Catalyst is the worst spec I've ever played

[Pimsley.3681]

Im in disbelief how unrewarding this spec is. Utilities that are no so great are tied to attunement field/blast combos. You have to be in water and perform a 2 step combo for the new heal skill to work. I know there are alternatives but I just cant fathom that someone thought this would be a good idea. The damage is not great. It's slow and clunky. The F5 is worthless. Energy generation too slow. It's dysfunctional. 

 

Last beta, I spent time theory crafting until the last day. For the catalyst, I want to like it but can't. Sad coz I was looking forward to this. 

[Bast.7253]

I honestly haven't been thrilled about any of them so far. I mean, harbinger was alright. Virtuoso was just boring but I found a condi build that plays pretty much exactly how mirage plays.

These specs.. I haven't had much time with them but I just don't really get it. I mean, Rev seems like it could be kind of fun.. but at the end of the day it's just some weird amalgamation of renegade and herald. With fires from above being baked into greatsword 5. It's decent enough I guess.

Bladesword was... clunky and it's cool you can charge big damage in pve.. but didn't seem that practical.

Catalyst is just like... why am I playing this? I tried hammer and felt like I was using a conjured weapon. It just felt awkward for some reason. And the f5 I barely even used because it's so annoying building energy for it and then the augmentations  you have to use IN the right attunement well to have them be anything other than a mediocre buff.

It's just bad. REAL bad. I don't know how they can go from weaver to this clunky mess and feel confident about it. It's literally just new useless utilities, a useless new weapon, and a well that MIGHT get use in organized group play or open world and even then feels negligible.

And let's not talk about their neat new hammer skill 3 that lets you STACK 4 floating orbs. Nevermind they seem to expire so quickly that unless you spam attunements you won't be able to get the maximum use out of them. 

I don't know who is designing these specs but I'm definitely unimpressed. And the forced lore explanation during the beta livestream doesn't make me go, WOW THAT'S SO COOL. Especially when they don't even know how to pronounce the names on the traits.

I don't know. It might be fun when it goes live just for the sake of having new options, but I can't say that any of them have really impressed me that much. And ele and mesmer are my mains and I feel like they both just got the dullest little change in playstyle imaginable. 

 

[Paradoxoglanis.1904]

Theorycrafting catalyst basically comes down to aura-boon synergies. Its just core ele with an f5 that you can rarely get any use out of. And hammer is a whole other issue. Its one of the lowest damage weapons in the game, its slow, it has cleave but poor aoe, it has next to no defense on it, its completely shut down by projectile defense... Really, what is this weapon supposed to be? People joke a lot about anet hating ele but wow, this is a new low. I know they are going to change coefficients but the functionality of the weapon is not there, its honestly worse than staff. And the sad thing is catalyst is the best design out of the 3, maybe even out of all 6 specs.

[Sovarica.4368]

Played a bit of it I can't see a way to win duels with this spec the damage is kinda meh the defensive options is kinda bleh and the team fighting feels like you have to get in close and absorb a lot of damage the healing slot skill seems slow. The rest of utils don't seem that great the elite skill has a long recharge for a couple of boons? Well I haven't played it that much I could be wrong but seems like an uphill battle to get this thing to work against the meta builds

[Pimsley.3681]

No synergy between hammer, energy, new utilities with any other ele traits. 

Hammer = crap

F5 = crap

New Elite = WTF is that?

 

Weaver was complicated at first but the rewards for playing it was evident. 

 

Catalyst has no redeeming value. Not in PvP not in PvE. 

 

I was dazed after playing this POS crap of a spec. Nothing about it make any sense. 

 

Ele gameplay is supposed to be fast paced and exciting. Now they introduced a  low damage snail hammer and timing attunement combos with long CDs in order to make the spec compete at 20% the capacity of all specs in the game. Also, no weapon evades. 

 

Was the creation of this spec outsourced?

 

 

[Pimsley.3681]

23 minutes ago, Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:

Theorycrafting catalyst basically comes down to aura-boon synergies. Its just core ele with an f5 that you can rarely get any use out of. And hammer is a whole other issue. Its one of the lowest damage weapons in the game, its slow, it has cleave but poor aoe, it has next to no defense on it, its completely shut down by projectile defense... Really, what is this weapon supposed to be? People joke a lot about anet hating ele but wow, this is a new low. I know they are going to change coefficients but the functionality of the weapon is not there, its honestly worse than staff. And the sad thing is catalyst is the best design out of the 3, maybe even out of all 6 specs.

 

Yes. Even if they adjust the damage coefficient, the synergies aren't there which will make functional rotations very difficult to impossible. The hammer, F5 and new utilities are like foreign objects that have nothing in common with the class. 

[Pimsley.3681]

1 hour ago, Bast.7253 said:

Catalyst is just like... why am I playing this? 
It's just bad. REAL bad.

^^^  my thoughts exactly

[Coffee And Cream.6198]

I'm convinced this hammer weapon kit was meant for raids and WvW.  Once out of zerges the ele goes to D/D weapon and is viable as a core ele setup again.  The weapon kit is not for SPVP.

[Touchme.1097]

It is clear to me that Catalyst has been designed with WvW into mind to add more wells to the game. WvW is cemented already as the end game content of GW2.

Unfortunately Catalyst is far from being ready for the release as it's clearly underperforming.

It's a shame to see another Elite Spec wasted on Elementalist. The root of the problem lays into the Core and it's already too late to hope for a complete  rework of the profession.

We have two options, either wait till Anet devs waste all the melee and mid range designs on Elementalist or quitting to play the profession right now so you don't waste time and efforts on a disappointment.

Your choice matters.

Edited September 23, 2021 by Touchme.1097

[Axl.8924]

I tried it and OOF yeah its really bad.

 

So far i've tried multiple that feel a bit underwhelming.

 

Willbender catalyst bladesworn are pretty underwhelming.

 

It doesn't even have good dmg in fire like the way you could on other weapons, so why does it exist? At least in scepter i got good dmg in both fire and air.

[Crab Fear.1624]

On 9/21/2021 at 7:40 PM, Pimsley.3681 said:

Im in disbelief how unrewarding this spec is. Utilities that are no so great are tied to attunement field/blast combos. You have to be in water and perform a 2 step combo for the new heal skill to work. I know there are alternatives but I just cant fathom that someone thought this would be a good idea. The damage is not great. It's slow and clunky. The F5 is worthless. Energy generation too slow. It's dysfunctional. 

 

Last beta, I spent time theory crafting until the last day. For the catalyst, I want to like it but can't. Sad coz I was looking forward to this. 

Renegade was worse on release and stayed bad for a couple years.

Edited September 23, 2021 by Crab Fear.1624

[Liewec.2896]

yeah catalyst seems to be the most confused of the bunch. (though i'm not really a fan of any of them.)

another3rd melee elite spec for the class that should be filling the "mage" playstyle.

heavy reliant on combofinishers on one of the classes with the least combo finishers...

Edited September 23, 2021 by Liewec.2896

[Axl.8924]

1 hour ago, Crab Fear.1624 said:

Renegade was worse on release and stayed bad for a couple years.

One of the confusing things is you have this big thing that you summon around you for minor dmg and there aren't any big moves for dealing big dmg with those melee hits a few ccs not much. I'm not really sure what they want this spec to do.

Scepter for instance at least has multiple hard hitting moves that deal good damage and has its sustain tools that are good. This one in melee range just feels weird.

Edited September 23, 2021 by Axl.8924

[TheDarkness.6947]

I just can’t fathom why they want to take a class with 11k base health and light armor, and force it into 130 range to do whatever smallish damage it can hammer out.  It’s like someone at Anet is planning to compile a ‘funniest elementalist try-hard deaths’ reel to show at the office Christmas party.

[jdawgie.1835]

Is it weird that I want to see an Elementalist spec that plays like a mage? That actually can do ranged attacks? 

46 minutes ago, TheDarkness.6947 said:

I just can’t fathom why they want to take a class with 11k base health and light armor, and force it into 130 range to do whatever smallish damage it can hammer out.

This pretty much sums up how I feel. Make it squishy if the gaps are closed sure. I dont even main ele tbh, but I feel like it deserves to have a better presence in relation to the type of hero it is supposed to be. The specs all feel like this wannabe battle mage style of play. 

[Pimsley.3681]

Hey thanks guys for pitching in. 

Really hope anet does a massive overhaul on Catalyst. 

 

I thought we were the only ones but then I went on and watched about 30 min of Catalyst game play from 2 pvp ele mains. 

One twitch video was titled "Can I save the Catalyst" the other "Catalyst omega fun but omega sad" 

 

Also after playing Catalyst, I went on playing CORE and somehow did way better.

 

After playing Catalyst, I fell in love with my weaver even more despite the longer CD's and overall damage shave.  

[Pimsley.3681]

22 hours ago, Coffee And Cream.6198 said:

I'm convinced this hammer weapon kit was meant for raids and WvW.  Once out of zerges the ele goes to D/D weapon and is viable as a core ele setup again.  The weapon kit is not for SPVP.

 

Hey Coffee and Cream! Nice seeing on you on here. BTW guys he is an ele main and one of the best I've encountered in-game. 

I've hit a wall synergizing hammer in spvp. Hope you're right about it being meant for raids and wvw ( i do neither of those) so that at the very least the spec gets some use. But I still feel there are better alternatives to it. Maybe you can enlighten me here or in-game. 

 

I've been playing Vin and it's incredible how the Vin trait synergizes with Retribution. 

 

The Catalyst doesnt have that and there's no exciting trait except for minor damage boons. 

[BlackBeard.2873]

In pvp, catalyst is meant to be played as a semi-selfish auramancer that spams auras for sustain. Do not use hammer or any catalyst utilities. Even the block isn't that great as it isn't a stunbreak.

My best spec so far: D/D with Fire (3/2/1), Arcana (3/2/1), and Catalyst (2/2/1) with Sage amulet. I have tested a few, and rune of the forge seems to work pretty well. Utilities:, signet of restoration, cantrips and stunbreaks. Do a rotation that generally goes: fire (drop fire 4 before leaving)-->water (blast + a couple heals as needed)-->earth (EA dodge, use a blast if you want, then end with a cast-swap of either 3-4-5 so that the combo executes in air giving you shocking aura. Cast some air skills as appropriate, then head back to fire

The F5 is there to fill in when you miss you fire field (helps reset the rotation), or to act as a water field so you can do an earth blast-swap followed by water-3 blast to get your health back up.

This is basically a d/d auramancer ele. It is more selfish than tempest and doesn't provide as much healing, but auras help it have reasonable matchups in 1v1's (good cleanses, good prot uptime, good reflect and stab uptime) and have good kiting potential in 2v1's. This build also does pretty well in teamfights thanks to you blasting those fields + boon-share from elemental attunement + cleanses from a transmute in air and water as-needed. It feels like a pretty good bruiser fighting at mid-close range, which is what I think they were going for.

S/D also kinda works, but doesn't work as well due to having 1 less weapon-skill aura, and the blasting-order requires finisher-swaps into both water and air for auras making the rotation more rigid b/c you always have to go from fire/earth into water/air to keep your auras up. The extra finishers on earth 1/2 are nice though for completing auras.

 

[Oslaf NA.2793]

You think there is fun in a spec design when CMC's philosophy guides it?

[Pimsley.3681]

22 minutes ago, Oslaf NA.2793 said:

You think there is fun in a spec design when CMC's philosophy guides it?

During that beta event, he was least enthusiastic about the Catalyst and rushed the explanation of the traits because, heck maybe in his mind he believes it sucks too. 

[Pimsley.3681]

50 minutes ago, BlackBeard.2873 said:

In pvp, catalyst is meant to be played as a semi-selfish auramancer that spams auras for sustain. Do not use hammer or any catalyst utilities. Even the block isn't that great as it isn't a stunbreak.

My best spec so far: D/D with Fire (3/2/1), Arcana (3/2/1), and Catalyst (2/2/1) with Sage amulet. I have tested a few, and rune of the forge seems to work pretty well. Utilities:, signet of restoration, cantrips and stunbreaks. Do a rotation that generally goes: fire (drop fire 4 before leaving)-->water (blast + a couple heals as needed)-->earth (EA dodge, use a blast if you want, then end with a cast-swap of either 3-4-5 so that the combo executes in air giving you shocking aura. Cast some air skills as appropriate, then head back to fire

The F5 is there to fill in when you miss you fire field (helps reset the rotation), or to act as a water field so you can do an earth blast-swap followed by water-3 blast to get your health back up.

This is basically a d/d auramancer ele. It is more selfish than tempest and doesn't provide as much healing, but auras help it have reasonable matchups in 1v1's (good cleanses, good prot uptime, good reflect and stab uptime) and have good kiting potential in 2v1's. This build also does pretty well in teamfights thanks to you blasting those fields + boon-share from elemental attunement + cleanses from a transmute in air and water as-needed. It feels like a pretty good bruiser fighting at mid-close range, which is what I think they were going for.

S/D also kinda works, but doesn't work as well due to having 1 less weapon-skill aura, and the blasting-order requires finisher-swaps into both water and air for auras making the rotation more rigid b/c you always have to go from fire/earth into water/air to keep your auras up. The extra finishers on earth 1/2 are nice though for completing auras.

 

 

Thanks for sharing and putting in the effort to understand this elite. The ele is my favorite class and I was more upbeat with the last beta event. I still feel deflated but will definitely give your spec a try. On paper, it's quite an intelligent build considering what little we have to work with.