Why Catalyst needs energy removed.

[ZephidelGRS.9520]

Energy can stay if they remove the godawful "no energy building while a Sphere is up" design. Make it a specific trait if it's too busted to be applied holistically (is it even busted?).

Also needing 2 traits to even give Quickness is a joke and a waste of trait design space. No other boon builds even do this, not even Tempest does it with its Alac. 

[Mascarun.7910]

Agree with the sentiment to remove energy, but I will also add that elemental empowerment should be reworked. The most recent change to it makes it less punishing to not be at full stacks, sure, but in the end, you are still being doubly punished for being just a bit too slow or imprecise in the rotation because the duration of all stacks does not refresh upon gaining EE. Remember that catalyst relies on full uptime on 10 stacks of EE to maintain its 100% crit rate. 

Back to the topic of energy, I will add that, if energy is to continue to exist, aside from changes that have already been proposed, I propose that  catalysts traits, especially the minors, should be adjusted to include energy generation. How can energy be considered catalyst's central mechanic yet only one trait (energised elements) improves energy generation, a trait that is neither used in PvE nor generates energy significantly? Anet should go back to the drawing board with catalyst, or look at energy generaton in the original GW1. 

[Bleikopf.2491]

6 hours ago, ZephidelGRS.9520 said:

Also needing 2 traits to even give Quickness is a joke and a waste of trait design space. No other boon builds even do this, not even Tempest does it with its Alac. 

It's a trait tax. Not like anet couldn't do it more efficiently in one trait. 

59 minutes ago, Mascarun.7910 said:

Agree with the sentiment to remove energy, but I will also add that elemental empowerment should be reworked. The most recent change to it makes it less punishing to not be at full stacks, sure, but in the end, you are still being doubly punished for being just a bit too slow or imprecise in the rotation because the duration of all stacks does not refresh upon gaining EE. Remember that catalyst relies on full uptime on 10 stacks of EE to maintain its 100% crit rate. 

Back to the topic of energy, I will add that, if energy is to continue to exist, aside from changes that have already been proposed, I propose that  catalysts traits, especially the minors, should be adjusted to include energy generation. How can energy be considered catalyst's central mechanic yet only one trait (energised elements) improves energy generation, a trait that is neither used in PvE nor generates energy significantly? Anet should go back to the drawing board with catalyst, or look at energy generaton in the original GW1. 

IMO the proper solution is a (minor?) Catalyst rework. Elemental Empowerment (EE) and Energy are fulfilling the same theme (build up momentum) in two different ways. Having two things to juggle at once is cumbersome and unnecessary. I would prefer seeing those mechanics unified or one of them dropped to make room for another. 

EE is somewhat cute in the trait line in that it allows different options in how to generate it - by disabling, dodging and combos/auras. This would ideally support choices depending on build and play style. Except there are no choices to make at the moment. One is a minor trait. Another one competes with Quickness on spheres or damage on Auras. 

Having EE refresh on application would mean that it's harder to drop any EE. Therefore max stacks has to be less effective, as it's easier to achieve, or take longer to reach 10 stacks. I would still welcome this change though.

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

They should delete EE, imo. It's just really bad design; it's like they had no vision on gameplay or role, but "buff core with celestial sheet".
And they could. I mean they already did full rework of untamed, mesmer etc. The spec is almost a dead meme particularly since tempest recent buff, so it won't hurt a lot of player, on contrary. (may be some celestial roamers in wvw, killing greedy newbies)

They should focus on jade-sphere gimmick options : enlarge radius ; the elementalist becomes the field/no ground target ; combo grants quickness ;  fields actually deal damages ; auto-cast 2sec field when swapping attunement ; jade sphere becomes a drone, chases foes and explodes ....

Edited September 8 by Zhaid Zhem.6508

[draxynnic.3719]

Maybe rework some of the augments so that they're active skills rather than glorified stances, too. I know ice and fire get used in DPS builds, but apart from earth, celerity, and the heal there's really no depth to them, it's just an APM tax that you want to press those buttons when the right sphere is up.

[gousgou.5438]

On 8/11/2024 at 11:33 PM, Incurve Giidis.7829 said:

its unplayable in fractals because you dont have energy for prestacking.

when you full gg, you spawn at 100% energy but the button is greyed out until you get into combat lol

The gray button bug clears up if you change between elements or builds. It also appears in OW gameplay when refreshing skills with the Janthir hives (nobody noticed this before release - go figure???).

Another thing they could do, would be for energy to get replenished to full when out of combat. That would be freaking awesome!

[Khaldris.9026]

Or we could just... not deal with energy. Remove it. It isn't fun to manage, it doesn't add any decision points to gameplay.

Every other elementalist ability is balanced via cooldowns, why is the core mechanic of an elite spec saddled with an extra anchor?

[Xaylin.1860]

8 hours ago, Khaldris.9026 said:

Or we could just... not deal with energy. Remove it. It isn't fun to manage, it doesn't add any decision points to gameplay.

Every other elementalist ability is balanced via cooldowns, why is the core mechanic of an elite spec saddled with an extra anchor?

What is the point of elite specs then if they are not able to explore other avenues?

Imho, energy systems are fine and there are plenty examples within GW2 where it works. The main issue lies in what you said in your first sentence: ANet failed to create new decisions and gameplay linked to the energy system for Catalyst. At least one whole trait tier would have had to be dedicated to energy generation via different ways to cater different roles. We need more traits like Energized Elements for energy to matter. Catalyst would also benefit from effects relating to the energy level or spending energy. For example, instead of slapping Elemental Empowerment or unique Aura buffs onto traits, they could have granted bonuses if a Catalyst kept at a high energy level instead of deploying the sphere to create trade offs in gameplay. They could have granted bonusses to the Catalyst themselves when deploying the sphere like with Burst related trais on Warrior.

There are other issues with Catalyst like redundancies with other especs (Auras and Tempest) and within the spec (Aura buffs and Elemental Empowerment basically offering the same benefits). But those are all not related or caused by the energy system itself. I'd prefer a thoughtout energy system over passive buffs like EE any day.

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

Remember when catalyst had a modifier -10% Damage ?

Next patch we'll get a +150% boon duration trait for jade sphere !?
I really think they have no clue what to do with catalyst/elementalist. And they put absurd modifiers as bandage balance rather than take the time to actually design a proper spec.

[Bleikopf.2491]

43 minutes ago, Xaylin.1860 said:

[...]

I think almost everyone here will agree that Energy can stay if it's properly built upon and becomes a proper mechanic. Your suggestions already feel very good.
"Cata gets stronger on max energy + Spheres become more powerful on max energy but consume it" already introduces meaningful choices around energy.

But it's not like that. And ANet doesn't invest the time to meaningfully redesign things that don't work. Slapping modifiers on things is easier and faster.

[ShatteredStars.6548]

4 hours ago, Zhaid Zhem.6508 said:

Remember when catalyst had a modifier -10% Damage ?

Next patch we'll get a +150% boon duration trait for jade sphere !?
I really think they have no clue what to do with catalyst/elementalist. And they put absurd modifiers as bandage balance rather than take the time to actually design a proper spec.

mukluk a well known player and arena net partner tests builds and knows his stuff, he's not even a cata main and he's happy with this change.

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

28 minutes ago, ShatteredStars.6548 said:

mukluk a well known player and arena net partner tests builds and knows his stuff, he's not even a cata main and he's happy with this change.

He didn't even know how Weaveself gave damage modifiers, and he tests build few hours. He's nice and all, but I doubt he's an authority figure about elementalist or game-design.
So yeah we can be happy about higher modifiers : of course it is better to have longer boons than shorter boons in pve, this isn't the complaint I'd give. It doesn't mean those changes are judicious  nor they gives stronger identity to the spec.

+150% boon duration to jade-sphere is completely disproportionate, and the importance of the two traits is almost useless one without the other.
I think the energy thing is a nice change (and should be core) but they could have balance the BD into Spectacular Sphere directly, it would have been more reasonable ;  and/or make one "personnal boon spam" the second "sharing boons/larger radius".

Edited Saturday at 03:15 PM by Zhaid Zhem.6508

[Juniper.8197]

Ehh the new energy change (gain energy while a jade sphere is deployed) is largely moot point for DPS Cats. The 2 sphere rotation has allowed Cat players to make do with this profession.

It's Quick Cats that will benefit the most from that and the new boon durations. Hopefully, we don't have to use as much BD gear to have good quickness uptime.

 

[draxynnic.3719]

Yeah, no shade to Mukluk, but I'm pretty sure the overwhelming majority of his playtime is on ranger, engi, and necro. A big part of the theme of his "I tried..." series was that in most cases, he was coming at it from the perspective of someone who had never tried those builds before. He was explicitly not claiming to be an expert... much the opposite, in fact.

It did have the effect of showcasing some of the issues with elementalist in PvE in particular, though. Quickcata was one of the few builds he didn't take through a set of strikes because in the time he allotted for preparing for those videos, he wasn't able to achieve full coverage with quickcata. Increasing duration and making energy a little more forgiving would obviously help with that. So he'd be happy with it from the perspective that it at least helps with a problem that he'd identified. One could question whether the solution is simply a bandaid, but a bandaid is still better than an open wound.

[the krytan assassin.9235]

The class was already doing perfectly fine without these changes to BD and energy (Although some better energy regen downtime tracking and more visible indicator would have been helpful). It shouldve been quite easily fixed by buffing some hammer weapon skills & nerfing Herald (since Herald is basically gatekeeping all qdps from being viable). 

With energy basically removed for qcata it once again means that highest dps weapon=best qdps weapon with spear now being even more powerful due to enabling a consistent 4 sphere cycle rotation on qdps only. Lastly the qdps will probably become the "easier go to" build for every player that wants to try out cata. Im 99% sure however that all new players that try out the new qcata (and not learn energy management) will absolutely hate it when they try out normal dps cata. 

This game is becoming more and more brain dead by the day and even though the dev team is pretty clueless about their game, the community itself is also definitely to blame. The amount of times i've seen people complaining about the most basic class mechanics like having energy, cd's on full attuning on Weaver, overloads forcing you out of your favorite attunement for way to long. Literally this community wants every single thing handed on a silver platter. People constantly make excuses for their own garbage gameplay by blaming it on their class's identity.

Ele's bad rep simply comes from all the players being kitten in the game, constantly being in downstate, have low dps and complain how their class is bad, is way to difficult to play and argue the class should deal 10k more dps then the rest. 

Ahwell gz to y'all i guess, now you can finally enjoy your core elementalist elite spec. 

[Bleikopf.2491]

11 minutes ago, the krytan assassin.9235 said:

Ahwell gz to y'all i guess, now you can finally enjoy your core elementalist elite spec. 

Thanks!

[Khaldris.9026]

On 9/14/2024 at 5:29 AM, Xaylin.1860 said:

What is the point of elite specs then if they are not able to explore other avenues?

Imho, energy systems are fine and there are plenty examples within GW2 where it works. The main issue lies in what you said in your first sentence: ANet failed to create new decisions and gameplay linked to the energy system for Catalyst. At least one whole trait tier would have had to be dedicated to energy generation via different ways to cater different roles. We need more traits like Energized Elements for energy to matter. Catalyst would also benefit from effects relating to the energy level or spending energy. For example, instead of slapping Elemental Empowerment or unique Aura buffs onto traits, they could have granted bonuses if a Catalyst kept at a high energy level instead of deploying the sphere to create trade offs in gameplay. They could have granted bonusses to the Catalyst themselves when deploying the sphere like with Burst related trais on Warrior.

There are other issues with Catalyst like redundancies with other especs (Auras and Tempest) and within the spec (Aura buffs and Elemental Empowerment basically offering the same benefits). But those are all not related or caused by the energy system itself. I'd prefer a thoughtout energy system over passive buffs like EE any day.

These are pretty cool ideas, but... that basically makes energy the core mechanic of Catalyst, not the jade sphere. I'm not against the idea of building a resource of some kind that empowers you and having the decision-point of spending that to reduce your overall power for bursts of effect, but I think that's an entirely different elite spec than what we've got currently.

Though I can't rightfully say what Catalyst is supposed to be, even after all these years...

[ZephidelGRS.9520]

4 hours ago, the krytan assassin.9235 said:

The class was already doing perfectly fine without these changes to BD and energy (Although some better energy regen downtime tracking and more visible indicator would have been helpful). It shouldve been quite easily fixed by buffing some hammer weapon skills & nerfing Herald (since Herald is basically gatekeeping all qdps from being viable). 

With energy basically removed for qcata it once again means that highest dps weapon=best qdps weapon with spear now being even more powerful due to enabling a consistent 4 sphere cycle rotation on qdps only. Lastly the qdps will probably become the "easier go to" build for every player that wants to try out cata. Im 99% sure however that all new players that try out the new qcata (and not learn energy management) will absolutely hate it when they try out normal dps cata. 

This game is becoming more and more brain dead by the day and even though the dev team is pretty clueless about their game, the community itself is also definitely to blame. The amount of times i've seen people complaining about the most basic class mechanics like having energy, cd's on full attuning on Weaver, overloads forcing you out of your favorite attunement for way to long. Literally this community wants every single thing handed on a silver platter. People constantly make excuses for their own garbage gameplay by blaming it on their class's identity.

Ele's bad rep simply comes from all the players being kitten in the game, constantly being in downstate, have low dps and complain how their class is bad, is way to difficult to play and argue the class should deal 10k more dps then the rest. 

Ahwell gz to y'all i guess, now you can finally enjoy your core elementalist elite spec. 

Poor thing, tell me who hurt you today?

[draxynnic.3719]

1 hour ago, Khaldris.9026 said:

These are pretty cool ideas, but... that basically makes energy the core mechanic of Catalyst, not the jade sphere. I'm not against the idea of building a resource of some kind that empowers you and having the decision-point of spending that to reduce your overall power for bursts of effect, but I think that's an entirely different elite spec than what we've got currently.

Though I can't rightfully say what Catalyst is supposed to be, even after all these years...

I think the answer to that is "an option for a meleementalist that isn't as complex as Weaver, and also adds another quickness provider to the game". Keeping in mind that Catalyst was designed before weaponmaster training was introduced.

There doesn't seem to have been much thought into having a theme that I can see. They could have played into a theme of being inspired/empowered by the elemental creatures of Cantha, but apart from the sphere graphics there was no effort made to do that.

6 hours ago, the krytan assassin.9235 said:

The class was already doing perfectly fine without these changes to BD and energy (Although some better energy regen downtime tracking and more visible indicator would have been helpful). It shouldve been quite easily fixed by buffing some hammer weapon skills & nerfing Herald (since Herald is basically gatekeeping all qdps from being viable). 

With energy basically removed for qcata it once again means that highest dps weapon=best qdps weapon with spear now being even more powerful due to enabling a consistent 4 sphere cycle rotation on qdps only. Lastly the qdps will probably become the "easier go to" build for every player that wants to try out cata. Im 99% sure however that all new players that try out the new qcata (and not learn energy management) will absolutely hate it when they try out normal dps cata. 

This game is becoming more and more brain dead by the day and even though the dev team is pretty clueless about their game, the community itself is also definitely to blame. The amount of times i've seen people complaining about the most basic class mechanics like having energy, cd's on full attuning on Weaver, overloads forcing you out of your favorite attunement for way to long. Literally this community wants every single thing handed on a silver platter. People constantly make excuses for their own garbage gameplay by blaming it on their class's identity.

Ele's bad rep simply comes from all the players being kitten in the game, constantly being in downstate, have low dps and complain how their class is bad, is way to difficult to play and argue the class should deal 10k more dps then the rest. 

Ahwell gz to y'all i guess, now you can finally enjoy your core elementalist elite spec. 

Eh, the playstyle for quick cata had a fairly artificial "you want to have two spheres overlapping to get maximum benefit with minimum lockout of energy" behaviour.

On consideration, I think it's actually a fairly elegant solution given the starting point. If you're a boon support, it gives you a better ability to do your job. Possibly too much better at first glance, but part of their intent is probably to make it good enough for people to try it that wouldn't otherwise. If you're a DPS cata, the spheres are less important to your role and therefore you can afford to have less access to them.

I still think catalyst is the biggest wasted potential of any elite specialisation in the game, mind you, but changing that would require a full redesign.

Edited Sunday at 02:58 PM by draxynnic.3719

[Khaldris.9026]

1 hour ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I still think catalyst is the biggest wasted potential of any elite specialisation in the game, mind you, but changing that would require a full redesign.

I think that's where we've been though. Catalyst sits somewhere between Tempest and Weaver, copying their notes but not really understanding what either is doing.

The jade sphere alone is a fantastic example. It's ranged boon application, but you have no incentive to actually do that. Your best weapon is melee (because the core design of the spec just feels like it does not work without hammer), you don't get anything for giving the people over there boons, so you place it on yourself. Point-blank AoE boon generation is... already something Tempest does. Energy makes it even weirder, because now you have an ability that has a cooldown and a resource cost that you cannot generate while an orb is active. Everything with the spec points at trying to keep an orb up at all times (because those are your boons and your most convenient field to combo off for other traits. But you need to not have your core tool active to generate the ability to activate your core tool.

Then you get to the traits, where it feels like everything outside of Quickness application is a generic "do fight more good". The utilities, which are just Stances with 3 button presses (?!) necessary to get the full value out of them. The hammer, which can't decide if it's a melee or ranged (with the 3 skill being so bloated that it could've been the core spec mechanic in the first place).

Catalyst needs a full redesign. Band-aid fixes like this are just going to spotlight how wonky the whole thing is.

[Shaman.2034]

1 hour ago, Khaldris.9026 said:

The jade sphere alone is a fantastic example. It's ranged boon application, but you have no incentive to actually do that. Your best weapon is melee (because the core design of the spec just feels like it does not work without hammer), you don't get anything for giving the people over there boons, so you place it on yourself. Point-blank AoE boon generation is... already something Tempest does.

It is not just ranged boon application, though. It's ranged damage in PvE too. This was explicitly stated in the livestream that revealed Catalyst mechanics, they want the spheres to also be a reliable damage source "in game modes where it's needed."

Where is ranged damage relevant? Open world PvE, mostly. Splashing boons on people over there also guarantees you gold event participation!

This is the main way I use Catalyst on a daily basis, and it would really hurt to see it go for a careless redesign that doesn't consider the fact that Catalyst is the only way to get good numbers with ranged weapons while standing physically at long range. You can continue casting it on yourself for boons, I also have a melee power quickness Catalyst build that does just that. But the fact that you have the option to cast the spheres at range is so important.

Just look at the number of people asking for Tempest to be able to throw its Overloads at range, willingly asking to sacrifice the self-boon generation. This is good for the game. Choosing between self-buffing and ranged damage gives the game meaningful skillful choices. Catalyst is currently doing very well at that, and it needs to be preserved above all else.

[Panda.1967]

On 9/14/2024 at 4:29 AM, Xaylin.1860 said:

The main issue lies in what you said in your first sentence: ANet failed to create new decisions and gameplay linked to the energy system for Catalyst. At least one whole trait tier would have had to be dedicated to energy generation via different ways to cater different roles.

A dedicated trait tier isn’t necessary… it’s more the fact that they underutilized the energy mechanic and made it into a hindrance rather than an interesting mechanic… they could have made it work similarly to Revenant’s energy where it gets a number of pips of regeneration and Jade spheres cost an amount of degen, with no set duration, and no energy generation lock out either. Then its an interesting mechanic with its advantages and disadvantages that we have to find a balance between for optimal usage.

[Shaman.2034]

21 minutes ago, Panda.1967 said:

A dedicated trait tier isn’t necessary… it’s more the fact that they underutilized the energy mechanic and made it into a hindrance rather than an interesting mechanic… they could have made it work similarly to Revenant’s energy where it gets a number of pips of regeneration and Jade spheres cost an amount of degen, with no set duration, and no energy generation lock out either. Then its an interesting mechanic with its advantages and disadvantages that we have to find a balance between for optimal usage.

Catalyst Energy is intended to be more like warrior's Adrenaline than revenant's Energy. The only difference between Catalyst Energy and Adrenaline is that you can't generate Energy from hitting while your "burst skill" (Sphere) is pulsing. Imagine if a Berserker was locked out of Adrenaline while Scorched Earth was active, it's exactly that. They're about to add a trait that removes the Energy lockout if you're playing a boon role, but what they need to do is remove the lockout as a baseline behavior of the elite spec; then there is no functional difference between Energy and Adrenaline, and most weapons can certainly generate enough hits to do a 4-Sphere rotation or whatever. The limiting factor here, as it is with Adrenaline, is that you're actively participating in combat and successfully scoring hits on enemies. The only problem with it right now is the sheer number of hits you need to score in order to maintain enough Energy to do a 4-Sphere rotation or whatever, which limits which weapons you can pick.

Comparing it to revenant Energy is missing some important context: revenant also has to spend Energy on their weapon skills, and other utility skills that aren't upkeeps. That creates advantages and disadvantages around maintaining your upkeep uptime vs being able to use other skills when you need to. If Catalyst Energy worked the same way, there are no such choices to be made: you can spend all of the Energy on the Sphere, and that's it. There's nothing interesting about it. If you generate like 3 Energy per second and it costs 9 Energy per second to maintain, then the Sphere has 33% average uptime, and that's it. It's on for 5 seconds and off for 10 seconds. The exact numbers don't matter here, the point is that you aren't making any interesting decisions around spending your Energy. There is no interaction with your weapon or utility skills. This is mathematically equivalent to it just having a duration (5 seconds) and a cooldown (15 seconds) without any Energy at all, with the slight benefit that you can turn it off to reposition it as needed. But with a cooldown and no Energy, you can just swap attunements to cast a new Sphere at a new location if you need to move it, so this benefit is pretty niche.

[Khaldris.9026]

5 hours ago, Shaman.2034 said:

It is not just ranged boon application, though. It's ranged damage in PvE too. This was explicitly stated in the livestream that revealed Catalyst mechanics, they want the spheres to also be a reliable damage source "in game modes where it's needed."

Where is ranged damage relevant? Open world PvE, mostly. Splashing boons on people over there also guarantees you gold event participation!

This is the main way I use Catalyst on a daily basis, and it would really hurt to see it go for a careless redesign that doesn't consider the fact that Catalyst is the only way to get good numbers with ranged weapons while standing physically at long range. You can continue casting it on yourself for boons, I also have a melee power quickness Catalyst build that does just that. But the fact that you have the option to cast the spheres at range is so important.

Just look at the number of people asking for Tempest to be able to throw its Overloads at range, willingly asking to sacrifice the self-boon generation. This is good for the game. Choosing between self-buffing and ranged damage gives the game meaningful skillful choices. Catalyst is currently doing very well at that, and it needs to be preserved above all else.

Please don't take this as me being condescending, I am truly trying to come at this in good faith, but: open world PvE gold event participation isn't really a valid metric in my opinion. I have run just the silliest builds on multiple classes (I'm a shameless Flamethrower enjoyer on engineer) and only get less than gold when I'm showing up at the last few seconds of an event being active. Getting gold on events really just comes down to "are you actively attempting to participate", exactly as it should be.

As for a reworked Catalyst losing its ranged sphere? Who knows? My biggest point in my posts for this thread is that I have no idea what Catalyst's 'theme' is in the first place. ArenaNet would have to nail down that before any real design changes can be made.

Also to reiterate (to stay on topic for the thread): please just remove sphere energy, it is Very Not Good™.

[Shaman.2034]

2 minutes ago, Khaldris.9026 said:

Please don't take this as me being condescending, I am truly trying to come at this in good faith, but: open world PvE gold event participation isn't really a valid metric in my opinion.

As I said, it's just a nice bonus that splashing boons on people gives you gold event participation. It's not the main reason why I think Catalyst Sphere needs to stay ranged - that would be the fact that you can do damage with it at range, and sometimes you also want to apply boons elsewhere too, for the benefit of those players at that location.

At the same time, it's also very much worth noting that getting gold event participation in open world is THE main content thread in GW2. It is the content they develop the most, far above all other kinds of content, so a build that does well in this context does well for the vast majority of the game's content. It's not to be written off as a triviality!

But it's often difficult to secure gold participation if all you bring is damage. Enemies can die too quickly. The specific event might have a bad threshold for gold credit. Other players try to snipe the event. And it goes the other way, too: if you bring too much damage, you're the one killing enemies too quickly. You're the player sniping the event. A gentle but still significant amount of AoE damage coupled with boon sharing is exactly what you need in many cases. Catalyst Spheres are basically perfect for that, especially when traited to be 360 radius.

Anyway, my point is that any kind of rework - involving the removal of energy or not - should preserve the ability to throw the Spheres at range, the way it is now. I agree that the best solution is to just delete Energy entirely and leave everything else untouched, except for the one trait that gives Energy when you switch attunements. Now that quickness Catalyst will be able to build Energy while Spheres are out, Energy won't serve any function at all, except to prevent you from pre-stacking boons out of combat in some cases. But Tempest can pre-stack boons, and several other professions besides. ArenaNet should work to minimize the amount of dependence on "currently fighting a valid target" that boon builds have.