Another idea for F5/H3 replacement: Something like Virtuoso Blades

[Lynx.9058]

A comment elsewhere sprung this idea into my head:  Virtuoso can accumulate psionic blades as their class mechanic, and then fire them off with shatters.

Currently there are problems with Jade Sphere (F5) and Elemental Orbs (Hammer 3) that everyone is trying to get changed/fixed, so here's my solution:

 

1. Remove Hammer 3 and replace it with a new attack for each atunement.
2. Catalyst Mechanic: Whenever you enter a new atunement, you spawn an elemental orb of that type (max 1 per atunement).  These orbs revolve around you, have no duration, and persist out of combat.  They deal minor damage to nearby enemies (melee range) each second, increasing with how many orbs you have accumulated.
3. Pressing F5 fires all of your accumulated orbs at the target (1200 range), dealing heavy burst damage based on how many orbs were active.  A jade sphere effect is created at the target's location upon impact, based on the atunement that was active when F5 was pressed.
    

This lets catalyst build up steady, passive AoE damage around them as they do their rotation through atunements, and allows them to save that big burst and jade sphere effect for an ideal moment, rather than worrying about losing all of the elemental orbs after a few seconds or being forced to use it when an enemy might be blocking, shielded, invulnerable/immune, out of range, or whatever.

 

It also moves the elemental orbs from Hammer 3 away from the hammer weapon, and into something the spec can use regardless of the weapon type they've got equipped - which I think is important because, to me throughout the play tests for catalyst, Hammer 3 was more iconic and at the forefront of my character identty than F5 ever was.

[fuzzyp.6295]

There would need to be a duration if this ever happened to ensure that the burst is used. One issue that could arise is that it will become 'meta' for Catalyst to never use their F5 because they had more DPS by keeping the floating orbs up. That would trivialize the entire point of the Jade Sphere and never use it.

EDIT: Oh yes, and the burst aspect takes out the ability for the Cataylst to use the field aspect of the class. If you're saving it for when you have all four orbs instead of when its good to use, that could cause some issue with the flow of gameplay.

Also, personal preference here, I don't think we should ever really be encouraging long term passive damage like that, atleast without some sort of cast/management.

Edited January 27, 2022 by fuzzyp.6295