Do not make jade sphere wells switch as you switch elements.

[Knuckle Joe.7408]

The demonstration showed us that when you drop a well, it changes as you change elements. That's really bad because if you wanna do a DPS rotation, you most likely will want to drop an air well for the quickness, but then it changes as you change elements... let's say you go to fire for that hammer 4 aoe explosion... what benefit are you gonna get for 3 seconds you were on fire... 3 might?

Or if you go some kind of healer spec, you put down water well and expect to blast it with all your other finishers throughout your elements, but nope, it changes.

I get you devs wanna encourage people to switch thru elements, but please make the well you placed be the element you used permanently, or at least give us the option. The wells themselves are fantastic, but only if you put them permanently (and that would mean sticking to one element). If your wells is changing every 3 secs with your attunement, there's hardly any advantage to these..
 

 

Edited September 19, 2021 by Knuckle Joe.7408

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

Yeah it's a bit annoying because hammer in fire attunement seems to not have fire field. Or most of precedent combos could be spoiled if you do it in the F5 aoe (Like with evasive arcana with earth attunement, or dagger/dagger etc). But I think it's also part of the tradeoff, we should wait the beta test week-end.

[Zunki.3916]

It should not change the element, and the f5 should replace the sphere and reset the element, not removing it. Adjust the cd accordingly per gamemode to make it not op.

[HotDelirium.7984]

WHY do we have to have builds and  traits mainly about cycling ALL four elements....there is such a thing as a one element mage and I don't care for other elements so why do we have to be punished with less viable builds because we aren't interested in other elements?

Also, to appease the range frustration I think each auto attack should be a ranged attack like how it is for fire.

Edited September 20, 2021 by HotDelirium.7984

[Kodama.6453]

There is the other side, too, tho....

The spec is designed around the idea of having an plethora of different combo fields available to combo with. They put emphasis during the stream how you will be able to cast your combo skills (many blast finishers in that hammer kit), during channel you then switch to another element to change the well into the desired combo field.

With your suggestion to make the well "fixed" in it's element, that dynamic gameplay is lost. You can no longer adjust your comboes by swapping to the correct combo field during the channel time of your finisher, you just have 1 combo field available then. You cast the air well to get the quickness? All you get is the lightning combo field for vulnerability/daze/swiftness then. Can't switch to fire to get burn/aura/might, can't switch to water to get regeneration/healing, can't switch to earth for poison/weakness.

I personally like how they designed it with the well switching elements, the gameplay seems way more interesting than having a fire and forget single element well.

[Downstate.4697]

38 minutes ago, Kodama.6453 said:

There is the other side, too, tho....

The spec is designed around the idea of having an plethora of different combo fields available to combo with. They put emphasis during the stream how you will be able to cast your combo skills (many blast finishers in that hammer kit), during channel you then switch to another element to change the well into the desired combo field.

With your suggestion to make the well "fixed" in it's element, that dynamic gameplay is lost. You can no longer adjust your comboes by swapping to the correct combo field during the channel time of your finisher, you just have 1 combo field available then. You cast the air well to get the quickness? All you get is the lightning combo field for vulnerability/daze/swiftness then. Can't switch to fire to get burn/aura/might, can't switch to water to get regeneration/healing, can't switch to earth for poison/weakness.

I personally like how they designed it with the well switching elements, the gameplay seems way more interesting than having a fire and forget single element well.

If anything the way they designed it is fire and forget. It makes you have to commit to one spot which isnt realistic in many scenerios. Also, I think having the field persist when you change attunements allows much more flexibility with the use of augments and skills. All you would do to get a new field is redeploy in a new spot in the new attunement.

[Kodama.6453]

14 minutes ago, FrownyClown.8402 said:

If anything the way they designed it is fire and forget. It makes you have to commit to one spot which isnt realistic in many scenerios. Also, I think having the field persist when you change attunements allows much more flexibility with the use of augments and skills. All you would do to get a new field is redeploy in a new spot in the new attunement.

Why you think it isn't realistic in many scenarios?

The only game mode I think this is really problematic is WvW, since zerg fights are all about movement of the zerg. But the other game modes will do just fine.

In PvE, many bosses are stationary to begin with, so having to commit to a spot isn't problematic. In PvP, you have to fight for the nodes anyway and as far as I know, the well actually even completely covers a node and it has a pretty long duration. So to defend points, it seems that this might be a pretty good tool.

Can't see how this is fire and forget. The way it is designed currently, it requires way more decision making than just putting the quickness well down and stop bothering with the well all together as long as you don't want to specifically combo with a lightning field.

Another point to consider: the utility skills are designed to combo with a specific element, except the elite which works with all and just grants different boons based on the chosen element. The well has a pretty long cooldown to place down anew, so if you have chosen the air well, for example, then this is a pretty long time to get locked out of the combo potential for the 2 water based utility comboes, for example.

Making the well not switch the element would break the elite spec, in my opinion, since it is designed around this core feature.

[Downstate.4697]

In pvp the catalyst isnt going to have the capability to sit on the node for long periods of time. Catalyst is a boon support so might be a decent team fighter, but as a duelist you run into many situations where you need to kite off point. Lets say you need to heal and run away. A water field in the direction youre going seems much more beneficial. 

 

The only scenerio I see catalyst seeing use is as a support that gives allies protection and stability with aura share and blasts water fields a lot. Staff would work decent since it can blast from ranged and support even off node.

 

From a Wvw percpective the f5 would constantly go on cd when you need to stow it. You would be stuck in 1 attunement to give the boons you want, which is counter intuitive to providing stability through aura share.

 

I disagree with you, but I acknowledge I can be wrong. I just think the f5 holds back its potential in how it currently functions.

[Jski.6180]

It would be nice if you could at least set it to stay on you or move it during combat. Sadly the live steam did not realty cover it the "cheat" they used realty gave it a distorted preview. I have a feeling we will know more on the 21. It maybe better to wait till then for real push for fixes.

[fuzzyp.6295]

To be honest, I think the point of Catalyst is less about the pulsing effects of the area AoEs and more about just having a variety of fields to combo into with different effects. Having it change when you swap attunements makes sense to offer a variety of effects that you can combo into. After all, as nice as it might be in some game modes to have a single pulsing AoE of Quickness, I also see the usefulness knowing I can swap into Water for a combo to heal myself or combo into Poison to weaken enemies attacking me.

Perhaps they could change the Sphere Specialist trait line so that in addition to increase boon duration, the field will also linger for an extra few seconds before swapping to your current element. That could be a nice middle ground and add more support based value. You'd have to trade off the extra effectiveness of Elemental Empowerment for longer fields and boons for allies.. I think that could work, yeah?

Edited September 19, 2021 by fuzzyp.6295

[Zunki.3916]

2 hours ago, Kodama.6453 said:

 

In PvE, many bosses are stationary to begin with, so having to commit to a spot isn't problematic.

W1: first boss not stationary

W2: First boss not stationary, third boss not stationary

W3: Third boss not stationary

W4: Second and fourth boss not stationary

W5: LOL

W6: Largos not stationary, Quadim is doable

W7: The only wing where there seems to be no problem. 

 

That also implies that Cata cannot be a quick provider sadly. And that bothers me the most. We finally got a much needed group wide buff but there is no way to apply it. Well done Anet, really well done.

Edited September 19, 2021 by Zunki.3916

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

With alacrity you have your field after ~12sec. May be it is also affected by arcane !?

 

Plus anyway the field asks you to stay in air affinity all the time to grant quickness ... it's just bad even before theorycraft.

[AppleSauce.4578]

Maybe they could add a trait that keeps your circle the same for 4 seconds after switching attunements, but that countdown is reset every time you switch. So for example if you cast your circle in fire, then switched to water for 3 seconds, then switched to air - now you have 4 more seconds of fire circle. You'd have to stay in one element for more than 4 seconds for it to switch to your current element.

[Crazy Nachos.7918]

5 hours ago, Zunki.3916 said:

W1: first boss not stationary

W2: First boss not stationary, third boss not stationary

W3: Third boss not stationary

W4: Second and fourth boss not stationary

It's not gonna be perfect on all of these fights but It's probably perfectly usable on most of these fights. For Vale Guardian for phases 1 and 2 you shouldn't be moving much at all as long as your team has decent damage. On the last phase you do not have to move except every 17-20sec which lines up alright with the 12 sec cooldown. For MO it probably won't be too big of a deal since it should be able to dip into multiple squares. For Deimos he drops an oil every 15 sec which lines pretty nicely with the cooldown, so you can just plop down the well after moving for oils. It should be fine on slothasar too since you shouldn't be constantly moving.

 

Even with that said other quickness supports do not have to deal with this which will make Catalyst a bit more awkward to play on these fights. Being able to move the well to you while it's on CD would be a huge QoL boost for it. I could also see the huge field effects making it a bit awkward to see ground hazards but firebrand already exists so it's probably fine.

 

[SlitheSlivier.1908]

All they need to do is after hitting f5, add the option to toggle f5 as much as you want to "lock" or "unlock" the jade sphere attunement. 

[BlackBeard.2873]

I'm willing to at least try it out as it is, but most likely it would be preferable to be able to deliberately choose which field you could finish and which boons you get. Maybe they thought it would be OP, because everyone would just pick quickness 90% of the time and prot the other 10% since else.has plenty sources of might, vigor, and even prot I'm comparison.

[Sylvrr.6541]

What if they built a trigger to swap the attunement if the sphere as a roll-over on the actual attunement swap?.... Cast well in air and swap Fire but you need to "F1" again once in Fire to make the well switch to Fire. Similar to how Tempest does things but with no delay or cool down?

Edited September 20, 2021 by Elywan.7162

[Emberheart.8426]

This would basically mean perma quickness in every single catalyst build, even the most glass cannon dps one. No trait investment needed. Watch it there, because even the pet class firebrand cannot do this. 

I happen to think that the attunement swap of the field makes it more versatile and it can fit many more possible builds than just something like this. I would hate to see it go away, and besides if you invest for it the well allows you to achieve perma quickness and pretty good uptime of other boons, while providing access to multiple different fields.

The main problem that I am seeing is that is a bit too stationary and punishing to move. This is one of the primary aspects of catalyst that need to be tested in the beta. The well could probably stand to get some qol in that department.

Edited September 20, 2021 by Ganathar.4956

[Poseidon.1839]

On 9/19/2021 at 2:23 PM, Knuckle Joe.7408 said:

The demonstration showed us that when you drop a well, it changes as you change elements. That's really bad because if you wanna do a DPS rotation, you most likely will want to drop an air well for the quickness, but then it changes as you change elements... let's say you go to fire for that hammer 4 aoe explosion... what benefit are you gonna get for 3 seconds you were on fire... 3 might?

Or if you go some kind of healer spec, you put down water well and expect to blast it with all your other finishers throughout your elements, but nope, it changes.

I get you devs wanna encourage people to switch thru elements, but please make the well you placed be the element you used permanently, or at least give us the option. The wells themselves are fantastic, but only if you put them permanently (and that would mean sticking to one element). If your wells is changing every 3 secs with your attunement, there's hardly any advantage to these..
 

 

Honestly a lot of people maybe interested, i for one am disappointed, the hammer abilities might seem cool but in general the elite spec doesn't seem like fun and the wells are with f5 isn't helping... Sadly i know that won't change, so I'm still going to be playing weaver...