Guild Wars 2

Hello,

I would like to suggest an adjustment of the new Celestial gear, which has more Critical Damage and Magic Find than the previously existing one.

The previously existing gear, which has equal stats to the new “Celestial” one, has all attributes, but only 5/8 of a usual secondary attribute. The new Celestial gear is the same, with the exception of Magic Find and Critical Damage. Magic find is at maximum, while Critical Damage is even more than usual, with partially 1% more than on Berserker’s gear.

That’s imbalanced, since this armor has the same amount of Magic Find as gear with a prefix, which is specialized on Magic Find and sacrifices another primary attribute for it. The new gear simply outshines the previously existing MF Gear. I would suggest to reduce it by 1%, to give the previously existing ones an actual reason to exist. I guess that this imbalance is the result of rounding up the odd numbers. 2% Magic Find instead of 3% would be still more than 5/8 of 3% (=1,875), which would be already too much actually, since MF is a primary instead of a secondary attribute, but that can’t be helped, since it has to be rounded and 1% would be kind of useless.

Critical Damage should be reduced to 5/8 of the usual amount of a secondary attribute on different gear, as it is the case on previously existing “Celestial” gear. It makes no sense that “balanced” all-round-gear randomly has more Critical Damage than gear with another prefix, which is specialized on damage. Furthermore it allows you to sacrifice much less damage than you usually would have to for that amount of survivability – and in addition to that you get Magic Find.

Currently the gear has a proper primary attribute (Magic Find), a slightly improved secondary attribute (Critical Damage) and 6*5/8 of usual secondary attributes as third one (which is alone more than other gear has in total … 252 on a chest piece, while previously existing ones have 245 attribute points).

I see that this “balanced” and versatile gear should get a few attribute points more in total than gear with different prefixes, because it’s less specialized (although the attributes synergize very well with each other), but that’s still the case if it’s stats get adjusted to fit the ones of the previously existing Celestial gear, which is perfectly balanced, since 8 * 5/8 of a usual secondary attribute is still more in total than on other gear.

The magic find stat on armor has been laughable since the easy-to-bot, over run, crazy zerg circles (mostly in orr) have all taken really harsh beatings from the nerf hammer..(the magic find stat only works for kills so far as i know, and doesnt effect other things like event chests, meta chests, or dungeon rewards) that it’s there at all is nice, but this seems like a more organic way to remove those other sets from the game (I did once rage at someone who was wearing MF gear in Arah p4… found out the 4th hour in after what had to have been more than 30 times rezzing his butt)… all that aside, i rather see it pop up on something like this that will at least give the wearer something to show for defense.

Also, this is NOT a dps armor set, and the 1% higher crit damage is a null point because crit damage is useless without crit chance, and also a crit doesn’t actually add that much if there is no power behind the normal hit to begin with… A berzerker’s stat will have nearly 2x the power and precision of the celestial items…similarly a soldier’s or other similar armor will have nearly 2x the defensive stats of the new celestial stuff, so i think it will actually wind up being a fairly decently balanced set… you won’t be a mad dps FIRE FIRE FIER ROFLCOPTERFACEROLLWTFPWN machine, and you won’t be a mobile immortal either.. this is a cleaner method imo of building an armor set that tries to mix the best of both worlds, such as half and half sets, or leaning in one direction with main gear and putting runes/orbs the other way.

This is my take

I didn’t say that this gear outshines all other gear in any kind of situation. I’m fully aware that Berserker’s gear for example makes you deal more damage – but that’s not the point. The point is that the gear is currently imbalanced, because it’s overall in total better than other kinds of gear, most noticeable the ones specialized on Magic Find, regardless of it’s use.

If they think that previously existing Magic Find armors are too bad, then buff them in some kind of way, instead of adding another armor which turns them into garbage and is like a slap in the face for everyone who invested in those sets.

Soldier’s gear, which you are using as example, doesn’t get even close to two times as many defensive attribute points as Celestial gear has. Celestial gear has roughly 5/8*3 defensive attribute points = 1,875, while Soldier’s has 2*1 = 2. That’s a small difference, which is decreased by the synergies between those attributes and the diminishing returns of some of them. Furthermore you get maximum Magic Find and I highly doubt that Power as primary attribute alone, makes you deal more damage than 5/8*3 offensive attributes (Power, Precision, Condition Damage) in addition to the highest Critical Damage possible.

There is no reason for that Critical Damage and Magic Find attributes to be higher than on previously existing “Celestial” gear, which has 5/8 of the usual secondary attributes on all stats and seems to be balanced, since I never heard anyone complain about it being to good or bad. It has a few more points in total, because it isn’t specialized, but that’s about it – no need for single stats which are randomly higher than on specialized gear. So I would like to see them adjusting those stats, which seem to be over the top, to the previously existing and perfectly fine “Celestial” gear, which would automatically give the previously existing Magic Find gear a reason to keep existing.

there was no previous celestial gear beyond rings/amulets and so forth, and those stats will be lower somewhat besides because they are just accessories, probably similar to gloves/boots/hat in stat levels

and soldier’s wasn’t a perfect example to be sure… something else to keep in mind about this gear, if you aren’t a crafter, you will not get it… every step of this stuff beyond the initial crystals is account bound and time-locked (including the final product) which will discourage a lot of people who don’t craft… but think of the sentinel gear from the molten facility, a tankier set of stats i have not seen, and this is similar, it will be something that future players and those who miss/ignore the event (at least for the moment) will also not have access to.

As to the old magic find gear, replace it…reskin with the crafted product, or salvage it for ectos and such, sure it sucks to do that..but i’ve had to do this with mf and zerker sets both to put skins on something better. So if you dont have event access and get your home instance node, and recipes etc, this stuff is going to be impossible to get and the old mf gear will still be your only option.

back to the crit damage, again…the nerfed stats on power and precision makes that extra 1% more for show than anything else because it will be very hard indeed to make up for a lot of that lost power/precision via other gear just for 1% more… i really think it’s as much for show as anything else

There is ascended gear which has stats, which are equal to the newly added “Celestial” gear, as I already said. Those have proper Critical Damage and Magic Find, which is considerably lower than those attributes on gear which is specialized on those, as it should be the case. I didn’t compare accessories to something else, but to other ones with different prefixes. Furthermore it’s not about the actual attribute points, since those differ between different item types, but the ratio those attributes have on the same item type. Exquisite Charged Quartz Jewels are fine for example, since they have less Critical Damage and Magic Find than Jewels which are specialized on those stats – everything else would render those basically useless.

Yes, Soldier’s gear wasn’t a perfect example for you, but it did a good job at demonstrating that the new “Celestial” gear has at least equal stats to multiple other kinds of gear, but maximum Magic Find in addition to that, which is imbalanced imo.

The fact that you have to craft it by yourself and that this is very time-consuming doesn’t make it any better. I actually think it makes it even worse, but that has nothing to do with this topic – it’s about imbalanced gear, not about it’s acquisition.

It’s not supposed to deal more damage than Berserker’s gear, as I already said – but it deals at least similar damage and has similar survivability as gear with different prefixes, but has magic find in addition to that … but I honestly think that simply outshining the 3 previously existing prefixes, which specialized on Magic Find is more than enough to consider the new one as imbalanced.