Guild Wars 2

I recently came across an article about the upcoming changes to critical damage and the introduction to Ferocity. -> https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/learn-about-critical-damage-changes/ Up until I had read this, I had not heard of any specific figure to be added to the celestial armor when ferocity came out, instead just general banter that celestial needed to be beefed up as it would be hurt badly… But reading this concerned me as it seems like the “fix” (6% stat increase) is a drop-in-the-bucket to what they’re taking away.

Celestial gear is losing its biggest stat (by a long shot) in critical damage switching to ferocity but a 6% increase means virtually nothing. When broken down, if using 100% celestial armor, weapons, and trinkets 6% is 28 total stat points per stat. A full celestial build currently gets 31% chance to critical, and +73% critical damage, with the new and “improved” celestial armor it’ll get 32% chance to critical, and +31% critical damage. Non-critical damage will be improved by 2% (celestial gear accounts for 1/3 of the power of it’s wearer, 2/3 coming from their base power, thus a 6% gear boost means +2% power) while critical damage will drop 42%.

Simple calculations using base of 1000 damage:
Non critical: before – 1000, after – 1020
Critical : before – 2230, after – 1846
chance to crit: before – 31%, after 32% (51% and 52% if using perma-fury, as many do)
Average damage: before – 1381, after – 1284 (1627 and 1450 with perma-fury)

What does that calculate out to? a 7% lower damage output, without fury, and an 11% lower damage output with fury. Keep in mind that the vast majority of celestial builds focus on 100% fury up-time simply because their damage is extremely low compared to nearly all other builds already. So what will the wearer get in return? About 28 toughness (roughly 2% boost to damage reduction), 280 hit points, 1.5 damage per second per bleeding stack, and +3.5hp per second regeneration.

While I do realize that the critical damage stat is currently dis-proportionately high in the current set-up, that is the ONLY thing that made celestial even remotely viable. Celestial was never considered the best, or even in the top 5, but was considered to be rather versatile. Now, if a 6% boost is all that’s given in return for it’s immensely reduced damage output, 100% celestial gear can NEVER be viable in ANY situation… It’s damage output, which is bad to begin with, will soon be outright terrible.

Celestial seems as though it was designed to be special. It’s harder to get than nearly all other stat combos; forcing the potential wearer to make charged quartz crystals every day for a month just to get an armor set… So why does it seem like you’re trying to kill it? Perhaps it’s not out of intent, but it always seems to be an unintended causality of every “major improvement” to the game. Magic Find used to be 1 of 2 reasons to use celestial, at least for a couple pieces, the other reason was critical damage. Now both reasons to use celestial are soon to be gone, and celestial is going to get next-to-nothing in return.

I’ve heard it proposed before to move celestial from 5/8 minor stat to 6/8 minor stat numbers, and would that really be a bad thing? It still could never be the best in anything, or even the second best, but it would be viable for pretty much everything. After taking 95% of the reason to wear celestial, a 6% increase of remarkably low numbers will not undo the damage; and if 6% does end up being all that is given, I have little doubt that celestial usage will disappear almost entirely from the game as it will be entirely useless. I’ve been one of the few that actually likes and uses celestial, but as of reading the above article, I’m budgeting to change over a dozen pieces of exotic armor on a few of my characters as soon as the change hits… Of course, I hope I don’t have to.

I’d be happy with any bump to the other stats since we never got anything when they removed magic find.

Cynar Valdyr.7854:

While I do realize that the critical damage stat is currently dis-proportionately high in the current set-up, that is the ONLY thing that made celestial even remotely viable. Celestial was never considered the best, or even in the top 5, but was considered to be rather versatile. Now, if a 6% boost is all that’s given in return for it’s immensely reduced damage output, 100% celestial gear can NEVER be viable in ANY situation… It’s damage output, which is bad to begin with, will soon be outright terrible.

Your 100% right. Complete celestial builds (ele for example) is now rendered completly useless.

After reading your comment Xillllix, I realized that I made a small mistake in my calculations. I used the raw armor stats to make all calculations save the crit chance which I grabbed from my build editor… Oops. 31%/32% critical chance is what it would be from a build I currently run (which I just realized has 10 in the precision trait line (+100prec/21 =~ 5% crit chance), therefore a pure celestial without anything else in precision that would be 5% less 26%/27%).

So the % difference between the two (before and after) is slightly less than my above calculations assuming nothing in precision outside of the celestial stats, but can be considerably greater if you have higher precision boosts (runes, sigils, 30 in prec trait line, etc).

All dps builds are getting nerfed while healing/support/conditions are getting buffed. People will eventually say but who cares, they are useless. Well, people have been complaining about the meta for a while now and if a change is gonna happen, it will be gradual, you can’t await the meta to change if updates like that doesn’t happen.

It is all about their next steps in changing the game mechanics to allow more diversity. It will take some time but the changes are for the better. They just don’t feel complete because these are a part of a bigger theme.

I think you’re completely missing the point, Gumball… Celestial never was, is, or ever will be, a dps build; but the changes that are soon to come will hit celestial even harder than berserker’s (the intended target of the nerf). 10% less on berserker’s means they’re still dealing more damage than anything else, a 10% nerf to celestial means it’s 100% useless for anything… Good news though, you can still get ectos out of celestial…

Yes, Celestial is becoming less useful now. The “fix” required was to tame down burst builds in WvW. And yet, the balanced builds are the ones getting most hit. I shake my head at it all.

Celestial isn’t what I’d call balanced, even if I’d like it to be. You would get overall more of pretty much every stat (excepting some side stats) by mixing and matching between types.

Xillllix.3485:

Cynar Valdyr.7854:

While I do realize that the critical damage stat is currently dis-proportionately high in the current set-up, that is the ONLY thing that made celestial even remotely viable. Celestial was never considered the best, or even in the top 5, but was considered to be rather versatile. Now, if a 6% boost is all that’s given in return for it’s immensely reduced damage output, 100% celestial gear can NEVER be viable in ANY situation… It’s damage output, which is bad to begin with, will soon be outright terrible.

Your 100% right. Complete celestial builds (ele for example) is now rendered completly useless.

Which is why stats should never have been associated with gear. Too late now tho

If they added boon duration it would help make it useful for a few builds.

Ezekiel.1985:

Celestial isn’t what I’d call balanced, even if I’d like it to be. You would get overall more of pretty much every stat (excepting some side stats) by mixing and matching between types.

You actually get 38.6% more stats overall with Celestial, but the points are distributed evenly (save critical damage, which is almost exactly equal to it’s berserker’s counter-part and thus you can count it like a minor stat). For 2 handed ascended weapons, Major stat is 188, minor is 134, and celestial is 83 (plus the equivalent of 134 in critical damage). Add that up and you’ve got 456 total for everything else, and 632 total for celestial (38% more overall stat points, and actually 8% more stat points without counting critical damage at all).

If, however, you mean you can’t min-max, then you’re 100% correct, it adds to all stats at once, (also known as balanced).

Going back to the 2-handed ascended weapons and my original point, overall stat-wise celestial will be weaker after the “fix”. As I showed in my last post a wupwup claymore currently gets what calculates to a total of 632 stat points… Adding 6% to 83 makes the new stats likely to be 88 for each of the 7 stats for a total of 616, 2.5% less stats than it has currently.

So even with their attempts to compensate for the huge hit to celestial’s only decent stat, it is weaker overall, even after a 6% increase. And realistically, as it has nothing it’s “good at” anymore, it should be getting considerably more overall to even be equal to what it was.

I really hope they give us a 1 time stat selection on ascended armor because I, like many others, crafted my ascended celestial set before all these changes were announced.

Honestly, I don’t think they realize how big a hit these changes will really be to celestial gear. When they make stats 100% even and integrate ferocity into that system, a 6% increase does almost nothing. Even the proposed 20% increase (from 5/8 – 6/8 minor stat) would not be overpowered, and in fact would still be a decrease in damage.

I run a celestial build on my d/d elementalist, this will translate to a loss of 11% damage for me in an already low damage build. I don’t think they realize how low a 6% increase really is for celestial after taking away it’s only real strength (which was a heavily dependent minor stat). If changes go through as suggested it won’t add any noticeable defense, healing, or life, but it will decimate what little damage the build had.

ANet, you need to seriously consider a 20% increase instead of your 6%. Otherwise you will be making celestial, the most time-consuming armor to get, completely worthless.

Man… people really like to throw “completely worthless” around where it can undermine their entire argument the most, don’t they?

Would you wear celestial after the “fix” as is currently suggested Nike?

It is one of two paths, either Anet make small changes over-time to tweak the game mechanics or people have to be silent from now on and stop asking for balances since it is impossible for the company to re-create everything and relese at once.

No offense but most people ask companies for innovation yet they punish them for any mistake. People, simliarly, ask them for changes and starting coming with complaints before the release of the patch.

If anyone want evolved builds, they gotta have patience and watch the updates instead of judging a build the whole combat system or even the whole game based on a single update.

Nike.2631:

Man… people really like to throw “completely worthless” around where it can undermine their entire argument the most, don’t they?

Exactly. I really dislike the way people use the word ‘viable’ when the word they are looking for is ‘optimal’ or ‘preferred’.

I have used and will continue to use full celestial gear on my ele, even after the feature pack. I think a lot of people miss the point. Yes, celestial gear has a lot of crit. No, that is not what it was designed for. It was designed to be an amazing general-use set for those who can take advantage of every stat. If you were using it for the high crit then I do apologize, but this fix (not Nerf) has been a long time coming. That is why celestial gear was tuned down in PvP. Unsurprisingly it will now be properly balanced and perfectly viable (able to be used to reach success) in all aspects of the game. I don’t care if it isn’t your preference for gear optimization. If you don’t make use of all the stats you should have been mixing other sets to get more of the stats you do use. Unless, of course, you were abusing it for the crit damage?

As others have said, this is the first step towards fixing the ‘zerker only’ mentality. There will be more changes and even your ‘viability’ ‘preferences’ may change. Let us stop complaining and trust the people who have the true numbers? If the people who are using celestial gear for its intended purpose (such as myself) complain, then I believe anet will do what is needed.

Cynar Valdyr.7854:

Going back to the 2-handed ascended weapons and my original point, overall stat-wise celestial will be weaker after the “fix”. As I showed in my last post a wupwup claymore currently gets what calculates to a total of 632 stat points… Adding 6% to 83 makes the new stats likely to be 88 for each of the 7 stats for a total of 616, 2.5% less stats than it has currently.

So even with their attempts to compensate for the huge hit to celestial’s only decent stat, it is weaker overall, even after a 6% increase. And realistically, as it has nothing it’s “good at” anymore, it should be getting considerably more overall to even be equal to what it was.

How do you get 632 as your current stat total for the 2H ascended Celestial weapon? If you convert crit damage to a stat based on the conversion for Ferocity (15 stat points per 1%), current crit damage of 11% converts to a current stat of 165 for a total of 663 not 632. The net stat loss for the 2H ascended Celestial is expected to be 47 stat points for a net loss of 7% (after the 6% increase).

Lobo Dela Noche.5127:

If they added boon duration it would help make it useful for a few builds.

qft

just add boon duration to the set as a compensation to magic find…

Recommendation to ANet re: Celestial Gear

In considering how the Ferocity change is expected to affect most gear (where there will be minimal impact to armors and weapons and most of the impact will be to trinkets) other than Celestial gear, ANet should consider a 10% stat increase to Celestial armor and weapons to offset the approximate reduction of 50% to crit damage when it changes to Ferocity. This will keep the net total stat loss to Celestial armor and weapons to be similarly minimal (like for Berserker armor and weapons) while maintaining/re-establishing the design of Celestial gear having equivalent stat bonuses across those major stats. A 6% increase with respect to Celestial trinkets makes sense as the impact on Celestial trinkets would similarly be a harder hit just as the change is a hard hit for Berserker trinkets (and other non-Celestial crit damage trinkets).

I think a number of players have recommended a 10% increase for Celestial gear, but I think it makes sense to distinguish between armor and weapons vs. trinkets. It would mitigate the otherwise disproportionate impact of the sharp reduction to crit damage/Ferocity on Celestial gear in order to maintain the elegant design of equal value stats.

Based on the actual impact to Berserker gear, it seems like it’s the crit damage bonuses from trinkets that is necessitating the most adjustment for balance.

People still fails to realize critical damage scale on POWER

If i give a guy 90 % of 1 euro and to another 1% of 100 euro, the first one gets LESS despite the 90%.

Simple math….that is why celestial had high crit damage and yet LOW overall damage

Post patch will be amongst lowest damage across the board.

Morningstar.2934:

Cynar Valdyr.7854:

Going back to the 2-handed ascended weapons and my original point, overall stat-wise celestial will be weaker after the “fix”. As I showed in my last post a wupwup claymore currently gets what calculates to a total of 632 stat points… Adding 6% to 83 makes the new stats likely to be 88 for each of the 7 stats for a total of 616, 2.5% less stats than it has currently.

So even with their attempts to compensate for the huge hit to celestial’s only decent stat, it is weaker overall, even after a 6% increase. And realistically, as it has nothing it’s “good at” anymore, it should be getting considerably more overall to even be equal to what it was.

How do you get 632 as your current stat total for the 2H ascended Celestial weapon? If you convert crit damage to a stat based on the conversion for Ferocity (15 stat points per 1%), current crit damage of 11% converts to a current stat of 165 for a total of 663 not 632. The net stat loss for the 2H ascended Celestial is expected to be 47 stat points for a net loss of 7% (after the 6% increase).

If you compare a full sets of armor, celestial’s current Critical Damage stat totals almost match it’s berserker’s equivalent; so for this greatsword it’ll be more, but for other pieces (like the Solaria, Circle of the Sun vs. the Ring of Red Death) a standard minor stat would be more. Although I’m making a point, I still am trying to be fair… Over the set, Celestial’s Critical Damage averages out to be pretty close to that of a minor stat, so I gave the current minor stat number for 2 handed weapons (134) for my calculations.

The point of Ferocity is to slightly lower critical damage totals vs the current system, so to use current numbers mixed with Ferocity will make things look even worse, but that’ll be hit either way. Assuming they gave celestial exactly what they had in relation to other armor, a little less than a minor stat, it’d change from 71% critical damage from armor, to 49.7% critical damage from armor. (and as I’m making the calculations, holy crap that’s a huge drop!). Full suit of ascended (armor, weapons, trinkets) minor stat total is 745 (divide that by 15, that’s where I get 49.6), current minor in critical damage is 71% [or 62% for celestial, all of the 9 points difference coming from trinkets, but strangely enough, celestial exotic trinkets have a higher critical damage total than berserker’s exotic trinkets, even without a back item (ascended trinket/back totals: Berserker’s 44%, Celestial 32%; exotic trinket/back totals: Berserker’s 18%, Celestial without a back item 19%)].

LordByron.8369:

People still fails to realize critical damage scale on POWER

If i give a guy 90 % of 1 euro and to another 1% of 100 euro, the first one gets LESS despite the 90%.

Simple math….that is why celestial had high crit damage and yet LOW overall damage

Post patch will be amongst lowest damage across the board.

Well said LordByron, my point exactly.

Cynar Valdyr.7854:

Would you wear celestial after the “fix” as is currently suggested Nike?

Absolutely. I don’t equip Celestial on my ‘primary damage dealers’ because outside of certain auto-crit builds its a terrible choice for DPS. But on several of my support and bunker character I have Celestial because no matter how much you might like to contribute via non-DPS activities you are still ultimately going to have to pitch some damage too. Celestial has value putting slightly larger teeth on a bunker or healer and this change is going to make it even better for those purposes because they probably had pretty mediocre Precision/Crit chance and couldn’t especially leverage the high crit damage bonus anyway. Now Celestial will be giving better Power and Precision, while also giving better survivability traits and Healing power at the cost of the stat that gave you the least return on your investment.

Nike so a all around stat that is clearly designed for balanced builds will become a tanky equipment

That is what is wrong with the change (see functionality change).
When your dps falls back behind SOLDIER it starts being LOW dps and not balanced.

Usual shortsight in balancing.

The change INCREASES you base damage from Power. It INCREASES your chance to crit. Its INCREASES the survivability being offered via Vitality and Toughness. It INCREASES your ability to support via Healing Power.

But most of all it moves point out of a stat that is getting nerfed into stats that are retaining their current value.

If you were dipping into Celestial because you already had a high precision and were just looking to splash a little general stat bonus and build a high crit damage bonus, yes, Celestial is no longer for you. If you were wearing Celestial because you where a bunker who wanted to trade off some of your survivability for a bit more damage, or really any build that didn’t have massive precision the changes are excellent.

You are wrong look for threads with math already done…..

Celestial will have lower dps compared to soldier and lower survivability compared to soldier…

You get some healing power that scales horribly…..and some cond damage that is used on really few skills …..

Stop treating crit damage as DAMAGE…..each piece of celestial gave crit damage to compensate for the loss of power and precision, keeping the powerlevel around SOLDIER’s level.

Was still the best set to experiment balanced builds switching weapons/trinkets….if not that it would’ve been better using cavalier valkirye etc.

If you don’t have a build that can benefit from Celestial then why were you wearing it in the first place? Valkyrie has been standing there the whole time saying “look at me! Offense, defense, AND crit damage!”

Nike you don t seem to understand how stats works….
Its hard to explain why the change is bad if you refuse to read the thread with explanations…

Stats are balanced for EVERY set but a couple (magi etc being useless or condibunker like DIRE having everything.)
There is no way a (direct damage) set can have everything…..

On the opposite crit damage was necessary to preserve the function of celestial that was

AVERAGE dps and AVERAGE defense.

The change will make celestial
LOW DPS, AVERAGE defense, plus some random useless stat.

Now since you are starting a personal campagn against Valkyrie and balanced sets..

Can you tell me wich balanced build is popular?
I ll save you time…none…

Yeah nike. You are like, SOOOOO wrong.

You see, its true because I said it, so therefore all of your common sense talk about this subject is invalid.

Seriously though, I’m with ya Nike, i like these changes. Might actually get some Celestial gear on my Ele now.

LordByron’s right Nike… In fact, after the change if you calculate in power, precision, and critical damage, even Clerics armor will allow the wearer to deal over 2% more damage than celestial.

On what build & at what cost? If your build/profession does a mixture of power-based and condition damage, such a sweeping statement becomes far less certain. And what if your profession has constant regen? Healing power becomes a survival stat alongside toughness and vitality. Elementalists and Guardians have always had an easier time leveraging the benefit of Celestial over other classes, and Rangers tend to fall in that group too with both regen bunkers and several weapons that are hopelessly entangled mishmashes of power & condi-damage.

So tell me….since talking about numbers seems useless…

What made you think that celestial elementalist and guardians needs a nerf?
I didn t read a single post complaining about one…..

Do you want to be the first?
Doesn t it suggests you the set is already underpowered?

nGumball.1283:

It is one of two paths, either Anet make small changes over-time to tweak the game mechanics or people have to be silent from now on and stop asking for balances since it is impossible for the company to re-create everything and relese at once.

No offense but most people ask companies for innovation yet they punish them for any mistake. People, simliarly, ask them for changes and starting coming with complaints before the release of the patch.

If anyone want evolved builds, they gotta have patience and watch the updates instead of judging a build the whole combat system or even the whole game based on a single update.

This proposed change to stats was designed to curve the dps zerk meta – yet it effected a hybrid set much worse then the set it was originally designed to target.

That is a poor design approach no matter how you look at it.

Also, This patch does not move us in a direction of evolved builds at all. Did you actually read anything that has been posted so far?

The only thing that would move us closer to evolved builds is the redesigning of all current content and mob AI and for Anet to stop making every new encounter they put out a dps check.

None of those things I see happening anytime soon.

Anet made a DPS game. Plain and simple. No matter how you slice it the games primary and only stat that matters in a pve perspective is zerk/dps. Look at the last living story update if you disbelieve – both knights and scarlet were glorified DPS checks.

Let’s call this patch what it is. A global nerf to player dps. In saying that, How does this nerf promote more varied builds? Here is a hint – it does not and actually does the exact opposite.

Content will take longer to kill – there is not enough healing in this game even after the patch to offset that so the old rule of kill it before it kills you will still apply.

So the zerk meta will go from desired to required after this “feature” patch.

Celes was collateral damage and I Just hope Anet is smart enough to offer a one time stat change for all those people with ascended versions.

The Current Syzygy is 54 to 6 stats and 7% crit damage. That crit damage as a percentage is equivalent to ~60 stat points under the current system (we can see examples of 68 being equivalent to 7%, so the changeover is right in there between 60-68)

After the patch the Necklace will have 57 in everything. For a loss of 3 points (maximum 10 points lost if it were secretly 67 beforehand) it gained 18 points in stats that aren’t being nerfed. If all you ever cared about was the crit damage you lost 3 points of Ferocity. If you actually used Celestial because it contributes a bit to everything the change is a fabulous deal!

So you pick the trinket that is statistically the worst celestial piece in existance, prove how even that is losing stats, then try to say that this proves how celestial will be better?.. Very interesting logic. (And as they’ve released 15/1 will be the ratio, 7% crit would be 105).

(Corrected, thanks for catching my typo morningstar)

Just to put some stats in here.. and so you know how I got these stats, I run berserker weapons, celestial armor and celestial trinkets with the exception of my backpiece which is berserker.

Before the patch (stats from gear alone):
Power: 607
Precision: 532
Toughness: 363
Vitality: 363
Condition Damage: 363
Healing Power: 363
Crit Dmg: 63% equating to 945 ferocity

After the patch (stats from gear alone, including 6% increase as you can see):
Power: 628
Precision: 553
Toughness: 384
Vitality: 384
Condition Damage: 384
Healing Power: 384
Crit Dmg: 36.87% equating to 553 ferocity

These leads to the following differences (stats from gear alone):
Power: +21
Precision: +21
Toughness: +21
Vitality: +21
Condition Damage: +21
Healing Power: +21
Crit Dmg: -26.13% equating to -392 ferocity

In the end I wind up with a net loss of 266 stat points. Some might say this isn’t a big deal, it’s just crit dmg, a celestial build doesn’t have enough precision to make use of it anyway… Well, that’d be wrong. Through traits, skills, buffs, food, runes and sigils I maintain a 100% crit chance. This hurts my build significantly. I effectively lose 26.13% of my damage for a gain of next to nothing.

Please consider:
Cynar, LordByron, and Azreell are making some points that are valid, no matter what you feel ANet’s intentions were.

First, I believe that Zerker needed to be nerfed, especially crit damage. Not only does it dominate the game, but as a long-time zerker myself, it was a pretty boring way to make all my builds. ANet intended the swap to: (1) drop DPS builds while maintaining the strength of all other builds and (2) normalize the crit damage statistic.

Second, this change will accomplish number 2, but not number 1. And that is because in GW2, due to the spacing of AI attacks as well as one-hit boss mechanics, DPS is not optional for high-level PvE: it is mandatory. Every build that can hold its own either relies on pure DPS (is built for nothing other than DPS) or relies partially on DPS (is built with DPS as its second goal). In other words: you can (1) just do DPS or (2) you can do something else AND DPS. For a variety of reasons are no functioning zero DPS builds. Accordingly, this change nerfs ALL builds.

Third, this change harms several DPS secondary builds more than it harms straight DPS. The numbers Cynar, LordByron, and Azreell provided above illustrate this fact with Celestial. Celestial was best for people who wanted a little of everything while maintaining DPS. But the nerf that is targeting Berserker gear will destroy that DPS in Celestial almost entirely.

Saying that someone should just put together a Celestial build that has no DPS, is silly. This game runs on DPS, based on the intrinsic mechanics. There are no stack limits, duration limits, or time limits on DPS. It hits harder, faster, and more reliably than anything else.

I agree with ANet’s intent to curb Berserker gear. But to accomplish that will require a different approach then merely decreasing crit multipliers across the board.

callidus.7085:

In the end I wind up with a net loss of 266 stat points. Some might say this isn’t a big deal, it’s just crit dmg, a celestial build doesn’t have enough precision to make use of it anyway… Well, that’d be wrong. Through traits, skills, buffs, food, runes and sigils I maintain a 100% crit chance. This hurts my build significantly. I effectively lose 26.13% of my damage for a gain of next to nothing.

Hi there,

Could you show us the numbers if you go Zerk for everything BUT Ascended Celestial armor ?

I mean, now that’s Ascended stuff become account based, it’s not very painfull to buy Zerk trinkets with laurels or Guild merits, once and for all.

Antares.2586:

callidus.7085:

In the end I wind up with a net loss of 266 stat points. Some might say this isn’t a big deal, it’s just crit dmg, a celestial build doesn’t have enough precision to make use of it anyway… Well, that’d be wrong. Through traits, skills, buffs, food, runes and sigils I maintain a 100% crit chance. This hurts my build significantly. I effectively lose 26.13% of my damage for a gain of next to nothing.

Hi there,

Could you show us the numbers if you go Zerk for everything BUT Ascended Celestial armor ?

I mean, now that’s Ascended stuff become account based, it’s not very painfull to buy Zerk trinkets with laurels or Guild merits, once and for all.

Here is the original build stats he referenced (look at the armor) http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vEAQFAGAA-zEBBYfAJqFRjVVjIqWXDDA-w

Here’s the stats you wanted calculated http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vEAQFAGAA-zEBBYfAJqFRjVXDT5iIqGA-w

Plugging that into the old and new systems, the bonuses looks like this:
Old – New
Power 905 – 914
Precision 657 – 665
Toughness 147 – 156
Vitality 147 – 156
Healing 147 – 156
Cond Dmg 147 – 156
Crit Dmg 73%(1095) – 44% (665)

As Berserker’s is the primary target of the balance, this build will be hit harder, while being “given” less… It has a 39.27% drop in critical damage with a total stat loss of 394 points (430 out of critical damage, +9 in everything else).

Nike.2631:

The Current Syzygy is 54 to 6 stats and 7% crit damage. That crit damage as a percentage is equivalent to ~60 stat points under the current system (we can see examples of 68 being equivalent to 7%, so the changeover is right in there between 60-68)

After the patch the Necklace will have 57 in everything. For a loss of 3 points (maximum 10 points lost if it were secretly 67 beforehand) it gained 18 points in stats that aren’t being nerfed. If all you ever cared about was the crit damage you lost 3 points of Ferocity. If you actually used Celestial because it contributes a bit to everything the change is a fabulous deal!

I am right there with you!!! I’m looking forward to the changes!

Apparently I’m either invisible or my points are too valid…

More numbers…

All Celestial Before (gear stats only):
Power: 468
Precision: 468
Toughness: 468
Vitality: 468
Condition Damage: 468
Healing Power: 468
Crit Dmg: 62% equating to 930 ferocity

All Celestial After (gear stats only):
Power: 496
Precision: 496
Toughness: 496
Vitality: 496
Condition Damage: 496
Healing Power: 496
Crit Dmg: 33% equating to 496 ferocity

All Berserker Before (gear stats only):
Power: 1087
Precision: 745
Crit Dmg: 71% equating to 1065 ferocity

All Berserker After (gear stats only):
Power: 1087
Precision: 745
Crit Dmg: 49.67% equating to 745 ferocity

In the end celestial gear will have 53% of the crit damage it had previously where berserker gear will have 70% of the crit damage it had previously. I really don’t think the extra 168 stats in other areas compensates for a 434 stat point nerf to ferocity.

As was mentioned in another thread, this nerf hits high precision builds much harder than high power builds as the crit damage directly relates to direct damage… this won’t be a 10% damage nerf to those builds but much worse… 30% if they’re using all berserker gear (and gaining precision/crit chance through other means). I don’t mind a nerf, but I wish it was a 10% damage nerf across the board not 10% here and 30% there.

Your ferocity conversion is wrong, and that’s why people keep flipping out over Celestial. If the Current berserker is 1087/745/71% then 71% = 745 ferocity (NOT 1065). Currently ferocity is graded at about 1% per 11. It’s exactly 1% = 10 where traits are concerned.

If you keep trying to say Celestial gear has points assigned to it on a 1%=15 basis, of course it looks whacky. Right now it has something right around 1% equal 10-11. Convert it properly and THEN knock it down to equal the other 6 stats (+6%) and you can see you see that once you’ve applied the UNIVERSAL nerf to ferocity (loss of about 33%), the shifting of points is quite equitable.

It’s obvious they are going with the proposed changes.

I am of the opinion that anyone who made a Ascended Celestial set should have the option of a 1 time stat reset on the set because fundamentally the set is no longer as it was originally advertised.

I made the set specifically for certain attributes it had. Those attributes no longer exist so quite frankly I no longer have what I purchased.

There needs to be a consolation type situation when this goes live.

just going to put this out there but celestial stats will still be too high even after the update they all need about a 6% nerf. Lets take the breastplate as an example. If you compare ascended berserk breastplate to celestial and change crit damage for ferocity as follows celestial = 47 same as all other stats and berserker = 76 same as secondary stat, you still end up with celestial having 24 more stat points then berserker, and when you add another 6% you end up with roughly 31 more stat points. This is just for the breastplate, so with all pieces you are probably talking around a 300 stat point difference. All armors of the same level should add the same number of stat points.

Nike.2631:

Your ferocity conversion is wrong, and that’s why people keep flipping out over Celestial. If the Current berserker is 1087/745/71% then 71% = 745 ferocity (NOT 1065). Currently ferocity is graded at about 1% per 11. It’s exactly 1% = 10 where traits are concerned.

If you keep trying to say Celestial gear has points assigned to it on a 1%=15 basis, of course it looks whacky. Right now it has something right around 1% equal 10-11. Convert it properly and THEN knock it down to equal the other 6 stats (+6%) and you can see you see that once you’ve applied the UNIVERSAL nerf to ferocity (loss of about 33%), the shifting of points is quite equitable.

I think I understand what you’re saying but you don’t need to look at my ferocity calculations in the “before” to see what I was saying. You can completely disregard them in fact and only look at the percentages…

Celestial before was 62% and after is about 33% (because it will be 496 ferocity as that is the total for any stat on celestial and /15 is around 33). So you lose 29% crit damage.

Berserker before was 71% crit damage and after is about 50% (because it will be 745 ferocity as that is the total for a minor stat on berserker and /15 is around 50). So you lose 21% crit damage.

I get what you’re saying though, the difference between the two losses isn’t much, 8%. So for a 120 ferocity stat point difference between berserker and celestial we get 168 stat points put elsewhere… When I think about it like that, sure, it seems like a good deal… as far as total points are concerned.

I guess my gripe isn’t with celestial at all… just that the 10% nerf to damage that was mentioned doesn’t really apply to high precision builds. If you crit all the time, that crit damage reduction (that gets applied to all gear types) is more than a 10% nerf to damage. This means that high power builds (berserker) that don’t rely 100% on crit chance will fare better than those that stacked precision to take more advantage of crit damage.

thekap.8645:

just going to put this out there but celestial stats will still be too high even after the update they all need about a 6% nerf. Lets take the breastplate as an example. If you compare ascended berserk breastplate to celestial and change crit damage for ferocity as follows celestial = 47 same as all other stats and berserker = 76 same as secondary stat, you still end up with celestial having 24 more stat points then berserker, and when you add another 6% you end up with roughly 31 more stat points. This is just for the breastplate, so with all pieces you are probably talking around a 300 stat point difference. All armors of the same level should add the same number of stat points.

You make me cry.

I myself have started a few topics on the changes to Crit Damage and how a temporary pathway to allow players to obtain new stats combinations for ascended armor, both here and on reddit. Now I’d say only armor because trinkets have been around for a long time, and also not weapons because that too was out for awhile when ferocity was announced. Armor on the other hand is a slap in the face, there was just about enough time to craft a set and the changed was announced…

My first post on the topic was actually a thought on a possible to implement this pathway while keeping it “fair” but not free while not in any level as expensive as making a whole new set. Sadly most responses were negative, not that they reject my specific proposal but they reject the whole idea of Anet having to attend to our “whines”. Some others just assume I’m referring to just Berserker’s since it’s the a Crit Damage change and because of that → downvote. I was referring to any combo that has Crit Damage.

Some others compare this to magic find and say that stats reset for that is a very different, since the stats itself was removed. I agree but this time round it still a very significant change to a stat and certain can affect decision making if the information was available BEFORE ascended armor was released. I would not be here right now if they announced ferocity before ascended armor came out which, honestly, is what they should have done. I also think that they could have done so as well. Looking back at the the timing obviously that have been thinking about ferocity for awhile already when they announced it.

Min-maxing is always going to be the most powerful way to maximize any specific build, but will inherently create weaknesses. Celestial was designed to give an overall stat bonus to players that were willing to sacrifice the min-maxing benefits in exchange for balance. As LordByron stated earlier, before this change, wearing celestial allowed you to be average in everything; and therefore it seems logical to assume that was the intent of celestial. So yes, celestial had more stats to begin with, but not enough in anything to be considered “good” at anything, instead just enough to be considered average. And though they are higher stats overall, to say that celestial stats were “too high” is absolutely hilarious, and completely wrong. (If you ever play a celestial build, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about).

Previously celestial was given a disproportionate amount of magic find and critical damage, then they removed magic find from armor, and now they’re removing their current system of critical damage, thereby making it fully proportional and considerably weaker. Getting anything out of critical damage is highly dependent on both power and precision, 2 categories which celestial has rather low stats in. Only with the higher critical damage was celestial able to put out direct damage on the low end of average, and now it will be very low.

In order to actually fix the damage that was caused to celestial, while still keeping it proportionate the bonus would have to be at least tripple; so 20% actually IS reasonable. Full celestial currently gets 468 added to everything, it will soon be getting 28 (basically no noticeable difference) added to everything and an extremely noticeable critical damage nerf. What I would suggest would make celestial 561 across the board. And before you go jumping on how “outlandishly high” that is, it’s only about half a primary stat (meaning it will be exactly as intended, jack of all trades, master of none.).