Catalyst feels like trash

[Flori.2194]

I have seen Grimjack play in the games yesterday (french worms against team usa) and even in an all eod specs meta catalyst sucked hard. And when the games after a worm played catalyst they were feeding as well. Even Teapot admitted that Catalyst might not be best suited for pvp... 

[Lynx.9058]

What does catalyst really offer if you don't use hammer?  The traits feel like they're less powerful and have fewer synergies than tempest or weaver, and the utilities feel subpar.  The only thing it really stands out for is jade sphere Which is still clunky, too short lived, and unnecessarily impeded by energy mechanics.

[Anthony.8056]

I like how people are defending the catalyst because of numbers that will eventually get nerfed by the time it launches. Numbers are going to be changed throughout its cycle but the design and having to manage so much on this class will stay the same. The excuses people are giving is laughable because elementalist shouldn't have to work twice as hard on a low hp class to get mediocre damage while heavy and medium armor do less work providing better damage just at the press of a button (not buttons). The fact that they have a trait line just to build up stats instead of giving it to minor trait is garbage and laziness. Everything you have to manage on this class is like trying to get a strike every time from bowling because you have to micromanage a lot to get the full benefit of the damage. 

[ClickToKill.8473]

What I learned in this beta is that there are a group of people that are trying steer the catalyst in a playable, fun direction from its current state, and then there is a group of people angry that the new e-spec isn't a 1-shot insta-gib from 1500 range, similar to Soulbeast when PoF came out.  Can't please everyone.  😛

 

 

[Ace.1784]

3 hours ago, Lynx.9058 said:

What does catalyst really offer if you don't use hammer?  The traits feel like they're less powerful and have fewer synergies than tempest or weaver, and the utilities feel subpar.  The only thing it really stands out for is jade sphere Which is still clunky, too short lived, and unnecessarily impeded by energy mechanics.

From my playthroughs I've identified

• The most consistent stability application of any Elementalist spec
• Unique boons not found on any Elementalist spec
• Perma application of said unique boons (depending on your game mode and/or stat combination)
• Traits that boost your stats, allowing you to spec into more interesting stat combinations than the standard meta or "do more" within the standard meta

25 minutes ago, Anthony.8056 said:

I like how people are defending the catalyst because of numbers that will eventually get nerfed by the time it launches. Numbers are going to be changed throughout its cycle but the design and having to manage so much on this class will stay the same. The excuses people are giving is laughable because elementalist shouldn't have to work twice as hard on a low hp class to get mediocre damage while heavy and medium armor do less work providing better damage just at the press of a button (not buttons). The fact that they have a trait line just to build up stats instead of giving it to minor trait is garbage and laziness. Everything you have to manage on this class is like trying to get a strike every time from bowling because you have to micromanage a lot to get the full benefit of the damage. 

I'm not sure how long you've played, but this has always been Elementalist. We have double the skills of any class, so generally speaking, two of our buttons = 1 of another class.

Typically, Elementalist is THE highest damage class across the game modes I play in (high end PvE, WvW). The reason people usually don't want to bring Elementalist isn't the lack of damage, it's the lack of the players ability to survive or the lack of visible group utility.

I play every class and in my experience, it's easier to deal damage on another class; however, Elementalist has a higher damage ceiling. 

[Mattmatt.4962]

2 hours ago, Vinteros Asteano.1209 said:

 

Typically, Elementalist is THE highest damage class across the game modes I play in (high end PvE, WvW). The reason people usually don't want to bring Elementalist isn't the lack of damage, it's the lack of the players ability to survive or the lack of visible group utility.

I play every class and in my experience, it's easier to deal damage on another class; however, Elementalist has a higher damage ceiling. 

That is insanely wrong, Ele has lost top damage spot looooong ago, while also beeing super hard to play "high risk high reward" is not something that define ele (wvw player here).

If you want one super simple exemple of higher damage: engineer spamm 1 bomb kit. it's the dumbest build ever and it outdamage ele by a tons XD

[scerevisiae.1972]

PVE numbers vs a stationary golem (or boss that plays like one) are meaningless. In the majority of the game, where mobility and range matter, hammer sucks hard.

 

I played WVW with hammer for 4hr in full marauders with a damage-oritented build and full legendaries and trust me it sucked. I couldn't get much more than ~65% of other DPS classes, which also brought way more group utility. But hey it was good on the tower lord...

 

Seriously hammer is utter trash in WVW, which is pretty much the only game mode I care about. I really don't want to be stuck playing staff in WVW, it's already been 9 years. I REALLY REALLY REALLY want hammer to be viable in WVW. 

[Ace.1784]

3 minutes ago, Mattmatt.4962 said:

That is insanely wrong, Ele has lost top damage spot looooong ago, while also beeing super hard to play "high risk high reward" is not something that define ele (wvw player here).

If you want one super simple exemple of higher damage: engineer spamm 1 bomb kit. it's the dumbest build ever and it outdamage ele by a tons XD

In WvW, Elementalist has the highest damage uptime of all the classes and the only complaints is that staff can't burst, but it's generally understood that a staff Elementalist can consistently lay down damage.

We have several really good power scrapper players in my guild and they can top the dps charts fairly easily; however, when I am playing well and mindfully, I can outdamage them in fights by hundreds of thousands and I run marauder (We only play against organized guilds).

[Avatara.1042]

1 hour ago, Vinteros Asteano.1209 said:

In WvW, Elementalist has the highest damage uptime of all the classes and the only complaints is that staff can't burst, but it's generally understood that a staff Elementalist can consistently lay down damage.

We have several really good power scrapper players in my guild and they can top the dps charts fairly easily; however, when I am playing well and mindfully, I can outdamage them in fights by hundreds of thousands and I run marauder (We only play against organized guilds).

 

Most of that damage is useless, though.  I staff zerg as well, and unless you are on heavy defense, most of this damage is just AoE on the edges which is being healed instantly.  The Scrapper will do far more damage when it counts, all the while crapping out random boons for just existing.

[Shiyo.3578]

9 hours ago, Flori.2194 said:

I have seen Grimjack play in the games yesterday (french worms against team usa) and even in an all eod specs meta catalyst sucked hard. And when the games after a worm played catalyst they were feeding as well. Even Teapot admitted that Catalyst might not be best suited for pvp... 

Teapot doesn't have any PvP knowledge.

D/D catalyst is stupid and probably obscenely broken in WvW with full celestial gear since it gets +20% all stats and a low CD water field to spam leaps/blast finishers inside of as d/d and passive 10% DR + longer duration auras.

"Do you like d/d base ele? Well..you'll like Catalyst."

Pretty boring expansion if you were looking forward to something for your Ele.

Ele IMO needed a highly mobile, evasive, zero sustain burst spec. Like Virtuoso.

[Widmo.3186]

So, the core ele dd enthusiast speaking. Over 2k hours on Weaver, idk how many on core, all in PvP modes blah blah blah. Played both during first cata beta and now second. Thoughts? First of all, theres a reason why out of all specs this one was the least seen. Maybe just my 'lack of luck', but seriously, Ive seen literally everything else at least 5x more than dear catalyst. Second, at first beta I layed my hands on cata and almost vomited after 10 minutes, thats how in my opinon design of this spec is. Not much changed in that matter during recent beta. And havent seen a single catalyst on EU that would put my core ele in danger.

Then, where in the pantheon Id put lovely hammer spec? Lets start with Weaver, its nowhere close, period. Tempest? Different usage, not even comparable. What left is core ele. And thats the best part, if you consider using hammer - core ele is miles ahead. If something actually useful, like dd, its imo a personal choice. Well, yeah, look at me rushing to web store to buy expac just to play the other side of 2012 spec. Everyone looks forward getting fun skills, animations, utilities when it comes to expac (or at least thats how it should look like - Endwalker FF14 example), meanwhile fellow ele players should get excited because of...traitline full of raw stats? Kek.

Edited December 6, 2021 by Widmo.3186

[Avatara.1042]

9 hours ago, Shiyo.3578 said:

Teapot doesn't have any PvP knowledge.

D/D catalyst is stupid and probably obscenely broken in WvW with full celestial gear since it gets +20% all stats and a low CD water field to spam leaps/blast finishers inside of as d/d and passive 10% DR + longer duration auras.

"Do you like d/d base ele? Well..you'll like Catalyst."

Pretty boring expansion if you were looking forward to something for your Ele.

Ele IMO needed a highly mobile, evasive, zero sustain burst spec. Like Virtuoso.

You mean roaming?  20% all stats means no stability or high boon uptime from the sphere.

[Mattmatt.4962]

13 hours ago, Vinteros Asteano.1209 said:

In WvW, Elementalist has the highest damage uptime of all the classes and the only complaints is that staff can't burst, but it's generally understood that a staff Elementalist can consistently lay down damage.

We have several really good power scrapper players in my guild and they can top the dps charts fairly easily; however, when I am playing well and mindfully, I can outdamage them in fights by hundreds of thousands and I run marauder (We only play against organized guilds).

Dont wanna be rude but ..... eitheir you're liing, either you dont reliaze that as pure rarged you dont reset (thus you have indeed 100Ks damager more),  eitheir your scapper are terrible. But in no universe Staff weaver outdamage scapper, and Rev can be added to the list of dps that beats Weaver easily while also providing utility that Weaver doesnt have.

Weaver is not meta in WvW, people claiming the opposite are liars.

I think snowcrow's website is enough of a proof to proove that Weaver isnt a top dps in PVE.

and shall i even comment on PVP ?

 

As i stated, "high risk high reward" is not the definition of Elementalist.

[Bakeneko.5826]

On 12/3/2021 at 12:49 PM, Roul.3205 said:

Man, you guys are projecting hard. I have proven several times now that the class *is* useable and very strong in PvE content, yet I still keep hearing the same things. Can you just admit that you simply do not LIKE the class whilst acknowledging that it DOES work in PvE? Like it is fine to not like it because it is too hard for you, or you just straight up don't enjoy its mechanics, but acting as if it is garbage because of that is super unreasonable.

Since apperently lupi is a test dummy (wtf? It is genuinely the best boss in the game to teach you solo mechanics, and is harder than anything you can encounter in open world), here are two more examples, and I'll make sure to keep pumping out more:

Soloing MAMA: 

 

Pugging Slothasor: 

 

 

 

Finally some common sense in this topic. On the other hand, Lupi bugged into wall doesn't teach much, it's just test dummy with occasional skill.

On 12/4/2021 at 1:22 AM, kurosy.1384 said:

Roul plays mostly raid content and has shown great results in that. Don't worry, we'll see other good players showing good results in wvw/pvp. No sense expecting all from one guy.

This.

On 12/4/2021 at 5:55 AM, Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:

No one cares about dps benchmarks because its obviously going to change. People care about how the class feels to play, and hammer feels awful.

Everything can change, it's like you hate hammer being weapon, not class itself.

On 12/4/2021 at 11:47 AM, scerevisiae.1972 said:

Yeah ^this, though i think sword weaver kicks the kitten out of hammer catalyst in PVE.

Hammer is true garbage in WVW. 

Stupid videos vs golems or stationary fractal bosses are totally totally worthless.

 

Even if they tweak hammer's dmg coefficients to sky high, it would still suck because it's too close to sword/dagger and feels like crap to play in WVW/PVP because of the awkward melee-600 range split.

600 range caster is a potentially interesting space but - and there's no way to window dress it -- Anet in my view have completely failed to deliver on that brief.

It really sucks that bad.

 

 

 

You don't PvE much, do you?

[Puck.3697]

On 12/5/2021 at 3:40 PM, Flori.2194 said:

I have seen Grimjack play in the games yesterday (french worms against team usa) and even in an all eod specs meta catalyst sucked hard. And when the games after a worm played catalyst they were feeding as well. Even Teapot admitted that Catalyst might not be best suited for pvp... 

Yet grimjack is in thje SAME thread as you himself.. Saying Catalyst is good.. Lmfao.. Wut?.. how can u possibly say u watched grimjack while saying the exact opposite to what he himself stated lol.

 

[Flori.2194]

4 minutes ago, Daddy.8125 said:

Yet grimjack is in thje SAME thread as you himself.. Saying Catalyst is good.. Lmfao.. Wut?.. how can u possibly say u watched grimjack while saying the exact opposite to what he himself stated lol.

 

Because he sucked with Catalyst in those matches against the French Worms, and it was EoD specs only... Maybe he is good with Ele in general, but that doesn't make D/x Ele any better, at this point it's a gimmicky Core Ele. D/D Tempest or Catalyst? Same thing, you change one or two utilities and press one more button from time to time and that's it...

[Puck.3697]

5 minutes ago, Flori.2194 said:

Because he sucked with Catalyst in those matches against the French Worms, and it was EoD specs only... Maybe he is good with Ele in general, but that doesn't make D/x Ele any better, at this point it's a gimmicky Core Ele. D/D Tempest or Catalyst? Same thing, you change one or two utilities and press one more button from time to time and that's it...

While true, He doesnt seem to agree catalyst is bad and also Yes. but its also stated several times A Few of the EoD Speccs are over performing at the same time... so either people think Some Are reaching the bar, or Some are over the bar realistically..

Vindicator and More were running around with 1 shot Potiental and obviously going to be nerfed.

And Yes while we can say whats the difference been X and Y Elite He wouldnt be saying the Specc was Decent if it was "only just as good" as D/D Tempest..

If u nerf the top performing Speccs and then buff the More middle ground ones you'll reverse the Primary issue and cause the exact same complaints just at a Different target, realistically you have to choose one to go down.. and while None of the elites are Complete (they arent) I'd argue Catalyst has defintly a Mile above what it was in the first beta.

That was after 1 month work.. they now have 2 more months to keep working on those.

Just u had things in that beta Like Vindicators GS5 Punchign people for 15k Damage Lol.

Edited December 6, 2021 by Daddy.8125

[scerevisiae.1972]

10 hours ago, Bakeneko.5826 said:

You don't PvE much, do you?

Nope, close to zero. I know hammer is benchmarking well but I can say with some authority that hammer is grbage tier in WVW for GVG/zerg play.

Small radius, short range AOEs and close to useless melee skills because trash mobility (unlike e.g. spellbreaker) makes hammer unuseable as a DPS spec.

For WVW I think hammer needs at least:

• to lose the #3 skills, replace with mobility or ranged skills
• make all the #5 skills 600 range
• ranged autoattack on water/earth

 

These changes would also bring the OP PVE damage down.

 

A weapon that massively overperforms vs stationary golems and massively underperforms everywhere else in the game is prima facie a badly-designed weapon.

 

[Puck.3697]

46 minutes ago, scerevisiae.1972 said:

Nope, close to zero. I know hammer is benchmarking well but I can say with some authority that hammer is grbage tier in WVW for GVG/zerg play.

Small radius, short range AOEs and close to useless melee skills because trash mobility (unlike e.g. spellbreaker) makes hammer unuseable as a DPS spec.

For WVW I think hammer needs at least:

• to lose the #3 skills, replace with mobility or ranged skills
• make all the #5 skills 600 range
• ranged autoattack on water/earth

 

These changes would also bring the OP PVE damage down.

 

A weapon that massively overperforms vs stationary golems and massively underperforms everywhere else in the game is prima facie a badly-designed weapon.

 

apart from as mentioned above.. ALOT of catalysts PvE Damage is build into its #3 Moves... which would be a Massive overnerf in the PvE Content.

[scerevisiae.1972]

43 minutes ago, Daddy.8125 said:

apart from as mentioned above.. ALOT of catalysts PvE Damage is build into its #3 Moves... which would be a Massive overnerf in the PvE Content.

yeah i know, but arguably that's what's needed to bring them into line.

[Puck.3697]

3 minutes ago, scerevisiae.1972 said:

yeah i know, but arguably that's what's needed to bring them into line.

Yeah but would also throw PvE catalysts under the bus. It doesn't fix the problem. It just moves the problem to someone else. 

 

Edited December 7, 2021 by Daddy.8125

[scerevisiae.1972]

On 12/7/2021 at 12:48 PM, Daddy.8125 said:

Yeah but would also throw PvE catalysts under the bus. It doesn't fix the problem. It just moves the problem to someone else. 

Hammer is benching 50K+ vs golem, yet completely sucks in WVW. The spheres are the obvious place for nerfs.

[Puck.3697]

2 hours ago, scerevisiae.1972 said:

Hammer is benching 50K+ vs golem, yet completely sucks in WVW. The spheres are the obvious place for nerfs.

Yes and I agree the fact it's bad in WvWvW isnt good. But as written mathematically. Without hammer 3, it will bench 35k in a pure DPS build. 

Removing that is too large of a nerf. 

Here's the problem: and it isn't hammer, ele has access to plenty of other weapons realistically it isn't compulsory that hammer itself is good for WvWvW. 

Catalyst is elementalist 2.0. 

The problem with that is it carries every existing problem elementalist has had because its not different from a functionality point. This has been the problem with all elementalist speccs. 

 

Edited December 9, 2021 by Daddy.8125

[Winchester Smythe Anus III.2153]

On 12/6/2021 at 2:40 AM, Flori.2194 said:

I have seen Grimjack play in the games yesterday (french worms against team usa) and even in an all eod specs meta catalyst sucked hard. And when the games after a worm played catalyst they were feeding as well. Even Teapot admitted that Catalyst might not be best suited for pvp... 

just watched this stream now and yeah USA got farmed and Grimjack fed hard on Catalyst... 

I also note he switched from hammer to D/D after losing 500-0... and still didn't achieve much. lol yeah sure Grimjack, Cata doesn't need improvements... lol 

And this is in a mostly dead game mode that doesn't punish slow/immobile/melee range builds like hammer Cata.

Regardless, the real issue here is that Ele didn't need another melee range bruiser weapon because dagger and sword already fill that space and frankly do it better anyway.

All of which means hammer is not just trash, it's redundant trash.

Edited December 10, 2021 by Winchester Smythe Anus III.2153

[greedywholesome.9081]

Dear OP - it doesn't feel like trash, it is trash. 

 

I'm sure Grimjack is a phenomenal elementalist but he should NOT be the baseline on how the class should perform or played. The class and all of its variants needs to be more inclusive and if one can excel, it needs to feel rewarding. 

 

Playing ele should be rewarding and satisfying due to effort required to function. Im sorry for sounding negative but the developers have no idea what the role this class is supposed to be.