Catalyst Feedback Thread

[Bralock.2978]

Like many of the others in this thread (admit I didn't read all of them, but keep seeing recurring  themes) I feel there are a few things that need to be adjusted.  I feel (and hope!) that it really seems like the profession isn't finished and something had to be released for the beta.  Which really scares me as to see what the remaining ones will be like.  So, background on where I come from that I've been playing since release of the game and been playing elementalist pretty much since then.  Elementalist was the first time I made a second character of the same profession because I wanted to be able to use the two elite specs easier.  I like weaver and tempest for different reasons, and while I generally prefer weaver I like that they are both quite different.  I will also add that while I definitely was disappointed with the hammer being the profession weapon (I wanted something with range) I tried to go in unbiased to at least see what is offered.  Having another melee based spec seemed wrong to me when we just had weaver in the last expansion, but we have what we have so I'll give feedback accordingly.

 

General Comments

I really love the new voice lines, it really brings  the Canthan feel to the character and spec and it's nice to hear my character saying new things not only with attunement swapping but using various abilities.  There is a lot going on here with this spec.  It is overly complicated when you are trying to balance the Jade Sphere, the Hammer 3 skill, and using your Augments.  If the worlds align, so to speak, it still doesn't really give much of a payoff.  I am one of those people that prefer to use the new things with a spec, so generally I would use the new weapon, the new skills, and try and make it work.  I don't see myself doing that with Catalyst as it is.  It's way too complicated and you really get nothing much out of it.

 

Jade Sphere (F5)

This is pretty clunky as a mechanic, trying to aim it on the ground while dodging and running around.  I admit I'm torn on a few recommendations here.  Most people seem to argue that these should either be stationary or they should be an aura that follows you.  I could see justification for either.  I see people arguing that the Jade Sphere should change with attunement swapping or it should remain what you start out with.  Again, I could argue either.  Currently you are limited with what you can do as if you use the hammer you can only blast or leap (one leap) each element once and you can only do it in the element tied to.  So if you summon water you can only leap once in water, you can't blast it multiple times without another skill.  I find that limiting.  I think the biggest change that needs to be made is why do we lose energy when we go out of combat and why do we lose everything when dispelling it?  Why would we ever dispel it if we don't get to hang onto the any energy?  The buildup of energy doesn't take too long, but the uptime on the Spheres seems really low as it is so why have this punishing mechanic?  I saw one person actually feel that the Jade Sphere was meant to be up all the time.  I think that would be way overpowered in its current state, but maybe if it only offered a combo field with no buffs/damage that could work.  That may be too much too, but as the core mechanic of the spec I really feel this needs a huge overhaul.

 

Hammer

This weapon, like the rest of the class, feels unfinished too.  Why is water the only attunement that has a #1 auto attack chain?  Shouldn't all of the weapons have that, it seems to be pretty common for all mainhand weapons #1 skill.  I play elementalist because I like being able to do things with the combo fields, and I think that this spec is based off that is great on paper.  However, we have no combo fields with this weapon, and relying on the Sphere is pretty difficult.  Also, why are we punished using hammer then and why not use another weapon?  If we argue we have combo fields with the Sphere we should at least be compensated with a lot more finishers.  Another CC (knockdown?) on earth would be a great start as only having air makes little sense.  I like most of the weapon skills, but I think they need more variety.  Water also has no healing, aside from the #4 leap which works best in the combo.  Hopefully a regen or heal gets added to the auto-attack chain or #2 at least to give some sustain.  At the moment, I found the only way I could stay up was being forced to use the Water traitline (same as when weaver was first released.)  The #3 ability needs to be reworked.  It's a nice buff, but you can't do anything except fully swap attunements, maybe get off one attack before needing to continue with #3 and switch again.  I kept getting CC'd and knocked and then would lose the #3 buff entirely.  Maybe if it didn't have a cast time like attunement swapping itself?  Definitely would love to see a lot more finishers though, especially since air/earth #2 seem to be whirls.

 

Augments (new skills)

I get what was intended with these and they could work with tweaks, but currently not likely useable.  I do like the new block Fortified Earth both for the visual and having a block adding something to the skillset.  Spheres are not often up long, they don't follow you, and make it very difficult to have the stars aligned to get the buff benefit from them.  Sure, you don't need to use them for the buff, but then a lot of the other skills become better options.  Also, all elementalist heals in the game previously have given benefits based on which attunement you are in, but this one makes you be in Water.  I feel using it in your Jade Sphere should give a buff, perhaps even one dependent on which attunement you are in, but it shouldn't be limited to only Water.  I know a lot of people complain about the Elite skills, but not sure what to say.  Again, the theory seems sound but in reality a 90sec timer for a 8 (perfectly executed) reduced timer to weapon skills seems poor.  Reduced the cooldown or buff the ability, or if the weapon skills had more benefit but this is harder to balance across all weapons.  Currently getting access to more hammer skills seems pointless.  Rather than reducing weapon skills why not just get flat out alacrity based on strikes, which would also lead in more to the support role of Catalyst and if it was shared with everyone (while in a sphere) encourages that play as well.

 

Lastly, as I said at the beginning this isn't really the sort of spec I wanted, but I hope that it changes into something viable and fun for everyone.  I understand it cannot and will not appeal to  absolutely everyone, but I just hope it retains the elementalist flavour and brings new "things" to play around.  I played all of the beta classes and it wasn't until the last day I could begin to not die to single mobs with Catalyst.  I really feel it needs the most work out of all of the 6 professions presented so far, so hope my feedback and other's here helps with the process.

[StormCleric.2843]

When I first saw the teaser silhouette, I was so excited. And then the whole thing came out and that hyped me up even more, and then trailer came, and I'll be honest I wasn't blown away with it, but I was still excited. Then I watched the livestream, and my excitement died down a little bit because of the profession mechanic. I felt like it wasn't... synergizing... with the rest of the spec. But then I actually started playing it, and pretty much all my excitement disappeared.

1. The Jade Spheres are the profession mechanic, but honestly, it feels like and afterthought even though it's literally the thing that makes the Catalyst a Catalyst. I actually think that it could work better as utility skills or something. Also, the animals that appear with the Sphere field? I thought they were very visually appealing, but I would've enjoyed it a lot more if they did something more than just float there.

2. The hammer. I was THRILLED when I heard that Elementalists would be getting hammers because the idea of it aesthetically and conceptually was so cool. Watching the livestream, I was super hyped to try it out, but lo and behold, I hated playing with it during the beta. I'll be honest, the air attunement is pretty good, and water isn't terrible, but fire and earth are what I struggled with. Fire just doesn't feel as rewarding as the other attunements (besides earth) and skill 5 is a melee skill which I'm not a fan of. I get that it's supposed to be a finisher, but it just doesn't work with the rest of the skills. Earth was SO underwhelming. I feel like it should be really good because earth + hammer is like the perfect combo, but it was so clunky and unrewarding and slow that I almost NEVER switched to earth while playing. And then we have skill 3. I hated it across all attunements. It was too much weaver vibes and it was so hard to maintain and build up the orbs while trying to use your other skills to not die. Honestly, this in itself could be the profession mechanic. I think that too much thought was put into the hammer overall and not enough into the profession mechanic.

3. Augments are pretty much stances, but weavers already have stances. It gets really hard to cast them inside the Jade Sphere area during combat. On top of that, they aren't as rewarding as the others. I will say though that the earth shield skill (I forgot what it's called) is actually pretty useful.

4. I think that the Catalyst was trying to take on a tanky approach, but actually, I think this was the squishiest ele spec of all. I died SO easily and the heals just weren't enough to keep me alive.

So overall, the Catalyst was just disappointing. I hope that it gets some serious reworks because this was my least favorite out of all six specs so far.

Now that all the negativity is out of the way, I will say that the concept was REALLY cool and the animations were pretty too.

[Pi Slinger.5801]

The Catalyst currently feels disjointed with a hodge podge of mechanics and concepts that don't really mesh well together or that retread ground previously already covered by other Ele elite specs. However, the concept of an Ele elite spec that plays heavily with combo fields really appeals to me and is touched upon by portions of the Catalyst design. To me, the ideal version of the Catalyst is a mid-range Ele with a heavy focus on combo fields, finishers, and effects.

 

Hammer:

Generally, the skills on the hammer feel disjointed. It's not like the other weapons where it feels like there's a clear skill flow and it also runs counter to general Elementalist design in some places.

1. The skill 3 orbs are a fun idea that could have probably been their own profession mechanic separate from the hammer, but the way they are implemented promotes a gameplay style of quick attunement swaps that seems to run counter to the rest of the hammer's design, such as the skill 2's that have long cast/channeling times and often result in the duration of skill 3 running out before you have the opportunity to swap attunements.
2. The damage feels low for "bruiser" combat on the squishiest class, the cast-times feel slow, and the "survivability" built into the weapon feels like it removes you from the flow of combat. The movement skills feel great, but it feels like there should be a couple more to aid with the flow of the weapon as currently implemented.
3. The premise of mixed ranges suggests the intention that a player camp in the ranged attunements when needing distance and camp in the melee attunements when they can close in on the target. This doesn't work well if you are supposed to be quickly shuffling attunements.
4. The concept of the weapon's ranges changing based on attunement is cool, but the current design doesn't incentivize play that would place you in melee range when you are in the offensive air/fire, so when you need to switch to the more defensive water/earth, you either put yourself into danger (despite trying to defend) or resign yourself to not doing damage.
5. In general Elementalist design, Air/Fire are for offense and Water/Earth for defense, but Air/Fire has been placed at the less risky mid-range and Water/Earth are placed in the riskier melee range. Although I like the idea of mixed ranges, the hammer would feel better overall if all of the attunements were mid-range like air/fire.
6. The general lack of combo fields and finishers on the Hammer is really noticeable and not in a good way. For a spec that leans into combo field gameplay and benefits, it makes the Hammer the sub-optimal choice for maximizing combo field interactions.

 

Jade Sphere:

The Jade Sphere is frustratingly inconsequential.

1. The flavor of the Jade Sphere is quite nice and I enjoy that they are combo fields, allowing for more combo field play. Combo fields are one of the most unique and enjoyable aspects of GW2 combat to me and it makes a lot of sense to have a spec for Elementalist that delves deeper into the mechanic.
2. The energy feels like it charges too slow and the Jade Sphere's duration is too short, making it feel like its not worth focusing on and feeling useless. This is especially true when you are using the Hammer with its lack of combo fields.
3. Squishy classes move around more to avoid demise and don't usually have time to stand around in stationary fields, especially in active combat. The Jade Sphere only really builds energy during combat, so the field is not going to be available at the beginning of combat for stacking boons before rushing in. This means the boon aspect of the field has limited usefulness. Perhaps if energy regenerated to max outside of combat, like some other mechanics, it would be more useful.

 

Augments:

Augments feel terrible.

1. The cast times feel too long to feel useful for one or two boons. They feel like sad elixers with extra hoops and longer cast times. For the squishiest class and as a "bruiser", it doesn't make sense to stand still while taking hits to the face.
2. The elite sounds interesting on paper, but Elementalist walks around with 20 weapon skills and you don't typically wait around for the cooldown to use a skill but rather switch to a different attunement. The fact that it's only strikes that count and only weapon skills that are impacted results in it feeling completely useless. Combo this with the quick-attunement swap incentives created by the hammer orbs or the energy trait and it feels somehow even more useless.
3. Augments, by their name, sound like they should be directly augmenting the Jade Sphere mechanic, but they don't. Having them "augment" how the combo field works instead would be amazing, especially if it did stuff that interacted with the combo system. Like, having augments to the combo effects that are generated from the fields, splashing out combo effects from the field on a pulse or finisher, an augment that adds other field type effects in addition to the current field effects when a finisher is used, etc.
4. Needing to be on a specific attunement to get full value from a utility is a cool idea on paper, but feels terrible to use versus any of the core utilities. If it worked more like glyphs where the effect changed based on the active field, maybe it would be more enjoyable, but the current implementation doesn't have augments being nearly as competitive for utility spots as they'll need to be to get slotted.

 

Traits:

The field combo aspect is honestly the most interesting part of the Catalyst for me. Having more (or all) traits interact with field combos and finishers along with more Jade Sphere energy management options would be the ideal Catalyst implementation in my opinion.

1. The aura traits feel really out of place. Core Elementalist already did auras pretty well before Tempest and Tempest is heavily slanted towards auras and aura support. Not to mention how many aura traits there already are on each spec line for Ele. These traits don't feel like they belong and would probably be better served as part of a revision to traits on Tempest. If putting these on Tempest is a no go, then reworking them to be generally activated for combo fields/finishers instead of just auras would be great for leaning more into the combo field aspect of the class which is the best part of the Catalyst concept to me.
2. Elemental Empowerment is a cool concept, but its implementation makes me feel like I need to be using the Celestial stat set to make full use of the mechanic. I understand it was implemented the way it was with the intention of enabling stat set diversity in the builds using the elite spec, but I feel like it has achieved the exact opposite. I'd find it more enjoyable if it somehow interacted directly either with damage, survivability, or, again, combo fields.
3. More traits that play with the energy mechanic of the Jade Sphere would be amazing. The only one currently present feels like it pairs well with Fresh Air, but because that's the only one it feels like it limits the gameplay variation for buildcraft. Especially, if you want better energy management without focusing on quick attunement swaps.
4. A trait that changes the Jade Sphere behavior to follow you around like Scrapper Gyros would be very nice. Ele already suffers from an abundance of ground targeted skills and in practice most Ele blast finishers (even for the ground targeted ones) are used at the Ele's location and not at range. The result is the Jade Sphere field only feeling useful for a few boons while you're standing still and not as a combo field in combat.

 

Edited September 26, 2021 by Pi Slinger.5801

[Yumesaki.7082]

Catalyst Feedback
Hammer
- Fire and Air Hammer skills would feel better with a range increase maybe up to 800 or 900 range.

- Triple Sear fire hammer4 skill you can stack all 3 aoes, by not using your cursor to target the skill or having your cursor over the health glob.

- Molten End fire hammer5 skill this skill feels like it should have a shockwave like earth skill 5 does, because of the windup animation of the hammer.

- Wind Storm air hammer4 skill the blow back can cause you to get stuck in objects and terrain.

- Shock Blast air hammer5 skill the animation feels wimpy, maybe make it similar to chrono shield 5?

- Stone Strike earth hammer1 skill feels like there should be bleeding on this skill.

- Immutable Stone earth hammer4 skill the block feels too short.

 

Utilities
- Augments These skills feel like they should give their bonus effects when attuned to their respective elements and also not required to be within the jade sphere, for the bonus to be activated.

- Fortified Earth This skill feels like it should be the earth hammer4 skill.

 

Jade Sphere is confusing
- You need energy to use and maintain the jade sphere.
- There is only 2 ways to gain energy: by attacking a target and by attunement swapping with a trait.
- There is no way to permanently maintain the jade sphere in combat.
- There is a cooldown on the jade sphere, this makes it impossible to reposition it in the middle of combat.
- There is no trait or way to make the jade sphere or it's effects follow you.
- The Jade sphere does no damage in competitive modes.

 

Making Catalyst less confusing
- Remove the jade sphere/energy mechanics and tie it into the elemental empowerment mechanics.
- Elemental Empowerment max 4 stacks, 15 sec duration, duration is refreshed when a new stack is applied.
- Each stack is 2.5% stats and each stack gains a rotating orb that visually represents the number of stacks.

New Minor Traits
- at 2 stacks gain an aura based on attunement when you attune to a new element.
- at 3 stacks apply boons every second to 5 allies in a 240 radius around yourself based on your attunement.
- at 4 stacks deal pulsing damage in a 240 radius field around yourself based on your attunement.

New Adept Traits

- gain elemental empowerment when you combo 5 sec icd.

- gain elemental empowerment when you immobilize or cc and enemy 5 sec icd.

- gain elemental empowerment when you evade an attack 5 sec icd.

New Master Traits

- gaining elemental empowerment gives you a stacking 2% damage modifier. max 5 stacks, 10 sec duration,  duration is refreshed when a new stack is applied.

- gaining elemental empowerment gives you stacking a 2% damage reduction modifier. Max 5 stacks, 10 sec duration, duration is refreshed when a new stack is applied.

- gaining elemental empowerment grants allies a Boon based on your attunement, 10 sec icd.

New Grandmaster Traits

- While at max stacks of elemental empowerment, it's effectiveness is increased by 100%

- While at max stacks of elemental empowerment, boon duration is increased by 50%

- While at max stacks of elemental empowerment, when a new stack is applied gain stability.

[Mattmatt.4962]

5 hours ago, Yumesaki.7082 said:

New minor trait

- at 2 stacks gain an aura based on attunement when you attune to a new element.

I disagree with a lot of things you pointed out and that doesnt matter  .. but THAT needed to be pointed out as the most broken trait ever created ... And you place that as a minor ??? 

Evenbgrand master major would be broken even for ele (who always had strong trait to make up for inherent lack of survivability)

[Dragonic Elemental.2674]

I think what is important is to ask yourself what the fantasy of the Catalyst is, and to think "What is the coolest thing we could make out of this?" And I think: "Use the rotating spheres!". The Hammer 3 skills are pretty cool, and could be made into the class' core mechanic as a melee-focused  spec. It could be that every time you swap attunements, you get one of these floating spheres, or as an extra press of the attunement with a cooldown, to prevent abuse (fresh air?).

 

I also imagine a trait that could add their buff effects (the "increased outgoing damage (fire) / decreased damage from conditions (water) while active"). There could also be a trait to be beneficial to ranged weapons ("Reduced damage from projectiles (earth)").

 

The fields from the "Jade SPhere could then be added to hammer #3. I think it would make more sense thematically even that the "Jade Sphere" is directly linked to the orbiting balls, then to the fields.

[SlitheSlivier.1908]

I know i made a post previously, but here it is again with some alterations.

 

In summation, Catalyst has some good ideas but overall is trying to do too much, with too much rushing, and none of it seems to have been designed fully through.  It also feels like the devs forgot this is a low-hp, low-armor class.  I'll go through this item by item.

 

But first what do I mean by the above statement? Firstly we are now required to upkeep many different things at once. We need to maintain our hammer 3 skill. We need to maintain our Elementalist Empowerment. We need to maintain Hardened Auras/Empowering Auras.  On top of that we need to deal damage, evade, heal, reposition, wait for enemies to come out of stealth, and somehow kill them.  It is really too much to do, especially in short durations they have.  The Hammer 3 doesn't give enough time to go through all of our skills, or even just a few heavy-hitters.  If we get cc'd (which will happen a lot, and don't forget our new utilities only have 1 stun break), we also have to start over.  The same is for the hardened/empowering auras which means we have to somehow gain an aura every 6 seconds. Then we have Elemental Empowerment. So we need to average 1 aura and switch attunements and use hammer 3 ability, successfully evade once and successfully  interrupt once (if both those are traited for elemental empowerment) every 6 seconds in order to maintain everything.  Then somehow you need to heal and actually deal damage to your foes.  Also, whether you are fighting a big boss, roaming WvW, or in a sPvP Conquest fight, you need to change your attunements to adapt to the fight going on, not to appease all of your active abilities and keep them from going away.

1) Hammer Skills:  The hammer is a neat idea of having some ranged and some melee.  The biggest issues is that it has none of the tools needed for a low-hp, low-armor class that allow it to survive even a little.  Hammer 3 is a really neat idea but it's active time is too short. 1 CC, or god forbid you actually try to use some big skills, and you won't have time to switch attunements and recast it.  The other issue is that it is using a spec that relies on combo fields a bit, but has no fields and only 4 finishers...and 3/4 of those finishers are the same type. Imagine Hammer being a weapon that flourishes with combo's, and uses them in a more major way in fights to kill, weaken, cc enemies and to help you survive. This is what can set it apart from other weapons.

Suggestions: 

a) Move/Merge Hammer 3 to the profession Mechanic F5/6 slot.  More on this below.  If for some reason this is not possible, at the very least, increase its duration to 10sec.  However merging is the best option by far (that I have, and it seems many others have also thought of this).

b) In all the hammer 3 slots, add disables so that it synergizes better with the 2nd Adept Trait and gives Catalyst some 'Active Defense'.

a) Add disengages (evade/teleport/leap backwards) to Fire and Air attunements.  Ideally the evasion option would be best due to ele's squishiness. This can be done by adding them to the new #3 skills or adding them to a couple of the others.  An even better idea, which would make it more unique from dagger would be: "Immobilize your enemy and slide backwards while blocking attacks for 1 1/4 sec.  If an attack was blocked, gain an aura".  This would give you defensive utility, mobility, and synergize with the rest of the spec.

c) Add engage effects (evade/teleport/leap forward towards your enemy) to Earth (water has one). Ideally using the evasion option would be best due to squishiness.  An even better idea, which would make it more unique from dagger would be:  "While blocking attacks for 1 1/4 sec, Slide forward to your target and stun it.  If an attack was blocked, gain an aura".  This would give you defensive utility, mobility, and synergize with the rest of the spec.

d) Add more combo finishers. If the Jade Sphere isn't fixed (more on that later) then fields will also be needed.  Add a whirl finisher on Air 2 and Earth 2.  Make Fire 4 a fire field and water 2 a water field.

 

2) Utility Skills:  The problem here is reminiscent of Harbinger.  They are, well, boring.  They also have 2 dependencies: correct attunement and being in the jade sphere.  This makes them too difficult to use and is a good place to simplify things.  Make it so attunement matters but not jade sphere, or vice versa but only if jade sphere is fixed.  Ideally I'd like to see them do more.  Ele needs mobility badly, esp melee, and it'd be good to change them to be more active. 

a) Air Utility is redundant to Vigor. Obviously it's better but it renders that effect useless for 5s. Change it to be more active and can be similar to Twist of Fate or even like Ranger's Utility: "Evade Attacks and gain swiftness while creating lightning strikes around you for 3s. If you are in Air Attunement, your lightning strikes cause weakness and vulnerability.  Breaks Stun".

b) Earth Utility.  This one is not bad.  I'd add " if in earth attunement, lose immobilize, cripple, and chill. breaks stun " to it though and have it only dependent on attunement.

c) Fire Just add "(also) while in fire attunement, evade backwards."

d) Water magic one is pretty good as is but maybe add in a 1k-2k heal as well.

 

3) Spec Mechanic: Jade Orb.  It is a neat idea, but in function not as useful outside PvE.  The issues are: Energy is wayyy too slow to build up, the field is static and thus easily avoided by enemies, and it always changes attunements (which can be good or bad, depending).  It is also a very...boring...mechanic and especially clunky.  It really feels tacked on.  Also it takes forever for you to be able to cast it.  The 2 options I present are to merge Hammer 3 with it, or leave both as separate mechanics using F5 and F6 individually

-Suggestions:

a) Merge Hammer 3 with it.  When you Cast Jade Sphere, you receive a Field that Follows you as you move (i mean the jade orb does follow you around...).  The field is the same radius as the current Hammer 3 ability.  Also upon casting, you receive the swirling hammer 3 projectile based on your attunement.  Your F5 button then becomes a toggle that "Locks" your field to whatever it is so when you change attunements, it does Not change with you.  You can switch between "Lock" and "Unlock" as much as you want with only a 2s CD.  This Field lasts for 8-10 sec unless you change to a new attunement since it was cast. At which point, you get the new attunement's swirling projectile (hammer 3) added and the duration is refreshed. If you have it set to "unlock", it also changes to the current attunement's field (fire/ice/air/poison).  If you get all 4 swirling projectiles, you receive access to a F6 command that is identical to "Grand Finale."  Get rid of Energy and just put it on a 30-45sec CD.

b) I like option A better, but if it is deemed best to keep the 2 mechanics separate, still move hammer 3 to F6 command. Increase its duration to 10sec. Then for the Jade Orb, Increase its duration as well, make it so your energy recharges when out-of-combat.  Get rid of the energy mechanic and just put it on a 30-45sec CD. When cast, have it place a small field around you that follows you around as well as at the desired location.  Have your F5 button be a lock/unlock toggle.

c) Make Jade Sphere instant-cast like arcane blast.  This will give it much more fluidity and those players that are good enough can time it with other skills for unique and fun effects.

 

3) Traits.  These are trying to do too much and doesn't give you time to really do anything with them. Also it really sucks to need to use 4 traits just to utilize that middle Grandmaster trait, which severely limits build diversity.  Also, keep in mind "10% to all stats" Doesn't necessarily mean your outputs are all 10% more.  Your defense is a combination of armor and toughness, so 10% increase in toughness is only really something like a 3-6% increase in defense. Healing skills all have a static heal rate + (small coefficient x Healing Power), so that will often only add like 3% more healing, depending on the skill. The same can be said for most of the stats.  This is why having 4 traits dedicated to this mechanic is a bit 'meh' and it's best to increase the output of elemental empowerment per trait so you can diversify your build and only use some of them.

a) Depth of Elements: (if energy is removed) Increase the duration of the boons granted by 33%

b) Change Hardened Auras to: "When applying an aura to yourself, block attacks for 2 seconds."    (also synergizes with the hammer theme better)

c) Vicious Empowerment: Gain 3 stacks of might and 3 stacks of Elemental Empowerment instead of 2.

d) Energized Elements: (with absence of energy) Gain Fury, Resistance, and 2sec Superspeed when you change attunements.  If Energy remains, just add the Resistance.

e) Change Empowering Auras to: "While you have an active aura, deal 10% more damage."

f) Evasive Empowerment: Gain 3 stacks of Elemental Empowerment instead of 2. Gain regeneration in addition to vigor.

g) Spectacular Sphere: Add. "Nearby allies also gain a boon for each Whirling Projectile (hammer 3 ability that's now prof mechanic) circling you."

h) Elemental Epitome: Gaining Auras grants 2 stacks instead of 1 of elemental empowerment.

i) Staunch Auras: Also have it give 1000 Barrier.

 

These changes will make the profession mechanic more useful, allow the current hammer 3 ability (which might be the best idea the designer had for Catalyst) to be used with every weapon set, give Hammer skills more utility, make it much more manageable to play by allowing you to adapt your attunements to your fight and not as much to keep your abilities from going on CD.  It also will allow the hammer to feel different by utilizing more combo fields in more ways and have a little more synergy with the traits via disables.

[Shadowflare.2759]

I don't go over everything that needs changing but here's what I think could be done to improve the Catalyst while being able to re-use many of the things that are already in place for the Catalyst.
 

 

Edited September 27, 2021 by Shadowflare.2759

[Strang.8170]

In it's current iteration catalyst has not much going for it, but there is potential. My issues with it in pvp/wvw are as follows.

 

 

HAMMER

 

1. Slow.

2. No damage.

3. No defense.

4. No fields.

5. Skill 3 feels bad.

 

For a melee to mid range brawler in a heavily action based, FAST game, hammer is way too slow and clunky. Skill 2 channels do not get interrupted by other skill uses (unlike dagger skill 2 channels), which forces one to use weapon stow to get any fluidity out of them and that feels extra clunky.

The skills try to be too much at the same time. Fire 5 is a long windup that from the looks of it is supposed to be big damage, but gives minor self only boons and a blast finisher instead. Here's a skill that says you want to setup a field (you don't have) on enemy (that can dodge) to use the finisher, use a cc (that is on similaiarly long cast time) to land the long telegraphed cast to do lots of damage with the boons and trait procs you have ( that you actualy get after using this skill). Air 4 is supposed to be your cc for setting up damage, but it's also one of your only two mobility skills and yeets you away from enemy limiting the followups radicaly. Earth 5 is supposed to be long cc to get off your damage, but has itself a long cast time with extremely telegraphed animation. Air 5 is outright absurd. It has a cast time, slow obvious projectile, that lands and plays a ground effect, it has in effect cast time of something like ~1,5  second from the press of the button to the effect

All the skills have low coefficients and effectiveness in general. Compare hammer to d/d. Dagger damage skills have lower CDs, bigger coefficients, faster casts. Dagger cc is faster to use, easier to land, there is more of it on a lower CD. Dagger has 3 evades, 3 movement skills, 3 heals, 2 always useful defensive auras. Hammer has a single movement skill, that is also it's heal and one skills that blocks one tick of damage, giving aura that might be useful. Both sets have 4 finishers, but hammer has no fields.

Skill 3 is bad in it's current iteration. It does not hit in your supposedly preferred disance that is melee. If it does hit, it does pitiful damage. It is projectile, so about half the game counters it almost passively.  And the worst of all, there is no decisions in using it. You cannot maintain it because CD is too long, duration too low and other long cast time skills (read all of the hammer skills) muck up your timing. So to get any effect out of it you need to limit your skill usage in attunents, not react to opponent since that doesn't fit your tight timing window, and use the grand finale in a very predictable manner since your window to use it is very limited. There is no choice there whether you should keep the balls spinning or finale, because you can only finale.

 

Whole skillset feels like it is partialy not there. It has roughly the same number of cc's as other weapons, but forgot that the cc is supposed to be the setup, instead of needing the setup. It has roughly the same number of finishers as other sets, but forgot that you need fields to use them. It has roughly the same number of damage skills, but forgot that damage skills actualy need damage. It is a melee weapon, but forgot to add any mobility.

 

TRAITS

 

1. bit boring

2. don't synergize with the new weapon

3. too long setup and too hard to maintain

4. Sphere traits could aswell not exist in pvp/wvw

 

Aura traits are problematic. You need a dedicated and very specific support to maintain these, as you yourself don't have enough  aura output to maintain them. Getting them up takes a long time, and having defense that is up for a bit, after a long setup, is bad. Similarly long setup for damage that uses the same cooldowns you'd use to setup cc for your damage is bad. there is no possiblity to keep it up alone either. Stability, while in theory should be plentiful, is bad because you cannot really have it on demand and it's still no plentiful enough to maintain a good uptime. It is also self only.

Elemental empowerement is a lot better compared to aura traits because you can actualy maintain it when traited with decent enough uptime, and it doesn't consume all of your skill uses to get it up. 20% attributes is a nice bonus, but without that trait the empowerment is very lackluster, especialy in pvp where attributes are extremely limited. The flaw of the empowerements is however, that there's a lot of attributes that just plain don't work with it, like other  % bonuses,  temporary bonuses and conditional traitline bonuses etc. this limits the usability quite a lot, making it feel like you're just playing better version of core ele.

Sphere traits are a pve option. this won't change unless the f5 changes radicaly.

 

F5

 

Aoe is tiny, it's stationary, CD is long, it has a cast time, duration is surprisingly short and you need to be in combat for a while before you can use it. When you find a situation you can use it it, the boons are not impressive without boon duration, staying in the well for extended periods and not swapping attunements. in other words, useless in game modes that require movement, and adapting to situations. This mechanic is exactly the opposite of what your whole profession needs to do to be effective, but provides very little benefit for that. It is also gated behind two different limiting factors, energy and cooldown.

 

Utilities

 

These have very little actual effect. They offer situational buffs that need another situational mechanic to line up with third situational mechanic in order to be...mediocre. They are in essence behind 3 different setups and cooldowns, the sphere, the attunement and finaly the utility itself. Way too much of a hassle for the benefit gained. On top of that they compete with core ele utilities, in game modes where not dying is the goal. Also, what is the purpose of water utility? It gathers more energy, but the well is limited by CD, it doesn't do damage, and chill is so short it might aswell not exist.

 

 

In conclusion

 

All in all the whole specc is slow to use, slow to get it's traits going, cannot maintain the traits and feels clunky. Synergies are lacking and where they exist they are limited.

 

My wishlist for the future iterations:

1. Faster, less clunky hammer, with combo fields, movement skills, and skill 3 that can be realisticly maintained.

2. Keeping up the traits needs to be easier or the effects need to be more pronounced.

3. Sphere needs to be mobile or there needs to be a way to reposition it. Cooldown or energy needs to go. Baseline boons shouldn't be useless.

4. Utilities need less faffing about and more oomph.

 

But most importantly, elemental empowerment needs to interact more with other stat modifires.

[Aru.2534]

Hammer skills. Mostly ok, but gives no benefits to wielder. First of all range 600 is no good, great for taking punches in face, and isn’t feeling like ranged fight at all: suggest 750-800 for ranged skills. Next, skills by attunements:

Fire: 1 – make it chain with 3^rd cast a projectile combo finisher, makes it rewarding for staying in one attunement; 2 – chance of being a finisher, 15% for example; 4 – change animation and add fire field; 5 – give it stability or aegis during cast animation, cause it’s so predictable and easy to see, or make it a dash with a finisher.

Water: 1 – blows give stacks of vulnerability – 1,1,3; 2 – gives front block during attack; 4 – good, maybe add stun; 5 – bigger range.

Air: 1 – good; 2 – less time to cast with same damage, add projectile blocking during cast, and add blindness in the hurricane zone, slightly increased radius; 4 – I love it, but enemies need to be launched backward, 200 or something, and giving swiftness to yourself, and your backward jump must be shorter by 100, cause now you jump out of your hammer range; 5 – flying slightly faster, blast faster and range is 200.

Earth: 1 – there is spikes, why no bleeding and cripple – hammer isn’t very fast moving on ele, so at least earth could make enemies move away from you slower; 2 – gives swiftness and stability during cast – unstoppable force with a hammer, maybe mud slide behind, like Engineer’s “Slick shoes” Gadget skill, another variant – barrier on each successfully hit target; 4 – Make it a real block, throw away your “Augment” skill “Fortified Earth” and make 3 seconds of honest blocking here, giving an aura at the end of it (and here is 3 seconds of choosing attunement for the needed aura too); 5 – bigger radius, launches and after that immobilizes, same like fire 5 - give it stability or aegis during cast animation, cause it’s so predictable and easy to see.

Hammer 3 – shortly, we got same thing on Weaver’s ultimate, and though it’s helpful and powerful, running through F1-F4 to have all buffs in time sometimes is not fun at all. Make “Grand Finale” always available, no cooldowns – it would be more versatile, like: one sphere – shot it, make other two – shoot it, depending on situation. Lifespan of each orb – 9 seconds instead of 5, with full refresh when you add new one. Air orb should add to weakness blindness condition when shot, earth should add cripple condition to bleeding. Every orb should have 20% of finisher. And to make it truly “GRAND FINALE” – shooting all four orbs at a time must make them unblockable. Without any orbs - “Grand Finale” is just a close range attack.

Overall of hammer – slow non-beneficial weapon. When I saw trailer was hoping for some kind of a mix of mobility of elementalist with some heavy boxer power, or may1be some crazy train crushing all in front of it, like barrier build ups and juicy knocking blows.

Jade sphere. Completely broken, worst is - charging by strikes, always-on-cooldown, static. In current idea it must be either high risk high reward or simply instant on-off field without any additions.  You drop it, everyone run out of it – totally wasted. Improvements:

1. No activation cooldown on attunement swap. We got attunement recharging already. Lesser cooldown after all Energy is expired – we need to charge it anyway.

2. The turn-off: two variants – on F5 make it moveable like Revenant's centaur tablet with 0.35 second recharge, or make it like Renegade Legendary Stance ultimate – flip on – flip off, with same cooldown of 0.35 second. Either way – without penalties to Energy. No one in this game is standing still, except for training golems.

3. Energy – high risk high reward – charging while it’s active a little by striking an enemy. Out of combat – not fast but constant charging up to 100% of energy, like endurance, 1 point at 1,5 seconds. Why Elementals’ Master can’t be prepared to fight, even if in lore Jade Spheres are made specially for Catalysts?

Traits. Rework all of them. Make them more complex, impactful, interesting, not simply number tweaks. No tweakable support traits on Jade sphere - for support we have Tempest elite spec. And “Elemental Epitome” trait’s cooldown 10 seconds is nonsense. It must be 5 seconds. Combo isn’t some that can be done easily any time, so this cooldown is too much.

Utility skills. Total waste. Not even broken, simply trash. At first: new "Armament" type breaks all flow of hammer: it can't be cast during other skills, and not instant, combined with fast-paced class gameplay but long-channeling weapon skills it's one or another, in result none of them. If kept like this we’ll have second set of “Conjure”-s. Give Catalyst instead, for example, Mantras, or something mid-weapon-skill castable.

And please, give us at last some impactful and mind-head-blowing ULTIMATELY Ultimate, something that just works and hits like a hammer blow, simple and reliable.

 

In a conclusion during beta’s Catalyst is super clunky: we got cooldowns on weapon hammer, on attunements, on new flow-breaking utilities, and now on Jade Sphere there is three of them: wait for charging (if you can strike someone!) at the beginning of a fight, wait for it's recharge after expiring or turning off, and charge it from zero again after all this cd time (sic!)👿. It's static so enemies who move freely can just leave it's zone and you'll be forced to leave it too. Completely one-timer, also with lots of hard conditions to use, mostly timings, due to complex  nature of Elementalist's  gameplay it's non-profitable outside of some kind of backline support. Now Jade Sphere is more like it's an utility, which you can choose to take or not, not core mechanic.

[Josspai.4356]

48 minutes ago, Shadowflare.2759 said:

I don't go over everything that needs changing but here's what I think could be done to improve the Catalyst while being able to re-use many of the things that are already in place for the Catalyst.
 

 

These are really cool ideas 👍

[Caid.4932]

I found it quite hard to judge this spec. I kind of felt that if the sphere was more available and manageable it probably would have been drastically better and its mechanics might have felt more impactful and useful. But it wasn't so it just felt like a bad core d/d ele.

I liked the idea, i think theres potential for a class that i'd adore but every piece of it in this beta wasn't at a usable, enjoyable level to really judge.

[Pete.8251]

- this could be such a good spec but it just feels off.

- hammer is great

- but what is up with the ele designs? skill 3 Flame Wheel etc. would be amazing, but the interactions are totally off with the small/large hitboxes and it feels almost punishing

- utility skills are super boring and dont bring almost anything unique or fun.

- it is way too similar to weaver in playstyle it feels way too bad when you still have things like firbrand or thief especially when you press a few buttons and get insane damage or utility

- keeping up the auras uptime is hard and if you loose it it is way too punishing in PvE, it just is not responsive to the situations.

- jade sphere cannot be moved and losing all energy when removing feels way to punishing

- it would be maybe more userfull to be able to chose what sphere i want to use instead of it changing with switch of attunment

 

- this class has the biggest potential and it can be absolutely amazing class, just take it back to the drawing table and rework it a bit to make it more unique, more impactfull

- this could be the best specialization of all and finally ele would get a specialization that me and others could be exited for, but in reality it is just not there yet.

 

Just make ele great again please.

[Caid.4932]

8 minutes ago, Pete.8251 said:

- it would be maybe more userfull to be able to chose what sphere i want to use instead of it changing with switch of attunment

 

 

That in particular felt like a problem. Quickness is just so much better than anything else that i dont want to change attunement when the sphere is up. Make them all give quickness and just change the combo field, theres already a trait that can give secondary attunement specific buffs like protection (which is pretty good too tbf but quickness is just better)

Or maybe if the spehere had better uptime i'd just get 100% quickness uptime naturally alongside the other buffs and that could work?

[Allarius.5670]

SUMMARY

-Hammer needs more fields and finishers to make use of its traits as much as, if not more than, core weapons.

-Hammer needs more accessible healing, cleansing, and defense.

-Hammer needs some minor cast time and damage tweaks.

-Hammer's circular projectiles need quality of life improvements to make them easier to utilize.

-Hammer needs a little more reach/range to help better carve it's own niche.

-Augments lack payoff for extreme setup requirements.

-Address the accessibility and useability of Jade Sphere. 

 

 

SPECIFICS

Hammer's Combo Fields and Finishers

-Catalyst is the only time hammer can see play and core elementalist weapon sets take advantage of Elemental Epitome in a much more significant way due to their access to low cooldown fields and finishers. 

-Hammer lacks the ability to effectively utilize Catalyst traits by comparison because of this. It would feel much much better if hammer had at least enough fields and finishers to be synergy equivalent if not more.

 

Hammer's Active Defense

-Hammer feels like it lacks effective defensive options. It has no options that can be effectively utilized without an opponent to hit or be hit by. This dramatically reduces hammer's ability to effectively sustain itself in dynamic situations. 

-Add strong base healing to Crashing Font on top of its heal per target hit.

-Add 2 condition cleanse base to Cleansing Typhoon that is increased further to 1 additional condition cleansed per target hit.

-Whirling Stones needs something additional because it's current cast time to damage ratio is incredibly low: cripple and weakness on hit, protection on hit, projectile reflection, barrier + barrier on hit, or some combination of these defensive effects. 

-Combined with more fields/finishers and increased aura access from Elemental Epitome, these suggestions may be sufficient.

 

Hammer's Damage/Cast Times

-Using Scrapper Hammer skills for comparison, most of the damage numbers look appropriate for a bruiser playstyle but some of them would feel better with minor cast time/damage adjustments. 

-Do note the defensive nature of Scrapper's hammer skills, meaning the damage to defense ratio on Catalyst hammer does not feel properly aligned at the moment.

-Lower Wind Slam and Stonestrike cast times to 1/2 second.

-Add a bleed application to Stone Strike.

-Remove the projectile from Shock Blast and make it a bolt from the sky.

 

Hammer's Circular Projectiles

-Quality of Life Suggestion: If a circular projectile is not out and the associated skill is on cooldown when Grand Finale is not on cooldown, make Grand Finale replace the skill so it can still be activated. 

-Circular projectile uptime feels low. The flow of skill activations required to upkeep these skills versus the need to activate other skills feels off. Either their immediate payoff feels too low to warrant activation and upkeep effort or the upkeep effort feels too high and is too easily punished.

-It is very very easy to miss an activation and lose the upkeep/payoff.

-This may be less an issue with more fields/finishers, increased aura access from Elemental Epitome, and more effective active defense. Improving hammer's effectiveness in these other areas may open up space to better focus on circular projectile upkeep.

 

Hammer's Dynamic Range

-Hammer's range variance feels very fun and dynamic, but it could use a touch more reach to help solidify its identity and compete with the defenses/cc of daggers and focus, the instant cast and high burst of scepter, and the sheer volume of AOE + support of staff. 

-Increase the range of Wind Slam, Hurricane of Pain, Shock Blast, and Grand Finale to 900 range.

 

Augments

-Augments feel like they have very low value compared to other options even with their secondary effects. Setting up optimal activation to achieve the secondary effect does not feel like it is worth the effort from all the hurdles and feels very unlikely in dynamic situations.

-Remove the Jade Sphere requirement to gain access to the secondary effect for the heal and utilities, require only the associated attunement. Keep the Jade Sphere requirement for Elemental Celerity only.

-Add a cooldown reduction to the Augment when activated in any Jade Sphere, not just the Jade Sphere with the associated attunement.

 

Jade Sphere and Energy

-Something feels off about accessibility and timing. Maybe this is only because Hammer has zero fields and few finishers at the moment.

-Consider a built in mechanic that lowers the cooldown based on how little time the Jade Sphere was deployed. Shorter deployment time would equate to a shorter cooldown. This would allow for a more dynamic playstyle that works better for dynamic situations without removing it's current functionality. 

 

Hammer and Jade Sphere Dynamic

-The Jade Sphere is equally available to other weapon sets that have more combo finishers, lower cooldown combo finishers, and actual fields than Hammer. 

-If Jade Sphere is supposed to replace combo field access for Hammer, then Hammer alone needs a very powerful mechanic to have Jade Sphere up when it needs it (a way to remove or dramatically lower the Jade Sphere cooldown, for example).

-If Hammer receives fields and finishers at a frequency at least as equivalent to other weapon sets, then this issue is not a concern. 

 

 

With these suggestions I believe hammer could become a viable option that contends with other weapon sets, albeit for its own unique niche.

[Kuya.6495]

So i tried to make this spec work in pvp and pve, so i'll give feedback on both. 

 

PVP

1. I think i'm not too sure what role this spec plays in pvp. It feels like an upgraded version of core ele, but i suppose that makes it a burst spec? I tried to play it more as a bruiser but the sustain was not there, particularly on hammer. And why would i want to make catalyst into bruiser when we already have weaver? Support is already covered by tempest so i suppose dps it is. Anyway i gave up cause i couldn't make a good build that used hammer with this spec that didn't die instantly. I did see that the pros were using this build with lightning hammer for bursty builds though. I honestly don't have any suggestions here since i don't know what else to do to make it better in pvp.

PVE

 

1. Wells are stationary: I tried to play it as a quickness support spec and i found you can maintain perma quickness, but unfortunately in a real world environment it was actually very hard to keep up in fractals.  I think the biggest problem i had with the sphere was that it was stationary and  in fractals you frequently move so there was just no way to consistently keep quickness up and the lightning well is your only source.  If the idea was to make ele a viable quickness provider, i think it would be a good idea to make the wells follow your character so you can consistently provide quickness to your allies even during movement.
2. Hammer doesn't have enough reason to use it: A lot of the build seems to be made around using auras to raise your own stats and combo finishers give auras, but despite this fact the hammer has relatively few combo finishers.  Was this a balance choice? I feel like using the hammer as the go to weapon for this spec would be a lot more viable if it were the weapon with the most combo finishers. I would recommend adding more finishers to the hammer so it can actually synergize better with your traits. Otherwise, people will just choose a different weapon. 
3. Energy management is a chore: I found it easy to max out quickness so much that i felt i didn't need to keep up my lightning field for the full duration, but when i decided to shut it down so i can change my attunements and do a damage rotation, i get punished by having my energy reset.  Why? This build's wells seems like a very wonderful mechanic considering you have access to 4 different fields, but you barely have a chance to use them appropriately because if you turn them off, you lose all energy. I did find you can get back a lot of energy if you switch quickly between attunements, which is fine, but i feel there should be other alternatives to gaining energy beyond just jumping rapidly between one attunement to another. Perhaps modify a trait so producing combo finishers on hammers gives energy? It would synergize well with my suggestion to add more combo finishers on hammer and make it more likely catalysts will want to use hammers. Another suggestion would be to remove energy reset when you turn off the sphere well. It doesn't seem fair that you lose all your energy because you have high enough concentration to max out quickness quickly. If anything, for maxing out quickness quickly, you should be allowed to save your energy for another field. 

Summary for recommendations:

1. make sphere wells move with the player so fast content like fractals is more viable.
2. Make hammer have more combo finishers to make it synergize with traits better.
3. Make energy not reset when you shut off your wells, and make hammer combo finishers provide additional energy to incentivize hammer use and combo field use. 

Miscellaneous suggestions: 

1. Utilities were pretty boring, including the elite. Maybe make them more interesting by having more active effects? Perhaps make it so the utilities trigger combo finishers when used in wells or make it so a trait allows this in case you don't want to run hammer (for whom i hope you will add more combo finishers).  Maybe make the elite trigger all combo finishers in sequence if you're on a combo field (blast then 3 seconds later, trigger leap, projectile and then whirl).
2. I don't really care too much for the complaining about ele not having good ranged builds, but perhaps it wouldn't be too much trouble if you increased the range of fire/air to 900 to at least satisfy this demand. It would certainly be helpful in pvp. Maybe if you decide to raise the range on fire/air skills, you can keep sphere wells as targeted, but just lower the CD so you can quickly readjust your fields if you or your team have to move (and also remove energy reset).

Edited September 27, 2021 by Kuya.6495

[Zephyrus.9680]

Short version of my feedback:

Orb

1. Jade orb needs a follow/attach mode with a mini combo field (F6) and a very short cooldown after deactivation. 
2. The orb should stay on the element that it was cast, even after switching attunements. This will make the class way more dynamic and give the orb way more utility for different situations. 
3. Add an extra function (F7) that manually switches the orb to your current attunement
4. Orb energy system should work more like revenant, not warrior (constant recharge rate, drops to half charge out of combat). This will also make it more usable for support players. 

 

Hammer

1. Needs more PBAOE CCs
2. Needs better mobility and sustain. The one heal being on the engage skill (water 4) is the exact opposite of how it should work... I don't know how its done in PvE but PvP (WvW) you never need heals while engaging. 

3. Don't use per-target hit for skill effects, it's so bad for balance (PvP/WvW context)
4. Needs better Cast Time Economy. Way too many slow activation skills. It doesn't matter that its hammer, you can't make everything super slow and expect the class to work, particualrly in PvP. 

 

Utilities
Scrap these utilities and completely remake them to be good/interesting. Ideally not based on jade orb, or even have the bonus effects specifically for when the orb is NOT active. 

 

Overall Summary

The slow pace of hammer is expected but generally the Catalyst is too fragile with no sustain or mobility, and most importantly no hard PBAOE CCs we imagine a hammer to have. Making an already too slow spec even slower with active blocks is not the right way to make it survivable. Jade Orb is just annoying as-is. It should be a useful, helpful and dynamic class mechanic but that requires a large number of changes. 

 

Essay-length version here: 
https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/102463-catalyst-nice-concept-but-needs-many-fixes-and-reworks-long-suggestions-from-wvwpvp-context/?tab=comments#comment-1476763

[InsaneQR.7412]

I just saw a reddit thredmthat really gave me a great idea how to improve the catalyst.

 

1. As previously, remove the energy system

2. Put the Hammer 3 to the F5 and add a blast finisher to grand finale if you have all 4 elements

3. Move the utility skills to the Hammer 3 and add a combo finisher to each attack:

 

Hammer 3 Water: Attack with a whirling attack. If you perform this in a water or ice field cleanse a condition for each combo finisher you perform. (Combo finisher whirl, si ilar to guardian whirling wrath on GS).

 

Hammer 3 Fire: Hurl a rain of fiery projectile against your enemies. If you perform this attack in a fire field you gain unblockable for each combofinisher you make. Combo finisher projectile (similar animation to fiery GS auto attack).

 

Hammer 3 Air: Evade backwards with a crashing boom and regain endurance. If you perform this skill in an air field you also gain superspeed and quickness. Combo finisher Blast ( at starting location).

 

Hammer 3 Earth: Leap into action with crashing force and immobilizing goes. If you combo in a poison field you gain barrier for each foe struck. (Hits multiple targets in area).

 

Utility skills: The current F5 skills classified as wells. 

 

Fire well: pulse might, damage and burn.

Air well: Pulse quickness, damage and vulnerability.

Ice well: Pulses Resolution, damage and chill.

Earth Well: Pulses Protection, damage and bleed.

 

Heal: Water Well: Pulses Cleanses, Heals and Regen

 

Elite: Arcane Well: Aether Field: Pulses Damage, Dazes and Reduces CD for all your skill for each foe struck.

 

 

I hope that was a good suggestion and usable input.

 

 

 

 

 

[Tom Hsiao.9705]

This is TRASH! We had tempest which is close combat channel magic and then weaver (MELEE RANGE sword) and now another MELEE GARBAGE!!!!!!

 

When I choose elementalist as main I did not have melee combat in mind. When are we gonna get a range elite specialization? NEXT expansion??????????????? 

[Downstate.4697]

There is plenty of feedback already, so I will try to keep mine short.

 

Jade Spear

I think where you guys failed was limiting its functionality and availability. I think it needs to be different from scrapper so I am fine with the idea of keeping an energy system as it adds some complexity that helps promote different styles of play.

 

1. Give the players the option to redeploy the sphere. When the sphere is placed it goes on a 5 second cooldown. Using it again causes the sphere to snap to the player. Redeploying the sphere will cost 5 energy, however you only lose 1 energy per second.

 

2. Add an f6 that allows the sphere to be stowed. Doing this places it on a 10s cooldown.

 

3. Have energy go to 100% out of combat.  

 

 

Augments

The reason augments feel so bad is that instead of enhancing the gameplay and making catalyst easier, you made its reliability worse while severely limiting access to the f5 mechanic. 

 

1. Make their additional affect baseline. The augments are good if you can use them freely.

 

2. To make them feel worth using and feel like they are augmenting your sphere I would change them to function like this:

-Using an augment while in the jade sphere causes the sphere to change to that attunement for the duration.

-The air augment forces the sphere to stay in air for 5 seconds.

-The water augment forces it in water for 5 seconds

-The earth one in earth 5 seconds

-The heal will force the current one its on to be locked for 5 seconds

-The elite gives you max energy on top of its other effects

 

3. I think this is good because it makes them much more flexible in pvp, while also allowing for more boon focused builds in pve. For example, you can use the air augment and lock quickness in for your team and then follow up with the heal for a 10s duration of the air sphere.

 

4. The earth augment should give 500 barrier per hit that is blocked instead of a 3k at the end. This makes it much stronger in large fights, but a bit weaker in smaller fights. The heal should be 20s.

 

Hammer

The hammer should feel slow, however, players should feel the impact of the hits. The damage just feels way too low and unreliable. The lack of finishers is a problem as well.

 

1. Give water, air, and earth 2 a whirl finisher. Give fire 2 a projectile finisher.

 

2. Air 2 would be better in pvp if the melee spin also hit for additional damage. Reward players for playing in melee.

 

3. Earth 2 needs more damage.

 

4. Water 2 needs more damage.

 

5. The 3 skill needs to last longer if you are gonna lock players in animations.

 

Traits

The top line is mostly fine. The middle line is bad because its just a stat check. The bottom line is bad because it should be playing into the energy system much more.

 

1. The top adept and master should be combined as a master trait. I don't care what you put as a new minor. Staunch auras is fine.

 

2. Rework the entire middle line in my opinion. Many people like it, but its just boring. You could totally make it built around augments. For example, the grandmaster could increase the duration of augments by 2 seconds or something.

 

3. The bottom traits should promote the use of the jade sphere and work better to help maintain energy. Picking these traits would allow for 100% uptime of the sphere theoretically. I would rework the master trait so that redeploying the sphere no longer costs energy. The adept I would maybe increase the energy gain to 5 when evading, but give it a 5s cooldown.

 

 

Hope this helps.

 

 

[applekwisp.2139]

Ignoring the fact that elementalist shouldn't have gotten hammer, but rather a ranged weapon like pistol, rifle, long or short bow, I didn't enjoy my short time with the catalyst. It has the biggest problems the majority of weapons/classes have that make them not viable, it's clunky and extremely slow.

 

I think the major improvements to salvage the class would be to make all the 3 skills significantly longer and trigger on attunement activation rather than on a weapon skill. This opens up for actually different 3 skills. The balls should all spawn and spin in uniform spots around you and not stacked on top of itself. The balls shouldn't be only a DPS advantage on big bodies and should be easier to maintain in open world and in melee combat. 

 

The F5 skill feels useless, but if 3 is moved to attunement activation, I think it opens up the ability to make the 3 skills interact with and or create combo fields and move them around, extend them, keep it as an aura, blast on demand, any number of ideas. Then F5 could be to unleash the balls instead of feeling bad about watching your short 3 spin duration. Maybe no balls summoned F5 trigger all the balls spinning or something. The balls feel like a better mechanic to focus on than a useless combo field that does not damage with so few ways to burst.

 

All of the utility skills fells useless. I'm honestly not sure how to improve them without changing the aforementioned items. 

 

I think the hammer is much too slow and too animation locked for what it does. The reason weaver and tempest (to a lesser extent) feel good is because I get to press a lot of different button. The hammer is the complete opposite of that and it feels terrible. It also extenuates the fact that staff is similarly slow and clunky.

 

The passive buff is too hard to maintain and too hard to even get stacks for. There are no solid ways to get auras, and to be honest none of the auras do anything compelling that you would be in a situation where you say, having X aura would really benefit my group in this scenario.

 

All in all, mostly all the classes are disappointing, but as someone who primarily enjoys elementalist, I honestly have 0 hype for it in its current form. It's a slow, clunky, mishmash of random idea none that synergize or fleshed out enough to be interesting. 

 

 

[SRMorgan.6124]

13 hours ago, InsaneQR.7412 said:

I just saw a reddit thredmthat really gave me a great idea how to improve the catalyst.

 

1. As previously, remove the energy system

2. Put the Hammer 3 to the F5 and add a blast finisher to grand finale if you have all 4 elements

3. Move the utility skills to the Hammer 3 and add a combo finisher to each attack:

 

Hammer 3 Water: Attack with a whirling attack. If you perform this in a water or ice field cleanse a condition for each combo finisher you perform. (Combo finisher whirl, si ilar to guardian whirling wrath on GS).

 

Hammer 3 Fire: Hurl a rain of fiery projectile against your enemies. If you perform this attack in a fire field you gain unblockable for each combofinisher you make. Combo finisher projectile (similar animation to fiery GS auto attack).

 

Hammer 3 Air: Evade backwards with a crashing boom and regain endurance. If you perform this skill in an air field you also gain superspeed and quickness. Combo finisher Blast ( at starting location).

 

Hammer 3 Earth: Leap into action with crashing force and immobilizing goes. If you combo in a poison field you gain barrier for each foe struck. (Hits multiple targets in area).

 

Utility skills: The current F5 skills classified as wells. 

 

Fire well: pulse might, damage and burn.

Air well: Pulse quickness, damage and vulnerability.

Ice well: Pulses Resolution, damage and chill.

Earth Well: Pulses Protection, damage and bleed.

 

Heal: Water Well: Pulses Cleanses, Heals and Regen

 

Elite: Arcane Well: Aether Field: Pulses Damage, Dazes and Reduces CD for all your skill for each foe struck.

 

I hope that was a good suggestion and usable input.

 

 

I agree with everything you've said here! Funny thing is, when they first revealed the Specialization, I thought that's exactly how it would work - the spinning balls are the new mechanic, and the Celestial beasts are the wells we get as utilities. I am not sure they have the time and resources to implement all these changes, but it would be fantastic to see at least some of them in the December beta!

[RuQu.8394]

On 9/24/2021 at 7:58 PM, JohnWater.5760 said:

 

That would be a worse piano than Weaver, just for 1 weak combo.

Weaver is my favorite way to play Ele, so I'm not gonna consider "that feels like Weaver" to be a severe negative.

 

But the current 5s duration is either borderline worthless...or requires playing a really fast piano for only the weak combo instead of playing a more sedate bit of piano music that culminates in that combo in the end, but not as the only thing you were doing.

 

I think Catalyst needs to figure out what it wants to be, and ideally that's all around combos and combo fields.  Setting things up and then a finisher fits the name so well.  Orbs building and unleashing is an alternative to the combo/finisher mechanic already in place, and would be a nice addition on top of it...but the Hammer needs more traditional combo tools as well.

[ohbz.7302]

I tested Catalyst in spvp and 1v1s and talked to multiple other catalyst players about it, here's my conclusions:

The new traits are overall quite good however Catalyst has two big problems: Hammer (honestly no reason to play it over dagger) and the new f5.

 

Problems with Hammer and possible solutions in no particular order:
- low damage payoff:  just increase the numbers (seriously -50% damage for pvp on some skills is a bit much)

- clunky mostly because of skill 3:  either make activating an orb instant cast (would go a long way in making the gameplay more fluid without making it op) or rework skill 3

- doesn't stand out (dagger already does the close-mid range combat really well):  Imo air 1,2 and 5 should have 900 range, that way hammer would become the hybrid range weapon on ele, making it unique (this would also make air 4 work better with them since right now you go out of range unless you cast air 4 it in melee range)

- Earth is weak:  earth 2 is way to little payof for the cast time (at least make it a whirle), earth 4 should block more than one attack, I'd personally like a ranged cripple on earth to close the distance

- fire auto attack is single target:  fire auto attack should imo hit 3 targets (making it more distinct from air aa)

- No synergy between hammer and traits (especially compared to dagger/x)

-> no combo fields on a class with traits that interact with combos:  either swap the orbs with f5 so hammer has one field per attunement or add add combo fields to hammer for example: a fire field to fire 4 (would fit the animation better anyways),  frost field on water 2 if all hits connect or water field on water 4

-> Evasive Empowerment (hammer does not give evades):  make the trait trigger on evades or blocks (earth 4) and give catalyst an evade on water 4 or air 4 or both.

-> Vicious empowerment (less cc on hammer than on Dagger/x):  make air 5 less clunky (It's honestly almost impossible to get hit by this even though 1,5s stun is not a crazy payoff) just let the stun hit immediately after landing and maybe even increase the speed of the orb, an other cc could be added (I'd personally like to see the classic gw1 meteor [lots of  nostalgia] so mb replace fire 5 with meteor [the current fire 5 doesn't feel like it fits in well anyways])

-> aura traits:  don't give hammer more auras, I just mentioned it to show just how many traits work better with dagger than with hammer

 

Now for the f5...

- I don't like the way energy is gained:  I'd prefer it to be based on attunement swap alternatively you could get rid of energy

- deactivating of jade sphere is pointless:  Imo it should work similarly to rev-upkeeps (low energy cost upfront + per second cost, really low cooldown ~5s)

- the f5 coupled with catalysts reliance on combos make it feel very immobile:  make the f5 follow the ele around.

- the 0,01 ticking damage is pointless: Either remove the ticking damage entirely or actually let it do damage (I honestly don't see the reason to skillsplit f5 damage)! (I understand when cc or skills that deal condis do 0,01 damage but on skills that have on other effect there's no reason to put 0,01 damage)

- I heard ppl complain that (at least in pve) the f5 changing when attunement is swapped makes pve rotations boring, I'm honestly not sure if this is necessary but here's three ways to fix this without loosing the mechanic of changing fields entirely:

option 1: give 3 versions of f5 depending on traits (base field without traits: created on the position of the caster, with 1. trait: ranged field, with 2. trait field follows caster, 3. field don't change when swapping

option 2: when pressing the attunement you are currently attuned to it will summon a field that does not change when you swap, when using this it works like f5 and can be deactivated like f5. When you press f5 you get the field that changes when you swap but the field follows you.

option 3: make it so the boon granted is dependent on the attunement you used it in but the combo field change (almost impossible to balance since the boons have vastly different values)

 

Other Stuff:

- The augment utilities should trigger the extra effect no matter what sphere you stand in

- I'd like Augments to have they're own trait (maybe one that makes augments give energy)

- Spectacular Sphere is boring: either remove it in favor of an augment trait or a different trait, for example a trait that triggers an effect when the sphere changes (when you attunement swap) or a trait that actually changes the mechanic behind f5 (like making it follow the ele)

 

Edited September 29, 2021 by ohbz.7302

[Yer.8096]

I don't know if someone else had same idea than mine (my english isn't so good to stay tunned on every word).

 

Focusing just on F5 mechanic; I still think they could be "summoned" on active element, and F5 space could be used for a better visual reading on energy. "Speaking" about energy, I think energy could be gathered for ONE source: Attunement. Whenever the elemental change his attunement, he could charge sphere energy (like that trait made for that, but not as trait anymore, just as a natural mechanic and only source of energy). That means if elementalist still attunning elements within a period, he could stay always with sphere... 6 seconds os each element, for example. Another and laste mechanic I would change is that "summon sphere" button (I hope same button as active element) could be use to change sphere location, with 5~10 second cooldown.