Catalyst Feedback Thread

[The Great Al.2546]

F5 needs to be one of 2 things - 

 

An almost always readily available combo field, in which case the adrenaline/energy buildup mechanic should essentially go away

 

or

 

Something worthy of  being gated by adrenaline, i.e. something that can actually turn the tide of battle. In this case, add combo fields to the hammer itself, because the F5 should not just be 'ok now I finally have my combo field!

 

Right now the F5 has the gating/drain/cooldown of the latter, but without any real impact. 

[Puck.3697]

SPVP - Doesnt work.

F5 is Useless to the enviroment currently.. ur effectively playing Core at that Point and u may aswell be realistically play core.

[azarhal.3086]

I played a bit of Catalyst. Note. I haven't played Elemenalist since headstart. Not even to try Weaver/Tempest in previous betas.

I tried it on Verbrank brink map.

I actually don't find building energy to take too much time, but I used the traits that grant energy on attunement switch. The UI need to change thought, that bar is way too small/hidden.

Saying that, I do find the field on F5 to be totally useless. Either is last to long because things die too fast or you don't use it because you move all the time in the fight. I think the suggestion to move that to Hammer 3 (aka turn those fields into symbols)  and have the swirly balls be the F5 makes more sense.

I find the hammer fast, but I know hammer from trying it on Guardian and Scrapper. It's a bit clunky to use part of that is that I don't know the skill, but other part is things like "spin at your spot, but deal damage away" skills. It's just confusing, especially when the weapon also has "spin at your spot, deal damage around you" skills.

Then I switched to Tempest (first time ever playing that, with dagger/warhorn) and my impression is that Tempest does everything Catalyst is supposed to do (boon share, auras, field comboing), but way easier to pull off and with better defensives/survivability.

As for the Utility skills, they spent 10 seconds on my skill bar. None of them are worth taking over already existing Utilities on the class.

Edited September 21, 2021 by azarhal.3086

[Helicity.3416]

3 minutes ago, The Great Al.2546 said:

 

Something worthy of  being gated by adrenaline, i.e. something that can actually turn the tide of battle. In this case, add combo fields to the hammer itself, because the F5 should not just be 'ok now I finally have my combo field!

 

 

I was thinking:

- add a combo field to every hammer attunement

- f5 does something brutal with the field instead

[Pangie.3217]

There are traits that all deal with auras, there's even a grandmaster trait that gives stability to auras. Yet the hammer, the weapon that comes with this specialization, does not reliability give auras. 

 

It would be really nice if the F5 skill stays with the character instead of a being a skill that stays in one place. 

 

I truly believe this specialization has potential, it just needed tweaking. 

 

[The Great Al.2546]

43 minutes ago, Flori.2194 said:

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

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

Look, I totally get it. I don't like the elite spec in its current state at all and there are some severe issues with it.

It's not getting totally redone, period. Yes, there are time problems.

The feedback in this thread has been constructive so far, hopefully it drives change. I don't think it needs a complete overhaul to be at least a change of pace spec. The animations, weapon type, etc, are not going to change. As it stands, if there are minimal changes I'll be looking for a new spec to play. But you can still keep the animations and weapon choice, and salvage something usable out of here. Potential changes to the F5 is key to the success or failure of the specialization.

Edited September 21, 2021 by The Great Al.2546

[Finngarad.9746]

I've been playing an Elementalist since the game launched and have over 4'000 hours on that class and so far I'm not impressed with the Catalyst, it is not as fun as it looks.

 

A lot of the weapon skills just seem to do less damage with a full marauder build and the earth weapon skills are sooooo slow.

For a potential bruiser class we still remain quite squishy and you can't really make a decent Condi tank with this spec as easily as you can with Termpest and Weaver.

 

The Jade sphere seems clunky and takes too long to build up the energy to use it, it really shouldn't have an energy cost as the cooldown is enough or could be increased. It also really needs to follow you around instead of being placed as most of the time you end up fighting outside of it and you really need to make use of the fields for the blast finishers on the hammer.

 

Also if they are going to give us range on half the ele attunements, then at least give us a decent range on them as the fact that some champions in PoF have that unstable magic effect, Phase shifted https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Phase-Shifted_(bounty) , makes having such a short ranged weapon useless, something that sword weavers are well aware of.

The utilities are........uninteresting and require the Jade Sphere field to be active to make full use of them, not good at all considering how often the field is active.

There are other issues but these are the most obvious ones I can think of and others here are pointing them out.

 

 

 

Edited September 21, 2021 by Finngarad.9746

[The Great Al.2546]

3 minutes ago, Helicity.3416 said:

 

I was thinking:

- add a combo field to every hammer attunement

- f5 does something brutal with the field instead

 

Yeah, this makes sense. Especially since any other weapon set for Ele doesn't even need to rely on the F5 as a combo field.

[Azigord.7495]

I am not convince by F5 mechanic neither

 

u could ad some trait line concerning F5.

 

let me explain :

-  If you play some mele ele u want your field to follow you as inge gyro's

- if you play with range u want to be able to move the field, or two have multiple field more or less like necros shades.

 

As it's design actually it feels not so much rewarding cause it needs energy, so you have to wait to use it then if u drop it u can't move it and cancel it remove all your energy, so u basically let it run even is the positioning is bad.

 

Concerning utilities, playing them with active field seems actually not rewarding enough.

[Xephir.7635]

Here is my feedback:

Hammer feels weird, skill 3 makes you rotate so fast you cant even use other skills unless you have perma quickness, which you wont have when playing in open world. 

 

The Jade Sphere felt underwhelming, it's the only way to get fields if you are using hammer and it haves an energy mechanic on top of a long cooldown. Let's also not forget that if you recall it you have to wait cooldown plus refill the slow filling energy bar. In pve I can see its uses, if few, but in pvp and wvw? Dont make me laugh.

 

And about the skills:

If i have to use 4 skills from core ele and just one from new elite spec to get good dps there must be something wrong. And those are all offensive skills, just to get your dps near weaver level!!  Skills need to be reworked, using them out of jade sphere amount to nothing, only the fire skill feels good and compared to other classes it feels meh.

Edit: Where do we get auras from hammer? Like isnt the class all about auras? I get more auras playing tempest and that class doesnt depend on them to do good dmg.

Edited September 21, 2021 by Xephir.7635

[Alesthes.4287]

Besides all the many points that have been already made over and over by others and with which I entirely agree, I would like to put emphasis on a aspect that only few pointed out specifically: the Elite skill.  

(1) At present, when it comes to functionality it is just not worth it, especially considering it is supposed to be the most powerful button available to the Elite spec: a few seconds of gradually shorter cooldown on weapons on a long cooldown. Not nearly enough.

(2) Second, thematically it is basically a worst Weaver elite skill. Even the visual effects is almost the same. Again? This is particularly problematic given that Elementalist always had this problem with Elite skills that either do not stand out as original OR are cool from a thematic point of view but are useless mechanically (see Tornado...).  

So, among the many things that need to be reconsidered with the Catalyst, please do include the Elite skill and possibly invent something entirely new, because just changing the numbers may marginally address problem (1), but would leave problem (2) unsolved. Give us something that is both distinct and powerful to use when we press that button. It's what Elite skills are supposed to be, after all. 

Edited September 21, 2021 by Alesthes.4287

[Boho.2698]

I think it's the worst espec yet released. Even worse than Willbender.

1. Hammer damage is painfully low.
2. Hammer is full of skills requiring channels, making it feel clusmy and ineffective.
3. Hammer lacks combo and/or aura generation, making it incompatible with Catalyst traits.
4. Jade Sphere is forgettable, boring, and yet another mechanic to maintain on an already overloaded class.
5. The only potentially good Jade Sphere is Air, but my Sphere changes attunements when I do.
6. Quickness from JS Air is not instant 100% uptime like Firebrand.
7. The JS requiring Energy but being stationary makes it non-viable in competitive modes.
8. Augments are generally weak and don't interact with the Sphere in any interesting ways.
9. Augments somehow aren't combos despite wanting you to stand in the JS and the class desperately needing combos.
10. Elemental Celerity's cooldown is too long and its boons are boring.
11. Wheels, Hardened Auras, Elemental Empowerment, and Empowering Auras are even more things to maintain on an already overburned class just to compete with other classes that do the same automatically.

Overall it's just a miserable chore to play and only works in PVE.

[Anjoys.5367]

3 Things that I think that need to be changed:

1. f5/jade sphere energy needs to go, I think if the sphere lasted 10 second and had a 12 second would the simplest fix or the jade sphere works more like ventari's tablet.
2. Hammer 3 orbs/buffs needs to last longer at least 15-20 seconds
3. For the top traits we either need more access to auras on hammer, or instead the traits to proc off combos

[InsaneQR.7412]

So first impression:

Hammer:

Overall ok and fun. But from perspective of trait interactions i have to say that dagger/dagger feels moree synergystic in building elemental empowerment and finishing combos. Honestly if Vicious empowerment would also trigger with chill i would be really happy.

 

The utilities feel, well, they feel really bland. Because the class mechanic has some issues i will get into soon, they also cannot pay off enough. I would rather give their base effect directly to them and add their respective aura as the augment bonus. This would synergize with the spec and core ele.

 

The traits are solid with some minir nitpicks like giving more synergy to hammer to stack elemental empiwerment as mentioned above.

 

Now the big one, the mechanic: its bad. Nothing to sweet talk here. The energy comes to slow, you do NOT wanna stay at one place as a melee Ele and the field dissipates to fast. Also the UI is horrible. Give us a proper energy meter above the endurance bar so we have better visibility of our energy pool.

 

Also i would change it to a charge system. So you get energy charges that you can use to place down the field for a fixed duration. When you swap elements you consume another charge and change the field. If you reuse the F5 you resolve the field and the field is removed. This could have various implications like, you gain benefits detonating the field, you can gain benefits swapping the field or you can get benefits staying in one element for longer period Etc.

Overall i think a energy based/adrenalin system is not a good fit for a melee ele.

 

[Ajapai.9675]

Hammer

The concept of hybrid (melee and mid-range) would be okay and probably quite interesting. But there are a few points on Hammer that totally break it's flow in my opinion:
1. Fire is supposed to be mid range but has melee skill 5
2. Skill 3 on all elements is pushing you to swap attunements all 5 seconds and have a range of 200.
     - This basically means you would want to camp in a 200 range of enemies all the time, so why even make two mid-range elements
     - Also if you wanna hit your meele skills you need to go to 130 range, thus making your skill 3 miss on smaller targets.
3. Hammer skills feel quite slow and have some long animations which contradicts the short window for swapping elements

4. I like to decide on my own when to swap my elements. On hammer this decision get's taken away from you.

 

Jade Sphere

As many pointed out before me, the sphere is nearly useless in the fast paced combat where you constantly move around.
Make grandmaster traits that modify it, like one for support where the field follows you around, one for damage where it pulses condis instead of boons and maybe even make it follow the targeted enemey, it's a dragon or turtle or whatever for a reason.

 

Final Thaughts

I can't really think how it came to this spec but I hope you listen to the feedback and completly rework Hammer and also adjust how Jade Sphere works. I think aesthetics of  Jade Sphere is awesome but give it more meaning. Also Hammer is an intresting weapon choise, make it worth! Please Anet! You are great!

 

edit: I actually forgot that this spec comes with utility skills lol. That just shows how lackluster their design is.

Edited September 21, 2021 by Ajapai.9675

[Guybrush.4762]

First impression : It felt kinda clunky. To be fair though, some of the perceived clunkyness has to be attributed to building new reflexes and getting used to the spec. The main potential design flaw I see is in the mechanics of the spec. It is slow to kicks in, which is another way to say "the spec is weak for shorts encounters".

 

Why ? In order for the spec to feels great and impactful you first want to gain a few stacks of Elemental empowerment (as well as stacks of Hardening aura and Empowering aura if you have the relevant traits). The problem is, before you even think to get there you need a field to combo into and proc Elemental epitome. And you have an obvious field at your disposal in the form of your jade sphere, so we are good right ? Yes and no, you can't use it at the beginning of the fight. First, you need to build up some energy and that means jumping into the fray without any of the buff that is supposed to make this spec hold itself in combat.

 

That is the main problem I see with the spec and the obvious fix would be to makes you start with some energy but I don't know how I feel about that. I'd much rather make the jade sphere work more like charges, a bit like mesmer clone if you wish, both for the UI and resource generation. The goal here is to make it easier to track and smoother to acquire which I think would make the spec feels better to play.

 

I also don't feel too good about being locked inside the tiny area of your jade sphere on a 11k HP low armor class but that part is probably learning the spec.

Edited September 21, 2021 by Guybrush.4762

[Katreyn.4218]

In its current state it does feel like the Sphere has some issues.  If it stays as it is, I almost feel like it needs to follow the caster and pulse  out the field that way.   The small AoE + the cast time + energy generation makes it feel like a lot of effort for little.  Also feels like it can easily be wasted.

I also have mixed feelings about the hammer.  It doesn't necessarily feel like it flows with the Sphere functionality.  Almost feels like two separate specs.   Feels like you are fighting some of the hammer skills by trying to benefit from the hammer 3 orbs in quick succession. 

The best feeling in terms of generating energy that I tried was dagger since it is the quickest to get hits in.  

Edit: Got my terminology all wrong. Sphere != Orb.  

Was also mistaken on the Conjures, not sure how strikeout on this forum.

Edited September 21, 2021 by Katreyn.4218

[ilthelia.8501]

Catalyst so far : 
hammer weapon :  the damage is low and the weapon itself is slow . Idea: 
fire attunement : keep the speed as it is  but increase the damage on weapon 2 and  4 . Weapon 5 need its cast time reduce

water attunement :since it is melee needs some sustain . weapon 2 might heal the caster instead
air attunement :is fine imo 
earth attunement : weapon 5 need its cast time reduce

Spec mechanic: The cooldown of the sphere itself in such  small  duration and energy build up is VERY big. It disrupts the flow of the spec and makes the spec worst than core ele . Since the attunements themselves  has cooldowns i don't see the reason the sphere to have one . Also , the energy ramp up should  build faster than drained .

Utility skills : Shattering ice should give a follow up attack up to 150% of weapon damage

[Alakazarm.1847]

1 minute ago, Katreyn.4218 said:

In its current state it does feel like the orb has some issues.  If it stays as it is, I almost feel like it needs to follow the caster and pulse  out the field that way.   The small AoE + the cast time + energy generation makes it feel like a lot of effort for little.

I also have mixed feelings about the hammer.  It doesn't necessarily feel like it flows with the orb functionality.  Almost feels like two separate specs.  The best feeling in terms of generating energy that I tried was dagger since it is the quickest to get hits in.  

Also seems like the "top dps" viability right now for power is to continue using conjures.  So you are barely using hammer anyways.

you absolutely do not barely use hammer, conjures work just like they always have. pick up, blow two skills, drop immediately. You spend like 85% of the rotation on hammer cycling orbs.

[Goat.7189]

As a preface, I play a lot of condi weaver and tempest in fractals.

Firstly, Catalyst got some issues. The first thing I noticed was I never got to use the jade sphere. For a spec centered around combo fields I don't think I used any combos at all because of how difficult it is to get a field in hammer. In contrast, as a condi tempest, I'm blasting fire a whole bunch and just pumping out might.

 

Secondly, damage is just not there in hammer or in any weapon really. Hammer earth 2 gives what 5 stacks of bleeding for a 3 1/2 second channel? Dagger earth 2 gives 6 stacks in 1 second. It's severely lacking to say the least. Need to up those condi stacks up in hammer or else you're just better off running scepter or even staff as a condi option.

 

To add on to that the traits don't do much. Part of it is definitely how terrible jade sphere is. Traits could definitely be improved to give more damage, conditions, or something else to make it competitive with weaver and tempest.

As it stands I see no reason to use another weapon with Catalyst. It doesn't offer anything useful to existing weapon sets that doesnt already exist in weaver and tempest. If you wanted to play condition staff, weaver and tempest are okay for that. If you wanted to play power dagger, you've got air overload to carry all your damage and you've got some cool dual attacks in weaver. The same can't be said for catalyst.

 

That being said I do like hammer 3. If the numbers were tuned on it, I can see myself slapping pocket raptors with a bunch of condi. Also the hammer animations look cool at the very least! That's all I got

[Xephir.7635]

6 minutes ago, InsaneQR.7412 said:

The utilities feel, well, they feel really bland. Because the class mechanic has some issues i will get into soon, they also cannot pay off enough. I would rather give their base effect directly to them and add their respective aura as the augment bonus. This would synergize with the spec and core ele.

 

I could see this working MUCH more than what is currently going on.

[Emperor Palpatine.5329]

Biggest disappointment so far!

Ele seems underdeveloped, rushed and not at all logical.

weapon:

-worst choice of weapon implementation: damage aside, skills are confusing (now its mele now its ranged wtf?), some effects look ok bit not at all at the level of EOD hype anet was making. 
- mechanics: overly complicated, do not make sense and feels just like a core ele with a hammer and bad elite skills. Tempest felt  tempesty, skills make sense, they have a connection

- elite skills are trash and traits are just badly implemented

what I would do:

- rethink the elite spec from point 0. Decide on mele or range and implement said skills based on it core idea

- rework hammer skills (that elemental cycle thing is way way to complicated and short - players dont like pushing 100 buttons wtf? Why put that in game? It ruins player fun: gw2 is supposed to be the game with 10 buttons not 100

- F5 - change it, it sucks: those animal things look like crap, skill is too short and it does not move. Its bad

- elite skills - complete rework: they have no value add, they do nothing (except the earth on its a block lol for some reason someone actually added that in game :)))

- if u insist on keeping it mele staff and scepter skill need rework. You keep adding garbage skills like retreat or the new air skill pushback. No one asked for them, no one uses them. Just add 1 elite skill for that and there u go if a players wants it they can use it, dont force this on everyone. That weapon skill could actually be something of interest and with value.

 

Honestly this compared to mesmer and necro seems to be done in like 1 month, fully rushed and without thinking. Y’all need to step up the game here if u expect EoD to be good. If u keep this up its gonna be a catastrophe. 

[Selein.5237]

Catalyst needs a complete rework.  Ele is THE class with the least survivability.  Catalyst doesn't improve that.  Ele is still one of the only classes without reasonable access to boons and conditions.  Catalyst doesn't meaningfully improve that.  Catalyst can't meaningfully generate auras so a bunch of their traits are useless 99% of the time to 99% of players because the auras it so desperately wants are locked behind opaque gameplay mechanics (fields).  Finally, Catalyst is not good nor useful in wvw/pvp situations.  

 

Honestly, it feels like Catalyst wants to reward slow tempo like gameplay but the vast majority of other classes don't play into that type of gameplay whatsoever.  For that slow tempo like gameplay you need both survivability, which we already know Ele lacks (and how downstate rotation became a meme: because there's truth to it), and payoff (being big damage numbers or lots of boon or condition stacks).  Catalyst offers none of that.  The one redeeming thing is it feels like it tries to make something other than Fire important.  Water, Air, and Earth attunements should not simply be conduits by which to play Fire better.  

[Fuhma.6840]

 

What is the point of this spec?

One of the biggest issues with Elementalist, is they have no direction on their specs.

Tempest is support, yet their Aura's fall short for end game and they can't give Alac or Quickness. Those two boons alone make or break a support spec, Might and Fury are good but other classes had that out along with other boons like its nothing.

 

Weaver is DPS, that's if you can handle a crazy amount of button rotations, keep certain traits up for added damage output, mobs don't move out of your AOE fields, and ofc surviving one hit or ambient room AOE. 

 

Catalyst is what? A weaver rotation support build? 
 

With that said here are some idea's on how to fix some of this. At least some Idea's that I have:

1.  Hammer is too slow of an attack speed. If the point of this spec is to get the Sphere out on the field why does it take so long to build the charge and then have it disappear so fast. I would say this could be fixed with reducing the cool down, but unless you are running hammer and keeping orbs up. You will only have the Sphere out ever so often as no other weapon can build Energy fast enough. Maybe try the Revenant Energy system on it? 
   
   Being able to allow it fully charge or call it at half energy would be cool. Give the players the power.
    
2.  Sphere should give quickness with a trait. I like the idea of themes, but this spec is dead in the water with having to decide on starting in one attunement(air) and not being able to go fire for Might stacks or earth for Protection. There are better classes and specs that give quickness at no lose to other aspects to their roles.
    
3. The Extra Catalyst skills are selfish. This once again goes into the theme of what this class is is it DPS is it support?
    
4. Why doesn't the Sphere follow? Scrappers have Gyro's there is no reason why this should either.
    
5. Make the skills on the hammer fill more impactful. This game has so much going on the screen that even on a target dummy alone, I can tell if my skills have made their mark or not.

That's all I have for now on Catalyst.

 

I would like to add that Elementalist, is one of the few classes that seem to be stuck in 2012. Earth and Arcane trait lines are dated. They don't fit any where outside of my PvP and Open world at the lost of DPS and support. Please look at Elementalist, and go from there.

 

P.S.

 

If you wanna get more Meme's about the state of Elementalist. Even the forums don't recognize their name as a word.

 

https://imgur.com/a/VPndtE6

 

[HotDelirium.7984]

5 hours ago, The Great Al.2546 said:

Wow, I'm wildly disappointed so far. 

 

1. Combo field takes a long to charge up (there are inexplicably no traits that synergize with 'energy').

2. If you're actually able to drop the combo field in a fight, you're lucky if you are actually able to stay there for a few seconds. 

3. The combo field melts away, the trait that gives you energy on attunement swamp doesn't actually increase your energy, but rather just prevents one 'tick' of it melting away.

4. Hammer has no combo fields, for a class that is solely dependent on finishers to generate aura/boons, your only chance is to work with (1-3) above to get a field, or...use a different weapon.

 

Given the difficulty of building up and maintaining the F5, you'd think it'd be some extra special effect, especially since there's,  yknow, a dragon spirit inside. But there's no payoff. The spirit just sits there. If you want easy access to combo fields, either use a different weapon, or if you're in a party or around 4-5 other people, combo fields will be everywhere anyway. 

I concur, traits to help with energy build up ( my energy decreased ocassionally for some reason outside of combat but not fully for some unknown reason) and better Jade Sphere mechanics -a moving field, a bigger field, a longer field and then when its over an EFFECT. If you cancel it early you lose all energy for some reason...so wheres the trade off? Give an effect. Since there's no big elite SHABLAM it helps out the weapon skill cooldown ( i mean we have a boon for that but ok) make it so most of the skills have a combo finisher. Since the combo field is unreliable right now that extra effect from the utility skills is pretty irrelevant since, as you say we have to build up to enough energy to be viable. Its inefficient rn.