Augments are terrible.

[Vissarion.6509]

I don't see ever using them.

So are most of catalyst traits.
 

[fuzzyp.6295]

I've been having decent success with Fortified Earth. Time it right to use it with Flow Like Water and you can heal a nice amount HP back. Can basically full heal yourself if you're getting hit by multiple mobs at once! (well, i'm also running zerker so full healing off that isn't hard lol)

EDIT: looks like I made a mistake I was healed another way, but still an enjoyable skill to stay alive!

Edited March 4, 2022 by fuzzyp.6295

[ScottBroChill.3254]

21 minutes ago, fuzzyp.6295 said:

I've been having decent success with Fortified Earth. Time it right to use it with Flow Like Water and you can heal a nice amount HP back. Can basically full heal yourself if you're getting hit by multiple mobs at once! (well, i'm also running zerker so full healing off that isn't hard lol)

yeah thats the only one I'm having success with. The fire one is just going to be a dps benchmark type skill, the ice one should be good for energy generation but I feel like it falls flat in that regard especially if you take energy gain on attunement swap, the air one is basically the same as every air utility we get, just a standard stun break but signet of air is still better. The heal is good, we needed the condi cleanse on a useful skill for once and it's a better ether renewal. The elite is boring like usual but kinda useful. I think in standard play it's a great way to double down on hammer #4 in water for some massive heals or any of the hammer #5's, at least for me, and in raid/high fractal scenerios it'll be good for the dps meter. Don't really care for the "cast within sphere" effects, it's hard to pull off and has barely a benefit. And the earth one is just a good block. No fuss with that one. 

[Avatara.1042]

They need to lose the stupid 'cast within the sphere' crap (we already have enough kitten to track) and be buffed, and the elite needs its cooldown halved.  90 seconds is a joke.

[Ace.1784]

1 hour ago, Avatara.1042 said:

They need to lose the stupid 'cast within the sphere' crap (we already have enough kitten to track) and be buffed, and the elite needs its cooldown halved.  90 seconds is a joke.

You don't have to cast it in sphere. I use it as a guideline and not a requirement. If I know an augment is coming off cooldown, I'll save that attunement for the swap (this is open world). I mentioned this in the beta, but you don't need to permanently maintain everything. Treat it like an ebb and flow, at least until you get more comfortable.

 

I run nearly all augments. Heal, Earth, Fire, and Water with FGS elite (I might swap it out because I almost never need it outside of boss fights). 

Shattering Ice is probably my most used augment just for the damage. I wasn't running the fire augment for a while (was using armor of earth) until I was doing a meta event and got 13k hits from Fire Hammer 4. After that happened, I switched armor of earth of fire augment to use when my stacks are approaching max.

User above  already mentioned the benefits for earth augment and the heal augment is just an ether renewal that allows you to move and cast abilities.

[Shiyo.3578]

14 hours ago, Vissarion.6509 said:

I don't see ever using them.

So are most of catalyst traits.
 

6/6 of them are useless in pve. 1 is AMAZING in pvp(earth) and the air one is ok in pvp. If the fire one could be used mid hammer air2 it'd be solid...but it interrupts the air2 ;/

Our grandmaster traits are horrendous. The nerf to the boon dura one made it useless. It's not worth giving up +10% all stats for +20% boon dura, wtf were they thinking?

Edited March 3, 2022 by Shiyo.3578

[Downstate.4697]

Augments are decentish in pvp. It feels a bit awkward because they are only worth using in conjunction with the jade sphere.  Having to place your jade sphere first makes it feel clunky and sometimes you need it when you are out of the required attunment.

 

Making the cd reduction work in any sphere would go a long way.

Elemental celerity should reset the cooldowns of your augments and refill your energy to max.

[solemn.9608]

For everyone saying the earth augment is good,

Earth shield that does the exact same thing (skill 5), provides more barrier over time (skill 2), can provide fire aura when dropping if traited, has two CCs and a magnetic aura and absurdly high auto attack damage that mobilizes you forward on the final attack, AND can be picked up again over 60s making the CD essentially 30s as well....: Am I a joke to you?

The elite is maybe good for a double meteor shower but even then I'm pretty sure Weaver is better overall dps.

The chill aura is nuisance DPS and chill, can just run hydromancy sigil or use dagger water 3 instead

Air augment does something that food actually does better, and superspeed which is cool but I'd rather just take air traitline if I need mobility that badly. Should do something more/give boons or something at least

The fire augment is actually pretty good, even in WvW

The heal augment is ok. Needs to be a little bit stronger.

[Sunshine.5014]

30 minutes ago, solemn.9608 said:

For everyone saying the earth augment is good,

Earth shield that does the exact same thing (skill 5), provides more barrier over time (skill 2), can provide fire aura when dropping if traited, has two CCs and a magnetic aura and absurdly high auto attack damage that mobilizes you forward on the final attack, AND can be picked up again over 60s making the CD essentially 30s as well....: Am I a joke to you?

The elite is maybe good for a double meteor shower but even then I'm pretty sure Weaver is better overall dps.

The chill aura is nuisance DPS and chill, can just run hydromancy sigil or use dagger water 3 instead

Air augment does something that food actually does better, and superspeed which is cool but I'd rather just take air traitline if I need mobility that badly. Should do something more/give boons or something at least

The fire augment is actually pretty good, even in WvW

The heal augment is ok. Needs to be a little bit stronger.

Totally agree. If we take a look at the builds on Metabattle, none of them uses anything besides Fire augment.

[ArjukKagrim.6049]

It's really frustrating that catalyst has so one-dimensional boring augments 😞 At least give them some sort of utility additional to their underwhelming effects

[Flori.2194]

4 hours ago, solemn.9608 said:

For everyone saying the earth augment is good,

Earth shield that does the exact same thing (skill 5), provides more barrier over time (skill 2), can provide fire aura when dropping if traited, has two CCs and a magnetic aura and absurdly high auto attack damage that mobilizes you forward on the final attack, AND can be picked up again over 60s making the CD essentially 30s as well....: Am I a joke to you?

The elite is maybe good for a double meteor shower but even then I'm pretty sure Weaver is better overall dps.

The chill aura is nuisance DPS and chill, can just run hydromancy sigil or use dagger water 3 instead

Air augment does something that food actually does better, and superspeed which is cool but I'd rather just take air traitline if I need mobility that badly. Should do something more/give boons or something at least

The fire augment is actually pretty good, even in WvW

The heal augment is ok. Needs to be a little bit stronger.

Didn't you mention in on of your videos that most of the augments feel like already existing utilities? As you mentioned: the earth augment and earth shield, but I also get a lot of glyph of elemental power vibes from the ice and fire augment, the heal augment is like ether renewal, the air augment is another stunbreak and ele has quite a few and the elite is pretty boring...

And don't get me started on how augments in general feel like stances and that they have no support in any traitline whatsoever...

[fuzzyp.6295]

7 hours ago, solemn.9608 said:

For everyone saying the earth augment is good,

Earth shield that does the exact same thing (skill 5), provides more barrier over time (skill 2), can provide fire aura when dropping if traited, has two CCs and a magnetic aura and absurdly high auto attack damage that mobilizes you forward on the final attack, AND can be picked up again over 60s making the CD essentially 30s as well....: Am I a joke to you?

Well first off, Earth Shield replaces your entire bar with new skills. So now you're gameplay as a Catalyst is completely changed, espcially if you want to hold it for the entire thirty seconds so you can chain it together. Sure, you'll get an Aura when you pick it up, but thats just one. No other way to combo with your fields with Earth Shield. And if you're not comboing with your fields, then why are you even playing Catalyst?

Skill 5 is an Invul, but it roots you, which is digusting.

More barrier over time might be useful, but Fortified Earth's instant barrier is also useful, so its not really better just because you get more over longer period of time. Sometimes you need that health chuck  asap. They both have their purposes.. not to mention the block on Earth Shield is only a single attack, right? (EDIT: Also, its avaible only you successfully hit an opponent with Magentic Shield, so again, conditional application w/ potential of higher output vs standard application w/ set out put) That extra barrier you get with Tectonic Shift is probably getting chipped away anyway from follow up attacks... Fortified Earth is a channeled, long constant block with the barrier on top, which imo is much better as a defensive tool than anything Earth Shield offers.

And I mean, how many ways does Hammer have to make a Magentic Aura on it?

Earth Shield is great for what it can do, but that doesn't make Fortified Earth any less great. There are draw backs to using Earth Shield which is why  you only see it ever used in very niche competitive settings.

Edited March 4, 2022 by fuzzyp.6295

[Hemdale.1520]

Augments were boring and weak throughout beta and they are still boring and weak. The only idea I can manage to think of to buff them in a more interesting way would be to have the augments function to their full effect regardless of orb, but if done within an orb it gives you a buff that greatly increases to effect of your next ability (obviously the effect would be determined based on augment) and this effect would stack with no duration, therefore it would never feel like a waste to make an effort of using your augment within the orb and would have a more rewarding feel.

[Jski.6180]

They need to have a trait effect that lets you share them to other players. Maybe say 50% duration and effect for allyes. Its just soo odd that there is nothing on the catalyses line that gives you effects for your augments. Maybe anet will replace them with something else like WELL for combos fields.

[Downstate.4697]

2 hours ago, Jski.6180 said:

They need to have a trait effect that lets you share them to other players. Maybe say 50% duration and effect for allyes. Its just soo odd that there is nothing on the catalyses line that gives you effects for your augments. Maybe anet will replace them with something else like WELL for combos fields.

I don't necessarily agree it should do that but I do agree we need traits to interact with augments

[Avatara.1042]

The traits and augments were phoned-in.

[Jski.6180]

8 hours ago, FrownyClown.8402 said:

I don't necessarily agree it should do that but I do agree we need traits to interact with augments

Its my lack of imagination of how they should fix it i was looking at how SB can share its stacese.

[Downstate.4697]

2 hours ago, Jski.6180 said:

Its my lack of imagination of how they should fix it i was looking at how SB can share its stacese.

In an ideal world augments would actually alter the jade sphere. For example, using your heal inside a fire jade sphere would turn it into a smoke field. Using the earth augment in the fire could pulse cripple and 1s burning.

[Shiyo.3578]

Can we trade every single augment for https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/"Protect_Me!" ?

[scerevisiae.1972]

On 3/4/2022 at 8:14 AM, solemn.9608 said:

For everyone saying the earth augment is good,

Earth shield that does the exact same thing (skill 5), provides more barrier over time (skill 2), can provide fire aura when dropping if traited, has two CCs and a magnetic aura and absurdly high auto attack damage that mobilizes you forward on the final attack, AND can be picked up again over 60s making the CD essentially 30s as well....:

This. Earth shield is way better.

Even the elite augment is kinda bad in practise cause staff weaver is way better than staff catalyst and that was really the only place where resetting your current attunement CDs was potentially really good.

Double ride the lightning is alright ofc but it's not any better than Fiery Greatsword, and FGS has other applications besides.

The stunbreak augment and heal augment are potentially usable, but all the other augments are just flat-out bad, or worse versions of existing things we already have. 

Edited March 9, 2022 by scerevisiae.1972