Have we seen what the Catalyst trade-off is?

[draxynnic.3719]

24 minutes ago, Jski.6180 said:

What it comes down to is ele has very few things to even give up because it already trades off a lot of effects and wepon swaps  and lowest hp / armor for just being an ele. You cant realty take any thing else from the class with out making the elite spec comply worthless. Weaver trade off is less of a trade off and more of an buff due to just how much lower the swaps are and the number of added skills. Say tempest who only gets 4 more skills then core simply not getting enofe to to warren a trade off of any type. So catalyst who only gets 1 new added skill cant lost any thing or its just a core ele or less then a core ele.

The question you must ask your self is why do other classes have higher hp / armor and wepon swaps vs what ele has what is there trade off for not being an ele in start with?

Which is why pretty much everyone has been saying 'give something to core elementalist' rather than 'take something away from tempest'. I mean, I COULD think of a possible way or two to do a tradeoff by changing tempest, but I don't think either are good ideas given that tempest isn't exactly dominating anywhere at the moment.

[Jski.6180]

3 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Which is why pretty much everyone has been saying 'give something to core elementalist' rather than 'take something away from tempest'. I mean, I COULD think of a possible way or two to do a tradeoff by changing tempest, but I don't think either are good ideas given that tempest isn't exactly dominating anywhere at the moment.

I KNOW! lol tell anet this. Even eng gets an F5 and lose it for its elite spec.

I am sadly no dev.

[Shiyo.3578]

On 9/24/2021 at 9:31 PM, draxynnic.3719 said:

That was my position initially - I felt that core traitlines should be made good enough that sacrificing a third core traitline was sufficient tradeoff - but unless they revert those that have already been done, that ship has sailed.

 

I don't think anyone's likely to complain about core elementalist getting something extra like rev did, though.

The ship hasn't sailed because all the best specs have no trade off still. Like firebrand or DH.

[Sigmoid.7082]

5 hours ago, Shiyo.3578 said:

The ship hasn't sailed because all the best specs have no trade off still. Like firebrand or DH.

Problem is by Anets standards and what they consider a trade-off, both fb and dh have one. There is a huge disconnect between what players think trade-off means and if classes have them, and what they actually consider a trade-off. 

Edited September 28, 2021 by Sigmoid.7082

[draxynnic.3719]

8 hours ago, Shiyo.3578 said:

The ship hasn't sailed because all the best specs have no trade off still. Like firebrand or DH.

Instant activation core virtues. Just because you undervalue them doesn't mean they're not a tradeoff.

[Ragnarox.9601]

Tradeoff is - slow hammer attacks, low dmg, no combo fields except f5, no defensives, low heal, no reflects. I liked it tho but it was weak especially in pvp and wvw. My Juggy waited for a good hammer class for a long time, well he will wait little longer 😄 

[lightDestroyer.1265]

On 9/20/2021 at 5:47 PM, Jumpel.3972 said:

It's not a tradeoff because you can play catalyst without hammer

When you are stuck with dagger focus for so long,it is a trade off considering nothing changes at all and makes it boring af. 

[lightDestroyer.1265]

On 9/20/2021 at 2:51 PM, Daddy.8125 said:

Except Elementalist actually doesnt.. its mad its actually beleived to be this squishy

It isnt Melee, its Damaging Abilities are 600-900 Ranged abilities. which is Notably Not melee, like i hope people are meming with these comments.. Elementalist isnt this squishy it actually has a ton of Active Survivability people just hurrduurr in and face tank a load of damage and somehow expect to survive.

Catalyst isnt a Glass Cannon so its likely going to have higher sustain but Lower Damage then Weaver. it has access to utility and Supporting abilities..

Its going to be somewhere between Tempest and Weaver as a proper hybrid.

the key concerns are its utilities and elites look rather weak.

Bruh,  ypur comment is a joke if you are daying catalyst had more sustain than weaver.  From your comment it seems you have not even played the class. 

If you think catalyst hammer is a good weapon..  I don't even know what to say because it is a trash weapon.  

It is a ranged weapon..... Lol.  Check the water and earth attunements out.  And even fire has some melee.  Damaging abilities being ranged means nothing if your sustain is in melee. 

[Lazze.9870]

On 9/29/2021 at 4:06 AM, draxynnic.3719 said:

Instant activation core virtues. Just because you undervalue them doesn't mean they're not a tradeoff.

 

It's a mechanical change to the core mechanic. The same with the necro specs. Anet can adjust these as they want to, offerering different niches for the elite specs. That's is hugely different and not to mention easier to balance than what they gave druid (which recieved the stupid and lazy pet stat nerf) and what catalyst is recieving. A new F5 with no relation to the core class. The two former have natural trade-offs (or trade-ups, depends on what you want really), the two latter don't.

One of the reasons Reaper and DH are better off in PvP than Druid or Chrono is Anet's wishy-washy "trade-off" balance directed at specs that were never designed with built in "trade-offs".

Edited September 30, 2021 by Lazze.9870

[Jumpel.3972]

3 hours ago, lightDestroyer.1265 said:

When you are stuck with dagger focus for so long,it is a trade off considering nothing changes at all and makes it boring af. 

So it's the same trade off for all other elem espec too ? So with your thinking this is a trade off for the whole elem prof, not just catalyst 🤣

 

[lightDestroyer.1265]

1 hour ago, Jumpel.3972 said:

So it's the same trade off for all other elem espec too ? So with your thinking this is a trade off for the whole elem prof, not just catalyst 🤣

 

With tempest you have variation using warhorn,  for weaver sword is good.  For catalyst...  Nothing except d/f

[Allarius.5670]

10 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Instant activation core virtues. Just because you undervalue them doesn't mean they're not a tradeoff.

That is an unreasonable interpretation. Players expect a sense of equivalence between what is given and what is taken. Instant Activation is huge, no doubt about it, but 3 instant activation skills are not equivalent to 5 skills with a resource limiter each that can contribute the same effects + more. 

 

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

Not that I play my ele very much, but it's e-specs are those that really don't have actual tradeoffs. Not like what other especs  have to suffer with. Now, I can't fathom what could be taken away, certainly no negative stats!

Honestly, Core Ele may be in need of the base Revenant treatment where a mechanic is added to it that is taken away while taking the especs.

People have proposed an Arcane traitline that is only available for core (not that many new skills to be honest).  Something that I proposed before is a F5 that recharges all your attunement CDs, maybe even give boons, healing, and/or barrier depending on the attunements recharged.

[uNiTyOfOpPoSiTe.5784]

I love Lan's idea here. I said similar in the catalyst feedback thread.

 

If in theory you gave core Ele an F5 button that reset attunement cool-downs that could work, it is the original Ele and instantiator of attunements after all. And that may help core. It has to be done right but could work.

 

I am probably being a bit over adventurous here, but if you have a boon per attunement and and aura with stab as the boon on earth for F5 as well. Too much? Possibly? hehe 🙂

 

It's simple, hopefully quick to implement, and should not interfere with all the other stack of complexity for elites. You obviously lose it if you take tempest or weaver.

 

Not sure on the cool down of F5; maybe 2 attunement cool-down lengths or 3 attunement cool-down lengths or some other intermediate figure? We could start with 2 attunement cool-down lengths and get pushed higher if anet needed to?

 

Traits need work as others have said. Hopefully that is coming in the future. I know, I know, but it is ok to hope right? 

 

You would see a lot more core Eles about with just that F5 improvement... The Devs could call the F5 'Love' as a homage to the Fifth Element and to say, we like folks to play Ele too.

 

 

Edited September 29, 2021 by uNiTyOfOpPoSiTe.5784

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

2 hours ago, uNiTyOfOpPoSiTe.5784 said:

I love Lan's idea here. I said similar in the catalyst feedback thread.

 

If in theory you gave core Ele an F5 button that reset attunement cool-downs that could work, it is the original Ele and instantiator of attunements after all. And that may help core. It has to be done right but could work.

 

I am probably being a bit over adventurous here, but if you have a boon per attunement and and aura with stab as the boon on earth for F5 as well. Too much? Possibly? hehe 🙂

 

It's simple, hopefully quick to implement, and should not interfere with all the other stack of complexity for elites. You obviously lose it if you take tempest or weaver.

 

Not sure on the cool down of F5; maybe 2 attunement cool-down lengths or 3 attunement cool-down lengths or some other intermediate figure? We could start with 2 attunement cool-down lengths and get pushed higher if anet needed to?

 

Traits need work as others have said. Hopefully that is coming in the future. I know, I know, but it is ok to hope right? 

 

You would see a lot more core Eles about with just that F5 improvement... The Devs could call the F5 'Love' as a homage to the Fifth Element and to say, we like folks to play Ele too.

 

 

It would probably be more like:

Fire: 5 stacks of might 5s

Air: Fury 5s

Earth: Protection 5s

Water: thematically should be 5s of Regen, but I'd say 5s of resolution.

 

Give the F5 a 15s CD, 20s in competitive play. The Arcane traitline could be reworked to do extra things per recharge. Like cleanse a condition per attunement recharged, or barrier per attunement recharged. Assuming of course that the especs are locked out of it that is.

[draxynnic.3719]

21 hours ago, Allarius.5670 said:

That is an unreasonable interpretation. Players expect a sense of equivalence between what is given and what is taken. Instant Activation is huge, no doubt about it, but 3 instant activation skills are not equivalent to 5 skills with a resource limiter each that can contribute the same effects + more. 

 

Then why is guardian the profession where core builds are most likely to be viable in any mode, including being meta in sPvP right now and the one profession that has a core build on Snowcrows that isn't a hand kiter? And why does engineer ever run anything other than full kits?

[Allarius.5670]

2 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Then why is guardian the profession where core builds are most likely to be viable in any mode, including being meta in sPvP right now and the one profession that has a core build on Snowcrows that isn't a hand kiter? And why does engineer ever run anything other than full kits?

Numbers Vs design. Numbers can be cranked up and down to make anything meta or not-meta. The call for equivalence isn't just about effectiveness, it is about design and the relationship between the two.

Isn't this exactly why we've seen Firebrand gutted in PvP? It gave far too much with the only effective option available to adjust numbers until its use was dramatically lowered.

[draxynnic.3719]

20 minutes ago, Allarius.5670 said:

Numbers Vs design. Numbers can be cranked up and down to make anything meta or not-meta. The call for equivalence isn't just about effectiveness, it is about design and the relationship between the two.

Isn't this exactly why we've seen Firebrand gutted in PvP? It gave far too much with the only effective option available to adjust numbers until its use was dramatically lowered.

And they overshot because people kept claiming it was still broken because "five skills are better than one!"

 

My question actually carried a couple of counters to that argument:

 

The first is that the core traitline is part of the equivalence. This works better for some professions than others, because some professions get more out of core traitline #3 than others, but guardian is one of the professions where that third traitline is a significant sacrifice. A lot of professions can get away with taking an elite spec just because they don't get anything better out of the third core traitline - for guardian, if you're not actually using what the elite spec brings, you can usually find a third core traitline with better synergy with your build. Remember, while elite specialisation mechanics are better than the mechanics they replace, that increased power, when considered in isolation, is paid for by coming out of the power budget of the elite specialisation traitline. The higher prevalence of guardian core builds than core builds of other professions shows that in practice, despite all the comparing-virtues-in-isolation and other kvetching, guardian is actually closer to achieving this than other professions.

 

And some of this has come from buffing the core virtues as a way of buffing core without also being something that the elite specs can just grab and use themselves, which as @Lazze.9870 explained, gives them a means of adjusting core balance without buffing the elite specs in the process. 

 

The second is that sometimes having five skills that may or may not be worth the time it takes to use them is not actually better than having one fire and forget skill. We have to remember with tomes, kits, conjures, and similar bundles that they're not just a flat capability boost, they're substituting for whatever rotation that you'd be doing without them, and the net benefit you get is the benefit you get from the bundle minus what you'd have done without it (it's a little more complicated than that because sometimes you pop the bundle when your other skills are on cooldown, but guardian still has pretty good autoattacks on most weapons). There's a point at which a single fire-and-forget skill is actually worth more than a bundle - particularly when the fire-and-forget skill is instant (all of the core virtues can gain value by using them while activating other skills) while the bundle not only has the activation times of the skills, the bundle itself has an activation time.

 

Again, though, all of the "guardian has no tradeoff" arguments are in denial of the reality of the meta where core guardian is probably the most competitive core profession in comparison to the profession's elite specialisations, and a lot of this is because guardians core design and traits are something that ArenaNet pretty much got right. I'd rather see other professions brought to that level than tall-poppying guardian elite specs just because people think that core virtues aren't good enough. (And, honestly, if it's just about perception without paying attention to actual performance, we could buff core virtues to a ridiculous extreme and still have people claiming there's no tradeoff. What if we cut the cooldowns of all core virtues by 90%? That would be pretty darn ridiculous, but hey, it'd still only be three skills on paper rather than fifteen!)

[uNiTyOfOpPoSiTe.5784]

Sounds good to me Lan. The other possibility for core that I thought is to just reduce the attunement cool-down slightly for core Ele. I am not sure what other folks think about that? Would that be good or a bad move? The devs could reduce it to 7 or even 6 sec with a trait? Maybe that is too low? But it would be mad and fun that you could go even quicker than before. 🙂

I also do miss the limited stability you get on tempest earth attunement overload as well. I am coming from more competitive modes rather than PvE so it does help in WvW for example. Not sure how a touch of stability can be worked in without issues and without selecting the earth trait line? Maybe it is not needed and you can alter the play-style to adapt anyway? And it gives another reason to choose tempest or another spec. No bad thing. What do you think?

I do not think the kinds of proposals folks are making would be overpowered on core Ele and core would become competitive and some fun as a corollary. It would also add a suitable, but not to severe trade off, across all play modes for existing elites including catalyst.

The Arcane trait-line suggestions looks great Lan. And yes, great suggestions all.

Devs, can you give this kind of thing a look please? Cheers.

 

Edited September 30, 2021 by uNiTyOfOpPoSiTe.5784

[Lazze.9870]

19 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

And some of this has come from buffing the core virtues as a way of buffing core without also being something that the elite specs can just grab and use themselves, which as @Lazze.9870 explained, gives them a means of adjusting core balance without buffing the elite specs in the process. 

 

Well, that's one side of it, what I mostly alluded to by that is that the mechanical change in the elite spec is what allows for balance of the elite specs themselves. Willbender is currently weak in part because the new virtues are... underdeveloped. Most of the buffs Anet has done to core virtues over the years come from buffing or adding traits that in turn directly affect the elite specs as well, because both the elite specs are mechanical changes still affected by those traits and not additions.

This is of course the best way to design an elite spec. To go back to druid as an example of an elite spec with an addition: this is the reason why you can make the argument that the pet and the pet swap should have been replaced by supportive F skills, one being a "beast" skill and the avatar acting as a pet swap proc. That's a built in trade-off, and adjustments to druid can be done without touching core or leaving behind an afterthought trade-off which druid currently has (and currently doesn't need because it has been thoroughly nerfed as it is)-

Edited October 1, 2021 by Lazze.9870

[Allarius.5670]

23 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

And they overshot because people kept claiming it was still broken because "five skills are better than one!"

 

My question actually carried a couple of counters to that argument:

 

The first is that the core traitline is part of the equivalence. This works better for some professions than others, because some professions get more out of core traitline #3 than others, but guardian is one of the professions where that third traitline is a significant sacrifice. A lot of professions can get away with taking an elite spec just because they don't get anything better out of the third core traitline - for guardian, if you're not actually using what the elite spec brings, you can usually find a third core traitline with better synergy with your build. Remember, while elite specialisation mechanics are better than the mechanics they replace, that increased power, when considered in isolation, is paid for by coming out of the power budget of the elite specialisation traitline. The higher prevalence of guardian core builds than core builds of other professions shows that in practice, despite all the comparing-virtues-in-isolation and other kvetching, guardian is actually closer to achieving this than other professions.

 

And some of this has come from buffing the core virtues as a way of buffing core without also being something that the elite specs can just grab and use themselves, which as @Lazze.9870 explained, gives them a means of adjusting core balance without buffing the elite specs in the process. 

 

The second is that sometimes having five skills that may or may not be worth the time it takes to use them is not actually better than having one fire and forget skill. We have to remember with tomes, kits, conjures, and similar bundles that they're not just a flat capability boost, they're substituting for whatever rotation that you'd be doing without them, and the net benefit you get is the benefit you get from the bundle minus what you'd have done without it (it's a little more complicated than that because sometimes you pop the bundle when your other skills are on cooldown, but guardian still has pretty good autoattacks on most weapons). There's a point at which a single fire-and-forget skill is actually worth more than a bundle - particularly when the fire-and-forget skill is instant (all of the core virtues can gain value by using them while activating other skills) while the bundle not only has the activation times of the skills, the bundle itself has an activation time.

 

Again, though, all of the "guardian has no tradeoff" arguments are in denial of the reality of the meta where core guardian is probably the most competitive core profession in comparison to the profession's elite specialisations, and a lot of this is because guardians core design and traits are something that ArenaNet pretty much got right. I'd rather see other professions brought to that level than tall-poppying guardian elite specs just because people think that core virtues aren't good enough. (And, honestly, if it's just about perception without paying attention to actual performance, we could buff core virtues to a ridiculous extreme and still have people claiming there's no tradeoff. What if we cut the cooldowns of all core virtues by 90%? That would be pretty darn ridiculous, but hey, it'd still only be three skills on paper rather than fifteen!)

Well said on all accounts! The rotational bit is especially important considering that appears to be intrinsic to Tempest and Weaver.

It is absolutely all about perception. Players struggle to see equivalence in a full package and I'm not sure I've seen any particular commentary from the devs elaborating on their vision of (equitable) tradeoffs to help steer those perceptions.