A redesigned, healthier Catalyst traitline

[The Boz.2038]

I feel like Elemental Empowerment is intended to be a very key component of the Catalyst, but it is a mechanic that is very difficult to optimize around, and some of it is not within player control. To better incorporate the effects, it should be subtly redesigned, but sinc it is such a fundamental part of the kit, that basically means the entire Catalyst traitline needs to be looked at.

Identifying problems: The traitline has three separate effects you can keep track of, two of which are optional (Elemental Empowerment, Hardened Auras, Empowering Auras). The Catalyst is also needlessly burdened with the energy mechanic, which now only serves to delay the deployment of the first sphere in any combat. Lastly, empowerment stacks, although a nice and strong effect, complicate making builds, crit-capping, raid tanking, and general reliability.

Proposing solutions:
Jade Sphere no longer has an energy cost. Lasts 8 seconds, cooldown 15 seconds. Cooldown is shared across attunements; you can only have one out at a time. With a cooldown that matches the duration of an Elemental Empowerment stack, this will have valuable interplay with traits later on. Jade Spheres have decreased damage (50%). Air sphere grants 1.5s Fury, not Quickness.
Elemental Empowerment should only give Power, Condition Damage, Vitality, Healing Power by default. That way, you always get stats that you really want, but the stats never complicate tanking in raids, crit-capping the build, or viability of boon supports, while still making you better at a selected role, be it condi, power, tanking, sustain...
Traits: This is the meatier part of this whole idea.
 - Depth of Elements - Introduces the Elemental Empowerment mechanic right off the bat; gain 2 stacks of EE when deploying a jade sphere.
 - Hardened Empowerment - Gain 1 EE when you block an attack. EE also improves Toughness. Using a heal skill grants 4s Aegis.
 - Vicious Empowerment - Gain 1 EE when you hit a bleeding or burning enemy, 5s cooldown. EE also improves Expertise.
 - Ferocious Empowerment - Gain 1 EE when you disable an enemy. EE also improves Ferocity. Critical hits cause your jade sphere to snap to your location, if deployed.
 - Empowered Combatant - Gain 2 EE while in combat, 15s cooldown.
 - Energized Elements - Gain 1 EE and 4s Alacrity on attunement swap.
 - Evasive Empowerment - Gain 1 EE and 4s Vigor when you evade an attack.
 - Spectacular Sphere - Sphere pulses additional effects: 1s Burning (Fire), 4s Bleeding (Earth), 0.25 Power hit (Air), 250+0.05 Heal (Water).
 - Elemental Epitome - Gain 1 EE when you gain an aura. Gain an aura when you combo, 10s cooldown.
 - Staunch Auras - Gain 3s Stability when you gain an aura. Gain two stacks if you gain an aura in range of your sphere.
 - Empowered Empowerment - While at maximum EE, its effectiveness is increased 50%. Using an elite skill refreshes the duration of all EE stacks, 60s cooldown.
 - Quickening Sphere - Jade Sphere also grants 1s Quickness to 5 allies in range.

End result: Elemental Empowerment gains a baseline of 4 in combat, so long as you keep sending out jade spheres. With alacrity, which can now be optionally self-supported, this becomes that tiny bit better. The 8s duration for jade spheres that pulse 1.5s boons (other than Might) mean that any Catalyst can maintain one (and only one) boon (Protection, Fury, or Resolution) with just the sphere alone, and it needs 50% boon duration to maintain Quickness, too. The chaos of maintaining higher EE stacks is somewhat reined in by the option to reset all EE stack durations at least once per fight. 

Edited April 1, 2022 by The Boz.2038

[SeTect.5918]

43 minutes ago, The Boz.2038 said:

I feel like Elemental Empowerment is intended to be a very key component of the Catalyst, but it is a mechanic that is very difficult to optimize around, and some of it is not within player control. To better incorporate the effects, it should be subtly redesigned, but sinc it is such a fundamental part of the kit, that basically means the entire Catalyst traitline needs to be looked at.

Identifying problems: The traitline has three separate effects you can keep track of, two of which are optional (Elemental Empowerment, Hardened Auras, Empowering Auras). The Catalyst is also needlessly burdened with the energy mechanic, which now only serves to delay the deployment of the first sphere in any combat. Lastly, empowerment stacks, although a nice and strong effect, complicate making builds, crit-capping, raid tanking, and general reliability.

Proposing solutions:
Jade Sphere no longer has an energy cost. Lasts 8 seconds, cooldown 15 seconds. Cooldown is shared across attunements; you can only have one out at a time. With a cooldown that matches the duration of an Elemental Empowerment stack, this will have valuable interplay with traits later on. Jade Spheres have decreased damage (50%). Air sphere grants 1.5s Fury, not Quickness.
Elemental Empowerment should only give Power, Condition Damage, Vitality, Healing Power by default. That way, you always get stats that you really want, but the stats never complicate tanking in raids, crit-capping the build, or viability of boon supports, while still making you better at a selected role, be it condi, power, tanking, sustain...
Traits: This is the meatier part of this whole idea.
 - Depth of Elements - Introduces the Elemental Empowerment mechanic right off the bat; gain 2 stacks of EE when deploying a jade sphere.
 - Hardened Empowerment - Gain 1 EE when you block an attack. EE also improves Toughness. Using a heal skill grants 4s Aegis.
 - Vicious Empowerment - Gain 1 EE when you hit a bleeding or burning enemy, 5s cooldown. EE also improves Expertise.
 - Ferocious Empowerment - Gain 1 EE when you disable an enemy. EE also improves Ferocity. Critical hits cause your jade sphere to snap to your location, if deployed.
 - Empowered Combatant - Gain 2 EE while in combat, 15s cooldown.
 - Energized Elements - Gain 1 EE and 4s Alacrity on attunement swap.
 - Evasive Empowerment - Gain 1 EE and 4s Vigor when you evade an attack.
 - Spectacular Sphere - Sphere pulses additional effects: 1s Burning (Fire), 4s Bleeding (Earth), 0.25 Power hit (Air), 250+0.05 Heal (Water).
 - Elemental Epitome - Gain 1 EE when you gain an aura. Gain an aura when you combo, 10s cooldown.
 - Staunch Auras - Gain 3s Stability when you gain an aura. Gain two stacks if you gain an aura in range of your sphere.
 - Empowered Empowerment - While at maximum EE, its effectiveness is increased 50%. Using an elite skill refreshes the duration of all EE stacks, 60s cooldown.
 - Quickening Sphere - Jade Sphere also grants 1s Quickness to 5 allies in range.

End result: Elemental Empowerment gains a baseline of 4 in combat, so long as you keep sending out jade spheres. With alacrity, which can now be optionally self-supported, this becomes that tiny bit better. The 8s duration for jade spheres that pulse 1.5s boons (other than Might) mean that any Catalyst can maintain one (and only one) boon (Protection, Fury, or Resolution) with just the sphere alone, and it needs 50% boon duration to maintain Quickness, too. The chaos of maintaining higher EE stacks is somewhat reined in by the option to reset all EE stack durations at least once per fight. 

While I like the ideas, please add some crit chance in stats if EE loses precision. 

EE increases the crit chance by ~18.5% while having Empowered Empowerment. This is a massive crit chance loss so I would suggest to put 15% crit chance increase on a trait. (Maybe to Elemental Episome to increase crit chance by 15% for 10 seconds if you combo)

However as i said, i really like the ideas, if you add something with 15% crit chance, u got my like surely!

(Maybe also a bit more sustain but thats not as important as getting enough crit chance)

Edited April 1, 2022 by SeTect.5918

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

47 minutes ago, The Boz.2038 said:

Elemental Empowerment should only give Power, Condition Damage, Vitality, Healing Power by default. That way, you always get stats that you really want

 

Conceptually the buff is very lazy to me; but I disagree with this point :  EE already gives bonus points in the stats you want. In practice, EE obliges good preparation and thought of your build, buffs and gear. (or go full celestial)
If you don't want toughness, you don't gear with toughness, you'll get +1% of zero = zero.  You want vitality ? Marauder, mage ...

About the crit cap, I get this point; if you know you maintain  at least 5stacks, you build to get 100% accordingly. The extra points will still increase others stats, it's not "lost" buff

 

Almost all your traits are about the gain of EE on precise circumstance for precise gameplay and gear; as the other effects are also balanced accordingly. IMO it's too much, I don't think this is healthier than already chosing 2-2-2 for general gameplay.
I know there is issue with the grandmaster trait; but I think the good solution would be to delete the threshold and it'd be okai if catalyst can"t maintain 10 stack, as it'd already get bonus effect for the 4-5 EE from minor traits.

Edited April 1, 2022 by Zhaid Zhem.6508

[The Boz.2038]

2 minutes ago, SeTect.5918 said:

While I like the ideas, please add some crit chance in stats if EE loses precision. 

Not a bad idea; ele in general is not trivial to crit-cap. I was considering giving it to Ferocious, as a passive bonus. 

[The Boz.2038]

3 minutes ago, Zhaid Zhem.6508 said:

If you don't want toughness, you don't gear with toughness, you'll get +1% of zero = zero.  You want vitality ? Marauder, mage ...

Base toughness is 1000. 

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

1 minute ago, The Boz.2038 said:

Base toughness is 1000. 

 It's 100 point gain, less than an amulet. Edit or 200, but no one maintain 200.

Edited April 1, 2022 by Zhaid Zhem.6508

[bluberblasen.9684]

why the nerfs ?

 

10 second cooldown jadesphere is good enough ( with arcane its around 8 seonds ) why do you want it to 15 seconds ?

why the cooldown share ? now i can have 2 fields simultan.

why nerfing  trait to give only 2 energy gain when the trait gives now 3 energy per weapon switch ?

 

ups: edit:

sorry ignore my text, i thought WvW uses the same stats than pve 🙂

 

 

Edited April 1, 2022 by bluberblasen.9684

[The Boz.2038]

Just now, Zhaid Zhem.6508 said:

 It's 100 point gain, less than an amulet.

It is up to 200 points, and that is often more than what raid tanks have. 
You do not want to go "Aww yeah, finally hit my full empowerment, time to unleash The Rotation!" * boss turns around and one-shots poor ele *

[The Boz.2038]

1 minute ago, bluberblasen.9684 said:

why the nerfs ?

 

10 second cooldown jadesphere is good enough ( with arcane its around 8 seonds ) why do you want it to 15 seconds ?

why the cooldown share ? now i can have 2 fields simultan.

why nerfing  trait to give only 2 energy gain when the trait gives now 3 energy per weapon switch ?

 

Because energy is removed, and energy used to ~control how many and how often you can have out. 
The 3>2 trait is nerfed because you get another 2 that you didn't get before in base trait. Overall, you get more control and more gain of EE. Try giving it a second read.

[gooddrakkarboi.4870]

I still think it would be the best idea to remove all the aura and stat stick traits 🤷‍♀️

[The Boz.2038]

Just now, gooddrakkarboi.4870 said:

I still think it would be the best idea to remove all the aura and stat stick traits 🤷‍♀️

1. I kinda like the stat-boost trait idea, as it ~approaches the "catalyst" idea of gaining momentum.
2. I kinda don't want to think about entirely gutting seventy percent of the traitline, and there's none chance that ANet would do something like that.

[The Boz.2038]

I love the confuseys reacts. Please, pepper some more!

[Serephen.3420]

I want to like this but I'm not sure. I do like your thought process but I would prefer less focus on ee and more on the sphere, rather than everything focusing on ee. I do like your idea for the ee grandmaster with elites refreshing stacks though.

[The Boz.2038]

3 hours ago, Serephen.3420 said:

I want to like this but I'm not sure. I do like your thought process but I would prefer less focus on ee and more on the sphere, rather than everything focusing on ee. I do like your idea for the ee grandmaster with elites refreshing stacks though.

Other than T1, you can pick a non-EE trait at every trait tier. Think there should be an alternative in the first? Like, a hammer trait?

[SeTect.5918]

25 minutes ago, The Boz.2038 said:

Other than T1, you can pick a non-EE trait at every trait tier. Think there should be an alternative in the first? Like, a hammer trait?

Thats actually a nice idea.
A hammer trait I mean.

Also since Weaver also has a trait for Sword.

[Poelala.2830]

Don’t like any of this. Catalyst would become weaker 

[The Boz.2038]

34 minutes ago, Poelala.2830 said:

Don’t like any of this. Catalyst would become weaker 

Sorry, what? How do you figure?

[Serephen.3420]

18 hours ago, The Boz.2038 said:

Other than T1, you can pick a non-EE trait at every trait tier. Think there should be an alternative in the first? Like, a hammer trait?

I think a trait that gives barrier on auras or combos would add some interesting gameplay. Though that could probably get tied in with staunch auras I suppose. 

I'd like a line dedicated to changing how the sphere works I suppose, or more sphere focused traits since it is supposed to be the mechanic. 

But I can't think of anything solid right now. Might share some ideas once I have time to think about it.

 

Also yeah, weaver like trait for hammer could be nice but not sure how it should work.