Guild Wars 2

When I first read about celestial armor I though it would be just another set but after looking at the stats more closely I realized celestial is the set to go for me and I love it. I play 8 different professions and like to experiment a lot with specs and one issue that always comes up is getting equip that I can try out with a new spec.
Celestial armor is pretty much the solution for screwing around. I would recommend to everyone getting this set since it allows for experimentation a lot. You get good enough stats to see if a spec works for you and you can buy more specific armor to suit your needs.
The only problem, Charged Quartz Crystals. You only get 1 per day.
Which means:
It takes 30 days or 1 month to get your 6 armor pieces.
It takes 10 days to a maximum of 20 days to get your weapons, depending on your weapon sets.
It takes another 25 days for your rings, earrings, accessories.
A grand total of 65 to 75 days for one character. If you want additional weapons to swap out you can always tweak up the number. This is at least 2 months going closer to 3 months for one profession.

If you’re like me and like to play multiple professions then you’re looking at a nightmare. In my case it’s something around 20 months for all my professions.

I am disappointed in Anet.

A simple solution would be to allow each power node to charge one crystal so people would have to travel around to different nodes to charge more crystals.

I can’t understand them gating it so harshly, a month to craft a set of exotic armor is a ridiculously long time (and the armor is account bound, soulbound on use so you can’t even buy it from the trading post to speed things along).

I originally thought that each insignia or inscription would need 1 charged crystal (which requires 25 quartz crystals) which would mean that you could make 1 set of armor in 6 days. This just drags out the process making it painfully slow.

(BTW I only want it for my elementalist at the moment, I don’t think it’s the best for every profession, but that’s beside the point).

Not every profession can even utilize Celestial takes to a greater effect.

Additionally, why would you craft Celestial trinkets? There are ascended celestial trinkets for a reason.

Lastly, you can get CQC from your Home Instance node and Sanctum Sprint. It’s a low chance, but it’s there.

I would think changing them from account bound would help so people could put them up on the TP.

It should have just been 25 quartz crystals per insignia. I wonder what the thought process was behind even having to charge them in the first place.
Having to be 400 in a crafting discipline plus the time gating and not being able to sell anything is really going to limit most people from even attempting this stuff.
I know I am just collecting cqc while I earn my windy backpiece and casually go for achievements. I’ve already gotten duplicate recipes for crafts I have no intention to get to 400.

Ascended items do not grow on trees. You have to invest either a lot of time, money or laurels. Crafting exotic celestial trinkets should be easier and an alternative to ascended. Right now it seems it really doesn’t make a difference since you will be investing equal amount of time no matter if exotic or ascended.

I definitely agree. The artificial time gate is ridiculous. At a month-ish per set of armor it is completely out of sync with the rest of the armor in the game.

really though guys? how many sets of celestial armor do you want? look at it this way…6 months down the road are you going to have anyone left that you really want to put another set of celestial on? They haven’t been making things so its immediate gratification, they’re thinking about the game in the long run and trying to keep their population busy instead of having them knock out everything they want in a week, get bored with it and either quit or kitten about not having enough things to do/acquire…

Magnus Steelgrave.6580:

really though guys? how many sets of celestial armor do you want? look at it this way…6 months down the road are you going to have anyone left that you really want to put another set of celestial on? They haven’t been making things so its immediate gratification, they’re thinking about the game in the long run and trying to keep their population busy instead of having them knock out everything they want in a week, get bored with it and either quit or kitten about not having enough things to do/acquire…

This makes sense for content and not for gear. Introducing WvWxp, for example, is something I mean by content.

I would get 8 sets since they are actually pretty good even if you just want some MF gear I would rather get celestial than traveler. Rather than getting a berserker, a rabid, a soldier, a clerics set to figure out how I want to play a proffession I’d rather just get 1 celestial set. Then at some point I could get 1 set that’s specific to my play style.

Gorrog.9103:

Magnus Steelgrave.6580:

really though guys? how many sets of celestial armor do you want? look at it this way…6 months down the road are you going to have anyone left that you really want to put another set of celestial on? They haven’t been making things so its immediate gratification, they’re thinking about the game in the long run and trying to keep their population busy instead of having them knock out everything they want in a week, get bored with it and either quit or kitten about not having enough things to do/acquire…

This makes sense for content and not for gear. Introducing WvWxp, for example, is something I mean by content.

I would get 8 sets since they are actually pretty good even if you just want some MF gear I would rather get celestial than traveler. Rather than getting a berserker, a rabid, a soldier, a clerics set to figure out how I want to play a proffession I’d rather just get 1 celestial set. Then at some point I could get 1 set that’s specific to my play style.

I get that as well, I just feel people are being unnecessarily impatient with acquiring items… having the trading post and such has spoiled things in a sense I think in making people feel like if something is new they should be able to have it right away. I feel it takes away from the sense of fulfillment you get from actually eventually acquiring something you really want after patiently waiting for it.. but maybe I’m one of the few who feel that way…

on a side note though you also get the opportunity at a charge crystal when you harvest in the home node as well which could help to expedite the process.. i’m sure not to a satisfactory pace for someone such as yourself but it will speed it up a little bit nonetheless.

I’m curious which one of these would win a Gary-Busey-Off…

R.N.G Boxes … Laurels … or Crystal Charging.

I parked my Jeweler (crafter) mule right on Gwen’s Grave with about 200 of them.

It’s more of a social statement than anything else.
how? …b/c My Jeweler is a Charr Necromancer, :trollface:

Or… they could have allowed people to buy/sell them vs. making them account bound.

This would have made much more sense. Not everyone has a class that would benefit from these gears… so why not allow those people to sell to others that could?

Magnus Steelgrave.6580:

Gorrog.9103:

Magnus Steelgrave.6580:

really though guys? how many sets of celestial armor do you want? look at it this way…6 months down the road are you going to have anyone left that you really want to put another set of celestial on? They haven’t been making things so its immediate gratification, they’re thinking about the game in the long run and trying to keep their population busy instead of having them knock out everything they want in a week, get bored with it and either quit or kitten about not having enough things to do/acquire…

This makes sense for content and not for gear. Introducing WvWxp, for example, is something I mean by content.

I would get 8 sets since they are actually pretty good even if you just want some MF gear I would rather get celestial than traveler. Rather than getting a berserker, a rabid, a soldier, a clerics set to figure out how I want to play a proffession I’d rather just get 1 celestial set. Then at some point I could get 1 set that’s specific to my play style.

I get that as well, I just feel people are being unnecessarily impatient with acquiring items… having the trading post and such has spoiled things in a sense I think in making people feel like if something is new they should be able to have it right away. I feel it takes away from the sense of fulfillment you get from actually eventually acquiring something you really want after patiently waiting for it.. but maybe I’m one of the few who feel that way…

on a side note though you also get the opportunity at a charge crystal when you harvest in the home node as well which could help to expedite the process.. i’m sure not to a satisfactory pace for someone such as yourself but it will speed it up a little bit nonetheless.

Being impatient is one thing but… consider making berserker armor you need 5 blood for one piece which can cost you around ~1g or roughly ~1h farm time depending on your luck. So, on a given day ,depending how much you like to play and farm, you could get several pieces. Now compare this to celestial and the feeling of impatience should vanish.
If the gear you were making was ascended I would agree with the impatience factor since you only craft exotics I do not.

Point is this: it’s already kitten account bound, I can’t sell it and so I cannot damage the market at all, this 1 per day BS is a blatantly punishing time wasting gate for anyone that plays multiple characters.

Don’t forget that your crafters actually have to BE level 80. You can craft any recipe at any level as long as you have the skill required for it… why do they add yet ANOTHER barrier to craft celestial armor?

Latinkuro.9420:

Point is this: it’s already kitten account bound, I can’t sell it and so I cannot damage the market at all, this 1 per day BS is a blatantly punishing time wasting gate for anyone that plays multiple characters.

Yet another “I have alts yet I’m getting ’punished’’”

It was your decision to make multiple alts.

Why stop there? Why not complain that “I’m getting punished for multiple alts because I have to keep spending gold to gear every single toon?”

Latinkuro.9420:

Point is this: it’s already kitten account bound, I can’t sell it and so I cannot damage the market at all, this 1 per day BS is a blatantly punishing time wasting gate for anyone that plays multiple characters.

This is like saying: “I want to be able to buy one gear, and have it be equipped on all my multiple characters.”

What I don’t understand is that Celestial Stats are not significantly better than the other stat distributions, yet have such a high barrier to entry.

Adding some form of barrier to Ascended gear, which is materially better than Exotic, makes some level of sense.

However, if anything Celestial is a more “casual” set of armor than the others. It’s great for the person who doesn’t want to have to worry about what armor to get, doesn’t mind being suboptimal, and can just play whatever.

I could (maybe) see this level of commitment for something like Ascended Armor. But not Exotic, when all the others are so easily obtained.

Not only is it going to take months to get a set, you have to have the recipes for the finished product as well as the inscription/rune/whatever it’s called.
Got all 3 of those, went to discover a new amulet and find out I have to have the amulet recipe as well.
Time gate + random drop gate + it’s only exotic, not ascended so what’s the deal?

Time gating here is a bit extreme for such a sub-par stats. Not even worth the effort to farm quartz crystals in the first place.

Yes, they probably will do more with them. I care about this when they do.

This is something to keep people using magic find gear playing the game on a daily basis.

Probably there is some connection in getting future funding to the number of individual players logging in per day. That’s IMHO the most likely explanation why they are doing this.

Looks like Anet is in desperate need of higher numbers right now. The achievement chests with more or less recycled items point in the same direction to get more player log in daily, doing their daily to get some more points.

I’ll expect we see more of such time gating in the coming updates…

WilliamDaBloody.2591:

Time gating here is a bit extreme for such a sub-par stats. Not even worth the effort to farm quartz crystals in the first place.

Yes, they probably will do more with them. I care about this when they do.

This is something to keep people using magic find gear playing the game on a daily basis.

Probably there is some connection in getting future funding to the number of individual players logging in per day. That’s IMHO the most likely explanation why they are doing this.

Looks like Anet is in desperate need of higher numbers right now. The achievement chests with more or less recycled items point in the same direction to get more player log in daily, doing their daily to get some more points.

I’ll expect we see more of such time gating in the coming updates…

Time gating is the best way to let casuals enjoy the game. In 2 hours play I can get a ton of stuff through daily chests without repeating content. Hardcores can get the same in 10 hours because the most valuable stuff is in those daily boxes. Because I pay the bills (having a job and playing 10+ hours is mutually exclusive) it’s very logical for a.net to cater to me.

This calender gating helps me by not letting you run off faster than me in a game I pay for.

marnick.4305:

WilliamDaBloody.2591:

Time gating here is a bit extreme for such a sub-par stats. Not even worth the effort to farm quartz crystals in the first place.

Yes, they probably will do more with them. I care about this when they do.

This is something to keep people using magic find gear playing the game on a daily basis.

Probably there is some connection in getting future funding to the number of individual players logging in per day. That’s IMHO the most likely explanation why they are doing this.

Looks like Anet is in desperate need of higher numbers right now. The achievement chests with more or less recycled items point in the same direction to get more player log in daily, doing their daily to get some more points.

I’ll expect we see more of such time gating in the coming updates…

Time gating is the best way to let casuals enjoy the game. In 2 hours play I can get a ton of stuff through daily chests without repeating content. Hardcores can get the same in 10 hours because the most valuable stuff is in those daily boxes. Because I pay the bills (having a job and playing 10+ hours is mutually exclusive) it’s very logical for a.net to cater to me.

This calender gating helps me by not letting you run off faster than me in a game I pay for.

It doesn’t seem you have any idea what you’re talking about. Nobody is arguing about time gating on content. Daily chests from boss events are time gated and are just fine. But spending up to 20 months to get your chars equipped is insane.

This post is obviously focuses on people who play more than one character yet some people miss this obvious fact. Please be more constructive in the future.

Gorrog.9103:

This post is obviously focuses on people who play more than one character yet some people miss this obvious fact. Please be more constructive in the future.

Just wondering. Are you saying that if you have multiple characters, and you get an Ecto on one of them, that all your characters should get an Ecto too?

Gorrog.9103:

A grand total of 65 to 75 days for one character. If you want additional weapons to swap out you can always tweak up the number. This is at least 2 months going closer to 3 months for one profession.

Its utterly ridiculous I seriously do not think they sit back and take a global view of this sort of thing and look at the actual consequences.

Actually, I been making some stuff, 5 days for one item, 5 charged per 1 item, 125 shards.
I finished the 16 achievements for Gift of Quartz…. Why is the node not a Rich, so when this event is over, 3 quarts shards a day… are you KITTEN SERIOUS? Why Anet?

I came back to the game and found out about these.

Not only can only people who did the event get quartz crystals unless oyu buy em off the TP but it takes a whole month for an EXOTIC armor set? WTF Anet.

If you are dead set on Celestial armor, then as most people have stated 30 days is what you are looking at. Ascended Trinkets is easily gotten daily and faster than the armor itself (which is the only odd thing I find). 2 Rings, 20 days max of doing 1 set of fractals daily, can easily do 4 a day and get it in 5 days or less because if you get lucky and get a ring drop, bam! Ascended Neck – Laurels. Ascended Accessories, 4 weeks max if you only do guild missions. Ascended Weapons can drop and you can also craft them, by far the only thing that is hard in the ascended category that requires anything that you normally wouldn’t do dailies for.

There is only a few class/spec that actually benefit from this armor set anyways even though it has superior stat totals. But I’m going t odive out of the way before “I play how I want” convo starts. I too am slowly building on Quartz Crystals and plan on making a set, but I am waiting for Ascended to be released so I don’t need to save up another month or more to get a full set.

Another problem is that to even craft celestial armor you need the recipes. The only sources for those recipes are the trading post or possibly a friend with extras in the bank. They sell for over 20g a pop in some cases. That is insane.

It’s because the Azurites have come and gone people. The world does not wait for you. Those who were around then could do a lot of trading with those guys, learned recipes and plans from them and could stock up on crystals. Their memory remain, but they are back traveling the skies.

Gorrog.9103:

…. spending up to 20 months to get your chars equipped is insane.

If you have 20 characters to “gear up”, I’ve got to disagree. (and if you have less than 10 I have to wonder what you are doing with your time playing?)

The idea that you should be able to gear up multiple characters in the same time to equip a single one is what is insane. BTW, I have 10 characters and I GET the concept that it is going to be a long haul process to equip them.

All the “Anet hates ALT-aholics!” is bullocks….the simple truth is that time-gating is an economic decision to keep players logging into the game every day. This is not a greed issue, but a survival issue as ANet HAS to make money to continue to function.

Despite all the arguments about this time-gating, the bottom line is this is an economic decision by ANet to keep players logged on every day. Lots of players do not consider ANet’s current income model when ripping on these decsions but keep in mind that unless you are IN the game, ANet has ZERO chance of obtaining ANY income from you as a player. Thier only source of new income (besides your original purchase of the game), is getting you to spend RL cash in the Gem Store…..PERIOD. Keeping Servers running costs money. Putting out new content (no matter your opinion of the quality or quantity) costs money.

You can hate the model or accept it, but it’s what is sustaining the game for now and I don’t see it changing in the near future. There is nothing wrong with expressing your distaste for it or even requesting that ANet consider changing it. but painting yourself as a martyr intentionally being persecuted by ANet because you don’t fully understand how the financial model of this game works is either a very ignorant view or one that simply wants to bash Anet without any actual consideration as to why they have gone in the direction they have.

Well, I have to say now that I have a place of power in the same home instance as my Quartz node, I’m actually amassing the charged quartz faster than I use it.

I should be in pretty good position when the Ascended Armor crafting starts.

P.S. The node itself spits out charged quartz crystals more than I expected, and its THE place to use any picks you might get with enhanced crit chance, as the Charged Quarts is basically the jewel/crit result for the node.

The time gating on the charging of the crystals is a BAD mechanic. There’s NO good reason for the time gating to be on the exotic celestial armor.

FACTS:
- no other exotic crafted armor is time gated.
- it takes 30 charged quartz crystals to make a full set of armor.
- charged quartz crystals cannot be purchased so you must invest 30 days to get one set of armor.

Regular Quartz Crystals is not the problem here my fellow players. You can simply buy those off the TP if you must have them now. The real problem is the daily time gate on making Charged Quartz Crystals. You must invest 30 days into that process for armor alone (more if you want a weapon or three).

I would say that with the cost measured in Guild tokens (a time-gated currency), Settlers armor is time-gated. Unless by some miracle your server rises up and smites all Karkadom simultaneously and you happen to be in Southsun Cove to see it…

Nike.2631:

I would say that with the cost measured in Guild tokens (a time-gated currency), Settlers armor is time-gated. Unless by some miracle your server rises up and smites all Karkadom simultaneously and you happen to be in Southsun Cove to see it…

I did say “crafted” exotic armor.

I just hope that a future Legendary weapon or armor will require 250 Charged Quartz. That will be, by far, the best and rarest Legendary in all the game.

lol Penguin… I say 365 charged quartz… make it a full year!

I do think ANet will in some way relax the time-gating for Celestial items in the near future. It is a crafting anomaly that is difficult to justify WHY it still exist as it does.

I do hope they fix by letting me sell my charged crystals…. I only ever make a few Celestial weapons and a piece of jewelry now and then.

Brother Grimm.5176:

I do think ANet will in some way relax the time-gating for Celestial items in the near future. It is a crafting anomaly that is difficult to justify WHY it still exist as it does.

I do hope they fix by letting me sell my charged crystals…. I only ever make a few Celestial weapons and a piece of jewelry now and then.

Because Anet made the decision to allow time gated Ascended mats to be traded on the TP, it would make sense for them to allow Charged Quartz Crystals to do the same. However, I would rather they take out the Ascended stuff on the TP, and make them all Account Bound.

juno.1840:

Nike.2631:

I would say that with the cost measured in Guild tokens (a time-gated currency), Settlers armor is time-gated. Unless by some miracle your server rises up and smites all Karkadom simultaneously and you happen to be in Southsun Cove to see it…

I did say “crafted” exotic armor.

So did I. The Guild vendor sells the insignia so you can craft them.

Nike.2631:

juno.1840:

Nike.2631:

I would say that with the cost measured in Guild tokens (a time-gated currency), Settlers armor is time-gated. Unless by some miracle your server rises up and smites all Karkadom simultaneously and you happen to be in Southsun Cove to see it…

I did say “crafted” exotic armor.

So did I. The Guild vendor sells the insignia so you can craft them.

You got your facts in a little twist there.
The Guild Commendations Vendor only sells Sentinel Inscriptions for Weaponcrafting, not Settler Insignias for armorcrafting.

The Southsun Economist only sells settler weapons, not armor.

Wanze.8410:

You got your facts in a little twist there.
The Guild Commendations Vendor only sells Sentinel Inscriptions for Weaponcrafting, not Settler Insignias for armorcrafting.

The Southsun Economist only sells settler weapons, not armor.

Ah. My mistake then. Thanks .

So, side question… I have nine 80th level characters… I’d only ever consider equipping maybe, maybe four of them with Celestial (and even then probably mixed celestial and stats more focused on their forte). I find its good for support builds where you need some healing power and I like a little of the Toughness/Vitality to keep from being killed when I bungle a dodge, and no character gets by without doing DPS…

But.

My DPS characters wouldn’t touch the stuff with a pole. Do people really have stables of 8+ character that ALL of them benefit from Celestial?

juno.1840:

lol Penguin… I say 365 charged quartz… make it a full year!

I’m sure one of the devs just read that, rubbed his hands together and said, “Exceeeellleeent….”.

Please don’t give them ideas.

As has been said above, crafted exotic Celestial armor stands out as requiring a particularly long time to make. It is an “anomaly” or an exception to the standard crafting. But it is in no way the only anomaly: e.g. Soldier gear or Settler gear also do not follow the same crafting/procurement procedure as Berserker, Knight, Carrion, etc.

Anet has made the decision that certain stats combination on armor is harder/different to get. In terms of game mechanics, we can try to ponder why that is, but your guess is as good as mine. Or maybe we can decide that it makes no sense and advocate towards Anet for this to be changed. If they had no particular reason to do so they might go back on it. But maybe they have a good reason.

For crafted Celestial gear, we have at least a lore explanation for it. The technique and science around making it is linked to the Azurites, who were only very briefly present in our part of the world. Maybe they can make it faster and better than we can (maybe not?), but we only learned recently from them how to do it and we are not yet as fast and efficient at making Celestial/Azurite gear as we are at making the one common in our region. Or maybe it is just extremely hard to make for everyone.

If you are desperate to get a full set of Celestials for sPvP the lore explanation offers very little solace to you. But if all you are about is PVE, really who cares? It’s not like PVE in this game is hard and requires insane amounts of min-maxing.

Zelu.1692:

If you are desperate to get a full set of Celestials for sPvP the lore explanation offers very little solace to you. But if all you are about is PVE, really who cares? It’s not like PVE in this game is hard and requires insane amounts of min-maxing.

Actually, since sPVP gear doesn’t have inherent stats like PvE gear, you can get the all-stat runes/amulets right away, so it’s really only a long-term goal for PvE and WvW, where it’s not exactly an urgent thing to have Celestial gear.

I’m not quite sure how I feel about the time-gating on Celestial gear. It does make it feel more special, to have to make a long-term goal out of it, and it’s not a strenuous long-term goal like Ascended gear…but it can be a hassle. Hrm.

Gorrog.9103:

The only problem, Charged Quartz Crystals. You only get 1 per day.
Which means:
It takes 30 days or 1 month to get your 6 armor pieces.
It takes 10 days to a maximum of 20 days to get your weapons, depending on your weapon sets.
It takes another 25 days for your rings, earrings, accessories.
A grand total of 65 to 75 days for one character. If you want additional weapons to swap out you can always tweak up the number. This is at least 2 months going closer to 3 months for one profession.

You forgot a few things
1. You can BUY exotic weapons with celestial stats and more of them are dirt cheap.
2. Ascended earrings/rings/amulets w/celestial are just as time gated as all other ascendeds.
3. The celestial mats for ascended celestial weapons do not take longer to produce than the rest of the ascended weapon so they aren’t the limiting factor in speed.

Player Character.9467:

1. You can BUY exotic weapons with celestial stats and more of them are dirt cheap.

What weapons are those? o_o

Quartz-crafted weapons are account bound, and I’ve never seen tradeable weapons with Celestial stats. (Well, barring Halloween weapons like “The Crossing” with deprecated stats. That’s anything but dirt cheap, though.)

It’s funny actually. One of my guildies needs his armor full Celestial, requested by his high-end WvW guild. He’s a Staff Ele.

I really don’t know why people seriously bother with celestial. If you wanted stat variance use a combination of different nomenclatures. No need to make this game any more of a job than it already is.

Redenaz.8631:

Player Character.9467:

1. You can BUY exotic weapons with celestial stats and more of them are dirt cheap.

What weapons are those? o_o

Quartz-crafted weapons are account bound, and I’ve never seen tradeable weapons with Celestial stats. (Well, barring Halloween weapons like “The Crossing” with deprecated stats. That’s anything but dirt cheap, though.)

Currently limited to a greatsword, a mace, and a shortbow. The mace and shortbow are both towards the cheapest end of level 80 exotics for their weapon types, the greatsword you could get for 9-12g. Their existence indicates ANet will likely make celestial available in other weapons shortly, or their item guys are silly.

Hint: What non-bop weapons were added AFTER celestial?

Well, I’ll be. Shiverstone isn’t half bad-looking, either. Stardust is okay, and Crystal Guardian certainly looks like a 12g skin, at least. I’d never heard of any of these!

Thanks!

DiamondMeteor.8345:

It’s funny actually. One of my guildies needs his armor full Celestial, requested by his high-end WvW guild. He’s a Staff Ele.

I really don’t know why people seriously bother with celestial. If you wanted stat variance use a combination of different nomenclatures. No need to make this game any more of a job than it already is.

I think if you did the math, the Celestial full set is far superior to anything you could combine from the other easily available sets.

Celestial gives you 930 total points AND 21% crit damage.
Standard 3 stats can give you 844 total points OR 597 points w/ 18% crit damage.

In terms of RAW stat addition, Celestial is numerically superior.