After yesterday will everyone stop playing Catalyst ?

[Nercka.2695]

Hello everyone,

 

First time posting here !
A bit of context about me, I've played the game during its release, pretty much day one. I've played guardian until the release of HoT and got... disgusted by the expansion (because I was playing solo but that's another topic).

I left for a long time tried to come back for PoF on a ranger to try something different but HoT got me again and I quit.

 

EoD release, now is my chance ! Guardian again; full story,  I was able to buy the seasons of the living world, finally finished HoT but I'm starting to realise that guardians are pretty much everywhere... And I don't like to be part of the train so I'm starting to look on what's different, support, something that can bring a difference into a group.
I'm finally 80 starting to grind, getting ascended gear, optimization and all, trying to find a build I like => Healer Catalyst or Quick Catalyst and i'm focusing on quickness because I feel useful.

 

Patch day, quickness build is hard to play at top level but still fun. I feel like everyone is quitting the game I fell in love with because of one patch note, will quick catalyst be dropped by everyone and if so, what could be his replacement ? I know I will keep playing it (currently around 17k dps)

Thank you everyone for reading me,
Hoping to see you in game

[soulknight.9620]

1 hour ago, Nercka.2695 said:

17k dps

Thats the problem. qFB can do close to 25-28k dps while perma quick. soooo why play cata?

[Nercka.2695]

Ok so as I said I'm a bit new to min max and raiding and all.

 

Where can catalyst shine then ?

We can also play something because we like it no ? You can't tell me that in a group it's impossible to compensate that loss with another class for exemple ?

[soulknight.9620]

28 minutes ago, Nercka.2695 said:

Where can catalyst shine then ?

It constantly gets nerfed. Thats it superpower (not a good one though). 
Dont get me wrong, you can still play qCata or powerCata, but not a lot of groups will be happy with you. Im in full "wait mode" atm. Mb the build geniuses would come with some good cata build in a few weeks. Im just not one of these guys ^^

[Tycura.1982]

Naw but I only play PvP so the changes are minimal

[Tashigi.3159]

To be honest, I stopped playing it before the nerf. Damage alone is not fun enough for me, but now that it also doesn't have that damage edge? No support builds available? It's barebones. I wouldn't blame ANYONE for not playing it, it's Warrior all over again.

I don't know how ANET can swing and miss this HARD, it's just stupid AF.

[SeTect.5918]

5 hours ago, soulknight.9620 said:

Thats the problem. qFB can do close to 25-28k dps while perma quick. soooo why play cata?

Qfb does more than 25-28k 

[ZoXLike.9073]

there is no place where u can usefull play catalyst atm.

Edited June 29, 2022 by ZoXLike.9073

[Nercka.2695]

Thank you all for your answers,

 

For the moment I have no choice but to play celestial gear because I'm missing on all the necessary recipes (viper and ritualist prefix). I feel this is a strong start before specialization and confidance in the build.

What about catalyst healer, it can give quickness and has a strong heal pool with bow and elem no ?

[soulknight.9620]

43 minutes ago, Nercka.2695 said:

What about catalyst healer, it can give quickness and has a strong heal pool with bow and elem no ?

GL competing with HFB for a spot on the group ^^

[Mara.6782]

I play it sometimes as a bank.

[Dragate.2450]

I have only an elementalist char, playing both catalyst and weaver and rarely, tempest. For the last 2 days, I have been trying to join raid and strike mission squads (CM and non-CM, with KP required and without). Approximately from 2 out of the 3 squads I was getting kicked once they saw what I was playing. I would love to continue playing elementalist but with these changes the community doesn't let me.

At this point, I'm considering either taking a small break from Gw2/elementalist and continue hoping that a second iteration of the balance patch comes soon enough that makes things right, either try a new class, not because I want to but  because I have to.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

I'm still doing it, mostly for aesthetic reasons.  My ele is big, beautiful norn and I have the Juggernaut.  I do lament the 20% loss in damage for quickness.  I lament it greatly.  Though running a buff build isn't off the table.  In theory Quick Cata can still do about 27k power DPS while outputting plenty of might, fury, quickness, vigor, and resolution.  You get even more if you run arcane, at the cost of DPS.  

I'm mostly playing in the overworld right now, so if I do hop on cata I just run a pure power build with 2-1-2 in the cata line.  I start out in Earth now, for a couple of reasons.  I use Sandstorm to disable most enemies, immutable stone for a magnetic aura to stop anything outside of the sandstorm, and then combo earth sphere + ground pound once my energy is up to get another magnetic aura.  From there I just go into the standard DPS rotation, except I don't drop the water sphere.  

EDIT: Can't believe I forgot half of this stuff.  I haven't done any auto tests on the hammer, and I'm still not sure why they nerfed the auto skills.  In theory, Quickcata would be great if the -10% gets removed from spectacular spheres.  That additional trait was overkill, and hopefully it will be one of the upcoming "critical changes."

Edited June 30, 2022 by Blood Red Arachnid.2493

[ScottBroChill.3254]

yeah I'm taking a break from the game. It's not just that patch is super bad or anything, I mean it's bad but.... we have all been waiting for a real balance patch that would do something, anything to change up the meta. But its like year after year of bad game direction, removing fun builds, homogenization. I think them saying they were going to do a HUGE june patch and fix a lot of the issues with weapons and traits but all they did was increase the disparity between guard/mech/scourge from the rest of the trash, I mean professions. 

It  feels like I'm playing 40k and the blue army is the only thing getting new models, buffs, and all the attention from the company while everything else kind of rots. Unless you play the poster child you are just a second class citizen. 

 

[soulknight.9620]

2 hours ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

Can't believe I forgot half of this stuff.  I haven't done any auto tests on the hammer, and I'm still not sure why they nerfed the auto skills.  In theory, Quickcata would be great if the -10% gets removed from spectacular spheres.  That additional trait was overkill, and hopefully it will be one of the upcoming "critical changes."

Dont actually know about 27k on quick cata, mb with super mega optimised gear (a sec to sec quick uptime) it is possible. But that -10% trait removal would actually get us somewhere between 2-3k dps and that would be a good start. 

[Bast.7253]

I think the only thing I would even want to salvage from Catalyst, should they rework/redesign the spec (which at this point seems like the way to go) is access to quickness and the combo finisher trait that grants stability. I can't think of anything else that I'd even care about losing at this point. 

Really wish they would just backtrack and take some time to rework this entire spec and the weapon. Like building hammer 3 into the spec so it isn't this obnoxious upkeep ability added to the complexity of the rotation for basically the same buffs as weaver elite. And now quickness is not only air attunement only, but also attached to a trait. So - if there's now an additional trade-off, what does it really matter tossing it in as a base additional buff to all attunements? For that matter give air fury baseline, alacrity, and then all attunements quickness.  (Sphere trait)

I rarely see catalysts anyway so I guess it doesn't matter. 

Edited July 3, 2022 by Bast.7253

[Nercka.2695]

I really tried keeping it together after the patch but it was impossible

I switched to Tempest, keeping my hammer in a corner in case, but for me catalyst was and still is the most interesting spec of the elementalist

Basically a Battlemage/Shaman that has utility and damage and could turn to tank that's what I'm interesting about.
I really don't think Anet will keep it this way and hope you are right, if they nerf it to the ground to rework it I'm in.

[Ace.1784]

Quick Catalyst feels a little rough, but power catalyst still pumps a ton of damage.

[Lysico.4906]

Seeing hammer cats in pvp. Ranked. 2v2 and they are doing very well there.  

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

They want catalyst to chose between  being a quickness provider or "full" DPS with master traits, which I  honestly think is better game-design now, but they just forget FB still exist.

Otherwise i've already deleted the hammer, D/D gives more good vibes and better synergy.

Edited July 3, 2022 by Zhaid Zhem.6508

[draxynnic.3719]

On 6/30/2022 at 2:41 AM, SeTect.5918 said:

Qfb does more than 25-28k 

Hope you're not basing that on Snowcrows, because they haven't updated their benchmarks even now, let alone when you posted. 25-28k is about what I'm hearing post-patch. Condi guardian took a couple of big hits that the 'guardian never gets nerfed' crowd seem to have missed.

Which isn't to say that it's not still better than catalyst - it is - but let's not exaggerate the case by comparing pre-patch benchmarks to post-patch numbers.

[Mauti.3520]

Stopped playing the Quickness Variant entirely, despite the fact I genuinenly enjoy(ed) it. Good lord. Bad DPS, no Utility, barely existant CC, both heavily punished in Boon Output and DPS when either doing mistakes (double tapping Hammer 3 grrrr) or not adapting well to the encounter/phasings or getting your Hammer 3 by Invuls or Projectile Blocks destroyed.

Sorry. I don't want to bring a Quickness DPS giving me the genuine feels I kitten my subgroup and the players I like to raid with. (Which is what you do right now - There is no sugar coating imho.)
Right now Quickness Cata has absolutely nothing going for it, it's just a pile of disadvantages stacked on top of each other.

Front loaded Quickness and big Sphere is nice, yet the nerfs (dps) and heavy design flaws (horrible cc, horrible utility) are too much of a burden.

The Power Variant..a phew bosses. It's okay there. Though I could'nt care less. It's just another DPS. In theory we got our "DPS"-Specialisation long ago. 

Dealing 47k dps while stacking quickness was busted and had a nerf well deserved. The nerfs especially to the Quickness Variant took it way, waaaaay too far imho.

Edited July 4, 2022 by Mauti.3520

[Nercka.2695]

I'm not here for the numbers, I like to be a support and bring something have a particular role (Heal or Support)

Big numbers are a plus for me, but at this point even the people in the groups told me "Ah sorry you're playing catalyst it won't do" I've been kicked out of an Ankka strike for that.

I also have a DH pDPS and OH BOI the rotation is so much easier, elementalist is complex, sure, but for the big numbers to hit you have to have all the planets alined and do almost a perfect rotation. Sure power hammer is still strong but I don't see why I would choose DPS without any utility on a super hard class when DH exist for exemple.

 

9 minutes ago, Mauti.3520 said:

Right now Quickness Cata has absolutely nothing going for it

Compared to an Alac DPS for utility today, the choice is obvious.

Edited July 4, 2022 by Nercka.2695

[Kuma.1503]

I love Catalyst and still play it often. If only to show off my juggernaut. 

Sadly, getting into groups with it has been painful as of late. When I do get in, I still tend to pull my weight in DPS, but there's no deying that QfB does literally everything we can do but better. 

[SeTect.5918]

11 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Hope you're not basing that on Snowcrows, because they haven't updated their benchmarks even now, let alone when you posted. 25-28k is about what I'm hearing post-patch. Condi guardian took a couple of big hits that the 'guardian never gets nerfed' crowd seem to have missed.

Which isn't to say that it's not still better than catalyst - it is - but let's not exaggerate the case by comparing pre-patch benchmarks to post-patch numbers.

 

29k