Catalyst Feedback Thread

[Darigostoaf.2509]

I played it for an hour and I hated it.  I was of the impression that we would be able to move the sphere with us as it seems to be the flavor of this elite specialization.  Unfortunately, I feel like the Catalyst was a messy release even for testing.  I understand Anet wanted to meet the timing but even for testing I find this to be completely unplayable.  We have 1 mechanic and that is the sphere.  If we take off the hammer, we are left with just that.  While I like the hammer and its design, I will agree it is underpowered, but if I want to run dagger/dagger in pvp, I have way to much mobility to even use the jade sphere.  If the theme is to have the sphere with you, I would honestly be in favor of the jade sphere acting like a gyro.  Either that, or the jade sphere should have less resource and we should be able to resummon it almost instantly to maybe have some interesting field play.  The main mechanic being on a 15 second cooldown is not appropriate, especially with these underwhelming utilities and elite.  Those need buffs and the elite needs a rework in my honest opinion.  I could make a list of everything I would like to see, but many have already said most of these things so I will give the important ones.

1.) The spheres energy needs to be an actual energy system.  The energy depletes when the sphere is cancelled early.  WHY?!?!?!

2.) Fix functionality of the Sphere

3.) The traits need to actually synergize with other base traits.  Right now it is a little awkward because I do not know what traits to take.  If I am being brutally honest, the base traits on Elementalist are quite bad in many areas.  Other profession beat it down with more flexible choices.  The only thing we have going for us is aruas and even then, we do not get that many aruas in practice.

Overall, there is a ton of work that needs to be done.  Elementalist is the only profession I play at the moment and this has been a letdown so far.  I really do see potential with this.  Good luck devs!

[Josspai.4356]

At this point I'm seriously thinking that our three new skill types (jade spheres, hammer orbs and augments) are actually good ideas but in the wrong places...

 

- Orbs should be the F5 mechanic instead of a random weapon skill, so every class gets access to them, extend their duration, it encourages constant attunement swap.

- Jade Spheres could become utilities and be considered as well skills, so we can get access to those beautiful combo fields on every weapon (and since they're utilities, we can choose to deploy the fire phoenix while in water attunement and even deploy more than one at a time). Think Scrapper gyros.

- Augments can now become the Hammer 3 skills, just make them work on any appropiate combo field (so relentless fire makes your attacks unblockable when used on ANY fire field, not just jade sphere ones).

[TheAgedGnome.7520]

In place of F5...how about:

• Catalyst Profession Mechanic: Catalyst can swap weapons in combat!

Who hasn't wanted that ability on ele??

It would give the name 'Catalyst' some meaning: stirring and combining skills and effects from multiple weapon sets as a master alchemist!

 Instead of these awful punishment mechanics currently crammed into Cat, make Cat work with the player and for the player by giving them weapon swap.

 

Edited September 22, 2021 by TheAgedGnome.7520

[iriyabran.6218]

 

The fact that the F5 effect changes with attunement makes it hard to build a quickness build as to give quickness you are prevented from switching attunements. It's not like a glyph where you cast it based on attunement and then you're free to switch.

 

The duration of the orbs of the skill slot 3 on hammer is TOO SHORT.

 

Lastly the damage you get out of a HAMMER is not hammer worthy...

[Caid.4932]

I dont get why theres so few combo fields and finishers on hammer. Like what am i supposed to be getting out of it over dagger / dagger or staff? 3 long cd blasts and a long cd leap for finishers is a pretty weak kit for an ele.

Fire and Earth feel pretty worthless damage wise on a power build and Water and Lightning feel worthless on a condi build - is that intended? Like are they just meant to be short stops to use hammer 3 and a blast finisher before moving on? I'm ok with that but ... why? Doing damage with conditions vs. doing damage with power doesn't feel like that meaningful a decision. If your going to break it into two different classes would range vs. melee not have been better? I suppose they'll wind up playing fairly differently.

I hope this class isn't considered competent at range because its not. Auto attacks remain terrible and 1 600 range weapon skill per build doesn't go far. I suppose its marginally better than dagger dagger that just has water auto for range but its still distinctly weak at range.

Stuff is routinely walking out of air 2 after a hit or two unless i drop it at my feet and let them punch me while i spin. Could you make it hit enemies in melee range too? Would just make it a bit more usable and reliable. Earth 2 feels like its bugged and doing a tiny fraction of the damage you'd hope for or expect. Fire is okish. Dont think much of its 2 attack, no fire fields is a bummer, melee attack on 5 makes it a bit weird to play and hard to take advantage of the range on other attacks.

New utilities, heal and elite are all quite weak. Theres so, so many core skills i'd take over them. They're probably about my fifth+ choice for each slot.

Wish i could use sphere more - just for the quickness, dont care for or rate any of the other effects beyond it being a combo field.

Edited September 22, 2021 by Caid.4932

[Caid.4932]

20 minutes ago, Josspai.4356 said:

At this point I'm seriously thinking that our three new skill types (jade spheres, hammer orbs and augments) are actually good ideas but in the wrong places...

 

- Orbs should be the F5 mechanic instead of a random weapon skill, so every class gets access to them, extend their duration, it encourages constant attunement swap.

- Jade Spheres could become utilities and be considered as well skills, so we can get access to those beautiful combo fields on every weapon (and since they're utilities, we can choose to deploy the fire phoenix while in water attunement and even deploy more than one at a time). Think Scrapper gyros.

- Augments can now become the Hammer 3 skills, just make them work on any appropiate combo field (so relentless fire makes your attacks unblockable when used on ANY fire field, not just jade sphere ones).

Some good ideas there. I really like most of the ideas behind catalyst just find them hard to make much use of in practice.

[AliamRationem.5172]

27 minutes ago, Josspai.4356 said:

At this point I'm seriously thinking that our three new skill types (jade spheres, hammer orbs and augments) are actually good ideas but in the wrong places...

 

- Orbs should be the F5 mechanic instead of a random weapon skill, so every class gets access to them, extend their duration, it encourages constant attunement swap.

- Jade Spheres could become utilities and be considered as well skills, so we can get access to those beautiful combo fields on every weapon (and since they're utilities, we can choose to deploy the fire phoenix while in water attunement and even deploy more than one at a time). Think Scrapper gyros.

- Augments can now become the Hammer 3 skills, just make them work on any appropiate combo field (so relentless fire makes your attacks unblockable when used on ANY fire field, not just jade sphere ones).

 

This sounds more like what I was expecting.  I definitely agree with taking those 3 skills out of the hammer kit.  They really feel wrong to me there.  The jade sphere definitely needs to move with the caster and at the risk of copying scrapper, gyro-style wells are the way to go here.  This spec needs to have more auras, more combo field interactions, and fewer restrictions and conditions placed on its ability to interact with these effects.

 

It also needs some sustain, unless the idea is that this is a straight support spec?  In which case, it needs to provide powerful support for not just itself but other classes.  They really need to figure out what this thing is supposed to be and rework this.  Just my opinion, of course.

[uNiTyOfOpPoSiTe.5784]

Whatever Catalyst is, it is not currently an Ele! 🙂 It feels like something from another class and play-style. I am sure some will like it for its looks.

 

My opinion only, but the concept of an Ele, looking all the way back to a core Ele, through Tempest and Weaver, is a flow/flux from one thing you are doing to the next. And you combat an Ele by interrupting that flow/flux and the Ele is trying not to have the flow/flux interrupted.

 

In recent years Ele has had all kinds of adjustments to its detriment that are not in keeping with this flowing concept. Many skills have 'unnecessary' waits or delays. This comment is not about making Ele OP, but about bringing it back to the flow concept which people seem to like about the class, moving from one attunement to another, etc. We should remember as well that Ele has the lowest health pool and no access to various mechanics other classes have in abundance. That is not a complaint, just an observation. In my opinion quick casting skills are an important compensation to an Ele for said lack of 'other things' and quick casting should be a core constituent of its class.

 

Coming to Catalyst utility skills. They are dependent on something else that is dependent on something else... so these layers of dependency do not aid the 'flow/flux' of an Ele at all. You stop for a bit (in Ele terms an eternity), wait for this to be aligned, then that. By that time the battle and fun have moved on... It is very slow and ponderous. Do we need these dependencies on the utilities? I only get superspeed if this stack of infrequent dependencies align... Maybe we do need that for other good reasons known to the devs? Fair enough.

 

We have to remember as well that Ele cannot swap weapons in combat so Hammer is it once you engage. And being a dual-slot weapon the Hammer needs to give you a lot across the game for people to use it at all. I am not sure it does currently. You obviously can't slot in a focus or war horn or other weapon along-side to compliment like scepter or a dagger. The staff has a lot more on it. The hammer also has limited range and mobility.

 

In light of the above, for competitive modes, I am not sure what Catalyst would be used for.

 

I like the name and the graphics and icons look good. Animations are good. The higher-view concept is fine with me.

 

So yes. I am not sure how you can make this elite class better? But it is currently not competitive with other Ele choices and other classes. I was hoping for an F5 reset attunement cool-down button (with limitations) as the special. 😜

 

Ah and a special request for 2021. If you can make underwater Earth skill 5 a local AOE smoke-field instead of 1200 ranged one that would be great for WvW use in bay... 😉 haha

Edited September 22, 2021 by uNiTyOfOpPoSiTe.5784

[Ragnarox.9601]

OK....another post from WvW perspective:

Lightning 2#  this spinning should be removed, if you miss your target you are just spinning doing nothing cause you are animation locked. Make it with no spinning.

Fire 2#  should be 1/2 cast time 

Fire 4#  should do more dmg - 40%

F5 should last longer fill faster or even better should be castable anytime with CD on it.

Earth 2# should do more dmg not spinning slow and do nothing - 40%

Water 2# should have some kind of evade or something.

Buff all auto attacks by 30% too much cast times too little gain.

rework: make air/fire more melee and water/earth actually range with more defensives.

skills 3# are too short, at least 10 sec to be usable.

I am kinda disappointed of performance in wvw especially roaming. Maybe it works on 1 golem or few golems on stream but not near good in real wvw or pvp areas. 

 

Edited September 22, 2021 by Ragnarox.9601

[Zauber.4069]

I guess everyone has done a great job pointing out what is wrong with catalyst however I haven’t seen any good solution to those problems until I saw this post:

16 hours ago, Will.9785 said:

I think they are doing a bit too much with the specialization.

They will never do this but I would...

Get rid of the Jade Sphere and Energy part altogether.

Make hammer 3 the attunement swap mechanic. F1-F4 creates an elemental orb that creates a combo field around you and damages enemies. F5 shoots the elemental orbs. Let the combo fields stack and let us combo off all of them at the same time. Make the spec about swapping attunements to maintain/manage the stack of orbs instead of building energy to drop a stationary well.

Change hammer 3 to something else... perhaps blast finishers that interact with the combo fields.

The utility skills are boring AF. Ditch them and maybe give wells that grant different combo fields than the ones given by the orb. They could use the Jade Sphere animations for the wells so the work that went into them doesn't go to waste. Basically turn the spec into a combo field monster.

This are my suggestions:

·        Move grand finale (orb) mechanic to F1-F4 and make F5 to shoot them.

·        Change time duration for orb duration from 5 sec to 7 sec (with trades make it 10s) for easier stacking and more flexibility.

·        Add sphere’s boons to orbs rotation. Everytime orb does full rotation it adds a specific boon. (I think adding field to orb rotation would be too much- let’s make it more simple)

·        Merge Sphere’s combo fields with utilities  and make them wells. Keep interaction but with orbs. Example:

              o   Fire well: increase dmg by 15% if active fire orb is within range, your next attack is unblockable

              o   Water well: heal everyone in the field if active water orb is within range removes condition to 5 ppl

              o   Lighting well: Gain speed and 50% endurance regeneration if active lighting orb is within range gain superspeed and 100% endurance regeneration

              o   Elite earth Well: Cripple foe if active earth orb is within range immobilize foes. My second option (more appealing) would be to add smoke field and blink on orb rotation.

·        Catalyst traits changes:

             o   Energized elements: Add 3 sec for orb duration

             o   Spectacular sphere: make it Spectacular orbs and add this mechanic to orb mechanic

             o   Sphere Specialist: make it Orb Specialist and add this mechanic to orb

·        Hammers 3 skills should be replaced with fields – the problem right now with hammer is that it doesn’t produce enough auras compare to dagger/x. they should be similar in that matter. Also elemental epitome trade should boot aura creation so that catalyst would match tempest in that field.

 

I believe this is more appealing and simple design which doesn’t require too much work cuz everything is there. It fixes sphere clunkiness and unacttractive utility design. New design doesn’t root you in place like sphere does right now which makes catalyst more usefull.

 

Edited September 22, 2021 by Zauber.4069

[achronis.3597]

6 hours ago, Jijimuge.4675 said:

Having thought about the catalyst a little more, I get the strong impression that it's the result of 2 quite different concepts having been merged/mashed together.  I suspect a decision may have been taken to try to combine the best ideas of 2 quite different concepts.

Thematically, the trailer mentions how the catalysts' art is "ancient" (which matches the celestial spirits which sit in the F5 area) but also sets it up as being "technological" by using a jadetech sphere, which immediately feels a bit disjointed to me.

Functionally, the F5 is stationary, which would be a lot more workable if the spec were ranged.  The hammer "3" skills (the circling orbs able to be flung at an opponent) would also fit well with a ranged playstyle.  On the other hand, many of the hammer skills are melee or mid-range.

My guess is that early draft ideas for the concepts were roughly -

1 - a melee spec using hammer and themed around the celestial spirits

2 - a ranged spec using jadetech gyros and fields (perhaps even with the field able to move in the manner of Ventari's tablet?)

However, the catalyst as it stands is thematically rather a jumble, and some of its functional elements synergise poorly with each other.

 

OMG totally agree that the catalyst theme is a jumble of ideas.  I quite like the "ancient" elementals theme and could see eles increasing their power from magical creatures.  Why use a sphere when we could maybe summon the creature for the elemental field?  I feel like the team is forcing jade tech on the ele when it doesn't really need to.  For other classes it would make sense, like Engie etc.  The sphere to me needs some work, as it takes too long to charge and too short to get any lasting benefit from.  I agree, that most of the skills for hammer should be ranged, although I like the idea of some melee skills to bring variety, along with some mobility, like lunges and that crazy hammer air 4 skill that knocks the player back.  I agree though that the spec needs more synergy with the weapon, utilities, and mechanic overall.

[Mage.3291]

5 minutes ago, Zauber.4069 said:

I guess everyone has done a great job pointing out what is wrong with catalyst however I haven’t seen any good solution to those problems until I saw this post:

This are my suggestions:

·        Move grand finale (orb) mechanic to F1-F4 and make F5 to shoot them.

·        Change time duration for orb duration from 5 sec to 7 sec (with trades make it 10s) for easier stacking and more flexibility.

·        Add sphere’s boons to orbs rotation. Everytime orb does full rotation it adds a specific boon. (I think adding field to orb rotation would be too much- let’s make it more simple)

·        Merge Sphere’s combo fields with utilities  and make them wells. Keep interaction but with orbs. Example:

              o   Fire well: increase dmg by 15% if active fire orb is within range, your next attack is unblockable

              o   Water well: heal everyone in the field if active water orb is within range removes condition to 5 ppl

              o   Lighting well: Gain speed and 50% endurance regeneration if active lighting orb is within range gain superspeed and 100% endurance regeneration

              o   Elite earth Well: Cripple foe if active earth orb is within range immobilize foes. My second option (more appealing) would be to add smoke field and blink on orb rotation.

·        Catalyst traits changes:

             o   Energized elements: Add 3 sec for orb duration

             o   Spectacular sphere: make it Spectacular orbs and add this mechanic to orb mechanic

             o   Sphere Specialist: make it Orb Specialist and add this mechanic to orb

·        Hammers 3 skills should be replaced with fields – the problem right now with hammer is that it doesn’t produce enough auras compare to dagger/x. they should be similar in that matter. Also elemental epitome trade should boot aura creation so that catalyst would match tempest in that field.

 

I believe this is more appealing design which doesn’t require too much work cuz everything is there. It fixes sphere clunkiness and unacttractive utility design. New design doesn’t root you in place like sphere does right now which makes catalyst more usefull.

 

I really like the idea of moving the hammer 3 to the elite scale but I would change it to where the orbs timer is reset upon switching element rather than casting another orb.

[achronis.3597]

I've added my main thoughts earlier and agree with most others that the sphere needs some major changes, especially around charging and maintaining it.  Why not simply remove the sphere and have the players commune with these ancient magical creatures instead?  They could provide the elemental fields and could tie back to the Canthan lore.  The utility skills need some love and need to be more synergized with the specialization more.  

[The Great Al.2546]

Anyone else feel like the augments should’ve been designed to augment the well, instead of yourself?

 

I feel like the whole energy + sphere + augments should all work together. If you just drop a sphere, it should lose energy very slowly (like 1 tick a second for 60 seconds)

 

Then your augments make the sphere more powerful, at the expense of a faster energy loss. This is kind of how rev energy works, no?

 

As it stands, energy gain and loss just serves as an annoyance that makes the F5 totally ignorable. 

[Knuckle Joe.7408]

1- no finishers on a class (hammer) that seems to be field-comboing oriented
2- fields/combo finishers are a mechanic that every class have. Why do you feel the need to dedicate an entire "elite" spec gameplay on a mechanic that we've had since day 1?
3- hammer skills are weak, slow and clunky. Fire and air, which are supposed to be the DPS options, are actually really bad, the only decent skill is the tornado on air
4- no real incentive to collect all 4 elemental spheres with skill 3. The damage isn't that great, and the duration is too low
5- utilities are super bad.
6- field changes as you change elements, limiting you to play a jack of all trades characters when you want to simply fill a role like dps/heal.
7- energy mechanic is punishing, doesn't feel that you're getting anything valuable in return for all the hassle you go thru to fil lenergy. Also depletes too fast.

suggestions:
1- more blast finishers for hammer, at least one on each element
2- increase size of fields at least twice or make them movable, make it 10 man effective. Make traits that empower your combo finishers, like: blast finishing fire also does extra damage to enemies, water extra healing/boons, air superspeed etc. If you wanna dedicate a spec to combo finishing, at least make it THE KING of combo finishing, give it something that nobody else has, "EMPOWERED FINISHERS". Rework traits so they empower your jade sphere wells isntead of your own DPS.
3- hasten up hammer skills by cutting cast time at least in half for most of the skills and swap ranged/melee element roles (make fire/air melee and harder hittingm and water/earth ranged and more defensive).
4- rotating sphere finisher needs damage up BY A LOT, or extend sphere rotating duration by switching elements, so you can keep indfefinitely
5- rework utilities, don't make them limited by tying them to their respective elemental sphere
6- give a choice for players to stick to the sphere you casted first, maybe a trait
7- do not make it so you lose all remaining energy if you recall sphere

if cata is left as it is right now, tehre's no incentive to play it, there's nothing it can do/bring to the table that any other ele spec can't do better: weaver is better at sustain and DPS, tempest is better at healing and supporting party with boons/auras. Even core ele with evasive arcana might be better
- 

Edited September 23, 2021 by Knuckle Joe.7408

[Gatvin.6510]

What doesn't work:
Augments (these feel like weaker cantrips, even with the sphere bonus they have)
The Hammer (I can't seem to get good rotations within element, swapping elements doesn't work smoothly because some are ranged and some are melee)

The bar telling me how charged the sphere is. Its tiny. Not impossible to use, but very easy to forget about.

Spheres (I think these are supposed to be more than an on-demand combo-field, but they sure don't feel that way)

 

What almost works:

Arcane + staff : So I don't usually use arcane dps abilities because they don't have a lot of utility, but with Elemental Epitome, any combo finisher will give you an aura based on your current attunement, and all the arcane dps abilities are combo finishers. This, couple with the staff's natural ability to generate lots of fields and finishers, AND your free long-duration field from the sphere, lets you actually generate enough auras to maintain the spec-specific boosts that you get when you trigger an aura. Its fun, gives me an actual reason to run arcane abilities and... still can't stack hardened-auras and elemental empowerment very well. It IS quite fun though.

 

As far as I can tell, elemental epitome has a 10 sec cooldown per aura, so if you disrupt your normal rotation, you can stack the auras 4 times pretty rapidly for a defensive bonus (if you picked that trait) that will last 6 seconds, and an offensive bonus that will last 15. Pretty underwhelming given the hoops you have to jump through, and once you blow all your finishers, you're almost guaranteed a dead zone before you can get your bonuses again. And because you can't guarantee that your auras will be off cooldown when you need them, you're giving up the ability to specifically respond with shocking aura to melee attacks, or magnetic aura to ranged attacks, etc. You had to burn them all and hope they were useful.

 

Looking at the traits, what we WANT to be doing here is chaining auras. We want at least one aura at all times. If I'm doing that outside of this spec, usually I look for lots of leap finishers, since those generally generate auras, which means I have to be in melee. Alternatively Tempest is pretty good at passively generating auras, but that's another elite, so we can't use that. That mean's we're really reliant on elemental epitome, and its 10 second cooldown becomes a bottleneck to the payoff for how the traits are telling me to play. If the payoff were stronger, I wouldn't mind so much since it would create a kind of rhythm to the combat, but as is either the payoffs need to be stronger, or the cooldown needs to be shorter. Conceivably both.

 

I'm really not sure what to do with the sphere. You need to build up energy before you can use it, and then once you use it, you need to build up energy again. However, if you use it in a tight spot when its not fully charged, you trigger a regular cooldown as well, so you can't use it again for 17 seconds or something. That means we should be getting some sweet power when sphere is active right? Actually no. Its just kind of a combo field with a long, but not exceptional, duration. Death Shroud only has a 10 second cooldown, and Scourge shades trigger both on the target location AND the caster which greatly increases usability (in addition to having generally powerful effects). Also you can have up to 3 of them.  There's a lot of cool space to play with for an elementalist version of the scourge if that's what spheres are supposed to do, but they don't currently do very much at all, and I usually forget I have them.

 

Hammer is theoretically how we center Catalyst's ability to stack auras. Give every attument a leap finisher and a combo field and we're off to the races. If sphere were more usable, that would be another option for generating fields, so the hammer could focus solely on finishers. Oddly though, hammer lacks not only fields and leap finishers, but finishers of any kind, which makes it very difficult to even use elemental epitome to trigger auras. I actually don't hate the individual attunment movesets, and it feels like a middle-rage staff alternative, but orbitals muddle the brew a bit. On the one hand, they encourage me to keep swapping attunements, but on the other, they don't seem to give me much benefit, so it often feels like I'm down a weapon skill.

 

Last, I don't know if its a bug, but the sphere abilities list a damage as "5". That could mean many things, but either way it doesn't seem right. A few of the hammer abilities have similarly low damage values on their tooltips.

 

 

 

 

 

[len.7809]

I see where u want catalyst to be, by giving celestial gears i see yall want it to be bunker, with some damage, but I feel its good at nothing, just mediocre.

[Michel.3986]

Ok. Lets go one by one.
The concept of this Elite is tottaly confuse. It doesnt know if the wants to be range or meelee oriented. So you must decide this first.

 

If range make most ranged skills at 1200 range if meelee remove the ranged concepts. (Like why Fire 5 is meelee if 4 is ranged?). I personally would preffer the hammer to be meelee oriented ann hammer 3 skills should be combo fields and hammers should have more blast finishers to synergyze better with Elemental Epitome Trait.

 

First id like to say that people who did this were probabbly really tired. All the animations are too simple. This hole projectil concept in this Elite Specliazation is a turn off. Hammer 3 should be more visually stunning, like Hammer Fire 3 should be more like labaredas of fire moving around you than a simple projectile of fire. And so for all the other elements. Instead of a simple air project why not a electric storm around you in air 3? A snowstorm above your head in water 3 and well designed sandstorm in earth 3 attunement? Please stop this projectil oriented thing, its just too clunky!

Fire:

Fire 1 Auto Attack Singeing Strike: Why is this  a 600 range single target projectil? Make it a 3 target meelee auto atack chain that burns enemies. If you want this spec to be ranged oriented then make this skill 900-1200 range.

Fire 2 Surging Flames should leave the ground burning and be 900-1200 range instead of just 600.

Fire 3 Flame Wheel: Make it a firefield with labaredas around you, burning foes that come inside.

Fire 4 Triple Sear. Another show of lazyness. Make 3 lava spots erupt from the ground like the gathering tool animation and put some burning in it.

Fire 5 Moltten End. Is too slow .1 second animation for a quick and simple effect is not good. Make it 1/2 seconds animation. Make it a 1 second stun or dazze as well.

Water: 

1: Water auto-attack 
Stream Strike the first chain: 2 vulnerability stacks
Water Rush the second chain: make it a healing water splash coming out of the enemie.
Chilling Crack the third chain: keep it as it is or just make this chain 2 and water rush chain 3

2. Rain of Blows would me much more cooler if it splashed healing water in each attack out of the enemies than chilling them. its a meelee attack not much reason to chill a foe that is so close to you. This skill is going to be used more of a counter attack, so its better healing here than chilling.

 

3. Ice coil. Make a snow field instead of this circle annoying projectle. Make it chills who hits you in close range. And make it a combo field of ice. Like frozen ground skill in staff.

4. Crashing Font. Surprisinly i think its cool already.

5. Cleasing Typhoon. Add a CC to it like a knockback since water is a kitting element.

Air.

1. Auto Attack Wind Slam is really bad, really weak and really slow paced. Since i think hammer is best as meelee weapon i preffer it a chain skill as well. like the lightining hammer auto attack. If you want to keep it like this at least make the auto attack bounce in more targets like the air staff auto attack.

2. Hurricane of pain is great but i think it should dmg the close foes to you as well, since its spinning the hammer the spinning of the actual physical hammer also should be doing damage. Also: Why is this not a Whirl Finisher?

3. Crescent Wind. Make it a Air Combo Field, I also thinks it should be a electric storm instead of this projectil thing of lazyness.

4. Wind Storm: If we are going meelee oriented remove the propel yourself backward effect. If you choose range oriented, keep it as it is.
 

5. Shock Blast. Another turn off projectile... Make a animation like Wind Storm, while casting the Aoe icon shows in the ground when finishing animation the stun comes.

Earth.

1. Stone Strike Auto Attack is cool but why is it not bleeding enemies?

2. Whirling Stones. Make it a whirl finisher... And make the last spin as a blow strike that stuns enemies.

3. Rocky Loop. Since we still dont have a combo field of earth and sand elements. Make it a Sandstorm following you around that blinds or bleeds enemies since we cant turn it into a combofield. 

4. Immutable Stone is cool as it is.

5. Ground pound is too slow, make it 3/4 at least.

About the Utility Skills, Auguments need more time spended in it. The Elite Skill Elemental Celerity needs a rework. All utilities were porlly done. Poor animations and poor effects. They should at least be giving auras.

And Finally the Jade Sphere. It should follow you around and if we choose to end it before the energy runs out we should be keeping the remaining energy.

 

Edited September 22, 2021 by Sylarheart.5673
grammar

[Gwynnion.7364]

I played it for an hour and deleted the beta character in frustration.

Others have explained what's wrong better than I can but: slow, overcomplicated, unrewarding, and simply not fun.  Catalyst doesn't do anything Weaver or Tempest don't already do better, which is why yet another melee range spec was a waste of time.

Yeah, I wanted a long range spec, I don't care for hammer, and I understand a complete do-over is probably impossible at this point.  But even with significant buffs and tweaks, I can't see ever using Catalyst for anything.  I'll stick with my Tempest and my Weaver.

Edited September 22, 2021 by Gwynnion.7364

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

12 minutes ago, Zauber.4069 said:

I guess everyone has done a great job pointing out what is wrong with catalyst however I haven’t seen any good solution to those problems until I saw this post:

This are my suggestions:

·        Move grand finale (orb) mechanic to F1-F4 and make F5 to shoot them.

·        Change time duration for orb duration from 5 sec to 7 sec (with trades make it 10s) for easier stacking and more flexibility.

·        Add sphere’s boons to orbs rotation. Everytime orb does full rotation it adds a specific boon. (I think adding field to orb rotation would be too much- let’s make it more simple)

·        Merge Sphere’s combo fields with utilities  and make them wells. Keep interaction but with orbs. Example:

              o   Fire well: increase dmg by 15% if active fire orb is within range, your next attack is unblockable

              o   Water well: heal everyone in the field if active water orb is within range removes condition to 5 ppl

              o   Lighting well: Gain speed and 50% endurance regeneration if active lighting orb is within range gain superspeed and 100% endurance regeneration

              o   Elite earth Well: Cripple foe if active earth orb is within range immobilize foes. My second option (more appealing) would be to add smoke field and blink on orb rotation.

·        Catalyst traits changes:

             o   Energized elements: Add 3 sec for orb duration

             o   Spectacular sphere: make it Spectacular orbs and add this mechanic to orb mechanic

             o   Sphere Specialist: make it Orb Specialist and add this mechanic to orb

·        Hammers 3 skills should be replaced with fields – the problem right now with hammer is that it doesn’t produce enough auras compare to dagger/x. they should be similar in that matter. Also elemental epitome trade should boot aura creation so that catalyst would match tempest in that field.

 

I believe this is more appealing and simple design which doesn’t require too much work cuz everything is there. It fixes sphere clunkiness and unacttractive utility design. New design doesn’t root you in place like sphere does right now which makes catalyst more usefull.

 

I believe A-net need to either make Hammer full melee or full range since the kit contradicts itself at this point. Hammer skills like 2 from Air in melee could become cast and forget type that will send ahead tornado that damages oppontents for 600-900 units instead of meme spin2death, etc.
Additionally change F5 into Elementless Forge (15s cd, can be left before you run out of all energy, like yolosmith) in which all 1-5 skills are replaced with pure non-elemental Magic.
Now each normal Element has it's own vertical "energy capacitors" above attuments which can only be filled-up by casting spells or spending time in each respective element, the capacitor will have max 50 units. Once element is filled-up the F5 will be available to the player and it'll grant new 1-5 skills (and keep 6-0 skills) while also losing access to F1-F4 attuments and icons will be replaced by vertical energy capacitors that deplenish with time. The Weapon skills will be "infused" via Jade Sphere with whatever had full capacitor, that means if Fire was at 50, the skills within forge will have Fire benefits, like more damage, applying burning, etc. Of course if you filled up more than 1 Elemental capacitor, the forge skills will also be infused with rest of them (if fire and water at 50 then skill will be infused with fire and water elements, etc.).
The 1-5 skills for Melee(130~) could go like: 1-Palm Strike(1/4 cast time), 2-Power Slap(big damage, 1/2 cast time, 6s cd), 3-Forward Dash(450range, evade, 15scd), 4-Power Block(3s cast time/duration, 25s cd), 5-Big Stomp(240 AoE, big damage, 3/4 cast time, 30s cd). For Midrange and Longrange these skills would change accordingly.
Fire: Apply 1 Burn(1s icd, 1 1/2s duration), increase outgoing damage by 15%.

Water: Apply Chill(4s icd, 1 1/2s duration), deacrease incoming condition damage by 15%.

Air: Apply 1 Vulnerability(1s icd, 3s duration), increase movement speed by 50%.
Earth: Apply Weakness(4s icd, 2s duration), decrease incoming damage by 15%.
Now, to make it more "desired", the major grandmaster traits would decide of range of said forge, meaning that skills will have melee, midrange or longrange variations for 1-5, which would cover the weakness of being "only melee/range" class.
Augment skills secondary effects could either be fully accessible if casted inside forge or based on specific element energy thresholds (like you need atleast 30 energy in Air Attument capacitor to get secondary effect of Invigorating Air).
Rest of the traits could affect energy generation, boon gain on specific thresholds every few seconds or furher develop of Augments or Forge.

[Bealis.6023]

There are 2 things with Catalyst that I believe should be looked into:

1. Jade Sphere burns away too fast, even for a bruiser. It should be either more powerful or stay on much longer.

2. Hammer skills #3 are bound to the hammer. They seem interesting for broader combat, but its just too limiting having those on just one weapon.

Edited September 22, 2021 by Bealis.6023

[Mystrael.7916]

The f5 can be conpared to celestial avatar witch is way better , just a combo field with few boons is nothing compared to the CE

[Fade.5904]

1) F5 seems pointless in my opinion, why not just have F1-F4 flip over like tempest.

 

2) the Combo fields need to travel with you (like warrior torch fire field)

 

3) a bigger/better bar/system for the energy buildup indicator

 

4) Give Hammer more finishers or people will just use other weapons. The hammer spins are crying out to be whirls and more leaps.

 

 

[Penderghaste.9078]

I was already going into Catalyst with some skepticism and disappointment if I'm completely honest.

We. Don't. Need. More. Melee. Specs. I'm not sure how many times we need to shout it out before we're heard! That being said, it's what we got, (no surprise there) so let's try to work with it. Nothing I'm going to say is anything new that hasn't already been said. Catalyst needs major work if it's ever going to stand on its own two feet.

 

- Hammer was a bad weapon choice, it's too slow. Why would I ever want to use hammer? Nothing it has to offer compares with the other weapons ele can already use. Where is my gun? Gimme my pistol or rifle!

- The Jade Sphere should start combat with full energy, takes too long to build energy, isn't a large enough radius and is overall clunky to use.

- The augments are nothing to write home about, they are pretty much useless unless you can actually combo them with the right element and the jade sphere - the need for this combo is the worst thing about the class in my opinion.

- I'm still too squishy, even with playing around with my build. How is this supposed to be a tankier ele? Also, I don't believe the mechanics don't work for the kind of playstyle that's being pushed.

 

So far I'm unimpressed and it's probably not an elite I'll personally ever use. Hopefully they will make some adjustments before the official release, but I'm not too optimistic.

 

P.S. Should have been a gun ~

Edited September 23, 2021 by Penderghaste.9078

[azarhal.3086]

I was going over the traits of the previous elite spec and I'm puzzled by the lack of traits interacting with the Catalyst new features. There are only two related to Jade Spheres and none for augment or the hammer, but it has 4 traits related to base Ele auras.

In comparison,

- Tempest has 5 traits related to Overload and one for Shouts (and 4 for auras).

- Weaver has 4 traits for Dual-Attacks (+1 that gives more benefit when dual-attacking), 1 for Stances and 1 for sword.

When you look at the Catalyst trait line only compared to the other Ele's trait lines, it feels like the actual main mechanics is the Auras (which it is bad at generating), the Jade Spheres are the utilities and the Augments do not exist... 🤔

Edited September 22, 2021 by azarhal.3086