Catalyst Feedback Thread

[Lalaboompoo.1289]

remove augments, change the f5 skills into well abilities, move the 3 from the hammer to the f5 skill and replace the 3 skills with combo finishers. Bam easy fix.

[Tungsten Monarch.6058]

Increase range for hammer to 1200

Stone strike should cause bleeding to make use of earth traits

Windslam should cause piercing.

 

melee for a glass class with little damage mitigation for optimal use play is a bad idea.

thus this class is better suited for 1200 range, not melee range.

[Serephen.3420]

Probably not the most needed adjustment but would definitely make things more interesting/fun in my opinion especially going along the support aspect of catalyst. 

 

Making the augments pbaoe wells and the effects can affect allies as well. Or if such an option could replace one of the less interesting/useful traits it would bring more flavour and utility to groups especially. 

[Tabootrinket.2631]

13 hours ago, Serephen.3420 said:

Probably not the most needed adjustment but would definitely make things more interesting/fun in my opinion especially going along the support aspect of catalyst. 

 

Making the augments pbaoe wells and the effects can affect allies as well. Or if such an option could replace one of the less interesting/useful traits it would bring more flavour and utility to groups especially. 

Totally. 
The selfish aspect of the augment is really what irks me the most. I think that should be the reward for attuning to the right element while using the augments.

[Wardancer.9172]

So far I've refrained from posting at all here or elsewhere, because what ele players blatently clearly whished for (bow/ranged option as a weapon) was ignored in a fashion so tonedeaf it boggles the mind how they keep saying they read the players opinions. But well, what do I have to lose from venting my frustration?
Altough advertised as the "versatile, range prefering" spell slinger, again and again the ele has been forced into melee, with the lowest hp, light armor and no inherent survivability mechanic. Instead the name of the game is: sacrifice what ever you are supposed to do to do extra skills that keep you barely alive and pray the hfb takes pity on you (and does the cc for you, too, if you havent predicted that cc phase literaly 5 seconds prior at the least).
so contrary to the advertisement, your "versatility" boils down to two options: high raw dps or healing output. And the dps is chained down to melee, since there isnt a ranged option thats not pathetic in dps output. So the current "versatile Ele" can't provide significant boons besides might which is already present in abundance on every class, can't boon strip/rip, and the dps potential is locked behind a forced melee with a reliance on absolutely nothing going wrong/desturbing your chain, or you do subpar damage, while still having to choose between having your cc ready or surviving (eg. go air/water on sword/focus weaver or go fire/earth) the ordeal. But ofc, ele players are just playing the class wrong, because they dont understand they are supposed to go full celestial so they....die "only" as easyly as all the other classes normally do and do half the damage of a autoattacking renegade, while still having to circle every attunement and pressing every button available? Gee, thanks, "range prefering" my butt.

So what does the ele get? A Hammer. a slow kitten hammer with a weird mix of melee and laughable 600 range? and on top of that a boon field that is immobile and only applies to you, so you have to sit insight a 600 unit circle and wait for the Boss to randomly drop a one hit kill aoe in your tiny puddle of "you get half a decent boon in here"? On top of that, you get a stupid energy bar to manage besides your attunement cool downs and a sphere that only does damage when you are in melee range, effectively nullifying the tiny range on your hammer? and a "grande finale" only available on one of your weapon choises? what the actual f?

So, since i dont have any delusions on you just deleting the catalyst.dat folder and starting over, here finally is what i see could be done to make this spec something of a win:

 

- energy is removed and replaced by a simple cd and a boon thats affected by boon duration
- Hammer gets 900-1200 range on every attunement.
- Grande Finale is moved to F5 and available on every weapon.

- add a boon strip option

- Orb is merged with the augment mechanic and either spawns on attunement swap or activateable with no or low cd, like the tempest overload.

and the best/most important thing:

- Give the trait option to control how the augment/orb works: one option is to simply be a strong buff on the player character only, who can carry it around., the other is a placable well/aoe with a 1200 range (not radius) with decent buffs and affecting your allies as well, last is to have the well bound to you, but still affecting your allies. That way the mechanic is actually useful regardless of your decision to play ranged or melee and gives the versatility to either be a great dps with better survivability, a good dps with team utility or a support who doesnt have to constantly hug the people he is supporting.

also: rework the kitten staff.

 

And thats just my 2 cents on the matter, but i realise the futility of my input here, on all these forum postings i've read there is 0 discourse with the actual devs, no real discussion or communication happens. Only players venting like me, and a moderator or two listing a "feed back"-thread where players can dump their frustration and concerns that will sadly be ignored.

But apart from all that, still, i want to thank the devs sincerely for all the hard work they put into this amazing game that i still love, all my critisism aside.

Edited January 24, 2022 by Wardancer.9172

[xXxNikiGoesWildxXx.3678]

I strongly believe Catalyst on release will look better than what we saw till now... Even if that not happen i hope for some quick reworks from arenanet on this class after EoD release. I tried it myself, both betas and i am ultimately disappointed as ele main. 

From the last beta what i noticed is that hammer skills got faster cast time and jade sphere(F5) got very small design buff(but still bad design) and that was all about it which is very sad. 

[Anthony.8056]

I wish they could have made this spec the way the revenant does its legends. Give us access to only two elements that we could swap out and give them weapon swap as well.

[NIHILUS.4168]

Id suggest making middle traitline more offence oriented:

Vicious empowerment should have its cooldown raised to 1 to 2 sec and give 5 sec of quickness or alacrity

Evasive empowerment should change to critical empowerment and proc on critical strike, remove cooldown or make it qurter of a second and gives 1 stack of might for 10 seconds

empovered empowerment should have added effect of giving fury for 2 sec when at max stack eavry 2 sec.

as for jade sphere rather than pulsing aoe think it would be better as a nuke like 1200 range shoot out a big comet/tidal wave/ball lightning/earthquake at location that deals massive damange. Also takes longer to charge.

heal utility and elite should be aoes that center and follow the user, dealing damange to enemies around player or supporting nearby allies. Only one could be active at one time. Bottom trait could have trait or 2 supporting this playstyle whit last trait helping whit new nukes.

and upper traitline ANYTHING other than auras, as tempest already did that and specialization literally means  focusing on something new, altho to be fair elementalist elites lack defining characteristic that each other professions elites have, but even still auras have been done to death  already. In same vein grandmaster minor trait should become ”cataclysm embodied” gives vitality and % of power as vitality, as well as reduce cooldown of equipped abilities by 1 sec each time you are hit 1 sec cooldown.

also while im at it please change blind from lightning surge into 1.5 sec daze. Thank you.

Edited February 19, 2022 by NIHILUS.4168
Articulations an ongoing process.

[Joswi.2635]

I think I finally realized what I wish the Jade Orb was like, Ventari's Tablet. Just have it constantly in the world and you move it with F5. Whenever you switch to a new attunement it creates a new field and grants a boon if you are specced into that trait. All your augments then augment what the sphere is doing.

The healing could be water that pulses healing and regen.

The utilities could be:

Fire pulses burning and might.

Ice pulses damage, chill, and resolution.

Earth pulses bleeding and protection.

Air pulses damage, weakness, and quickness.

The elite could pulse all of the utility ones at once or just increase the effects/damage and radius of the other augments.

It doesn't matter what element you activate the augments in but could get a bonus like reduced cooldown or increased duration if you are in the same element.

Not sure if anyone else has suggested something similar or if it would be good but I think it would be fun.

[HotDelirium.7984]

Vicious Empowerment trait is a near useless trait for a Catalyst because only 3 skills within air (2) and earth (1) attunement weapon skills and none for all their utility skills will trigger this. Why can't the water and fire weapon skills have at least one disable? Maybe even have their elite skill allow the next attack to disable. Give us something plz lol

Also, water attunement needs a glance over-

-it removes so many conditions and while that might be great for pvp and wvw in PVE we aren't as swarmed with conditions in a lot of enemies and content. I think hammer skill 5 should grant regeneration instead of cleansing or the healing skill can add regeneration into its balance. Maybe even split that concept between the two skills or innovate and have the water healing skill apply a super long version of regeneration instead of a direct heal. Just thinking outside the box a little.

-we can apply a healthy amount of chill but chill is a condition we can't really maximize off of besides adding to its duration. Maybe a weapon skill or utility addition having an extra effect if target already has chill?

-I think Icy Coil should also include -5% strike damage since we do have access to Resolution from the water jade sphere.

-the Water attunement jade sphere could instead be an ice field instead of a water field since this also pairs well with the aura traits.

Thank you for your time!

Edited February 21, 2022 by HotDelirium.7984

[HotDelirium.7984]

On 1/24/2022 at 10:45 AM, Wardancer.9172 said:

So far I've refrained from posting at all here or elsewhere, because what ele players blatently clearly whished for (bow/ranged option as a weapon) was ignored in a fashion so tonedeaf it boggles the mind how they keep saying they read the players opinions. But well, what do I have to lose from venting my frustration?
Altough advertised as the "versatile, range prefering" spell slinger, again and again the ele has been forced into melee, with the lowest hp, light armor and no inherent survivability mechanic. Instead the name of the game is: sacrifice what ever you are supposed to do to do extra skills that keep you barely alive and pray the hfb takes pity on you (and does the cc for you, too, if you havent predicted that cc phase literaly 5 seconds prior at the least).
so contrary to the advertisement, your "versatility" boils down to two options: high raw dps or healing output. And the dps is chained down to melee, since there isnt a ranged option thats not pathetic in dps output. So the current "versatile Ele" can't provide significant boons besides might which is already present in abundance on every class, can't boon strip/rip, and the dps potential is locked behind a forced melee with a reliance on absolutely nothing going wrong/desturbing your chain, or you do subpar damage, while still having to choose between having your cc ready or surviving (eg. go air/water on sword/focus weaver or go fire/earth) the ordeal. But ofc, ele players are just playing the class wrong, because they dont understand they are supposed to go full celestial so they....die "only" as easyly as all the other classes normally do and do half the damage of a autoattacking renegade, while still having to circle every attunement and pressing every button available? Gee, thanks, "range prefering" my butt.

So what does the ele get? A Hammer. a slow kitten hammer with a weird mix of melee and laughable 600 range? and on top of that a boon field that is immobile and only applies to you, so you have to sit insight a 600 unit circle and wait for the Boss to randomly drop a one hit kill aoe in your tiny puddle of "you get half a decent boon in here"? On top of that, you get a stupid energy bar to manage besides your attunement cool downs and a sphere that only does damage when you are in melee range, effectively nullifying the tiny range on your hammer? and a "grande finale" only available on one of your weapon choises? what the actual f?

So, since i dont have any delusions on you just deleting the catalyst.dat folder and starting over, here finally is what i see could be done to make this spec something of a win:

 

- energy is removed and replaced by a simple cd and a boon thats affected by boon duration
- Hammer gets 900-1200 range on every attunement.
- Grande Finale is moved to F5 and available on every weapon.

- add a boon strip option

- Orb is merged with the augment mechanic and either spawns on attunement swap or activateable with no or low cd, like the tempest overload.

and the best/most important thing:

- Give the trait option to control how the augment/orb works: one option is to simply be a strong buff on the player character only, who can carry it around., the other is a placable well/aoe with a 1200 range (not radius) with decent buffs and affecting your allies as well, last is to have the well bound to you, but still affecting your allies. That way the mechanic is actually useful regardless of your decision to play ranged or melee and gives the versatility to either be a great dps with better survivability, a good dps with team utility or a support who doesnt have to constantly hug the people he is supporting.

also: rework the kitten staff.

 

And thats just my 2 cents on the matter, but i realise the futility of my input here, on all these forum postings i've read there is 0 discourse with the actual devs, no real discussion or communication happens. Only players venting like me, and a moderator or two listing a "feed back"-thread where players can dump their frustration and concerns that will sadly be ignored.

But apart from all that, still, i want to thank the devs sincerely for all the hard work they put into this amazing game that i still love, all my critisism aside.

I'll say it once and I'll keep saying it- they won't be giving us a bow for ranged so at the very least I would love a compromise with the auto attacks being mid ranged. The auto attacks have a tiny bit of range (some even up to 270) so i think they should increase that a little more and include a revised version of of combo finishers (similar to what they do with the 20% chance projectile finisher). For example, in keeping with the theme of the attack and the attunement lets say water hammer skill one should include a 20% chance for blast finisher. This pairs well with the Elemental Epitome trait.

Edited February 21, 2022 by HotDelirium.7984

[HotDelirium.7984]

A few more observations:

-Design-wise I really would look into balancing this spec as if it was to never change attunements. Needing to change attunements for max benefit can still be an option but not the only one. Some ele mains construct their builds and yes our fashion sometimes towards one element and its unfortunate if we absolutely have to switch attunements. If this means moving around some concepts and trait lines, I think in the long run it would be best. You can even balance it to where it replaces Elemental Empowerment, gives another streamlined positive effect but the player cannot change attunements in battle. This is also in reference in hammer skill 3 requiring us to switch to all attunements for max effect. Again, as an option and if that's their playstyle, great. I would love to see single attunement options as well. Spamming our hammer skill 4 times in a single attunement (with the option of launching it all) would be pretty fun gameplay in my opinion.

-Elemental Empowerment (effect) and two traits all have the same name so I think they should be renamed for distinction. Its interesting to have a trait line dedicated to increasing all attributes, as players know, celestial gear helps a little bit of everything but isn't great at one thing. To balance this out with the current traits that give this effect I would suggest either eliminating the grandmaster trait and giving a slight buff to the effect unless you revamp the duration and/or more ways to access it. The ways to trigger it are somewhat unreliable that a player would be locked behind taking only the weapon skills and utilities that can trigger it to consistently stay at max stacks. But as I said what's the point of trying to get to max stacks if the effect isn't as relevant to most builds?

-Augments got a little update in beta two and while I think that helped, as I've mentioned single attunement gameplay above, I believe they should all compliment each attunement directly and change drastically per attunement (you can even change their color scheme per attunement). For example, the healing skill could be Soothing Fire, Soothing Water, Soothing Air or Soothing water. For simplicity they could all be similar but with some theme adjustments. This goes for all other attunements and we wouldn't absolutely have to rely on a jade sphere's presence nor having to switch attunements. The concept of augments almost fits better with a weaver than this spec in its current iteration.

-Jade deployment and energy- unless I'm mistaken I believe you can't gain energy unless you are attacking? This might be a problem during certain times when something is ranged, is blocking, invulnerable or when we are disabled. I'd suggest maybe a two-fold update. Having energy be generated during combat over landing blows might be a better hit. I can just see the horror stories of enemies staying at range so that you never build up any energy. Also, if we have a 30 energy max why not have each 10 be a jade orb deployment threshold. Per your coefficients, you can design it where it still only takes 5 energy but has greater effects within the 11-20 threshold and the 21 to 30 threshold OR alternatively you spending all 10, 20 or 30 energy points for an even more potent effect. This can also be created as an effect from a trait line instead of this being a baseline effect.

Edited February 21, 2022 by HotDelirium.7984

[Jzaku.9765]

Hammer skill 3 is absolutely a mistake. Flavour and Mechanics wise, this is literally Weaver's gimmick. It looks like Weave Self, it behaves like Weave Self, and it forces Catalyst playing the weapon it was designed for, to play like Weaver putting a time limit on staying in an attunement. Not to mention, it also completely invalidates Hammer's midrange aspects as you need to be near the enemies to be getting value from the rotating orbs. 

[SlitheSlivier.1908]

12 hours ago, Jzaku.9765 said:

Hammer skill 3 is absolutely a mistake. Flavour and Mechanics wise, this is literally Weaver's gimmick. It looks like Weave Self, it behaves like Weave Self, and it forces Catalyst playing the weapon it was designed for, to play like Weaver putting a time limit on staying in an attunement. Not to mention, it also completely invalidates Hammer's midrange aspects as you need to be near the enemies to be getting value from the rotating orbs. 

I actually really like it and think it's a cool idea. However make it last 8-10 seconds instead of 5 and make it a specialization mechanic that happens when changing attunements instead of a weapon skill, then fill fire and earth 3 with leaps, earth 3 with a kd or stun, and Air 3 with an attack that also gives you swiftness and maybe aegis. 

[Tungsten Monarch.6058]

Watching content creator's play their private demo, on the new Catalyst. The ele still dies way to quick with no damage mitigation, it's still a terrible design, and everything addressed by players here was ignored.

[Serephen.3420]

11 hours ago, Tungsten Monarch.6058 said:

Watching content creator's play their private demo, on the new Catalyst. The ele still dies way to quick with no damage mitigation, it's still a terrible design, and everything addressed by players here was ignored.

I doubt those had any of the updates to the classes. 

[Sunshine.5014]

On 1/17/2022 at 3:20 AM, teonanakatl.1289 said:

I have an idea whith catalist ui. Remove  F5 and place it on F1-F4 . More like Tempest. And resourse indicator may be placed between attunement bar and skill bar like weaver indicator. Sry my english  https://ibb.co/yFpRNLy

I agree with this. Why invent a new key when you can't place the field outside of your current attunement anyway?

[Tungsten Monarch.6058]

Feedback: Catalyst still terrible spec with terrible weapon no one wanted or asked for...

1) Sync up range for all Elements to be equal, not some specs at 600 and some not.

2) Make Range 900 or 1200 for all Elements

3) Grant better Sustain, heck even the weaver had healing with water 1 skill plus it had barrier for a melee class.

4) Earth Skill 1 should cause bleeding, all earth skills should do Condi damage that is not fire.

5) Aura's should be easier to come by.

[tekfan.3179]

I didn't have any fun with the catalyst in the beta events and while I see that something has been done, I'm still not having fun.

The catalyst feels either clunky or hectic. Like a fifth wheel cobbled together from hastily organized notes from brainstorming-meetings.

Layering the different "3-skills" on top of each other feels more like a latency-issue than one of gameplay, considering their short duration and the time it takes to switch attunements and cast another skill.

Range is still an issue.

Even more so, since practically every mob plasters the ground with field-effects.

Aside from devs simply not giving a kitten or being negatively biased, I can not comprehend how the profession with the lowest armor rating and lowest base-vitality constantly is forced into short-ranged options, while adding more and more mechanics that require you to go on a distance to your enemy. Right down to the bounties in Elona, where you literally can't damage some enemies on short range at times.

 

I've heard in one of Mightyteapots recent videos that there will be a big rework of sorts in summer. Here's hoping.

[MoonRaiden.7423]

I am a long time gw2 player, preordered the expansion eod and wanted to play with my main elementalist-catalyst. Waited till release before giving final criticism; have to say this is still underwhelming, borderline disappointment elite spec and because of that, I will not play end of dragon until rework is done for this class.

[Alradab.5491]

Catalyst i was really really hyped for, but now that i have plenty of time to just sit down and play with it i'm slightly concerned. i was really excited for my favorite class to get access to one of the big two offensive buffs, but from the betas its capacity to do that with the ease other classes can provide was slashed. the base quickness was brought down to 1s and sphere specialist brings much less duration, so you would need to bring more concentration, and still provide less quickness than before. this restriction makes you significantly more boon dependent as either your rotation becomes very tight with energy management, especially compared to other quickness classes, or you have alacrity/fresh air.

 

another big problem is readability. the system for sphere energy is very similar to core warrior adrenaline, but unlike warrior adrenaline, at any given moment of combat it is very hard to see how many milestones i crossed at a glance. imagine if you had to guess if you had enough adrenaline for a 10adrenaline burst or a 20 adrenaline burst. that would be unacceptable from a gameplay perspective, and yet for catalyst the easiest way to tell if you've got 20 energy stored up to dump for quickness is to either get very used to reading every pixel of your hud or to hover over the sliver of a bar over the deploy jade sphere. 

 

now normally this wouldn't be that big a deal because if your at say 19 energy, you spend 10 to deploy a sphere, then just hit the enemy to get the last one you need. however that effort is frustrated by the fact that deploying a sphere prevents you from gaining energy for 5 seconds, so you cant drop fire, then swap and drop in air unless you've passed the milestone you cant even see. now i get that the breaks in energy gain are probably some form of balance, because if you could generate energy while a sphere was out you would have too much energy and would have no need for any, but this sort of thing isn't really the case for most energy systems in the game. scourge life force can be gained while pulsing damage out of shades with Desert Shroud, revenant energy isn't halted when you have an upkeep going, mesmers can keep making clones even if they still have clones running up to shatter. i think the comparison being made to justify this aspect of energy generation is warrior adrenaline. burst skills don't grant adrenaline when used. at first glance this makes sense because what is a sphere but a tweaked burst skill, its even got the same energy thresholds as burst skills, but burst skills are usually instantaneous effects or require you to channel the skill like with the sword burst, so you can get right back to building adrenaline instantly. imagine if warrior was locked out of their burst skills for 5s after using them, like no adrenaline or anything.

 

this also causes a weird incongruity with what could be very synergistic skill usage. air sphere into hurricane of pain works and feels so good in open world that there's no way it was an accident, but as energy is generated per hit of an attack, and hurricane of pain is your longest multi-hit, you almost feel punished for using right after getting quickness because you don't generate any energy. you could say this is just a difficult choice you need to make, either more damage or energy generation, but to my knowledge no other class is actively punished for using its core mechanic at the wrong time outside of just whiffing and putting it on cooldown. like the older change to Mesmer phantasms to make them turn into clones once their attack was done was to address a similar problem, where not using your shatters was optimal because you would loose your phantasms.

 

i think my only other gripes with the class is the missed opportunity that comes with how the class handles auras. its clear that auras are supposed to be a big part of the catalyst considering all the minor traits synergize with auras, but for a boon focused dps class, synergies with existing aura traits are very lacking. all the catalyst aura traits explicitly state its only for auras applied to you personally, which for the stacking damage and mitigation makes sense, but just imagine the interesting synergies with powerful auras. keeping auras on a subgroup consistently and gaining a pay off on that would be amazing. tempest already had something like this with a grandmaster that healed on aura application, though powerful auras played a supporting role because the shouts already applied aoe auras. I'm no balance expert but imagine if the stability was on aura application as opposed to gaining an aura. you could provide an alternative to firebrand for stability generation, and considering that the aoe stab on swap to earth trait isn't op, I don't see it getting too out of hand. or heck if that's not your style you could put the quickness on aura application. make it like alacbender. take a special trait to make your special boons aoe. idk it just feels silly to have a elite spec have so much access to auras but no incentive to take the aura synergy traits except maybe smothering auras. the prot and fury that could be given on aura application are covered by the sphere if you really wanted them so  😕

 

I'm trying to reserve judgement on hammer till i get more experience on it, but early thoughts: hammer 3, as cool as it is, is too much when the class already needs to hold up persistent flames, two aura stacking buffs, and elemental empowerment. which is a shame considering how much damage and energy generation comes out of the extra hits from the orbs

[Doggie.3184]

Add more Hammer skins that look like Staves. 

[Argol Vazin.3061]

On 3/2/2022 at 3:46 PM, MoonRaiden.7423 said:

I am a long time gw2 player, preordered the expansion eod and wanted to play with my main elementalist-catalyst. Waited till release before giving final criticism; have to say this is still underwhelming, borderline disappointment elite spec and because of that, I will not play end of dragon until rework is done for this class.

They already have your money so your form of protest doesn't work. This is why you don't pre-order

[Phyrak.7260]

Going to reiterate my point from beta - catalyst feels like it should play as a solo/camping spec.

If it's going to be a melee/mid range combatant, a constant flow of health/barrier and a heavy amount of vitality is well needed which can be attached to a trait.

Taking this mindset of a camping spec; 

The F5 could allow an almost "ascendant" gameplay to utilize the jade tech to enhance the chosen element which is being camped in to a greater degree. Perhaps taking the theme of the creatures that are being projected from the jade tech.

Giving all elements some form of cc, healing, support and damage in their own way.

Having the equipped weapon disappear and turn your attacks into that of Thor from Ragnarok casting lightning from his hands, though, this could be more of a pipe dream than anything.

The augments again feel lacking because you're forced to play into the area which doesn't help with the ranged aspect of the hammer or other ranged weapons...

Perhaps giving them a passive and ammo aspect could help them out a little.

Eg. Augment earth - generate barrier periodically. On use, block for X seconds; generate addition barrier based on number of attacks blocked.

Augments themselves need a trait just for them just like other skills have as to make them feel a little more meaty.

Thank you for reading,

-Phyrak

 

[Toasty.2954]

Initially I thought everyone here was exxaggerating until I tried it myself. Wow catalyst traits sure are really boring, plus the skill 3 on hammer and the jade spheres barely do anything significant. It just pales so much compared to the weaver skills. Plus weaker is just so much better at surviving.