Jump to content
  • Sign Up

Catalyst Feedback Thread


Fire Attunement.9835

Recommended Posts

The problem with Catalyst is that if it does more DPS than weaver, which it does at a whopping 42k DPS benchmark on top of its range flexibility, then weaver becomes a completely obsolete spec.

 

Mainhand sword weaver needs to be buffed up, and catalyst needs to be shifted to a dps/boon support spec like quickness scrapper or quickbrand which bench for 33-35k DPS.

 

Then tempest can be properly given support tools besides just pure healing. A simple "increased condition duration" or "increased boon duration" aura would make it a lot more attractive as a support spec.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 10/16/2021 at 7:43 PM, Adam Beth.6842 said:

Have the devs acknowledged any of the feedback / player perception of Catalyst?

This is one of my biggest concerns.

 

A little 'we are listening...' goes a long way to assure their customer base feels this is being acknowledged. This thread is legit 25 pages of most people saying this spec sucks.

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I haven't read all 25 pages of this, but I have read many comments on here and on Reddit regarding the Catalyst. I will list what I think would be the best changes for Cata, but these ideas are not necessarily mine to begin with.
 

I think the best situation would be to divide the current F5 into utility skills, replacing the current utilities (which I found that I hardly used at all during my 3 hour test run). We could then keep the "Spectacular Sphere" trait, since each kind of utility skill seems to have a trait associated with it.

I've seen several suggestions of replacing the current F5 with the hammer 3 skills. I don't mind that - but I have a similar idea. If ANet wants to keep the energy, I would suggest that generating enough energy in a current attunement provides a benefit, i.e. enough attacks/damage in Fire generates whatever the 'Fire Bonus' would be. Once you get enough energy/do enough damage, you would get the 'Fire Bonus', which would stay active on you until you hit F5 for an activated effect. And then you switch to a different element to charge that one up, getting a 'Fire Bonus' & a 'Water Bonus', which would have improved effects upon hitting F5, and so on until you get all 4 bonuses. This could encourage players to switch between attunements more frequently (which I think is the intent of the Catalyst).

  • Thanks 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

First impressions

This game does so many things right, it really is a treat to play, with smooth combat and intuitive, thematically consistent design. It truly is a gem to play, so buttery, so unique.

Okay, moaning time. I feel terrible for complaining about the devs creations, but I take solace in the fact that they are turbo capable of crafting a god-tear mmo.
Catalyst - something which makes a chemical reaction happen quicker.
A very cool theme, certainly the Elementalist and the Engineer come to mind as they are very multi-faceted and versatile in nature, providing a whole host of utility and support to your team.

The Catalyst is boring. It feels like a slow, immobile, and gracelessly ineffective weaver. I will echo many other player's disappointment when I say I really really really wanted a powerful ranged traditional AOE DPS e-spec.
However, I think the catalyst has a place in gw2 combat, given a good portion of love and some proper looking at.
I rather like the idea of the catalyst being not very mobile yet very effective otherwise, I could see a melee/short-range magic class, providing unique effects for their allies.

The Class Mechanic
Why does it have an energy requirement and a cooldown? GW2 launched with this idea and it worked so well! Simplifying the space/time (mana/cooldown) mechanic of skills into just time is a SUPERB idea, as the player need only worry about one thing! I still think that a mana/currency mechanic does work well with certain classes (rev, necro, holosmith, druid) as it is implemented with such reward and impact.

It would be nice to see a removal of the cooldown and only rely on an energy upkeep, also allowing us to retain the energy out of combat.

The f5 animations look so bloody cool, I love them, they can stay forever they are beautiful. 1000/10

The fields themselves are disappointing and very unoriginal; we already have fire, ice, air, and poison in the game. The idea of producing another field as an ele is not particularly exciting, we can do that already to the max.

It is my firm and very aggressive belief that gw2 expansions are perfect time to add new; conditions, boons, combo fields, combo finishers and other features such as auras and barrier.
Take this opportunity to give us four new elemental fields; inferno, tidal, cloud and tectonic. Or maybe it’s just one new field type. New fields could allow us to have new combo finishers and new auras. Imagine getting the powerful new Nimbus aura in a cloud field, blinding all nearby enemies, and striking them hard when you are attacked. What about the Hellfire aura, which decimates foes with a load of burning and torment if they dare hit you? A cool and mighty Poseidon aura which knocks foes back, with their wake healing allies all in one tidal hit. Perhaps an Obsidian aura which grants you barrier when struck whilst weakening and bleeding the clueless foes near you. This is the sort of thing that get players really hyped for new e-spec releases, as it is truly new content. The f5 skill should really be a gyro and be always on your character, as this makes sense for a low-mobility stationary class. 

 

Skills

The hammer. A mighty, heavy, and slow weapon, great for punishing your foe with impactful and big hits. Some of the skills on the ele hammer are okay, such as the water skills; this is a refreshing idea to have water be a main source of damage which is a nice twist to the class. However, many of the skills feel rather underwhelming like the air auto attack, why can’t it deal high, ranged strike damage; something sorely needed by the elementalist. The fire and earth auto attacks also feel rather underwhelming, increasing the burning and giving bleeding would be a great start.

Let’s talk about the ele hammer 3 (all elements). It has been said before, but I will say it again; this is a weaver skill with inappropriate range. Why not add these orbs to the utility skills and uniquify the range for each orb? Each orb could address a different range at perhaps 120, 250, 400 and 600 range? Firstly, this makes seeing them much easier and orbiting balls of energy seem much cooler when they are on different trajectories. Moreover, it also gives better purpose to them, as the distance could have play with the role of each orb - you could have like a 'back off bruh' orb and a 'come @ me bruh' orb thing going on depending on need.

Really looove the hammer air 2 skill, yet I agree with others who feel it should also deal melee damage.

Earth hammer skill 4 gives us a very welcome block, a rare and special treat for earth elementalists let alone elementalists in general. Why are there not more blocks in other earth skills? My gripe comes with the aura part - it’s nice that we get another source of auras, however the 'aura based on attunement' seems a little punishing, as 3/4 of the time it urges you to jump from earth, prematurely missing earthTime. Perhaps rather than the aura, we are rewarded with barrier or something?

Water hammer skills feel rather delicious. They are meaty and rewarding. The healing on skill 4 is sooo satisfying. The other skills are just fab. It’s totally refreshing (don't say anything) to have water be a high-damage bloke for once.

Auto attacks - The fire, air and water auto-attacks seem underwhelming if not dull. Air for example is very generic and just does (small), short range damage, why can't it be a supercharged piercing attack? Earth is very unrewarding as it does small damage at a short range and is begging to have bleeding on it at least. Nice to see that fire has a burning projectile, but again fails to excite at its low burning duration and lack of AOE. Why can’t auto-attacks have DPS or potential which is equivalent to near (enough) the highest DPS auto-attack of the weapon? This keeps the other element's auto-attacks relevant whilst not pushing the meta off the cliff. On this topic, I truly believe similar treatment to all the ele's weapons skills would be very fun and healthy for the game.

Utility skills are naff - especially the elite, as all ele elites do not feel impactful at all. Why cant we have utility skills like the virtuoso? Core ele whirlwind elite should be a ground-targeted AOE and function much like plaguelands on the necro. Maybe put the orb hammer skill 3 on these? Maybe make them like simple short range AOE things, like a nice little heal, simple barrier, condi, and damage? The utility skills could also be designed around modifying or empowering the f5 skill, one for damage, one for tanking and such.

Traits

I like Elemental Empowerment; the omni-stat boost is very elementalist, if a little too weaver. With the Empowered Empowerment gm trait, it seems very fun.

The Aura traits - could be good, but not always exciting, perhaps heavily modify or bolster the current auras? Staunch Auras.. this is a joke right? This is truly insulting. Come on, please. What about auras reducing, all damage or something or like making you run twice as fast as superspeed?

Energized elements - fury? How boring. C'mon anet, time for new and interesting boons.

The traits reflect the rest of this espec; boring and not very innovative. They are begging for empowerment.

Outro
The Catalyst needs love, and a whole tonne of it. Please arenatnet, we have seen wonderful things with this game and know you can do it. Push the boat, be whacky, give the ele the truly powerful specialisation it deserves.

 

  • Like 3
  • Confused 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Let me start this by saying I am relatively new to gw2 and that I have not played the new elite spec yet. I have spent most of my time playing elementalist and was very excited to see what the new expansion would hold for ele. I like so many others, was disappointed with catalyst. I feel like the potential is there for an amazing spec so here are some of my thoughts how the spec may be improved.

 

also, many of these ideas stem from my own personal desire for ele and from what I’ve heard/read about what most people seem to want from the profession. One last note, many people on this thread have far more technical suggestions for catalyst modifications, I am speaking more from a conceptual design of the elite specialisation as I feel like it could do with a bit more love in its foundation rather than the specific implementation of certain mechanics.


hammer:

I like hammer. I was skeptical when I initially heard about the weapon as I would have preferred something that played more into the archetypal mage/caster with long-range, flashy abilities. The more I think about it though the more I realise hammer has exactly that potential. Hammer could be reworked to have large AoE spells, walls of ice, crumbling the ground or projecting a lightning bolt that also places an emphasis on control (not taking too much away from the big spell focus of staff). Hammer has the potential for clear decisive and calculated casting of spells. Currently the hammer appears to be lacklustre with an emphasis on continual rotation of elements to try maximise hammer3. I would like to also move away from the necessity to switch elements just because it has to happen (don’t need weaver 2.0 I guess).

 

While I think it would be amazing to modify hammer, to me it isn’t the most glaring issue. 

 

jade sphere:

Please just remove this. There are plenty of ways this mechanic could be altered to make it feel enjoyable and rewarding but I think elementalist needs more love than a combo field bot. 

 

I don’t know if this has been discussed somewhere in the forums but I feel like the addition of an ‘arcane’ element would open the doors to so many possibilities for ele. The ability to access a new element in a manner similar to druid form mechanics but make the arcane skills still dictated by the weapon type feels so much more elementalist. This could allow some fun versatility by varying your ‘mega’ form with the weapons you choose furthering the options you have as an ele to deal with what is in front of you.

 

I toyed with the idea of having a similar form but with one of he four elements that you can select out of combat but I feel like this steps on the tempest’s toes a little.
 

utilities:

this aspect of the spec I don’t have any knowledge about. I have read one or two aspect that mentioned they felt unrewarding and that there really seems like no reason to take them over existing skills but I unfortunately can’t comment or provide any thoughts on this aspect of the specialisation.

 

 

hopefully some of you find this interesting and hopefully it sparks additional discussions. All I want is a fun elite spec for ele :) I look forward to hearing all your thoughts! 

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I wish they would add better animations to the hammer especially for water since it's lacking visuals. I saw during the live stream the Naga and Champion Naga Tide Priest use that typhoon skill that would look good on the hammer water 5 skill cleansing typhoon. It would work just like Air 2 and Earth 2 skills on hammer with the animation around your character while you spin healing and cleansing conditions and doing damage while you move. It fits with the skill name and they are reusing many animations throughout the specs why it wasn't on the hammer doesn't make sense. I just think it would look cool to be able to move and spin your hammer while being in the center of that animation. I already gave my opinion and thoughts on the Catalyst so I know this is just a minor thing.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Lynx.9058 said:

My biggest issue with cata is the duration of hammer 3.  It should be bumped from 5 seconds to 10 on each circular projectile.

Hammer 3 is probably one of the most fun skills in the entire spec. It's a shame that it's not properly worked around.

I wouldn't be surprised if most people would prefer it over the current Elite mechanic, the F5. The fact it's limited to Hammer is also a huge bummer.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Bleikopf.2491 said:

Hammer 3 is probably one of the most fun skills in the entire spec. It's a shame that it's not properly worked around.

I wouldn't be surprised if most people would prefer it over the current Elite mechanic, the F5. The fact it's limited to Hammer is also a huge bummer.

yea it's really fun to use and I used it far more than F5 during the playtest.

I just don't like the short duration.  I feel like I don't have time to really use my other attacks in each atunement without losing the spheres.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The skills 3 on hammer + the spirits could be on autocast when swapping attunment (or be activated like the tempest attunment skills).

 

While the spirit would change when swapping attunment the projectile would stay for as long as they are not thrown by using a new F5 which would keep the energy idea. The spirit aoe would follow the character (like the berserker torche skill)

 

At full energy u can choose to send all the projectile at once by pressing the new f5 or hold on to them. Also they could hover closer to the character (same as the revenant hammers) and instead of all following the same trajectory they could go around the character at different angles (like electrons are shown going around the nucleus in an atom). The skills 3 on hammer could all be blast finishers.

 

All skills 1 on hammer could have a chain of 3 strikes with an elemental visiual effect on the third strike. Earth smash the ground and have spikes come up (same as now but only on the third strike and with the hammer hitting the ground as opposed to being swinged). Water smash the ground and splash water and so on and so forth.

 

All skills 5 could be large epic looking attacks. Meteor shower (taken from the hydra) on fire. Icy meteor shower on water. A massive lightning strike on air and earth 5 looks great already.

 

The augments are ok but maybe they could also all act as blast finishers.

Edited by Harvert Ramius.3950
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I haven't actually played Catalyst myself and have only looked at the wiki, so maybe I'm off-base in asking about this. But from a glance, does the F5 sphere option really need to be an F5 ability?

Given that elementalists already use F1-F4 slots already, could the spheres be incorporated in the UI the same way Tempest uses an Overload ability by swapping out your active attunement's button for the sphere mechanic instead? That way, you can just double-tap your chosen attunement instead of reaching for the F5, since it's not like you can deploy spheres outside of your current attunement anyway.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, Sarm.5923 said:

I haven't actually played Catalyst myself and have only looked at the wiki, so maybe I'm off-base in asking about this. But from a glance, does the F5 sphere option really need to be an F5 ability?

Given that elementalists already use F1-F4 slots already, could the spheres be incorporated in the UI the same way Tempest uses an Overload ability by swapping out your active attunement's button for the sphere mechanic instead? That way, you can just double-tap your chosen attunement instead of reaching for the F5, since it's not like you can deploy spheres outside of your current attunement anyway.

Something I've been thinking as well and would absolutely love. Reaching F5 is difficult for me. I might get used to it, eventually, but why not just improve the UI?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Didn't get to play the Catalyst, but when I saw that Elementalist was getting hammer, I was actually quite excited, Hammer does not at all get enough love from Anet. Unfortunately, instead of AOE skills and hammer throwing, we are getting what appears to be quite the mess. I genuinely think that the elements for Catalyst are there from what I have seen and read, but a lot of reworking and going back to the drawing-board are probably needed in order to make the class fun to play. Anet has reworked classes completely before, so there is room for this to happen, so hopefully we'll see this by second beta.

It would however be comforting if we could get a statement that they were working on the class... 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...