How would you rate Catalyst?

[Downstate.4697]

Its very good for pve since you can abuse Empowered Empowerment with celestial.

For pvp its like playing a harder version of core ele for minor additonal benefits. You cant build for the stats you need to make it work which is all of them. The heal augment needs a 20s cooldown in pvp. The air augment needs a rework. The ice one is for pve to generate energy. The fire one could be decent in specific metas, but an ele taking an offensive utility is usually a dead one.

[fixit.7189]

it's a terrible elite that i won't be using.

suffice to say, i regret spending a 1000 gems on build tabs for it.

back to condi tempest for me.

so disappointing.

Edited March 6, 2022 by fixit.7189

[scerevisiae.1972]

6 hours ago, FrownyClown.8402 said:

Its very good for pve since you can abuse Empowered Empowerment with celestial.

I didn't even like hammer in PVE. It plays exactly like sword, with a slightly different rotation.

From the poll results I'm relieved to see I'm not the only one who hates it, which means there's a slim chance they might actually try to fix it.

Edited March 6, 2022 by scerevisiae.1972

[Squigglez.1236]

I almost never play ele and was actually excited about hammer. Weaver does highish damage so I figured hammer was going to be a more sturdy build. Maybe not that useful for end game stuff but it would've been fun to use in open world finally giving me a reason to play her. Then the live stream and they mentioned it was bruiser, staying in combat instead of having to dip out to heal like I do when I play weaver at all (I'm very bad at ele). In hindsight it's almost funny how off this is. Catalyst is just as squishy as any other ele build. Lvl 10 jade core, vitality stat gear and runes, defensive trait set. She still just dies. Enemies spread out and I barely manage to kill one or two before the rest melt me. I have to dodge or get cc'd for a second and those orbs are gone. Any fight that moves and my damage is basically 0 and I can't maintain those trait buffs. This spec doesn't seem to do anything aside from the quickness. I hope for some massive trait and hammer rework at least.

[Daulnay.4971]

On 3/5/2022 at 5:27 PM, FrownyClown.8402 said:

Its very good for pve since you can abuse Empowered Empowerment with celestial.

For pvp its like playing a harder version of core ele for minor additonal benefits. You cant build for the stats you need to make it work which is all of them. The heal augment needs a 20s cooldown in pvp. The air augment needs a rework. The ice one is for pve to generate energy. The fire one could be decent in specific metas, but an ele taking an offensive utility is usually a dead one.

 

Our build designer is very excited about what she has been able to do with Catalyst, using Celestial and the Empowerment mechanic.  It's not something that's tailored for raid groups, but very fun for other kinds of play.  Not an entry-level build, but fun for experienced players.   We've been having fun with it.

Edited March 7, 2022 by Daulnay.4971

[Flori.2194]

3 minutes ago, Daulnay.4971 said:

 

Our spec designer is very excited about what she has been able to do with Catalyst, using Celestial and the Empowerment mechanic.  It's not something that's tailored for raid groups, but very fun for other kinds of play.  Not an entry-level build, but fun for experienced players.  With the Celestial and Empowerment traits, use Dagger/Focus and the Conjure weapons.   We were running numbers this morning, and it looks like you can get 3500 or more power, with near 100% crit and over 200% crit damage, which isn't shabby on a pretty tanky build (over 28,000 life)

The spec designer failed hard first of all. It's a D-, at least she tried. And the scenario you described is exclusively for open world. kekw

Try this garbage in spvp or wvw and see how you get farmed. And full celestial is not practical for raids. 

I could design a better e-spec in 20 minutes...

[Daulnay.4971]

14 minutes ago, Flori.2194 said:

The spec designer failed hard first of all. It's a D-, at least she tried. And the scenario you described is exclusively for open world. kekw

Try this garbage in spvp or wvw and see how you get farmed. And full celestial is not practical for raids. 

I could design a better e-spec in 20 minutes...

Obvs, not for raids, nor for other highly tuned squad builds.  Nothing beats a tuned team of specialized good players.   But it's fun for people looking for things less stuctured than raids.  No doubt you could design a better spec - for raids.  Other than that, this post looks like all mouth and no muscle. (since you clearly didn't read the post - there's no spec here for you to evaluate, and you didn't bother to actually read the post)

Edited March 7, 2022 by Daulnay.4971

[Flori.2194]

1 minute ago, Daulnay.4971 said:

Obvs, not for raids, nor for other highly tuned squad builds.  Nothing beats a tuned team of specialized good players.   But it's fun for people looking for things less stuctured than raids.  No doubt you could design a better spec - for raids.  Other than that, this post looks like all mouth and no muscle.

I don't care about raids, I mainly play WvW and sPvP where Ele already is sidelined and Catalyst won't change that. 

And yes, I could desing a better one, because it's not difficult to be better than basically nothing. Leftover ideas from Tempest and Weaver, no concept or theme and you end up with something like Catalyst. 

[Puck.3697]

On 3/4/2022 at 3:09 AM, scerevisiae.1972 said:

I get the distinct impression that people voting "good" are pure PVE players, and people with significant playtime/interest in WVW/PVP are the ones voting "terrible".

Well given the fact this thread isn't stated as PvP and the modes are dead Its very likely most critic coming about these will be PvE PoV. 

However I've heard good things about fresh air catalyst. WvWvW seems to be the one it's garbage in mainly. But competitive modes vast majority of the EoD speccs feel bad. 

Results on delaying the patch / reworks til summer and launching the game without them most likely. 

[Avatara.1042]

It is still garbage in most PvE.

[VPK.1796]

Kittenest elite class

[Patrick.9531]

This Elite is very unsatisfying to play in PVE so far, both from an effectiveness standpoint and thematically. Only Willbender is worse in my opinion.

[Desh.7028]

C for clunky and G for gimmicky.

Looks cool when punching the golem but any amount of mechanics will mess with your F5 and 3 and make the house of cards that's the Catalyst fall apart instantly.

[Rapscallywag.6825]

On 3/3/2022 at 5:54 PM, ScottBroChill.3254 said:

I have complained about catalyst before and how I would have liked for them to have taken the spec in another direction, mostly in the gun or bow direction where we could get some more ranged options, but I am act ually having a lot of fun with catalyst. I'm a big fan of piano playing once i figure the skills out a little bit and I can work on a rythm/rotation and now it's flowing more smoothly but I am still staring at my skill bar and miss-clicking my f5 a lot, it's getting better. Might generation has been insane on catalyst from all the blasts and on-demand fire field. Quickness is great fun. The passive bonuses from traits are easy to stack, I literally don't have to think about it because I'm already trying to constantly rotate my fields and get the auras. But that in turn makes the traits feel lame and boring. It's just mostly stat boosters, but I guess it's nice for once to finally have stats on my ele lol For me, hammer is basically like a close range staff this is just more useful and fun. Augments are a dumpster fire though. Not that they're useless, but they are just boring stances. The air one just feels like the tempest shout but worse. Just boring and don't add anything. Actually all of our elite spec utilities feel this way so I think it just hurts a little more that we just can't get some interesting utilities, but I guess that's because we get 4 times as many weapon skills as the other classes... i guess. But the spec is a lot more fun and effective than the forums are implying. 

Have to agree with this. I’m actually shredding mobs in open world more so than when I played weaver. I think catalyst has decent potential but requires a pretty good understanding of all the skills and a rotation that utilizes combos

[Jski.6180]

Its going to get a lot worst once orb hit base dps gets nerfed like they always do in one way or another. I still cant believe they keep MS nerfed as much as they have yet they keep adding in more and more hit box base dps!? The only hope is anet to "forget" about the effect like they forgot about conja weapons effects (still not nerfed) and old passive effects (that have been nerfed after years).

The level of professionalism for the ele class over all is missing from anet. As if they forgot the class and are only going for "cool looking" effects. But hay catalyst has some realty nice looking effects so that "cool" i guess. I rate it low in effects and use and high in looking good. I have a feeling you can say that about all ele effects (we had that massive up-raw about aura looking bad or fire balls look to small so i guess that what the community wants?).

[Shiyo.3578]

It's a buffer that has a single buff that's a pain in the butt to buff people with. Terrible design.

Also why is air 2 on hammer THREE targets? WHY?

Edited March 8, 2022 by Shiyo.3578

[Bunny.9834]

Core Ele is one of my favorite classes to play, especially in WvW. 

If you run Cele Staff Core Ele, you have the versatility to adopt in group fight. 

Hammer Cata tho is very limited because of range... it's not even that viable in 1v1 yet compared to Weaver or Tempest. 

The nature of hammer skills on any class is it's SLOW. You pair this with the squishiest light armor class in the game and you have down state princess. 

Idk... waiting to see if Cellofrag, Vallun and Solemn can make a viable hammer cata. 

[nucklepuckk.1805]

I actually like juggling the the elements, both mechanically with the timers and stance dancing, and thematically. I feel like shaman, a beastly shaman. Attunement juggling is nothing new for anyone who has ever done fresh air or weaver, and I find the extra juggle fun. I guess I'm in the minority. I do wish they would have made fire and air auto attack a melee or pseudo melee like earth and water though. Fire and Air 1 feel a bit disjointed and slow compared to the rest of the kit.

Edited March 9, 2022 by nucklepuckk.1805

[The Boz.2038]

On 3/6/2022 at 5:09 AM, fixit.7189 said:

suffice to say, i regret spending a 1000 gems on build tabs for it.

Never, ever, ever buy build, equipment, or loadout tabs. Ever.

[Agrios.9071]

It is so bad that i didnt even buy the expac, because this spec doesnt give me (as wvw staff weaver) anything

interesting or new. Its is just a downgrade in every aspect compared to weaver. I saw people on catalyst

consistently doing not even half the damage i can do on weaver. At the same time you are even more squishy

than a weaver because you loose twist-of-fate.

Double Meteor is more than worthless.

 

Even thinking about catalyst is depressing...

[HotDelirium.7984]

On 3/4/2022 at 2:33 PM, Junkpile.7439 said:

I don't like to spam finishers inside fields. Dagger and sword specs already do this. Didn't really find any other use for these fields. No idea why there isn't traits that would change these fields something else.

Spamming finishers in fields as a bonus is fine....tying my professional mechanic's usefulness and traits to that is another thing especially since while solo I can only create one for 5 seconds every 10 seconds.

Edited March 11, 2022 by HotDelirium.7984

[Forgotten Legend.9281]

honestly" after melee-focused overloads on tempest, melee sword as the new weapon for weaver, and close-range (melee -600) hammer for catalyst, it really feels like anet is trying to force Ele's into Rochmoninov(sp)-style raid rotations. dagger-dagger piano celestial-ele has already been nerfed out of PvP because the pianists out there could play it well. i'm not a pianist. i want something easier to play that i can have fun with in Open World and WvW. in GW1 Elementalist was basically a back line character that learned some point-blank Aoe skills. in GW2, Ele has the lowest Health and only pianists can compensate for it, because it's designed too much for frontline melee combat without the appropriate passives.

[SeTect.5918]

I love how anet forces ele into melee all the time and doesn't give ele any sustain.

Just kidding, i hate it. 

Catalyst has less sustain than weaver, gg to that so gl with ur rota on a boss with mechanics. 

I dont find it that bad that ele is melee. And tbh i love difficult rotas but the fact that ele has so low sustain while performing these rotas is strange. U are forced to look at every attack of the boss because everything could kill u in the next second. 

I really hoped ele sustain would change a bit with Catalyst but hey....it changed...because it became even worse.

Edited March 10, 2022 by SeTect.5918

[Arheundel.6451]

-Terrible traitline...or rather...an extremely badly designed traitline, from individuals who clearly do not play the class seriously outside their stream token display..while using a developer console

-UP main elite weapon, slow...no dmg...unfun to use...worst weapon evem beating scepter

-No boon rip, no increased stability, the traitline offers zero sustain , no condi clear or access to swiftness.

I have bought EoD to play Untamed...but gods...tried to play catalyst for couple of hours...no chances, it's bordeline crap, I'd rather keep using weaver and tempest

Overall : 0/10 my final score for catalyst

Edited March 10, 2022 by Arheundel.6451

[Flori.2194]

51 minutes ago, Arheundel.6451 said:

-Terrible traitline...or rather...an extremely badly designed traitline, from individuals who clearly do not play the class seriously outside their stream token display..while using a developer console

That's probably the main problem for anet: They don't have enough knowledge of the classes themselves besides the data they accumulated. It's even more obvious after watching their streams.