Catalyst Feedback Thread

[volca.7234]

Now thats EoD is in my hand i got to play with catalyst more i gotta say its the best spec ever, actually deep combat that takes core ele swap mid animation idea and run wild with it, pure unadulterated fun.

The infamous Forum Eles maybe bit harsh on catalyst due to a lack of understanding and they themselves being bit clunky because they refuse to relearn how to play ele,  be patient.

[MoonRaiden.7423]

15 hours ago, Argol Vazin.3061 said:

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

While that's true, they no longer have my attention, and my further interest in purchases of their products while playing Guild Wars 2 or End of Dragon for that matter. For example, even though I paid $80 for their ultimate edition, I have spent more on say Black Desert or Lost ark, with upwards of $800 per month just this February. This translates to loss of revenue from players who spends while playing the game and miss opportunities from players who spent because of poor implementation, and first impression.

Edited March 4, 2022 by MoonRaiden.7423

[Reimu.9412]

The entire spec just feels awful in a open world situation. Spheres are typically hard to see, hammer 3 is clunky as all hell, and you generally feel like you're meant to do raid rotations at all times, with no "cozy lazy" open world style.  

 

Please at least give us some trait that makes hammer 3 way more flexible at a damage cost. 

[Dravis.7681]

I haven't died this much in PvE since getting to Heart of Thorns on core Ele! 

[Noodle Ant.1605]

i dont know if hammer 3 orbs are supposed to have projectile properties while they are spinning, but it feels bad having them being deleted whenever they come into contact with blocks/invuln/projectile block/reflects (especially with things like scrapper mobs spamming electro whirl like no tomorrow). ive casted grand finale with 0 orbs for fun a couple of times now

similarly, ive also casted grand finale with 0 orbs because they expired in the middle of casting. im not too annoyed by this since its mostly my fault for pressing it too late, but it does seem a little odd

ive accidentally fired grand finale a few times right after using hammer 3 to create an orb, because i dont think the flipover skill has any sort of delay before it can be pressed. i think having some brief delay would be helpful to have in this regard

lastly, i find it a bit too awkward to recover from a failed hammer 3 rotation (perhaps due to missing orbs or miscast as described above), which id like to blame on the cooldown of hammer 3 for being slightly too high. the attunement flow of hammer is largely determined by managing the hammer 3 mechanic, and having to wait for them to all come off cd can feel very clunky. lowering cds will also make the mechanic more lenient to play around with, as atm it runs on a fairly strict “not too fast but not too slow” principle, which can be hard to consistently get right

[giblets.6401]

More than 55% of players think Catalyst is "bad" or "terrible".

More than 60% of players think Hammer is "bad" or "terrible".

If that's not clear and actionable feedback, I don't know what is.

[scarlettmoonbabe.6932]

3 hours ago, giblets.6401 said:

More than 55% of players think Catalyst is "bad" or "terrible".

More than 60% of players think Hammer is "bad" or "terrible".

If that's not clear and actionable feedback, I don't know what is.

it's like they heard our feedback from the beta, but time crunch happened, so they said eff it and shipped it hoping it would be ok but they knew it wasnt what most of us wanted and it feels bad. like that time at blizzcon when a WoW dev guy said the game's fans didnt know what they wanted and it became a meme because it was proven absolutely what they were asking for is what they wanted. just hoping gw2 and anet don't go down that road but this kinda thing gives me a bad feeling

[Jzaku.9765]

Why is generating Energy locked while a sphere is placed? This Energy mechanic is a direct copy of Warrior's Adrenaline - this would be the equivalent of saying Warrior stops being able to generate Adrenaline after using a burst skill for 4s. Ridiculous! 

Elementalist already gets a lot of flak for overly complicated rotations, why are there so many new ways to restrict what order you press your buttons in Catalyst?

On a related note, the trait that generates energy on Attunement swap should directly copy Warrior's - 5 energy on swap. 2 is so close to almost nothing.

 

Edit: If the concern was that the sphere is refunding 5 ticks = 5 energy, Warrior Burst skills are already literally coded like this - without external factors like traits the multi-hit/pulsing aoe Burst skills do NOT tick up adrenaline. 

Edited March 7, 2022 by Jzaku.9765

[skoda.4619]

After trying to get to grips with Catalyst dps rotations a few things always came up and it was the same issues we were all talking about during betas and nothing changed.
 

1. give the hammer 3 at least 1-2s longer duration so we don't have to feel like we have to race through the attunements, i had to skip a few skills in the rotation whenever i pressed 3 a bit too soon which always feelt bad. 
2. give grand finale a 1 or 0.5s cooldown after skill 3 has been pressed so we don't accidentally activate it...yes i know you should use hammer 3 during long animations to avoid this, but this is a workaround and it still happens that you activate it by mistake.
3. If you mess up either of previous steps so orbs run out or you accidentally press grand finale when you didn't mean to, your rotation is screwed up and you lose quite a lot of dps due to that small mistake. Even weaver was more lenient that this. Not sure what to do here, at least give us changes from previous 2 points and then we can go from there.
4. Every class that gives quickness can do so at the start of the fight, but due to energy not being full when entering combat you have to wait a few secs before giving quickness, all that would need to be done is make it so if you go out of combat your energy resets to full.
5. Not being able to generate energy when an orb is down doesn't feel fun, on top of juggling the orbs you have to make sure to pay attention how much energy you have on that small icon. Give us ability to generate energy always and put the energy status above the health bar or over the weapon skills similar to how weavers element bar was.

[scerevisiae.1972]

I hate hammer, really really hate it. Mainly because it's just another melee weapon that's EXACTLY LIKE SWORD.

No amount of number tweaks will make it more appealling, it will just make sword more obsolete.

I particularly hate that fire/air have ranged skills but earth/water doesn't.

The only possible way you can stop me hating hammer is to make it into the hybrid ranged weapon it should always have been. In practise this means reworking a few currently melee skills into ranged skills.

I would like to see earth 5, fire 5, and water 2 made into ranged skills, maybe cone AOE skills as has been suggested elsewhere. 

Edited March 8, 2022 by scerevisiae.1972

[Desh.7028]

Hammer 3 is the worst skill in the game outside of raid training. Past and current.

 

The issue is unlike Weaver where you have a lot of attunement swapping catalyst has both upper and lower bounds for when you have to swap to keep the ball rolling with way more punishing results (spheres go away vs slightly less optimal CD usage for your skills) if anything should make you fail (like mechanics requiring more attention or being CCed or intermission phases).

 

Elementalist already has a Jade Sphere mechanic. I suppose that's why F1-4 wasn't used. But the Tempest keybinds feel a lot better than the addtional F5. The "resource" is also actually a charge system unless I'm misreading things severely - I'm not mad at the lack of originality but making things more complex in order to look original isn't the funnest.

[Jzaku.9765]

5 hours ago, Desh.7028 said:

Hammer 3 is the worst skill in the game outside of raid training. Past and current.

 

The issue is unlike Weaver where you have a lot of attunement swapping catalyst has both upper and lower bounds for when you have to swap to keep the ball rolling with way more punishing results (spheres go away vs slightly less optimal CD usage for your skills) if anything should make you fail (like mechanics requiring more attention or being CCed or intermission phases).

It makes hammer Catalyst feel the immense pressure of getting full value and completing Weave Self on Weaver, except all the time. Maybe some people enjoy this ridiculously strict rotation restriction, but I for one truly hate it. 

[pallas.8150]

Catalyst is pure trash. Nothing has changed. Dev team are completely out of touch with the player base. Trash.

[Bleikopf.2491]

After playing with Catalyst for a while now, I think it's time for me to leave my feedback. So far I've played through all EoD maps and Story with Hammer Catalyst and a little bit D/D Aura Catalyst in WvW roaming. I'll be relying on the Wiki for my information.

Tl;DR: Catalyst isn't a complete mess, but it needs more work. I can only presume that there wasn't enough time to finish it. Most issues are imo based on design. Lots of design ideas were turned into gimmmicks, which were not abandoned when they didn't work out properly. 

Design goal
It's only fair that I rate the Catalyst based on the design goal. Since I don't have the time to reasearch it all, I'll do with the keyword "bruiser" that fell in some stream and whatever the Catalyst Mentor in Kaineng has to say: 

Quote

Catalysts are ancient Canthan warrios. We used to be protectors of the empire [...]. We were the bedrock of Cantha's armies.
[...] catalysts held the front line.

Ironically, that first makes me think of a WvW frontliner spec. We'll see about that.

What it feels like
Catalyst feels like it was supposed to be a lot about momentum. At one point the rotation 'clicked' with me and it felt a lot like Hammer 3 was about building up enough momentum until you release it in a grand finale. Elemental Empowerment, the aura stacks and the original Energy mechanic also fit in a lot with the momentum idea. You build up enough momentum until you become this unstoppable juggernaut that's dishing out pain.

What it ends up actually feeling like is a house of cards, as other forum posters have put it. Too many restrictions, not enough margin for error.
You'll notice that I'll talk a lot about 'momentum' here.

Overall, it feels like Catalyst was designed around instanced content.

Elite Mechanic
Let's start with the Jade Sphere. It stands out.
Weaver mechanic is pretty obvious. It's all about weaving elements together. You have a tradeoff with your attunement cooldowns.
Tempest is also somewhat obvious, but not as much as Weaver imo. It's about Overloards. There's also a pretty hefty focus on group support through shouts. Here, also, you trade off your attunement cooldowns.
So, Catalyst is about the Jade Sphere then?  I don't know. If we look at the Jade Sphere, it pulses boons and gives a combo field. It's not a combo based spec, or if it is there's not enough support for that beyond the Minor Grandmaster Trait. So is it boonshare? It feels a bit lackluster in the boon department, but I'd say it qualifies as a DPS with boonshare utility.
What also stands out is the missing trade off, which makes it feel a lot like Core Ele +. All we're trading is a traitline, but core ele traitlines aren't that great anyway.

Poison field feels weird, but I guess it is what it is.

Let's start with the issues I have with the Jade Sphere.
The energy mechanic wasn't a bad idea in the beginning. It feels like you built momentum, after all. After spending enough time in combat, you could unleash your powerful elite mechanic! But.. it wasn't powerful. The energy mechanic wasn't problematic, the payoff was just pitifully bad for all the buildup required. So what got changed? It wasn't the payoff. The mechanic got changed in a way that makes it feel less like a buildup and instead just gating the ability. It's come to a point where it's not much different from an ammo system with normal CD. The notable difference is that you lose all your energy when you go down, which is really, really bad for getting back into a fight, you don't start a fight with full energy, and you can control how fast the energy regenerates.
Starting from the back, generating energy actually feels good. I hit them a lot, and the faster I hit them, the faster I get my energy back! Elementalist has a lot of multihit skills so it's usually not really that difficult. It feels rewarding. On the other hand, it takes away my class mechanic when I'm unable to  hit things. Not being able to start a fight with energy is equally as frustrating, as it essentially just means Catalyst has to cheese their energy bar somehow before every fight. Last but not least, you lose all energy when going downstate. Given that we're the squishiest class, that's quite ironic. What this essentially means, is that the energy mechanic does a lot to punish lacking momentum. As soon as you fall behind, it gets harder to come back as you're now missing your boonpulse/combofield.
Also, you cannot generate energy while the Jade Sphere is out. This seems intent on making a permanent Jade Sphere placement impossible. At this point it's probably easier to base it on cooldowns.

The second problem with the Jade Sphere: It's static. That's not necessarily bad in itself. With the Jade Sphere you can put out multiple fields at once, at different places, and even at range. However, being static and relatively small becomes a huge downside as soon as the fight is more dynamic. I'd go as far to say that most content is probably dynamic content with lots of moving around. It's not a problem to have an immobile ability on an immobile spec. It's a problem to have an immobile spec in a game that wants you to move around a lot.

Of course, at least that resonates with the design idea of "holding the frontline". In the end, I think that's just a bad design choice that didn't get abandoned early enough.
The alternative would be to make the Jade Sphere field based around the character. The biggest problem I see with that is the stacking of Jade Sphere fields. It now becomes impossible to put out two different combo fields. Although the need for that is relatively niche.

Jade Sphere having no cast time feels super nice.

Hammer
Let's be honest here: Hammer isn't a ranged weapon. But it's also not a melee weapon. I feel reluctant to call it a hybrid weapon, it feels more like a melee+ weapon. It's nice to have some ranged options on the hammer.
Overall, after a while Hammer doesn't feel so clunky anymore. Many skills have long cast times, but feel powerful. Also, we have enough skills without a cast time that we can use while casting, especially the Jade Sphere. If you get used to the sluggish feel it has some flow to it. Hammer 3 gets its own subsection.

Fire

1. 600 range, no cleave, 66% power coefficient. The burn is nice, but please add some cleave or upp the power.
2. Feels powerful
3. Gets its own section
4. Feels powerful
5. Feels powerful

Overall Fire feels good. Just the autoattack could get some cleave.

Water

1. Feels good
2. Given the low range it can get a bit tricky to get the chill to stick. Also, maybe I'm reading this wrong but it seems like autoattack does more damage? I'd ask for some kind of finisher, but we already got Whirl finisher on 5.
3. Gets its own section
4. Only Leap finisher we have. The healing is nice, but we only get it if we hit? This really make the spec feel more high risk.
5. It's nice. Finally a whirl finisher on the weapon. Damage is good, Condi removal is good and the bonus for hitting enemies also feels fair. 4 should probably work similarly with a baseline of healing that gets better if you strike enemies.

This time around Water actually gets to deal damage. It still preserves its former identity of healing and condi cleanse. Overall likeable.

Air

1. 600 range, no cleave, 72% power coefficient.  It's not an ideal comparison, but if we use Staff's fireball as a baseline.. it gets 1200 range, cleave, 100% power coefficient. And only .25 seconds longer. If we ignore the power coefficient based on the time it takes longer to cast, it still has double the range and cleave. I understand that it's not the same weapon, with different strengths and weaknesses. It still feels lackluster. Just give it some cleave.
2. As long as the target doesn't move, it's a lot of damage. Feels really powerful. Also feels weird that it's not a whirl finisher, but considering the damage it does it's excusable. It's also very small and easy to walk out of.
3. Gets its own section.
4. Why. This is not a retreat skill with incidental CC, this is a CC skilll. I get that you don't want to knock back the enemies in group content, since this spec seems to be designed around group content, but knocking yourself back doesn't make things better. In most cases, this is just a suicide skill.
5. Why does the projectile move so slow? It's not even a big radius. Even if I use this point blank in melee range, it still takes too long to land.

Air feels like all the good feeling went into Hurricane of Pain. It's a great skill. The rest just feels like it could be improved on.

Earth

1. It's nice. The way it works is kinda weird, seeming to work in a circle around you. But apart from the animation I got not much to complain about.
2. Good damage. It doesn't look like it blocks missiles, the autoattack does, but it's still ncie that it does. Where is the whirl finisher?
3. Gets its own section.
4. We get blocks now. Or well, one block. Cooldown feels slightly too high, maybe? Once again, successfully using it feels vastly different from failing to use it properly. Auras are always nice, I guess, as is the only barrier we get in the entire spec.
5. It's.. nice? Landing it feels nice.

I feel like Earth plays as you'd expect it to - slow, sturdy, unforgiving.

Hammer 3

This is a gimmick and I hate it! It ruins the hammer.

Where to even start? Probably with what I like.
The unique buffs are really interesting. I wish there was a way you could share it with your party.
The animation is really nice, and it also feels really cool. It gives me the feeling of a Juggernaut you don't want to come too close to or my mere presence will wreck you. But if we wanted to simply have an aura that regularly hurts other people, we could just make Jade Sphere based on the character already. There, it's no longer static, we got our melee pulse damage and it gives us the fantasy of becoming dangerous to stand close to. Would that have been too easy?
The range pretty much betrays any claim of being a midrange weapon. It's melee. It's also a very good chunk of DPS.
Keeping the orbs moving is also not easy. It feels good when you get to do it; you build up momentum throughout all the attunements until you can release it in a grand finale. So basically like the weaver elite, isn't it?
The cooldowns are too long, the duration is too short, and the only way to make it somewhat work is if you're letting the weapon decide the pace at which you switch attunements. It's the most dominant force in the way Catalyst plays the hammer, and it's basically just a gimmick.
And the saddest part is, the buffs are actually interesting to work with, but you never really use the skills for the buffs. You just use them to keep the orbs going. We don't need yet another mechanic on the Catalyst that forces us to keep the momentum going.
Also, Grand Finale has no business having such a long cooldown. We're already giving up your orbs and had to set them up prior already. And they also have a long cooldown.

Other complains about Hammer

I expected less damage and more CC. No knockbacks? All our hard CC is on Air, it's not spread out. No knockdown or knockback on Earth. Water gets some chill if we hit our chains. Earth gets some Immob at least.

Traits

Minor Adept: We get to play Catalyst.

Major Adept, Hardened Auras: Boring. But hey, 10% less damage. Not on Hammer, though. Hammer doesn't have enough Aura for that.
Major Adept, Vicious Empowerment: So in total we got 3 skills on Hammer that can achieve that. Hammer isn't really a CC weapon on Ele.

Major Adept, Energized Elements: This doesn't feel like a Catalyst trait. Catalyst's identity isn't crit + switch attunements. That's the Arcane traitline. Put it back where it belongs. It doesn't suddenly become Catalyst because you stick 2 Energy on it. Also, that's barely any energy. I get that much from landing two hits. You couldn't even power a Sphere if you went through a full attunement rotation as you'd only have 8 energy.

Minor Master: Here we are. More mechanics that force us to keep momentum up or lose it all. 10% more stats? Sounds strong. I feel like Cata will be balanced around maintaining full stacks.

Major Master, Empowering Auras: Boring. The other side of Hardened Auras. Not bad, but unimaginative.

Major Master, Evasive Empowerment: This would probably be more fun if Hammer actually had attacks that evade.

Major Master, Spectacular Sphere: This is interesting. We get the option to give out even more boons. This has the potential to give Catalyst a role. Of course, if we could put the buffs from Hammer 3 on her instead I'd be even happier, but these are also nice.

Minor Grandmaster: This I like. I've kept thinking about ways to make combos more interesting on Catalyst. "What if Catalyst gave out x when it comboes?" This is actually very elegant design, because now we can use every other Aura trait to do exactly that! "What if Catalyst gained Protection when it comboed?" Just take the Earth Traitline, bam you got it. Because everytime you combo, you get an Aura, which also gets you the protection. It's similar to Tempest, where you als get rewarded with Auras for doing your Elite thing. (So, is combos after all the thematic of Catalyst?) I'd like to see this trend continued, where Ele gets Auras for doing their Elite thing and then we can customize it with Aura traits. I just wish it'd work with powerful Auras!

A word on Auras: I have absolutely no problem with Catalyst using Auras. Auras aren't a Tempest thing, Tempest merely used Auras as a subthematic. Auras are a Core Ele thing. Always been. Tempest has been very good at using Auras as a ride to put all their mechanics on. Something not too unsimilar to Catalyst doing the same on combos. It's a design I like to see.
Of course, this also means that Catalyst has to get their own Aura niche. Tempest has healing on their Auras (too bad Tempest also took the better Protection buff, because that'd be really nice on Catalyst). So if we gave Catalyst Barrier on Auras now.. not so great. Another thing to critique is that overall that's still rather few auras on Catalyst. Again, it's a time problem if we wanted to use Hammer Catalyst to stack Hadened Auras and Empowering Auras. Not impossible, but the durations of the stacks, Jade Sphere and the (internal) cooldowns make it complicated.

Major Grandmaster, Staunch Auras: Hm. Not a lot of stability, the duration is very short and you most likely can't randomly pull out an Aura when you need it. What are you going to do, react to the incoming CC by using your 3/4 second combo finishers to combo and get an Aura through that? It's cute, but doesn't seem thought out. Also not Grandmaster worthy.
Major Grandmaster, Empowered Empowerment: Probably only ever good in PvE where it's easier to maintain stacks. Can't wait for Catalyst to be balanced around 20% stats increase. This is a balance issue waiting to happen.
Major Grandmaster, Sphere Specialist: 20% Duration Increase in PvE, 50% in WvW/PvP. Latter one would be nice if Spheres would actually matter in WvW/PvP. 20%, That's like, what, 300 Concentration? Elemental Enchantment, the Minor Grandmaster in Arcane gets you 180 Concentration on all boons, not just from the Jade Sphere,  + reduced recharge on Attunment swap. Not sure if Sphere Specialist is worth a Major Grandmaster. Considering the base duration of the boons (Quickness or most Spectacular Sphere boons) are 5s, or as long as the Jade Sphere exists for, we get +1s of boons. Meh.

Overall, the Traits are for the most part unimaginative and boring or weak. Simple stat buffs are nice, but not very exciting.

Augments

Soothing Water
Different Aether Renewal. Same healing, 3 Conditions less, no channeling and therefore 2 seconds faster, cooldown 2-7 seconds longer. Okayish.

Relentless Fire
Strong, but booring.

Shattering Ice
Not necessarily bad, but really booring.

Invigorating Air
Not bad. Considering people used Sigil of Air as a low cooldown stunbreak, Invigorating Air offers good utility and a cooldown that's between 5s longer or shorter than Sigil of Air. It's nothing special, but it's not completely useless.

Fortified Earth
Blocks attacks for 3 seconds and gives me a barrier at the end. It's nice.

Elemental Celerity
The boons are really not that interesting for an Elite skill. The effect however is very much so. Get to cast all my skills again? This has potential. Elementalist Elites aren't usually that great anyway, although you could hope for more.. something.

In the end, Augments aren't necessarily bad, but they're super boring. Just like the traits. Like all the imagination went into the animations and the gimmicks and left us with the  rest.

 

So far that's all I have to say. If you somehow made it through the wall of text, congratz. It feels like ANet didn't have enough time to work on Catalyst or rather, couldn't affort throwing away the broken pieces and had to keep on to the gimmicks. I'd also like to hear your opinions on this, since I can't even be sure if ANet sees page 40+ in the Ele subforum.

Edits: fixed some spelling and grammar mistakes, added opinion on Grand Finale.

Edited March 9, 2022 by Bleikopf.2491

[bluerabu.4015]

I agree with a lot of commenters regarding the Jade Sphere. It should be moved to Attunement swapping similar to Overloads. The energy mechanic can live above weapon skills like Revenant energy. Right now, in trying to play boon dps catalyst, the F5 key placement is much too strenuous for a button that needs to be pressed frequently, ostensibly every 5 seconds off cooldown. Druid F5 and Scourge F5 are deliberate presses with longer cooldowns, and elementalist already had so many buttons to press across the board.

 

I also think the Jade Sphere should be made a field that either follows the Catalyst or is placed at the Catalyst's feet automatically. Placing an F5 AoE instead of producing an aura like Renegade Orders from Above. It's clear from the Hammer skills and traits that Cata is meant to be a short to mid-range brawler, especially with the Hammer 3 orbs having only 130 range to its damage while augmenting the player. There are a number of ways to rework the Hammer 3 orbs, but perhaps making Grand Finale be more than a potential loss in DPS. The flat 5 seconds is too short to feel like you're really using all the unique hammer skills, and the Grand Finale skill interrupting anything else you're casting to cause you to lose those buffs is underwhelming. It would be interesting to trait it so that Catalyst provides those special orb buffs, either by way of a Flame Expulsion that consumes the buffs to give to allies; or by requiring allies to stand in range. I would love to see Catalyst's Jade Spheres and projectiles to function similarly to Druid's Celestial Avatar 4 and 5 skills. Otherwise, the profession-specific buffs feel too selfish and like a waste. 

 

Also none of the Catalyst water skills provide any healing/condi removal for allies! 

[Serephen.3420]

2 hours ago, Bleikopf.2491 said:

After playing with Catalyst for a while now, I think it's time for me to leave my feedback. So far I've played through all EoD maps and Story with Hammer Catalyst and a little bit D/D Aura Catalyst in WvW roaming. I'll be relying on the Wiki for my information.

Tl;DR: Catalyst isn't a complete mess, but it needs more work. I can only presume that there wasn't enough time to finish it. Most issues are imo based on design. Lots of design ideas were turned into gimmmicks, which were not abandoned when they didn't work out properly. 

Design goal
It's only fair that I rate the Catalyst based on the design goal. Since I don't have the time to reasearch it all, I'll do with the keyword "bruiser" that fell in some stream and whatever the Catalyst Mentor in Kaineng has to say: 

Ironically, that first makes me think of a WvW frontliner spec. We'll see about that.

What it feels like
Catalyst feels like it was supposed to be a lot about momentum. At one point the rotation 'clicked' with me and it felt a lot like Hammer 3 was about building up enough momentum until you release it in a grand finale. Elemental Empowerment, the aura stacks and the original Energy mechanic also fit in a lot with the momentum idea. You build up enough momentum until you become this unstoppable juggernaut that's dishing out pain.

What it ends up actually feeling like is a house of cards, as other forum posters have put it. Too many restrictions, not enough margin for error.
You'll notice that I'll talk a lot about 'momentum' here.

Overall, it feels like Catalyst was designed around instanced content.

Elite Mechanic
Let's start with the Jade Sphere. It stands out.
Weaver mechanic is pretty obvious. It's all about weaving elements together. You have a tradeoff with your attunement cooldowns.
Tempest is also somewhat obvious, but not as much as Weaver imo. It's about Overloards. There's also a pretty hefty focus on group support through shouts. Here, also, you trade off your attunement cooldowns.
So, Catalyst is about the Jade Sphere then?  I don't know. If we look at the Jade Sphere, it pulses boons and gives a combo field. It's not a combo based spec, or if it is there's not enough support for that beyond the Minor Grandmaster Trait. So is it boonshare? It feels a bit lackluster in the boon department, but I'd say it qualifies as a DPS with boonshare utility.
What also stands out is the missing trade off, which makes it feel a lot like Core Ele +. All we're trading is a traitline, but core ele traitlines aren't that great anyway.

Poison field feels weird, but I guess it is what it is.

Let's start with the issues I have with the Jade Sphere.
The energy mechanic wasn't a bad idea in the beginning. It feels like you built momentum, after all. After spending enough time in combat, you could unleash your powerful elite mechanic! But.. it wasn't powerful. The energy mechanic wasn't problematic, the payoff was just pitifully bad for all the buildup required. So what got changed? It wasn't the payoff. The mechanic got changed in a way that makes it feel less like a buildup and instead just gating the ability. It's come to a point where it's not much different from an ammo system with normal CD. The notable difference is that you lose all your energy when you go down, which is really, really bad for getting back into a fight, you don't start a fight with full energy, and you can control how fast the energy regenerates.
Starting from the back, generating energy actually feels good. I hit them a lot, and the faster I hit them, the faster I get my energy back! Elementalist has a lot of multihit skills so it's usually not really that difficult. It feels rewarding. On the other hand, it takes away my class mechanic when I'm unable to  hit things. Not being able to start a fight with energy is equally as frustrating, as it essentially just means Catalyst has to cheese their energy bar somehow before every fight. Last but not least, you lose all energy when going downstate. Given that we're the squishiest class, that's quite ironic. What this essentially means, is that the energy mechanic does a lot to punish lacking momentum. As soon as you fall behind, it gets harder to come back as you're now missing your boonpulse/combofield.
Also, you cannot generate energy while the Jade Sphere is out. This seems intent on making a permanent Jade Sphere placement impossible. At this point it's probably easier to base it on cooldowns.

The second problem with the Jade Sphere: It's static. That's not necessarily bad in itself. With the Jade Sphere you can put out multiple fields at once, at different places, and even at range. However, being static and relatively small becomes a huge downside as soon as the fight is more dynamic. I'd go as far to say that most content is probably dynamic content with lots of moving around. It's not a problem to have an immobile ability on an immobile spec. It's a problem to have an immobile spec in a game that wants you to move around a lot.

Of course, at least that resonates with the design idea of "holding the frontline". In the end, I think that's just a bad design choice that didn't get abandoned early enough.
The alternative would be to make the Jade Sphere field based around the character. The biggest problem I see with that is the stacking of Jade Sphere fields. It now becomes impossible to put out two different combo fields. Although the need for that is relatively niche.

Jade Sphere having no cast time feels super nice.

Hammer
Let's be honest here: Hammer isn't a ranged weapon. But it's also not a melee weapon. I feel reluctant to call it a hybrid weapon, it feels more like a melee+ weapon. It's nice to have some ranged options on the hammer.
Overall, after a while Hammer doesn't feel so clunky anymore. Many skills have long cast times, but feel powerful. Also, we have enough skills without a cast time that we can use while casting, especially the Jade Sphere. If you get used to the sluggish feel it has some flow to it. Hammer 3 gets its own subsection.

Fire

1. 600 range, no cleave, 66% power coefficient. The burn is nice, but please add some cleave or upp the power.
2. Feels powerful
3. Gets its own section
4. Feels powerful
5. Feels powerful

Overall Fire feels good. Just the autoattack could get some cleave.

Water

1. Feels good
2. Given the low range it can get a bit tricky to get the chill to stick. Also, maybe I'm reading this wrong but it seems like autoattack does more damage? I'd ask for some kind of finisher, but we already got Whirl finisher on 5.
3. Gets its own section
4. Only Leap finisher we have. The healing is nice, but we only get it if we hit? This really make the spec feel more high risk.
5. It's nice. Finally a whirl finisher on the weapon. Damage is good, Condi removal is good and the bonus for hitting enemies also feels fair. 4 should probably work similarly with a baseline of healing that gets better if you strike enemies.

This time around Water actually gets to deal damage. It still preserves its former identity of healing and condi cleanse. Overall likeable.

Air

1. 600 range, no cleave, 72% power coefficient.  It's not an ideal comparison, but if we use Staff's fireball as a baseline.. it gets 1200 range, cleave, 100% power coefficient. And only .25 seconds longer. If we ignore the power coefficient based on the time it takes longer to cast, it still has double the range and cleave. I understand that it's not the same weapon, with different strengths and weaknesses. It still feels lackluster. Just give it some cleave.
2. As long as the target doesn't move, it's a lot of damage. Feels really powerful. Also feels weird that it's not a whirl finisher, but considering the damage it does it's excusable. It's also very small and easy to walk out of.
3. Gets its own section.
4. Why. This is not a retreat skill with incidental CC, this is a CC skilll. I get that you don't want to knock back the enemies in group content, since this spec seems to be designed around group content, but knocking yourself back doesn't make things better. In most cases, this is just a suicide skill.
5. Why does the projectile move so slow? It's not even a big radius. Even if I use this point blank in melee range, it still takes too long to land.

Air feels like all the good feeling went into Hurricane of Pain. It's a great skill. The rest just feels like it could be improved on.

Earth

1. It's nice. The way it works is kinda weird, seeming to work in a circle around you. But apart from the animation I got not much to complain about.
2. Good damage. It doesn't look like it blocks missiles, the autoattack does, but it's still ncie that it does. Where is the whirl finisher?
3. Gets its own section.
4. We get blocks now. Or well, one block. Cooldown feels slightly too high, maybe? Once again, successfully using it feels vastly different from failing to use it properly. Auras are always nice, I guess, as is the only barrier we get in the entire spec.
5. It's.. nice? Landing it feels nice.

I feel like Earth plays as you'd expect it to - slow, sturdy, unforgiving.

Hammer 3

This is a gimmick and I hate it! It ruins the hammer.

Where to even start? Probably with what I like.
The unique buffs are really interesting. I wish there was a way you could share it with your party.
The animation is really nice, and it also feels really cool. It gives me the feeling of a Juggernaut you don't want to come too close to or my mere presence will wreck you. But if we wanted to simply have an aura that regularly hurts other people, we could just make Jade Sphere based on the character already. There, it's no longer static, we got our melee pulse damage and it gives us the fantasy of becoming dangerous to stand close to. Would that have been too easy?
The range pretty much betrays any claim of being a midrange weapon. It's melee. It's also a very good chunk of DPS.
Keeping the orbs moving is also not easy. It feels good when you get to do it; you build up momentum throughout all the attunements until you can release it in a grand finale. So basically like the weaver elite, isn't it?
The cooldowns are too long, the duration is too short, and the only way to make it somewhat work is if you're letting the weapon decide the pace at which you switch attunements. It's the most dominant force in the way Catalyst plays the hammer, and it's basically just a gimmick.
And the saddest part is, the buffs are actually interesting to work with, but you never really use the skills for the buffs. You just use them to keep the orbs going. We don't need yet another mechanic on the Catalyst that forces us to keep the momentum going.
Also, Grand Finale has no business having such a long cooldown. We're already giving up your orbs and had to set them up prior already. And they also have a long cooldown.

Other complains about Hammer

I expected less damage and more CC. No knockbacks? All our hard CC is on Air, it's not spread out. No knockdown or knockback on Earth. Water gets some chill if we hit our chains. Earth gets some Immob at least.

Traits

Minor Adept: We get to play Catalyst.

Major Adept, Hardened Auras: Boring. But hey, 10% less damage. Not on Hammer, though. Hammer doesn't have enough Aura for that.
Major Adept, Vicious Empowerment: So in total we got 3 skills on Hammer that can achieve that. Hammer isn't really a CC weapon on Ele.

Major Adept, Energized Elements: This doesn't feel like a Catalyst trait. Catalyst's identity isn't crit + switch attunements. That's the Arcane traitline. Put it back where it belongs. It doesn't suddenly become Catalyst because you stick 2 Energy on it. Also, that's barely any energy. I get that much from landing two hits. You couldn't even power a Sphere if you went through a full attunement rotation as you'd only have 8 energy.

Minor Master: Here we are. More mechanics that force us to keep momentum up or lose it all. 10% more stats? Sounds strong. I feel like Cata will be balanced around maintaining full stacks.

Major Master, Empowering Auras: Boring. The other side of Hardened Auras. Not bad, but unimaginative.

Major Master, Evasive Empowerment: This would probably be more fun if Hammer actually had attacks that evade.

Major Master, Spectacular Sphere: This is interesting. We get the option to give out even more boons. This has the potential to give Catalyst a role. Of course, if we could put the buffs from Hammer 3 on her instead I'd be even happier, but these are also nice.

Minor Grandmaster: This I like. I've kept thinking about ways to make combos more interesting on Catalyst. "What if Catalyst gave out x when it comboes?" This is actually very elegant design, because now we can use every other Aura trait to do exactly that! "What if Catalyst gained Protection when it comboed?" Just take the Earth Traitline, bam you got it. Because everytime you combo, you get an Aura, which also gets you the protection. It's similar to Tempest, where you als get rewarded with Auras for doing your Elite thing. (So, is combos after all the thematic of Catalyst?) I'd like to see this trend continued, where Ele gets Auras for doing their Elite thing and then we can customize it with Aura traits. I just wish it'd work with powerful Auras!

A word on Auras: I have absolutely no problem with Catalyst using Auras. Auras aren't a Tempest thing, Tempest merely used Auras as a subthematic. Auras are a Core Ele thing. Always been. Tempest has been very good at using Auras as a ride to put all their mechanics on. Something not too unsimilar to Catalyst doing the same on combos. It's a design I like to see.
Of course, this also means that Catalyst has to get their own Aura niche. Tempest has healing on their Auras (too bad Tempest also took the better Protection buff, because that'd be really nice on Catalyst). So if we gave Catalyst Barrier on Auras now.. not so great. Another thing to critique is that overall that's still rather few auras on Catalyst. Again, it's a time problem if we wanted to use Hammer Catalyst to stack Hadened Auras and Empowering Auras. Not impossible, but the durations of the stacks, Jade Sphere and the (internal) cooldowns make it complicated.

Major Grandmaster, Staunch Auras: Hm. Not a lot of stability, the duration is very short and you most likely can't randomly pull out an Aura when you need it. What are you going to do, react to the incoming CC by using your 3/4 second combo finishers to combo and get an Aura through that? It's cute, but doesn't seem thought out. Also not Grandmaster worthy.
Major Grandmaster, Empowered Empowerment: Probably only ever good in PvE where it's easier to maintain stacks. Can't wait for Catalyst to be balanced around 20% stats increase. This is a balance issue waiting to happen.
Major Grandmaster, Sphere Specialist: 20% Duration Increase in PvE, 50% in WvW/PvP. Latter one would be nice if Spheres would actually matter in WvW/PvP. 20%, That's like, what, 300 Concentration? Elemental Enchantment, the Minor Grandmaster in Arcane gets you 180 Concentration on all boons, not just from the Jade Sphere,  + reduced recharge on Attunment swap. Not sure if Sphere Specialist is worth a Major Grandmaster. Considering the base duration of the boons (Quickness or most Spectacular Sphere boons) are 5s, or as long as the Jade Sphere exists for, we get +1s of boons. Meh.

Overall, the Traits are for the most part unimaginative and boring or weak. Simple stat buffs are nice, but not very exciting.

Augments

Soothing Water
Different Aether Renewal. Same healing, 3 Conditions less, no channeling and therefore 2 seconds faster, cooldown 2-7 seconds longer. Okayish.

Relentless Fire
Strong, but booring.

Shattering Ice
Not necessarily bad, but really booring.

Invigorating Air
Not bad. Considering people used Sigil of Air as a low cooldown stunbreak, Invigorating Air offers good utility and a cooldown that's between 5s longer or shorter than Sigil of Air. It's nothing special, but it's not completely useless.

Fortified Earth
Blocks attacks for 3 seconds and gives me a barrier at the end. It's nice.

Elemental Celerity
The boons are really not that interesting for an Elite skill. The effect however is very much so. Get to cast all my skills again? This has potential. Elementalist Elites aren't usually that great anyway, although you could hope for more.. something.

In the end, Augments aren't necessarily bad, but they're super boring. Just like the traits. Like all the imagination went into the animations and the gimmicks and left us with the  rest.

 

So far that's all I have to say. If you somehow made it through the wall of text, congratz. It feels like ANet didn't have enough time to work on Catalyst or rather, couldn't affort throwing away the broken pieces and had to keep on to the gimmicks. I'd also like to hear your opinions on this, since I can't even be sure if ANet sees page 40+ in the Ele subforum.

Edits: fixed some spelling and grammar mistakes, added opinion on Grand Finale.

99% with you on that.

Can I just say what a great read this was? Thanks I couldn't put it better than that😊

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

Honestly, I was thinking about completely trashing Hammer and removing F5 since it's really unpleasant at this point for micromanaging.
I was thinking about making the Hammer 3 "orbs" as Catalyst passive mechanic, meaning you'd get permanently floating orbs (let's make them catalysts themselves) around your character that would provide: Fire = 5% outgoing damage increase(power+condi), Water = 5% reduced incoming damage(power and condi), Air = 7% increased crit chance and crit damage, Earth = 10% reduced cc (soft and hard) duration. 
Since I'm really lazy I'll just focus on these mostly.
Now then let's tie these "orbs" with "Augments" like for example:
Relentless Fire: Damage increase 15%, Unblockable(10) for 5s. Additional Effect for using Fire Catalyst (fire orb that was a passive damage increase): Increase duration by x seconds and apply x burn for x seconds or apply x might.
How would that work you ask? Well, it would remove your "passive" floating Fire orb around your character, meaning losing your passive 5% outgoing damage for like 10-15s after which it would reapply itself on the first entry in your Fire Attument. For other Augments you could tie some self Quickness with maybe Shattering Ice as an additional effect for using water catalyst or something like that.
This could furher be tuned via traits (some random examples):
- Sphere Specialist > Augment Enhancer - Your Augment skills now create small AoE (360 radius) around the caster that shares the benefits of Augments with your party. < This would mean that if you've casted Relentless Fire, it would drop a field like from "Deploy Jade Sphere" of Fire Attument with only benefits applied from the Relentless Fire (increased damage buff and stuff), but if it consumed the fire catalyst(the passive) it would also provide these additional benefits of applying burn or additional might to the party as well.
- Empowered Empowerment > Catalyst Infuser: The passives of orbs are increased by 50%. < This would be used for selfish builds that abandon supporting your allies.
- Staunch Auras > Elemental Echo: Share 50% of passives from orbs with your allies within 360 range. < This could also be form of a support even when boons are covered. (Don't judge me, just random idea that popped up)
I really think catalyst could become something great, but they've decided to make it garbage for some reasons...

[The Boz.2038]

On 3/7/2022 at 4:12 AM, Jzaku.9765 said:

Why is generating Energy locked while a sphere is placed? This Energy mechanic is a direct copy of Warrior's Adrenaline - this would be the equivalent of saying Warrior stops being able to generate Adrenaline after using a burst skill for 4s. Ridiculous! 

Energy is 100% not needed in the spec at all. It is just a useless weight around the Catalyst's neck.

[JorKadeen.3846]

honsted review:

 

F5 is what core ele should have got (like core rev got f2) -> or something like that.

catalyst is just an utterly unimaginatively spec. like someone had no time and just build something ontop of core which would work with the general flow. -> best buid imo is d/d aura catalyst (air/ arcane, air/water, fire/air, fire arcane, fire water variations)
 

i think the "theme" of the catalyst should have been combos. (i like the combination with auras.no auras in the weapon in general...so take dd or df)

-> fix this by reducing the time for aura on combo like to 6 s. hard enought to get the aura you want and not just spam them

and to make the theme combo... augment just suck.
- probably the "well" solution of scrapper would have worked here with combofields around the ele....

- aaand giving the hammer a chunk load of combo finishers and differnet ones.

- and change the f5 to a finisher with cooldown. (like 2-3 different finishers, blast, whirl, leap) + effect

still with ths changes the spec is still unimaginativ.
No new mechanic that promotes a tradeoff in a other way. why not... make the master a dodge change. either whirl, leap or blast finisher.
tradeof differ from what you chose. -> like bruiser theme: dont dodge but endure ...

have the "frontline" of catalyst with never ending combo fields and combo finishers.

---
just some random thoughts

i dont know where i go but my core argument are the first 3 lines ....

 

[Newholiday.8103]

Did we really need another overly complex spec after weaver? 

 

Balancing orbs, sphere placement, energy, constantly applying auras for the empowerment mechanics, all while having limited sustain and stability?  I guess it's possible after a lot of practice in PvE, but it honestly sounds like a headache.  In WvW and SPvP, it's impossible.

 

This spec needs some serious simplification.  Or at the very least, as far as WvW and SPvP are concerned, it can't be balanced around the assumption that the player is going to be able to maintain all these auras, orbs, and proper sphere placement. 

[SeTect.5918]

On 3/9/2022 at 2:27 AM, Bleikopf.2491 said:

After playing with Catalyst for a while now, I think it's time for me to leave my feedback. So far I've played through all EoD maps and Story with Hammer Catalyst and a little bit D/D Aura Catalyst in WvW roaming. I'll be relying on the Wiki for my information.

Tl;DR: Catalyst isn't a complete mess, but it needs more work. I can only presume that there wasn't enough time to finish it. Most issues are imo based on design. Lots of design ideas were turned into gimmmicks, which were not abandoned when they didn't work out properly. 

Design goal
It's only fair that I rate the Catalyst based on the design goal. Since I don't have the time to reasearch it all, I'll do with the keyword "bruiser" that fell in some stream and whatever the Catalyst Mentor in Kaineng has to say: 

Ironically, that first makes me think of a WvW frontliner spec. We'll see about that.

What it feels like
Catalyst feels like it was supposed to be a lot about momentum. At one point the rotation 'clicked' with me and it felt a lot like Hammer 3 was about building up enough momentum until you release it in a grand finale. Elemental Empowerment, the aura stacks and the original Energy mechanic also fit in a lot with the momentum idea. You build up enough momentum until you become this unstoppable juggernaut that's dishing out pain.

What it ends up actually feeling like is a house of cards, as other forum posters have put it. Too many restrictions, not enough margin for error.
You'll notice that I'll talk a lot about 'momentum' here.

Overall, it feels like Catalyst was designed around instanced content.

Elite Mechanic
Let's start with the Jade Sphere. It stands out.
Weaver mechanic is pretty obvious. It's all about weaving elements together. You have a tradeoff with your attunement cooldowns.
Tempest is also somewhat obvious, but not as much as Weaver imo. It's about Overloards. There's also a pretty hefty focus on group support through shouts. Here, also, you trade off your attunement cooldowns.
So, Catalyst is about the Jade Sphere then?  I don't know. If we look at the Jade Sphere, it pulses boons and gives a combo field. It's not a combo based spec, or if it is there's not enough support for that beyond the Minor Grandmaster Trait. So is it boonshare? It feels a bit lackluster in the boon department, but I'd say it qualifies as a DPS with boonshare utility.
What also stands out is the missing trade off, which makes it feel a lot like Core Ele +. All we're trading is a traitline, but core ele traitlines aren't that great anyway.

Poison field feels weird, but I guess it is what it is.

Let's start with the issues I have with the Jade Sphere.
The energy mechanic wasn't a bad idea in the beginning. It feels like you built momentum, after all. After spending enough time in combat, you could unleash your powerful elite mechanic! But.. it wasn't powerful. The energy mechanic wasn't problematic, the payoff was just pitifully bad for all the buildup required. So what got changed? It wasn't the payoff. The mechanic got changed in a way that makes it feel less like a buildup and instead just gating the ability. It's come to a point where it's not much different from an ammo system with normal CD. The notable difference is that you lose all your energy when you go down, which is really, really bad for getting back into a fight, you don't start a fight with full energy, and you can control how fast the energy regenerates.
Starting from the back, generating energy actually feels good. I hit them a lot, and the faster I hit them, the faster I get my energy back! Elementalist has a lot of multihit skills so it's usually not really that difficult. It feels rewarding. On the other hand, it takes away my class mechanic when I'm unable to  hit things. Not being able to start a fight with energy is equally as frustrating, as it essentially just means Catalyst has to cheese their energy bar somehow before every fight. Last but not least, you lose all energy when going downstate. Given that we're the squishiest class, that's quite ironic. What this essentially means, is that the energy mechanic does a lot to punish lacking momentum. As soon as you fall behind, it gets harder to come back as you're now missing your boonpulse/combofield.
Also, you cannot generate energy while the Jade Sphere is out. This seems intent on making a permanent Jade Sphere placement impossible. At this point it's probably easier to base it on cooldowns.

The second problem with the Jade Sphere: It's static. That's not necessarily bad in itself. With the Jade Sphere you can put out multiple fields at once, at different places, and even at range. However, being static and relatively small becomes a huge downside as soon as the fight is more dynamic. I'd go as far to say that most content is probably dynamic content with lots of moving around. It's not a problem to have an immobile ability on an immobile spec. It's a problem to have an immobile spec in a game that wants you to move around a lot.

Of course, at least that resonates with the design idea of "holding the frontline". In the end, I think that's just a bad design choice that didn't get abandoned early enough.
The alternative would be to make the Jade Sphere field based around the character. The biggest problem I see with that is the stacking of Jade Sphere fields. It now becomes impossible to put out two different combo fields. Although the need for that is relatively niche.

Jade Sphere having no cast time feels super nice.

Hammer
Let's be honest here: Hammer isn't a ranged weapon. But it's also not a melee weapon. I feel reluctant to call it a hybrid weapon, it feels more like a melee+ weapon. It's nice to have some ranged options on the hammer.
Overall, after a while Hammer doesn't feel so clunky anymore. Many skills have long cast times, but feel powerful. Also, we have enough skills without a cast time that we can use while casting, especially the Jade Sphere. If you get used to the sluggish feel it has some flow to it. Hammer 3 gets its own subsection.

Fire

1. 600 range, no cleave, 66% power coefficient. The burn is nice, but please add some cleave or upp the power.
2. Feels powerful
3. Gets its own section
4. Feels powerful
5. Feels powerful

Overall Fire feels good. Just the autoattack could get some cleave.

Water

1. Feels good
2. Given the low range it can get a bit tricky to get the chill to stick. Also, maybe I'm reading this wrong but it seems like autoattack does more damage? I'd ask for some kind of finisher, but we already got Whirl finisher on 5.
3. Gets its own section
4. Only Leap finisher we have. The healing is nice, but we only get it if we hit? This really make the spec feel more high risk.
5. It's nice. Finally a whirl finisher on the weapon. Damage is good, Condi removal is good and the bonus for hitting enemies also feels fair. 4 should probably work similarly with a baseline of healing that gets better if you strike enemies.

This time around Water actually gets to deal damage. It still preserves its former identity of healing and condi cleanse. Overall likeable.

Air

1. 600 range, no cleave, 72% power coefficient.  It's not an ideal comparison, but if we use Staff's fireball as a baseline.. it gets 1200 range, cleave, 100% power coefficient. And only .25 seconds longer. If we ignore the power coefficient based on the time it takes longer to cast, it still has double the range and cleave. I understand that it's not the same weapon, with different strengths and weaknesses. It still feels lackluster. Just give it some cleave.
2. As long as the target doesn't move, it's a lot of damage. Feels really powerful. Also feels weird that it's not a whirl finisher, but considering the damage it does it's excusable. It's also very small and easy to walk out of.
3. Gets its own section.
4. Why. This is not a retreat skill with incidental CC, this is a CC skilll. I get that you don't want to knock back the enemies in group content, since this spec seems to be designed around group content, but knocking yourself back doesn't make things better. In most cases, this is just a suicide skill.
5. Why does the projectile move so slow? It's not even a big radius. Even if I use this point blank in melee range, it still takes too long to land.

Air feels like all the good feeling went into Hurricane of Pain. It's a great skill. The rest just feels like it could be improved on.

Earth

1. It's nice. The way it works is kinda weird, seeming to work in a circle around you. But apart from the animation I got not much to complain about.
2. Good damage. It doesn't look like it blocks missiles, the autoattack does, but it's still ncie that it does. Where is the whirl finisher?
3. Gets its own section.
4. We get blocks now. Or well, one block. Cooldown feels slightly too high, maybe? Once again, successfully using it feels vastly different from failing to use it properly. Auras are always nice, I guess, as is the only barrier we get in the entire spec.
5. It's.. nice? Landing it feels nice.

I feel like Earth plays as you'd expect it to - slow, sturdy, unforgiving.

Hammer 3

This is a gimmick and I hate it! It ruins the hammer.

Where to even start? Probably with what I like.
The unique buffs are really interesting. I wish there was a way you could share it with your party.
The animation is really nice, and it also feels really cool. It gives me the feeling of a Juggernaut you don't want to come too close to or my mere presence will wreck you. But if we wanted to simply have an aura that regularly hurts other people, we could just make Jade Sphere based on the character already. There, it's no longer static, we got our melee pulse damage and it gives us the fantasy of becoming dangerous to stand close to. Would that have been too easy?
The range pretty much betrays any claim of being a midrange weapon. It's melee. It's also a very good chunk of DPS.
Keeping the orbs moving is also not easy. It feels good when you get to do it; you build up momentum throughout all the attunements until you can release it in a grand finale. So basically like the weaver elite, isn't it?
The cooldowns are too long, the duration is too short, and the only way to make it somewhat work is if you're letting the weapon decide the pace at which you switch attunements. It's the most dominant force in the way Catalyst plays the hammer, and it's basically just a gimmick.
And the saddest part is, the buffs are actually interesting to work with, but you never really use the skills for the buffs. You just use them to keep the orbs going. We don't need yet another mechanic on the Catalyst that forces us to keep the momentum going.
Also, Grand Finale has no business having such a long cooldown. We're already giving up your orbs and had to set them up prior already. And they also have a long cooldown.

Other complains about Hammer

I expected less damage and more CC. No knockbacks? All our hard CC is on Air, it's not spread out. No knockdown or knockback on Earth. Water gets some chill if we hit our chains. Earth gets some Immob at least.

Traits

Minor Adept: We get to play Catalyst.

Major Adept, Hardened Auras: Boring. But hey, 10% less damage. Not on Hammer, though. Hammer doesn't have enough Aura for that.
Major Adept, Vicious Empowerment: So in total we got 3 skills on Hammer that can achieve that. Hammer isn't really a CC weapon on Ele.

Major Adept, Energized Elements: This doesn't feel like a Catalyst trait. Catalyst's identity isn't crit + switch attunements. That's the Arcane traitline. Put it back where it belongs. It doesn't suddenly become Catalyst because you stick 2 Energy on it. Also, that's barely any energy. I get that much from landing two hits. You couldn't even power a Sphere if you went through a full attunement rotation as you'd only have 8 energy.

Minor Master: Here we are. More mechanics that force us to keep momentum up or lose it all. 10% more stats? Sounds strong. I feel like Cata will be balanced around maintaining full stacks.

Major Master, Empowering Auras: Boring. The other side of Hardened Auras. Not bad, but unimaginative.

Major Master, Evasive Empowerment: This would probably be more fun if Hammer actually had attacks that evade.

Major Master, Spectacular Sphere: This is interesting. We get the option to give out even more boons. This has the potential to give Catalyst a role. Of course, if we could put the buffs from Hammer 3 on her instead I'd be even happier, but these are also nice.

Minor Grandmaster: This I like. I've kept thinking about ways to make combos more interesting on Catalyst. "What if Catalyst gave out x when it comboes?" This is actually very elegant design, because now we can use every other Aura trait to do exactly that! "What if Catalyst gained Protection when it comboed?" Just take the Earth Traitline, bam you got it. Because everytime you combo, you get an Aura, which also gets you the protection. It's similar to Tempest, where you als get rewarded with Auras for doing your Elite thing. (So, is combos after all the thematic of Catalyst?) I'd like to see this trend continued, where Ele gets Auras for doing their Elite thing and then we can customize it with Aura traits. I just wish it'd work with powerful Auras!

A word on Auras: I have absolutely no problem with Catalyst using Auras. Auras aren't a Tempest thing, Tempest merely used Auras as a subthematic. Auras are a Core Ele thing. Always been. Tempest has been very good at using Auras as a ride to put all their mechanics on. Something not too unsimilar to Catalyst doing the same on combos. It's a design I like to see.
Of course, this also means that Catalyst has to get their own Aura niche. Tempest has healing on their Auras (too bad Tempest also took the better Protection buff, because that'd be really nice on Catalyst). So if we gave Catalyst Barrier on Auras now.. not so great. Another thing to critique is that overall that's still rather few auras on Catalyst. Again, it's a time problem if we wanted to use Hammer Catalyst to stack Hadened Auras and Empowering Auras. Not impossible, but the durations of the stacks, Jade Sphere and the (internal) cooldowns make it complicated.

Major Grandmaster, Staunch Auras: Hm. Not a lot of stability, the duration is very short and you most likely can't randomly pull out an Aura when you need it. What are you going to do, react to the incoming CC by using your 3/4 second combo finishers to combo and get an Aura through that? It's cute, but doesn't seem thought out. Also not Grandmaster worthy.
Major Grandmaster, Empowered Empowerment: Probably only ever good in PvE where it's easier to maintain stacks. Can't wait for Catalyst to be balanced around 20% stats increase. This is a balance issue waiting to happen.
Major Grandmaster, Sphere Specialist: 20% Duration Increase in PvE, 50% in WvW/PvP. Latter one would be nice if Spheres would actually matter in WvW/PvP. 20%, That's like, what, 300 Concentration? Elemental Enchantment, the Minor Grandmaster in Arcane gets you 180 Concentration on all boons, not just from the Jade Sphere,  + reduced recharge on Attunment swap. Not sure if Sphere Specialist is worth a Major Grandmaster. Considering the base duration of the boons (Quickness or most Spectacular Sphere boons) are 5s, or as long as the Jade Sphere exists for, we get +1s of boons. Meh.

Overall, the Traits are for the most part unimaginative and boring or weak. Simple stat buffs are nice, but not very exciting.

Augments

Soothing Water
Different Aether Renewal. Same healing, 3 Conditions less, no channeling and therefore 2 seconds faster, cooldown 2-7 seconds longer. Okayish.

Relentless Fire
Strong, but booring.

Shattering Ice
Not necessarily bad, but really booring.

Invigorating Air
Not bad. Considering people used Sigil of Air as a low cooldown stunbreak, Invigorating Air offers good utility and a cooldown that's between 5s longer or shorter than Sigil of Air. It's nothing special, but it's not completely useless.

Fortified Earth
Blocks attacks for 3 seconds and gives me a barrier at the end. It's nice.

Elemental Celerity
The boons are really not that interesting for an Elite skill. The effect however is very much so. Get to cast all my skills again? This has potential. Elementalist Elites aren't usually that great anyway, although you could hope for more.. something.

In the end, Augments aren't necessarily bad, but they're super boring. Just like the traits. Like all the imagination went into the animations and the gimmicks and left us with the  rest.

 

So far that's all I have to say. If you somehow made it through the wall of text, congratz. It feels like ANet didn't have enough time to work on Catalyst or rather, couldn't affort throwing away the broken pieces and had to keep on to the gimmicks. I'd also like to hear your opinions on this, since I can't even be sure if ANet sees page 40+ in the Ele subforum.

Edits: fixed some spelling and grammar mistakes, added opinion on Grand Finale.

This, well written. I just read this now, however I want to add 1 thing:

Sustain.
While you mentioned that ele is the squishiest class, I agree, but catalyst is also the squishiest ele e spec.
Lets go through the dps builds.

Condi Weaver: Condi Weaver has the highest sustain of all ele dps builds. It gains sustain through earth traitline from core (-10% incoming dmg and additionally 7% if on earth attunement) and barrier on double attunement skills. It also has 120 more vitality on earth/earth, air/earth, water/earth and fire/earth. Also -20% imcoming damage from earth of "Weave Self". + weakness for traits which helps against small mobs.
Condi Tempest: Condi Tempest has imo the second highest sustain, which comes also due to earth traitline. It also has improved protection and has dodges on dagger (dagger 3 earth and dagger 3 fire). Dagger 2 in water also heals by 1k (also ur teammates) tho its pretty useless for condi dmg. The master traits of tempest give no dmg increases, just boons and weakness, so you can choose also a bit sustain. Tho the weakness is also dmg reduction if u r not against a boss. Water overload also heals you by around 4k. warhorn 4 in water gives 1,3k heal and warhorn 5 (if you stay in circles) 2k heal, if you dont stay in circles maybe 1k. The fact that Tempest has access to protection makes it already better than Catalyst in every sustain aspect outside of grp content.
Power Weaver: Because I dont want to write everything down here again, I ll just say: Basically the same I said for condi weaver except the part with earth traitline in core.
Power Tempest: Same as condi tempest but without earth traitline in core.

And then comes Power Catalyst: What should I say? U get stat bonuses, which would be 200 toughness and 200 vitality (if u keep it up on 10 stacks all the time). Thats its basically except hammer 4, which gets beaten by far by tempest water overload already not to mention each overload gives protection.

I dont mean with this that tempest and weaver have good sustain, I mean that they have low sustain but catalyst has even less.
I find it ironically that anet said that "catalysts held the frontline" while they have like 10% of the sustain of any other eod e spec.
Must've been the dead catalyst bodies that formed a wall that held the frontline.

Jokes aside, this e spec really lacks EXTREMELY in case of sustain.

While I mentioned the sustain that are already in the dps builds of weaver and Tempest, they can gain really good sustain due to traits. Catalyst just has a 2% dmg reduction for each stack of whatever when u gain an aura. Impossible on hammer anyway to maintain full stacks to get the 10% dmg reduction.

So, I agree with almost everything you said @Bleikopf.2491, and i surely did put my like on it, I just wanted to raise my voice to shout of the sustain problems of Catalyst.

Btw one last thing I always write when I talk about sustain:
A really low sustain is also a dps loss. This is because of the higher dodge and movement uptime which leads to less dps uptime. Each dodge will reduce your dps.
You also cant perform your rota well with that sustain (talking about hammer 3) because if you dodge it can lead to a full failure of your rota already.

Thank you for your well written comment, this was just my point to the sustain because imo its a really really big problem of catalyst too.

Edited March 14, 2022 by SeTect.5918

[Paradoxoglanis.1904]

1. Way too many things to keep track of. Elemental empowerment, jade sphere energy, combo field placement for generating auras, augment-attunement cooldown reduction, hammer 3.

2. Hammer is poorly designed. Abilities are either slow channels, short range projectiles, difficult to land on anything that is moving, or completely interrupt the flow of combat. Its a melee version of staff, and we all know how terribly outdated and useless staff is.

3. The builds fill exactly the same role as weaver or tempest, except now with a much more demanding rotation. In pvp you can play a bad version of fireweaver, and in pve you can play a golem benchmark dps/boon hybrid.

[SeTect.5918]

2 hours ago, Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:

1. Way too many things to keep track of. Elemental empowerment, jade sphere energy, combo field placement for generating auras, augment-attunement cooldown reduction, hammer 3.

2. Hammer is poorly designed. Abilities are either slow channels, short range projectiles...

Agree.
If you watch the benchmark of Catalyst. Elemental Empowerment very often goes to 9 stacks for a half second. This is done with full alacrity and quickness.
Now just imagine how it is without it or when u include dodges and so on bc that e spec has 0 sustain.
U CANT keep it up all the time, which means its a big crit chance and power and ferocity loss. In open world I can bring Elemental Empowerment barely above 5-7 stacks, also because of the lacks of cc on hammer (u gain ele empowerment on cc). The only ccs are air 4 (which u never use bc giant dps loss bc it makes u fly to the moon) and air 5.
Also if orbs fail u lose 7% crit chance. -> Orbs are impossible anyway without quickness.

Like 70% of ur dps is lost already just bc u dont have quickness or bc u have to dodge or sth.

Edited March 12, 2022 by SeTect.5918

[skoda.4619]

i've forced myself to play catalyst in PvE, tho switching to weaver whenever i actually need to do decent dps

the thing that i dislike the most with hammer is hammer 3, i feel like i have to keep the orbs up which means instead of using hammer skills i press whatever i can and then rush to other attunements to keep the orbs up...and the best thing in PvE ye orbs are instant cast but knockdowns in PvE are very long up to 5s which is the same as orb duration, so in a lot of cases orbs run out if you get knocked down as you can't swap attunements....

and when it comes to Jade Spheres, i tried quickness Catalyst in strikes and i really don't like how you can't generate energy while the orb is down it feels so unrewarding and on top of that if you get downed well tough luck now all of your energy is gone so good luck giving boons...another amazing thing on bosses like mai trin who moves a lot too many times i placed hammer air 2 and she moved so i was very low on energy more often then not...i don't know why you don't just make this an ammo skill with cooldown and be done with it if you're worried about energy generation, or just let us generate energy always even when the orb is down, but also please give us full energy when we get out of combat  so we don't need to generate energy before giving out boons...

[SeTect.5918]

21 hours ago, SeTect.5918 said:

Agree.
If you watch the benchmark of Catalyst. Elemental Empowerment very often goes to 9 stacks for a half second. This is done with full alacrity and quickness.
Now just imagine how it is without it or when u include dodges and so on bc that e spec has 0 sustain.
U CANT keep it up all the time, which means its a big crit chance and power and ferocity loss. In open world I can bring Elemental Empowerment barely above 5-7 stacks, also because of the lacks of cc on hammer (u gain ele empowerment on cc). The only ccs are air 4 (which u never use bc giant dps loss bc it makes u fly to the moon) and air 5.
Also if orbs fail u lose 7% crit chance. -> Orbs are impossible anyway without quickness.

Like 70% of ur dps is lost already just bc u dont have quickness or bc u have to dodge or sth.

So I calculated this with http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/ now and with the Catalyst build from snowcrows (http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PGQAIlpyWZUMW2JO6KbRTA-zRIYRUwXG1mAVUA2eRCjNwD-e) and you lose 11% crit chance already just bc u have 8 stacks of Elemental Empowerment instead of 10. Without quickness u barely can keep it above 5-7 stacks so that would be a crit chance  loss of 13% if u have 6 stacks of Elem Empowerment. If you also add the orbs that are almost impossible without quickness because of the terrible cast times, then you lose 20% crit chance, a lot of power, a lot of ferocity and the 5% increased condi and power dmg from fire orb. So thats a massive amount of dmg lost.
Hammer lacks extremely in ccs to keep up Elemental Empowerment, Orbs have far too low duration and are a clunky mechanic anyway + auras are also difficult to get with hammer.
Who thought it would be a good idea to build Catalyst so much around auras and ccs while giving hammer almost no ccs and no auras at all?

Edited March 13, 2022 by SeTect.5918
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