It's now harder to upkeep Quickness as catalyst.

[Juniper.8197]

On 3/12/2024 at 3:30 AM, ZephidelGRS.9520 said:

It means pressing the Sphere key twice back-to-back (by switching attunement midway), build up your energy, then repeat the Sphere press with the other 2 attunements.

You do so because you don't gain energy while a Sphere is active, so you space them out to give yourself time to build up energy.  

Thank you; so if i understand correctly:

- Deploying 2 spheres back-to-back nets me 9 combined seconds of quickness (4.5 seconds per sphere) until I need to fill quickness again

- Since they overlap (roughly), I will not gain energy for the next 5 seconds

- This means that I will only have 4 remaining seconds (😰)to gain back enough energy before deploying 2 more spheres to get another 9 seconds of quickness

... this all seems so aggressive without little room for error.

In fact, after practicing this for roughly 15 minutes, the most I can get is still around 65% quickness uptime (without Energized Elements)

Edited March 13 by Juniper.8197
formatting

[luigrein.8514]

The weapon/timing of your skills can also be important. If you have any multihit skills save them for when you can build energy. Ex: I run hammer generally, earth 2, air 2, and to a lesser extent water 2 are all great energy builders. I'll try to adjust my element order as needed to make sure at least one of those will be in the energy building phase. (Open world and some mechanics are a lot of breaks partway in to your rotation) Hammer is I believe our best weapon for energy generation, but keep an eye out for multihits on whatever weapon you are using.

Off the top of my head, pistol 2 in water and earth 3 in sword should be good generators, the dagger cone attacks in fire and water should be decent as well.

[Juniper.8197]

Thanks; using hammer as well. It pains me that the ethos of this catalyst rotation is "spamming all these specific skills (which are not the hardest hitting ones) in a very specific time window on a 9 second loop". You're doing all this just for the sole purpose of fueling for the next 9 seconds, ignoring all situational awareness of skill priorities.

When people told me that I'll enjoy using combo fields with Catalyst, this was not what I envisioned. In fact, the need to shuffle through attunements so quickly and laying down sphere combo fields in quick succession loses the essence of deliberate getting the intended effects that you want from combo fields.

I'm truly disheartened to know that this is the current way that quick catalyst is played and have high praise for the handful of people who are maining quick Catalysts.

[Ragnarox.9601]

someone from dev team does not love elementalist, quickness in pve is simply impossible now for 100% uptime, and now they are killing tempest alac in wvw, and they even gave us pistol with garbage bullets that is more complicated than weaver piano. They are going wrong way with elementalist, its complicated enough and output is abysmal. I am sorry but from what i have seen every build for ele is scepter/dagger,  d/d is practicaly underpowered, hammer is crap, pistol is garbage, sword need buffs....

 

I am interested only in longbow and offhand sword, or maybe axe/axe or mace/mace next xpansion....if that doesent happen and we get torch or shortbow as melee crap I think I am going to main something else.

[Shaman.2034]

On 3/12/2024 at 4:15 AM, Juniper.8197 said:

Can somebody explain what deploying spheres in pairs mean in practical terms? still can't get my quickness uptime to be more than 50% with celestial gear

You just need more boon duration. If you're using Celestial gear, you must be using a condi framework, so take Firebrand runes. I play power quickness catalyst at over 80% boon duration, where only 3 spheres altogether provide 22 seconds of quickness and is sufficient to allow plenty of freedom within the rotation. You don't need to force yourself to perform tight 4-sphere rotations to be effective, and you want to build extra resilience (i.e. boon duration) into the build anyway to account for dynamic situations. Given that you're using celestial gear, I imagine you're not optimizing the build for raid speedrunning, so don't make yourself play that way

[Shiyo.3578]

On 6/27/2023 at 4:43 PM, Markus.6415 said:

Yeah it's super awful... that unnesserary energy mechanic on top of the cooldowns of the spheres and the 2 seconds base quickness duration is so, so bad.

I hope the remove that energy nonsense once and for all.

Energy has ruined the entire elite since day1.

[zeyeti.8347]

Yeah keep the 5 secondes of non energy upkeep once you launch a sphere in you mind , while cycling trough the rotation  don't forget combos to give yourself +x% stats who also improve a bit your concentration , manage your multi hit skills really well to do them while you are allowed to generate energy , don't forget to sometimes look at your screen while doing that (even as celestial you can get nuked down) and... i am lost , ...

You know what , i'll stick to herald , 0 bd needed , 100% zerk and 100% crit. chance without any stat changes , super tanky even in full zerk.

Why do we have to play celestial in open world as ele ? any other stats (except maybe trailbrazer) seems wrong on ele , the answer to anything in open world as ele is celestial , get wrecked as ele ? go celestial... wouldn't be a problem if we had good range power option... (don't even mention pistol plz...) meanwhile you have ppl going full zerk as necro or revenant , this 11600 hp class need a good +4000 hp for free in pve.

11 hours ago, Shiyo.3578 said:

Energy has ruined the entire elite since day1.

Since day one catalyst i was wondering why is there energy , feels like a useless placeholder to prove they have worked on the class ,  i know when the sphere had a 5 sec cd it was understandable  , with the nerf  to 15 they should have removed energy ? naaaahhhh.

And with no energy they can rework traits like Energized Elements into : "your sphere are now launched on your position and follow you for their duration". Not like we miss some fury while playing qcata ... and the two energy coming from every attunement switch should have been baseline.

Why make things simple when you can make it complicated , energy on the catalyst is like a pickle on a wedding cake , it's useless , it taste bad , everyone is wondering what the hell is it doing there and who is the troll who put it there and it probably ruined 25% of the cake.

 

Edited March 15 by zeyeti.8347

[luigrein.8514]

I thought energy made a lot of sense day 1, when the orb was essentially a toggle that drained energy over time. The energy system (and UI) just never got updated with the fairly major changes the jade sphere went through, with the exception of the energy bar starting instanced PvE content at full.

But yeah at this point I could see just tossing it, it could at least use some UI updates.

[sumpwa.1849]

Energy should just be redesigned to generate constantly like it does on Rev or Thief, with a few choice traits that could modify generation in some way. Also the quickness duration and radius on jade sphere should be greatly increased. It's absurd Herald can upkeep quickness effortlessly in a wide aura but we have to use this clunky mechanic constantly in our rotations.

[Bleikopf.2491]

Energy introduces constraints into the rotation and build. Energy generation favours multihit skills. The fact energy doesn't generate while a sphere is out seems like a remnant from the time it used to drain energy and forces double dropping. 

The balancing restraints energy brings were, imo, always replaceable with a cooldown and/or ammo system. I do not see any further purpose in energy other than to favour multihit, which is not that hard to find on Ele anyway. 

[Shaman.2034]

I don't think favoring multihits deserves to be a mechanic in any case, it just serves to make already strong weapons stronger. Particularly hammer and sword. I'd like a version of Catalyst that's playable with staff without any extra penalties besides taking staff (lol)

[Sweetbread.3678]

Quick Cata (especially with hammer) is definitely something that starts out seeming incredibly unwieldy, feels better designed the more you play it, and eventually becomes probably the most satisfying thing in the game once you have the rotation and mechanics down. It seems like a lot, but really the mechanics just boil down to: store up enough energy for 2 spheres, spam them both back to back and combo the fields to keep EE up, then when the spheres fade burst your multi-hit skills to restore energy. Like that really isn't a super complex playstyle, it just seems like friggin rocket surgery in this game when compared to basically any other spec besides Holosmith.

[zeyeti.8347]

If anet is afraid to remove the energy allowing thus to spam immediately the 4 sphere in 2 secs , then pretty simple solution give an internal cd to all off cd sphere of 3-4 secs on any sphere usage , and if the sphere is about to be recharged just reajjust the cd to this number , 3 sec seems a good take , normally you don't stay more than 4 secs in each attunement as cata.

But this energy mechanic needs to go away , even without that qcata will still be complicated enough and stay a class only the well trained would be able to master , removing this would simply open this class way more to beginners or people who want to try it , like me , but seeing how i am doing with herald , then compare the numbers with qcata , no way i am gonna switch atm , i won' change my bmw car for and old rusty bike.

[ZephidelGRS.9520]

Anyone else feels like Weaver should have been the Quickness spec? Imagine granting Quickness when you use Dual Attacks. It would be thematically fitting too, you twist and weave the elements so hard that it distorts time-space around you just like Weave Self’s lore. And with the wide arsenal of Dual Attack skills, some of them could be easily reworked to create an Ele quick heal build (like Staff skills!). 

I don’t know, Weaver feels fluid and the complexity feels good to play. It feels rich and satisfying lore-wise too. While Catalyst is just convolutedly complicated for the sake of complexity, and completely devoid of any meaningful lore. It feels more like I’m playing a number simulator on crack mode and I’m failing hard at it.

[Juniper.8197]

On 3/15/2024 at 7:31 PM, Sweetbread.3678 said:

...then when the spheres fade burst your multi-hit skills to restore energy...

Like that really isn't a super complex playstyle, it just seems like friggin rocket surgery in this game when compared to basically any other spec besides Holosmith.

That's one of my gripe. In the heat of battle, there's no easy way to tell when your spheres have faded and when energy is starting to build up again. As a result, you're left with either using your multi-hit skills too early or too late. It's the imprecision of how these mechanics is presented that makes the playstyle frantic and stressful.

That isn't complex, but I don't find it to be fun or rewarding to perfectly execute just to get barely enough quickness uptime. That's not to mention also having to mentally take note of your Hammer 3 orbs as well.

With holosmith, the photon forge UI meter gauges leaves no ambiguity on how well you're executing your rotation. Just like the meter/nodes system on every other elite specs.

[Nephalem.8921]

On 3/15/2024 at 9:57 PM, Bleikopf.2491 said:

Energy introduces constraints into the rotation and build. Energy generation favours multihit skills. The fact energy doesn't generate while a sphere is out seems like a remnant from the time it used to drain energy and forces double dropping. 

The balancing restraints energy brings were, imo, always replaceable with a cooldown and/or ammo system. I do not see any further purpose in energy other than to favour multihit, which is not that hard to find on Ele anyway. 

This works perfectly fine on golems. But on bosses that phase it is just bad. Imagine having 6sec phases in fractals. You can not generate energy back during the burst and you wont be able to give quickness at the start of the next phase because there is no way to generate energy without a target.

Chrono has the same issue but it generates so much boons that you cap 30sec without even looking at the screen. Ele quickness is extremely tight. One of the many reasons why i haven't seen a quickness cata in a year. It is a golem spec that requires 50000 times more effort than herald on encounters with basically no upside.

[Sweetbread.3678]

8 hours ago, Juniper.8197 said:

That's one of my gripe. In the heat of battle, there's no easy way to tell when your spheres have faded and when energy is starting to build up again. As a result, you're left with either using your multi-hit skills too early or too late. It's the imprecision of how these mechanics is presented that makes the playstyle frantic and stressful.

That isn't complex, but I don't find it to be fun or rewarding to perfectly execute just to get barely enough quickness uptime. That's not to mention also having to mentally take note of your Hammer 3 orbs as well.

With holosmith, the photon forge UI meter gauges leaves no ambiguity on how well you're executing your rotation. Just like the meter/nodes system on every other elite specs.

Agreed that the Cata UI (or basically any UI after Path of Fire really) is severely lacking. The spec's perfectly functional, but most of that is just practice building up muscle memory / an interior clock. It's just weird how they already have functional energy UIs for stuff like Holo and Druid, but couldn't adapt that to Cata. At least Ele pistol doesn't work with Cata; that'd be a true nightmare situation.

[Bleikopf.2491]

13 hours ago, Nephalem.8921 said:

This works perfectly fine on golems. But on bosses that phase it is just bad. Imagine having 6sec phases in fractals. You can not generate energy back during the burst and you wont be able to give quickness at the start of the next phase because there is no way to generate energy without a target.

Chrono has the same issue but it generates so much boons that you cap 30sec without even looking at the screen. Ele quickness is extremely tight. One of the many reasons why i haven't seen a quickness cata in a year. It is a golem spec that requires 50000 times more effort than herald on encounters with basically no upside.

I have also noticed that you lose all your energy when going into downstate. It's not even particularly difficult going into downstate as Ele, but this just makes it more risky.

[Nephalem.8921]

Also to add some statistics. There are currently 3! qcata logs up on wingman in olc cm for the last 2 patches combined. 1718 logs uploaded.
There wasn't a boon build as dominant as herald since old chrono days. Even when fb was strong there were still plenty of other specs. Now even the 3 logs with a qcata in them have all qherald as the 2nd quick option.

And if you ask reddit this is the best balance we had ever.... If you ignore herald, slb and cvirtu maybe.

Edited March 20 by Nephalem.8921

[rotten.9753]

As long as CmC is responsible for the elementalist, this class is doomed in PvE. Everything he designed is over complicated without any reward for the increased effort, the catalyst UI is abhorrent, the hammer is no longer used, the pistol is now obligatory as a condie weapon due to trait nerf and it also has very slow ramp time. The quickness catalyst has tight boon uptime, can't generate energy passively (druid on the other hand can) and herald just dumps quickness while literally being afk. The alacrity tempest needs to complete long channels, every single build is pretty much melee. We desperately need a new designer.

[Serephen.3420]

21 hours ago, rotten.9753 said:

As long as CmC is responsible for the elementalist, this class is doomed in PvE. Everything he designed is over complicated without any reward for the increased effort, the catalyst UI is abhorrent, the hammer is no longer used, the pistol is now obligatory as a condie weapon due to trait nerf and it also has very slow ramp time. The quickness catalyst has tight boon uptime, can't generate energy passively (druid on the other hand can) and herald just dumps quickness while literally being afk. The alacrity tempest needs to complete long channels, every single build is pretty much melee. We desperately need a new designer.

I'm kinda sad to say that I agree now 😕

[Shiyo.3578]

On 3/15/2024 at 8:34 AM, zeyeti.8347 said:

Since day one catalyst i was wondering why is there energy , feels like a useless placeholder to prove they have worked on the class ,  i know when the sphere had a 5 sec cd it was understandable  , with the nerf  to 15 they should have removed energy ? naaaahhhh.

It's for PvP / WvW, which, hilariously, is the one form of content where I have infinite energy and don't even manage it.

It's a complete failure of a game mechanic.

  

On 3/20/2024 at 2:18 AM, rotten.9753 said:

As long as CmC is responsible for the elementalist, this class is doomed in PvE. Everything he designed is over complicated without any reward for the increased effort, the catalyst UI is abhorrent, the hammer is no longer used, the pistol is now obligatory as a condie weapon due to trait nerf and it also has very slow ramp time. The quickness catalyst has tight boon uptime, can't generate energy passively (druid on the other hand can) and herald just dumps quickness while literally being afk. The alacrity tempest needs to complete long channels, every single build is pretty much melee. We desperately need a new designer.

  

On 3/19/2024 at 9:22 PM, Nephalem.8921 said:

Also to add some statistics. There are currently 3! qcata logs up on wingman in olc cm for the last 2 patches combined. 1718 logs uploaded.
There wasn't a boon build as dominant as herald since old chrono days. Even when fb was strong there were still plenty of other specs. Now even the 3 logs with a qcata in them have all qherald as the 2nd quick option.

And if you ask reddit this is the best balance we had ever.... If you ignore herald, slb and cvirtu maybe.

Working as intended.

Elementalist is more effort, same or less reward.

That is the design philosophy behind the class. Once you understand that, you'll be a happier player. Quit Ele until it's 0% play rate.

Edited March 24 by Shiyo.3578

[zeyeti.8347]

13 hours ago, Shiyo.3578 said:

That is the design philosophy behind the class. Once you understand that, you'll be a happier player. Quit Ele until it's 0% play rate.

Thats' really sad to read , but can't deny your argument , i'll keep myself far away from ele like it is a big sack of deadly viruses , like i use to do for the 5 years , what's even sadder is i don't really want to train in any sort of dps ele build , cause i know if it is "overperforming" on that stupid static golem it's gonna be blown away by the nerf hammer , and i really dislike the feeling of hitting my keyboard like a madman to have the same result than someone chilling with 3 fingers rotation ... also the lowest hp pool and armor combined of the game don't make any sense to me.... 

[Juniper.8197]

9 hours ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

Thats' really sad to read , but can't deny your argument , i'll keep myself far away from ele like it is a big sack of deadly viruses , like i use to do for the 5 years , what's even sadder is i don't really want to train in any sort of dps ele build , cause i know if it is "overperforming" on that stupid static golem it's gonna be blown away by the nerf hammer , and i really dislike the feeling of hitting my keyboard like a madman to have the same result than someone chilling with 3 fingers rotation ... also the lowest hp pool and armor combined of the game don't make any sense to me.... 

The only real satisfaction from playing ele is the recognition that you get from other ele mains. Game recognizes game.

[Markus.6415]

On 3/25/2024 at 7:10 PM, Juniper.8197 said:

The only real satisfaction from playing ele is the recognition that you get from other ele mains. Game recognizes game.

Haha, this is true xD. I'm always excited when i see other ele players in the squad (unless it's one with pistol...)