Guild Wars 2

Dear Devs, I hope you’ll read this post since there’s something in that change that doesn’t play out right. In doing the maths on the other topic about this subject I ran into an issue with the 6% as was used to compensate the loss in crit damage.

The changes:
-full celestial with the 6% boost will give 497 stats on all gear (up from 469 now).
-Trait lines will change also, so 30% crit damage will become 300 ferocity=20 crit damage.

Offensive:

To ease the calculations I used full zerk traits http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vgAQJArKEBI9AAAAo0DAAAAA-zEBBYjBMRtIasqaER1qkYAA-w (so max power, precision line) to get the biggest effect possible. Afterall: Only crit damage is effected so you need to crit for it to have any effect at all. No runes are taken since those will have the same effect on all gears anyways.

-797 ferocity/15=53.13 crit damage vs the 91 that same set gives now. However you can’t translate that 1 on 1, since with full celestial you don’t crit all the time right?
-Since precision increases by 28, that has an effect on crit chance also: 42% (rounded down from 42.43) vs 41%
-Power also has an effect for direct damage: 28 increase so 1713 power.

So how will dps change? Let’s use a target with 2800 armor (heavy target golem).
Tooltip damage = (average weapon strength) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) / (level-based Armor value)

Old situation: 1685*1000*/2800=601.79
41% crit chance with 2.41 crit damage multiplier: so 0.41*2.41*601.79+0.59*601.79=949.69

New situation: 1713*1000/2800=611.79
42% crit chance with 2.03 crit damage: 0.42*611.79*2.03+0.58*611.79=876.45

Result being: 876.45/949.69= a 7.71% loss in dps. a whooping 2.29% less then zerkers lose, but then again 7.71 loss to any gear not having crit damage on it. So what do we gain on them?

Defensive(EHP):

Though not a perfect way it is a common practice to use this formula EHP=HP*Armor/10000
Needless to say it ignores healing and condition damage.
EHP old: 4650.37
EHP new:4772.38
a 2.6% increase in Effective Hit Points.

The tricky part:

Healing power and Condition damage. Given the way both works it’s almost impossible to make a proper calculation here. Various conditions give different % increases and healing power effects vary on the skill you use. Also there are traits that trigger on crit, which (though minor) are effected by the crit chance increase aswell.

Conclusion:
All in all one could argue that given the most zerk-ish version (traits) of a celestial build the change leads to a guaranteed:

-2.6% increase in EHP, compared to all other gear types
-A 7.71% decrease in direct damage compared to all gears that got no crit damage at all
-A 2.29% increase in dps compared to gears with crit damage
+a skill depending increase in condition damage and healing power.

One thing I should note: The less you got invested in the traits that give crit chance/crit damage the lesser the cons will become, while keeping the positive stat increases. I seriously doubt everybody using full celestial is specced with full zerk traits. The above is the least likely and the biggest casualty of this change. The reality will be less worse.

Edit:
I want to add 1 thing to this after some consideration and motivate why the 6% raw stats boost is a flaw in the way the devs thought about this:

-Where we were at before this change: secondary stats give 745 stat points putting celestial at 62.95% ((469/745)100%) on all stats.
-Where we will be after this: (497/745)100%=66.71%

The effective compensation we are getting therefore isn’ t 6%, but only 3.76%. To make it a proper 6% statsboost and keep the position of celestial intact it should be an increase of 46 points (9% on celestial stats) for the full set or 6% of the secondary stat for other gears. I’ll show it in the next post

Soldiers gear as we all know is not touched by this change. DPS before and after this patch is the same as it was before as is EHP. Using the same figures as I used above this gives:

Soldiers:
Offensive: 2303*1000/2800=822.5
dps: 822.5*1.5*.18+822.5*.82=896.53

Defensive:2628*22532=5921.4

So what is so bad about this?

Celestial (old) vs Soldiers:
Offensive: 949.69 vs 896.53, dps of celestial is 5.9% higher
Defensive: 4650 vs 5921, ehp of soldiers gear is 27% higher

Celestial (new)vs Soldiers:
Offensive: 876.45 vs 896.53, dps of Soldiers(!) is 2.29% higher
Defensive: 4772.38 vs 5921, ehp of soldiers is 24% higher.

Celestial took a whooping 8.19% dps dive for a gain of 3% ehp….making it worse: Soldiers bests Celestial in both defense and offense (conditions arguable as mentioned above). It’s not even a choice anymore, since there is no trade-off of offense vs defense.

The prospect of knights defensively is a bit better due to the hp on celestial, but even knights dps matches celestial with this patch, making celestial the lowest rank dps gear that is also below average defensively.

Solution: How to keep celestial where it’s at? Given that ferocity is becoming a secondary stat taking 6% of those as an increase would lead to this:

745*0.06%+469=513.7 statpoints. Rounding it of to 514 for ease. a 46 increase over the current full celestial set. Seems like a lot right? Well lets see how it plays out:

Offense: 1731*1000/2800=618.21
Critchance: 43%
Critical damage multiplier: 2.04
leads to>>>>dps:894.67 (again: raw damage, no conditions)

Defensive: 2398*2023.2/10000=4851.63

Compared to soldiers:
Offensive: 894.67 vs 896.53, a 0.2% higher dps for soldiers
Defensive: 4851.63 vs 5921, a 22% higher ehp for soldier.

However: This gives a margin where crit traits/sigils, healing power and conditions can come into play.

Additional prove
The idea is to balance gears out compared to eachother. To do so you’d want the difference in defense to be comparable to the difference in offense.

-Old situation: To counter for the 27% better defense you need to deal 1138.59 dps. 1138.59-949.69=188.9 a bleed now deals 23.45 damage more, which leads to 8 bleedstacks

-My proposition: to get a 22% better offense to match for the 22% better defense of soldiers you’d need 896.53*1.22=1094 dps. a bleed deals 25.7 damage more the a bleed on soldiers, so that’s 8 bleedstacks on top of the base celestial dps.

-6% as suggested now: to counter for the 24% better defense you need to deal 1111.69 dps . (1111.68-876.45)/24.85(damage of 1 bleedstack)=9.46 bleedstacks. As you can tell in contrary to what I proposed above the dps loss is equall to 1.5 bleeds put on the target.

I hope you guys will read this. I’ll be happy to do some more maths if needed, but please look into this. You guys said the nerf to celestial was unintended, this is the easiest way to fix it instantly without touching the nerf to zerk and without unwillingly hurting celestial players.

Nice analysis. Basically celestial can only be used by a profession can can utilize every single stat, basically only Elementalist.

Seriously I want my money back.

Please read my second post also. The idea behind it isn’t bad. They just took the 6% based on the wrong stat to compensate for the unintended damage done to celestial. It’s easy to fix.

I agree. 6% sounds nice on paper. However the superior low base stats (of celestial) compared to other stats, make the 6% to low. Yes it’s 7 stats, but that doenst make it a big boost. Remember, stats need tressholds to be usefull. Celestial suffers more then any other stat from this. I know making celestial ‘the way to go’ would be wrong, who wouldnt want to be the perfec allround in the game without downsides? I get the fear Anet. I understand it. Fact remains even as it was celestial was never op. It was arguable slightly underpowered even (only usefull by the small niche of player that knew it’s advantages), by nerfing it compared to existing gear, you don’t make the picture better. To keep status quo, you must follow topics Original Post idea. If you make that 6% a true 6% (and not 3,76%), then celesetials keeps status quo of being ‘just viable enough’ to be a set choice. I also know you guys might think ‘why are players discussing something before it’s out? Well some of us are very good in math (arguable better then you guys). It’s our hobby to compare stuff. It’s also our worries that are latest (pretty hard if i may say so) armor set (celestial), might go from viable to not viable anymore. The sum of those two gives the result of us discussing it.

I know you guys don’t want powercreep. I totally get it. And all my posts so far keep that in mind. I don’t want to be op. Hell i want Celestial to remain a Niche. But a viable one at that preferrably.

I’m just reading through, but I’m not sure whether you’ve listed your assumptions. It’s quite late for me here. I’ll poke holes where I can.

1. I think that the half percentage point that you are rounding off of the post-change critical chance is not trivial.
2. You list power before the celestial stat increase as being 1685; where did you get this number?
3. What are the assumptions you’ve made for your EHP calculations?

Ah my bad. I c/p the math from my first post in the other topic. I’ll add it to the start post.

1. Crit chance is rounded down, according to wiki "Critical Chance = round down((precision – 822) / 21) " (which can easily be confirmed in game yourself to be correct).
2.Go to a buildcalculator, throw in full celestial stats with max zerk traits (power, precision line). See below.
3. Based on the same as mentioned above, so no assumptions.

" I used full zerk traits http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vgAQJArKEBI9AAAAo0DAAAAA-zEBBYjBMRtIasqaER1qkYAA-w (so max power, precision line) to get the biggest effect possible. Afterall: Only crit damage is effected so you need to crit for it to have any effect at all. No runes are taken since those will have the same effect on all gears anyways." added to the start post.

I really think leaving out the additional support potential of Healing Power, as well as the extra damage provided by the Condition Damage, is a non-trivial problem. I understand it is called out in “the tricky part” section, but just because it’s difficult to quantify doesn’t mean that the set should be balanced solely around the Power/Survival aspect of the gear.

If you want Power/Survival only, you go Power/Survival gear. If you want some extra goodness with it because you run a diverse build, you run a diverse gear set.

If you wanted to game the Crit Dmg system, I don’t really have any pity for you.

Okay, cool. Thanks for adding those. I’ll probably play with your numbers once I’ve slept; I want to check a few things. In particular:
1. How Celestial affects specs without 30/30 power/prec/crit
2. EHP for different classes
3. Damage loss without compensation

6% is too low, it was hardly viable before in PvE but now there´s just no reason to use it.

Now with such nerf to celestial gear, it should become real all stat equipment, witch mean it should also include:
- 1% boon duration
- 1% condition duration
+ 1% condition duration
+1% condition damage

that would add 6% for a full armor set.
Not too strong, but at least its something !

what are your toughts ?

Undertaker.7451:

Now with such nerf to celestial gear, it should become real all stat equipment, witch mean it should also include:
- 1% boon duration
- 1% condition duration
+ 1% condition duration
+1% condition damage

that would add 6% for a full armor set.
Not too strong, but at least its something !

what are your toughts ?

-1% boon duration- huh? That doesn’t make sense. Guessing you meant +1% rather than -1%, and that might be okay I suppose.
-1% condition duration- While it is relatively small, personally I think it’s a fairly trivial addition, and I don’t think adding more -condition duration to the game will help.
+1% condition duration- Okay.
+1% condition damage- This is what Condition Damage does, so it’s kind of redundant.

Personally, I’d rather the spread got another couple of percent worth of stats. I don’t think 10% is an unfair number, personally.

HypnoticEyes.2683:

Please read my second post also. The idea behind it isn’t bad. They just took the 6% based on the wrong stat to compensate for the unintended damage done to celestial. It’s easy to fix.

Heh. Wanna bet that this error never gets fixed and/or goes atleast 6+ months without even getting acknowledged?

I really think leaving out the additional support potential of Healing Power, as well as the extra damage provided by the Condition Damage, is a non-trivial problem. I understand it is called out in “the tricky part” section, but just because it’s difficult to quantify doesn’t mean that the set should be balanced solely around the Power/Survival aspect of the gear.

Reason I left it out is actually pretty simple.
Healing power scales differently for different skills. Since all classes can use the gear they are effected a bit different. However if you want a fixed number to get an idea of the impact is has: the effect this change has on regeneration is the same for all:
From gear now: 130+469*.125=188.6hp/second
With the proposed boost: 0.125*28=3.5 hp/second for a total of 192.12 .
With the change as I’m suggesting it’s 0.125*.46=5.75 hp/second for a total of 194.4
% wise? An 1.8% increase with the proposed change. 3% increase with my version. Nothing gamebreaking is it? To put it in perspective: in a 20 second fight that’s 70hp healed.

Condition damage has the same abysmal impact. Burning and fear got the highest multiplier with 25%. With the proposed change that’s 7 damage on top of the 445 we have from the gear now. that’s a 1.5% increase and barely noticeable.

What I tried to show with the comparison to soldiers gear in my second post is showing that even with condition damage getting this 6% boost our relative dps still drops more. The need for 1.5 more bleedstacks to match the dps proves that beyond a doubt.

Okay, cool. Thanks for adding those. I’ll probably play with your numbers once I’ve slept; I want to check a few things. In particular:
1. How Celestial affects specs without 30/30 power/prec/crit
2. EHP for different classes
3. Damage loss without compensation

Let me help you there a bit:
1.The reduction as I mentioned is less, since the only effect the nerf has is lowering crit damage. Spending less in the crit trait lowers the amount of time you crit and logically also lowers the effect it has. When taking no power/crit traits at all http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vgAQJArKEBI9AAAAo0DAAAAA-zEBBYjBMRtIasqaER1qkYAA-w (best case scenario)this is the math:
Offensive:
Old:1385*1000/2800=494.64.
26% crit chance, 2.11% crit damage multiplier.
-0.26*2.11*494.64+494.64*0.74=637.39

New: 1413 power * 1000 weapon damage/2800=504.64. 28% critchance ((1413-822)/21), crit damage multiplier1.83 (497/15+1.5).
- 0.28*1.83*504.64+0.72*504.64=621.9

damage new compared to old: (621.9/637.39)*100%=97.57% so a nerf of 2.43% still.

My proposal:
1431*1000/2800=511.07 29% crit chance, 1.84 crit damage multiplier.
0.29*511.07*1.84+511.07*.71=635.56

Proposal nerf compared to old:(635.56/637.39)*100%=99.71% or a barely noticeable 0.29%

Every real life scenario will obviously fit in between this best case and the worst case scenario mentioned in my first 2 posts.

2.: That’s a different question and one I’m not going to try to cover. EHP is a nasty one due to the decreasing effects of additional toughness the higher your armor rating is. Therefore I took light armor here, since those are the ones having the highest benefit of each additional point in Toughness. The ehp increase with the statsboost will be slightly less for medium or heavy classes.

3. both extremes are covered in the links above. Simply convert crit damage to ferocity, the rest stays the same as in the builds linked.

Hope this helps

Thankyou, Eyes! That’s very helpful.

I’m not sure about the Condition Damage/Healing Power points, as I think they need to be addressed in their entirety on the gear, rather than just the new boost. My own mathwork similarly completely excluded these stats as frankly I couldn’t be bothered finding a reasonable assumption for them. I think they need to be looked at as a whole; Soldiers v Old Celestial v New Celestial.

On EHP, there’s also that an Elementalist will get a higher EHP benefit from it than a Mesmer as you have listed in your link, but this probably won’t push beyond a 4% increase at a rough guess.

Again, thanks a bunch for doing the legwork here.

It simply needs a bigger buff! why?

Its a step from the zerker meta
Its makes better gameplay than the passive tanksmor 1-shot dice rolls , as it requires to land both the condition as direct damage on some1 to be even close to effective.

Have you guys seen Ele full Cele Ascended builds? They are rather broken as it is and you want them to have a BIGGER buff?

Cele was a terrible stat combo to introduce in the first place.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Have you guys seen Ele full Cele Ascended builds? They are rather broken as it is and you want them to have a BIGGER buff?

Cele was a terrible stat combo to introduce in the first place.

Stop trolling.

On EHP, there’s also that an Elementalist will get a higher EHP benefit from it than a Mesmer as you have listed in your link, but this probably won’t push beyond a 4% increase at a rough guess.

Percentage wise it should stay the same actually, since the increase is relative compared to soldiers gear. An elementalist with soldiers gear would have a lower ehp then a mesmer with the same gear due to the formula that’s being used: T*HP. Simple reason being the higher base health pool of a mesmer, since T stays the same for both classes.

Have you guys seen Ele full Cele Ascended builds? They are rather broken as it is and you want them to have a BIGGER buff?

Not at all actually. What we are trying to achieve here is to do what the devs themselves said was the intention: Changing the zerk meta, where celestial has become an unwanted casualty that they try to compensate with the boost. The suggestion I made if you look at the numbers won’t boost celestial at all, it makes the direct damage drop so small that it stays within the same boundries as it sits now, but in the end if anything it is still a minor (barely noticeable) drop.

Now with such nerf to celestial gear, it should become real all stat equipment, witch mean it should also include:
- 1% boon duration
- 1% condition duration
+ 1% condition duration
+1% condition damage

that would add 6% for a full armor set.
Not too strong, but at least its something !

what are your toughts ?

This would bring the gear in a real tricky situation. Don’t forget: you got 6 pieces of armor + 6 types of jewelry + 2 weapons (or a two-handed)+ 6 divinity runes. Since gw2 works with rounded numbers you’d end up with at least 1% on each item. That’s not a 6% increase on those stats, but a 20% increase on those stats.
-20 condition duration on self(outrageous)
+20% boon duration (high)
+20% condition duration (average-high)
Condition damage is already on the gear and is getting the same stat boost the other stats will get, so that won’t be an option to begin with.

Conclusion in my opinion: That has overpowered written all over the place.

HypnoticEyes.2683:

Please read my second post also. The idea behind it isn’t bad. They just took the 6% based on the wrong stat to compensate for the unintended damage done to celestial. It’s easy to fix.

This — just bump the stats by 9% instead of 6% and problem fixed. This is assuming that ANet did not intend to nerf celestial. If they did, then “mission accomplished”.

Very nice analysis Hypnotic, thanks. I was hoping someone would do the full calculations as I mentioned the damage nerf is not fixed by a flat 6% stat increase in another thread.

Hrm, not a bad idea to include +boonduration, +conditionduration and +classstat on it, tbh.

Number should ofc be minor, and ofc then means we need the same stat→percentage ratios on those stats or it’ll run into the exact same issue as crit damage.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Have you guys seen Ele full Cele Ascended builds? They are rather broken as it is and you want them to have a BIGGER buff?

Cele was a terrible stat combo to introduce in the first place.

If you are running into Eles with full Celestial whos stomping you, remember they more than likely have been playing for a very long time on that class due to the absurd timegates for crafting crystals + Damask. The difference between a decent Ele and a very experienced one is astounding.

Just thought I’d throw this out there I’ve had multiple people I’ve 1v1ed thought I was a bunker build even though I was in reality using a zerker amulet in spvp and just dodging all the big hit combos. When I’d give the opponent the chance to hit me so they may test dmg, they’d see I actually take quite a blow from each hit. Moral of the story: It’s less about the gear and more about being outplayed.

The proposed 9% increase being asked for here is very appealing to me. I do not want to see my gear of choice nerfed. It’s already hard enough to dish out damage. I hope Allie or a kind dev gives some feedback!

Can we not add some zealots gear to the meta? With knights and 1-2 pvt trinkets?
Is there a way of doing imitating celestial but using one of each type of gear? Maybe not literally but you know having knights, zealots, carrion set up? Would it be enough? 2 weapons, 6 bits of armor, 6 trinkets/rings/etc.

Cecilia.5179:

The proposed 9% increase being asked for here is very appealing to me. I do not want to see my gear of choice nerfed. It’s already hard enough to dish out damage. I hope Allie or a kind dev gives some feedback!

On reddit there was some math which ended up verifying that the intended 5/8th → 2/3rd exactly refunds the lost stat points from the ferocity change on celestial.

just add boon duration
either by 2% shoulders/feet/arms 3% head , 5% legs/chest.
5% amulet, 3% rings 2% earrings.

or even better, by standardizing boon duration to stat ( just like crit went to ferocity)
and give a proper amount of the new boon duration stat on gear celestial.

after all they are severely nerfing boon duration from runes

Lalangamena.3694:

after all they are severely nerfing boon duration from runes

Which is a good thing, really.
There’s way too much boon/condition duration (and also -conditionduration) available in the game, with too little commitment needed.

Worst offender is the food. It’s +/- 40%, when the equivalent for other stats is always 10%.

This food – and some rune sets with high +/-% amounts – are the main reason why condition damage can be either under- or overpowered depending on who has the stuff, and why Stability is so insanely strong. When you can easily stack +100% duration, no wonder things get out of line.

boon =/= conditions…..

Seems entire thing is based on the false assumption that anet wanted to boost effectiveness by 6%. They didn’t. They wanted to increase it by exactly what you calculated, which corresponds to a 6% stat increase across the board.

Crit damage is being nerfed. There is no way to get around it.

My own calculations in the elementalist forum indicate that celestial will outperform soldier’s for elementalists in both survival and damage. The reason for this is because of the condition damage and healing power. They may be too complex to make a generic formula for, but they do matter in the overall power of the stat combo.

The other thing you gotta keep in mind is that if celestial and berserker are both nerfed in damage by 10%, the gap between them will get smaller. If berserker has, say 10k dps, and celestial 5k, lowering both by 10% will result in 9k and 4.5k respectively. The damage difference is lessened from 5k to 4.5k. So while both are getting nerfed, celestial gets a relative buff.

Overall, celestial is in a better position than it was before the change. But you do need to make use of all its aspects (damage, conditions, defense and healing) or you’ll lose effectiveness.

Unfortunately anet didn t traslate old crit damage to ferocity using the same creiteria berserker had.

If they did we would not be here discussing…
Instead they thougt it was a goo idea following a “lore” change and putting ferocity equal ot other stats…

A flat conversion was all we were asking for… so the same nerf would apply to every single crit damage set rather then hitting celestial double.

p.S. your calculation doens t take in account too many factors ….builds mostly… ele is a profession based on boons….condition are lacking instead thus easy to remove.

LordByron.8369:

A flat conversion was all we were asking for… so the same nerf would apply to every single crit damage set rather then hitting celestial double.

Again, the crit damage on Celestial was an outlier. It didn’t make any sense, and while none of us questioned it at the time – it was beneficial to us after all – it was easy to see that it wouldn’t last forever.

At some point, someone in the dev team would probably notice that Celestial wasn’t actually the 5/8th-gear their post billed it as, because someone in the item team decided to make it more PvE-appealing that it normally would be by inflating the crit damage return.

Now, with the change to crit damage overall, there’s no reason to keep the inflated stats though because there’s going to be a boost to 2/3rd gear anyhow. Which perfectly refunds the points lost, btw, averaging over all item slots.

carighan i already explained it to you 10 times at least…..

its easy 10% of 100 is 10, 20% of 50 is still 10…. but when you sum dps the set with 10% becomes 110, while the other with 20% will become 60…

Nobody questioned because was buffed for that reason….

And once again find me a reason to nerf celestial….just one that is not LORE.

LordByron.8369:

And once again find me a reason to nerf celestial….just one that is not LORE.

None, but why would there need to be one? O.o
Isn’t lore a much better reason than numerical balance, considering we’re playing a role-playing game? Sort of where the genre should ideally be heading long-term? :o

Its not arole playing…you can t affect anything in any way,
Whatever you kill will respawn seconds later.

On the opposite the GAME part should be related to FUN…and this is ruining for whoever (obviously not you) have said item while not providing any advantage to people not having it.

That is the ultimate definition of of “wrong”.

Oh, I have full Celestial on the Engi and partial Celestial on the Mesmer.
Those are my only lvl80 chars, so yeah, this affects both chars I play for ~2000 hours now (granted, ~1500 on the Mesmer).

And yet, I approve of this change. Easily. And I saw it coming months ago. I don’t know why this seems so sudden to people, or so unexpected. Did you not plan for this back when you crafted the gear?! O.o

No, because it made sense to have such high crit damage – it was balanced by the formula used for damage calculation and the low values of power and precision.

imo the absurdly high crit damage didnt make sense at all. it was an oversight that an all-stat-combo had more crit damage than a set that focusses on crit damage.

maybe all of celestials stats need another buff, but im completely fine with the crit damage nerf.

Manuhell.2759:

No, because it made sense to have such high crit damage – it was balanced by the formula used for damage calculation and the low values of power and precision.

That’s a game-wide issue, not a Celestial-specific one.
I mean yes, stats need a scaling pass, no questions asked. Shouldn’t affect individual gear loadouts, partially because the devs handling them are probably separate, and hence work at different speeds.

LordByron.8369:

carighan i already explained it to you 10 times at least…..

its easy 10% of 100 is 10, 20% of 50 is still 10…. but when you sum dps the set with 10% becomes 110, while the other with 20% will become 60…

Nobody questioned because was buffed for that reason….

And once again find me a reason to nerf celestial….just one that is not LORE.

It’s really not easy. You’re not making any sense. I don’t know what these numbers mean or are supposed to represent.