Catalyst Feedback Thread

[Downstate.4697]

8 minutes ago, Peureki.3647 said:

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. 

Staunch auras is the best trait for pvp if you run d/x. Not getting locked down and bursted is huge in melee range fights. The extra boon duration is okay but not really needed if you are in the sphere

[Peureki.3647]

1 minute ago, FrownyClown.8402 said:

Staunch auras is the best trait for pvp if you run d/x. Not getting locked down and bursted is huge in melee range fights. The extra boon duration is okay but not really needed if you are in the sphere

I can see that. I had a more difficult time running Dagger so it's good to hear that there were some good uses for it. I mostly ran a Fresh Air build with Scepter/Focus and the boon duration when camping in the Air Sphere was too good to not use. The quickness bursted down players so fast! Also loved it for longer durations for protection since I was super squish. 

[Downstate.4697]

6 minutes ago, Peureki.3647 said:

I can see that. I had a more difficult time running Dagger so it's good to hear that there were some good uses for it. I mostly ran a Fresh Air build with Scepter/Focus and the boon duration when camping in the Air Sphere was too good to not use. The quickness bursted down players so fast! Also loved it for longer durations for protection since I was super squish. 

I hear the water augment was decent for fresh air sc/x. The chill really helps with your spacing and the extra hits apply to your energy generation.

[Jski.6180]

Energy on the F5 seems very off its gains to slow from just attk and not being able to get any energy during the F5 feels so bad.

1 sec duration on the f5 boons seems to low for wvw/spvp due to just how much you move during combat i am not sure why its split pve vs pvp.

Catalyst with core wepon sets seems very well made but the hammer still feels lacking kind of like how sword was for weaver when it first came out. Please do not nerf core ele weapons to make the hammer on catalyst seem better.

[Joswi.2635]

Something I was thinking about would be getting rid of the ult because it's not that great when you are expected to constantly be swapping attunements anyway. So what if you took the orbs from the hammer and made that your ult. Make it a shorter cooldown ult, like 40 seconds or so, and you get all 4 orbs circling you for like 10 seconds and get all the same buffs and doing the damage around you. Also still have the option to fire off the orbs for some ranged damage just like Grand Finale. That would keep the orbs and still open up the opportunity for something else on the hammer 3. Also makes it so you can still get those orbs on other weapons. Not sure what others think of that, was just an idea I thought might be interesting.

[AzuritaBlues.3206]

First of all, I love how Catalyst made staff much more viable in general content, self access to stability and quickness was much needed to improve staff's experience with the long cast times that it has. I even managed to play staff in sPvP and get much better results than with core/tempest/weaver, it's so much easier to pull off and catalyst features make it much stronger, especially when paired with the augments utilities.

AUGMENTS

I know it can be an unpopular opinion, but I absolutely love all the augments. Although they lack interesting animations, they're still great utilities to catalyst kit. It's still hard to combo them with the Jade Sphere fields, but now at least you still get most value out of them even if you cast them by themselves. I only wish that Relentless Fire and Shattering Ice had clearer animations on our hits, if you're not paying attention to the buff bar, it's hard to tell that you're getting those aditional hits. I think it can improve counterplay in competitive modes if they get a bigger tell.

I think the elite one is in a weird position right now, it's definitely good, but maybe WAY too good in certain situations and I don't know how to balance that without making it useless. It's so much fun and allows a lot for a lot of plays! I read some criticism in this topic from people claiming it's useless because it only resets one attunement weapon skills. I definetely do not agree, Elemental Celerity can turn the tides of catalyst encounters, exactly because we have a long range of weapon skills, we just have to be in the right attunement for the right situation (and that's intricate to Ele's gameplay).

HAMMER

The hammer is much better than beta 1 and i'm having a blast playing it, but I do agree it needs more work in the following skills:

Surging Flames- needs more damage

Molten End- Could get the Untamed treatment and don't lock you in place, so you can move while casting it.

Rain of Blows - This skills has the shortest range and hitbox from all hammer skills and it's damage does not correspond to the range, air #2 does MUCH more damage and from range. It needs either more damage or extra chill.

Wind Storm - This needs to stop throwing us into the void, it's sad how many times it gets you stuck in the walls or in areas of the map you're not supposed to be (i've managed to die from fall damage in old skyhammer's manner and got lauched into the waters of the Capricorn, not being able to return to the map lol). If it was more like burning retreat it could be better. Also, it will help with hammer's mobility if it could apply either swiftness or superspeed.

Immutable Stone - This skill is still underwhelming, it's better than it was now that it applies barrier, but 1 block is still not enough. I suggest either give it more block stacks (much like Guardian's Shield of Wrath and Arcane Shield) or increase the amout of barrier/make it pulse.

And althought I like the orbs and find them quite fun, I do agree that having 4 different skills could be healthier DPS wise and provide utilities hammer currently lacks, mainly: mobility, damage denial and hard CC (it's quite odd that only 2 skills in the whole hammer kit are hard CC's, and it gets worse when you realize one of them is  Wind Storm. This weapon could have much more potential in LR builds, right now D/D and D/F completely outshines hammer in hard CC access and it just don't feel right)

TRAITS

I don't mind the traits, I think they're all useful, just boring. Weaver and Tempest have much more synergies with core traitlines. (From the top of my mind I can think of Woven Stride and  Cleansing Water; Elemental Bastion and Powerful Aura; Transcendent Tempest and Fresh Air; Superior Elements and Lightning Rod) From Catalys we get Vicious Empowerment and Elemental Surge, it just don't make the cut... Again, all the traits work, they're just not much fun to craft around.

SPHERE

The sphere is also much better, I don't mind the energy cost and I can see it's related to balance, it only hurts in PvP... If it could be better if we started the matches with some energy (1/3 is enough).

 But PLEASE get rid of the attunement swap cooldown. It hurts the flow BADLY and feels unjustified.

Other than that, I'm pretty much satisfied with Catalyst, great job listening to our feedback from last beta, I hope it'll be even better post EoD release.

[Tungsten Monarch.6058]

well, .... I guess I can go back to playing Tempest for 4 more years.

[Avatara.1042]

Positives

- Can do over 50k DPS fully buffed against raid and dungeon bosses with the Hammer (and FGS), though you need to be high on crack to maintain it, inside the target, and it feels terrible doing the rotation.

 

Negatives

- Extremely boring Traits (and annoying stacking ones, because ele must jump through a million hoops, always)

- Boring Augments and most will never be used (compare to Willbender...)

- Boring and weak Elite

- Confused identity

- No Hammer mobility (the only gap closer is also the heal, and even needs to hit something to heal...)

- No Hammer survivability

- Hammer has junk auto-attacks and no real condition damage

- Very little break bar ability (2 abilities, both long cooldown and in air: one pushes you through the world to your death, and the other is a slow moving orb which misses constantly...)

- Half the Hammer animations are taken from other abilities or do not line up properly

- Need to be high on crack to maintain the Hammer rotation, and the target is not allowed to move much, CC you, or damage you heavily (obsession with things only lasting 5 seconds and having to be stacked...why?)

- Jade Sphere has an energy cost, cooldown, and global cooldown just because kitten you

- Energy cannot be gained while Spheres are out for no reason at all

 

Conclusion

Raiders will love it because they would play anything to get high damage, no matter how horrible it feels.  Most others will not, and raiders will move on after Anet nerfs the damage and does nothing else.

Edited December 12, 2021 by Avatara.1042

[Kolzi.5928]

The 3 skill on hammer still feels bad. The 5 sec duration turns the rotation into something a bit frantic, cycling through your attunements to try get it off instead of choosing the ability that best suit the situation. Weaver already had us cycling through attunements at a breakneck pace, I am not sure we needed this as well - especially on a hammer, which is generally a slower paced weapon. People have talked about raising it to a 7 sec duration on the orbs from skill 3 but I really don't see any reason it couldn't be 20 sec or more. Right now, grand finale is basically unusable on normal mobs because you can't really swap through the attunements fast enough unless it's literally all you're doing (if even then), and the buff will fall off before you reach another. Grand finale is also too easy to accidentally use up early, so I would suggest making it unavailable until you have all four orbs perhaps.

 

The f5 skill being on the same shared cooldown as attunement swapping feels bad too.

 

A lot of the hammer skills feel weak and lacking impact (in terms of their actual damage and their visual/audio effects). When I compare it to the effects warrior hammer for example, it lacks the same visceral feel.

 

Elementalist weapon skills have a history of being a bit weaker and on longer cooldowns than those of other classes, to make up for the fact that we have twice as many as a standard class with weapon swap. This seems like a good opportunity to buck the trend to me. Not only would you be able to promote a playstyle that doesn't involve spamming through attunements like crazy (so a bit slower, suiting a hammer), but it would better suit the decision to give this weapon a split of two melee attunements and two midrange attunements. The option to choose between melee and ranged seems a bit pointless if the weapon is trying to force you to rotate between all four attunements, spamming off the 3 skill and anything that does more damage than an auto attack. Give the skills shorter cooldowns, make them more impactful, let people make strategic decisions about what suits the situation they are in rather than cycling through attunements as fast as possible.

 

edit: This was a bit negative, so I should say that I love the reworked elite skill, it's *far* more interesting than before. The f5s still don't really feel all that interesting to me but I am pretty okay with their current state, and there are probably some really strong uses for them with other weaponsets I haven't explored. Heyyyy... lightning hammer for blast finisher spam plus being able to place fields of your choice sounds pretty interesting! I don't really think the poison field fits that well though... you could go smoke which would be very cool, though I could also understand why you might want to avoid giving eles a field they can create stealth from. Honestly, maybe you could create a new type of combo field for earth?

Edited December 6, 2021 by Kolzi.5928

[Serephen.3420]

On 12/4/2021 at 7:12 AM, Jokuc.3478 said:

It's not just on benchmarks. It performs incredibly well in real encounters as well. Go on twitch and watch experienced raiders play it, most of them are doing top dps, or any of the yt videos people linked above. I don't even know what to say at this point lol. Again, it's strong. If it performs poorly for you you're just not playing it well.

That comment was a while ago, I know it's damage potential currently due to probably unintended issues with hammer orbs. That damage will drop significantly once that is fixed. What I really want it orb damage taken off and spread to the other skills and change orbs to be utility instead of damage. That would fix the overloaded gimmicky damage and make hammer a lot more enjoyable to play I believe. 

I mostly play wvw and instanced pve. I hadn't used it in any raids so far. My comment at the time was referring to the golem benchmarks being spoken about then.

 

Anyways, was more of a rant than I expected, hope you can understand my point though. 

[VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.]

On 12/4/2021 at 5:26 PM, Jokuc.3478 said:

This statement is just plain wrong.

lmao what? Of course PvE content matter. Sure there are some truth to the idea, but don't even try to claim that meta PvP classes like Core Thief, Core Necro and Spellbreaker will ever be good in Fractals and Raids. Not every class has to perform great in every game mode. Some classes are better for PvP/WvW some are better in PvE. That's how it is and that's how it should be.

Yes, PVE matters. But raids do not matter. Even Anet admits that the raid population is tiny compared to everything else.

Luckily Catalyst sucks in openworld pve just as well. You put down your little air whirl? Does not matter, before you are even done casting it, the mob has moved on. You just put down your jade sphere - and the mob is nowhere close to it anymore. You just got all your orbs floating? Nice, too bad that awakened canid just borrowed.

In wvw it is even worse. This spec is not worth it. At all. Again.

Tempest was gutted, because they ran out of time (and was a brawler spec). Something that is obvious every time you play it. Unsurprisingly it has become a cleanse bot (and scrapper does cleanse as well PLUS providing stealth). 

Weaver is clunky and outside of raids while you can be decent with it, it takes A LOT of effort for very small rewards. Unlike pretty much every other spec that can just faceroll the keyboard to get better results. And yes, I know about a certain weaver doing awesome against roamers in 1v1 and 1v2. But he is an unicorn in a wildbeast herd. Its heal? Bad. Its elite? Useless. Of all the stances one is good, one can be useful, one can be useful in very select scenarios (and it was a brawler spec).

And now we got the worst of the three. The Catalyst.

A weapon with stupid range restrictions, a mechanic that only works on stationary targets and utilities that are a bad joke (and it is a brawler spec).

In all seriousness I am sick of anet's half baked brawler specs for ele. Give us either something that CAN BRAWL AND SPAM BOONS WHILE BEING MOBILE or GIVE US A RANGE SPEC WITH DEVASTATING DAMAGE.

Meanwhile we still got warriors hitting for 22k gunflame and thieves ganking with impunity because they can always just stealth up and shadowstep away. Revs, Necros, in all forms doing well in wvw. Guardians, be it core, fb or dh, doing great in wvw. Scrappers are must haves in any kind of group setups. Spellbreakers and Berserkers are either must have or decent options. Rangers are still annoying as hell as roamers. So are thieves. Mesmers are doing great in groups and decent as roamers.

But ele? Dead.

For good reasons. 

So again ANET: GIVE US AN ELE SPEC THAT MATTERS. Scrap catalyst in its current form. Noone gives a kitten about golems and static raid bosses anymore. You admitted it yourself many, many times. 

Anet, you want to fix it? Easy increase the range on hammer and increase the radius of the fields it creates, if you insist on that weapon. Put a finisher on more skills. Make the orb move with you. Rethink the utilities. Scrap the elite. Make the traits not laughable bad. Then it might become good. Might.

 But at the moment it is just good for some core tyria pve, raids and strikes. And before you apologists post how wrong I am. I am sure you had some decent results playing in Elona or TD or wherever. But I am also sure you would have done better on core, tempest or weaver.

Awesome. Really.

[Rising Blade.9206]

nice change for the orb mechanic, but still not good enough. make it an upkeep skill instead kind of similar to ventari tablet or a well with an upkeep.

get rid of the augment special mechanic of needing to be in a specific attunement for a special proc, weaver and tempest didn't ask for specific attunements to make their utilities more effective, why break the convention now, what's the point on making the class hard to play than it is?

either get rid of the hammer or go for a full revamp, the hammer's skillsets is just not that fun to play, autoattacks just don't feel right with their animations, hammer 3 has no point in it skillsets, redo the concept of the ele hammer and just give us an earthshaker type of weapon by going for full melee instead of the mess of a weapon.

rework traits, if i want to play auramancer i'd play tempest, hammer doesn't give the spec a lot of aura and neither does the augments, do people over there even forget that tempest exist?

Funnily enough, the spec plays better with every other weapon BUT the hammer. the spec overall is just a mess in concept.

Edited December 6, 2021 by Rising Blade.9206

[scriptoimpium.7806]

I had high hopes for this elite spec, but it honestly just ended up being a disappointment.

-First things, this spec feels rushed and was done at the last minute, it doesn't feel complete even now. It feels like there should be more to this spec.

-Second, another melee spec for the squishiest class in the game is just insulting. especially when there isn't many good ways to survive while using this spec. You're better off going weaver if you want melee.

-Third the hammer sucks, the only reason I can see its inclusion for this spec is that it has at least two finishers per attunment, every other weapon in the game works better. Make it pure mid range please.

-Fourth this spec doesn't mesh well with any other trait line but arcane and air, every other line only works for the auras traits in my opinion. yeah there's the boon traits for the other trait lines but there's not enough to justify using them.

-Fifth the jade sphere is clunky and doesn't last nearly long enough, the jade sphere should be like the scrappers gyros and stick with the character. Or turn it into a shroud that pulses boons per second based on your attunment.

-Sixth the augment abilities are lackluster, the only real good one is relentless fire. soothing water is just a worse version of Ether Renewal. Fortified Earth is just a longer version of Immutable Stone. Shattering ice is not bad, just the chill should be replaced with slow, vulnerability or bleed. Invigorating air is only really good for the stun break, if you want supers peed take air trait line. and the worse offender is Elemental Celerity, not enough use for as long as a recharge time as it has, it would be better if it reduced the recharge of our slot skills not weapon skills.

-Seventh, if I wanted to play an auramancer I'd play a tempest. Instead of auras this spec should deal with barrier. Or instead of having two percent damage reduction from hardened auras it grants barrier. barrier is more useful to a class with such low health.

This spec was supposed to make eles feel mystic and powerful. The only thing I feel is fragile while being a catalyst.

[Flori.2194]

9 hours ago, VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig. said:

Yes, PVE matters. But raids do not matter. Even Anet admits that the raid population is tiny compared to everything else.

Luckily Catalyst sucks in openworld pve just as well. You put down your little air whirl? Does not matter, before you are even done casting it, the mob has moved on. You just put down your jade sphere - and the mob is nowhere close to it anymore. You just got all your orbs floating? Nice, too bad that awakened canid just borrowed.

In wvw it is even worse. This spec is not worth it. At all. Again.

Tempest was gutted, because they ran out of time (and was a brawler spec). Something that is obvious every time you play it. Unsurprisingly it has become a cleanse bot (and scrapper does cleanse as well PLUS providing stealth). 

Weaver is clunky and outside of raids while you can be decent with it, it takes A LOT of effort for very small rewards. Unlike pretty much every other spec that can just faceroll the keyboard to get better results. And yes, I know about a certain weaver doing awesome against roamers in 1v1 and 1v2. But he is an unicorn in a wildbeast herd. Its heal? Bad. Its elite? Useless. Of all the stances one is good, one can be useful, one can be useful in very select scenarios (and it was a brawler spec).

And now we got the worst of the three. The Catalyst.

A weapon with stupid range restrictions, a mechanic that only works on stationary targets and utilities that are a bad joke (and it is a brawler spec).

In all seriousness I am sick of anet's half baked brawler specs for ele. Give us either something that CAN BRAWL AND SPAM BOONS WHILE BEING MOBILE or GIVE US A RANGE SPEC WITH DEVASTATING DAMAGE.

Meanwhile we still got warriors hitting for 22k gunflame and thieves ganking with impunity because they can always just stealth up and shadowstep away. Revs, Necros, in all forms doing well in wvw. Guardians, be it core, fb or dh, doing great in wvw. Scrappers are must haves in any kind of group setups. Spellbreakers and Berserkers are either must have or decent options. Rangers are still annoying as hell as roamers. So are thieves. Mesmers are doing great in groups and decent as roamers.

But ele? Dead.

For good reasons. 

So again ANET: GIVE US AN ELE SPEC THAT MATTERS. Scrap catalyst in its current form. Noone gives a kitten about golems and static raid bosses anymore. You admitted it yourself many, many times. 

Anet, you want to fix it? Easy increase the range on hammer and increase the radius of the fields it creates, if you insist on that weapon. Put a finisher on more skills. Make the orb move with you. Rethink the utilities. Scrap the elite. Make the traits not laughable bad. Then it might become good. Might.

 But at the moment it is just good for some core tyria pve, raids and strikes. And before you apologists post how wrong I am. I am sure you had some decent results playing in Elona or TD or wherever. But I am also sure you would have done better on core, tempest or weaver.

Awesome. Really.

I love everything you said. Not only is Catalyst a weird mix of leftovers from Tempest and Weaver in its trais and overall playstyle but it lacks any concept or vision. What even does it try to empower? Its stats with a weird celestial trait? Being an auramancer - like Tempest? Some wannabe stances with yet another useless elite? Hammer that feels like Sword/Dagger with it's weird melee/600 range? If you can use all of them correctly then maybe you are a true Catalyst which means you are a bit better than Core Ele? I don't really care about gameplay now (spoiler: It's dead in pvp and wvw, I don't care about raids), but the concept, themes, lore and overall feeling of this spec are a complete fail in my opinion. Nearly every fanmade e-spec is better and more original and MORE CANTHAN THEMED.

 

Anet can delete Ele and the game wouldn't change at all, all metas of all the game modes would still be the same... And Catalyst after the inevitable damage nerf won't change that...

[Avatara.1042]

Yeah, the spec was rushed and probably last minute.  The changes between beta 1 and 4 clearly show that, as beta 1 cata clearly had zero testing or thought, and beta 4 was 'change kitten and see what sticks'.

[Dawanarth.4601]

What if Catalyst got a Dodge mechanic ? Like 1 dodge for all the elements (4 different dodges) focusing on different uses to be a more sustainable brawler

[Avatara.1042]

4 minutes ago, Dawanarth.4601 said:

What if Catalyst got a Dodge mechanic ? Like 1 dodge for all the elements (4 different dodges) focusing on different uses to be a more sustainable brawler

Might work, but Anet would probably make it a stacking defense buff which lasts 2 seconds and must be maintained otherwise your weapon is destroyed.

[Caid.4932]

36 minutes ago, Dawanarth.4601 said:

What if Catalyst got a Dodge mechanic ? Like 1 dodge for all the elements (4 different dodges) focusing on different uses to be a more sustainable brawler

Evasive arcana already does that. It has enough mechanics as it is anyway

[skoda.4619]

I've read through most of the feedback and here are a few changes i think would help improve catalyst at least to some degree.

Hammer 3 orbs:

• This from when i first played Catalyst seemed like it should be a class mechanic and not hammer only mechanic, it also proves that with to how much of a DPS increase it is. Even when i tested it back to back to other weapons it proved it as i was able to achieve similar dmg numbers on hammer without using skill 3 as other weapons.
• So suggestion, make this one of the Catalysts mechanics.
• Option 1, gain orb when you do a combo in a specific jade sphere. Duration is increased by doing combos in specific sphere, for instance if you do a combo in fire sphere you gain only 5% dmg buff and more combos you do the longer the duration is, but to a certain cap, for instance up to 20s and then tune how many of these buffs you can get so it's not too strong.
• Option 2, gain orb when you place down a jade sphere, putting down another Jade sphere while the orb is still active refresh duration or increase duration.

Jade sphere:

• Remove the 1.5s cooldown on swapping attunements.
• Make the energy UI more readable, maybe put it where the weaver element bar is and make it so it has notches based on energy needed to spawn a jade sphere.
• Maybe remove the energy and make it a ammo mechanic with 5s cooldown as it has now and tune how fast ammo is replenished. Make ammo either per attunement or overall, depending on how strong it'd be.
• Possibly thing about increasing the radius of the jade sphere.
• Move place jade sphere onto F1-F4 just like we have with overloads.
• Add some damage to it in pvp and wvw so it has some area denial aspect to it.

 

Elemental Celerity Elite:

• As some said this skill has use in some scenarios, but in most cases you're better off using other elites.
• Let's compare it to Bladesworn elite Tactical Reload, that skill has 30s cooldown to refresh 1 ammo to all your skills both utilities, weapon , anything. The longest cooldown for any ammo skill is i think 40s and shortest 10s. Elementalist skills have in majority low cooldown with exception of skills 4 and 5 which longest cooldown is 50s for obsidian flesh but majority is between 20s and 30s and unlike Bladesworn we only refresh 1 attunement on 90s cooldown of which only 2 skills actually might benefit from it but we're also incentivized to not camp an attunement so in most cases it is better to take FGS or Glyph of Elementals.
• Option 1, make this skill affect all attunements so you in a way get a reset of the situation.
• Option 2, lower the cooldown massively.
• Option 3, change this elite either for sth more useful like deploying all hammer 3 orbs for a period of time and getting grand finale to shoot them.

 

Hammer:

• Damage on quite a few abilities should be buffed, especially auto attacks, honestly using fire auto feels just as bad as using fire auto on scepter. As some said you'd want to pressure people even from range, but currently it doesn't feel like you can.
• Earth auto should have bleeding added to it.
• Give hammer more finishers, possibly make the fire and air projectile finishers or at least 20% chance projectile finishers like Ranger longbow.
• Make Hurricane of Pain and Whirling Stones whirl finishers
• Skill 3 should be replaced with more finishers, fields or engages/disengages, which would make it more useful. This would also allow you to use all skills more effectively and not just rush to use whatever is the most effective skill in that attunement and switching to not lose the orbs, since they're so significant.
• If you keep skill 3 on hammer, which i hope you don't and make it an elite spec mechanic, add a small cooldown as many suggested so you don't accidentally do a grand finale by mistake.
• There's probably quite a bit i missed that could get more improvements.

Edited December 7, 2021 by skoda.4619
Fixed max ammo recharge as reminded by Avatara.1042

[Avatara.1042]

9 minutes ago, skoda.4619 said:

I've read through most of the feedback and here are a few changes i think would help improve catalyst at least to some degree.

Hammer 3 orbs:

• This from when i first played Catalyst seemed like it should be a class mechanic and not hammer only mechanic, it also proves that with to how much of a DPS increase it is. Even when i tested it back to back to other weapons it proved it as i was able to achieve similar dmg numbers on hammer without using skill 3 as other weapons.
• So suggestion, make this one of the Catalysts mechanic.
• Option 1, gain orb when you do a combo in a specific jade sphere. Duration is increased by doing combos in specific sphere, for instance if you do a combo in fire sphere you gain only 5% dmg buff and more combos you do the longer the duration is, but to a certain cap, for instance up to 20s and then tune how many of these buffs you can get so it's not too strong.
• Option 2, gain orb when you place down a jade sphere, putting down another Jade sphere while the orb is still active refresh duration or increase duration.

Jade sphere:

• Remove the 1.5s cooldown on swapping attunements.
• Make the energy UI more readable, maybe put it where the weaver element bar is and make it so it has notches based on energy needed to spawn a jade sphere.
• Maybe remove the energy and make it a ammo mechanic with 5s cooldown as it has now and tune how fast ammo is replenished. Make ammo either per attunement or overall, depending on how strong it'd be.
• Possibly thing about increasing the radius of the jade sphere.
• Move place jade sphere onto F1-F4 just like we have with overloads.
• Add some damage to it in pvp and wvw so it has some area denial aspect to it.

 

Elemental Celerity Elite:

• As some said this skill has use in some scenarios, but in most cases you're better off using other elites.
• Let's compare it to Bladesworn elite Tactical Reload, that skill has 30s cooldown to refresh 1 ammo to all your skills both utilities, weapon , anything. The longest cooldown for any ammo skill is i think 30s and shortest 10s. Elementalist skills have in majority low cooldown with exception of skills 4 and 5 which longest cooldown is 50s for obsidian flesh but majority is between 20s and 30s and unlike Bladesworn we only refresh 1 attunement of which only 2 skills actually might benefit from it but we're also incentivized to not camp an attunement so in most cases it is better to take FGS or Glyph of elementals.
• Option 1, make this skill affect all attunements so you in a way get a reset of the situation.
• Option 2, lower the cooldown massively.
• Option 3, change this elite either for sth more useful like deploying all hammer 3 orbs for a period of time and getting grand finale to shoot them.

 

Hammer:

• Damage on quite a few abilities should be buffed, especially auto attacks, honestly using fire auto feels just as bad as using fire auto on scepter. EAs some said you'd want to pressure people even from range, but currently it doesn't feel like you can.
• Earth auto should have bleeding added to it.
• Give hammer more finishers, possibly make the fire and air projectile finishers or at least 20% chance projectile finishers like Ranger longbow.
• Make Hurricane of Pain and Whirling Stones whirl finishers
• Skill 3 should be replaced with more finishers, fields or engages/disengages, which would make it more useful. This would also allow you to use all skills more effectively and not just rush to use whatever is the most effective skill in that attunement and switching to not lose the orbs, since they're so significant.
• If you keep skill 3 on hammer, which i hope you don't and make it an elite spec mechanic, add a small cooldown as many suggested so you don't accidentally do a grand finale by mistake.
• There's probably quite a bit i missed that could get more improvements.

Agree with what you said.  Gunsaber has 40 second cooldown ammo abilities, btw.

[llimus.8453]

With the orb changes, the F5 key feels very clunky now. If you can place an orb per attunement, it would be nice to see the setup more like tempest Overloads with each element orb on the element itself.

 

tl;dr, Fire Orb should be on the F1 after attuning to fire, etc etc down the line.

[Chopps.7461]

This post can be deleted

Edited December 7, 2021 by Chopps.7461
Missclicked send

[Winchester Smythe Anus III.2153]

Hated hammer so much I asked for a refund. I just can't see them changing it enough that it will be playable in WVW. 

Also because I have no interest in fishing, skiffs, generic gen3 legendaries... nothing for me to look forward to.

[Matt H.6142]

Beta 4 - The utility skills have gone from the worst thing about the spec to the best.  Picking them will be niche however, and ill-advised in WvW.

I don't see this spec having a place in WvW, especially with a hammer, and certainly not without core cantrips.  600 range is a terrible range, and I found myself out of energy most of the time.

Celestial Ele had the most difficult time surviving my 5 dominion charr group benchmark this week.  (Most every other spec just demolishes them.) 

The middle trait line synergizes really poorly with hammer.  I consider the top line more for hammer.  

Empowered Empowerment needs a split where it gives some value below 10 stacks of Elemental Empowerment like Power Overwhelming.

I'd love a trait option that does away with the boons and makes the jade sphere do real damage akin to Glyph of Storms.  Otherwise it's this weird hologram projector. 

I miss the ability for this combo field to last 15 seconds to make it unique in the game.

Ground Pound (Hammer Earth 5) seems to have a blast finisher at the start of the channel which, while probably preferred for responsiveness, disconnects the skill from the animation.

Whirl finisher on Hurricane of Pain would just feel so much better.  Drop the blast from Shock Blast to compensate.

I love ele, I play tested this the most, want the best for it, and though improved from last beta (instant hammer 3's much loved.) it is the worst of the 9.

[Chopps.7461]

Here we go again!
On this beta 4, i was playing mostly on wvw, in organized and unorganized groups. I still have some hope that Catalyst can fit some old or new role on group fights.

On PvE, hammer Catalyst have a spot and some footage shows that is really good. But on WvW, it lacks many things. I tried d/d builds too, and its interesting how that old way to play appears to be better than hammer.
The changes on Jade Sphere, Augments, Ultimate and Hammer #3 skill are great and its a step into right direction according the players feedback on beta 2.

Now we have other issues, and still some olds too. I will point some bellow and bring some ideas.

Jade Sphere:

1. Must remove the cooldown on attunement swap, it hurts the flow of the combat.
2. It should follow or have a trait that allows this behavior. In competitive environments its a really necessary since it doenst do damage and currently have defensive boons.
3. It could have bigger radius or a trait that increase it.
4. Could pulse 1 or 3 times non-damage conditions (weakness on Fire, chill on Water, Blind on Lightning and cripple on Earth).
5. UI improvement is common sense that it needs.

Hammer:

The overall damage looks fine, in pve fixing orb multiple hits on same target probably will fix the huge dps its getting. There is another points to review:
Lacks range pressure -> 600 range on fire/air attunements is basically melee, it really deserves at least 900 range. Im sure most people will appreciate a real hybrid gameplay.
Lacks mobility -> Only Crashing Font can be used for this purpose, but at same time it has a defensive purpose, feels weird.
Lacks CC -> Other weapons have access to great CC skills (Static Field, Unsteady Ground, Updraft, Earthquake, Comet, Gale) and on hammer we have Shock Blast that is really hard to hit (cause radius and projectile speed) and Wind Storm that is defensive (but buggy and unreliable).

Orbs from #3 skill have almost no impact since its destroyed by blocking attacks/projectiles and hitting walls/gates. It should work like Vengeful Hammers, while the orbs circle you they shouldnt be destroyed, only when you shoot them. Another point is the duration, it needs at least lingers 8 seconds. Hammer isnt a fast paced weapon. And for the last, a small cooldown to dont use Grand Finale accidentally.

Fire
Singeing Strike -> Must hit 3 enemies
Surging Flames -> Its unreliable, even near the enemies it still miss. Could be a ground targeted skill for more reliability. Similar to Rupturing Smash ground target cone pattern.
Triple Sear -> Should have a bit more damage since its not easy to hit.
Molten End -> Must share might gained with party and could be a leap forward

Water
Stream Strike -> Must heal the user for a small amount based on how many targets the user hit
Chilling Crack-> Could have a blast finisher
Crashing Font -> Should heals for a small amount when doesnt hit any target and heals party for a half of total heal on user
Cleansing Typhoon -> Should cleanse party for the same amount that cleanses the user

Air
Wind Slam -> Must pierce targets and hit at least 3 enemies
Hurricane of Pain -> Should hit up to 5 targets
Shock Blast -> Should have a faster projectile and larger blast radius. So it can be a bit more reliable.

Earth
Whirling Stones -> Must have a whirl finisher. Could cripple enemies.
Immutable Stone -> Could block all attacks during duration and stun 3 enemies around at end. 
Ground Pound -> Must be a kind of leap (600 range) skill with a ground targeted skill. Similar to Earthshaker. 

Augments:
They are ok, but so selfish.
Soothing Water -> When used inside Water Jade Sphere, also remove conditions from party.
Relentless Fire -> When used inside Fire Jade Sphere, also share half of unblockable stacks to party
Shattering Ice -> When used inside Water Jade Sphere, also share extra strikes for half duration to party.
Invigorating Air -> When used inside Air Jade Sphere, also stun-break party and share endurance regeneration.
Fortified Earth -> When used inside Earth Jade Sphere, also grant barrier to party.

Ultimate:
It should have a lower cooldown, since its work only for one attunement. Like 60~80 seconds of cooldown and if used inside any Jade Sphere, have a reduced recharge similar to others augments and provides same boons based on attunement to allies.

Traits:
Upper line (Aura line -> Combo line)
Change it to be a combo line based gameplay, not generated when gain Aura cause another professions can give the auras for you without user effort.

• Minor -> Rename to "Hardened Skin". Gain barrier for user and half to party when combo. Gain 1 stack of damage reduction when combo (2 sec internal cooldown)
• Major -> Rename to "Empowering Hands". Gain 1 stack of might for user and party when combo. Gain 1 stack of outgoing damage when you combo (2 sec internal cooldown)
• Grandmaster -> Rename to "Staunch Catalyst". Gain 1 stack of Stability for user and party when combo (2 sec internal cooldown)

Middle line (Stats Boost line)
Despite of simplicity of the line, it could have benefits for party too. When gain Elemental Empowerment it should refreshes the timer.

• Minor -> When disable or immobilize an enemy, gain Elemental Empowerment, 2 might stacks for user and 1 for party.
• Major -> When evade gain Elemental Empowerment, vigor for user and party
• Grandmaster -> While at maximum stacks of Elemental Empowerment, increase effectiveness for yourself and share Elemental Empowerment with party (maximum 5 stacks for party)

Bottom line (Jade Sphere line)
Basically some improvements on the line based on some feedback plus party benefits.

• Minor -> Grant 2 energy on swap attunement, fury for user and party. Allow to generate half energy while Jade Sphere is deployed.
• Major -> Jade Sphere grant boons to allies based on attunement and attach the Jade Sphere to the user.
• Grandmaster -> Jade Sphere has increased duration. Boons applied by Jade Sphere have increased duration.

Edited December 7, 2021 by Chopps.7461