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A Catalyst UI suggestion to make energy manegement easier


TheDetective.8172

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Energy management on Catalyst is quite difficult because it's very hard to tell when you've reached energy increments of 10. You can tell when you have at least 10 because your jade sphere becomes castable, and you can tell when you've reached 30 because the bar fills up all the way. Anything in-between, however, is a guess at best.

 

My suggestion is to use nodes, similar to how Mesmer clones, Thief initiative, and Firebrand tomes are shown. These nodes could look like little jade spheres that lie dormant and grey when they have no energy. As the Catalyst gains energy, the first node fills up. When they reach 10, that node starts to glow and spin. The color it glows could even change to match the current attunement. As they reach 20, the second node fills up, and reaching 30 causes the last one to fill up. Each increment of 10 starts to cause the next node to glow and spin, making it very obvious how much energy you have and telling you exactly how many jade sphere you can deploy.

 

In this way, the Catalyst can easily see when they've reached 10, 20, and 30 energy, making management much easier. Not only that, but I also think it would be a beautiful UI change that fits the class identity.

 

I'm all for other changes such as showing an energy number (like Revanant does), but I think this change is almost even easier to see (and prettier to look at) when you only have a second to glance at it during combat.

 

What do you think about this idea? If you have a different idea, do you at least agree that the UI could better clarify energy for Catalyst? The downside I can see with this it that it would be harder to tell how close you are between energy increments, like between 10 and 20, if the node is too small, but I still think it would be better than what we have currently and, truthfully, the between numbers aren't what is important. What's important is every increment of 10.

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Although these nodes would be a great addition to most of the cata builds, it would be worse for catalysts that use energized elements. The easiest solution would be to give them the same sort of bar as warrior. Abit bigger and with markers that indicate how many spheres you can cast. Stating the exact amount of energy will probably result in alot of visual clutter due to the rapidly changing amount of energy. 

On top of that the catalyst could really use some sort of timer that mentions the cooldown on energy gain after using a sphere. 

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1 hour ago, the krytan assassin.9235 said:

The easiest solution would be to give them the same sort of bar as warrior. Abit bigger and with markers that indicate how many spheres you can cast

How does having a bar like warrior make it easier to know if you'll reach the next threshold with energized elements? You're still guestimating a lot on the bar. A big UI would be nice though, the only issue is that we have our attunements above our weapon skills, so we can't quite copy what warrior has unfortunately.

 

Maybe the nodes can be above your healbar, and there could be something between them that helps you to see the progress towards the next node lighting up?

 

To your point on the timer though, we do need something like that. It's such a pain we can't gain energy until our last field is gone, and it's hard to time that out.

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7 hours ago, TheDetective.8172 said:

How does having a bar like warrior make it easier to know if you'll reach the next threshold with energized elements? You're still guestimating a lot on the bar.

You can normally guess how many attacks you need to do before you can use your burst skills. The size and markers will help out quite abit with this. That being said, i think all systems have their ups and downs, i just wish Anet would allow their players to make some simple mods to their UI to optimize it abit more/accustom it to personal preferences. 

Edited by the krytan assassin.9235
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  • 2 weeks later...

Between Deadeye and Druid I think we have enough precedent for putting the bar above the central health/endurance bubble.

 

I don't really have a preference though as long as the energy UI is made bigger and more legible. If it were a simple binary between full or not full I could accept it at the size it is, but having to guess at three subdivisions of such a small bar is insanely poor design.

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11 minutes ago, The Boz.2038 said:

You think Catalyst having energy is deep mechanics, great flavor, 10/10 design?
..okay.

 

It's better than having practically no espec mechanic, just an F5 you pop off cooldown.

 

Energy needs a major rework, but it shouldn't be eliminated. Go play Tempest or Weaver.

Edited by Batalix.2873
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Energy needs to be deleted. All it can do can be replicated with cooldowns or a common ammo system in a saner way, without resorting to pixel-width tacked-on bars with half-thought-out mechanics and purpose.

Edited by The Boz.2038
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A good new UI would be like the Holosmith energy bar (with 150 heat trait). The energy bar is under the F-Skills, good to see and can change the color at Level 1 - 3. 

Would be great when anet transfered this to the catalyst 🙂

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18 hours ago, bluberblasen.9684 said:

Why cant we just remove the energy mechanic ? We still have cooldowns for each  sphere in each attunement.

 

Can't do, otherwise elementalist wouldn't be so overcomplicated and it's supposed to be its trademark.

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Catalyst released 2 years ago, a UI rework should have happened after the beta. But now after so much time there's 0 chance anet does something. But maybe they remove some UI effects, like the miragemantle around the skillbar that suddenly disappeared.

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4 hours ago, Kyon.9735 said:

Anet Devs: You want another UI change after your pistol bullets? Ok imma put it on the boon bar!

The number of energy you have on the buff bar would actually be preferred over what we currently have, lmao.

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