Catalyst Feedback Thread

[Darkgaiden.3791]

So far, what i have seen looks ok, but has a few issues....and this is for pve and pvp.

When you have the super low health glass mage go into a melee range build, you need to provide some tools for it to not die like a pig every time 😉 (and when i say glass mage, i dont mean "glass canon", just glass, fragile and easy to break), Weaver did this very good (TOO good if you ask me), having a kitten ton of barrier while fighting, normal elementalist with double dagger gets closer to reality, but has other tools, like auras on weapon and movility (3 dashes), or hard cc.... in the case of the hammer there are none of those..... you can always get auras by combo with your own fields (and some auras are not provided by combos, like earth and air, they need some other tool to provide it) but is a little harder, specially if the ball is in cooldown, wich is your only "field" provider, you have in all the hammer move set, only 1 cc move, the air n°4, and as for movility, 0%, once you enter, you hit or die ...... so there is a lot of work to be done there.

In my opinion, just lose the ball, and go for a more hardcore melee mage, im sure you can find another gimiky thing instead of the ball, as it is now, the ball only provides a field to work with and maybe get a combo, the buffs are not that great, and the damage is weak, so either completely remove the ball, or rechange the ball and hammer moves together.

As for the augment traits, they are not bad, but overall feel super weak, specialy since they ONLY work with that same element ball,... if you are using fire and whant the barrier from earth's augment, sucks to be you because you need the earth ball field to do that... either make augments work with ball (no matter the element) or change them completely to actualy provide the bonus we want, either by working with the element attuned, or any field for that matter....  it feels like they are good ideas, poorly implemented.

One other small thing i noticed is that, very similar to wielding a staff, some of the numbers have a similar efect/feel, in every element, for example, staff's number 4, is in all elements the "feet" icon, meaning it provides something related to movement, either by helping yours, or hindering the enemy's.... in the hammer i see they went on a simiar direction, BUT, while earth and fire have the "jump and hit the ground with the huge hammer" in the number 5, water has it in number 4, just a little incosistency (i have no idea how you spell this one, english is not my native language) there.....and water smash has range, but fire and earth no..... so is kinda weird.

 

As it is now, it feels weak, water has almost 0 healing (or damage mitigation), augments only work sometimes, you are a full melee glass mage with no movility and almost no cc, something has to be done........ the skill tree is super focused on the energy and the ball, and 0 focus on hammer or augments, or any other aspect, that elemental empowerment sounds cool, but is not real, the "energy" we get says nowhere that is only value is the duration of the ball.... there are a lot of little details, that in paper look good, but at the moment of play is another story.

 

Good class, with a lot of potential and fun ideas, but as it is now, would never play it, tempest deals with similar issues in a better way, and weaver, well, weaver is just busted..... i give it a    🤕/10

 

Peace ✌️

 

[solemn.9670]

I have published a video of my thoughts on Catalyst here:

 

Edited September 26, 2021 by solemn.9670

[Snow.6105]

My feedback:

It is genuinely one of the least fun elite specs I have played so far, and this specialization goes farther and shows just how bad ele is designed at its core. The weapon itself feels clunky and slow, the animations are not anything special and the dmg is extremely lacking. The weapon/traits/skills have no true identity it's considered a brawler class but lacks damage, auras don't do anything special and weaver/tempest do both better while also providing support to allies via aura. The prettiest skill in this spec is the air 4 that channels a tornado other than that nothing stands out, and I'd go as far to say the augment skills and elite are actually... boring and center around using a sphere which stays in place and doesn't last long. In WvW those sphere's will be useless since you're constantly on the move, during livestream they mentioned how they're similar to engi gyros but unlike the gyros which move we have a stasis sphere which doesn't do... much at all. 

 

This specialization shows how bad core ele is in traits and how the class needs help and reworks. Catalyst needs an entire rework to be honest, and I would actually be overjoyed if they switched the melee aspect of the weapon to something range since it's something ele fans wanted and needed. Every elite being melee so far is disappointing and does nothing to help the stack meta issue in pve but rather encourages mindless gameplay.  

 

Beyond being disappointed not receiving either a longbow/shortbow which ele community has been hoping and asking for I wanted to have hope for the weapon and thought it could do well and bring something unique to ele gameplay and be a fun brawler type class that can provide dmg and be tanky similar to warrior but instead it is a low dmg/low survivability clunky elite which does everything worse than weaver.

[kaosraven.5248]

Love it. It feels very fluid once I got the hang of it. I like the depth and complexity and feeling like my active decision-making was being rewarded.

I have one gripe, which is that I really think Grand Finale should be instant cast. Having it not go off because the circular projectile timer expired feels rough, and sometimes in a crowded fight you may not even realize it didn't go off because the animation isn't that impactful. 3/4s feels too long for something that can just... fizzle and you get nothing in return.

Everything else honestly feels great to me.

EDIT: Okay, one more gripe - Fortified Earth should be called Fortifying Earth to match the other augment names. It's weird that it's not called that.

Edited September 22, 2021 by kaosraven.5248

[fixit.7189]

to clunky for me.

this elite very disappointing.

😞

Edited September 22, 2021 by fixit.7189

[Nysha.7021]

There seems to be a lot of fun potential here! However, there's just a few things that would probably do leagues to make it feel better and synergize better.

1. The jade sphere is already limited by how much energy you have. It really shouldn't have a cooldown so that way it becomes more of a case of "the more you put in, the more you get out". It already can take a bit to fill up the energy unless you're going nuts, and that on its own is kind of its own cooldown.
2. For open world, fractals, and maybe raids, while the jade sphere is active, it should either A. Follow you like engineer gyros, or B. Have the option to adjust its placement like the revenant Ventari tablet. Though I can understand completely not enabling the latter in pvp modes.
3. For a class that's covered in synergies based on auras and combos, it has a stark lack of either on its intended kit. At the very least, I think the 2 skills per element on hammer should have combo finishers on them. (If you sit there and spin rapidly, how is that not a whirl finisher?)
4. The 3 skill combo stuff is very unforgiving without quickness and alacrity. They should probably have a higher duration.

A lot of these requests, of course, inherently would increase its DPS, when it already has an impressive benchmark, but I trust the balance team can adjust accordingly.

Edited September 22, 2021 by Nysha.7021

[InspectorCaracal.2970]

I don't main ele so my gameplay feedback is spotty at best, but there is one major problem with Catalyst I feel competent to give feedback on.

The energy bar is INCREDIBLY TINY.

I don't mean charging it, I mean on the screen. It's miniscule! It's barely visible! It's a smudge on the dashboard!! This would have been a great case for reusing existing UI design, specifically Druid's celestial energy bar, but instead it's a teeny tiny meter wrapped around a squeezed-in button that really shouldn't be in the same row as the attunements anyway. I really don't get why the Druid charge/F5 placement UI wasn't reused here, it would work perfectly.

Edited September 22, 2021 by Inventrix.3158

[Zappax.4685]

I was looking forward to the elementalist, as I generally have more fun with it than say warrior or revenant. For me, it really underperformed.

Let's start with the Sphere.

I feel like it suffers from the same problem the Rollerbeetle did when it got released. You start out with 0 energy, and it fills slowly. It lasts long but it feels weak, which only helps in point control situations. Chances are you won't be fighting for 15 seconds in a 400 unit area.
A great solution to this would be adding some initial energy, like what revenant has, reducing the duration and improving the effects or the tick rate of the spheres.

Augments feel clunky. Getting stunned right in front of your sphere, making you use your lightning augment without the bonus doesn't feel too good. The augments also have a rather long cast time for something that feels like a waste if not used in a sphere corresponding to the element. Would feel much better if it would check if the caster is in the sphere at the ticks instead of the time of casting.

The orbs, for how weak they feel, last for so little time, that some hammer skills cannot be used reliably before switching attunement and casting the sphere again. Namely the lightning and earth 2nd skills. Some synergy traits would feel nice, given that most of the catalyst trais are just flat % buffs. For a rather close range profession the orbs also feel too far away to actually cause passing damage, leaving it up to grand finale to actually deal some.

Now that the orbs are out of the way, let's end it with the long one, the hammer skills. Pretty much all of them feel slow, even with quickness.
Fire
1. Some minor splash damage without the burning applied would feel nice, or if the projectile and cast speed was sped up a bit, because right now both are extremely slow. Or maybe piercing, as hammer 2 has that.
5. For a massive flame blast, one would expect to set some targets on fire, or maybe deal more damage than something with 3rd of the cooldown.
Water
The only heal there, including the sphere, is the 4th leap skill, which is also the only gap closer in the entire hammer set for a mostly close range profession.
Lightning
2. Adding some slow debuff or replacing vulnerability with it would be much more reliable. Also, it's a spin to win skill with no whirl finisher to it, for a profession that should focus on combos.
5. Feels unreliable with the combination of cast time, travel time and activation time for the stun.
Earth
2. Is rather slow, and doesn't have a whirl finisher either.
Now that I mentioned. Each attunement has only one finisher.

[xXxNikiGoesWildxXx.3678]

So let's move for each thing.

First of all class is having 0 sustain, there is no protection, no regeneration, no healing, no survivability or anything with this class, it is first minus from me. Blasting on water field for some small healing is not rewarding at all as only combo field is from f5.

So second minus is exactly that f5 skill, its energy mechanic is bad, cooldown is too long, cast time even longer. Effect is too short and thing is not moving.... like what made you not make it like revenant's ventari tablet-movable around?

Third minus, hammer 3 skill should be permanent and paralel with hammer range, so don't make some skill melee and some range skills, make them all the same so sphere that circles around can hit target in radius of other weapon skills. Make them permanently rotating around, it is just too short and cast time is too slow.

Forth minus, there are no combo fields on hammer, very disapointing as spec is made around doing combos...

 

Fifth minus, it is not rewarding for playing it melee, so please delete hammer and give us longbow, don't hate your community, just give us what we want, we give you money, you happy, we happy too just please listen!

Traits, traits feels ok, but did you really ask yourself how many auras we can make over time? I guess you didn't because that % all stat bonus shouldn't be reactive bonus but passive, it is not funny to see stats going up and down and mostly down because of low aura generation and other things... 

Utility skills(augments), just delete them, give us wells with 1200 range and combo fields. 

Another thing, bring healing to it, it must have healing, bring some boons. Class is very imobile, slow, melee, squishy, weak, complicated and unworthy to spend time on it.

Summary: As someone mentioned on first page, just throw it into trash can and forget you ever tried to make it, and give us this - longbow fanmade elementalist elite spec(please check this link below):

fan made ele elite spec for cantha, please check link-screenshot

[Parktou.4263]

Radical Idea but how about taking the hammer 3 abilities and making them flip over skills on the attunements, similar to tempest overload? Then you can add one new weapon skill per element, hopefully at least two that create their own fields, like a line of rocky spikes shooting forth for earth, an erupting fire wave in fire? That way hammer isn't entirely reliant on the jade sphere which is supposed to be the "wells" we were promised. Catalyst doesn't have any utilities for creating fields other than from the conjured weapons like lava axe. 

 

Though maybe you could keep the weapon skills the same and use the flip over attunement skills as 4 separate jade sphere skills, one for each of the "wells", that way your not forced to use the fields of the new attunement when you probably dot want to. Hammer should really be all melee auto chains too. If it's gonna be a melee spec then make it a melee spec and revert air 1 and fire 1 to melee skills, none of the other skills would have to change either. 

 

The aura traits seem pretty bad as well, I'd like to see empowering auras replaced with another trait the allows augment skills to apply an aura based on current attunement when used. Maybe as a grand master trait, with staunch auras moving down to the master traits as I believe it would be more in line with the power provided by those traits. Augmented Auras seems like a good enough gw2 trait name.

 

I also think Elemental Celerity should apply to all skills(except attunement) rather than just weapon skills, raise the CD if you need to. The fields from the Jade Spheres should give you Stab/Earth, Quickness/Air, Alacrity/Water and Fury/Fire as well. Might and resolution aren't that big of a help when its now constant, so the spheres should provide more lucrative boons considering its CD and Energy requirement.

 

TLDR; All auto attacks should be melee skills, jade sphere should be 4 skills that flip over on attunement swap, sphere fields need more lucrative boons, and augment skills should have trait/s that improve them. 

 

Also, save the High damage single target abilities for the Longbow Arcanist coming in the next expansion after EOD please...can't wait.

[Roads.5130]

9 hours ago, Kuma.1503 said:

That's what catalyst is. A downgrade over weaver/tempest. Dissapointing too, I was excited for this one. 

Correction: That's what Catalyst BETA is, for you (and probably many other people). If you compare an unfinished spec with a finished one you are bound to be disappointed, nothing new to see here.

[Josh Mitchell.1596]

I understand this is beta and probably the best chance of getting feedback seen and considered, so I won't echo the negative sentiment of several other comments in game or here on the forums.
 

Elementalist is hands down my most played profession in GW2, approaching 1700 hours played. I have tried all EoD elite specs thus far, and Catalyst in my opinion needs the most work to be viable for go live.

 

After a bit of time with the Catalyst, here are my thoughts on what works well, and what could bring the spec up to par with other specs revealed and permit engaging gameplay across all game modes going forward.

Animations, SFX, and VFX
Particle effects, skill animations, and VFX are well done add flavor to the spec. Kudos to the team for these efforts.

Profession Mechanics
There is a lot to cover here so I will break it up by each component.

Attunement Recharge - Catalyst is the first Elite spec to not have any adjustment to how Elementalist Attunements recharge after going on cooldown. I would like to see this reduced to 8 seconds base and adjust based on how the Sphere is used (more below.)
 

Energy - Currently Energy starts at zero and depletes from 30 to 10 or from 10 to 0 out of combat. I feel that energy generation is adequate on most weapons but has potential to be buffed slightly on Hammer. I would like to see total energy extended to 40 or 50, energy idle at 20 or 25 out of combat, and made far more prominent visually on the UI (similar to Life Force bar or even Druid Celestial Avatar energy.)

The Jade Sphere - Is a relatively cool concept, if not outright stepping on top of gyro skills. Unfortunately in its current implementation, it is nigh impossible to use as any sort of long-term point to point Area Denial or as an opportunity to provide combo field support based on attunement on a set cadence.

To provide catalyst a better sense of focus and identity separate from Tempest and Weaver, I recommend the following:

Inactive Jade Sphere - I feel thematically this would be a nice visual representation that a catalyst leverages their sphere as an extension of themselves, much like the Herald facet animation or Soulbeast merged animation.

Deploy Jade Sphere - This is one of the two biggest suggested changes I would like to see for the class. Take the current F5 skill itself, and make it a flipover skill on top of the current attunement (much like Tempest - e.g. Attune to Fire, F1 for Fire flips over to Deploy Jade Sphere - Fire.)

This allows INSTANT deployment of a sphere in any attunement after attuning to said element. Once a sphere is deployed, it consumes ALL energy and that determines its duration (1s minimum up to 25s at 2 energy consumption/second) and does not change with the Catalyst as attunements are further cycled.

Once a sphere ability is used in an attunement, that attunement recharge goes on a cooldown (same recharge as sphere duration) similar to Tempest. Swapping off of an attunement without deploying the sphere would be a standard 8 second cooldown. Fresh Air would not reset the Deploy Jade Sphere - Air effect but would allow cycling back into Air until the Sphere was ready to be redeployed (perhaps with an insufficient Energy icon similar to Revenant/Thief could be shown on the Air Attunement icon until it was again available to be deployed.)

If a Catalyst would like to use a second attunement and deploy that attunement's sphere, this sphere and field would replace the first sphere and field deployed at the new energy/2 duration (e.g. 10 energy = 5 seconds of new field.) This new attunement deployment would go on a cooldown relative to the new amount of energy consumed.

Regarding current sphere implementation: Fire sphere needs more damage to give it more of an area control/denial identity. Water sphere could pulse condi clear on a set interval in addition to its effects. Air sphere is balanced, could pulse initial superspeed on deploy in addition to the quickness. Earth sphere is an interesting concept in poison field and I feel provides adequate defensive coverage, but could possibly pulse poison.

I feel this approach provides a more skilled risk/reward for strategic sphere deployment around the battlefield and doesn't punish the Elementalist for needing to cycle through to get to other Attunements in their kit while buffing allies or controlling an area.

New F5 - Deploy Arcane Jade Sphere - This is a pie-in-the-sky PIPE DREAM nice to have, but would hammer home the Jade Sphere Conduit theme that the spec is centered upon.

This kit would leverage Elementalist Arcane Magic coupled with Jade Dragon Magic in the sphere and makes sense thematically for both the spec and the expansion.

This new form requires MAX energy to activate, lasts for 20-25 seconds (at 2 energy consumption/second), depletes all energy, prevents energy gain while it is active, and affixes an Arcane Jade Sphere "shroud kit" to the Catalyst.

I would love to see the skills as follows: 1. A (600-1200?) ranged piercing autoattack, 2. A PBAoE circular knockback, 3. A small AoE heal that leaves a Light Combo field. 4. A (600-1200?) range combo finisher skill similar to Arcane Wave, and 5. A one-use-per-kit-deployment AoE storm that deals respectable damage using Arcane (or all elements?) and Jade Energy.

This F5 ability would be balanced by having a base 90 second cooldown separate from all other F1-F4 attunement CDs.

Weapon/Weapon Skills
As several others have stated, Hammer skill damage, animation lock, and combo opportunities leave something to be desired.

At minimum, I would like to see base damage increased 10% and whirl finishers added to Hammer skills where appropriate. If the intent for the spec is to be a mid range buffer/bruiser, adjust water and earth to have better gap closers to compensate weaving in and out of range and perhaps add a bit of barrier for successful hits on skills 4 and 5 in those attunements as appropriate. If the intent of the spec is not to be a mid range buffer/bruiser, and more of an area denial spec, a range increase would be appreciated to compete with core weapons from 2012.

Utilities
Augments are a unique take on PBAoE self buffs with a higher payoff for positioning within your sphere's radius. With the proposed changes above, I feel that the sphere becomes more of an extension of the spec and Augments would naturally see more play.

That said, I would like to see Augments adjusted to ammo skills other classes have received and perhaps remove the specific jade sphere element requirement as it helps approaching strategizing non-boon buffs over longer duration fights.

I also would like to see the Augment heal adjusted to a 2-3 second heal like Ether Renewal if not an flat instant cast like the Firebrand Mantra.

Traits
Compared to Bladesworn or Vindicator traits, I feel these traits are pretty vanilla and antithetical to Catalyst's core design principles.

I would adjust the lines as follows:

Aura Line - I would adjust these traits to be more "brawler" themed/focused around combo finishers, not just solely Auras. Maybe provide extra damage (or condis?) to newly implemented whirl finishers? A barrier application and/or heal on Leap Finishers?

Empowerment Line - I would adjust Vicious Empowerment to interact with deploying the Jade Sphere and not reliant on Disables/Immobilizes. Evasive Empowerment should also include successfully blocking an attack. Empowered Empowerment (ha) is good as a grandmaster trait.

Sphere Line - I would adjust Energized Elements to provide more flat passive energy generation in combat, perhaps at the expense of sphere damage potency. Spectacular Sphere is pretty lackluster compared to the other two adjusted Major Master traits - perhaps give it some form of soft CC for each element in addition? Sphere specialist is a crazy strong trait allowing the sphere to overcap on boon duration. I would adjust this down to 25% boon duration and maybe if tech allows, to permit two elemental spheres being deployed at once with lower potency instead?
 

In conclusion, there are several ideas at play with the catalyst and I feel with a bit of focus, implementing some of these suggestions could really make it shine and compete with the likes of Bladesworn and Vindicator. I look forward to trying the spec again later this year and hope the spec team takes our suggestions into consideration.

[InspectorCaracal.2970]

I said I didn't have any useful gameplay feedback, but it turns out I was wrong.

I just discovered that "picking up" your sphere expends ALL of the energy you have stored up. I completely understand putting in a penalty cost, like the one for dropping out of avatar mode on druid (yes, I do main ranger, how did you know) but a full loss of all the energy you've built up is really too much of a penalty for needing to raise anchor.

On a subjective note, the hammer skills feel like they can't make up their mind if they want to be melee or ranged. I'm a little biased, since I like sword weaver the best, but I kind of expected hammer ele's weapon skills to play more like a slower, tankier, harder-hitting weaver - and they almost do, but not quite, which I feel makes them less compelling from both sides.

[Phazon.3975]

Unfortunately while I felt this specialization looked much better than the previous one just by looking at the trailer, when it came to visuals and abilities, trying it out left me disappointed.

 

Pros:

-Hammer is fine as the new weapon. It can be it's own thing on Elementalist as a destructive, tanky, supportive frontliner. (Small Rant: Really glad it wasn't a bow. Sorry not sorry. How would it function? As a "better" staff? Would make staff even more useless. You were never forced to use the previous specs as strictly melee either. Have you not tried Fresh Air scepter Weaver/Tempest? It's kitten fun. Simply. Buff. Staff.)

 

-The visual effects, icons, and flavor of this specialization is far better in quality compared the first batch of specs we got.

 

Cons:

-Unable to give any Pros for the specialization when it comes to gameplay/mechanics. It feels like it's trying to be ,or focus on, multiple things at once. Auras, "Elemental Empowerment", Wells. I see hammer as a weapon that can be used just for synergy with the specialization itself so it's entirely optional to use the weapon with the spec it came with like previous Elementalist elites. But despite that hammer needs plenty of buffs because...

 

- Hammer, while coming with neat visual effects, has an awkward mishmash of skills that do not synergize well with each other. It also feels that hammer is, I don't know, a little... "shy(?)" on what it should be doing. Hammer needs to come with more destruction and defensive skills for being such a lumbering weapon. You expect me to be running into the fray with my non-existent health pool and you give me a skill like "Whirling Stones"? LOL. Using this skill legit made my laugh out loud on how terrible it is. Hammer skills NEED to do more. Like make Whirling Stones have a larger AoE that blocks projectiles or make it pulse Ring Of Earth for such a long channel. Also fire is "range" but it expects me to get right in their face to smack them for a pitiful buff? Hammer skills need more synergy. And just more in general.

 

-Hammer skill 3 feels like a mechanic that would've been part of the Catalyst but was placed in hammer for whatever reason for, idk, the cool factor I guess? Make it unique? The orbs don't last long enough and hammer skills are too slow to be switching attunements and basically wanting to make me play like a Weaver and sacrificing my attunement cooldown for a "cute" payoff of being able to fire all the orbs. Buff this skill by making the orbs last longer or just scrap it entirely. The effect visually and the way it works is neat but again. This feels like something that should've been part of the Catalyst and not the hammer.

 

-I like the idea of giving energy on Elementalist. I think it fits. But why did it have to be a resource for such a boring mechanic like "Jade Spheres." When I imagine an Elementalist building up energy, I expect a massive storm of destruction is coming. But instead we just plop in some Well that does...buffs I guess. Jade Spheres need more freedom of control. Increase the AoE. Make them work like Rev's Ventari Tablet. Let us have the option to change the avatar after switching to a different element at will. And make them more intimidating and worth using. Building up energy is so annoying just to use this lackluster mechanic. Make energy regenerate outside of combat while combat speeds it up. The only thing cool about this is that it summons the celestials from the Factions campaign.

 

-The traits make the spec feel like it's having an identity crisis of some sort. There's a lot of focus on auras (which already was a Tempest thing) and it's like these traits expect me to be constantly pumping them out. There is no way to consistently gain auras on elementalist for traits such as Hardened and Empowering Auras, unless I'm using the Conjurer trait I guess. There's also "Elemental Empowerment" which feels like some slapped on "blight" mechanic like the Harbinger? So am I some "aura" spamming battlemage? A support class? Tempest and Weaver have traits that reflect with the mechanics they were given, Overloads and Dual Attacks/Stances. Catalyst's mechanic (supposedly) are these "Jade Spheres" but when I look at the trait tree I have no idea what this specialization is trying to be.

 

Not sure how to improve and mold the spec into it's own thing really. If we make the Jade Spheres move with the player, then it'll just feel like Tempest. But we have spinny orbs, celestial avatars, and energy that is unique to this spec. Maybe make Hammer 3 a Catalyst mechanic and perhaps make Catalyst a transformation based specialization? When you get enough energy you can transform into the avatars with unique skills and buffs. Not sure. Sorry if this is negative but the more of these specializations they reveal the more I wish that they could've just taken a break from elite specs and perhaps this expansion could've come with new skills for existing classes/specializations. Guild Wars 1 did that. Why not here?

 

 

 

Edited September 22, 2021 by Phazon.3975

[Hikosama.2971]

After trying out new this e-spec, as same as all comments above, I think this one is so much piano but low effort.

 

The F5 mech is so useless and so much unfun to use in anyway. Why need build up energy so slow to use a thing that don't give you anything special or a good boost.  I suggest so with small buff you get, the F5 need to remove the energy and the CD.  Make it follow you when activated. Also it costs endurance (15 pt per 1s) to maintain (I think why need new energy why you can cheat endurance as energy) This is for synergy with other traitline that gain endurance). So the catalyst's adept xx3 change to gain 2 enduarance when swapping attunement in combat too.

 

The hammer's skill. Yep like other comments, this weapon is bad and need tweak.

 

The traitline, mainly the elemental empowerment effect is slow to build up with small bonus. As my experience, at max it's just  a small +10% all stat but only power, toughness, vitality with 1.000 base are directly get this bonus (if you dont invest any point on them), you get nothing from other stats if you don't invest point  (ex. how get bonus with 0 healing power). +10% I think it's not a big deal why so hard to maintain to max. Just keep it refresh duration when apply new one. And The minor grandmaster (elemetal epitome), why has 10s ICD on combo to gain an aura. You must use at least 2 skills to combo and with a limit field and finisher to use so It doesnt need to be deserve that long ICD, just lower to 3s or completely remove ICD.  This also make eles maintain the effect more longer.  Go on with hardened auras and empowering auras, they need more duration to maintain to max (only 10% at max) with limit skill that gain auras (although I know a-net want this spec get effect when in group with other eles' spec such as tempest but it still just another +10% bonus at all so it acceptable if you can gain when solo ), just up duration to same as elemental empowerment.

 

[Magicus.4302]

Likes:

• Heal from the hammer 4 water skill felt great, better than the actual healing skill
• Synergy between the jade sphere with fortified earth giving barrier (however the amount of barrier felt low for the amount of time consumed to pull off the combo)

 

Dislikes:

• Length of the jade sphere
• Cooldown on the jade sphere after swapping attunements
• Access to the poison field was touted, but the hammer has no combo finishers that actually cause poison, I had to use arcane blast for that
• Whirling Stones (hammer 2 earth) doesn't provide a whirl finisher

[Lillium.6481]

I'm very disappointed with this spec right away just for being ANOTHER melee spec for Elementalist, which the class neither wants nor needs. I also really don't like hammer, and find it horribly unfitting for the class.

 

But getting hands on with the class for this beta, I've managed to be even more disappointed at Catalyst. The F5 field looks fantastic visually - When it's up. It's ridiculously short, with sort of a long build up, and frankly not enough effect once it is up (PvE). I like the concept of this ability, and as the most core feature of the elite spec, it is something that with a lot of fixing could make the spec fun to play with alone, aside from the utility skills or the weapon. But in PvE, it needs to be available faster, with a SIGNIFICANTLY increased up time. I mean basically constant, ala Scourge's Shades. If this is at the cost of some boons? Well, it may help build variety with the spec to move boons into the traits rather than just innately attached to the field. Or the boons could be tied to the rather limited energy, while the damage and field could be constant. Maybe the energy could be the limiter for how often you can move the field - which is pretty important imo, for how much most combat moves around. There are a lot of ways to fix what's going on here, but in my opinion, it starts with this jade sphere field thing being just plain more available.

The energy bar definitely needs to be bigger, in any case. The tiny little thing over the skill is barely visible. A big energy bar sort of like Revenant's could easily sit under the attunement icons without looking too busy or confusing.

 

The Augments are way WAY too restrictive by requiring use in a specific attunement. The pay off for being in that attunement is too small - BUT WAIT! You don't just need to be in the correct attunement, you also need to be in your F5 field! Which ... Has a poor up time. While the Augments would absolutely be better if they were either versatile (different effects on every skill depending on attunement, you know like Glyphs or a bunch of Ele's other stuff) or else attunement neutral (kinda like Tempest's Shouts), the requirement of the F5 field as is makes Augments basically useless.

The requirement for using these skills in the F5 field could stay - if and only if drastic changes are made to the availability of the field. Assuming those changes, the Augments would still need to either be versatile for attunements.  Or the potency of these skills would need increased to a hard-to-balance level, to make the pay off worthwhile.

 

I don't think I was ever going to like the hammer, honestly. It's dissonant with the very caster concept of Elementalist. But attempting to set aside my personal distaste for the weapon, I still just do not find hammer appealing. It's VERY slow, the attacks don't feel like they flow. The orbs look visually fantastic, like the F5 field, but their usefulness... Is very poor for PvE. Having to hold mobs at an exact range to hit them with orbs, while being a spec with a lot of outright melee (which moves you closer, so the orbs no longer hit), is not great. I could have played with the rotation of cycling through attunements to maximize orbs longer, but frankly, it didn't feel good. The pay off was way too slow, especially for PvE where anything short of a boss is just plain dead already, which really limits where this weapon will be viable (let alone fun).

As far as the partially midrange, partially melee skills of the weapon, I think the concept of the weapon wants to be this really fluid thing that moves around the battle field, staying close-ish but dangerous from any range within that... But it really doesn't quite reach its goal. I had much more fun when I just lazily strapped on dagger/dagger with the rest of this spec instead. But given how poor the central jade-F5-thing mechanic is, and how useless the Augments are (so I ditched most for base skills), in the end I just felt like a core Elementalist. And I was - A base Elementalist with an f5 button.

[Zerosins.5678]

.(As a note I am speaking purely from a pvp/wvw standpoint for context, I have no intention of messing around with this class in pve.)

 

Hammer

-Damage on all of the skills are abysmally low for how much time is spent locked in animations.  (Most of the skills actually do less damage then an auto attack from most of the other weapons in far more time)

-The range on a large portion of the skills are also a bit questionable; example, Air 4 into Air 2, a combo I am assuming is meant to be a thing can only be done at point blank range, any further and you effectively knock yourself out of your own effective attack range for pretty much all of your skills, basically a bit of anti synergy there. (I feel like if the ranged skills were around 800-900 range it would resolve this problem).

-The mobility and defensive utility the weapon has isn't particularly great. Air 4 knocks you out of your own effective attack range in most cases, and while you can do some cheeky about face shenanigans, to move around with this, I wouldn't really want the class to have to rely on this just to move around. Due to how short the block duration actually is, earth 4's whole gimmick with the auras ends up being relatively pointless, you are getting magnetic aura, period. Water 4 is alright, but it has the issue of being the only gap closer the weapon has, forcing the ele to basically run at the enemy and hope they don't get mowed down before they are in range to do anything.

-The Lack of natural field generation, and combo finishers on the hammer itself makes the weapon feel extremely clunky to use. I understand the logic was to use class mechanic to generate fields, and blast them with the one hammer skill in each element, but it feels REAL bad, and extremely forced. 

-The Grand Finale gimmick has a lot of issues, being forced to cycle through all of your elements within a 5 second window of each other is not really worth the pay off. The damage is extremely low, the tracking is very poor (you can consistently avoid several of the projectiles simply by walking in any direction around the ele), and to top it all off this skill doesn't even count as a projectile finisher, so there isn't even any synergy with the specialization.

 

Jade Sphere

-The ability takes way to long to charge, and the pay off is lack luster since the field is stationary.

-Speeding up the charge time, and making the jade sphere a mobile field that follows the ele should make the mechanic feel a whole lot smoother then it currently does.

 

Utilities

-Overall, all of these utility skills feel like inferior versions of skills that already exist with extra steps that aren't really worth the payoff for meeting the requirements, let alone investing a utility slot for them.

 

Traits

-Outside from the aura traits on the top row, none of the other traits for this specialization seem to be worth running. They are extremely inconsistent, and it is hard to justify passing up empowering/hardened auras, and a significant amount of stability for the chance of maybe getting up to 10 stacks Elemental Empowerment for a few seconds. I can't help but feel like the duration for Elemental Empowerment should reset as you generate stacks.

 

 

Edited September 22, 2021 by Zerosins.5678

[Phazon.3975]

8 minutes ago, Lillium.6481 said:

And I was - A base Elementalist with an f5 button.

 

That hit so hard.

[Razor.6392]

By now it's clear that weaver has a happy accident. A fluke if you will.

[Bunny.9834]

I absolutely hate this e-spec. This is worse than weave when the weaver first came out. The AMOUNT of micromanaging you have to do is insane. 

 

First you have to keep "striking" for this energy so you can use your "sphere"

Wait you need energy? yes it's that's teeny tiny thing on top of that sphere. 

Now you have a sphere, go use combo so you can get auras. It's that skill 5 on your hammer. 

Oh you wanna switch attunements? go ahead but do it before the enemies move. Oh no, the enemy moved, you have to wait cause you can't move this sphere. 

Oh what's that the augments? Yeah go use it. But if you want the most use out of it make sure your using it on the right element of the sphere. 

What's that? the elite? you have 8 seconds to start smashing things so you get some recharge on your skills. Then wait 90 seconds. 

 

Please please rework this spec... already. 

 

[WhoWantsAHug.3186]

Catalyst's f5 mechanic should be reworked to the hammer 3 skill and pressing f5 would release the orbs or something like that imo. 

Edited September 22, 2021 by WhoWantsAHug.3186

[Jski.6180]

Fast feedback.

Please buff staff and scpter! It would fix a lot of what ppl want here for a ranged dmg class with out needing to comply rework catalyst.

Hammer feels to slow and at the same time dose not seem to have as many effects. Its ok for it to be slow but it should have a massive effect it is a hammer you should not want to get hit by it even if its not dmg only. There a lot of spinning effects that feel like they need to do a wherel combo as well as a projectile from its say air 1 skill (on hammer air 1 its to low of an attk so it cant hit a lot of things even though its with in 600 range).

The F5 is too all in to not be something you can move. It needs to stay on the ele or give the ele the ability to move it during the effect.

I would say the utility seem to not last long enofe or do not have strong enofe effect OR has no trait line effect such as being able to share the effect.

I like the ideal of combos added effect but why only have one effect for it if that what the class is for. Please think about adding more added effect to combos. I also like to see an true earth field only ele or even only catalyst can get.

My last feedback over all EoD eleit spec add nothing realy new to the game. No new boons field combos condis is there a reason for this? I understand a KISS point of view but you got to add something that a class dose not have in an usable way. Quickness support for Catalyst is nice but as is its not useful at all. As well as giving classes the same effect such as quickness boon that it already has in another elite spec is NOT a new effect it just power creep for that new elite spec.

I love the animations for the f5 they look good and i would love to see more fields like that as long as it dose not kill too many farms.

 

[Xzygy.1452]

Really disappointed in this after playing around with it for a few hours. 

 

I have absolutely no idea what you wanted hammer to do except the swirly things, but even those are like all setup, no payoff.  I have other characters with a bigger auto attack hit than those.

 

The utility abilities are just underwhelming.

 

I think the spec would feel different if the well was on you like a gyro, and if the utilities caused it to pulse with an effect.

 

That might bring the hammer somewhat into line as well, but yeah.

[Squigglez.1236]

I rarely play ele because none of the play styles have appealed to me. I was one of the few excited to hear they were getting hammer, and I'm still looking forward to seeing ranger. That said I think this may have been built a bit too restrictive. It seems like the elemental empowerment was meant to be the booster ele needed to improve survival along with hardened and empowering auras. I did watch the stream and it was mentioned that they were designed to be hard to maintain but a significant boost but I think the hard to maintain bit got a bit carried away. With no fields on the weapons themselves the only combo catalyst can do with themselves is with the jade sphere, even with the jade sphere fully charged to maintain 10 stacks of elemental empowerment requires going through every attunement just to cast it's finisher (fire 5, water 4, air 5, earth 5). The trait that allows finishers to give auras has a 10s cooldown per attunement. I assume this makes the class easier to play with another person supplying fields but even so there are issues. I can't find a way to maintain stacks of hardened/empowered auras myself (they both have 6s duration, as said the aura trait has 10s cooldown, the above rotation gives 4 auras but max stacks is 5 and hammer gives no auras itself without the block). This seems to have flown passed the point of making synergy to land on dependence, you need someone else to supply you enough aura to keep the buffs up and that kind of strips away having it as a survival tool. Also the trait Empowered Empowerment which gives 2% stat increase instead of 1% only if you have max of 10 stacks ends up hurting more than helping because losing 1 stack removes 11% of the stats, even at base vitality this is over a 1k hp drop from one stack expiring.
The sphere is overly punishing too, energy drains outside of combat, ending the skill prematurely removes all your remaining energy and puts it on full cooldown. The cooldown is 15s in pve which is the same as the elemental empowerment, so once again without outside help you'll never maintain the traits that supposedly help with survival.
The utility durations are very short, 5s for most of them, take 3/4 of a second to cast, only give full effect when next to a sphere attuned to the correct element, and aren't all too useful. The best use I could manage is to camp air, put down sphere, use the augment now that I have quickness, and use air 2 because it's one of the only skills with a decent number of quick hits.
Speaking of the boons, the only one worth using is air. Quickness is much more powerful than anything else the sphere can give. Only giving 1 might isn't worth it because of how many classes can stack might now. Resistance would be better resolution, but really quickness is such powerful boon that aside from putting resistance, alacrity, and 5 might on the others I think the play is going to be to slot all bottom traits for boon duration, use a fast attacking weapon and then jump into air and drop the sphere for full duration before resuming damage.
Finally the hammer, I still like the idea of more hammer users, and even enjoy some of the skills on hammer as it is, but having to blast auras and swap to maintain the skill 3 orbs means this is 100% melee and not mid-range/melee as stated. It's true air and fire are mid range but there's no point in leaving melee if you're going to need to swap to water/earth soon. On that note, if you're fighting in melee the orbs don't actually hit targets in melee range making a sort of counter synergy. There are no fields so some traits have no function with hammer and it makes combo-ing very difficult, and some of the attacks are brutally slow. I get hammer is a heavy weapon but earth 2 is so slow I'm almost mad at myself when I press it.

My recommendations would be:
1. Make sphere keep energy when canceled so moving it is an option, I'd almost suggest having it regen energy when inactive and out of combat rather than degen so it's usable at the start of a fight. Make the boon durations longer for fire/water/earth so then you get the option of camping air for quickness or rotation for decent stacks of the other boons, or change the boons to 5 might, aegis, resistance, stability or something powerful so they all have some use and it's not quickness or nothing. Also lower the cooldown by 5s at least, it's already gated by energy build up.
2. Make hammer 3 orbs last longer, and maybe alter their radius based on attunement or something. The short duration of the orbs really locks you into playing a given way if you want their buffs to last any time at all. Also make the hammer attacks faster and/or more impactful, if it's a slow weapon it should be high pay off.
3. Increase the time the trait buffs last so they can be maintained if you decide to play that way, also make the grandmaster just give 2% instead of double at 10 stacks.
4. Increase the duration of utilities and preferably give them an effect for any sphere not just one as it's overly restrictive as is.

Edited September 22, 2021 by XDeathShadowX.2619
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