Catalysts - The Worst Weapon Type? | Genshin Impact

if you were to guess which weapon type in gangshin impact would be considered the worst what would it be there are five different weapon classes as a version 2.4 swords claymores pole arms bows and catalysts the game doesn't have as wide of a roster as other gotcha titles only releasing about one or two characters per month but there are a good number of units per weapon type and while they don't have as much of an impact in the game's combat as elements i feel like it warrants a bit of discussion just recently i uploaded an episode on why no one plays lisa marking the third catalyst user of the series up till now it's not just her kokomi and klee either barbara ninguang and yanfei struggle with their own problems too which prompted me to make this video the catalyst is arguably the worst weapon type in genji currently the only widely used characters with that weapon type are sucrose and mona the rest are either below average or niche at best not to mention it's the smallest in size albeit only by one the other four weapons typically have one or two characters that immediately come to mind when you think of the strongest verbose it's ganyu venti child for claymores it could be eula or maybe ito [Music] for pole arms it's a no-brainer there's like 50 of them same with swords a plethora of very dominant and versatile units but even if you were to pit the best catalyst users against their counterparts i feel like no one can say in good conscience that it's as good as the others today we're going to discuss the issues behind catalyst is the weapon holding its wielders back or is it fine and the problems lie within the characters themselves let's see what we can find out so one of the positive aspects of this game lies in its simplicity as far as actives are concerned each character has a basic attack charge attack plunging attack elemental skill and elemental burst in terms of equipment they have their weapon and five artifacts and basic combat entails the usage of combining elements together it's very beginner friendly you don't have to understand complex mechanics or macro like you would in a moba nor do you have to memorize combos and precise button inputs using quarter circles like you would in a fighting game as to the actual stats of the equipment itself the weapons could not be more basic they have an attack stat a secondary stat and a passive property some that offer rudimentary benefits like wolves gravestone giving you extra attack power mind you it's a lot of friggin attack power but you know it's just attack power others can completely alter the way a character plays such as the four sacrificial weapons which share the ability of having a percentage chance to reset your elemental skill cooldown upon cast game changing for certain units the weapon types themselves have basic standards of design swords have short range but fast attack speed and moderate damage claymores have long range and high damage but slow attacks however they're more effective at damaging solid objects like oars or shields on monsters pole arms are the most balanced when it comes to power speed and range bows have very long ranged attacks instead of having a standard charge attack they have aim shot turning your game into a third person shooter for more precise aim and can be turned into elemental attacks on full charge then we have catalysts another ranged weapon they're essentially this game's form of magic as such their normal charge and plunging attacks by default deal elemental damage based on whatever vision they carry mono's hydrostar catalyst does hydro damage sucrose's animals or catalyst does animal damage so on and so forth unlike the four physical weapons each caster has their own way to inflict damage through catalysts giving more individuality from character to character for example barbara's auto attacks contra bursts of water at the nearest enemy ninguang fires projectiles that travel in a straight line clee doesn't even use her catalyst she just throws bombs from her backpack but regardless of how the normal attacks are animated catalyst users employ the same lock-on system as bose just at less range as for the charge attack it differs as well each with their own unique functions though usually it consists of a condensed burst of elemental damage in a small area directly in front of them as the only weapon that inflicts elemental damage by default catalyst users are placed in an interesting situation on one hand they are capable of achieving elemental reactions unconditionally through their auto attacks which is a big deal as both users have to expend time charging a name shot while melee weapons have to be imbued through external means on the other it means they're exclusively locked to their original element and cannot be changed by other means for example if you take a sword user like crouting and activate her elemental skill her attacks convert into electro damage if she stands on top of c6 bennett's fantastic voyage her attacks become imbued with pyro tonyan's elemental skill can make her do cryo damage so on and so forth then again most of the time every unit prefers to stick to one element anyway so it's not a big weakness but it is worth mentioning now going by this information alone there doesn't appear to be any ostensible problem regarding the weapon itself in fact some of them are pretty good at helping your team in combat for instance the most popular weapon of choice for support units like barbara or mona is the thrilling tales of dragon slayers a 3 star weapon with a very effective passive especially at max refinement whenever they swap out the new character taking their place gets a boost of 24 to 48 attack for 10 seconds and given that it's a three star weapon that is not bad at all everyone should have access to at least one r5 tails by this point so then what's up with catalyst users and why do they see much less play than the other weapon types is it purely just coincidence or is there something fundamentally wrong with the weapon it's honestly kind of both at its core design gangster impact is an action rpg hack and slash type game by default melee weapons are the standard as the only stipulation for using them correctly is to be writing your opponent's faces which we're planning on doing anyway bows have the luxury of a name shot mode temporarily moving the camera to simulate a third-person shooter point of view thus allowing you to directly aim at whatever target you want to prioritize where this becomes a problem for catalysts is that it touches on the one game mechanic in gangshin that's either sorely missing or underdeveloped targeting for the sake of argument in near automata you're operating your character as well as a pod that assists you in battle that pod is equipped with a gun that can shoot a flurry of bullets and whatever armament you decide to equip it with by pressing the l2 button in lower difficulties the pod will automatically begin to lock onto an enemy and you can use your right analog stick to change who it should be focusing on this is especially important when facing aerial enemies and your only hope of defeating them is by using your pod's gun moreover this allows the pod to attack a target without requiring you as the player or the camera angle to directly be facing the enemy in question in other words you can run and strafe side to side while the pod does all the work for you i sell this because in the context of genshin there's no supplemental lock-on feature besides hitscan which is horribly inconsistent both users circumvent this by staying a name shot most of the time but catalyst users do not have this feature preventing them from being able to selectively choose who they want to attack you might think this is only a problem when facing cluster of enemies but it can also come into play while in single target matchups there's no way to tell who you're locked on to or whether you're in range to lock onto anyone at all so despite being ranged attackers the lack of proper targeting indicators make catalysts the most inconsistent and inaccurate weapon type of the five those with projectiles such as ninguang and yanfei fly much slower than arrows so they actually have the chance of missing or being intercepted by other enemies adding on to its poor usability despite being a very integral part of most of their kits catalyst users have very poor combat fluidity not saying they're bad in the sense of attack speed not entirely anyway but in terms of how it flows with the rest of your party it's a little unintuitive just about every melee unit's attack pattern involves a gradual forward advance in position as they knock enemies further back bow units do the opposite gradually stepping backwards to account for enemies walking towards them but catalyst users remain in place the entire time and have a slower rate of fire normally that would entail a higher base damage value like claymores but sadly that's not the case charged attacks can't easily be woven into normal attacks like you can on melee to demonstrate whenever you wish to use a charge attack on someone like clee she begins her normal attack wind up but then cancels it midway to switch animations on hutau and by extension everyone else the first attack comes out quickly and then switches to a charge attack allowing her a very fluid one-two combo cutting as well normal attack and charge attack child's melee combo is three normal attacks and then a charge attack they transition seamlessly from one to another catalyst users don't there's a lot of dead time in between different moves that you have to animation cancel and that can narrow the margin for error if memory serves the clunky animation issue was addressed later on with yanfei and kokomi but they're still tethered to all the other issues the only instance where catalyst combat isn't too much of a problem is if you're ironically not using them whatsoever sucrose exists mainly to use your elemental skill and burst not so much for normal attacks due to this it's kind of difficult to design a team around a catalyst main dps not that there are that many of them to begin with and it's also why all the good ones are supports instead as far as practical elements go it doesn't get that much better for one catalysts have a universal 50 stamina cost on their charge attacks all the coaching means complain about a 25 stamina costs while the catalyst means sit over there with twice that amount factoring your sprinting to reposition and you can only really get three or four attacks in a given rotation at most that said a few of them do have ways to bypass this cost yin guang's backup plan lets her use the charge attack for free after a normal one if she has a star jade but remember what i said about catalyst's attack patterns she can't transition from a normal attack to a charge attack as smoothly as melees can cleeve's pounding surprises a 50 chance of augmenting your next attack to do 1.5 times more damage and cost no stamina but it's not 100 one other thing is their poor synergy a lot of powerful supportive abilities were designed with the melee damage dealer in mind shinto's rain cutter is a good case of this everyone knows he's able to trigger easy hydro reactions because normal attacks trigger consecutive rainstorm hits when paired up with seihoutov she uses a normal attack first and then a charge attack thus procking the rain swords every other hit bow users and catalysts can't use shincho as comfortably because they can either only use normal attacks or aim shot slash charged ones never both one after another and catalyst users rely on charge attacks very much for those with on-field effects such as shangling's pyronado or bennett's circle that involves you being at point-blank range to make use of it the former is useless if you're far away and you won't be able to make much use of the latter either as your goal is to usually kite enemies which will force you out of that circle this is usually remedied with the usage of crowd control like venti or decoys like ganyu but the fact that they don't have free access to all of those makes them far less desired over someone who does as far as the average player is concerned catalyst users have the worst quality of life issues in the game action rpgs with no universal cooldown will inherently favor those with higher capacity for rush down that's why majors are usually really powerful or have some extra benefit in similar games to make up for the loss of mobility or speed it doesn't have to even be in hack slashers take league of legends the most popular classes in that game are fighters and slayers because they have a strong mix of damage defense and or mobility allowing them to steamroll over their opponents with sheer force however to level the playing field mages are gifted with extraordinary area coverage and zone control with abilities that can single-handedly win a team fight in genjiing the quote unquote mage class has nothing over the other ones they don't excel in area coverage kazuha is one of the best air crowd control and uses a sword kanye has a humongous shower of ice and she's a boat user they certainly don't excel in damage range is poor for them too they're objectively worse than bow users that's why the majority of the community doesn't find them worth investing into everyone plays with the same rules but catalyst users have extra handicaps purely by virtue of what weapon they use hypothetically a lot of this could be solved the same way every problem can be solved systems changes they've done system changes before with geo by making it stronger universally and they've made transformative elemental reactions stronger too so we know they're definitely open to doing balance and gameplay changes the question then becomes how i think what makes this not as easy as it looks is the current roster let's face it five stars are better than four stars when it comes to damage there's no way in hell anyone can unironically say ninguang sukros or yanfei are as viable as ayaka shogun or hutao i don't care who they are supportively they do a fantastic job everyone knows sucrose as budget katsuha mona is still the vaporized queen and kokomi can let you face tank spiral abyss without risk the problem is there's only 3 5 star catalyst users in the game right now and 2 of them are more of a support than the damage dealer leaving us with just clea it's much harder to pinpoint where catalyst falls short from an offensive standpoint as clee's way of handling combat is rather niche so what i think can be done to make the class more popular is at the very least to make them feel better to play three changes come to mind first the very obvious exorbitant stamina cost i understand thematically why you're conjuring spells which take up a lot of energy but it really doesn't have to be so high especially since it's not that much different from a melee charge attack if it did more damage then yeah absolutely flamethrower thunderbolt and ice beam do less damage than fire blast thunder and blizzard but they're more accurate basic rule of power budget second have its attack pattern function the same way as melees where a normal attack comes out first even if you hold the skill and potentially shorten the animation time in between for that to happen it could address the clunky nature of their normal rotation and have it fit in line with everyone else third more area coverage they have less range than both yet share the same property of their normal attacks not being aoe bose are allowed to in exchange for superior range but catalysts should be allowed to strike multiple targets without need for a charged hit ninety percent of our gameplay is dealing with clusters of enemies sometimes you don't have enough stamina or low enough cooldowns to clear them fast which is why melee characters are so good they do damage to everything around them catalyst users should be allowed to do that as well i failed to understand how bursts of energy inflict less collateral damage than the swing of a sword or a spear it just doesn't make sense that'd be the same as pyro being the healer element while hydro is the damage one my guess is the best way to truly see where the catalyst and its users stand in the power rankings is by getting more of them they have the most amount of customization between attacks so maybe in the future we might see some really good ones but that might also just be due to the character itself being overpowered not their weapon type kind of like how shogun is super broken but electro as an element is kind of meh regardless i want to hear what thoughts you guys have on this matter and to those of you who made a catalyst user what are some positive things about them you think people should be aware of there might be something the general public doesn't know about so let us know for now though if you enjoyed the video i'd appreciate it if you gave it a like subscribe to the channel for more content like this consider following me on twitter joining my discord server and checking out my previous discussion videos if you haven't yet but until next time thank you all so much for watching and i look forward to seeing you again soon take care [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Vars II

Views: 105,206

Keywords: genshin impact, genshin, inazuma, genshin impact 2.4, genshin impact wiki, genshin impact game, genshin impact 2.5, genshin impact yae miko, genshin impact ayato, genshin impact catalyst, genshin catalyst weapons, genshin catalyst team, why no one plays catalyst users, why no one plays lisa, vars genshin impact, genshin discussion, catalyst, catalyst worst weapon, genshin catalyst bad, genshin catalyst animation, genshin catalyst sucks

Id: 3iGAciiSpRQ

Length: 14min 24sec (864 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 06 2022