Guild Wars 2

Celestial meta, before June 23rd patch was the best meta I believe GW2 ever had in conquest mode. Sure there were some overpowered aspects to some classes/builds, and some were completely ignored while some were brought back. But I thought Celestial meta was the perfect reason for GW2 Conquest.

For starters, other than rangers, the pvp match had the most variety class compositions to all times. We had warriors, necros (power/condi), elementalists, engineers, thieves, guardians, and mesmers (EU) each bringing support through condi cleanse, cc, heals, and boon removals to make matches more interesting. Rotations became far more important, and on some matches early splits decided the outcome of the matches, and there were lots of tactics involved from beginning to the end.

Each class other than mesmer went through some changes, some more than other, in celestial meta. Necromancers changed from condition to power (berserker, later soldier), guardians seemed to disappear from bunker but came back as meditation, elementalists changed from old fresh air to d/d ele, engineers changed from pistol shield condi to celestial rifle with elixir s or slick shoes, thieves changed from crit strike d/p to s/d, then back to d/p but with panic strike, and warriors changed from hambow to shoutbow, and were in process of being changed to longbow/gs to gs/hammer.

The point is celestial meta literally changed the builds of each class, brought more unique and underperforming builds we once thought into the meta. In conquest settings, nodes were almost always contested with small skirmishes, and 2v2s and 1v1s really highlighted some personal skills even in conquest team fights. The clever use of utilities such as slick shoes/shocking aura, portal, etc were crucial to big team fights.

Rotations became more important as one missed rotation could throw the game for the entire team. Team support overall was more emphasized due to rotation, ccs, and condi cleanse timing. Classes came in and out of the meta with new builds, and it was really refreshing to see old builds reintroduced as new (meditation guardian).

There were also criticisms such as celestial vs celestial is boring, but than so was seeing bunker guard vs bunker guard. The upside to celestial vs celestial is that at least decap is possible, and depending on the class, capping the node was also possible. Also there was an end to cele v cele contrary to what people thought. Some people thought celestial shouldn’t do that much damage. Well it isn’t really fun or skillful to see a zerker class killing bunker guardian on node.

Those people that complained celestial was over powered now have what they want. And the result is still unknown since people are keep experimenting with new changes. However having all zerker classes isn’t really fun at all since gw2 pvp is a conquest, not an arena or a deathmatch in my opinion. But current pvp system favors killing over rotation, which I think is a big mistake. But I hope with upcoming ESL twitch broadcasting, pvp will change for the better or worse.

I agree.
Previous meta just needed few small tweaks for underpowered, not overhaul of everything.

This change was needed to be able to add more specialisations (or traitlines) to the game.

They implemented engaging and OP traits to the game because with this change everything was going to be imbalanced anyway. Now they will begin shaving all over again.

Ideally, they would maintain the balance they had, but it was not possible with this big mechanic change.

The meta was getting stale as hell, and I had completely stopped PvPing because of how boring everything had gotten. I love the shifts in metas in pretty much any game, it makes things refreshing and fun again.

I love the changes wholeheartedly.

The only requested change that I would agree with at this point is give more stats to the defensive amulets to offset the bump to damage amulets, so bunker specs stay somewhat relevant.

It wasn’t stale, we had different metas at NA and EU.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that Anet changed it so that they could sell specializations with new expansions, and not out of any need for balance or gameplay.

After all, how were they going to do it otherwise…

Food for thought.

no, cele was garbage. I hated it. you had two builds 1) cele might stacking and 2) zerker on thieves and guards. the meta only included 5 professions, i.e. u didn’t really need a Mesmer, ranger or necro, unless necro was Nos level.

it’s too soon to tell, but im seeing all kinds of interesting things happening. with how hard pure condi and power builds are hitting, I don’t think cele will be king any longer. as a result, gameplay will be more fast-paced, more twitch, higher skill cap, and high risk-reward.

Morwath.9817:

It wasn’t stale, we had different metas at NA and EU.

how was it different? ornge and abjured both min-maxed the game to include mostly cele play.

tbh, as much as i don’t like getting one shotted by everything, i think it is too early to say anything about meta… people are still messing around and trying out things…

i am sure some meta will set up eventually and will be just as bad/good as any other~

celestial meta was only good for celestial classes, rest were actually struggling~

Not to mention, the devs are aware of conditions being too strong right now, and they actually seem to be willing to start shaving the power creep down at a much faster rate than before.

Celestial will still be fine on engi/ele/warrior, but they’ll have a few more specs opened up to them that could be better or worse based on their team composition.

However the other main thing to be aware of is that before, the meta was teams made up of classes all damage or celestial sustain, now the damage, of both power and condition has been raised so considerably. So to be honest its not that much different, its just the burst is so much higher, and that includes condition damage, which at this point can be pretty much classified as burst.

This meta is good, except you have class like mesmer and thief one shoting people left and right with close to no tell.

Eh, the bunkerish part of the celestial meta was a little boring. I like being able to blow up warriors that stand on point mindlessly swinging their hammer and face tanking all my hits. Nothing was more frustrating than Pansy warriors and guardians eating all your damage. Evade, block, counter or die quickly please…

PS: I am still using celestial to blow things up. It just has a better chance to kill now. Perfect.

No it wasn’t in anyway.

What was perfect about two Cele builds fighting on point for 5 minutes?

sorry but cele meta was the worst meta happened in this game.

Anastasis.7258:

sorry but cele meta was the worst meta happened in this game.

preach.

I liked having the choice of using multiple adept or Master traits in the same build, now i’m stuck with a choice between 3 traits that are useless to my build when i could use a more useful trait from a lower tire instead…

just great!