Guild Wars 2

And no Lunatic, we’re not ignoring you because your points are vaild, we’re ignoring you because of a line in your original comment – “Unless, of course, you were abusing it for the crit damage?…” Critical damage is pretty much celestial’s primary stat, so obviously everyone using Berserker’s is “abusing” power, everyone using Clerics is “abusing” healing power, Sentinel’s “abuses” vitality, and so on…

It’s not because we can’t address your comments that we’re ignoring them, merely that you’ve invalidated them yourself so there’s no point for us to do it as well.

Looking at it in that light, it would be the equivalent to saying this… “As Berserker’s deals too much damage, and it’s power is obviously being abused, what we’ll do is this; remove Berserker’s power primary, and replace it with a power secondary stat. In consolation, as this reduction will be huge, we’ll give a 6% increase to all stats…” If that was done, every power hungry min-maxer would be having a coronary trying to stop ANet from going forward, but since they’re doing EXACTLY the same thing to a considerably weaker stat – celestial, none of those people care.

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.

What’s your basis for the 1% crit damage to 10-11 stat points? You’re just making this assumption without any basis. The whole point of what ANet is doing is to “normalize” crit damage into a stat like the other stats where ANet has indicated clearly and expressly that the exchange rate is 1% for 15 stat points. There is no current Ferocity that applies. Your conclusory statement of it being equitable is apparently based on an arbitrary assumption you applied.

Cynar Valdyr.7854:

And no Lunatic, we’re not ignoring you because your points are vaild, we’re ignoring you because of a line in your original comment – “Unless, of course, you were abusing it for the crit damage?…” Critical damage is pretty much celestial’s primary stat, so obviously everyone using Berserker’s is “abusing” power, everyone using Clerics is “abusing” healing power, Sentinel’s “abuses” vitality, and so on…

It’s not because we can’t address your comments that we’re ignoring them, merely that you’ve invalidated them yourself so there’s no point for us to do it as well.

Looking at it in that light, it would be the equivalent to saying this… “As Berserker’s deals too much damage, and it’s power is obviously being abused, what we’ll do is this; remove Berserker’s power primary, and replace it with a power secondary stat. In consolation, as this reduction will be huge, we’ll give a 6% increase to all stats…” If that was done, every power hungry min-maxer would be having a coronary trying to stop ANet from going forward, but since they’re doing EXACTLY the same thing to a considerably weaker stat – celestial, none of those people care.

I’m sorry you have such a powerful reading disability.

As I have said, and Nike has said, the intended use for celestial is in a general build that makes use of all the stats. I highly doubt that anet intended for it to have thisuch crit, but it couldn’t be helped because the general stat spread.

Crit is remaining one of seven main stats on celestial. I use and love celestial gear and I love this change. It will be an amazing move for anyone making full use of the set. The only ones who are concerned are those who are exploiting how much crit is available in the set.

Celestial never was and never will be a set that has crit as aain stat. Anet has already mentioned making a set with crit as the main stat in addition to the sets we have. That would seem to imply the high amount on celestial gear was not intended.

Simply put: you’re using the set wrongly if this change hurts you.

Cynar Valdyr.7854:

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.

You should state what your assumptions are upfront to maintain credibility.

Cynar Valdyr.7854:

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 75).

Your basic arithmetic is flawed. The conversion of 7% based on 15 stat points to 1% is 105.

Cynar Valdyr.7854:

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.).

You don’t really support why 20% is reasonable. Celestial gear is all-purpose utility gear which may not be right for every profession/build and play choice. Focusing on purely dps-based arguments isn’t sufficient. If that’s the basis, then perhaps Celestial isn’t the right set (there’s certainly support among players for allowing players to opt for a stat change – they did it for MF gear).

I’ll follow-up with a further post of why I think a 10% increase for armor and weapons would make more sense. I think 20% is extreme, taking into account that all gear with crit damage will be affected by this (particularly trinkets).

Morningstar.2934:

What’s your basis for the 1% crit damage to 10-11 stat points?

Look at the current trait lines – 1% crit damage is given as a direct alternative to exactly 10 points of other stats.

Look at a full set of berserker – the other secondary stat is 745 making it directly equivalent to 71% crit damage (with a ratio between 10 and 11 points per 1% crit damage).

The whole point of what ANet is doing is to “normalize” crit damage into a stat like the other stats where ANet has indicated clearly and expressly that the exchange rate is 1% for 15 stat points.

No… that’s the ratio they are changing it to, which is why 30 trait points will now buy you 20% crit damage instead of 30.

There is no current Ferocity that applies.

It’s called “prowess”, and its right there on your character sheet.

Nike.2631:

Morningstar.2934:

What’s your basis for the 1% crit damage to 10-11 stat points?

Look at the current trait lines – 1% crit damage is given as a direct alternative to exactly 10 points of other stats.

That’s a reasonable basis to make an assumption (which you didn’t state or I missed it), and that may reflect earlier intent, but there is still effectively a stat “normalization” being done (exchange rate) and a loss of stat benefits.

Nike.2631:

Look at a full set of berserker – the other secondary stat is 745 making it directly equivalent to 71% crit damage (with a ratio between 10 and 11 points per 1% crit damage).

If you look at Berserker armor, it would support that 1% = 15 stat points already. I’ll follow-up and provide some summary data to that effect. Berserker trinkets throw it all out of whack so that doesn’t adequately address that.

The whole point of what ANet is doing is to “normalize” crit damage into a stat like the other stats where ANet has indicated clearly and expressly that the exchange rate is 1% for 15 stat points.

No… that’s the ratio they are changing it to, which is why 30 trait points will now buy you 20% crit damage instead of 30.

I can understand now how you’re making that assumption now, but I see that as a separate issue which no one has really touched much upon — there’s going to be a substantial loss in trait benefits when crit damage gets converted to Ferocity. There’s still the conversion ANet is doing and the resulting loss to gear with the change.

It might be helpful to consider comparison between Berserker gear and Celestial gear which are both affected to compare apples with apples with respect to stat loss.

Prowess is going from 30% for 30 trait points to 20%.
Banner of discipline is going from 15% crit damage to 170 ferocity (11.33%).
The beating crit damage food is going to take will be spectacular.

As much as people love to harp on the nerf as being “badly Zerker targeted” or “excessively harsh on Celestial”, I think the real kicked-in-the-junk target isn’t gear at all, its any class that emphasizes auto-crits. There’s a reason the mighty Warrior is getting a new auto-crit Trait and Sigil of Intelligence is being buffed up to 3 auto-crits… its because insta-gib critting by players is being curb-stomped.

To follow-up on my suggestion of a 10% increase to Celestial armor and weapons, but no change to a 6% increase for Celestial trinkets.

Assumptions:

1. Celestial gear is not currently regarded as unbalanced or in excessive high demand.

2. Celestial gear is not the target of the change (not anymore than other gear with crit damage).

3. It is desirable to have the value for Ferocity on Celestial gear be equivalent to the other stats.

4. When determining the new stat value, ANet would do normal rounding to the stat value (so a 6% increase for a particular item may actually yield less than 6% when rounding down).

5. Stats are normalized with respect to each other or are regarded as normalized (obviously subject to individual varying utility based on profession, build, and personal choice) so that 100 points of stat A is comparable to 100 points of stat B. (it’s more an apples to apples comparison as opposed to trying to compare their benefits and bonuses.)

Some other assumptions that are a given: the conversion of crit damage to Ferocity is 15 stat points for each 1% of crit damage; players can mix and match gear (to optimize) so players aren’t forced to use all gear being Berserker or Celestial, etc. (so it may be useful to look deeper into categories like armor and trinkets or even individual pieces rather than full set numbers).

(This is based on ascended gear…I haven’t bothered crunching numbers for exotic gear.)

A summary of the expected change to Ascended Berserker Gear:

Net total loss in overall stat points to Ascended Berserker armor: 20 stat points across 6 pieces of armor (2.4% decrease)

Net loss in overall stat points to Ascended Berserker 2H weapon: 16 stat points (3.4% decrease)

Net loss in overall stat points to Ascended Berserker 1H weapon: 8 stat points (3.4% decrease)

Net loss in overall stat points to Ascended Berserker trinkets: 284 stat points (17.7% decrease) (this is where the hammer is dropping! for Berserker gear and most other crit damage gear)

A summary of the expected change to Ascended Celestial Gear (with the 6% increase to stats):

Net total loss in overall stat points to Ascended Celestial armor: 75 stat points across 6 pieces of armor (6.4% decrease)

Net loss in overall stat points to Ascended Celestial 2H weapon: 47 stat points (7.1% decrease)

Net loss in overall stat points to Ascended Celestial 1H weapon: 12 stat points (3.7% decrease)

Net loss in overall stat points to Ascended Celestial trinkets: 144 stat points (7.5% decrease)

Suggestion for Celestial Gear

A summary of the expected outcome from the suggestion for Ascended Celestial Gear (new suggestion of 10% increase to stats for armor and weapons; keeping the 6% increase to stats for trinkets):

Net total loss in overall stat points to Ascended Celestial armor: 26 stat points across 6 pieces of armor (2.2% decrease)

Net loss in overall stat points to Ascended Celestial 2H weapon: 26 stat points (3.9% decrease)

Net loss in overall stat points to Ascended Celestial 1H weapon: 5 stat points (1.5% decrease)

Net loss in overall stat points to Ascended Celestial trinkets: 144 stat points (7.5% decrease) (same as above since it’s still a 6% increase)

The thought is that the impact to Celestial armor and weapons should be further mitigated as the impact to Berserker armor and weapons is relatively minimal. The reason Celestial gear is being disproportionately impacted is really to keep that elegant design of having all the stats have the same value (it’s not some pro-rata across the board reduction in Ferocity as crit damage gets converted to Ferocity).

If there are questions on the data, I can provide more info without inundating this post with excessive computations.

Morningstar.2934:

Cynar Valdyr.7854:

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.

You should state what your assumptions are upfront to maintain credibility.

Cynar Valdyr.7854:

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 75).

Your basic arithmetic is flawed. The conversion of 7% based on 15 stat points to 1% is 105.

Cynar Valdyr.7854:

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.).

You don’t really support why 20% is reasonable. Celestial gear is all-purpose utility gear which may not be right for every profession/build and play choice. Focusing on purely dps-based arguments isn’t sufficient. If that’s the basis, then perhaps Celestial isn’t the right set (there’s certainly support among players for allowing players to opt for a stat change – they did it for MF gear).

I’ll follow-up with a further post of why I think a 10% increase for armor and weapons would make more sense. I think 20% is extreme, taking into account that all gear with crit damage will be affected by this (particularly trinkets).

To your point #1, I did state that in the first post that I had mentioned referring to a 2-handed weapon for the purpose of stat comparrison… It’s about the 8th post in this thread. – “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).”

To point #2, you are correct, I was typing to fast and had a typo, 105 is correct (and I have corrected that post).

To point #3, I suppose I have said little as to why I support something as extreme as 20%…

Celestial was initially designed to be the most versatile set of armor, a little of everything, so that it had a low average in every category; dps, condition damage, healing, defense, and health, while even having good magic find… It would never be the best at anything, but could do everything passably well. Because of that, relatively few people actually used celestial because it could never be as specialized as any other build. When magic find was removed, celestial was actually hit harder than traveler’s because celestial had nearly a full minor stat equivalent in magic find as well as critical damage… So while Traveler’s got changed to berserker’s stats, celestial lost 667 points (exotic was high level at the time, so that’s an exotic minor stat equivalent) out of a total 3878 in the original set, effectively removing 6% stat points with no compensation. That one sucked, but I see why they did it.

Now the other benefit, the other “minor stat” that celestial has, is being removed in an effort to “balance” the game, causing an effective loss in dps from 7%-20% depending on how many precision boosters someone uses (ie sigil of perception, ranger runes, etc); and that is AFTER an overall stat boost of 6%.

A low percent of an already low number yields obscenely low results. The only way celestial will be usable in any builds is to up that number considerably. Perhaps 20% is extreme, but 6% is extremely low… But as it’s a bit of a pain to get, shouldn’t it actually be worth getting?

Lunatic.6134:

Cynar Valdyr.7854:

And no Lunatic, we’re not ignoring you because your points are vaild, we’re ignoring you because of a line in your original comment – “Unless, of course, you were abusing it for the crit damage?…” Critical damage is pretty much celestial’s primary stat, so obviously everyone using Berserker’s is “abusing” power, everyone using Clerics is “abusing” healing power, Sentinel’s “abuses” vitality, and so on…

It’s not because we can’t address your comments that we’re ignoring them, merely that you’ve invalidated them yourself so there’s no point for us to do it as well.

Looking at it in that light, it would be the equivalent to saying this… “As Berserker’s deals too much damage, and it’s power is obviously being abused, what we’ll do is this; remove Berserker’s power primary, and replace it with a power secondary stat. In consolation, as this reduction will be huge, we’ll give a 6% increase to all stats…” If that was done, every power hungry min-maxer would be having a coronary trying to stop ANet from going forward, but since they’re doing EXACTLY the same thing to a considerably weaker stat – celestial, none of those people care.

I’m sorry you have such a powerful reading disability.

As I have said, and Nike has said, the intended use for celestial is in a general build that makes use of all the stats. I highly doubt that anet intended for it to have thisuch crit, but it couldn’t be helped because the general stat spread.

Crit is remaining one of seven main stats on celestial. I use and love celestial gear and I love this change. It will be an amazing move for anyone making full use of the set. The only ones who are concerned are those who are exploiting how much crit is available in the set.

Celestial never was and never will be a set that has crit as aain stat. Anet has already mentioned making a set with crit as the main stat in addition to the sets we have. That would seem to imply the high amount on celestial gear was not intended.

Simply put: you’re using the set wrongly if this change hurts you.

You have said that celestial was designed to have exactly the same stats across the board… If that’s true, there would have been considerably lower critical damage from the beginning; from the release of celestial the amount of critical damage has been disproportionately high. If they actually wanted to make it proportional, a full set of exotic celestial would have given 31% critical damage, not 49% (which is actually 1% MORE than a critical damage as a full minor stat). The calculations are so simple, why would they do that?

The answer is simple too, it was INTENDED… That being said, begs the question of why it was intended to be higher than everything else, and why critical damage of all things? Well, that too is simple. Celestial was designed not to be equal, but to be BALANCED. Average defense, average offense, average healing, average health. The designers had realized that they created a game that was HEAVILY dependent on offensive dps, and realized that in order to make celestial average offensively that they needed to add something to offense… But what? Critical damage was the obvious choice. It is the the single most dependent offensive stat as it’s potency depends heavily on both power and precision; plus it had a different bonus system, so it was easier to raise, but still appear uniform.

This change does not balance, it actually painfully dis-balances celestial in the name of making things equal.

This change therefore hurts EVERYONE using celestial. If you do not put ANYTHING into precision outside of celestial stats, you will be hurt the least, and at that point you will be losing 7% of your direct damage, while gaining less than 2% defense and health, and 1/2 a percent gain in condition damage.

That’s merely raw fact.

If you had attempted before the change to add anything to offense, (thereby exploiting the evil and overly high critical damage stat) you’re going to be losing closer to 15% or 20% of your direct damage while still gaining only tiny bits to everything else.

If the only point to your build was to heal and survive, to an extent where you actually don’t deal direct damage, at that point this change won’t hurt you at all, it will in fact help you… Of course, at that point Shaman’s, Apothecary’s, Settler’s, and Magi’s would all be far better suited to your build.

Cynar Valdyr.7854:

You and Nike have both said that celestial was designed to have exactly the same stats across the board…

I’ve never said that. If that had been true, it would never have been in the running as a set for pumping crit damage – people would have been taking Berserker/Valkyrie all along .

I’m sorry for insulting you prior. There are a lot more than you who are upset about this change on a dps level and I was getting a little overzealous in trying to make people understand what the core idea behind celestial is.

I said the set was designed to evenly give stats across the board as a general use set. It isn’t supposed to be better than any other set at a specific area. It is supposed to offer people the chance to run a jack of all trades build. I still think that this change has been coming for a long time. They tuned it down in PvP so much that typically only d/d eles use it. It is underwhelming and this is part of that fix. You will deal damage still. It won’t be spectacular, but for everything else it offers it will be amazing!

I can’t wait to run it in wvw on my d/d ele! I will survive better, heal better, and still be able to help pressure the enemy.

Honestly..if DPS is your goal there are better options! You can mix sets for better stats if you aren’t using everything on celestial.

Here’s another view on ferocity changes to celestial:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/210s12/effects_of_ferocity_on_celestial_gear/

Nike.2631:

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.

But wearing Celestial your healing and survivability suck just as much as your DPS. It’s not like Celestial has much healing power or vit/tou. It has just as low an amount of those stats as it does of DPS stats.

Cynar Valdyr.7854:

A low percent of an already low number yields obscenely low results. The only way celestial will be usable in any builds is to up that number considerably. Perhaps 20% is extreme, but 6% is extremely low… But as it’s a bit of a pain to get, shouldn’t it actually be worth getting?

I personally feel that Celestial gear should be the “norm”. It should be the best set and the other sets should be just slightly better at certain niche roles. Berserker shouldn’t be double the damage of Celestial, it should be maybe 20% more damage. Celestial is a) the hardest set to obtain and b) supports the most diverse playstyles. Both of those are excellent reasons for it to be the best all-around set in the game. Instead it’s one of the worst overall sets in the game. Heck, its DPS is closer to Cleric’s gear than it is to Berserker gear.

Celestial sigils and runes have enough defense to keep you alive combined with enough offense to get the job done, eventually.
Longer fight, less risk, basically.

Now that we will be able to change our traits on the fly, we should be better prepared for each individual fight. This reduces the risk involved and therefore the need for the durability these runes and sigils provide.

Add to that the reduced cost of dying because of no repair costs, (less risk). That’s seems like some pretty big variables to just say 6% but they have to start somewhere. Celestial may have to go through a trail and error period to ultimately regain it’s true value.

I would be very interested to know why 6% was chosen. For me, it seems like a death-sentience to armor that, by-all-rights SHOULD work reasonably well in any given situation. And honestly, it does ok most of the time, but it’s damage is low… And that’s pre-change.

The stat system is designed where a few points does NOT make a noticeable difference, and offensive stats scale faster than defensive stats (though granted, it will be less extreme after the patch). So giving 28 points (6% bonus to gear) to every stat will be negligible (20 damage on non-critical hits, +1% chance to critical, +1 bleeding damage per second, +280 hit points). What is being lost, however, is 100% out of direct damage… This change will effectively be removing 7-20% of overall direct damage AFTER the 6% stat boost. That change will not only be noticeable, but completely devastating.

I’m not looking for an argument, I’m merely wanting to know why 6% was chosen.

Tumult.2578:

Celestial sigils and runes have enough defense to keep you alive combined with enough offense to get the job done, eventually.
Longer fight, less risk, basically.

With the current combat design, longer fight equals to more risk, not less.