Ele Mains: How Would You Fix Catalyst for PvP?

[CalmTheStorm.2364]

The EU MAT was won by a team of 5 Catalysts, and 6/10 players in the NA finals were Catalysts as well. It seems pretty clear that Cata is way overpowered at the moment, and one can only hope that nerfs come soon.

 

However, not all nerfs are fair or function as intended. So I'm genuinely curious to hear what ele mains would suggest to rein in Catalyst without a) completely deleting it from the meta, and b) without negatively impacting underperforming ele specs?

 

Thanks for your insight!

Edited January 29, 2023 by CalmTheStorm.2364
Typos

[Jski.6180]

I do not understand what so op about it. Its an low hp low def class that can be one shot it should hit harder then other classes.

Say for def end maybe aura stab should not be a thing but the F5 place able boon on earth should be an support stab 2-3 stacks (water f5 should be resistcatles.) Not comply sure what to replaces the aura stab trait with i still want to see more combo effects maybe something like that?

[Dadnir.5038]

Warning: Not ele main and I don't really want to see catalyst nerfed.

If we listen to the various sPvP complaints, the "issue" is the ability to chain defensive tools.

The logical answer would be to first tinker with elemental celerity which, based on earsay, is supposed to be instrumental in the process. Thus the first step to "fix" it should be to increase the CD of this skill in competitive modes to PvE duration (90s instead of 60s).

If, after a few weeks live, this prove to not be enough, the second step should be to consider tinkering with either one of these points:

- Percentage of recharge: Maybe 80-70% instead of 100%

- What is affected: It could affect utility skills instead of weapon skills. Or it could only recharge the attunment (F1-F2-F3-F4).

If this prove to not be enough after some time live, then it might be necessary to look at the more "arguable" mechanisms of the elementalists: Shocking aura and Magnetic aura. Both aura could be change to have effects in line with fire aura, especially since they can be gained pretty often as a catalyst.

- Shocking aura could be changed to "Static aura: envelop yourself in a static aura that make your foes vulnerable (10s) and grant you quickness (1s) each time you are stuck (ICD: 1s per attacker)"

- Magnetic aura could be changed to "Stoneflesh aura: Envelop yourself in an earthly aura that slow (2s) your foes and grant you resistance (2s) each time you are stuck (ICD: 1s per attacker)"

This one should solve both Tempest and Catalyst perceived issue. It would be nice if it could come with a CD reduction on the skills that directly grant those aura in return. I think it would be reasonable to see staff's magnetic aura/stoneflesh aura see it's CD drop from 30s to 20s and Shocking aura/Static aura down to 20s as well.

[Ragnarox.9601]

They were scepter/focus? Its not catalyst that is broken its the scepter.

[Jski.6180]

9 minutes ago, Ragnarox.9601 said:

They were scepter/focus? Its not catalyst that is broken its the scepter.

Its only a group of ppl who cant deal with skills tracking that you can see. The vidcator GS dose the same thing and there are countless skills that also tracks we just simply cant see them. Its not scepter as an wepon its just the viable part.

 

I think this is all an example of anet unable to split effects and skills from game types. Channel inviable and invabitly should NOT be a thing in spvp it should simply be an channed blocked. Over all boon blocks aigles should not be an 100% block. Take 0 dmg effects should all be barrier effects. The fact we have these things in spvp in small group fights comply unbalances the game type.

[AliamRationem.5172]

2 hours ago, Ragnarox.9601 said:

They were scepter/focus? Its not catalyst that is broken its the scepter.

Probably this and the Elite utility.

[solemn.9670]

4 hours ago, Jski.6180 said:

Its only a group of ppl who cant deal with skills tracking that you can see. The vidcator GS dose the same thing and there are countless skills that also tracks we just simply cant see them. Its not scepter as an wepon its just the viable part.

 

I think this is all an example of anet unable to split effects and skills from game types. Channel inviable and invabitly should NOT be a thing in spvp it should simply be an channed blocked. Over all boon blocks aigles should not be an 100% block. Take 0 dmg effects should all be barrier effects. The fact we have these things in spvp in small group fights comply unbalances the game type.

This might be a reasonable solution. Start off by changing earth shield 5 and focus offhand earth 5 to blocks, not a state of invulnerability that ignores condis

But also.. I'm tempted to say that it should be this way. If it wasn't ele it would be something else. Something will always be at the top, isn't it best to have the most complicated spec be that high performer? The only other I'd personally be fine seeing dominate the meta is thief. Ele kinda seems like it should be the best reward for the most effort.

But yeah I wouldn't be upset to see some slight nerfs to catalyst in spvp. Would be cool if core traitlines got some love alongside the cata nerfs tho.

[Jski.6180]

1 hour ago, solemn.9670 said:

This might be a reasonable solution. Start off by changing earth shield 5 and focus offhand earth 5 to blocks, not a state of invulnerability that ignores condis

But also.. I'm tempted to say that it should be this way. If it wasn't ele it would be something else. Something will always be at the top, isn't it best to have the most complicated spec be that high performer? The only other I'd personally be fine seeing dominate the meta is thief. Ele kinda seems like it should be the best reward for the most effort.

But yeah I wouldn't be upset to see some slight nerfs to catalyst in spvp. Would be cool if core traitlines got some love alongside the cata nerfs tho.

I mean more then just for the ele class i am talking over all spvp should not have impossible to stop def skills. I think that would go a long way to balancing spvp.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

Fix the game mode so players don't have to rely on cheese to win? Bring back tactics and strategy instead of everything coming down to damage, defense and movement? Deal with all the exploitations of the game's mechanics so players start on a nearly-equal playing field?

 

Oh right, you wanted me to say "nerf Catalyst". Fixing the scepter will do it, until the next OP class appears in precisely less than a month, as has happened many, many times before.

Edited January 30, 2023 by Mariyuuna.6508

[AliamRationem.5172]

There's overtuned and then there's 60% of all entries in the MAT with the winning team consisting of only that class.  You lose all credibility when you even try to write this off as within the range of normal and acceptable.  Seriously, does the ele forum always have to be a meme?  Why don't we talk a little more about downstate while we're at it. 🤡

[Razor.6392]

3 hours ago, solemn.9670 said:

This might be a reasonable solution. Start off by changing earth shield 5 and focus offhand earth 5 to blocks, not a state of invulnerability that ignores condis

But also.. I'm tempted to say that it should be this way. If it wasn't ele it would be something else. Something will always be at the top, isn't it best to have the most complicated spec be that high performer? The only other I'd personally be fine seeing dominate the meta is thief. Ele kinda seems like it should be the best reward for the most effort.

But yeah I wouldn't be upset to see some slight nerfs to catalyst in spvp. Would be cool if core traitlines got some love alongside the cata nerfs tho.

Honestly you should get slapped for suggesting nerfing a weapon skill. Catalyst isn't the only one using earth 5, use your brain and stop destroying other specs because cata is broken.

[Dadnir.5038]

12 hours ago, Ragnarox.9601 said:

They were scepter/focus? Its not catalyst that is broken its the scepter.

In fact it's not that scepter is broken, it's that scepter is now good enough to allow what's broken to shine.

[Forgotten Legend.9281]

first: i wouldn't touch the Catalyst until i changed a few core items:

 

Staff:

~ i would add more conditions to the earth line, especially poison and a poison field. (possibly on all weapon sets, but staff definitely needs it), and i'd add more unCC-triggered damage to Static field because it's so easy to avoid the field to begin with. it's practically worthless, and worse off than the old ground-targeted dragon's tooth

 

Traits:

~ i would change all the minor Master traits (the passive spells given on attunement swap) to be ranged to target at 1200. The class is listed as a ranged class, but these traits are 3 out of 4 practically melee oriented. All 4 would commit damage to the enemy target, Then the ally healing / boons would animate similar to Necro's lifeforce-steal so they'd still heal / buff self + allies.

~ i would also change some of the boons / conditions granted from traits based on attunements. there's hardly any variety at all.

 

Specifically for catalyst: 

 

~ i'd probably take Hammer 3 and convert that into F5 skill, make new hammer 3 for each attunement, and maybe combine the jade sphere combo field so it would place the field at the same time as summoning the spinning orb around the Catalyst. the "detonation" of the orbs could also detonate the fields for strike / condi damage, and / or cause the fields to pop a boon to allies, at a cost of added cooldown to attunement swap based on number of fields detonated, maybe with a trait that granted a short duration stability or protection / resolution on F5 detonation.  (slowing down the attunement swaps could possibly bring the catalyst down to where it's supposed to be)

 

or

 

~ maybe revert the Meteor shower nerf (because of the elite) while converting hammer 3 into the new elite that would replace the current elite. (getting rid of the current elite skill could possibly bring the catalyst down to where it should be)

 

mainly: hammer 3 should NOT be on hammer, but should be part of the definition of the Espec regardless of weapon.

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

Nerf "Elemental Celerity", instead of just fire and forget, make it channel skill for 3s that each second will reduce cooldown of skills by 33%.
Remove "additional burning" from Flamestrike and Phoenix, doesn't make sense to deal that much damage from 111 via condi spam.
Dragon's Tooth needs either reduced damage or increased cooldown.
Fortified Earth increased cooldown to 40s, it could also get some protection at the end of cast, but overall cooldown is too low for something that can also get it reduced...
Add 2~4s cooldown to Blinding Flash between ammo uses so it's not that spammable.
Make Water Trident targatable on ground, instead of autoaim on target.
Remove increased radius from Spectacular Sphere.
Staunch Auras increase stability duration to 4s base with 2 stacks, but give it ICD of atleast 10s.
Although I still think that this spec need a full redesign.

[Kodama.6453]

3 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

In fact it's not that scepter is broken, it's that scepter is now good enough to allow what's broken to shine.

I think scepter is overtuned in some areas.

For example, dragon tooth as a skill with pretty low cd does not need to hit with a 2,0 power coefficient after they made it track. Before, the damage was justified because the skill was way harder to hit because it was ground targeted and delayed heavily. But it hits more reliable now.

Before, you could simply sidestep the skill without investing any defensive cds or dodges. Now if you want to avoid that skill, you have to invest. It doesn't need to hit as hard anymore.

Edited January 30, 2023 by Kodama.6453

[Dadnir.5038]

8 minutes ago, Kodama.6453 said:

I think scepter is overtuned in some areas.

For example, dragon tooth as a skill with pretty low cd does not need to hit with a 2,0 power coefficient after they made it track. Before, the damage was justified because the skill was way harder to hit because it was ground targeted and delayed heavily. But it hits more reliable now since it tracks.

Before, you could simply sidestep the skill without investing any defensive cds or dodges. Now if you want to avoid that skill, you have to invest. It doesn't need to hit as hard anymore.

I don't think the game lack short CD skills that hit hard and reliably at range and people use proper counter since age against those skills without much conmplaints. I mean, Ghastly claws, Dark barrage, Rapid fire, Volley, Gun flame, True shot, Bladesong harmony, Confusing image, Frost volley... etc.

Neither dragon tooth nor scepter are the issue. The issue is that the QoLs they brought to scepter made elementalist more popular and people rediscovered that Focus can be OP as a defensive tool (which is especially true when it come along with a skill that can reset weapon skills CD on a 60s CD.)

[apharma.3741]

The way I see it there's a few things at play that make catalyst especially hard to deal with:
Stab on aura leading to high or perma stab
Shocking, Magnetic and to a lesser degree frost aura every time you combo in the appropriate attunement.

Stab on aura is easy to change, you only get stab when you get an aura in a certain attunement or you can change it to be on heal, or elite etc. Lots of things to do.
Auras themselves are a bit tricky. Some are calling to gut shocking and magnetic aura but that will pretty much kill ele in melee and tempest builds. So I propose that the aura from elemental epitome be based on the GM trait you choose and be one of the other auras in the game like light, dark, fire and chaos. Chaos might be too strong but it would fit with the bottom trait line.

 

Scepter needs some damage reduction to dragon's tooth while dropping a little sooner, the ammo removing from blinding flash, remove the blind from dust devil and tone down or remove the bonus damage on water trident. Would be a good place to start.

Of course the easiest fix is to slap a 10-15s ICD on elemental epitome and call it a day while leaving it as a clunky trait to keep track off and hope you don't accidentally proc it on a random light field. Guess which is more likely to happen?

[Kodama.6453]

3 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

I don't think the game lack short CD skills that hit hard and reliably at range and people use proper counter since age against those skills without much conmplaints. I mean, Ghastly claws, Dark barrage, Rapid fire, Volley, Gun flame, True shot, Bladesong harmony, Confusing image, Frost volley... etc.

Neither dragon tooth nor scepter are the issue. The issue is that the QoLs they brought to scepter made elementalist more popular and people rediscovered that Focus can be OP as a defensive tool (which is especially true when it come along with a skill that can reset weapon skills CD on a 60s CD.)

I think you are ignoring alot of stuff here. For example the fact that many of the skills you listed there are countered by projectile hate, which is VERY common right now in PvP.

Ghastly claws gets to ignore projectile hate, too. But necromancer is generally not in a great spot. But whenever axe necromancer is actually strong in the game, there are ALOT of people who complain about ghastly claws for the same reason. Low cd, hits hard, ignores projectile hate while being ranged.

Also many of the skills you mention are channeled and can get a huge portion of their damage negated by LoS reactionary. Dragon tooth doesn't allow that, the elementalist just looks for you to be out of LoS, then casts it. Enemy has no time to LoS it and once it is casted on them, using LoS will not prevent the hit either.

Dragon tooth just gets to ignore a huge amount of counterplay other ranged heavy hitters have to deal with. I stand to my point, the amount of damage it currently packs is simply not justified.

Edited January 30, 2023 by Kodama.6453

[bluberblasen.9684]

As an ele player for more than 10 years and ex pvp player ( still wvw player)

I would nerf ( pvp only)

 

Elite skill 60 second - >90 second

Scepter air 3 : blinding flash 1 ammo.

Scepter fire 2: damage reduce

 

 

Focus earth 5: duration reduce to 2 seconds.

 

 

 

 

[Jski.6180]

At this rate i think anet going to over react and nerf it in all game types as they always seem to do. You just cant balance the game like this with out destroying its player base. Scpter is an pure selfish wepon out of all of the ele weapons is it different. If you nerf scpter too much catalyes hammer will simply take over and in a lot of ways it is stronger then scpter. If you over nerf catalyest your nerfing an melee ele to no longer be able to be viable in melee ranged or worst catalyest will be an melee ele with no dmg.

No ele main trust anet to split there game balancing right so when ppl ask for nerfs in one game type they see nerfs coming to all game types. Please keep that in mind.

[Ban Daur.4831]

I think we are looking at wrong location while scepter is quite strong atm and could use some tuning whit catalyst I don't see it abused whit either tempest or weaver as much and catalyst could jump to another weapon set if it were nerfed. The difference from what i see is the amount+variety of boons, extra stats, combofields and auras that catalyst can generate is what makes it superb compared to other elem specs.

For tempest to generate as many boons, auras and combofields they will need to take shouts that cost utility slot and complete overloads which can be interupted. Catalyst spheres are instant cast and you generate energy to cast them via attacking and attunement swapping if you run approriate trait. Catalyst Sphere size and duration also matters as catalyst can combo inside it easier compared to any other combofields tempest or weaver can generate. The type of auras, finishers and boons from Spheres/combofields that can be generated is lot stronger than elem could do before in combination whit the traits catalyst can choose from.

I would reccoemend looking into what catalyst brought to the table in comparison to what other elem builds can do and try to match the power level while not destroying the uniqueness of the spec for those whom enjoy  it.

[Jski.6180]

Looking a bit into it i must say it looks like FA is more of the issues in spvp and i am all for nerfing FA i say put an 3 to 5 sec icd on it. Its VERY odd that no one is talking about that has any one wached the vido of the fights. If you stop fast swap though getting FA nerf the ele class cd on its atuments do start to balance out its effects and skills. Yes dragon tooth maybe on a low cd but you would have to camp only fire but with FA your always able to buy time for fire atument though the def skills of air with out losing too much dps.

Fresh air brakes ele in spvp it always has and it always has given the illusion that every thing else is broken on ele. Make FA have an icd it would fix the class in spvp over night and cause a lot of rages for what spvp balance seems to become an 1 person aimed balancing game type hehe.

[Razor.6392]

6 hours ago, bluberblasen.9684 said:

As an ele player for more than 10 years and ex pvp player ( still wvw player)

I would nerf ( pvp only)

 

Elite skill 60 second - >90 second

Scepter air 3 : blinding flash 1 ammo.

Scepter fire 2: damage reduce

 

 

Focus earth 5: duration reduce to 2 seconds.

 

 

 

 

Everytime a broken ELITE SPEC comes along, it gets focus 5 nerfed for EVERY OTHER SPEC INCLUDING CORE.

What's next? Future expansion reducing obsidian duration to 1 second because [new spec] is overpowered?

 

[Erenias.6947]

I'd be doing some pretty big changes to a few traits.

 

First one would be elemental epitome. It would now grant stacks of elemental empowerment when doing combos. Leap and blast combos would give 2 stacks, while projectile and whirl combos would give 1 stack per projectile, up to a max of 3 per skill. Comboing would also grant energy depending on the combo used. Maybe 5 energy for leap and blast and 1 energy for projectiles? This trait wouldn't grant auras anymore though, as that would be moved to the next trait.

 

The second trait is look at is staunch auras. It allows for some insane stab spam, so the stab would be removed. Instead it now grants an aura when performing a combo, and the aura you get depends on your attunement. I feel like this might be too weak for a GM trait so maybe lower the ICD or add a secondary effect.

 

The third trait I'd look at is spectacular spheres. Firstly invert the boons on the air sphere so it gives fury by default and quickness when traited, this makes it like the pve version and it makes more sense that the powerful quickness boon is locked behind a trait. The stab that was lost from staunch auras will be added back to the earth sphere through spectacular spheres. The resistance would be replaced with 2 stacks of stab for 5 seconds. This allows for AOE stab so it might be even stronger than before though.

 

Then there are some skill functionality I'd change. F5 skills would donno damage anymore and be pure fields for combo. This would make the cata more susceptible to blind and aegis again. Maybe add a new mechanic to the F5: when executing a combo in a sphere the field gives a damaging pulse. 

 

I'd also like to change elemental celerity. Instead of % based recharge, it would recharge skills by a flat amount, say 20 seconds. That would still let most weapon skills get fully recharged, but the stronger defensive skills on focus would not get fully recharged.

 

 

[Serephen.3420]

Delete spvp? No more complaints right? I kid, but I wouldn't miss that mode anymore to be honest😅

 

I think the issue is skill cap/skill floor. But an easy fix is to change what the elite skill does.