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Catalyst Feedback Thread


Fire Attunement.9835

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Hello, I have some very specific feedback on catalyst. Please note what I say only applies to PvE (mostly in the context of high-end PvE - Raids). Also I won't talk about "this does too much dps or too little dps", I believe the game has a big balancing issue in PvE that far transcends the new elite specs.

 

First of all I want to say this is the class I spent the most time with and hammer is incredibly well designed, props for that, very very interesting and fun to play. 


First piece of feedback is about hammer 3, if possible it'd be nice to have a (very) small CD from spawning the orb to grand finale, to prevent accidental double use. The class is very intense mechanically, which is amazing, so it would be welcome to have a 0.1s or so now that it has no cast time just so you don't end up using the grand finale when you didn't mean to. I understand if this is deemed inelegant or maybe I'm the only one who encountered this issue, so maybe this might not be the best idea.


Secondly, about the elite. This I'm confident about. I really like this skill, but in PvE it needs to be on a way lower CD to allow you to really make interesting adaptations to your rotation. It is very fun to have the possibility to double your damage skills and avoid auto attacking on a burst window or doubling your cc on a break bar, it seems designed to promote being good at reading the situation and improvising which is amazing, but it needs to be accessible more often to really feel this way. With such a lengthy CD you may end up only using it once for one purpose in the entire encounter, which makes its flexibility hard to justify when you could just run FGS.
 

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I still don't like that Catalyst has both Elemental Empowerment and Hardened/Empowering Auras. These two sets of buffs feel like they occupy the exact same design space, and together they take up five major traits and two minor traits. There are also problems with Elemental Empowerment involuntarily increasing your toughness. I'd rather we just have one of them, and I'm partial to Elemental Empowerment. For PvE at least, I'm sure it wouldn't be too strong if Elemental Empowerment had the new "Each stack refreshes all other stacks" clause, so I think it should look something like this:

  1. Remove Elemental Empowerment from minor traits and move those effects to Majors. Getting auras for combos can still be a minor, but that frees up one minor for maybe a Vitality boost.
  2. Every stack of Elemental Empowerment refreshes all stacks. You can get fewer stacks per trait activation if needs be. Evasive Empowerment should also activate on blocking because the spec has two new blocks, so it just makes sense. 

This frees up two major trait slots for new effects. They could be things like:
When you gain an aura, gain a boon appropriate for that aura's element and some energy. 
The Hammer 3 skills have longer duration but no longer flip over to Grand Finale, so they're just about the spinning orbs. (I think that'd be a cool option to have available).
Automatically transmute auras after 1 second.
When you use an Augment within range of the sphere, enemies in the sphere's range are inflicted with an inhibiting condition (weakness, slow, blind, cripple, something like that).
Something that rewards X number of hits similar to Guardian since that's a big part of the hammer. Like, 20% chance on crit, your sphere(s) unleashes an element appropriate extra attack.

Finally, Catalyst plays pretty well with conjured weapons since you can trait them to give fire aura when you pick them up. Can we please give some love to conjures? The part about picking them up from the ground is a mechanic that has really not aged well. Same goes with "sharing" them with other players. Most of the time, people will just get pissed off that you picked up their Fiery Greatsword and whatnot. They should just be same skill as they are now but with 2 ammo charges instead of one getting put on the ground.

Edited by HeliosAlpha.3198
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28 minutes ago, Parktou.4263 said:

Water 1 should be ranged and not a chain, Earth one should be ranged as well. Whole hammer set works better as a mid range attacker. Earth 2 still not a whirl finisher somehow? Maybe water 2 should change as well. Feel free to ignore me.

Good changes with minimal effort required

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The latest iteration feels a lot better with the Jade Sphere changes. I think there's still a little bit of wonkiness with hammer skills though.

The most annoying issue with hammer for me is the Grand Finale skill firing off when I'm just trying to activate the orb skills. It'd be nice if there were a delay between the skills to prevent this.

Another issue I have is the low amount of aura generation the hammer has. It seems like dagger + dagger is the only weapon set decent enough to work with the aura traits. I can't keep up the stacks with hammer by just combo finishers and earth #4.

Lastly, the hammer's fire skills seem way too slow and weak. Other than fire #3 and #5 I'm not sure why I'd push the other buttons for so little damage. I just want the might from the Jade Sphere and swap out as soon as possible the way it is now.

Overall it seems like the hammer needs some improvements to set it apart from core melee sets. It's lacking the utility to take advantage of most catalyst traits and it can't stand out well with the low impact fire skills.

Edited by Clownmug.8357
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The changes to the F5 (Jade Sphere) skills are a good (and much needed) improvement to the set as a whole - this is great IMO.

However, whilst the line-up now does decent damage (possibly too much?  not sure - depends on hit box size I guess), too much of that is baked into the Hammer 3 skills.

In addition, I didn't find it that much fun to monitor and maintain the stacks of the hammer 3 skills - I'd prefer that skills be more situationally useful rather than  needing to be activated every few seconds.

As far as theme goes, I still think catalyst is a bit of a jumble, and that the concept of the theme should have been worked out better - it seems to be modern jade tech accessing ancient spirits for a kinetic/melee spec that can switch to ranged.  I hope I'm being unduly negative here, but the theme seems confused to me.

As far as function goes, it seems to be trying to fit into something like the territory that's already mostly taken up by tempest and weaver.  I'd have preferred if the new spec had struck out into newer territory, personally - it would have felt fresher to me that way.

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The performance of hammer in WVW is really really bad, which means we're all still stuck with staff (after 9years...).

 

I really think all the #5 skills should be 600 range, and earth #1/water #1 should be 600 range as well.

e.g. The Earth/Water #5s could be 600 range cone AOEs instead of yet more melee.

Fire #2 should pierce and the cone wider, seems to miss a lot.

The AOE circle(s) of Fire #4 should be larger, often hits fewer targets than expected and kinda bad dmg for its CD as well.

The AOE of Air #2 should be 240.

Air #4 is annoying unreliable. Sometimes propels backwards, sometimes not, it sucks.

I hate the #3 skills.  They don't last long enough and feel very unimpactful.

 

In summary I hate the mixed melee/600 range, especially that there's no ranged in water/earth. Sucks balls. Also with 14/20 melee and 6/20 ranged the balance of skills is way too much on the melee side. 

Edited by scerevisiae.1972
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Didn't like Hammer at all. Probably the worst-designed weapon in the game in its current state. Why does fire and air have ranged skills but earth and water have none? 600 range is a very awkward range at the best of times but to be stuck in earth or water without even a single ranged attack feels so wrong. The whole weapon set feels like it hasn't been thought through or playtested properly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, scerevisiae.1972 said:

The performance of hammer in WVW is really really bad, which means we're all still stuck with staff (after 9years...).

 

I really think all the #5 skills should be 600 range, and earth #1/water #1 should be 600 range as well.

e.g. The Earth/Water #5s could be 600 range cone AOEs instead of yet more melee.

Fire #2 should pierce and the cone wider, seems to miss a lot.

The AOE circle(s) of Fire #4 should be larger, often hits fewer targets than expected and kinda bad dmg for its CD as well.

The AOE of Air #2 should be 240.

Air #4 is annoying unreliable. Sometimes propels backwards, sometimes not, it sucks.

I hate the #3 skills.  They don't last long enough and feel very unimpactful.

 

In summary I hate the mixed melee/600 range, especially that there's no ranged in water/earth. Sucks balls. Also with 14/20 melee and 6/20 ranged the balance of skills is way too much on the melee side. 

 I agree, like the speck, but it would be nice to see 900 for fire/air and 600 for earth/water to give another mid range option

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My current feedback for Catalyst:
The hammer 3rd slot skill is difficult to maintain, it lasts for a very short duration, it can be easily blocked/reflected, it has a diminished value at ranged, and feels weak to use the Grand Finale skill if you do not have all four spheres.
The other hammer skills feel good but they are also held back by the fire and the air 1st slot skill because those skills don't pierce or hit nearby enemies. Also, the fire 5th slot skill is a close-range skill in a ranged set, and the air 2nd slot skill is a huge investment that easily goes to waste if the target moves out of it during its channeling. 
As for the Jade Sphere, it takes some time to build the "catalyst" energy, so you can't deploy one at the start of a fight, also some weapons have more advantages to build this energy because of their high number of hits; Another downside is while you have a Jade Sphere deployed you can't build up energy. 
However, you can have three Jade Spheres at the same time, but allowing the player to maintain quickness, might, and protection might be bad for competitive environments.
For the Utility skills, I don't have much to say, they feel good, especially the heal skill but I've gotta say I was hoping for something else for the elite slot skill, I'm tired of having to take the Conjure Fiery Greatsword in PvE fights because Conjure Weapons, at the current state, is a nuisance to use.
And lastly, we have the traits; Catalyst traits have a focus on auras by either granting one when you combo or rewarding you when you receive one, but the hammer skill set lacks skills to create and/or to transmute auras.


My suggested changes:
The Catalyst can benefit from having a close-range weapon, the hammer could have slow but aggressive skills. Elementalists, in general, had always to play the game with a very high APM if they want to maintain a high DPS, the hammer weapon, for being a slow weapon, could bring a set of skills with less APM.
Also, the 3rd slot skill is a huge work for the Catalyst, while the other classes have much simpler skills with the same benefits.
Deploying a Jade Sphere could be simplified by switching it to an ammunition skill instead of using "catalyst" energy.
Also, Jade Spheres, as it is, should also be nerfed by overwriting the old deployed Jade Sphere when summoning new ones to avoid perma boons.
Lastly, the traits, I think the problem here is more the hammer than the traits, the hammer skill set only brings one leap finisher, and the other way to build aura at "demand"(you still have to be attacked) is through earth 4th slot skill and even though you can build auras using combos you still can't transmute them.

PS I would love if the team could take look at the visual design of skills such as Shock Blast(air 5th slot skill) that have very lame particles effect.

Thanks for your time!

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Catalyst this time around is in a better spot than before. But as it is right now.. theres no reason to use hammer. Too much maintenance on the hammer 3 skills because the duration is insanely low (hammer 3 skills should last 15 seconds). Low damage on most of the hammer skills. Lack of range in the entire kit. Slow and clunky animations.

 

Water and earth need some ranged skill. The utilities, while decent, feel like they were made last minute.

 

To be honest, the whole kit feels lazy... and boring. Not to mention that the vfx fall flat. Especially compared to vindicator and the rev spec. because of how boring the spec is, ill probably just stick to weaver even after it comes out. 

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[PVE]

Hey team - Beta 4 was quite fun, and I happened to spend a great amount of time on Catalyst.

So, here are my general and specific thoughts/recommendations: 

 

General: I must say, the changes to Catalyst were quite impressive, and made it feel much more smooth with specifically activating skills. With this said, I felt that while it was smooth activating certain skills, there was a large portion of the kit that I had little interest or ease in using from moment to moment gameplay. Such issues were really on the Hammer. 

Hammer can be an awesome weapon for Ele, but it feels like there are only 4 skills to use -- and they are all of the #3 skills. Hammer also feels like a pseudo Weaver with the 3rd skill, and because it is such a core mechanic to the weapon, it feel lackluster and unoriginal, as Eles got enough attunement swapping at lighting pace with the last Elite Specialization.  I would like to see these skills deleted from the weapon and put on the Augments. 

Additionally, the Fire skills on Hammer feel super melee oriented, and I believe would slot better as the 3rd melee attunement for Catalyst. 

Overall, impressive changes, but there are still core issues with the weapon. 

 

Specific:

Hammer 

Hammer #3 - Remove the Orbs and Grande Finale, and replace the Hammer 3 skill with a unique skill for each attunement. 

Ideas

Fire "Phoenix Feather" - Slam your hammer damaging and conjuring a fire field that grows in a road. Prolong Might upon a successful strike. (600 Damage. 3 Targets. Fire Field. 300 Range. 3s Duration. +3s on Might)

Water "Downpour" - Summon a ring of water above you, crashing down around you and knocking down enemies. (300 Damage. 1.5s knockdown. 180 radius.) 

Air "Shock Frenzy" - Summon a lighting orb at a location, zapping one random enemy in the area with heavy damage for each pulse. (1000 Damage. 240 Radius. 5s Duration. Lighting Field.) 

Earth "Mud Bash" - Bash your foe with a hammer head of mud, striking them and spraying mud behind your target. All foes affected are slowed [Later edit: What about Taunt??]. (500 Damage. 2s Slow. 5 Targets. 300 Range). 

 

Fire

"Singing Strike" & "Surging Flames" - Melee strikes which would send out a bolt(s) of burning behind the target hit.

"Triple Sear" - Larger AoE around you, dealing all three strikes if an enemy is very close to you. 

 

Water 

[Autoattack 2] "Water Rush" - Heals you with each successful strike. (80 healing per target).

 

Earth 

"Stonestrike" - Grants you barrier with each successful strike. (80 barrier per target). Also, feels like this should be an auto attack chain. 

"Whirling Stone" - Give it a Whirl combo finisher. 

 

Utilities 

Augments: I would recommend putting the original Hammer #3 orbs on Augments. This would allow Augments to feel a bit more unique, visually, than just a utility pack of Stances 2.0 for Ele.

"Soothing Water" & "Shattering Ice" - Could grant Icy Coil if used in a Water Sphere. 

"Relentless Fire" - Grant Flame Wheel in a Fire Sphere.

"Invigorating Air" - Grant  Crescent Wind in a Air Sphere.

"Fortified Earth" - Grant Rocky Loop in an Earth Sphere. 

"Elemental Celerity" - Should grant an aura based on the sphere one is standing in, along with the appropriate boon. Additionally, and on top of the CD reduction, this should grant 10 Jade Sphere Energy upon use.

 

Traits

Minor "Elemental Epitome" - Reduced cooldown to 8 seconds. 

 

Master "Spectacular Sphere" - Jade Spheres deal more damage. When you combo in a Jade Sphere, the effect duplicates for a second combo.  (+25% Damage. Combos Twice in Jade Spheres). This is honestly just a more "out there" idea, as adding boons to a boon field is a little boring to an elite spec.

 

GM "Staunch Auras" - Gain Stability and Energy upon gaining an Aura. (1 Stability (3s). 3 Energy). 

 

Just a couple extra ideas for possible directions the Catalyst could go down. Honestly, I am more exited to see how it will develop with time. Thank you all for the hard work!! 

Edited by kroof.5468
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Oddly enough I was finding mild success with hammer in pvp running wizards amulet and fire/earth/catalyst. I think with the ridiculous amount of fire auras you apply the added bonus to burning really makes the class do some easier dps while you can focus more on the orbs and combos and such. Fire will protect you from condis, earth with stone heart will help you from power spikes, and water 4 is a big no investment heal. Been using the elite specifically to double down on water 4 so I don't have to worry about the sustain so much. Idk, didn't get enough time to solidify if it was actually good or I was just pub stomping but it felt better than my other build attempts.

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So hammer is OP vs stationary PVE targets and super weak in WVW and/or any other fighting situation where mobility and range matter.

Surely that means we can lose the #3 skills and replace with more mobility and ranged skills? I think the #3 skills are a stupid gimmick anyway.

Cause PVP/WVW is all I play and I really kittening hate hammer, the crap range and excessive emphasis on melee skills make it total garbage. 

Making the #5 skills ranged and/or cone AOEs and adding ranged autoattacks in earth /water would make a huge difference to WVW without affecting PVE, but even then I predict it would still be weak. 

 

I still can't understand for the life of me how anyone thought Ele needed another melee weapon.

Edited by scerevisiae.1972
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Man i really hope the devs aren't looking for feedback exclusively on the forums but also taking into account other gw2 communities, this place is notorious of being somewhat of a cryfest

 

Hammer, is good weapon imo it has a very interesting fluid pace to it and a playstyle not really present in other ele weapons, this half melee half ranged combo fieldless weapon is really really awesome and i hope it stays that way, its clear that immobilization is big part of its defensive and lock down capability to land the big damage small area skills, so i wish there was another immob to it so we can be free to choose between picking up arcane or not OR the fifth skill in earth gets a lower cooldown to flow better into triple sear or shock blast, maybe a 25CD would feel much better for the weapon

 

earth 1 animation also is somewhat mmm not that great so a change in it would be nice

 

The new jade sphere is awesome and i love how u can get a sphere of one element, then get the combo skill from another element only to get an aura of a third element if u so choose, thats amazing and i love it, however the UI of it leaves something to be desired, i suggest u ditch the F5 and treat it like an overload reducing the F-buttons to 4 again, and get the energy bar under the attunment buttons much like how weaver get a spliced bar under his, just splice it into 3 heres a pic   https://i.postimg.cc/13ncK4mK/UI.png maybe even make the first energy bar faster to gain than the following 2 and signify that by making it a shorter length bar compared to the other two!

And thank you ❤️

Edited by volca.7234
added the shorter first orb idea.
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I only really tested Catalyst on this fourth beta as I was the most excited about it for sure. I haven't got a big set of feedback to give as I don't feel much needs to be worked on now. Do note, this was all testing carried out from an open world perspective where I was soloing content that usually requires 2-3+ people.

 

General: I love the changes you made with the Jade Sphere! Having one sphere per element is way better and them being a wider radius means that applying boons with them is a lot easier. It made me tinker and experiment with even a heal Catalyst as the healing is strong and they now give boons, but that is a side tangent. Making the Sphere an instant cast even when you're disabled was a nice move too as you can get it up ready for when you break stun or get back up and combo straight away, I was able to get to 10 stacks of elemental empowerment a lot easier due to the combo potential now. The small changes to hammer are welcomed as well! Reducing the speed on Whirling Stones is nice as well as it reflecting projectiles, that was very useful in the open world where I was testing this against tougher group content. Grand Finale being a combo finisher is great too and Triple Sear being a smaller radius to hit all three is refreshing as well 🙂 . I didn't have any use of the augments but the changes you made to them are very welcomed and I know in a PvE endgame content perspective, I would make use of them more so as they serve a great purpose!

 

For a few slight changes I'd say:

Jade Sphere: 

  1. Take it off the attunement swap ICD; when you swap into a new element, it goes on the 1.5/2s cooldown of being able to swap to a new attunement and sometimes I found myself for example going into earth, wanting to combo Ground Pound and then Grand Finale straight away but then I had to wait two seconds and my Grand Finale had fallen off.
  2. Change the UI. When I see Druid, Holo, Harbinger, any Warrior spec, etc. They have a really easy to follow and visually beautiful UI to follow to see when they can use their class mechanic. It could be a bar like shadow/harbinger shroud/warrior adrenaline or even something such as Celestial Avatar where the f5 is on the top over your health pool and when you have enough energy to drop a sphere you get a little visual pulse of particles on the UI in regards to your element. You're in fire and have orb ready? A little spray of embers comes from your health pool vicinity to let you know its ready as the current energy bar seems thicker than the first beta but it is still very underwhelming and not easy to see.
  3. Make water sphere give regeneration either with its base pulsing boon or via Spectacular Sphere; I think everyone associates water with healing and defence but the sphere does not reflect this. The resolution is nice, but fury doesn't make much sense. Maybe regeneration as the base boon and then resolution via Spectacular Sphere as that boon is more premium than regeneration. Regeneration is so valuable when you're soloing and water not giving it at all even when I'm traiting into my sphere giving more boons, feels a little off.

 

Traits: 

  1. Make Energized Elements give more energy. With us having 40 energy at total, gaining 2 energy per attunement swap feels negatable and I always found myself going Vicious Empowerment for extra might and Elemental Empowerment. If this gave maybe 4/5 energy per swap, I would easily take this in a solo perspective for more spheres which means more boons for me 😛

Utilities:

  1.  Make some kind of adjustment to Soothing Waters. I'm not fully sure where to take this heal but it just feels like Ether Renewal and Glyph of Elemental Harmony put together but without it granting a boon. It is nice it lowers to a 20s cooldown in a water sphere, but in higher pressure situations I would probably use this on the spot without having a water sphere out and would get no extra reward. It is also a over time heal, and the spec doesn't really have any other healing besides Crashing Font so this giving a burst of healing might be more favourable.
  2. Elemental Celerity I think is a great elite, and the changes you made makes it easier to use, however I have seen a few people say exactly what I was thinking, it needs to be a lower cooldown to allow for it to make interesting adjustments in a rotation. I was running glyph of elementals for solo but if I could do more with this elite, I would probably use it more so. If you wanted to use it to double up CC or extra damage or extra healing with Crashing Font, but then once you've done that little burst of skills, you have to wait over a minute to do it again, it doesn't have any longevity to it.
  3. Reduce the block duration on Fortified Earth. I tried this at the very start of this beta and it is really nice but it felt in some ways too long? of a block duration and I felt like a wet noodle running around holding it up for so long. I enjoyed barrier off it as a defensive utility for solo but 3 seconds of downtime for the barrier it gives felt silly. Reducing it to a two second duration with the same effect would be great!

Hammer:

  1.  It is quite common in earth for bleed to be everywhere, so just throw some bleed on the earth auto attack as it feels really lack lustre at the moment and also quite weak.
  2. Increase the duration of when you can cast Grand Finale. I have seen from rotations that this is one of the hardest and a lot of people mention "kitten I drop the orbs and it messes up my rotation" and I felt this too when solo. They were dropping a lot so I couldn't even combo fire/earth orbs into a sphere field to get a stack of Elemental Empowerment. A couple of seconds increase would probably help on this so 5s to 7s on the time you have to shoot them. Someone mentioned this briefly too, but add a small ICD on being able to launch Grand Finale as sometimes I was pressing 3 to get the skill going and then it registered a double tap and my orb was gone.
  3. Whirling Stones should be a whirl finisher, it is literally in the name of the skill 😄 
  4. Turn the CC type of Wind Storm into stun instead of knockdown, please honestly ignore this if it just seems very minor because it would be fine either way 🙂 

 

Overall, I really enjoy the changes made to the spec, I feel I could solo with it, whereas I hardly could before and even then it was sub-par. I've seen it have some impressive benchmarks (maybe a little too high but damage balancing isn't just a Catalyst issue ehehe) so the changes you have made to the spec have been for the better! Can't wait to see if Catalyst receives some QoL adjustments and slight alterations before launch!

Edited by Sorasnobody.9350
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2 hours ago, volca.7234 said:

Hammer, [has] a playstyle not really present in other ele weapons, half melee half ranged

the playstyle is nearly identical to sword/focus weaver, which has nearly the exact same melee/ranged split.

that's one of the biggest gripes people are having - there's no niche, it's sword/? all over again.

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1 hour ago, scerevisiae.1972 said:

the playstyle is nearly identical to sword/focus weaver, which has nearly the exact same melee/ranged split.

that's one of the biggest gripes people are having - there's no niche, it's sword/? all over again.

Don't forget dagger, dagger has up to 600 range as well, it's really annoying... 

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11 hours ago, scerevisiae.1972 said:

the playstyle is nearly identical to sword/focus weaver, which has nearly the exact same melee/ranged split.

that's one of the biggest gripes people are having - there's no niche, it's sword/? all over again.

This is not the place to discuses it and meant more as a player to Dev dialog, however i can't leave you being wrong like that buddy, Sword and hammer ARE POLAR OPPOSITES, the sword focus is nothing like hammer due to the fact that sword disengages as a defensive measure to kite where you pop your water2 to evade and get your water field and then make a run stalling, while in hammer you engage as your defensiveness measure with water4 a leap which heals the more enemies u engage, water orb for water combo field which are present in fire and earth 5s, earth orb, etc.. and the strength of attacks is also flipped, sword focus ranged is a CC set up phase for your vortex to land, while hammer the melee phase is meant to sustain you and the ranged abilities are where the real damage is being dealt air2 fire4 etc..

 

You clearly didnt play it much or played it without actually even trying to find its flow.

Edited by volca.7234
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While improved from the previous iteration, Catalyst still feels very confused and clunky to play. I personally think it needs reworking entirely and given an actual identity, rather than flirting with about three different roles. But I understand this is likely not possible, so here are some suggestions within the current confines and scope of the Specialisation.

Hammer

The ranged/melee split doesn't feel good, encouraging you to use melee so all your skills are effective, while the ranged skills feel underpowered. For a class based around placing down combo fields via the Jade Sphere, the fact its ranged attacks don't actually count as projectiles seems strange. Picking one would allow the hammer to be more focused on an actual role or playstyle, while making it easier to balance accordingly. 

Skill 3 and Grand Finale encourage rapid switching between Attunements, while the Jade Sphere encourages you to camp Air to throw out Quickness fields. It is a theoretically fun mechanic, but its current implementation could use some tweaking, like extending the window for Grand Finale as others have suggested. 

Jade Sphere

Utilising the Jade Sphere off of F5 feels clunky. While this can obviously be rebound, I think changing it to replace your current Attunement, like Tempest's Overloads, would be more intuitive. 

The UI for Energy is rather unclear. A thicker bar sectioned like Warrior's Adrenaline, in the same space as Weaver's "element split" bar would make things clearer. 

Alternatively....

Utilities

I'm not a fan of any of the Utilities, and the fact they are so bound to the Jade Sphere mechanic seems a bit strange for Utility skills in general, most of which compliment a profession mechanic but can be used independently of it. Swapping things around so the Jade Sphere's are actually Utility skills, acting more like traditional Wells,  which then become the current Augment's after they are cast. This would allow you to end them early to gain the benefits of the Augment, adding some skill to time this properly to maximize the effects. I think this would fix a lot of the complaints about the class feeling clunky, while allowing room for a new more interesting Profession Mechanic. Perhaps even making Grand Finale the Profession Mechanic, which alters based on your current Attunement. 

Edited by Daelin Dwin.5698
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The first wrong step is compare it with the Weaver.
There, the second wrong step is try to make the jade sphere like Overload Attunement (Tempest).

Starting from there and being a player for 6 years.
You can do everything you want, is your game, but you know too that the players make a game great.

In the Beta 2, the Catalyst felt so, so, so slowless cause the balls from hammer 3, cause the jade sphere.
I mean, there's no problem to use the things to make DPS, you just need to practice it, and make a lot of DPS (Beta 2 45k dps, now like 52k), the problem is not the DPS, cause is a practice-gate. 

The character is an ELEMENTALIST, from the start to the end, and it makes you change between the attunements in combat, having knowledge of the whole skillpool of the profession. And that is the reason cause it dont have combat weapon swap.

In Beta 4, the Catalyst felt more fast, more polished, and aesthetically better.

Why I am here?

  •  Cause the Hammer is a thing that nobody ask. Has had a hammer summons for 9 years. 
  •  You make the Hammer and the unique interaction with the other old weapons is the Jade Sphere. 
  •  The Jade Sphere's energy system is a AWFUL system. 
  •  Change that thing for ammunition system puting it 5 seconds of CD or something like that. 
  •  Make the trait that generate energy for change attunements reduce the CD or something like that, is a kitten that you CANT start a fight with the Jade Sphere, you need to charge energy before combat to save energy to use in combat... and if you die, you lost the energy. 


The Jade Sphere is a Well skill that dont move and grant buffs for 5 seconds, cause damage dont do great, specially in pvp/wvw, that do 6 damage. 
Revenant F4 Alacrity for 10 persons is mobile.  
Quickness (and other buffs) from Guardian is mobile. 
The Gyros of the Scrapper are mobiles. 
The Wells of the Chrono are almost instantaneous buffs and damage, you dont need to stay for 5 seconds in there. 

  • Cause the Jade Sphere is a 5 seconds buffs/well (for now), make it like the Gyros, that follow the Elementalist.

You need to press 20 keys and also you need to aim the Jade Sphere, that's wrong.
The whole rotation in 15 seconds and pray that you don't need to dodge
The balls from hammer 3 needs to be automatic skill the consequent 3 casts if you started to cast in one attunement, and automatic target cast if you dont use the 4 attunements.

Making the elementalist more difficult that is, isnt the way.


It needs to be more friendly. You are making every people that will play Elementalist, old, and new, and make it hardest for the newbies isn't the way.
You really want that Elementalist will be always the hardest profession to play?
The lowest armor, lowest HP pool, making a 20 skills rotation, melee, and the uniques survival is a block and a trait that grant 2%-10% damage reduction... you still have 11k in you HP pool, everything's gonna kill you. 

The trait that gives you Celestial stats is so lazy. The trait that gives you stability from auras too.
The trait that gives you auras from every Combo that you make... Combos, really?
And 1 aura for attunement, WHY? Why you make mandatory aura generator change attunements.


You need to grant it MORE survival and LESS complexity.
Need more RANGE.
Need to be more CASUAL.

Edited by Reig.8173
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The catalyst improvements for this latest beta have been amazing.  I played exclusively in roaming scenarios in WvW, small team fights, and about 100 duels.  I used the hammer as my only weapon.

My only focus was to test a fresh air power build, using berserker armor, marauder hammer and trinkets, scholar runes.  Energy and cleansing on the hammer.  I used the usual arcane traits and Catalyst 3 2 1.

Jade orb - The change to deploy jade orb is great, and its usage and flow in combat feels very good.  Since the field lasts 5 fixed seconds now, I do think that the field should pulse damage like it does in PvE, this would maybe help alleviate a little bit of a lack of damage compared to marauder sword weaver for example.  Otherwise jade orb is amazing.

Hammer - Hammer 3 is pretty much perfect now.  I think if it lasted 6 or 7 seconds it would add a bit more flexibility for people in different combat scenarios.  The additions to survivability are perfect.  I think it would be nice if Fire hammer 5 had a ranged component or a very large radius, just to add a bit more utility at range to fire attunement, and to normalize the attunement themes.  Compared to other profession 600 range weapon abilities, I think the hammer lacks a bit of damage, especially on the auto attack.  As it stands right now, the ranged auto lacks the pressure to force people away, or draw them into melee range.

Augments - All of these feel appropriately powered now.  The stun-break cooldown is difficult to take advantage of, but that seems fine.

Traits - Due to the instant cast and separate instances of jade orb, I do not feel as forced into empowered empowerment now, as it is easier to get might and elemental empowerment stacks through the natural flow of combat.  

A big problem is a lack of energy generation on hammer compared to other weapons, maybe due to how hard it is to land the multi-hit attacks.

Catalyst is great fun and with mainly just a bit more of a tweak to damage, and energy generation on hammer, It would feel perfect.

I think most peoples problem with catalyst is their lack of practice or understanding what ele is all about.  Hammer is a 2 handed weapon, therefore it is a HUGE change in the way ele plays.  Ele is always about the weapon skills, and especially with a new 2 handed weapon, it creates a large learning curve.

As Grimjack said, and I agree, 

       "CATALYST DOES NOT NEED NOR SHOULD GET SWEEPING FUNCTIONAL CHANGES."

Edited by sfaubion.9452
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Overall, compared to the previous Catalyst beta, this spec has seen immense improvement. With that said, I do still believe there could be a lot more that can make this spec more perfect, reliable, and worthwild to use in all aspects of the game. The recent changes to the F5 was one of the best changes this time around. the changes to the Hammer 3 orbs a great with insta-casting because most skills in Hammer had long cast times. This made it convenient for the user to maintain the orbs while still focusing on other skills in a rotation. The change in F5 can be included in that too. Lastly, the increased duration to the traits Elemental Empowerment and Empowering Aura made it more realistic to not be relied on another person giving you auras to maintain their buffs

Breaking it down for each change, here are some suggestions I think could potentially make Catalyst more optimal for every kind of player in every game mode. 

Jade Sphere

Overall, the new implementation is great. There are not a lot I can critique about it, besides maybe some QoL changes. Mechanically, this changed Catalyst to be more fun, optimal, and makes it flow better. 

1. Fire Sphere's boon application should increase the Might per pulse. Having 1 Might per pulse for 10 seconds is very little. Generally speaking, most people are running builds that don't have concentration within their stats. Most are either running some kind of power, condi, and maybe rarely celestial. Running solo or open world, Catalyst needs some push in order to kill things quick enough while trying to be a "Bruiser". Since this can only be casted in Fire Attunement, most fire skills are very offensive and not defensive whatsoever. 

 Suggestion: Apply Might application to be two at a time instead of 1. By the time the Fire Sphere ends, the player should have 10 Might. In addition, if players run Spectacular Sphere, then that's 15 Might. If players are camping Fire and casting the Fire Sphere agian, that should be close to 20+ Might considering the duration? I think it's a fair balance to allow the Catalyst to be a power bruiser while in Fire attunement and whatever attunement afterwards. 

2. Fire Sphere (again)'s duration should last longer when applying the trait Persisting Flames. When trying to maximize your damage, any Ele build (Tempest, Weaver) takes this trait in order to apply this modifier to get the 10% damage. But, in Catalyst, the F5 does not increase it's duration and thus you need to stay in Fire to cast it twice + time your rotation right to allow yourself to go back into Fire again while still have the 10% modifier. 

Suggestion: Make the Fire Sphere last the 2 seconds longer. You'd still have to camp fire to cast it twice to get the 10% modifier, but it allows more leeway when swapping to other attunements before you have to reapply the modifier again. This also allows more Might generation as said in the previous suggestion. 

**Hammer Skills (new idea) and the Orb Mechanic**

This part is going to sound very  theoretical, but I have an idea that could shape the Catalyst to make it optimal for all weapons of Ele. As it stands, the orbs on the Hammer 3 skill are what makes Catalyst and the hammer unique. The problem is that this mechanic is only unique to hammer alone, whereas it feels like a Catalyst mechanic. The currently implementation of only having it on hammer greatly reduces the value of any other Ele weapon on this spec. The main reason is because it's 1. main source of damage and 2. a great source of the orb-specific buffs (the 5% damage, 5+ condition damage, 7% crit change, etc etc). Why would you use any other weapon?

Suggestion: Remove the Hammer 3 orb mechanic out of hammer entirely and implement it into the attunements. Here's how I'm thinking the mechanic of the orbs would be then: 

- When on an attunement, if you press the attunement again, you summon the orb. If you press the attunement again, you can throw the orbs as a projectile. Literally the same mechanic as Hammer 3, but place it into the attunements themselves. 

- When swapping an attunement, there should be no ICD. You should be able to immediately press it again to summon the orb if you wish. 

This allows the orb mechanic to be unique to Catalyst as a whole. My hope is that this brings value to every other weapon while playing Catalyst as well. This will mainly benefit dagger since it's also a melee weapon, but applying it to both Scepter and Staff will allow for better damage and usability. I've tried benchmarking with every other weapon, and nothing compares to the DPS rotation of hammer of 55k. Using the same settings, I could only hit around 22-25k with other weapons. Without the orbs and their damage and their modifiers, it feels terrible. Check other videos of Roul to see more realistic situations using Hammer because obviously the 55K benchmark can't be applied everywhere. 

With that said...Hammer 3 skills would need to be replaced. I know this is the last beta and the expansion is coming up so it might be unrealistic to hope that Anet could release 4 new skills in addition to the Orb mechanic change..but here's hoping anyway. 

- Fire 3: Make this some kind of small fire field + some application of burning. Both the duration for the field and the burning don't have to be long, but hammer still is the only weapon for Ele that does not have a fire field attached. This will help with maintaining Persisting Flame and allow Catalyst to combo off of it.  

- Water 3: Make this some melee aoe chill. I know Hammer 4 is a leap and that's a great gap closer and Hammer 2 applies chill already, but it's still sometimes hard to catch up to foes that are constantly moving. This is especially true for PvP/WvW when trying to make the best out of your orbs but you can't catch up to your enemies. 

- Air 3: Make this some leap, dash, or teleport to a foe within 600 range. This is to counter the Hammer 4 which pushes you back a max of 600 range from a target. In all game modes, it doesn't feel good to be pushed back so far in a weapon that is very limited in ranged attacks. This is difficult to sync in PvP and WvW to cast a skill after casting Hammer 4. This leap, dash, teleport or whatever will be a great gap closer to that and in general. If this becomes a leap, you can combo with it to get a Shocking Aura, stun foes in hit. 

- Earth 3: Make this some kind of melee cripple. As it stands, there are no cripple at all for Catalyst and in order to better make it a melee Bruiser, it needs a way to stop enemies from getting further away. Hammer 5 is great for the long immobilize, but can be easily countered since it has a long cast time and obvious animation. 

Hammer Skills (existing skills)

 Okay now for the existing skills of Hammer. I think the changes to the instant cast orbs, the shorter cast time duration of Hammer Earth 2, additional heal and cleanse from Water 4 and 5, and barrier for Earth 4 are great. I do think there's still more for improvement.

Air

- Hammer 2: Increase base damage and power coefficient in PvP and WvW. It's an incredibly difficult skill to pull off because Ele's are generally focused and are squishy already. This skill has a very long cast time, even with applying the Air Jade Sphere quickness. The damage isn't reliable enough to use since doesn't do that much damage for a skill that's completely stationary. 

- Hammer 5: Increase stun duration to 2 seconds. This is also a difficult skill to land. On paper, it sounded easy to land since you're going to be in the face of a player anyway, but it can be easily countered since it has both a cast time + deployment time to initiate the stun. This isn't the same as Dagger Air 5 where it deploys immediately after casting and there's like half a second telegraph to signal the enemy that it's coming. Hammer in general needs more CC anyway since Air 4, Air 5 are the only sources. Other Ele weapons have multiple sources (up to 3) and are much stronger. 

Earth 

- Hammer  1: Apply bleed on hit. Either do this or remove the animation where it looks like Dagger Earth 2. It's misleading and it makes it look like you can block projectiles with it too. 

- Hammer 2: Make this a whirl finisher. It's funny that's called Whirling Stones and the animation is very clearly whirling, but you can't whirl finish. I'm aware that can lead to more dramatic gameplay in PvP and WvW but I think Catalyst still needs it. For example, if you use a whirl finisher while applying the Earth Jade Sphere, then you can apply poison to your enemies. I think that kind of gameplay works well with the Bruiser playstyle. Not to mention you can get a Magnetic Aura, but you'd be combing with Hammer 5 anyway. 

- Hammer 4: Increase cast time to 2 seconds and increase the barrier. In PvP and WvW, the 1k barrier doesn't feel like anything. Also the current cast time feels so short, I feel like I'm casting it for the sake of the barrier than trying to block a certain incoming skill. Maybe make the barrier 2k? 

Augments

In general, I feel the new additions are pretty good. I like the lower cooldowns for the Fire and the additions to their bonuses when applying them with their respective Jade Spheres. The Elite is game changing for PvP and WvW, but I don't find any use for it in PvE. 

- Elite: Allow the energy to be replenished for the Jade Sphere to 30 (max). This is an addition to the current version of the elite. I'm honestly not sure what  can be changed for the PvE aspect of it that won't break it in PvP and WvW. I just feel like there's no reason to bring it over FGS or the Glyph Elemental. You're swapping attunements so fast anyway to maintain the orbs, there feels no time to use another skills from the same attunement again since you're leaving it. 

Traits

Changes to Elemental Empowerment and Empowering Aura have been great for PvE, especially in end-game modes. It allows the Catalyst to be more self sustaining and can bring the damage without the help of anyone else. 

Staunch Auras: This trait is kinda useless. I tried in PvP, but I think in all situations and builds, Sphere Specialist outweighs anything else. Those boon durations can be beat by stability that may be hard to control since you're combing so frequently and sometimes passively. Not to mention, hammer doesn't allow for easy Aura application on-the-fly. An example of something like Staff Earth 3, Focus Fire 5, Dagger Water 4, and Dagger Air 3. With those, applying an aura for stability can be great for stomping a player or to avoid a certain CC skill. I'm not sure what can be improved in this trait but maybe make Auras last longer? 

- Sphere Specialist: Nerf this to increase the boon duration by...30%? 25%? It's a fantastic skill and I hate to say to nerf it, but the only issue with this skill is how a Catalyst can make a Quickness build without needing any concentration. To make an offensive Quickness power build in end-game PvE, there should be some need for Diviners to not make this too strong. It should still pull off great damage considering the circumstances of the rotation, but with the need of some Diviners, it can reduce the total benchmark by a few thousand. 

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