Hefty nerf on Catalyst again

[Infusion.7149]

15 hours ago, WolfinTD.3904 said:

I'm kinda curious, what exactly are you hoping to accomplish by coming back to this thread and putting down the same points over and over again? I honestly have no idea what your goal is here, other than "QoL changes" for a class you haven't even touched in half a year. the discussion you're having with this passerbye guy isn't exactly the most intellectual debate anymore. I've been hanging around this thread because I genuinely like reading people's opinions on my favourite class in the game, but I'm at a loss as to what you're looking for now

Just really annoyed by people injecting comments on balance when they have no interest in it.

The people that have the L2p attitude really aren't in the best interest of the game, especially ones that rely on complete utter hyperbole. If they think that players don't want to know autoattack performance because of coefficients, they're severely mistaken since some modifiers are multiplicative and others additive. Even weapon strength differs and attacks such as phantasms use a completely different weapon strength than weapon attacks.

Edited December 30, 2022 by Infusion.7149

[Ace.1784]

On 12/28/2022 at 12:16 PM, Infusion.7149 said:

How do you even main catalyst? It's been out only since February.

(snip)

Also in PVP/WVW you adapt far more than PVE ever will. Half the skills don't even do damage due to hard CC as of Feb 2020 and the targets aren't scripted.

Infusion catching an L wasn't on my 2022 bingo card.

Infusion has great insights, but I have some disagreements. When this thread initially came out, I rolled my eyes for reasons already listed (They nerfed from 47k/46k -> 42k/43k). The initial post in this thread is very hyperbolic in how the nerf impacts Catalyst's overall damage.

But my biggest disagreement is one cannot main Catalyst and Catalyst has no use in WvW. I've been playing Catalyst pretty much exclusively when I can, switching only when needed and for me, it's definitely the strongest elite spec Elementalist has access to, especially in WvW.

If QoL is added, that's fine with me; however, I don't see anything wrong with Catalyst right now.

---

With that out of the way, thanks for the Earth Elemental tech, that's genius and very similar thought process I used to maintain EE stacks in WvW.

For those having bench issues with Catalyst, the mistakes I commonly see is: not simultaneously casting spells and cancelling the 2 abilities in Air, Water, and Earth. Get a keybind setup that makes it convenient to simultaneously cast abilities, bonus if you can get a mouse with some buttons on it (I have about 5 abilities keybound to my mouse). 

 

 

[Infusion.7149]

18 minutes ago, Ace.1784 said:

Infusion catching an L wasn't on my 2022 bingo card.

Infusion has great insights, but I have some disagreements. When this thread initially came out, I rolled my eyes for reasons already listed (They nerfed from 47k/46k -> 42k/43k). The initial post in this thread is very hyperbolic in how the nerf impacts Catalyst's overall damage.

But my biggest disagreement is one cannot main Catalyst and Catalyst has no use in WvW. I've been playing Catalyst pretty much exclusively when I can, switching only when needed and for me, it's definitely the strongest elite spec Elementalist has access to, especially in WvW.

If QoL is added, that's fine with me; however, I don't see anything wrong with Catalyst right now.

---

With that out of the way, thanks for the Earth Elemental tech, that's genius and very similar thought process I used to maintain EE stacks in WvW.

For those having bench issues with Catalyst, the mistakes I commonly see is: not simultaneously casting spells and cancelling the 2 abilities in Air, Water, and Earth. Get a keybind setup that makes it convenient to simultaneously cast abilities, bonus if you can get a mouse with some buttons on it (I have about 5 abilities keybound to my mouse). 

 

 

Problem with that is catalyst doesn't have innate team support whatsoever , jade sphere might suffice as boon output in PVP due to nodes but not in WVW where mobility is king, and the range is limited to 600 unless you play scepter mainhand or with a staff. Without the recently buffed scepter and a bunch of EE stacks on top it is far weaker than any kind of tempest : if you're going to be just above melee range you are far better off with tempest. The same goes for any support build: without heals on aura sharing your only real option is healing from staff and utilities which are core utilities. Catalyst's main draw in group WVW since its inception is double meteor which is extremely niche.

This isn't just my opinion , you can clearly see squads favoring tempest over catalyst by a large margin and aura tempest has been a staple for a while ever since scrapper stealth gyro was nerfed.

Dragon's tooth is slated to be nerfed probably so unless you mean dagger+dagger catalyst or hammer builds both of which are more or less melee builds (Hurricane of Pain , Triple Sear which is unreliable, and Surging Flames being the main exceptions) designed for PVP or lowman without boon rip or shared stability. Care to elaborate?

Edited December 31, 2022 by Infusion.7149

[Ace.1784]

52 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Problem with that is catalyst doesn't have innate team support whatsoever , jade sphere might suffice as boon output in PVP due to nodes but not in WVW where mobility is king, and the range is limited to 600 unless you play scepter mainhand or with a staff. Without the recently buffed scepter and a bunch of EE stacks on top it is far weaker than any kind of tempest : if you're going to be just above melee range you are far better off with tempest. The same goes for any support build: without heals on aura sharing your only real option is healing from staff and utilities which are core utilities. Catalyst's main draw in group WVW since its inception is double meteor which is extremely niche.

This isn't just my opinion , you can clearly see squads favoring tempest over catalyst by a large margin and aura tempest has been a staple for a while ever since scrapper stealth gyro was nerfed.

Dragon's tooth is slated to be nerfed probably so unless you mean dagger+dagger catalyst or hammer builds both of which are more or less melee builds (Hurricane of Pain , Triple Sear which is unreliable, and Surging Flames being the main exceptions) designed for PVP or lowman without boon rip or shared stability. Care to elaborate?

I think Catalyst has the capabilities for team support, at least good considering it's damaging outputs. It is weapon dependent and I'm typically talking about staff and sc/d in WvW groups. There are ways to generate EE stacks, whether it's through dodges, cc, or arcane for immob. This depends upon how a guild plays and their general strategies, but possible while still outputting a good amount of dps whether its backloaded (staff) or more spike (sc/d). In some cases, we have builds that forego Empowered Empowerment for Sphere Specialist and ignore the EE game. The advantage comes from quick access to staff's hard and soft cc or scepters damage abilities, when compared to weaver. Yes double meteor is niche, but a well placed one in a coordinated spike applies a lot of pressure.

I don't think Catalyst and Tempest are competing for spots. Tempest typically takes the support role for heal and cleanses. Catalyst is a dps slot. 

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

4 hours ago, Ace.1784 said:

For those having bench issues with Catalyst, the mistakes I commonly see is: not simultaneously casting spells and cancelling the 2 abilities in Air, Water, and Earth. Get a keybind setup that makes it convenient to simultaneously cast abilities, bonus if you can get a mouse with some buttons on it (I have about 5 abilities keybound to my mouse). 

 

That's my issue with catalyst / hammer ; sure it's L2P issue and I don't have time and envy anymore to invest hours in each game modes but everytime I play catalyst I spend more time looking at my skillbar and buffs to not interrupt #2, to see If I don't lose the circular orbs, to see my energy low and suddenly taking +10 for no reason, etc rather than actually looking at the enemies on the field. Plus Hammer has only one gameplay/rotation enjailed with orbs, and no departures allowed. Even Staff feels more fluid and flexible.

I've already reach a certain level with weaver and elementalist overall through years; I thought it'll be easier to handle Catalyst with that experience but it's clearly not as enjoyable for me.

While I see people still struggling with weaver sword, no need to speak about Fresh air, I get why they  can't even look at Catalyst.
I think it's a bit sad the elite spec has such a high skillfloor with gatekeeping and no flexibility

[Dr Meta.3158]

On 12/15/2022 at 6:43 AM, soulknight.9620 said:

Sword condi weaver with weave self is more complicated and rly ping dependant. 

As for catalyst rotation, u basically just go through the attunements and using all of the availible skills (except air 4). Energy sustain is easily fixed by adjusting ur rotation a bit. Current rotations works on a 2+2 jade sphere drops, which is not that hard to master. 

 

All of the mentioned defences are availible in pure dps spec. So dont see any problems here. The problem here is not efficiency, but a matter of need. If you need to survive a hit, use block in earth 4, if you need to resustain - use heals in water or blast fields or heal skill, etc. Dead dps does no damage. Although if you are doing mechanics of the encounter correctly and you have a semi-decent support you wont have to worry about it at all. Catalyst has tools to deal with "oh sh.." situations untill a support can do his job. 

Like i said, all of the abovemntioned defences and sustain mechanics do not require any changes to a build or rotation order. Its there for you to use when needed. If you want more sustain then sure you need to invest in it just like every other class has to. Not a single dps class can selfsustain himself indefinetly with no invest into sustain while keeping its dps that high (even virtuoso). 

 

The way i see it its like this:

Benchmarks measure the maximum potential of a spec/build.

Average person does 80-90% of benchmark of a said spec if he practices a bit. 

So lets take a few examples. 

1) Catalyst that has 46k dps bench

2) Sword weaver that has 40k dps bench

Average cata player would dish out somewhat 36,8k dps (thats 80% of the bench).

Average weaver player would dish out somewhat 32k dps (thats 80% of the bench). 

The difference is there. But thats not all. Various encounters bring additional conditions which are needed to be met. Like AH where downtime of dps is huge for all of the group. So weaver and cata still do the same amount of dps that they could potentialy do with the same proportions as i mentioned above. Lets say cata did 17k, that means weaver will do 14.7k. Thats the difference between 46k dps and 40k dps benches. Sure there are a lot more when it comes to encounters like "can you get close to dps" or "ranged is prefered" or condi vs power (like mathias/KC) etc. But the proportion stands as it is. Thats why benchmarks not being 100% accurate still serve as a valid tool to compare classes and specs. 

Theres also a matter of player skill involved. If a cata player is bad and does 60-70% of the bench, and a weaver player is good and does 90-95% of bench, then weaver would be ahead of cata in terms of dps. Another thing to consider is that in actuall encounters various things could happen to both weaver and cata: chills, cc, dmg spike with a need of resustaining, etc. All of this contribute to discrepancies of the dps on that specific run and thats why we cant take a single run as an example for class/spec viability. This is a game and much can happen. 

 

And im against nerfing mech. The problem with mech is not that its dps is high or anything its the fact that even average player can utilise 95-100% dps of benchmarks due to simple rotation. So if we compare it to the abovementioned cata/weaver numbers. Mech would bench around 34k dps and average player would be able to pull of 32-34k dps which puts him on the level of weaver while being lower on the bench. Thats why we still see loads of them. They are reliable, they bring utility and are easy to use. 

 

The second part i do agree. I do think that they should have nerfed traits and leave hammer 3 untouched since it is simpler to use by low skill players and average players. But my guess would be this: they knew exactly how much dps loss hammer 3 nerf would do (3-4k dps) and they wouldnt have to put a lot of resources on making this change, since this wasnt a balance patch or anything, but rather a hotfix. Maybe they would make additional changes to it in the future balance patches like reverting the hammer 3 skills and nerfing more complex trait synergy to compensate. 

Confused emojis aside, this is mostly spot on. 

Additionally, the biggest disparities between golem and real dps is if you're melee and/or you rely on pulsing ground aoe effects that can be moved out of. Though this is alluded to in the explanation of why Mechanist was so prevalent.

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

I honestly find weaver easier and more enjoyable than catalyst. (edit, it's not perfect either, and weaver has suffered a lot through patchs)
May be I'm biased as I mainly played weaver since PoF release and videosfrom Solemn, cellofrag, Exzen ... Idk.

The skill floor is lower (because of low CD on attunements, easy buff, evade skills etc) archetypes and mechanics readable and flexible, and the progression, the mastery, is fluid with steps (change attunement while casting skills, benefit the most of weaveself, of primordial stance, chain 2 then 3 dual skills with scepter, unravel...) ; while with catalyst if you don't get the point with #3 hammer, with #2, with auras, combos and EE or the energy management to get your pulse of 1sec resolution etc you're just a free kill.

 

Even at high level weaver is pur button mashing and muscular reflex, with possible departure for riptide/earthen vortex without screwing your rotation  when with catalyst you need eyes on cast of #2, on duration of orbs, on energy, on EE stacks, on enemies and somewhat like bladesworn you can halve your dps because of a little mistake, a bad timing...
No need to say either catalyst is enjailed with hammer; you can't really play anything else  or you just miss half  the traits and mechanics of the spec. The few "fresh air catalysts" / condi scepter catalysts I see in PvP are just dead people to become against the same build with weaver.

Edited December 31, 2022 by Zhaid Zhem.6508

[Ace.1784]

16 hours ago, Zhaid Zhem.6508 said:

 

That's my issue with catalyst / hammer ; sure it's L2P issue and I don't have time and envy anymore to invest hours in each game modes but everytime I play catalyst I spend more time looking at my skillbar and buffs to not interrupt #2, to see If I don't lose the circular orbs, to see my energy low and suddenly taking +10 for no reason, etc rather than actually looking at the enemies on the field. Plus Hammer has only one gameplay/rotation enjailed with orbs, and no departures allowed. Even Staff feels more fluid and flexible.

I've already reach a certain level with weaver and elementalist overall through years; I thought it'll be easier to handle Catalyst with that experience but it's clearly not as enjoyable for me.

While I see people still struggling with weaver sword, no need to speak about Fresh air, I get why they  can't even look at Catalyst.
I think it's a bit sad the elite spec has such a high skillfloor with gatekeeping and no flexibility

With the orbs, the key is to cast them while another ability is channeling, this prevents the accidental shootoff. 

A delay would certainly make this easier to deal with, but it also removes the burst aspect of grand finale (quickly popping off the fourth orb to spike someone down). 

I've been pretty much playing hammer exclusively for open world and instanced pve content since it came out (some swaps to staff here and there when needed), and I find it gets easier the more I use it. I hope you try it out again in the future, I think it's the most enjoyable elementalist weapon.

9 hours ago, Zhaid Zhem.6508 said:

I honestly find weaver easier and more enjoyable than catalyst. (edit, it's not perfect either, and weaver has suffered a lot through patchs)
May be I'm biased as I mainly played weaver since PoF release and videosfrom Solemn, cellofrag, Exzen ... Idk.

I don't think it's weird, I too think Weaver is easier than Catalyst (exception being Condi Weaver), for all the reasons you listed here.