Is Vind/Spb/Cata a l2p Issue or are they truly OP?

[Frequency.6407]

At the start of the season I started with necro like I always do. Struggled a lot, got deleted by spb/cata/vind/untamed. There were very few classes I could confidently go against. Spb was especially unbeatable to the point I just avoided them altogether. Though why not just play a meme build and switched to sword weaver. Why not even more meme, so switched to scepter/focus. Same result, got deleted everywhere. Never won a duel against cata/spb.

 

And then I decided I need to do something about hammer/stun etc.

 

So I switched arcane out and earth in. Specced into barrier/stability/stone heart. Lost all the mobility but all of a sudden I found myself standing toe-to-toe with spb/cata/untamed/holo and actually tanking their bursts. At least I could no longer die in 3 seconds. As the season progressed I learned to counter spb and cata. Dueled boyce once on a node and forced him out (he probably wasn't expecting such an unusual build). Was really pleased with the build at that point because it can nicely counter meta power bursts (spb/cata/holo/untamed/) but at the same time have serious issues with condi damage (harbingers/mesmers) which are not very prevalent.

 

Now at the end of the season I am quite comfortable going against spb (at least I can hold a node long enough to waste their time if they're good).

 

As for scepter cata, I'm now literally farming them on weaver now. It's amazing how easy things become once you come up with a counter. All you have to do is to counter their burst with earth and then go into fire to pressure them. Once their burst fails to crit most of them don't know what to do afterwards. Ironically, the one build I don't feel comfortable against is dagger/dagger cata which isn't supposed to be as good as scepter.

 

At the start of the season I was pretty scared of dragon's tooth and couldn't dodge it. But now, with enough practice I can easily counter and time my dodge and at the same time when to use my stun break and stability when cata is starting to burst.

 

Mesmers and renegades(vind/herald) are two specs I don't feel at all comfortable going against but I can stall them for some time and I think that's good enough.

 

My personal feeling about cata is that it's probably not the damage they dish out because untamed/herald/holo have better bursts. It's just that they have a very long defensive cycle where they can invul/block and not get hit at all.

 

I haven't played other classes but someone did mention stacking -freeze duration to completely shutdown cata bursts.

 

 

[Khalisto.5780]

well, I played a lot of condi bunker and thought they're good, when bladesworn was super strong, i could beat them 1v1 just using resonating stones and weaver runes with 4 stances. But at the end of the day they could ignore me and be useful elsewhere, that's exactly the case of vindi and specially cata

FA cata is like, "oh, that was all my cds in this bunker dude, let me superspeed away and kill everybody else"

 

thing you build just can't do, and if they don't push you 1v1 and basically useless in bigger fights.

[thc enjoyer.4976]

One time we were playing against Hellz, I'm a top 25er, np.. Hellz ran to our lord on cata, killed all of the npcs and lord while also killing my prev on the lord without even trying. If a class can do that, there's a problem. I know prev isn't exactly a counter at all, but considering there was 5 npcs on top of it.. yeah..  

[Frequency.6407]

I think the question really is what makes cata so strong? 

 

I don't think it's the burst because other classes have better bursts (untamed/herald)

 

In my opinion it's the defensive mechanics and the ability to reset skills every 60 seconds. Maybe the solution is to increase the CD of elite to say 120 s.

 

Harbinger had the duration of elixir boons reduced to 1.5 s. Maybe cata needs a similar nerf to the boons it generates.

 

Cata is quite squishy when you can hit it, but the window when it's vulnerable is quite small and often your best chance is when the cata is on the offensive.

[Khalisto.5780]

34 minutes ago, thc enjoyer.4976 said:

One time we were playing against Hellz, I'm a top 25er, np.. Hellz ran to our lord on cata, killed all of the npcs and lord while also killing my prev on the lord without even trying. If a class can do that, there's a problem. I know prev isn't exactly a counter at all, but considering there was 5 npcs on top of it.. yeah..  

well, those npcs really don't do much when you don't get cc'd and things become annoying

[Khalisto.5780]

24 minutes ago, Frequency.6407 said:

I think the question really is what makes cata so strong? 

 

I don't think it's the burst because other classes have better bursts (untamed/herald)

 

In my opinion it's the defensive mechanics and the ability to reset skills every 60 seconds. Maybe the solution is to increase the CD of elite to say 120 s.

 

Harbinger had the duration of elixir boons reduced to 1.5 s. Maybe cata needs a similar nerf to the boons it generates.

 

Cata is quite squishy when you can hit it, but the window when it's vulnerable is quite small and often your best chance is when the cata is on the offensive.

Well, having really big dmg definetely helps, as hammer cata wasnt as oppressive as scepter, it's basically hammer on roids with more dmg when you get in a fight your wells basically will give you perma superspeed even when you're not landing any other skill. That's the plus compared to hammer, also you have dmg in 1 more element while hammer it was something 85% on fire skills, and of courser being mid range and not having to dance on aoe to do dmg in bigger fights.

Hammer was also more limited rolewise, it was more a sidenoder with some teamfight utility and like B tier mobility.

Now scepter lets say is a S tier duelist, S tier teamfighter A+ roamer, but really a S roamer since your dueling capabilities are way above any other roamer even if at the beggining of the matches you're not as fast as the other roamers.

[Equinox.1463]

54 minutes ago, Khalisto.5780 said:

Well, having really big dmg definetely helps, as hammer cata wasnt as oppressive as scepter, it's basically hammer on roids with more dmg when you get in a fight your wells basically will give you perma superspeed even when you're not landing any other skill. That's the plus compared to hammer, also you have dmg in 1 more element while hammer it was something 85% on fire skills, and of courser being mid range and not having to dance on aoe to do dmg in bigger fights.

Hammer was also more limited rolewise, it was more a sidenoder with some teamfight utility and like B tier mobility.

Now scepter lets say is a S tier duelist, S tier teamfighter A+ roamer, but really a S roamer since your dueling capabilities are way above any other roamer even if at the beggining of the matches you're not as fast as the other roamers.

I'd have to agree. The Catalyst's ability to "dance on aoe is quite unprecendented. The aoe's also proc any type of single damage mitigation in a near constant basis - making it impossible to use aegis proactively and having to instead use it for that split second lightning animation.

 

I think that superspeed is the problem though. It needs a speed nerf as right any Superspeed acquiring spec can do quite well because, to take what you said, they can dance very well. I'd argue that swiftness and superspeed are the problem that causes a lot of headaches right now. Diminishing their speed bonuses could be harsh but needed to bring down the overall mobility spurge around the Mists right now.
(lol, the "mists" mean the PvP section of the game)

[Khalisto.5780]

5 minutes ago, Equinox.1463 said:

I'd have to agree. The Catalyst's ability to "dance on aoe is quite unprecendented. The aoe's also proc any type of single damage mitigation in a near constant basis - making it impossible to use aegis proactively and having to instead use it for that split second lightning animation.

 

I think that superspeed is the problem though. It needs a speed nerf as right any Superspeed acquiring spec can do quite well because, to take what you said, they can dance very well. I'd argue that swiftness and superspeed are the problem that causes a lot of headaches right now. Diminishing their speed bonuses could be harsh but needed to bring down the overall mobility spurge around the Mists right now.
(lol, the "mists" mean the PvP section of the game)

Well, we disagree here, i think cata issue is almost entirely related to energy generation, which makes it fart boons and auras, and having almost perma best boon in the game (stab). If you can cc the ele see that superspeed is not that big of a problem. The question is, you nerf only stab or you nerf energy generation? 

 

There are other things like the elite

 

I feel the wrong move with energy generation could kill cata for good, and having a class completely deleted is never good for the game.

 

They prolly going to nerf everything else and let energy alone, which is also bad, cuz once again they nerfing core in the name of elites.

 

Another thing that reinforces my theory is that weaver has as much superspeed and more dmg, but it's not as opressive cuz it has clear weaknesses, like immob, chill, being condi bombed, being pressured by a class that can keep up with its mobility (thief, rev, willbender) or just being more easily 1 shot than cata.

[Saiyan.1704]

You hear that boys just run Ele to counter Ele. 

[Stand The Wall.6987]

tldr; i traited stone heart now i gud playar. for real tho man, its good to see peeps improving and having fun. good stuffs.

Edited February 3, 2023 by Stand The Wall.6987

[Kodama.6453]

6 hours ago, Equinox.1463 said:

I think that superspeed is the problem though. It needs a speed nerf as right any Superspeed acquiring spec can do quite well because, to take what you said, they can dance very well. I'd argue that swiftness and superspeed are the problem that causes a lot of headaches right now. Diminishing their speed bonuses could be harsh but needed to bring down the overall mobility spurge around the Mists right now.

Can we please not randomly nerf scrapper which is already performing badly in PvP?