How to make catalyst viable in pvp

[ScottBroChill.3254]

9 hours ago, Metaologist.2487 said:

Catalyst is pretty good. Most players haven't figured out viable builds yet (or just waiting on someone else to give them one as most players like to do in all game modes). And still, many people don't have the aptitude to play elementalist in a general sense, competently. 

Forreal. The water heal is legit and doesn't require any investment to be really strong. This opens up the ability to focus on straight up tankiness, and basically what I've been playing, although not since the buff because I havent hopped on my ele yet, is a full signet bar with the signet trait in earth. The extra toughness is great, being able to get heals from the signet and press it on demand allows for some little sustain that catalyst misses out on as well as the attunement swap heal in arcane if you take arcane. Rune of melandru or rune of orr (if thats the one that reduces condi damage) go really well too. But honestly I have been having a real fun time taking that fire grandmaster that burns might because of the insane might generation of catalyst, so no matter what you are basically sitting on 15 might stacks a lot of the time. Try to take advantage of shocking aura with combos and earth 4, and magnetic aura is great at projectiles which are a lot more common than you would think. People really sleep on the condi aspect of catalyst because it's not really apparent, but fire orb, flame burst or whatever from the fire line, and all the other stuff makes condi work well with the tankiness of catalyst and goes well with earth attunement. The fields if traited for boons is also phenomenal in teamfights and shouldn't be slept on.

Now just to clarify, this is mostly in mid tier rankings and maybe not so viable the higher you go, but hammer catalyst is far from the dumpster fire people like to make it out to be. It requires a little creativity to work.

Maybe I'm a scrub but it seems to be working for me and people don't really know how to fight it. 

[Downstate.4697]

Catalyst is already viable. Experienced ele players can win almost every encounter and average players get farmed. You dont see catalyst anywhere because no one plays it.

[Serephen.3420]

4 hours ago, FrownyClown.8402 said:

Catalyst is already viable. Experienced ele players can win almost every encounter and average players get farmed. You dont see catalyst anywhere because no one plays it.

I'm a little confused, you say experienced eles can win often but at the same time say no one plays it?

[Downstate.4697]

13 minutes ago, Serephen.3420 said:

I'm a little confused, you say experienced eles can win often but at the same time say no one plays it?

Ele vets have either moved on from gw2 or play other professions. There are still good ones out there, but I only run into 1 or 2 eles a season that are scary.

[Serephen.3420]

2 minutes ago, FrownyClown.8402 said:

Ele vets have either moved on from gw2 or play other professions. There are still good ones out there, but I only run into 1 or 2 eles a season that are scary.

Fair enough, that makes sense.

[Puck.3697]

12 hours ago, Serephen.3420 said:

Fair enough, that makes sense.

Sadly ele can be as meta as it wants, it will never have a high pop, for aslong as easier options exist it will never become a popular option. 

Why do a 25+ button rotation involving a element of stacking a buff + uptime on swirling projectiles + use of F5 on every element, when you can play virtuoso, and do the same DPS for the sake of a rotation that involves 8 buttons and pressing F1 and F2. 

The only time ele has gotten real popular was when it was overpowered I.E in core and when tempest became super dominant for a period of time back in HoT. 

In spvp even less so because it's been perpetually used as a bunker, and most find being a bunker boring compared to the fast flashy DPS options realistically. 

Although the changes to cata defintly made it popular in open world.

Also did you know the most common race+proffession is human elementalist. So they must be hiding out somewhere. With how easy it to to effectively swap chars, it's rly hard to dictate how many play or main one proffession of the bunch, as many when forming raids etc etc, will swap around chars dependent on the group's demand, 

So it's really hard to pinpoint what someone does and doesn't Main, in silver / low gold you spot tons of eles tbh, once you get to gold 3ish they tend to dissapear however, take that as you will. 

 

Edited April 11, 2022 by Daddy.8125

[Paradoxoglanis.1904]

How to make hammer viable in pvp:

make everything 1200 range
new trait that gives 5k health when using hammer
make everything chill and immobilize so you dont get hard countered by the w key.

[kittyfur.6459]

you must be TERRIBLE if you can't make cata work.  It is one of if not the current most OP pvp class in the game.    get real.  Needs a nerfing