Please increase sources of Elemental Empowerment, even benchmarks struggle to keep up 10 stacks.

[SeTect.5918]

Hello,
its not new that Catalyst has very big problems to get 10 stacks of Elemental Empowerment.

As said in another topic:

"Its extremely difficult to maintain full stacks of Elemental_Empowerment_(effect) even if you have full alacrity and quickness and you wont get any interrupt while being in combat.
Source: https://youtu.be/8IHLoKziyd0

This is the optimal rotation on a golem. As you can see, Elemental empowerment moves between 7-9 stacks sometimes (0:17-0:19, 0:30-0:32, 0:33-0:35, 0:38-0:40 and so on, I stopped counting there).
If even a benchmark (not even a real encounter) with full alacrity and quickness struggles with getting 10 stacks, hammer skills should really get more synergy with traits or traits need to have more stacks of elemental empowerment. Having 9 instead of 10 stacks already reduces your crit chance by over 10%."

It very much reduces your dps by a lot if you dont have 10 stacks. Without quickness and alacrity you cant even get stacks above 6 stacks properly.

So I calculated it with http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/ with the optimal Power DPS build for Catalyst. (http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PGQAIlpyWZUMW2JO6KbRTA-zRIYRUwXG1mAVUA2eRCjNwbR/zI-)
Having 8 instead of 10 stacks already reduces your crit chance by exactly 11.19%. Aswell there is 364 power, 206 ferocity (13.73% crit dmg) and some vitality and toughness lost. Thats massive.

There have to be more sources of Elemental Empowerment.

Please do something like:

Traits:

• Vicious_Empowerment - Stacks increased to 3 for both might and Elemental Empowerment.
• Evasive_Empowerment - Elemental Empowerment stacks increased to 3 (or 4).
• Elemental_Epitome - ICD decreased from 10 to 7 seconds. Stacks increased from 1 to 2.

Weapon skills (Hammer):

• Cleansing_Typhoon - Inflicts 1 second of Immobile. And +1 second for each condition removed.
• Triple_Sear - Combo field fire for 3 seconds.
• Surging_Flames - Combo finisher Projectile and 1 second of immobile. (Rename: Surging Chains or something like that)

Some may think why I did not suggest to add CCs on hammer. This is because Vicious_Empowerment also triggers on Immobile and CCs are all reduced to 0 damage in both PvP and WvW, where hammer has viability problems already.
(Maybe also Augments could give 1 stack of Elemental Empowerment on activation. - Tho Not even needed if we get other sources like more immobs and stacks in traits)

Then you would already be able to get 10 stacks of Elemental Empowerment.
This also helps viability of Hammer In WvW and PvP (where it has viability problems atm) because of the immobs.

Please think about this...because even benchmarks struggle to get 10 stacks...This is a massive dps loss.
I think this also are not very difficult to make changes and would really really help to have more Elemental Empowerment access/uptime.

(Edit:

Or add to the trait "Empowered Empowerment" that each combo gives 1 stack of elemental empowerment with ICD of 0.25 seconds. Then you could also give hammer earth 2 and air 2 a whirl finisher. Problem basically solved then. Maybe you neednt even give them whirl finishers but it would make sense bc the Name of hammer earth 2 is literally "Whirling Stones".)
Have a nice day.

Edited March 30, 2022 by SeTect.5918
Spelling + Adding Something

[The Great Al.2546]

There were so many new unnecessary mechanics introduced to this spec that very egregiously have no synergy with any other existing traits or mechanics. 

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

Please just remove this poor and lazy concept buff.

Edit. There are already Hardened Auras to 5 stacks, Empowering auras to 5 stacks, Flame wheel, icy coil etc with hammer. Why another buff, to 10 stacks ? Why not just use or merg the others ?
And % to all attributes... "Hmmm, what roles could catalysts endorse ? What purpose can the jade sphere have ? Nevermind, give them celestial buff. We'll fix the spec next year."

To me it's a failure. I don't want Elemental Empowerment.

Edited March 29, 2022 by Zhaid Zhem.6508

[Ace.1784]

1 hour ago, Zhaid Zhem.6508 said:

Please just remove this poor and lazy concept buff.

Edit. There are already Hardened Auras to 5 stacks, Empowering auras to 5 stacks, Flame wheel, icy coil etc with hammer. Why another buff, to 10 stacks ? Why not just use or merg the others ?
And % to all attributes... "Hmmm, what roles could catalysts endorse ? What purpose can the jade sphere have ? Nevermind, give them celestial buff. We'll fix the spec next year."

To me it's a failure. I don't want Elemental Empowerment.

Elemental Empowerment opens up some interesting buildcraft and I think it's quite obvious the goal isn't to sit at 10 stacks permanently but instead have particular moments where you exceed your maximum effectiveness.

 

[Sena.2761]

At least get rid of that dumb 10s ICD on Elemental Epitome. Then I can actually combo my way to 10 stacks and upkeep it by comboing, which is what they want me to do anyways.

[Ace.1784]

1 hour ago, Sena.2761 said:

At least get rid of that dumb 10s ICD on Elemental Epitome. Then I can actually combo my way to 10 stacks and upkeep it by comboing, which is what they want me to do anyways.

The cooldown is per attunement. 

[Stallic.2397]

2 hours ago, Sena.2761 said:

At least get rid of that dumb 10s ICD on Elemental Epitome. Then I can actually combo my way to 10 stacks and upkeep it by comboing, which is what they want me to do anyways.

 

If you take the Grandmaster, there should be an added bonus with the trait, that all combos now grant elemental empowerment. No ICD

 

That way Catalyst's can actually keep ten stacks quite easily and not even think about it. I would consider that balanced as well since the Catalyst would have to trait a grandmaster to get that bonus.

 

It's sad that Catalyst take that trait for a 20% bonus and barely, if ever, actually benefit from it. Waste of a trait 

[Nephalem.8921]

41 minutes ago, Vinteros Asteano.1209 said:

The cooldown is per attunement. 

and some attunements have 2 finishers while others have 0-1.

[Sena.2761]

3 minutes ago, Stallic.2397 said:

 

If you take the Grandmaster, there should be an added bonus with the trait, that all combos now grant elemental empowerment. No ICD

 

That way Catalyst's can actually keep ten stacks quite easily and not even think about it. I would consider that balanced as well since the Catalyst would have to trait a grandmaster to get that bonus.

 

It's sad that Catalyst take that trait for a 20% bonus and barely, if ever, actually benefit from it. Waste of a trait 

Oh, I like this idea. Good compromise if you at least have to trait it.

[Ace.1784]

38 minutes ago, Nephalem.8921 said:

and some attunements have 2 finishers while others have 0-1.

No attunement has zero finishers technically.

And you don't need every finisher to get the 10 stacks.

3 base -> Air 5 gives 5 -> Fire 5 gives 6 -> Water 4 or 5 gives 7 -> Earth 5 gives 10.

This is for targets that can be stunned and immobilized

The aura is also given when the combo is finished, so nothing is stopping you from channeling an ability and swapping attunements before the combo goes into effect.

Edited March 30, 2022 by Vinteros Asteano.1209

[Sunshine.5014]

30 minutes ago, Vinteros Asteano.1209 said:

No attunement has zero finishers technically.

And you don't need every finisher to get the 10 stacks.

3 base -> Air 5 gives 5 -> Fire 5 gives 6 -> Water 4 or 5 gives 7 -> Earth 5 gives 10.

This is for targets that can be stunned and immobilized

The aura is also given when the combo is finished, so nothing is stopping you from channeling an ability and swapping attunements before the combo goes into effect.

You can burn all your skills to get 10 stacks. Nobody argues that. What people talked about is how do you keep up that 10 stacks after you burn all your #5 skills?

[Sena.2761]

1 hour ago, Vinteros Asteano.1209 said:

No attunement has zero finishers technically.

And you don't need every finisher to get the 10 stacks.

3 base -> Air 5 gives 5 -> Fire 5 gives 6 -> Water 4 or 5 gives 7 -> Earth 5 gives 10.

This is for targets that can be stunned and immobilized

The aura is also given when the combo is finished, so nothing is stopping you from channeling an ability and swapping attunements before the combo goes into effect.

Scepter/Focus Air has zero finishers, unless I wanna blow my 30s CD CC if I picked the trait, and then I'm stuck in Air.

 

My fault for trying Catalyst without the hammer? Maybe. Maybe Cata could also be more than just the hammer. See, silly me, I read "Gain X when you do a combo" and thought, "well I like condi and Scepter/Focus is pretty decent condi pick with lots of blast finishers. Let's try that to help syngerize with all these combo traits."

 

 

[SeTect.5918]

2 hours ago, Vinteros Asteano.1209 said:

No attunement has zero finishers technically.

And you don't need every finisher to get the 10 stacks.

3 base -> Air 5 gives 5 -> Fire 5 gives 6 -> Water 4 or 5 gives 7 -> Earth 5 gives 10.

This is for targets that can be stunned and immobilized

The aura is also given when the combo is finished, so nothing is stopping you from channeling an ability and swapping attunements before the combo goes into effect.

You didnt think about any cooldowns. Earth 5 has a 30 sec CD while EE lasts for 15 seconds. Air 5 has 25 sec CD. Air 4 is useless (reduces ur dps by a lot bc u whoop urself to the moon). 

Fire 5 also has 25 sec CD.

Its not possible to keep up 10 stacks if you dont have perma quick and alac. 

Did you watch any catalyst benchmark? Even these struggle to keep it up on 10 stacks perma. - And in benchmarks you dont have to dodge, move around and so on. You just cant keep up 10 stacks in a real fight properly, even if you have perma quickness and alacrity. 

[The Boz.2038]

#1: Shouldn't apply to all stats. Power, Condition Damage, Vitality, Healing Power, that's it. 
#2: Empowering Auras should be reworked to add stacks of this, not stacks of a separate buff.
#3: It should be possible to refresh the duration of all stacks with a grandmaster trait on a long-ish CD.

[ScottBroChill.3254]

4 hours ago, SeTect.5918 said:

You didnt think about any cooldowns. Earth 5 has a 30 sec CD while EE lasts for 15 seconds. Air 5 has 25 sec CD. Air 4 is useless (reduces ur dps by a lot bc u whoop urself to the moon). 

Fire 5 also has 25 sec CD.

Its not possible to keep up 10 stacks if you dont have perma quick and alac. 

Did you watch any catalyst benchmark? Even these struggle to keep it up on 10 stacks perma. - And in benchmarks you dont have to dodge, move around and so on. You just cant keep up 10 stacks in a real fight properly, even if you have perma quickness and alacrity. 

Doesn't dodging give you EE? Seems like dodging would actually help keep it up.

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

4 minutes ago, ScottBroChill.3254 said:

Doesn't dodging give you EE? Seems like dodging would actually help keep it up.

But then you don't take Empowered auras.

[ScottBroChill.3254]

1 minute ago, Zhaid Zhem.6508 said:

But then you don't take Empowered auras.

That's what we in the biz like to call a trade-off! 

[The Boz.2038]

9 minutes ago, ScottBroChill.3254 said:

That's what we in the biz like to call a trade-off! 

You can proc more auras than dodges, and they're under your control.

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

Otherwise I didn't do the math nor benchmark about the hammer in water attunement ;
But could be interesting to play 2 catalysts(2-1-2) with Water(2-3-2) and Air (3-2-2); or catalysts DPS (Fire-air) + one auramancer (quickness and water catalyst for example or tempest). It's the only current solution to stack both empowerd auras and EE.

Edited March 30, 2022 by Zhaid Zhem.6508

[ScottBroChill.3254]

3 minutes ago, The Boz.2038 said:

You can proc more auras than dodges, and they're under your control.

Ok, good. 20% on all stats should definitely be harder to maintain then 10% on all damage from a more easily obtainable source. The most optimal choice would be to go for around a 15% bonus from getting the full 10% from aura trait and maintaining an average of 5% from EE. If EE was easily maintained, there would literally be no purpose of the aura traits. 

You can complain about it being just stupid traits, but I think it's a little absurd to say that EE should be as easy to maintain as the aura traits since it has a potential of 2x the effect + more because it effects more than just damage reduction and damage output (concentration, expertise, crit chance, ferocity, etc)

[Bleikopf.2491]

6 hours ago, Sena.2761 said:

Scepter/Focus Air has zero finishers, unless I wanna blow my 30s CD CC if I picked the trait, and then I'm stuck in Air.

 

My fault for trying Catalyst without the hammer? Maybe. Maybe Cata could also be more than just the hammer. See, silly me, I read "Gain X when you do a combo" and thought, "well I like condi and Scepter/Focus is pretty decent condi pick with lots of blast finishers. Let's try that to help syngerize with all these combo traits."

 

 

Scepter has two blast finishers in Fire at least with enough delay to comfortable switch to Air in time.

For PvE, Dagger offhand might be better for combos. In PvP/WvW, you're most likely looking for burst power playstyle anyway with a Lightning Rod Catalyst so it's more about getting to 10 stacks and then finishing the fight in contrast to keeping at 10 stacks the entire fight.

Actually, I think Hammer is one of the harder weapons to actually stack EE with. Scepter/Focus is probably just as difficult to do with.

 

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

I agree the buff shouldn't be easy to maintain if you don't take the traits to, but on the other hand in pvp/wvw or even OW and most of bosses you make the sacrifice of 3 traits (2-2-2) and you're not even sure to reach the 10 stacks ... It's a failure on class design.

 

IMO to be fair you should have both traits in Adept or Master, one for "defensive/support" gameplay (Evasive Empowerment), the other for dps gameplay (Vicious Empowerment) with some tweaks to balance. 
You chose one, and in grand master trait Empowered Empowerment helps you to maintain high stacks, for example +50% effect and +50% duration, or reset duration when activating jade sphere,etc. Then try to balance to keep average 50% uptime in pvp.
And others grand masters traits use this buff  or traits for different purposes, support to allies, self sustain... "Share EE with allies" "EE grant energy. Jadesphere range increases" etc.

But for me, I'll just delete this buff and balance arround the buffs on aura and search for different use of jade sphere (jade shroud for self boons/sustain, sphere specialist with better effect, then a dps grandmaster trait to pulse condition or double effects of augments etc)

Edited March 30, 2022 by Zhaid Zhem.6508

[Sena.2761]

5 minutes ago, Bleikopf.2491 said:

Scepter has two blast finishers in Fire at least with enough delay to comfortable switch to Air in time.

For PvE, Dagger offhand might be better for combos. In PvP/WvW, you're most likely looking for burst power playstyle anyway with a Lightning Rod Catalyst so it's more about getting to 10 stacks and then finishing the fight in contrast to keeping at 10 stacks the entire fight.

Actually, I think Hammer is one of the harder weapons to actually stack EE with. Scepter/Focus is probably just as difficult to do with.

 

 There's a conundrum in condi builds like these in that you really do not want be in Air nor switch to it unless you need the CC or projectile hate.. With Weaver, it's fine, as you have the 3 to press to continue the damage and can fairly quickly get out of Air under Weave Self. Cata does not have this benefit, and unless I'm alone the Air F5 is mostly pointless to press. You can swap to Earth before DT lands but then you can't gain the buff again in Earth-or swap to water and you're in the same bad spot. I think the issue is that none-hammer Cata doesn't really have much of an incentive to attunement dance at the moment, as the Sphere offers mostly pointless effects. It's main incentive is to trigger Epitome more, but it just isn't realistic to make use of it when the tradeoff is being stuck in a dead element. To be perfectly honest, the only real reason to use it over core Ele is the +% damage bonus traits, and Weaver offers those too while solving the "I do not want to be in this element for any significant period of time" issue. This issue is why they made Hammer #3 as it is-to offer you an attractive reason to switch even if the Attunement offers nothing to your current damage setup, basically the exact reason the Weaver dual attacks are worth pressing regardless of your preferred damage type (for the most part.)

 

I'd like to try Dagger offhand but it's fit doesn't quite have the punch I'm looking for sadly. It's always traditionally been more of a PvP weapon I think.

 

I do agree that the idea of having a constant 20% boost to all your stats does sound very powerful. That's why I picked it as a Grandmaster over Boon Duration or near constant Stability-but it isn't like that, it's more of 10% boost to all stats sometimes and a 20% for like a second or so. Not exactly as impressive as it first reads.

 

[SeTect.5918]

2 hours ago, ScottBroChill.3254 said:

Doesn't dodging give you EE? Seems like dodging would actually help keep it up.

Yes, as @Zhaid Zhem.6508said already, only if you use dodge trait. 

Also you shouldn't make that 1 trait forces you to use 2 other traits. 

it makes every combination with "Empowered Empowerment" impossible except 2-2-2. Because its just so difficult to maintain 10 stacks perma. It decreases build variety by a lot if you are forced to play 2-2-2 to get 10 stacks of Elemental Empowerment properly. 

Edited March 30, 2022 by SeTect.5918

[gooddrakkarboi.4870]

Or we just remove the boring and uninspired stat stick and aura traits and give Catalyst an identity...