  Worst part is, Ele PVE damage is balanced under this expectation, so all of our skills actually do less damage than everyone else.  This is actually my biggest criticism of the elementlaist: if you consider all of the additional utilities, group buffs, and boons that other professions bring alongside of the damage they bring, then the ele is the worst PVE profession in the game.  It offers no meaningful utilities, group buffs, enemy debuffs, or unique control effects, it is incredibly frail, and it gives out mediocre DPS.  The only reason why anyone plays ele in PVE is because it is fun.

My fear is that they'll use the catalyst to try and fix this instead of trying to fix this for the elementalist as a whole.  If they give the catalyst more damage, weaver is now obsolete because damage is literally the only thing it does.  If they give the catalyst something like group quickness or group alacrity, then the tempest is obsolete because now the catalyst will just do the job better.  

[Kiyo Reiryu.8703]

1 hour ago, CETheLucid.3964 said:

You get it. And like every other spec, you very likely don't need to use the hammer and can build something around another weapon set that utilizes the new mechanics of this spec.

That’s only if they give this class the same treatment as Weaver and allotting is new skills for our other weapons. Primarily staff. 

[genjonah.1253]

I have not been good at elementalist or any of their elites in GW2, which I always found a bummer because it’s what I first played through GW1 and was my main for the longest time (until I found my love of Ritualist and Imbagon, much later into the game), so I largely gave up on the profession 

 

however, I am LOVING the aesthetic involved in this, so I am hoping the difficulty curve isn’t too high, I’d love playing this in strikes, WvW, maybe even lower tier raids

[Artyport.2084]

anyone notice that there are times you are not attuned to anything.

Usually the ele has a ring to show what element they are in while attuened but there are times in combat where this character is attuned to nothing at all.

I think this could mean we get arcane skills naturally but can agment atleast some skills with our augment skills!

 

[Flaming.4250]

Initial responce to this class is Oh dear. I will need to play this class in beta before rendreing my final assesment on the class but it is not looking good.

I will just have to see how well it works with secpter and staff otherwise I will be sticking with the Tempist.

[fuzzyp.6295]

14 minutes ago, Artyport.2084 said:

anyone notice that there are times you are not attuned to anything.

Usually the ele has a ring to show what element they are in while attuened but there are times in combat where this character is attuned to nothing at all.

I think this could mean we get arcane skills naturally but can agment atleast some skills with our augment skills!

 

I went back and watched it again, you might be on to something. It could be maybe there is a kind of base state for the Catalyst and when you attune or use your augments you active the typical elemental skills? Kind of like how you need a Catalyst to get a chemical reaction going 🙂 Haha

It seems the most visible in the scene fighting the Naga. He attunes to fire, gets fire aura but no fire ring around his wrists until he uses his agument. I hope its not just a developer bug.

Edited September 16, 2021 by fuzzyp.6295

[Artyport.2084]

5 minutes ago, fuzzyp.6295 said:

I went back and watched it again, you might be on to something. It could be maybe there is a kind of base state for the Catalyst and when you attune or use your augments you active the typical elemental skills? Kind of like how you need a Catalyst to get a chemical reaction going 🙂 Haha

It seems the most visible in the scene fighting the Naga. He attunes to fire, gets fire aura but no fire ring around his wrists until he uses his agument. I hope its not just a developer bug.

 

Yeah it would be like a natural arcane form then you augment your skills to change how they wold function. 

see he does the hammer smash twice. When attuned to fire it burns but when attuned to earth its an aoe immob.

 

also just numbers wise iits more work for to make skills for all 5 elements of the hammer for each element that it would to create new skills for each current ele weapon.. or just about the same.. havent done the math.

[Downstate.4697]

https://massivelyop.com/2021/09/16/guild-wars-2s-sixth-end-of-dragons-elite-spec-is-the-elementalists-catalyst/

 

The well is an f5 and utilities are augments

[BlackBeard.2873]

Did anybody else notice that swapping to air seemed to make the well push enemies outwards. 😄 That is exactly what I want in my melee spec - to push enemies away from me so I can then try to chase them back down.

 

On the plus side, in pvp we might get decap ele!

[Eddbopkins.2630]

It saddens me its a hammer/mele weapon ideology. Im interested in seeing how this spec works with staff and scepter.

Edited September 16, 2021 by Eddbopkins.2630

[KinkyPotato.4219]

I think you'll be able to find a use for it - check out the press kit! 

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/vfz8nbokjkyq5ro/AADTzUrT480cU2aagG22OKjAa?dl=0&preview=Elite+Specialization+Beta+2+press+brief.pdf

[fuzzyp.6295]

6 minutes ago, KinkyPotato.4219 said:

I think you'll be able to find a use for it - check out the press kit! 

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/vfz8nbokjkyq5ro/AADTzUrT480cU2aagG22OKjAa?dl=0&preview=Elite+Specialization+Beta+2+press+brief.pdf

"Wielding a hammer, the catalyst gains access to a mix of midrange and close - range abilities, allowing it to adapt to the situation at hand. Water and Earth attunemen ts are more melee - focused with some defensive tools for when the catalyst finds itself under pressure, while Fire and Air attunements contain midranged offensive skills to unleash damage on their enemies."

This excites me. Offensive Water and Earth its about time!!!!

[Tempest.8479]

Wow this is actually pretty cool. Hammer as a mixed ranged weapon depending on attunement sounds like a blast, and the interactions between augments and spheres sound like they create the kind of interesting complexities that make me an ele main.

 

Also, as a side note, all three of these specs sound like they're a tier up in complexity from the first beta. Bladesworn and Vindicator sound bananas lol

[Downstate.4697]

I like the idea of augments, but i dont want to micromanage my utilities with my well.  Also it looks like using an earth augment in an air well pulses a push back. Such a powerful affect that I wouldnt have unless running augments. 

[AzuritaBlues.3206]

After some time to digest, I gotta say I'm hyped lol

The self quickness access by itself already makes staff more viable as a ranged option, because the cast times and projectile speed are the main problems with staff design. At least with this boon we can land our hits.

and if the wells have good defensive tools, such as projectile hate tools and stability/prot/healing sources, we'll have a lot of AoE control to go along with it, covering another of staff's weakeness which is how vulnerable we're while using it.

It's nothing as a NEW ranged weapon, but It's definetely something.

Really looking forward to the traits reveal.

 

EDIT:  I've just read the press release, Alac confirmed??

"Augments are the utility skill type of the catalyst. These augments empower the player for a duration oftime with a wide range of effects, including damage bonuses, defense, healing, and even cooldownreduction. Each augment is also associated with an element and can draw power from the Jade Sphere,gaining a bonus effect when used in the area of a matching-element sphere"

Edited September 16, 2021 by talesbfftt.4596

[Tabootrinket.2631]

My first impression was :
Boring and disappointing.

And then I heard "steady presence in melee combat" and it became straight up depressing.

It feels like a bad joke. Like the devs heard everything we said, and purposely did the complete opposite to mock us.
I doesn't help that in the last stream one of the devs joked/slipped about downstate being an ele thing.

I'm gonna wait the beta, but there's a good chance I might go back to my thief since they get a scepter this time around.

[Grand Marshal.4098]

32 minutes ago, FrownyClown.8402 said:

I like the idea of augments, but i dont want to micromanage my utilities with my well.  Also it looks like using an earth augment in an air well pulses a push back. Such a powerful affect that I wouldnt have unless running augments. 

u guys getting cyberaugments from cyberpunk

[otto.5684]

Looked disappointing… Will see how it plays. I hope it is primarily support in pve. Weaver already have both power and condi melee dps covered.