Quick cata excells at nothing. Here's how to improve it.

[draxynnic.3719]

2 hours ago, mirage.8046 said:

preach, that is what boon dps is meant to be about at the end of the day. you don't need to be blamed for having bad or scuffed boon uptime because you also wanna DPS when providing good uptime is the goal.

Except that's literally the difference between boon DPS and boon heal. You're not expected to do the same DPS as full DPS, to be sure, but you need to be throwing out a decent amount of damage or the group would be better off with another healer instead. Or, y'know, a boondps that does do a decent amount of damage.

[Serephen.3420]

On 6/5/2024 at 3:48 PM, mirage.8046 said:

preach, that is what boon dps is meant to be about at the end of the day. you don't need to be blamed for having bad or scuffed boon uptime because you also wanna DPS when providing good uptime is the goal.

How about we make all the boon dps require 100% boon duration to provide decent uptime then to be fair? 100% for herald, 100% for chrono, 100% for quick firebrand, the lot

[Awn.1327]

The sphere also needs a larger boon radius. Energy mechanic needs to be simplified or just removed and replaced with regular cooldowns.

[mirage.8046]

On 6/5/2024 at 1:59 AM, draxynnic.3719 said:

Except that's literally the difference between boon DPS and boon heal. You're not expected to do the same DPS as full DPS, to be sure, but you need to be throwing out a decent amount of damage or the group would be better off with another healer instead. Or, y'know, a boondps that does do a decent amount of damage.

well, of course, I'm not saying boon DPS should not have extremely weak damage. boons are primary, and damage is secondary. most boon DPS supports hover around 15%-44% boon duration. it depends on how well the player can manage their uptime and if the concentration is enough to maintain permanent uptime on boons. you can work around those usually. on another tangent: my problem with Catalyst is that it has three traits that emphasize on boons, but one of them affects your jade spheres, but the other doubles the effectiveness of EE (i.e., more concentration for quick catalyst), something that requires forgoing sphere specialist.

[draxynnic.3719]

37 minutes ago, mirage.8046 said:

well, of course, I'm not saying boon DPS should not have extremely weak damage. boons are primary, and damage is secondary. most boon DPS supports hover around 15%-44% boon duration. it depends on how well the player can manage their uptime and if the concentration is enough to maintain permanent uptime on boons. you can work around those usually. on another tangent: my problem with Catalyst is that it has three traits that emphasize on boons, but one of them affects your jade spheres, but the other doubles the effectiveness of EE (i.e., more concentration for quick catalyst), something that requires forgoing sphere specialist.

I think the requirement is a bit more stringent than "not having extremely weak damage". Boondps builds do have a certain range in which their DPS typically falls - if a particular build's DPS falls below that range, it better have something else going for it that compensates for the lower theoretical damage (bringing some other valuable buff, quick res, some other means to help with a mechanic, or just being easy to do damage with so that the damage it does in practice is still about the same even if the theoretical damage is lower), or it will fall behind the competition and remain a bit of a meme build.

Edited June 8 by draxynnic.3719

[rotten.9753]

On 6/6/2024 at 3:14 PM, Serephen.3420 said:

How about we make all the boon dps require 100% boon duration to provide decent uptime then to be fair? 100% for herald, 100% for chrono, 100% for quick firebrand, the lot

It would make condie boon dps better compared to power boon dps since ritualist is way better than diviner. Also, it would probably be impossible to get 100% for most classes with dps gear like ritualist and diviner, you'd need something like full harrier with infusions, food, runes, pretty much you would run a healer at that point with dps traits.

Edited June 8 by rotten.9753

[Serephen.3420]

7 hours ago, rotten.9753 said:

It would make condie boon dps better compared to power boon dps since ritualist is way better than diviner. Also, it would probably be impossible to get 100% for most classes with dps gear like ritualist and diviner, you'd need something like full harrier with infusions, food, runes, pretty much you would run a healer at that point with dps traits.

I know, and I am not really supporting a change to make 100% duration required. I was more so making a point and comparison of Qcata issues verse other Qdps and how others can get by fine without any yet cata struggles 

[The Ghost.3087]

On 6/4/2024 at 7:30 PM, Mevelios.4809 said:

While I have to agree it's a real pain to balance out boon duration against other stats unlike some competitors, you can definitely go 100% uptime so long as you experience the limitations on every fight. At least I manage that with 50% boon duration, best performances I've seen were players managing that with 20-30% bd; there's a lot of adaptation involved there, as you sometimes have to keep in store your multi-hit skills for the sole purpose of generating energy, said skills being often associated with those hitting the hardest such as warhorn's Lightning orb, hammer's Hurricane of pain or sword's Rust frenzy.

It takes some time to learn which weapons do not match which fight; something like Sabetha's welcomes anything, but definitely not SH or TL (at least I never had satisfying results). There's a margin of error (of learning?); what I struggle the most with personally isn't movement during the fight, but rather targets phasing often such as AH or HT!

That is the problem here, you might be able to keep up 100% boon time, I've done it on multiple occasions, but when mechanics hit hard, CM Fractals for example, things literally bug for Catalyst. I will go for something simple, today I've done several t4 where I've target an NPC and I am attacking it with all kind of attacks and the Element Energy does not build up, at all. And I am finishing with that element moving to the next one, the next one doesn't fill the EE properly either, only like 10 to 20% and then I am supposed to keep quickness up, how, exactly? Something prevents the EE to build up even though you use skills, plenty of them and we do get plenty of EE when we use AOEs on multiple enemies before us, however, most of the time, we have only one to two enemies and the EE doesn't build up at all. Let me not touch on the matter when your party members simple razes everything and your AOE didn't get that much hits again you are stuck with 20% EE, which is hardly enough. So, I totally agree with you, EE should be scratched/removed and the JS should be switch to a CD skill of like 5 sec top per element that grants quickness of 3-4 sec minimum per use. While the mechanic behind the EE is good, when it doesn't work and it is bugged it ruins the rotation and the boon duration.

On 6/4/2024 at 11:31 PM, Sweetbread.3678 said:

I'm more of the opinion that other boon supports need to actually have a skill/gearing component applied to them. Call me an elitist gatekeeper or whatever, but if your entire role is dedicated to supplying boons, then you should actually have to work/gear to apply those boons effectively. Like the fact that Cata actually has to invest in boon duration stats or properly execute its mechanics to apply those boons isn't absurd, that's literally just the description of a boon support playstyle/role; it's absurd that other specializations just get to completely ignore those things for seemingly no reason. I don't think power creeping well(ish...)-designed specs to be on par with wildly overtuned, lowest-common-denominator bullkitten that laughs in the face of any sort of logical class design philosophy, is really the answer here. That kind of "balance" just dumbs the whole game down and inevitably leads to more power creep.  It'd be like if instead of nerfing power Mech back in the day, they just buffed every other class to the point that they could all sit there auto-attacking at range to 90% of their max dps.

And no, I don't think that other classes should be nerfed or put on the same level as Elementalists, if most classes can keep up boon up easily, then Catalyst should do exactly the same, aka, the Catalyst needs to be put on the same pedestal as other classes or buffed properly from traits sides or skills sides that give plenty of EE to keep JS up all the time every time you switch an element. Simple as that. 

 

It could be elemental rage which gives like 25-50% EE the moment you switch to a different element as a boost, or it could be that EE refills overtime every second or so with 5 points per second. Aka you need 6 seconds for full EE. 

I don't know what the devs problem is with Elementalists but people make fun of them all over the internet and in their YouTube videos this speaks loudly enough that something is terrifically wrong with the class's design and elite specializations or simply they are not up to par with the rest of the classes. Both of these are horrible matters that need to be looked deeper by the Devs. 

 

And I absolutely agree with a commenter above that says that JS needs to have larger AOE circle, I would personally prefer larger AOE circle + constant quickness grant during the sphere's effect as long as the players are within the JS's AOE area. Just like Overloads for Tempests work for alac and they definitely need to give at least 25 to 50% larger circle for Overloads as well, this has been plaguing the Tempests since the elite spec was released. Either of those two will fix some issues, and both of these will definitely put the Catalyst on the same par as the rest of the classes as it should be, when it comes to boons. 

Edited June 8 by The Ghost.3087

[Sweetbread.3678]

1 hour ago, The Ghost.3087 said:

And no, I don't think that other classes should be nerfed or put on the same level as Elementalists, if most classes can keep up boon up easily, then Catalyst should do exactly the same, aka, the Catalyst needs to be put on the same pedestal as other classes or buffed properly from traits sides or skills sides that give plenty of EE to keep JS up all the time every time you switch an element. Simple as that. 

Man, it's so weird to me how many people are just straight up allergic to a game actually having a win condition or requiring interaction. Why yall even play video games instead of just watching Netflix, I will never know.

[The Ghost.3087]

27 minutes ago, Sweetbread.3678 said:

Man, it's so weird to me how many people are just straight up allergic to a game actually having a win condition or requiring interaction. Why yall even play video games instead of just watching Netflix, I will never know.

We are playing games for Entertainment. 

[Mevelios.4809]

2 hours ago, The Ghost.3087 said:

That is the problem here, you might be able to keep up 100% boon time, I've done it on multiple occasions, but when mechanics hit hard, CM Fractals for example, things literally bug for Catalyst. [...] While the mechanic behind the EE is good, when it doesn't work and it is bugged it ruins the rotation and the boon duration.

Fractals IMO are like open world - definitely the worst setting in which to play catalyst, simply because targets are too weak and die before you manage to hit it twice, even with multi-hit skills like Quantum strike (not to say, standing inside the orbs to get their full boons). On top of that the smaller hitboxes don't help on several warhorn skills, evading some Dust storms or the Lightning orb (then there are targets which skills make them move around, but that's much rarer so less of an issue). I don't care much for both modes as they're too easy to my taste, but that's why a lot of adaptation is involved; you don't always want to just stick to the same rotation resorting only to two spheres everytime - sometimes you just skip an entire element for the sake of throwing all three, knowing you won't be able afterwards to recover energy for a while (without surprise, the one I always skip is water)! Then you resort to the warhorn's Sand squall which is pretty much mandatory in those modes to at least try to have a decent uptime in your boons, disregarding all other offhand/two-hander options - sword is easy to pick up and works well on power builds, pistol is tougher but works decently too as your matching mainhand weapon.

With that being said, don't misunderstand: I'm not saying it's all it takes to succeed. Rather, that's the most we can do as those two modes (fractals & open world) are poor matches for our limitations, although you could then extend such an issue to the whole elementalist archetype: you can't make use of much of weaver's vast arsenal of skills unless firing for nothing Weave self, you can't make full use of tempest's overloads since by the time you complete one the targets are rid of already, and you struggle at generating energy on catalyst. While frustrating I'm somewhat fine with it: if I wanted an effortless build, I'd play something else! If I succeed at it, I know it's not just the character carrying my gameplay, I've had my hand in making it actually work beyond theory.

2 hours ago, The Ghost.3087 said:

I've done several t4 where I've target an NPC and I am attacking it with all kind of attacks and the Element Energy does not build up, at all. And I am finishing with that element moving to the next one, the next one doesn't fill the EE properly either, only like 10 to 20% and then I am supposed to keep quickness up, how, exactly? [...] most of the time, we have only one to two enemies and the EE doesn't build up at all. Let me not touch on the matter when your party members simple razes everything and your AOE didn't get that much hits again you are stuck with 20% EE, which is hardly enough.

That's the very limitation of the energy mechanic; as long as spheres are active, you can't build up energy. This is merely a recycled warrior adrenaline system (hit to generate) with a stop&go cycle that makes it even more of a pain to manage than classic adrenaline, as we find ourselves unable to produce energy during a few seconds. I'd just wish the lack of inspiration at the time would be properly recognized and just turn the mechanic into the actual warrior thing it imitates, so we don't get such downtimes making us sweat and fear the next phasing in combat during which we're completely unable to do a single thing about our core mechanic! Of course warriors, and mesmers with their illusions know the same issue; however mesmers are only restricted to using three illusion-producing skills (which, as a main mesmer myself, know well enough to be able to tell it's not much trouble), while warriors always have if they really want to the core Berserker stance, with Tactical reload on top of that for bladesworns. I'm not saying that stance is such a great tool it should be a must-have; only saying it's an option during downtimes to avoid waiting a few secs producing adrenaline again.

The last point above is exactly what I was relating to: the possibility of revising an augment skill for the sake of finding energy out of the blue, like warriors' Berserker stance, to help in situations where targets are either too weak, either phasing too often for the catalyst to find time building energy. My primary target would be Invigorating air since I don't find any use for such a personal tool (would be a different matter if it were group superspeed but it isn't) and nobody with PvP/WvW experience mentioned anything about that, so I presume it could be fine? Otherwise it could be Fortified earth, but that lengthy block is something valuable when playing some special roles (although I'd like it as an archetype-wide tool, not just cata-restricted) so much less of a fan of the idea. There's also cumulating two effects but it could prove excessive (blocking & energy recovery, without some lame passive condition like "must block to trigger energy recovery" - look at auras, we know it doesn't work in PvE and produces unexpectedly powerful results in WvW).

2 hours ago, The Ghost.3087 said:

So, I totally agree with you, EE should be scratched/removed and the JS should be switch to a CD skill of like 5 sec top per element that grants quickness of 3-4 sec minimum per use.

That was somebody else's point actually (sorry for them if I don't read over the entire topic to find their nick); mine's about how impractical it is in many cases -especially those you mentioned like fractals- and I'm clarifying it above for the "uninspired" part. I'm pretty sure if the adrenaline-like concept was completely admitted, rather than putting a stop&go system on top of it to call it "new" or "unique" (I won't quote & point out some easy yet cruel "putting a hat on a hat" argument which the studios mentioned recently, since I have no idea how they feel about that) the sphere CDs would be enough of a limitation on their own; even resorting to arcane spec or alacrity, your attunement switches can happen every ~8s when your spheres are on a base of 15. You couldn't spam them blindly however you want on the first attunement switch you perform!

One thing I'd wish on the side is for Spectacular sphere's increased AoE to actually be displayed whenever I try to bring up and target a sphere AoE. Despite the trait you see a green 240 radius before landing your 360 sphere, which sometimes leave you a bit playing a guessing game when allies are somewhat spread! Although I still think the spheres remain impractical, to be fair with other booners/healers I think we could stick with a 360 radius before asking for a range increase - that is, if all of our similar AoEs are actually standardized to 360 rather than having some tools still restricted to a 240 range (or worse, in tempest's case).

Edited June 8 by Mevelios.4809

[The Ghost.3087]

1 hour ago, Mevelios.4809 said:

Fractals IMO are like open world - definitely the worst setting in which to play catalyst, simply because targets are too weak and die before you manage to hit it twice, even with multi-hit skills like Quantum strike (not to say, standing inside the orbs to get their full boons). On top of that the smaller hitboxes don't help on several warhorn skills, evading some Dust storms or the Lightning orb (then there are targets which skills make them move around, but that's much rarer so less of an issue). I don't care much for both modes as they're too easy to my taste, but that's why a lot of adaptation is involved; you don't always want to just stick to the same rotation resorting only to two spheres everytime - sometimes you just skip an entire element for the sake of throwing all three, knowing you won't be able afterwards to recover energy for a while (without surprise, the one I always skip is water)! Then you resort to the warhorn's Sand squall which is pretty much mandatory in those modes to at least try to have a decent uptime in your boons, disregarding all other offhand/two-hander options - sword is easy to pick up and works well on power builds, pistol is tougher but works decently too.

With that being said, don't misunderstand: I'm not saying it's all it takes to succeed. Rather, that's the most we can do as those two modes (fractals & open world) are poor matches for our limitations, although you could then extend such an issue to the whole elementalist archetype: you can't make use of much of weaver's vast arsenal of skills unless firing for nothing Weave self, you can't make full use of tempest's overloads since by the time you complete one the targets are rid of already, and you struggle at generating energy on catalyst. While frustrating I'm somewhat fine with it: if I wanted an effortless build, I'd play something else! If I succeed at it, I know it's not just the character carrying my gameplay, I've had my hand in making it actually work beyond theory.

That's the very limitation of the energy mechanic; as long as spheres are active, you can't build up energy. This is merely a recycled warrior adrenaline system (hit to generate) with a stop&go cycle that makes it even more of a pain to manage than classic adrenaline, as we find ourselves unable to produce energy during a few seconds. I'd just wish the lack of inspiration at the time would be properly recognized and just turn the mechanic into the actual warrior thing it imitates, so we don't get such downtimes making us sweat and fear the next phasing in combat during which we're completely unable to do a single thing about our core mechanic! Of course warriors, and mesmers with their illusions know the same issue; however mesmers are only restricted to using three illusion-producing skills (which, as a main mesmer myself, know well enough to be able to tell it's not much trouble), while warriors always have if they really want to the core Berserker stance, with Tactical reload on top of that for bladesworns. I'm not saying that stance is such a great tool it should be a must-have; only saying it's an option during downtimes to avoid waiting a few secs producing adrenaline again.

The last point above is exactly what I was relating to: the possibility of revising an augment skill for the sake of finding energy out of the blue, like warriors' Berserker stance, to help in situations where targets are either too weak, either phasing too often for the catalyst to find time building energy. My primary target would be Invigorating air since I don't find any use for such a personal tool (would be a different matter if it were group superspeed but it isn't) and nobody with PvP/WvW experience mentioned anything about that, so I presume it could be fine? Otherwise it could be Fortified earth, but that lengthy block is something valuable when playing some special roles (although I'd like it as an archetype-wide tool, not just cata-restricted) so much less of a fan of the idea. There's also cumulating two effects but it could prove excessive (blocking & energy recovery, without some lame passive condition like "must block to trigger energy recovery" - look at auras, we know it doesn't work in PvE and produces unexpectedly powerful results in WvW).

That was somebody else's point actually (sorry for them if I don't read over the entire topic to find their nick); mine's about how impractical it is in many cases -especially those you mentioned like fractals- and I'm clarifying it above for the "uninspired" part. I'm pretty sure if the adrenaline-like concept was completely admitted, rather than putting a stop&go system on top of it to call it "new" or "unique" (I won't quote & point out some easy yet cruel "putting a hat on a hat" argument which the studios mentioned recently, since I have no idea how they feel about that) the sphere CDs would be enough of a limitation on their own; even resorting to arcane spec or alacrity, your attunement switches can happen every ~8s when your spheres are on a base of 15. You couldn't spam them blindly however you want on the first attunement switch you perform!

One thing I'd wish on the side is for Spectacular sphere's increased AoE to actually be displayed whenever I try to bring up and target a sphere AoE. Despite the trait you see a green 240 radius before landing your 360 sphere, which sometimes leave you a bit playing a guessing game when allies are somewhat spread! Although I still think the spheres remain impractical, to be fair with other booners/healers I think we could stick with a 360 radius before asking for a range increase - that is, if all of our similar AoEs are actually standardized to 360 rather than having some tools still restricted to a 240 range (or worse, in tempest's case).

I honestly didn't know about the limitation during Spheres activity. Which makes it even worse if that is the case since the ground AOE which is left after the drop of the JS is big enough lasts quite a bit. That's why one of my suggestions for it was to give Quickness over and over again like Overload does for Tempest, until it disappears and leaves like 5-10 sec Quickness. 

That would actually fix quite a bit of the maintaining of the Quickness, even though usually I have like almost 100% boons duration as per the boon table but only if there isn't too much moving around. 

Edited June 8 by The Ghost.3087

[Mevelios.4809]

2 hours ago, The Ghost.3087 said:

That's why one of my suggestions for it was to give Quickness over and over again like Overload does for Tempest, until it disappears and leaves like 5-10 sec Quickness. 

That would actually fix quite a bit of the maintaining of the Quickness, even though usually I have like almost 100% boons duration as per the boon table but only if there isn't too much moving around. 

I'd have a differing opinion exactly for that last argument: fights involving a lot of movement (Dhuum, OLC, KO to only quote a few). I notice my "ordinary" boons uptime/might quantity is rather low if my booner partner (whether healer or boondps) also struggles a bit with them. That's what I like about the current state of orbs: the full quickness is provided on cast, the remainder of boons being provided throughout the sphere pulses and rewarding standing inside (which, for the sake of that precise counterargument, happens to be unfeasible in various contexts).

On that topic, one thing I was thinking about was, despite being fine with having two must-have traits to properly function as a boondps or healer (Spectacular sphere & Sphere specialist), I still consider it rather uninspired and I stand by what I was stating earlier: they could definitely be merged together. If either should disappear, what to do with the remaining trait to innovate on? Hence: how about merging both effects into Spectacular sphere (the middle column/major master trait), and turning Sphere specialist into the following: spheres no longer pulse boons (thus becoming only sources of damage & combo fields), but instead provide the entirety of their boons on landing the way quickness does already?

It could create a meaningful functionality precisely to counter those mobile fights, whereas when it isn't needed and you feel bold, you could trait instead Empowered empowerment rewarding careful (insane?) play at managing your Elemental empowerment stacks. Honestly that idea could use work since I'm pretty sure I'm never at 10 stacks as Qheal, but it creates an interesting choice: playing it safe and providing reliably your boons on sphere activation, or taking that risk at losing some ordinary boon stacks/uptime for the sake of increasing your personal stats, including obviously your concentration and even healing if playing Qheal? Of course it doesn't solve the primary issues (especially stab, decouple it from the staff which doesn't work with cata mechanics or give us a different source of energy!), but I'd definitely find it interesting to adapt to each fight and even moreso as a challenge. Why not?

The reverse idea could be feasible too: merging Spectacular sphere effects into the major grandmaster trait, thus making Spectacular sphere the actual replacement for my suggestion above. However the remaining master traits do not offer IMO an interesting choice: Evasive empowerment being a personal effect, it holds no interest beyond solo content in PvE and I can't tell if it's used in PvP/WvW (some input from such players would be welcome), whereas Empowering auras ("empower empower empower", sorry but I have to underline the redundancy even in the traits' names 🤣) is a purely damaging trait, might be interesting for boondps but Qheal doesn't care in the least about it. Empowered empowerment empowers (right, enough before it becomes a rolling gag) everyone, so I'd definitely be more interested in making Sphere specialist the blank slate to work from!

Now on a side note (to decouple it from the reasoning above & my suggestion), I still agree the base quick duration from spheres is low, but am pretty sure removing the stop&go limiter (inability to produce energy while spheres are active) could incite at switching attunements more often for a more "bursty" boon provision, generating a whole lot more energy to cover -if timed well- the phasing (condis ticking if enabled)/heavy movement scenarios while having a more down-to-earth limitation: performing that burst means for a few seconds, your weapon utilities (thinking especially of CCs) are unavailable! At that point though I think spheres should be unable to produce energy themselves, to prevent having max energy 100% of the time since they'd be worth 6 energy each otherwise (6 pulses per sphere, *4 over a full rotation means 24 free energy merely from their activation - completely ruins the mechanic).

One other limitation from this stop&go system I often noticed (even moreso as Qheal) comes from a global system that's been largely forgotten: combos! You definitely want to use blast finishers in your fire fields to provide at each successful finisher 3 stacks of might; however when you want to do so, the prime candidate for a fire field is your fire sphere, its deployment time triggering the stopping part of the energy system. Thus, the time spent at dancing between attunements to trigger your blasts overlaps with other sphere activations, either holding back on the next use (increasing overall your time spent unable to produce energy) either disregarding some of them depending your weapon setup (think of finishers from water dagger mainhand & earth warhorn), and you obviously cannot anticipate that since you need first the very fire field to be present!

Hence, you can only perform such a combo when you're pretty sure your quickness will keep going for a while which is possible, but for all the reasons we exposed throughout the entirety of the topic, that rarely happens! So on this very idea for a Qheal cata, I'll let you imagine how it goes with water fields which you may want to (literally) blast away like your fire fields, for the sake of healing this time - let me tell you it becomes plain unfeasible, for having tried it (and don't get me started on resorting to the staff at any point, please; it doesn't work with the stop&go cata!). Food for thought; many issues converge and further reiterate the idea that Qheal cata is largely unwanted! Removing that stop&go limitation (and consequently the ability for spheres to produce energy) would make it much more feasible to work on your combo fields, and even possibly help the staff find an uncomfortable yet possible room in a Qheal cata setup, rather than being near interdictive as it is now!

Try to picture it altogether: you could work on your combo fields with more ease, thus triggering the right effects more or less when you want (adapting to the fight's mechanics still is an essential), and even use leap finishers (think dagger mainhand) to produce auras which will feed your Elemental empowerment stacks. Then when feeling bold and resorting to Empowered empowerment (to double the bonuses at 10 stacks), improving your overall performance at possibly the cost of your boons provision, a possible lack on your end which might be resolved by your boondps/healer partner; when you want a challenge, you definitely pick elementalist! Just let my fantasy run wild, run free. C'mon! 😆

Edited June 8 by Mevelios.4809