Catalyst Feedback Thread

[ONko.7460]

Some quick feedback from me:

1. F5 feels too short
2. I already hate the 3. skill cycling duration. Hated the "Weave Self" concept as well.

[BlueTurtle.9263]

Overall the Catalyst seems ok in a group setting. But its traits and mechanics don't help too much in a solo setting.

 

The main issue is the jadetech sphere. It feels like it has too long of a cooldown, takes too long to build up, and drains energy too quickly. It also seemed like they shared the same energy pool so putting out multiple spheres feels like it drains them quicker. I think they also seemed larger in the preview video, currently they feel too small to combo effectively.

 

Another problem is that core weapons don't feel like they synergize that well with this spec. You feel like you're forced to use hammer to be effective on it. The elemental power (or whatever the name is) trait line which seems to proc mostly on disabling the enemy but the weapons besides hammer don't do that very well. This combined with jadetech spheres feeling like they need adjustments basically just leaves the aura traitline as the only real viable one for solo play.

 

The utility skills feel like they have a really short cooldown which might be fine given the added complexity of needing to activate them next to the appropriate sphere but overall doing that feels awkward. I think they should have longer cooldowns but only need to be activated in any sphere to get the additional effect (some of which can be adjusted to be less powerful for being easier to trigger).

 

Will update more as I do more tests and articulate my thoughts better

[Taurnil.7065]

Slow, clunky, unfun, no true reason to play this over the other specs. Please consider overhauling. 

[shahryar.8437]

Honestly I am not sure if the devs meant to do this but the Jade Dragon sphere feels like the sand scourge's sand shroud and I think it would be 100 times better if it was treated as such. 
Simple fixes that I feel would make this skill better.

1) Jade Dragon sphere stays out longer and can recharge energy while it is out, maybe even make the elite temporarily stop energy drain on it while doing something cool based on the augment that is out when cast.

2) Treat the Jade dragon sphere more like the sand shroud and make it a support ability. So want to cast it where your party is. Then when you use an Augment skill if it matches the element first, it will give you both buffs regardless if you are in it or not. Second, it will give anyone inside the sphere aoe one of the buffs, whichever is least op, or both as well if that wouldnt be OP. 
So for example if everyone is in the earth aoe and use use the earth augment you block and gain a barrier, your allies gain a barrier, with the water sphere you gain splash damage and chill your allies start doing chills on hit, etc.

3) Make a trait for those that want to melee that makes the sphere get placed at your feet or attach to you on cast instead of being targeted and you get some extra buff of some form depending on the element.

[SatyricL.2784]

Literally just core ele with hammer and worse traits. Utilities are boring, Elite is extra boring, the F5 doesn't feel impactful at all.

There was a 41k benchmark for the hammer, but even so, run anything else other than hammer, and you have nothing special going for you.

Edited September 21, 2021 by Harrada.8041

[gandlethorpe.2641]

I'm very happy with catalyst's fundamental design, and my D/F definitely loves all the aura support. It even lets me dust off my berserker gear in open world!

That said, I think there are several areas for improvement:

1. Hammer and augmentations are curiously lacking in trait support. Spheres have some but not much for being a major mechanic.
2. Hammers can't generate fields on their own, so they are totally dependent on the sphere. Fire 4 would be a great slot to generate a fire field. (Side note: Persisting Flames is a dead trait with hammer because it doesn't provide the buff on fields generated by non-weapon skills. Tempest is also affected by this. Can we have it work on any fire field please? 😉)
3. The hammer orbs are a neat design, but last far too short for the amount of setup they require to use effectively.
4. Augmentations have rather underwhelming effects, even when getting the bonus effect. They also have cast times and have stiff competition with instant-cast time utilities.
5. The sphere ICD when swapping attunements feels really unnecessary.

For the most part, it's a very enjoyable and rewarding spec. I didn't think ANet would be able to make another spec as cool as weaver, but they succeeded for me! It feels the furthest developed of the specs so far, and it's really close to being excellent.

Edited September 21, 2021 by gandlethorpe.2641

[Helicity.3416]

2 minutes ago, gandlethorpe.2641 said:

It feels the furthest developed of the specs so far, and it's really close to being excellent.

...u wot mate

[Kirevey.5079]

Heal and utilities

Heal and utilities should provide their extra effect while their corresponding sphere is active. Right now is really convoluted to get the extra effects to proc. 

As an ele, we are encouraged to rotate our attunements and cast our skills, but because the heal and utilities require to cast the skill on certain attuments for the extra effect, it is very likely that said attunement will be on cooldown, especially in pvp/wvw situations when you need to be reactive.

Some changes that would make it more appealing to use:

• If I cast Soothing Water with no sphere active, then cast water sphere, the remaining pulses should provide cleanse
• If I cast Soothing Water with with a fire/air/earth sphere active, then change to water, the remaining pulses should provide cleanse
• If I cast soothing Water with water sphere active, then sphere runs out or change to different element, the remaining pulses should stop cleansing
• The other skills should follow a similar pattern
• Invigorating Air could work similar to Lightning Reflexes from rangers, give an evade frame for the cast time of the skill
• Shattering Ice and Relentless Fire should be instant

Elite skill

The boons provided by the skill are ok, but imo should follow the same pattern of the other skills: get the boons depending on the active sphere and per hit, reducing boon duration.

The cd reduction feels nice, but it would be better if the skill had a lower CD, maybe 75s.

Hammer

Hammer right now feels weird. I don't know how else to describe it.

• No combo fields
• The traits don't synergize well with the weapon.
• Too slow
• The shift of melee to mid range has no sinergy
• Skill number 3 animations are affected by legendary effects, so an enemy player can't see at first sight which projectiles is wich
• Skill number 4 animations overlap eachother. It would be better if it just adds an extra projectile to a static animation

Sphere

• Energy generation is too slow
• Energy should not deplete out of combat
• Given that it does not move with the player, there is not much value for it. Any player can just get away from the range of the sphere.
• If the sphere is not going to move with the player, then at least the fields should have some damage and condition associated with it (Earth -> poison, Water -> chill, Fire -> burning, Air -> vuln)
•  

Traits

• The aura related traits make me feel like a need to have a pocket tempest with me all the time, specially with hammer. With other weapons it feels better, but still is hard to even reach the max 5 stacks for it, if at all while playing solo.
• Vicious Empowerment doesn't seem to be working with staff earth 4. Also, it should proc more stacks if more that 1 enemy is immobed or disabled at the same time
• Energized Elements energy gain should be tunned, right now it feels like it only gives me an extra tick in WvW

Final toughts

In general, the spec feels very selfish, outside some kind of potential support you could give with the spheres. It also feels very static, and moving from the sphere is very punishing.

Outside some potential setup with other classes in a comp, is really difficult to make full use of the trait lines, and at the end of the day just feels like playing a base elementalist with a handicap.
 

[GoQ.1048]

catalyst is all about adding stab to core dd. nothing else and that could ve been done way easier as it is just one trait.

wasted

[Mordecai Fluke.1423]

Was really looking forward to getting a hammer on my Elementalist, but have been really disappointed with what I've seen so far. Not nearly enough damage or sustain for such a fragile class. Hammer skills are weak, clunky, and there aren't any combo fields besides the Jade Sphere, which has the same issue as the skills. It doesn't last long enough, it's clunky to use, and it doesn't have a large enough effect when it's out. For having a focus on auras, it sure makes it awfully difficult to get them. The traits don't give you anything impressive over base traits, and hammer just isn't good enough to compete with base weapons as is. 

I really hope they give Catalyst a bunch of buffs, because there's just no reason to use it over Tempest or Weaver, no matter what role you're trying to fill.

[Koof.7359]

I could give five paragraphs of feedback on how to "fix" the Catalyst, but what is the point. There's so much wrong here that honestly there is just one solution. A complete rework. I know it's a shame to lose these animations, but it's better to cut your losses here and now rather than spending the time to fix an absolutely doomed elite spec.

 

There is nothing original here. The special skill of this profession at its heart is a combo field. A combo field that takes a lifetime to charge and then has a 20 second CD with very little uptime. Oh and for it's new weapon, lets give it 5 or so blast and leap finishers, but not a single combo field generator besides the absolutely abysmal profession mechanic. The whole time I was playing Catalyst, I was thinking wow this could be good if I was playing S/D ele, and then I just compared it to weaver and it's like what the hell is this? How does a class based on generating combo fields get literally zero combo fields from a weapon?

 

The design is awful, the numbers are awful, but most of all the intent is awful. No one wanted another melee ranged ele build. There is no way they were ever going to make anything close to good as the weaver, which already is a beloved class and has solidly taken up the melee Elementalist elite spec slot. Everyone wanted a true ranged elementalist spec, with LB / SB and Rifle all having unique flavor that would be easily applied to the Elementalist and fits tonally. Instead we get an absolute awful melee spec that brings nothing new to the table whatsoever. Yes the idea of being Thor and playing like a Thane in DAoC is cool, but it just never would work in this game. There is way too much overlap and to be honest it's terrible with the quad elemental aspect of the elementalist. 

 

Again please just do a complete rework. Choose a new weapon. Focus on making a long ranged elite spec. Do something inspired. Elementalist is arguably the most iconic class in this game and for it to have such a terrible elite spec is beyond disheartening. How is an elite spec worse and less original than the core class? Please for the love of god just cut your losses and start again. Choose either Bow or Rifle and make a "tech" inspired elementalist based on imbuing effects onto your ammunition. The flavor is there, the lore and theme are there, and it is so much better and has so much more design space than this atrocious class.  I love this game but if this elite spec isn't completely redone it'll forever be a stain on GW2 and this expansion. I know this sounds hyperbolic, but it really isn't. Everything about this elite spec is absolutely terrible.

[Elmandre.9043]

Tried to use the Catalyst in wvw. My observations and thoughts so far:

* f5 felt useless, too stationary for defence or to kite people around. And it was dealing negligable damage (probably intended?) hence had no offensive use. I'm not even talking about energy cost and mandatory field type change due to attunement.

*Hammer was ok but apparently it is not intended for WvW. Too clunky with no payoff, damage also felt weak.

*Tried to make a working staff build but nothing worked. Its minimal synergy didn't save the traits low uptime. It was weaker than weaver staff or even tempest staff. Not sure, but maybe even core staff, haven't compared the later.

*Utilities felt weak and too restrictive, I couldn't justify geting any of them over core skills that do the same thing better. Only exception was the fire utility with %15 dmg boost but it has a really short window of usage and clunky weapons like staff & hammer can't use it properly. The Elite was the worst of them all, with its internal CD, it didn't even allow a synergy with multi hit, or skill chaining. And 90 second cd. I felt like I'm not getting something crucial about it and made me feel stupid trying to understand its intended use. In the end, I ended up swapping it for a FGS.

*Haven't tried a d/d build yet, but I suspect it might be better than a hammer catalyst. I'll try another day.

Overall, it felt too underwhelming, clunky, and sadly uninspired. As an ele main that normally doesn't post comments on the forum, I felt I needed to explain my observations since I do believe the developers are reading these and maybe my post would make a difference.

My solution? None I can think of other than some rework, I just want to see a range weapon(staff) build work properly.

[Milosz.5938]

Hello,

What I can say.... Catalyst is... (I'm speachless here) horrible to play. I'm playing elemntalist since years always as my main -even if it seems for you as 'joke class'. I like his downstate view, so I didn't give up. But this new spec for ele.... put word 'joke' to new level. I feel myself playing Cataf...ist as level first engi without any Hero Points unlocked and with 'blue grade hammer'. I see only one reason to play this spec for Eles, and this is quickness - all the rest in Cataf...ist is a joke (sadly not soo funny).  He is not even good as boon/support with his regeneration aplication ^&^ . Damage....ohhh (For joke I used all boons/prefession skills in training golem) ... results = damage is horrifying joke, soo small (with hammer). This is very suicidal spec for elemntalists... 'you stay here and waite for death' . Why...why... what I can do vs any any any other spec that has range 600+ and moving.... NOTING, I can only die; mobility = joke. 2x blocks with 30 secunds CD; sustain = joke.

It's sad, but in my opinion your approach to the elementalists in your game is a joke, because what else should I think after releasing this specialization. I'm really sad, really. 

Yours faithfully

Elemntalist 

[The Great Al.2546]

8 minutes ago, Koof.7359 said:

I could give five paragraphs of feedback on how to "fix" the Catalyst, but what is the point. There's so much wrong here that honestly there is just one solution. A complete rework. I know it's a shame to lose these animations, but it's better to cut your losses here and now rather than spending the time to fix an absolutely doomed elite spec.

 

There is nothing original here. The special skill of this profession at its heart is a combo field. A combo field that takes a lifetime to charge and then has a 20 second CD with very little uptime. Oh and for it's new weapon, lets give it 5 or so blast and leap finishers, but not a single combo field generator besides the absolutely abysmal profession mechanic. The whole time I was playing Catalyst, I was thinking wow this could be good if I was playing S/D ele, and then I just compared it to weaver and it's like what the hell is this? How does a class based on generating combo fields get literally zero combo fields from a weapon?

 

The design is awful, the numbers are awful, but most of all the intent is awful. No one wanted another melee ranged ele build. There is no way they were ever going to make anything close to good as the weaver, which already is a beloved class and has solidly taken up the melee Elementalist elite spec slot. Everyone wanted a true ranged elementalist spec, with LB / SB and Rifle all having unique flavor that would be easily applied to the Elementalist and fits tonally. Instead we get an absolute awful melee spec that brings nothing new to the table whatsoever. Yes the idea of being Thor and playing like a Thane in DAoC is cool, but it just never would work in this game. There is way too much overlap and to be honest it's terrible with the quad elemental aspect of the elementalist. 

 

Again please just do a complete rework. Choose a new weapon. Focus on making a long ranged elite spec. Do something inspired. Elementalist is arguably the most iconic class in this game and for it to have such a terrible elite spec is beyond disheartening. How is an elite spec worse and less original than the core class? Please for the love of god just cut your losses and start again. Choose either Bow or Rifle and make a "tech" inspired elementalist based on imbuing effects onto your ammunition. The flavor is there, the lore and theme are there, and it is so much better and has so much more design space than this atrocious class.  I love this game but if this elite spec isn't completely redone it'll forever be a stain on GW2 and this expansion. I know this sounds hyperbolic, but it really isn't. Everything about this elite spec is absolutely terrible.

I fully agree with you but they’re not going to redo the entire spec. 
 

if they can change the sphere to be in play more than not, have it follow you, and have it generate meaningful damage and support on its own, the spec can be at least usable, if not unique or terribly interesting. 
 

I’d actually love to see the sphere spirit draw aggro in PvE. It’s also crazy that there’s no ability to draw/pull enemies to you/the sphere. 

Edited September 21, 2021 by The Great Al.2546

[QuickLizrd.7853]

Hammer is weak and slow, two things that spell doom for anything when put together on them. Hammer should either be slow and harder-hitting than average or it should be faster and even still with higher damage than it has now. Hammer also has far less interactivity than other mainhand/fullhand weapons elementalist has access to. It doesn't feel good without actual payoff for how slow it all is nor the seemingly minimal amount of effects hammer projects. There's nothing but damage and a couple conditions, and Water attunement has only one healing skill which leaves it with a lower survivability than average for ele.

The Jade Sphere isn't worth its trouble at this point. Other than quickness there isn't really any value to be gotten from it that can't be had more easily from other sources. Even at full energy it doesn't last long enough to matter in extended fights, it doesn't help in shorter fights because it needs energy to be built up first which you can't do if you or everything else is already dead, and since it changes attunement with you you can't keep whatever buff you want from it for long if you switch off the relevant element. On top of that when the jade sphere does fizz out it goes on another long 15 second cooldown before it can be used again, which is a big problem since augment skills need it for their full effects. With all of the supposed interactions Catalyst is supposed to have with fields and combos it seems very odd that it doesn't actually get very reliable field projection when the sphere is supposed to be something it can rely on.

Augment skills also take too long to cast and their effects don't match the magnitude of other utility skills. The heal skill is especially notable for being extremely weak. The elite augment is extraordinarily underwhelming. It might be passable if the cooldown affected all cooldowns instead of just weapon skills, but at the moment it's not worth using in place of any other elite. The secondary effects of the augments have issues of their own on top of the jade sphere's overall lack of reliable presence. There are too many factors that need to be taken into consideration to have them activate which are unfeasible in proper combat. There are very few scenarios, especially in 80+ content, that allow you to stay in one place enough to get reliable augment casts even if you have your jade sphere active. Augments honestly feel a bit like traits shoved into the form of utility skills rather than actual full abilities.

The traits are lackluster, and for some reason no traits exist that interact with the energy generation mechanic of the jade sphere, something that no other class than elementalist has to deal with. All other energy-reliant classes have ways to augment and customize their resource generation, but now that elementalist has a resource of its own it doesn't have anything meaningful to do what other resource-based classes and specializations can. Aside from that the traits for Catalyst overall don't seem impactful in any way.

Overall it feels like the Catalyst is an elite spec constructed out of good intentions that mash horribly with each other, creating a huge and unfulfilling mess. The ideas are good, but the execution is downright awful and it makes one question if these specs are actually tested outside of benchmarking in ideal, safe conditions with golems that aren't also trying to kill you as hard as you are them.

Edited September 21, 2021 by QuickLizrd.7853

[Alakazarm.1847]

Generally, catalyst (hammer) feels fantastic on a golem and pretty great in open world PvE if you don't think about playing it well. However, the insanely long animations on earth 2/5 make chaining your circular projectiles extremely difficult in real scenarios more complicated than a golem--especially without quickness. Same goes for water and air 2 to a lesser extent. 

Maybe it's a skill issue but personally I feel that making the hammer 3 skills instant-cast or extending their base duration by a small amount (even 1s would make a huge difference) would go a long way towards making the spec dramatically more fun to play in open world, and would remove a great deal of the dps rotation's jankiness. Unfortunately any elementalist dps rotation involving a conjure weapon will always be miserable due to the stiff, unreliable nature of picking up a bundle, but it's exacerbated by this spec's extremely tight windows for maintaining it's dps buffs and EE stacks. Those tight windows are incredibly fun to play around when you're not swapping weapons or being burdened by 3.5s skill cast times, but as it stands playing catalyst feels like you're fighting the game mechanics, which can't be good for anybody.

Also the air and water utilities are pretty not good and the elite's cd is way too long. Especially compared to bladesworn's elite.

Also maybe jade sphere should grant pyromancer's puissance? 

Also getting your grand finale ripped away from you because the buffs expired right before your cast was about to finish feels absolutely awful. If I press the flipover skill, I feel like I should get the reward from pressing the skill. This is actually probably the biggest issues with the "feel" of the spec aside from the difficulty of projectile uptime maintenance.

Edited September 21, 2021 by Alakazarm.1847

[RuQu.8394]

49 minutes ago, ArtimisTau.7902 said:

The biggest changes Catalyst needs is to the sphere and I would do the following:

Get rid of the cooldown.

Have the sphere follow the caster like Scrapper gyros.

Have the sphere summonable at any amount of energy. Draining two energy a second which it currently does.

Grand Finale from Hammer 3 and any combos give energy, regardless if the sphere is out or not. Active use of combos and the elite spec weapon would allow for greater duration of the specs main mechanic. 

Regen 2-3 energy a sec when the sphere is not out so a full charge of 30energy takes 10 seconds max. Even less from any combos and hammer 3 as previously stated.

 

This. 

 

The "Catalyst" should be about building reactions. That's literally it's name...something which makes reactions easier.

 

If using Hammer abilities and combos extended the Hammer 3 ability duration and the Jade Sphere duration (either by generating energy or just extending duration if the energy mechanic is removed), that would be huge for the synergistic interaction of this class.

[Flori.2194]

24 minutes ago, The Great Al.2546 said:

I fully agree with you but they’re not going to redo the entire spec. 

Why not? Is it a time problem? They have a plethora of already well crafted fan-made elite specs, just cherry pick one of them, hell bring in some main elementalist content creators and work with them.  This spec right now is a horrible, unusable mess. It has so many flaws that it would be faster and cheaper to just create a new one, throw it in with the fourth beta where you can try all new classes and see how that goes. Ele in its core is already completely broken and this spec is even more kitten, all the ele flaws but even less rewards than tempest or weaver.

Sorry for all the work they put in, but maybe they should just start from scratch again and stop with statements like "So we decided to give Ele hammer somehow"... It absolutely shows that they don't care for this class outside of golem benchmarks, so rework this whole mess or create a completely new one, it couldn't be worse, so why not give it a try...

Edited September 21, 2021 by Flori.2194

[Widmo.3186]

Want my feedback? - its utterly bad.
So far, considering all classes and specs in the game, I would state that its the worst spec in the game.
Even core ele seems better and that my dear devs is an achievement you should put in your CV - "I found a way to make something worse than already one of the worst".

Well done, longer explanation in other topic.

Edited September 21, 2021 by Widmo.3186

[Neveric.6824]

I hate it. Same skills: 2 whrill attacks, 2 bash attacks, 4 Sol comets. No chains at 1 (exept whater). Really small F5 area. 40% of weapon skills harm more than help (hi, earth 2!).

 

Very slow, very fragile, meh-meh damage, zero cool mechanics, with comets being the coolest one of them. And it's melee. Not midrange, just few lame skills for pew-pew while you getting closer. I dont think they wanted ele. Just bland stamp all missing skills, gave COOL FRESH AURA TRAITS, and called it a day.

 

Really cant see how this can be fun, even if balanced right, sorry. 

[Zaxx.8125]

Here's my bit of feedback:

 

Jade Sphere:

1) The cooldown feels way too long. I feel like the energy we're generating while the sphere is active should extend its duration. Or make the cooldown shorter.

2) Why is there a recall sphere button ?? I don't see a single possible scenario where we would want to recall our sphere (AND loose all the energy). I think this should be replaced with "Relocate sphere", this would also help in situations where you're forced to move etc.

 

Hammer:

1) Hammer #3 orbs go away waaay too fast. To be honest, they should have no duration at all, let them float until we use the skill again, it's not as if they're super OP anyways, but it does feel and look cool to have them, so please let us enjoy it by making them last.

2) For an e-spec that relies so much on combos, we could use more combo possibilities on hammer... E.g : water 5 and air 2 should be a whirl, air 4 should be a leap imho, earth 2 should be a whirl (its litterally called "Whirling stones" lol)

3) Earth auto feels extremely weird to me (maybe just a personal thing) and lazy. Since it's melee range, it could at least be a chain with some bleeds/cripples maybe...

 

Utilities/heal/elite:

1) In general: these look very... uninteresting to play with, and, while being the only skills that can actually interact with our Jade sphere, the said interaction is very minimal and mostly not very useful.

2) Elite: So... for a 90sec cooldown we get 8 seconds off of our weapon skills... I'm not sure, maybe it does have some hidden potential that I fail to see, but for me, this elite skill is kinda useless.

 

 

As a small conclusion: for me , this spec has a good potential to be fun to play, but not at it's current state. Hopefully the devs will listen. 🙂

[TheWhiteWolves.3076]

Small thing but worth considering changing, if you have the Juggernaught legendary on catalyst it uses the mercury ball projectile effect for the swirling ball, thus you can no longer tell which elements you have up because they are all now just a floating ball of silver metal.

[Banshee.8234]

First of all, the Hammer skills are great in theory, it works well with Elementalist in General! Problem is, there is not one skill (except maybe Air 2) that does remotely any damage in any way or provides anything. It just feels slow and there is little to no reward for it. All the skills need some heavy damage up as well as cast times reduced to even make them worth considering. It's just not fun at all to use due to no rewarding skills and way too long of a windup for anything.

Secondly, the F5 field. Excuse me, but this mechanic is utterly useless and probably the most dissapointing elite mechanic I have ever seen. Again, in theory it's a cool idea, but the damage again is ridiculously low (which you did tell us is intentional), and the use of it is barely even visible. All it really is is a combo field with a few added benefits, except maybe the Quickness you get from Air, but thats about it. The fact that it is not only stationary but also very short with a high cooldown makes this mechanic utterly useless.

As for the utility skills as well as the elite utility, I don't even have to say much. Due to the F5 being ridiculously weak, all of them are practically worthless. EVEN IF the F5 was even worth using, they'd still not only be weak but also incredibly boring. Passive upgrades for a few seconds is even more uninteresting than stances, and ele already has that. The interaction with the F5 sounds cool on paper, but it's way too much work for something so little. You'll always be better off choosing a different core ele utility.

Lastly, for the traits, they're good in my opinion, except for the ones focusing on Aura's. Not only are Aura's more of a  Tempest thing, but also Catalyst has little to no access to them, making those skills not worthwhile at all. Also, there are no traits focusing on the hammer, making the weapon even more wonky.

I've been an Elementalist main for a long while now and I love the class more than anything currently. But if you don't change up Catalyst RADICALLY I see no hopes for it at all. All the other specs have been cool so far in my honest opinion, but I have never seen a more unfinished and unfun to play elite in my time following this game. There needs to be drastic changes or I'm afraid I might not play the class at all, which is disappointing.

[Xunleashed.5271]

Testing it in PvP/WvW there is a lot that doesn't work on this elite..
 

1. The F5 mechanic is bad.. Long CD for a single stationary field with a useless energy mechanic on that.
   Solution: Make F5 attunement based with no shared cooldown, similar to scourge shades OR atleast make it moving around the caster
2. Hammer is bad:
   Damage is way too low, a weapon with mostly just dps on it should wreck things; this one is slow and does no damage.
   The number 3 skills don't work with how the core ele rotation works: you cannot rush attunement swap to keep it up, that's not how core ele plays. It's clear that who designed this never actually played a core ele in pvp/wvw. Make the buff last longer like 10 seconds.
   Also, for the love of god, give hammer more finishers/field... 
3. Augments are weak, they require being on an exact attunement and on the F5 field at the time you need them (spoiler: pretty impossibile in pvp/wvw)... For what? Not a big payoff anyway. Rework them or atleast make the "payoff" baseline.

Traits are fine, the idea behind most of the is cool. Maybe rework the ones based on F5, they won't work like that...

[Spartan Phoenix.9053]

44 minutes ago, Koof.7359 said:

I could give five paragraphs of feedback on how to "fix" the Catalyst, but what is the point. There's so much wrong here that honestly there is just one solution. A complete rework. I know it's a shame to lose these animations, but it's better to cut your losses here and now rather than spending the time to fix an absolutely doomed elite spec.

 

There is nothing original here. The special skill of this profession at its heart is a combo field. A combo field that takes a lifetime to charge and then has a 20 second CD with very little uptime. Oh and for it's new weapon, lets give it 5 or so blast and leap finishers, but not a single combo field generator besides the absolutely abysmal profession mechanic. The whole time I was playing Catalyst, I was thinking wow this could be good if I was playing S/D ele, and then I just compared it to weaver and it's like what the hell is this? How does a class based on generating combo fields get literally zero combo fields from a weapon?

 

The design is awful, the numbers are awful, but most of all the intent is awful. No one wanted another melee ranged ele build. There is no way they were ever going to make anything close to good as the weaver, which already is a beloved class and has solidly taken up the melee Elementalist elite spec slot. Everyone wanted a true ranged elementalist spec, with LB / SB and Rifle all having unique flavor that would be easily applied to the Elementalist and fits tonally. Instead we get an absolute awful melee spec that brings nothing new to the table whatsoever. Yes the idea of being Thor and playing like a Thane in DAoC is cool, but it just never would work in this game. There is way too much overlap and to be honest it's terrible with the quad elemental aspect of the elementalist. 

 

Again please just do a complete rework. Choose a new weapon. Focus on making a long ranged elite spec. Do something inspired. Elementalist is arguably the most iconic class in this game and for it to have such a terrible elite spec is beyond disheartening. How is an elite spec worse and less original than the core class? Please for the love of god just cut your losses and start again. Choose either Bow or Rifle and make a "tech" inspired elementalist based on imbuing effects onto your ammunition. The flavor is there, the lore and theme are there, and it is so much better and has so much more design space than this atrocious class.  I love this game but if this elite spec isn't completely redone it'll forever be a stain on GW2 and this expansion. I know this sounds hyperbolic, but it really isn't. Everything about this elite spec is absolutely terrible.

x2   Just don't agree on geting longbow or riffle having already staff, but I'm sure the spec needs to be completely redesigned.