Catalyst Feedback Thread

[vardeleanu.8972]

Please fix rain of blows animation. It's very clear that it's a cropped hundred blades, but that's not the problem. The problem is that at the end of the animation your character looks like he is about to do another strike, but then very suddenly stops right as the hammer is about to hit. It looks extremely weird and if Catalyst is ever playable in conquest this visual clarity is going to be a problem, not to mention that it's more efficient to roll away when the cast bar is  at 75% in this case. 

 

Please crop hundred blades better and make it a shorter cast time, or at least make it an aftercast instead of us hitting air.

[Avatara.1042]

Horribly frantic and unrewarding, like me in bed.

The animations also do not line up properly with half the attacks.  Moving while casting Hammer earth 1 casts it behind you.

Edited December 1, 2021 by Avatara.1042

[Ultramex.1506]

3 hours ago, TrollingDemigod.3041 said:

Why you want to bash skulls on the SQUISHEST class in the entire game in MELEE? Class wasn't made in that in mind in the slightest.
A-net could do 300 IQ play and make Major Grandmaster traits give various ranges for Hammer skills and provide other things to justify the choice outside of hammer weapon.
If you want to smash skulls play warrior, if you want to smash skulls with magic effects play guardian, same level of argumentation...

Isn't Daredevil the same? Squishy class that use staff for melee but have evade; blind and power to vitality trait? Maybe Ele should have more survivability like that for close range

Edited December 1, 2021 by Ultramex.1506

[The Great Al.2546]

I feel like Ele is just destined to be the high skill ceiling class; if you play it absolutely perfectly you may be top tier, but anything less than that is incredibly punishing, especially in this elite specialization. It's crazy to think that for all the attunment swap that Weaver had, this has even more. You literally can't stay in an attunement for more than a few seconds because if you do, you lose out on your orbs, or you can only combo aura once every 10s in that attunement. I think Tempest is a really poorly designed spec (it's probably the least ambitious 'profession mechanic' out of any elite spec) but at least it's playable by someone who doesnt memorize every possible rotation.

[Downstate.4697]

After 4 hours in pvp I think that catalyst is overall useful. 

The Good

-Augments felt good. I used the air earth and heal. All of them worked well. The heal worked suprisingly well with the build I ran.

-The jade sphere was there when I needed it. The water field is a god send. The quickness is good for niche situations.

-The elite felt impactful to gameplay

The Bad

-The 1.5s cd on the sphere on weapon swap ruins the flow of combat. 

-The energy system feels pointless without it being an upkeep.

-The traits are uninteresting and dont modify gameplay all that much. The top minor and major are boring and need to be changed. The middle line is good just boring. The bottom traits are good minus the 2 energy on attunement swap.

-The elite has too long a cd for the impact it provides. I think using it in an aura sphere could decrease its cd by 20%. This would make it a healthier option.

My build for reference:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PGgAgilpyaZeMX2LOyWbRNA-z5YXGRWAZmAGPA

Edited December 1, 2021 by FrownyClown.8402

[Shufflepants.9785]

The hammer feels really weird. The fact that some skills have a 600 range is kind of pointless since many of the attacks are melee/PBAoE including the quintessential #3 which just means you're always going to be in melee. 

The duration of the #3 of the hammer is still far to short. With all the channeled and long cast abilities on the weapon, 5 seconds to cast the next one in the next attunement to keep it up is barely enough time to cast even 1 or 2 abilities without it falling off. Needs to be upped to like 8-10 seconds. If the actual effects need to be nerfed to accommodate the increased up-time, I'd rather have that.

I really want to like Elemental Empowerment, but it feels so awkward to actually get up to 10 stacks. And then it doesn't quite feel like enough benefit for having to sink literally every trait in the line just to have enough ways to generate it. +20% to all stats? Several classes have single traits that give stacking buffs or flat damage increases of 10-15% that just get automatically capped out via a normal rotation without having to go out of your way to cast disables, evade attacks, or gain auras.

The Jade Sphere still feels like a weird afterthought. 

And yeah, 90s cd on the elite seems absurd when all it does is recharge your weapon skills for one attunement, which isn't even that valuable as an ele since you're always swapping attunements. It's not like you have time to sit in one attunement long enough (if you want to keep the #3 up) to be able to cast multiple abilities on one attunement twice before swapping.

[Avatara.1042]

48 minutes ago, FrownyClown.8402 said:

After 4 hours in pvp I think that catalyst is overall useful. 

The Good

-Augments felt good. I used the air earth and heal. All of them worked well. The heal worked suprisingly well with the build I ran.

-The jade sphere was there when I needed it. The water field is a god send. The quickness is good for niche situations.

-The elite felt impactful to gameplay

The Bad

-The 1.5s cd on the sphere on weapon swap ruins the flow of combat. 

-The energy system feels pointless without it being an upkeep.

-The traits are uninteresting and dont modify gameplay all that much. The top minor and major are boring and need to be changed. The middle line is good just boring. The bottom traits are good minus the 2 energy on attunement swap.

-The elite has too long a cd for the impact it provides. I think using it in an aura sphere could decrease its cd by 20%. This would make it a healthier option.

My build for reference:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PGgAgilpyaZeMX2LOyWbRNA-z5YXGRWAZmAGPA

I figured you would be using Dagger/Dagger, and not the useless Hammer.

[Downstate.4697]

2 minutes ago, Avatara.1042 said:

I figured you would be using Dagger/Dagger, and not the useless Hammer.

The hammer wont see use in pvp the way it is now.  The sustain/damage ratio isnt there. Zerker amulet felt the best but still has issues with being bursted down. LR with earth shield might make up for its weaknesses though.

[crosknight.3041]

Jade sphere is so much better now as are augments.

now my biggest complaint is the inconsistent range on hammer, hammer 3 in general, and the traits.

first off with the hammer, it feels clunky with lack of movement skills to switch between 130 range and 600. only attunement this is even touch on is air with the backwards movement. the only other weapon with inconsistant range is dagger but they have numberous movement skills as well as a smaller range threshold (400-600-240-300 on each attunement respectively)

hammer 3 is just an annoying skill to juggle, hard to tell which ones are active without having to look over your most-likely extremly-cluttered buff bar. i still maintain that this needs to get ripped off and attached to weavers elite skill

traits.... specifically the aura traits. if i wanna play an aura based spec i'll play tempest.


now to things i like but feel that could be improved on
unlike last beta i actually tried supportive catalyst with diviners runes, and i absolutely love the boon generation of the spheres. only thing i'd change is the grandmaster getting a +5 targets added onto it and the master trait air boon getting changed from fury (ele already has so many sources of fury/group fury. feels redundant).

also can we get rid of the 1.5s cooldown on orb when swapping attunements and can we also get energy regen to 50% out of combat? i dont like going into a fight without energy and i dont like waiting on my orb when i do swap attunments.

Edited December 1, 2021 by crosknight.3041

[scerevisiae.1972]

• F5 is much improved but energy needs to go. It's pointless and annoying to farm energy on yellow mobs after every respawn. Super annoying and clunky AF. Just get rid of it and re-balance as needed
• hammer still sucks. Needs more skills to be 600 range, or needs the evades/mobility than dagger/sword have if you want to keep it melee. I hasten to add, literally noone wanted yet another melee weapon -- we already have sword/dagger.
• all the 5 skills feel like they want to be 600 range, and water/earth 1s should probably also be 600 range, preferably not yet more boring proectiles.
• augments much improved, I can realistically see myself using the air stunbreak, the heal and the elite
• the traits are still super boring and don't really change the playstyle. I think it was anothe design mistake to have another aura-based elite spec, seems super lazy.

Edited December 1, 2021 by scerevisiae.1972

[Tungsten Monarch.6058]

 

2 hours ago, Ultramex.1506 said:

Isn't Daredevil the same? Squishy class that use staff for melee but have evade; blind and power to vitality trait? Maybe Ele should have more survivability like that for close range

No it's not, I can heal up quick in combat with a Daredevil or withdraw fast, or leap away, or turn invisible to break targeting.

[Ultramex.1506]

2 minutes ago, Tungsten Monarch.6058 said:

 

No it's not, I can heal up quick in combat with a Daredevil or withdraw fast, or leap away, or turn invisible to break targeting.

Then like i said, maybe ele should have better survivability if its close range

Edited December 1, 2021 by Ultramex.1506

[Tungsten Monarch.6058]

1 minute ago, Ultramex.1506 said:

Then like i said, maybe ele should have better surviablity if its close range

yeah that's been my argument from the get go, Weaver has water sword skills that heal and allow for breaking out of combat, it also has barrier's and evades. Tempest main/war-horn has extra heals and water sphere atonement for close or medium range. Catalyst has "JUST KILL ME" written all over him. 

[Ultramex.1506]

2 minutes ago, Tungsten Monarch.6058 said:

yeah that's been my argument from the get go, Weaver has water sword skills that heal and allow for breaking out of combat, it also has barrier's and evades. Tempest main/war-horn has extra heals and water sphere atonement for close or medium range. Catalyst has "JUST KILL ME" written all over him. 

Indeed, i just diagree with increase range because i like the concept of Mage smashing thing with hammer, but if all fail then welp 😞

[Tungsten Monarch.6058]

1 minute ago, Ultramex.1506 said:

Indeed, i just diagree with increase range because i like the concept of Mage smashing thing with hammer, but if all fail then welp 😞

Why? ... Revenants smash with hammer at range. And if you need to be close, you can get close.

[emablackread.7246]

I think there's a clear consensus that the Cata is the worst idea and implementation of all the new Especs.
Honestly the best thing would be to just delete Catalyst and go back to the drawing board from scratch.
I'd rather buy an Ele DLC 2 months after the expac releases (which would give you 5 months to work on it) than see this go live.

1) The Sphere
So... you made a melee Hammer spec with combo fields and a holoprojector gadget. That's a Scrapper, thanks, so you already ruined the Ele identity with a confused spec mechanic to start with. But guess what, you made the Catalyst worse, because it relies on combos, and yet the only combo field you get on your new kit doesn't move. It has a cooldown, an energy cost, and it isn't even mobile. Whyyy??? And seriously of all the cool interactions you could have done with the 'Jade Sphere', it may as well not exist. F5 is just an immobile elemental AoE with boons, and the literal Mage class doesn't need some nonsensical high-tech holoprojector to deploy one, meanwhile the lore tries to justify the spec with 'ancient Canthan arts'. The whole spec and its weapon and its mechanics are a complete confusion.

- give the Sphere the Scrapper treatment. Make it deploy around you and move with you.
- give the Sphere the Scourge treatment. Have one field around you and a deployable one just like shades.
- delete the Sphere. It's not interesting, it's way too punishing to use compared to other classes, come up with a new mechanic.

2) Hammer
Pretending that the Hammer is mixed range is pointless when half of your skills force you into melee, and the spec simply doesn't work if you aren't in melee (Water and Earth are useless and the Hammer Orbs are melee only). Ele really didn't need another melee weapon when every single Espec is melee-mid-range and its only long-range weapon is slow as hell and was nerfed to oblivion. Catalyst Hammer exemplifies the  reason why players hate Hammers on all classes in general: it's clunky, doesn't have enough payoff, and is only useful in niche scenarios at best, so it's really not exciting. The Hammer 3 skill is just Weave Self on steroids. Except way worse because you need to micro-manage it, and it forces you into a punishing rotation, as well as melee range. 

Be honest, was it really a good idea to add another attunement-juggling melee weapon Elite spec with stance utility skills? Cause that's Weaver and Catalyst has no justification for existing as a concept. Was it really a good idea to add another boon-sharing spec with auras as one of its core traits and immobile aoe fields as its main mechanic? Cause that's Tempest and Catalyst has no justification for existing as a concept. An Elite Spec shouldn't be TempestPlus, or WeaverPlus, or CoreDaggerxDaggerPlus or whatever justification the spec has for existing - because it's nothing new and it's just a thematic mess of previous Ele specs and Scrapper except way more worse to use. And even if you made it better to use, like got rid of the Sphere energy cost, made it move with you, etc, it still wouldn't be new and exciting that's the point.

Catalyst has nonsensical lore, conflicting themes, boring traits, a clunky and unnecessary weapon, and mechanics stolen from other places except executed far more worse.

Edited December 1, 2021 by emablackread.7246
Formatting

[Ultramex.1506]

Just now, Tungsten Monarch.6058 said:

Why? ... Revenants smash with hammer at range. And if you need to be close, you can get close.

Idk rev hammer is specifically for range because of its long cast time compare to other hammer skills, its skill 1 doesnt have a chain when Water catalyst does

[PaterFrog.5781]

I played Catalyst for the first time this beta. I'm a long time Elementalist Enjoyer and loved both Tempest and Weaver. 

Catalyst has potential, but it's pretty disappointing at the moment:

 

Catalyst itself:

1. Why is this spec trying to be Weaver Mk 0.5? This complaint is mostly due to Hammer 3, but even with other weapons, there's a certain focus on going through all the attunements, rather than just switching to what most fits the current situation. Weaver's Ult wants you to do that too, but Weaver is muuuch better at it, actually giving you time to swap into the "wrong" attunements more than once without the risk of losing your buff. If you want a similar mechanic in this spec as well, then it needs to be several times longer, since the attunement swap cooldown is also several times longer.
2. The name doesn't fit. There's nothing about the gameplay that yells 'Catalyst'. To fix that I think the Catalyst needs proper ramp. It should be your aim to have all four spheres active, and all four circular projectiles. They should be playing off of each tier - the more spheres you have active, the stronger each one gets, and if you have all four hammer projectiles running, they get extra effects. Then you should be wanting to keep that 'reaction' going for as long as you can, with just enough space that you can use what utility you need to make that possible. Maybe keep the catalyzing of hammer and spheres separate, so other weapons can be properly used with the spec. This would also fix some of the Weaver impostor syndrome - Weaver switches for tools, Catalyst switches for ramp.
3. The Jade Sphere is uninteresting to play - it doesn't really do anything beyond empower the Augments. Yes it gives you 5sec duration fields, but you don't really have enough blast finishers to make them feel amazing. I'm sure that the fields are real cool for others in your party though, easy access to long duration fields. It's just - you yourself barely interact with them. It doesn't feel like there's any skill to their use, no punishment to avoid, no upkeep, etc. Basically, give these a reason to exist, make us want to have them active as much as possible.^^
4. The Jade Sphere is annoying to use to empower Augments - usually the attunement I need to switch to is on cooldown when I want to create the sphere of the right type for the attunement, or I don't have enough energy, or the sphere itself is on cooldown, or... It's a mess. 
5. Why is there a cooldown on the jade sphere at all, when attunements themselves already have a cooldown and it costs energy to use? It gets in the way of smooth play.
6. Why does switching attunements put a GCD on the Jade Sphere? It also gets in the way of smooth play.
7. The Fire and Water Augments are fun, because they are steroids that work together and just feel good to know are active. Why are they so short duration? Way too much setting up for way too little subjective payoff duration. I'd be okay with them being an upkeep that you have to fight against losing by keeping the relevant spheres on you or sth. Take a page from Revenant Shiro/Jalis there.
8. The Ultimate is pretty underwhelming - I'm not going to need to reset my abilities if I barely use them in my hurry to keep the hammer balls rotating. Please make the Ult a blast finisher and considerably lower the cooldown.

Hammer:

1. Hammer attunements don't feel complete. We're missing tools, especially to engage. That's a problem considering that Hammer is mostly melee with those circular projectiles on hammer 3. Maybe each Hammer 3 should also be a 900 engage?
2. Hammer 3 is pretty annoying to use, as the projectiles' duration is at most half of what it should be, so instead of using the skills within each attunement, I'm basically just spamming attunement switch to get all 4 projectiles rolling. I can't just... go and play each attunement, I can't evaluate the situation and play accordingly, I just gotta hop attunements. Give me at least 10 seconds in each one, please. If I need the tools in another attunement or have used up the ones in this one, I'll be switching anyway. Catalyst is not Weaver, is there really a need to hurry me along so much that I can't use more than 2 abilities before I need to switch to the next one?
3. Why are the Hammer 3s on different cooldowns? It would be good to have them line up properly.
4. One of your design principles is "Play the game, not the UI." Hammer 3 projectiles need some visual indicator that tells you that they are about to expire and you should be hitting that button again to send them. Alternatively, just make them send automatically when they run out, but I don't think that's a great idea. It would remove a way to reward skillful play, which is bad.
5. Hammer Water 5 should be a blast finisher - it feels terrible not being able to blast a water field without putting the entire attunement on cooldown. I think this is a major reason why Catalyst is so squishy. Maybe it could be both a blast and a whirl finisher?

 

Edited December 4, 2021 by PaterFrog.5781

[luigrein.8514]

I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on the numbers side of it, but in the interest of making it less juggling plates to play maybe:

 

*Hammer 3 def needs to last longer. 10+ seconds? Long enough to actually use a few skills in an element at least.

--Possibly even have the newest orb last indefinitely and only starting to lose duration once a new orb is summoned or you leave combat. Makes finale a tradeoff of keeping the buff active vs burst impact now.

 

*Make elemental empowerment stacks refresh when you get new ones? (And in exchange make the traits that grant stacks give less so it has more ramp time)

--probably make the empowerment grandmaster trait raise the number of stacks you can have instead of multiplying the effect at 10 since, as long as you generate a stack every 10 seconds, you can maintain them.

[Downstate.4697]

Why dont you guys rework the top traitline to provide additional effects to comboing a field. Something like grant 3s of fury when you combo or increase damage by 10% and reduce damage by 10% for 3s after comboing with an internal cooldown. That frees up a trait on the bottom too.

[Ovark.2514]

Catalyst is a mess. Here is a way to clean it up and make it both less visually noisy and more fun:

 

Jade Sphere: Same except that the energy mechanic is removed and it has a 15-30s cd or something

 

TRAITS:

[Minor #1] Gain access to Catalyst and hammer

1: Soothing Empowerment: Heal when performing a combo

2: Vicious Empowerment: Gain Might when you disable or immobilize a foe

3: Energized Elements: Gain Fury when using a combo not associated with your current attunement

 

[MINOR #2]Hardened Auras: Whenever you would apply an Aura to yourself, instead gain Elemental Empowerment.

Elemental Empowerment: Take 20% reduced damage for 5 seconds. Does not stack

 

4: Combo fields you create move with your character.

5: Gain Vigor when evading an attack. Gain bonus endurance if you did so while within a combo field

6: Spectacular Sphere: Same

 

[Minor #3] Elemental Epitome (Minor #3): Your combos extend the duration of the associated combo field (1 sec projectile, 3 sec everything else)

 

7: Gain Stability when using a Leap or Blast finisher in a combo field

8: Empowered Empowerment: Elemental Empowerment now also grants a 20% damage increase.

9: Sphere Specialist: Same

[Fullmetal Chocobo.8067]

I do not understand why you can have an entire trait line dedicated to auras, but have so few skills that create them.  On the tempest, every utility creates an aura...  I want to do an aura build for this profession, but it doesnt make sense.

[Henrik.7560]

My experience with Catalyst

 

What I like

• - Augments are nice. Earth, Air and Healing Augment are really nice for competitive game modes, simple but effective, what we really need and a huge improvement over weaver stances imo. Water/Fire ones are a little underwhelming, maybe if the fire one gave you immunity to blind/weakness or something could be really good. Water one could heal you when striking chilled foes maybe? idk.
• - Jade Sphere is easy to use, combo with and some of the boons are nice. Giving us quickness is huge.

 

What I dislike

• - The Traits are horrible - underwhelming, no synergy and destroys the spec. It needs a complete rework, to really be use in ANY game mode. Stop with the Auras. PLEASE. We have Tempest which does the job so much better despite already having to pick 2 out of 5 trait lines with different aura traits and never reaching full potential, but that's a core ele issue to fix another time. Remove the Aura traits from Catalyst, and replace it with something more useful. Elemental Empowerment is bad, difficult to stack and very restricted to landing CCs or spamming your aura skills, this mechanic needs to be reconfigured and its relevent traits need to be changed. We don't want 1% to all stats I'm pretty sure, we want a more specific buff so the spec has more purpose than to just 1v1 people. Just give it 2% outgoing damage/condi damage per stack, and make the stacks build off of using the profession mechanic or skills, like gain stacks of elemental empowerment while inside your jade sphere, or comboing it, or something - not mindlessly spamming your auras and CCs.
• - The hammer sucks. It's a big disappointment to everyone. Low DPS (bad for pve), slow and clunky (bad for pvp), doesn't offer anything more than tempest/weaver does already (bad for wvw, or just anything). You cant have a 600 range weapon be so slow and clunky. Buff the range to 1200, increase the damage and make it like hammer rev maybe, or make it more suitable for melee/short range and brawling, which means more mobility and melee attacks, so it could be good for pve or pvp. It's just bad. It sucks. I tried many times to makee it work but kept going back to other weapons and did much much better.
• - Jade Sphere should do damage and conditions in competitive modes IMO. They're not big, easy to get out of (ele doesn't have THAT much CC), and the enemy shouldnt be able to just sit inside lightning or fire field taking 20 damage per second. It's silly because it's good for removing aegis on enemies or blind on yourself, but that's about it. Some should do more damage than others, some should do condi, and maybe the water one can just be used for healing/support. 

- Elite is a lackluster and feels like the original version of rebound just being recycled... Come on get creative guys

 

TLDR

The Spec just feels like a weaver 2.0 except it doesn't do damage, it's only capable of brawling enemies, so it's just inferior to weaver's damage or tempest's support. The hammer is terrible and needs a complete redesign, along with the traits - they have no synergy, we really don't want any more aura traits this isn't an aura spec. You guys really need to prioritize some major redesigning with this spec and try again, no one is going to play it and do well outside of open world pve content. Pick a purpose for it. Weaver is already a bruiser spec we don't want another one. Cheers.

Edited December 1, 2021 by Henrik.7560

[Pi Slinger.5801]

OVERALL DESIGN:
Outside of the few traits that interact with combo fields and the ability to place fields separate from weapons, the Catalyst feels indistinct from Weaver and Tempest. Essentially, it feels like someone said "let's just mash together Weaver and Tempest" and it results in an elite spec that doesn't do anything particularly well enough to carve out a niche befitting an elite spec. Weaver does quick-swapping elements and melee combat better and is also more survivable. Tempest does auramancy and support better and is also more survivable. If the Catalyst is supposed to be a "tanky bruiser" it is not achieving that goal in a viable way compared to either of the other two elite specs. The concept for Catalyst feels muddied as a result. The niche that Catalyst could carve out is with regards to combo fields and enhancing interactions with them outside of just auras. A design focused more towards this concept would help simplify the elite spec and improve its usability.

 

JADE SPHERE:
The energy does not start out full outside of combat, so you have to build the energy to use the elite spec's primary mechanic. Most of the gameplay is dependent on having the Jade Sphere for combo fields, especially on the Hammer due to its lack of field generation, so not having access to the Jade Sphere at the start of battle cripples its viability.

 

The following issues negatively impact the energy mechanic:

1. Currently, players will have to grind weak mobs to build energy for real fights. Prior balance and design updates modified similar mechanics to fill to full outside of combat.
2. There's basically only one trait that modifies energy behavior and it requires you to play the Catalyst like a Weaver but faster. This results in the Catalyst not feeling like a distinct elite spec.
3. Having to track the energy on top of the rest of the base complexity of Elementalist is a nightmare. The Weaver felt like it already found the complexity limit and Catalyst somehow blew past it into the realm of annoying to play.

 

The following are my recommended solutions:

1. Removing the energy mechanic and replacing it with an ammo mechanic that caps at three and is potentially modified by traits like the Scourge's Shades.
2. If more of an on-the-fly decision style is desired for the mechanic, then use the endurance bar instead of a new energy bar to limit the number of things the player has to keep track of. This would also add interesting tactical decisions between field usage and dodging.

 

HAMMER:
Skill #3 still feels out of place and/or cumbersome. The skill #3 mechanic feels like it would make more sense added onto the Weaver's elite skill and feels like a shoehorned copy/paste of the Weaver's elite skill to an extent. To make full use of the skill #3's you have to essentially move through the attunements faster than even a Weaver would, which feels like it runs counter to the rest of the Catalyst design.

 

The Hammer has no field generation of its own. This makes it the only Elementalist weapon incapable of generating any fields (besides scepter which can be paired with off-hands for field generation). For the Catalyst which seems built around the concept of combo fields, this means that THE Catalyst-specific weapon is less capable of enabling Catalyst builds than the core Elementalist weapons. This makes Hammer suboptimal for builds and entirely dependent on the Jade Sphere for viability.

 

The differing ranges between Water/Earth and Fire/Air sound cool on paper, but in practice result in gameplay that feels at odds with itself. It's not uncommon to be swinging at nothing in Water/Earth. I recommend the following:

1. Making all of the attunements 600 range like Fire/Air to assist with survivability.
2. If variable range is necessary, add more leaps and backwards moving skills to help it flow better when switching between ranges. In this case, leaps on Fire/Air and backwards moving skills for Water/Earth. It's weird that the leap is on Water and the backwards skill is on Air and neither Fire nor Earth have anything for movement. Squishy professions need mobility and evade access to compensate for close range with low health pools, i.e. Weaver.

 

The following are my notes for each attunement:

FIRE:

1. Skill #2 lacks impact and doesn't feel useful. Perhaps make it a leap with an evade frame?
2. Skills #4 and/or #5 would be good places for a fire field. Alternatively, replace skill #3 with some kind of fire field generation.

WATER:

1. Skill #4 would benefit greatly from having evade frames baked into it. It's weird that it's a leap without evade frames.
2. Skill #5 would be a good place for a water/ice field. Alternatively, replace skill #3 with some kind of water/ice field generation.
3. The animation for skill #2 feels janky. It's like a bad edit of another skill's animation.
4. Some kind of damage mitigation utility like a block/evade would be a good addition, maybe on skill #2? 

AIR:

1. Skill #2 and #5 could be lightning fields. Alternatively, replace skill #3 with some kind of lightning field generation.
2. Skill #5 could stand to be faster as landing it for the stun is quite difficult.
3. A leap would be nice somewhere in air. Maybe something akin to the Lightning Hammer leap or the Weaver's shadowstep on sword's air skill #3.

EARTH:

1. The blocks on skills #2 and #4 are good, but #4 feels like it should flip over to another skill for ending it prematurely. Perhaps with some kind of knockback or launch?
2. The addition of the blast on #5 feels good but also feels like it should be some kind of knockdown.
3. In line with my other suggestions, the addition of a skill that generates a poison field to replace skill #3 would be nice.

 

AUGMENTS:
The adjustment to Augments from the previous Beta are an improvement. However, they still don't feel particularly interesting or add much in the way of utility outside of simple buffs. Perhaps if the augment skills pulled the Jade Sphere fields to your current location if you aren't in range for the bonus effect (without providing the bonus effect ad hoc).I still don't feel incentivized to incorporate these utilities over the core utilities.

 

The following are my notes for the specific augment skills:

1. The fire augment feels like a means to replicate the damage boost from the Weaver elite skill.
2. The air augment feels like a means to replicate the air shout on Tempest.
3. The block on the earth augment is a nice touch but otherwise feels like a replication of the Weaver barrier generation skill.
4. The ice augment is similar to one of the skills on Soulbeast, but distinct enough from it and the other Elementalist skills to make it a nice addition (although it doesn't really go with any of the trait options for buildcraft).
5. The water/healing augment is essentially just a boosted version of the core Ether Renewal skill, so it has no distinct flavor from core Elementalist.

 

Also, the obsession with having a single utility for each element appears to be damaging elite spec design. Outside of theme, there isn't really a need for them to be based around the Elementalist's elements and they could be made to be anything, i.e. skills that just modify (aka Augment) the base mechanic behavior of the elite spec.

 

TRAITS:
The traits are messy and would benefit from a rework that focuses on traits that interact with combo fields, provide survivability, augment the augment skills, and interact with/modify the behavior of the Jade Sphere.

 

For example:

1. Traits that provide different effects based on the type of finisher that was used.
2. Traits that speed up the Jade Sphere accrual.
3. Traits that move the Jade Sphere to the player from a set location.
4. Traits that enhance the effects of the Jade Sphere while reducing the number of fields that can be produced (like the Scourge's shade traits)
5. Traits that have the Jade Sphere field follow the player like a Gyro.
6. Traits that modify Augments, etc.

 

The following are my notes for the traits top to bottom:

TOP:

1. This line of traits are the best traits on the Catalyst simply because they incentivize combo field usage. However, the specificity to auras feels like a retread of Tempest. That being said, the combat perks do add their own distinct flavor.
2. Staunch Auras doesn't feel impactful enough at the moment to be a Grandmaster trait. Perhaps it would if it provided more/longer-lasting stability or also added some condi-cleanse and/or tankiness? Maybe if it made combos into stun breaks?

MIDDLE:

1. Elemental Empowerment feels like it's unnecessarily trying to tie into the world-building of Guild Wars 1's Nahpui Quarter, but the concept feels out of place. 
2. The celestial stats seem intended to allow for build diversity, but it really just incentivizes primary usage of celestial stats, hurting build diversity.
3. The Grandmaster trait isn't useful because of the investment required in other traits/skills to get to the max Elemental Empowerment cap, which doesn't last nearly long enough to make it worthwhile.
4. Essentially, I'm saying this line of traits would be better off scrapped and replaced with something more cohesive with the rest of the Catalyst design, i.e. more traits that interact with combo fields.

BOTTOM:

1. This line seems oddly geared towards both offense on the Minor trait and support on the Major and Grandmaster traits.
2. The Minor trait is the only trait that directly modifies the energy mechanic and results in incentivization of Weaver-like gameplay. This would be fine if there were alternative traits that also modified the energy mechanic.
3. During melee combat, it's hardly possible to stand in the field for full effect and especially implausible that you'll be able to stand in the fields back-to-back, so a 50% duration boost of short duration boons is not useful and certainly not worthy of being a Grandmaster trait. Maybe if it gave you the boons from active fields regardless of whether or not you're standing in the field?

[PaulPottwal.7239]

- Remove the CD on jade sphere when swapping to another attunement.

 

- Remove hammer #3 and make it a spec mechanic that activates when you enter combat. That would also add some flavour to the spec while wielding other weapons than hammer and makes thematically sense with the Elemental Empowerement theme. The longer the fight in melee range the higher the damage. Swapping to another attunement adds an orb. Add a F6 to fire off the orbs

 

- Add survivability skills to hammer #3. You tried to create a melee hammer bruiser that has no meaningful healing, mobility and bad CC to pin down enemies.

--> Fire #3: Add a skill like Burning Speed/Burning Retreat

--> Air #3: Add mobility like a 900 yard leap. Maybe add a knockdown/daze/chill/cripple when landing the skill or just damage.

--> Water #3: Blast heal

--> Earth #3: Sandstorm that blinds or earthquake that hard CC's enemies