Only nerfs, no buffs to sustain, no way for more elemental empowerment uptime, no hammer orb change....

[SeTect.5918]

Text:
 

Profession Skills

Elementalist

Catalyst has landed strong in group content and currently has damage-dealing potential that is higher than intended when compared against other professions. We've realized that we made a mistake with the specific durations of quickness in the catalyst's kit, as our other professions require a damage tradeoff in trait selection to bring a strong boon support role while the catalyst currently does not, leading to the catalyst dealing about a third more damage than other quickness support options. With this patch, we're tuning the catalyst to parity with other professions in damage and setting up Sphere Specialist as a strong trait choice to enable boon support builds in PvE.

Catalyst

• Deploy Jade Sphere: Cooldown increased from 5 seconds to 15 seconds in PvE, matching PvP and WvW.
• Shattering Ice: Damage coefficient reduced from 0.3 to 0.15 in PvE only.
• Relentless Fire: Damage bonus reduced from 15% to 10% in PvE only.
• Empowered Empowerment: Elemental Empowerment effectiveness increase changed from 100% to 50% in PvE only.
• Sphere Specialist: Raised the base duration increase of Jade Sphere boons from 20% to 100% in PvE only.

So nerfs to the damage and even Elemental Empowerment but you didnt increase the sources of Elemental Empowerment? You didnt change anything to orbs? No change to the non-existant sustain?
Just nerfs...wow

I dont think it would ve been so hard to increase sustain with traits or hammer skills....This is just sad. Time to change some stats because I lost crit chance....

Edit:
Oh no wait, they even nerfed the access to elemantal empowerment by increasing cooldown of spheres.

Edited March 15, 2022 by SeTect.5918

[LucianDK.8615]

Catalysts was top damage, needed to come down. You will still be good.

[ArjukKagrim.6049]

Cata did already less dps then the other new professions in real content (not golem) and now it's nerfed having "too much potential"? are the devs even playing the game? Was ok but not outstanding before, now dead 😞

[VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.]

ANET STOP USING SNOWCROWS AS BASIS FOR YOUR DECISIONS!

ANET STOP USING GOLEM NUMBERS AS BASIS FOR YOUR DECISIONS!

 

Catalyst is utter garbage, outclassed in every regard and you nerfed it even more?

What are you smoking in your office?

[The Great Al.2546]

What is wrong with having top damage when you have no sustain, no cc, no real gap closers, no reflects, no base health? Why would a melee spec with no inherent sustain and lowest health pool not have top dps?

 

anyway, the 5 to 15 second nerf on the sphere is enough for me to stop playing the class. So glad I didn’t wind up picking the hammer as my aurene legendary. It’s not even about the dps numbers; the class just isn’t fun when you only have access to one combo field every 15 seconds. 

[SeTect.5918]

3 hours ago, LucianDK.8615 said:

Catalysts was top damage, needed to come down. You will still be good.

If it comes to real fights not, and yes i m fine with damage nerfs. (Tho not that big nerf)

But elemental empowerment nerfs mean also vitality, toughness and other nerfs. It had far less sustain than weaver and tempest before already, now its really 0.

People crying in forums for sustain buffs, easier access to ele empowerment and better orb uptime.
They nerfed sustain and didnt change anything to orb uptime and ele empowerment access. Thats terrible.

Edited March 15, 2022 by SeTect.5918

[LucianDK.8615]

7 minutes ago, The Great Al.2546 said:

What is wrong with having top damage when you have no sustain, no cc, no real gap closers, no reflects, no base health? Why would a melee spec with no inherent sustain and lowest health pool not have top dps?

 

anyway, the 5 to 15 second nerf on the sphere is enough for me to stop playing the class. So glad I didn’t wind up picking the hammer as my aurene legendary. It’s not even about the dps numbers; the class just isn’t fun when you only have access to one combo field every 15 seconds. 

 Harbingers says hello

[VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.]

ele of old: you are squishy, but you do a LOT of damage to make it worth it.

ele today: you are squishy, you are slow, you don't dish out boons like the others and every other class has a similar dmg output. So play something else. Like mesmer. Because anet loves mesmer. Or ranger. Or necro. Or rev. Just anything else. Because we at anet have no idea about our game and base decisions on the 1% of 1% raiders and some benchmark golem.

[Nephalem.8921]

12 minutes ago, LucianDK.8615 said:

Catalysts was top damage, needed to come down. You will still be good.

No its not good. Orbs still require you to be inside the hitbox. You still have to stay inside the hitbox and they even nerfed shattering ice....

It would be really nice if the devs could stop looking only at golem benchmarks and actually learned to play those rotations themselves so they would understand how unrealistic some of the numbers are in real scenarios.

Ele SHOULD be top damage especially cata with that slow af condi like ramp up rotation.

[Laken.9018]

9 minutes ago, The Great Al.2546 said:

anyway, the 5 to 15 second nerf on the sphere is enough for me to stop playing the class. So glad I didn’t wind up picking the hammer as my aurene legendary. It’s not even about the dps numbers; the class just isn’t fun when you only have access to one combo field every 15 seconds. 

Thats the big one. You can't rotate the spheres now. I normally could slap down two spheres  to offer my team some might or an water aura.
Now its  one every now and then but the boon lasts longer. Best hope it doesn't get stripped and make your action pointless.

[HotDelirium.7984]

This REALLY upsets me. True balance takes into account all factors- damage, sustain, boons etc and if Catalyst was doing more damage than others but was still trailing behind in the other department (which they are) then their damage should stay the same. I'm quickly losing confidence.

[HotDelirium.7984]

18 minutes ago, SeTect.5918 said:

If it comes to real fights not, and yes i m fine with damage nerfs.

But elemental empowerment nerfs mean also vitality, toughness and other nerfs. It had far less sustain than weaver and tempest before already, now its really 0.

People crying in forums for sustain buffs, easier access to ele empowerment and better orb uptime.
They nerfed sustain and didnt change anything to orb uptime and ele empowerment access. Thats terrible.

lol it was near impossible to get to 10 stacks and they STILL nerfed it like what are they doing lol

[Laken.9018]

It was clunky as all hell. You needed to get all 4 spheres rotating around you and hope the enemy doesn't move (which oddly enough in EOD they do more to discourage stand and spank).
You could maybe drop two orbs in one energy refill.
Out of the new skills  I mainly used fire and air as liked the quickness. The elite was useless. The heal I found to be pretty solid.

So what do we actually do with it now.
If the skill 3 is still too slightly short and now you nerfed  the damage  and only skills worth using in PVE.
What is the actual point in the class.  Do we just go back to being support again?

I'm sick to death as an Ele main of having to regear every balance patch.

[Puck.3697]

30 minutes ago, VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig. said:

ANET STOP USING SNOWCROWS AS BASIS FOR YOUR DECISIONS!

ANET STOP USING GOLEM NUMBERS AS BASIS FOR YOUR DECISIONS!

 

Catalyst is utter garbage, outclassed in every regard and you nerfed it even more?

What are you smoking in your office?

Doubt this will ever happen. 

They nerfed bladesworn by 20,000 DPS based on a golem result 😂. 

I think grimjack even made a point of this. That catalysts DPS was impossible without 100% boon uptime across the board. 

Problem is boons are repeatively causing the exact same problem every expansion and to this day they've only made it worse not better, a failure to recognise that the vast majority of players are not on groups with optimal boon 100% uptime and simply cannot achieve the numbers shown as golem parses are based on 100% boon uptime. 

I wish they'd finally make boons less impactful and them finally reliese basing a game on over 60% of alot of speccs damage being dependent on them isn't a good thing for the game. This isn't a "attempt at placing a trinity in the game" this is a plague of issues repeatively deep rooted into every proffession. 

Edited March 15, 2022 by Daddy.8125

[Flori.2194]

23 minutes ago, Daddy.8125 said:

"attempt at placing a trinity in the game"

What are you on about, we already have a well-working trinity in this game: Guard - Necro - Rev. Why change that?

[Puck.3697]

Just now, Flori.2194 said:

What are you on about, we already have a well-working trinity in this game: Guard - Necro - Rev. Why change that?

I'm unsure if this is sarcasm 😂😂 I pressume it is

It's so sad to see a mmorpg reach the state of 3 builds out of the entire game being placed in the meta tier.... And it's the exact same three from the prior expansion 🤦

[Infusion.7149]

1 hour ago, VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig. said:

ANET STOP USING SNOWCROWS AS BASIS FOR YOUR DECISIONS!

ANET STOP USING GOLEM NUMBERS AS BASIS FOR YOUR DECISIONS!

 

Catalyst is utter garbage, outclassed in every regard and you nerfed it even more?

What are you smoking in your office?

Hey don't blame snowcrows.
Even in the rotation videos before launch the catalyst videos said that the hitbox variance should be dropped via pulsing the damage instead of orbiting projectiles (which it was to an extent, now only 1K DPS difference between large/small) and hammer orbs should be 8s.

Anyone that played catalyst for more than ten minutes would know the largest limiting factor is the resources you need to keep track of. Instead of fixing these QoL issues such as hammer 3 orb durations , a pointless energy mechanic made even more pointless with 15s jade sphere cooldown, and jade sphere not moving (which is sort of bearable with 5s base cooldown plus arcane / alac) the issues were compounded by making jade sphere 15s cooldown in PVE. Instead of doing this the cooldown could have been kept 5s and then the Spectacular Sphere trait's fury swapped with quickness which immediately drops potential damage by 10% if you output quickness and reduce the chance of people stacking catalysts without any traits or boon duration. Another less likely option would have been to reduce jade sphere quickness pulses to 3 or lowering base quickness duration further, meaning you still need boon duration to have meaningful output.

Latest video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IHLoKziyd0

Quote

Props to Anet for completely ignoring all the issues Catalyst has, and instead going “I see big dps, I nerf”. G kittening G. Lowering the dps a bit is fine, but not this (expletive) much, and not without (expletive) fixing energy, or grand finale double tap, or hammer 3 interaction with hitbox, or having way easier rotations not being punished as well, like.. lol. Don’t even get me started on new sphere cd. I and many others have directly warned them about Catalysts issues in real fights (and even on the golem) several times, but clearly to no effect. It is so exhausting to deal with these arbitrary and ignorant balance decisions. I’m sorry, but I refuse to upload any inside-hitbox bench with this garbage until they fix its issues and buff it again. The number on large hitbox was something like 38k+, which might sound good, but keep in mind it is not only inflated by large hitbox but also by having all hammer 3s hit. Before this nerf, OUTSIDE of hitbox dps was at 38-39k, and even that made it only kind of ok in real scenarios, so yes, go figure. Open world guide for now is canceled aswell, cause it just isn’t a good class anymore.

@Daddy.8125 , the bladesworn burst was nerfed because it was legitimately breaking raids such as Deimos where you can skip phases in a fashion never done before.

Edited March 15, 2022 by Infusion.7149

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

2 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Latest video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IHLoKziyd0

Quote

Props to Anet for completely ignoring all the issues Catalyst has, and instead going “I see big dps, I nerf”. G kittening G. Lowering the dps a bit is fine, but not this (expletive) much, and not without (expletive) fixing energy, or grand finale double tap, or hammer 3 interaction with hitbox, or having way easier rotations not being punished as well, like.. lol. Don’t even get me started on new sphere cd. I and many others have directly warned them about Catalysts issues in real fights (and even on the golem) several times, but clearly to no effect. It is so exhausting to deal with these arbitrary and ignorant balance decisions. I’m sorry, but I refuse to upload any inside-hitbox bench with this garbage until they fix its issues and buff it again. The number on large hitbox was something like 38k+, which might sound good, but keep in mind it is not only inflated by large hitbox but also by having all hammer 3s hit. Before this nerf, OUTSIDE of hitbox dps was at 38-39k, and even that made it only kind of ok in real scenarios, so yes, go figure. Open world guide for now is canceled aswell, cause it just isn’t a good class anymore.

Expand  

 

 

This is so sad.  😞 We've already seen nerfs and questionable changes for ele before, like a lot, but a completly broken design a month after the release ...so sad.

[kurosy.1384]

this is so frustrating and disheartening -__-

[Shiyo.3578]

4 hours ago, LucianDK.8615 said:

Catalysts was top damage, needed to come down. You will still be good.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/386699677074194442/953389908762959932/unknown.png

No it wasn't.

[fixit.7189]

so they took the worst elite ever and nerfed it b/c of benchmarks on a stupid testing golem....

awesome. /s

Edited March 15, 2022 by fixit.7189

[Nephalem.8921]

3 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Hey don't blame snowcrows.
Even in the rotation videos before launch the catalyst videos said that the hitbox variance should be dropped via pulsing the damage instead of orbiting projectiles (which it was to an extent, now only 1K DPS difference between large/small) and hammer orbs should be 8s.

Anyone that played catalyst for more than ten minutes would know the largest limiting factor is the resources you need to keep track of. Instead of fixing these QoL issues such as hammer 3 orb durations , a pointless energy mechanic made even more pointless with 15s jade sphere cooldown, and jade sphere not moving (which is sort of bearable with 5s base cooldown plus arcane / alac) the issues were compounded by making jade sphere 15s cooldown in PVE. Instead of doing this the cooldown could have been kept 5s and then the Spectacular Sphere trait's fury swapped with quickness which immediately drops potential damage by 10% if you output quickness and reduce the chance of people stacking catalysts without any traits or boon duration. Another less likely option would have been to reduce jade sphere quickness pulses to 3 or lowering base quickness duration further, meaning you still need boon duration to have meaningful output.

Latest video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IHLoKziyd0

@Daddy.8125 , the bladesworn burst was nerfed because it was legitimately breaking raids such as Deimos where you can skip phases in a fashion never done before.

The difference between small and big hitbox was 6k before the nerf. The small golem hitbox is not really small. its still big enough for all orbs to multihit. There are a lot of hitboxes that are too small for this like xera.

Roul posted this also below his video. Outside of hitbox was just 38k.

 

[Obtena.7952]

5 hours ago, The Great Al.2546 said:

What is wrong with having top damage when you have no sustain, no cc, no real gap closers, no reflects, no base health? Why would a melee spec with no inherent sustain and lowest health pool not have top dps?

Actually, what is wrong is that if you are top DPS, it's hard for Anet to give you  sustain, cc, real gap closers, reflects and  base health. It's possible to conclude Anet WANTS to give Catalyst these things.

It's also possible just to conclude that DPS was just too high for Anet's tastes. To be fair, Catalyst DOES have many of the things you listed there so your view is a little distorted from reality. 

Edited March 15, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[Obtena.7952]

45 minutes ago, Shiyo.3578 said:

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/386699677074194442/953389908762959932/unknown.png

No it wasn't.

That data isn't relevant to the nerf. I'm absolutely certain that Anet's DPS targets and data are much more relevant that player's third party websites.

Edited March 15, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[scarlettmoonbabe.6932]

profession balance in this game is a joke, my perception. this goes far beyond catalyst or ele.