Guild Wars 2

many people remember the celestial meta with hambow/shoutbow, rifle kit engi and d/d elementalist. many people miss it and other people condemn it.

why was the celestial meta so good? and why was it bad?
what was really good in the celestial meta was the amount of skill required to be effective. skill on your class was everything, practicing hours upon hours to perfect your play, making use of everything your class can offer. back then it was easy to see if a player was really good on his class or not.

on the other hand, this changed with the pre HoT traitline update when skill floor was lowered considerably and destroyed build diversity to a certain amount, and buffed classes to a point that wasn’t enjoyable anymore. one example would be 25 might stacks fire/water/arcane elementalist, smacking nasty 9 stacks of burning on you.

but was it really celestial’s fault?
no it was not. celestial per se isn’t that tanky nor does it deal that much damage. only 3/8 classes used it while the rest was using marauder or carrion/rabid. (later 4 with signet necro).

what made celestial so strong?
it was the combination of 15-25 might stacks, permanent fury, regeneration and protection that certain classes were able to pump out.

what changed up until now and why would it be fine to bring celestial back?
first of all, might stacking was nerfed a while back, and a couple of patches ago on swap sigils, introducing counterplay to geomancy and co and adding sigils that remove 2 boons. the biggest reason why i think it’s fine to bring celestial back is the boon hate that’s coming with Path of Fire. elite specialisations like scourge and spellblade specialize heavily in removing and corrupting boons.

lastly a personal opinion of mine and some people might not agree with me
it was much more enjoyable playing in the celestial meta with hybrid builds, direct burst builds and sustained condition builds than in the current meta with healbots, direct burst and condi burst builds.

removing all those amulets was a mistake. classes should have been balanced, not amulets removed and build diversity destroyed.

feel free to discuss, but keep it at a constructive level. simply hating on x or y is not constructive.

From the perspective of an ele main I support this. Ele requires healing power to survive but the only amulets with healing power in the game don’t allow for an offensive ele build. The closest thing we have now is sages, but it offers neither enough sustain nor enough damage to actually compete.

Zuko.7132:

From the perspective of an ele main I support this. Ele requires healing power to survive but the only amulets with healing power in the game don’t allow for an offensive ele build. The closest thing we have now is sages, but it offers neither enough sustain nor enough damage to actually compete.

Menders exists.

I wanted to suggest the revival of Celestial in PvP not so long ago, but it might work too well with barrier which is why it’s probably a bad idea.

NotASmurf.1725:

I wanted to suggest the revival of Celestial in PvP not so long ago, but it might work too well with barrier which is why it’s probably a bad idea.

i don’t think celestial and barrier would have too great of a synergy. from what i’ve seen barriers on bruiserish elite specs like weaver and holosmith aren’t as big as for example on scourge. weavers get like 300 barrier for combination skills which is basically 2s of regeneration or less because of the decay while scourge, which is most likely played best with sage amulet, grants you like 4k+. this could also easily be balanced by letting barriers scale exponentially with healing power.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Zuko.7132:

From the perspective of an ele main I support this. Ele requires healing power to survive but the only amulets with healing power in the game don’t allow for an offensive ele build. The closest thing we have now is sages, but it offers neither enough sustain nor enough damage to actually compete.

Menders exists.

Lol if you think menders is good for an offensive build we need to have a long talk XD Power is fine. Only 560 precision so about 30% crit chance. No ferocity. No condi. Menders is a great sustain amulet. Damage? Not so much.

The skill required in the cele meta was not a result of cele stats themselves. It was because defensive skills were fewer along with cc. Key skills needed to be timed well to outplay. Now builds are so much more forgiving, and passives are stronger than they should be.

That said, bringing back cele may not be the worst idea for build diversity. The 3 stats amulets give 3000 in total so 400 or 430 per stat might be reasonable (excluding concentration and expertise). This might be too strong for some PoF hybrids that have good might generation. But then again, boon hate is increasing too.

akaCryptic.2389:

The skill required in the cele meta was not a result of cele stats themselves. It was because defensive skills were fewer along with cc. Key skills needed to be timed well to outplay. Now builds are so much more forgiving, and passives are stronger than they should be.

That said, bringing back cele may not be the worst idea ever for build diversity. The 3 stats amulets give 3000 in total so 400 or 430 per stat might be reasonable (excluding concentration and expertise). This might be too strong for some PoF hybrids that have good might generation.

i agree, skill timings were important too back then.

celestial used to be 480 after the nerf for all stats (boon duration and condi duration should not be included), so if that would be too strong, which i kinda don’t think, a compromise of 450-430 would be fine too. as i said above, with PoF boon hate will become a real thing and a spellblade will most likely be on every team.

Zuko.7132:

Lol if you think menders is good for an offensive build we need to have a long talk XD Power is fine. Only 560 precision so about 30% crit chance. No ferocity. No condi. Menders is a great sustain amulet. Damage? Not so much.

I’ve seen several core eles in platinum running mender’s builds generally focused on 1v1 (basically doing the same role as scrapper) FA Mender’s scepter is particularly nasty in that it’s practically impossible to win a 1v1 against because it’s damage is sticky and it’s nigh impossible to kill.

The Ele community needs to realize that you don’t need “zomg huuge crits!” to make a strong build.

The problem of the Celestial was not (only) the overall amount of Stats, the problem was that different classes was able to maximize themselves in both survavibility and damage becoming unkillable. Whyle who was unable to do that was totally kept away from the meta. If you wasn’t able to spam Might, Protection and/or Regeneration you was off the meta, no matter what.

Also Everyone will turn back to Celestial if possible, without exeption. That amulet was too good and every class will make bunker/hybrid build with it just because it’s too good.

Add back the Celestial amulet will only delet our DPS/Burst meta and turn back to the Bunker meta.
The bunker meta was seriously Boring.

Everyone think that it was better than now, but it wasn’t.

Be more skilled to kill someone? NO.
If the enemy was an ele or a decapper engi you had to be in 3 to kill him and the fight was of 3+ minutes. I don’t think that something like that was called “Skills”, even because any decent player was able to play a ele and last for Minutes before die, even against 3 players.
I seen different times when two eles found themselves fight in 1v1, then stop fighting and just stay in on the point doing nothing because there was not a single way one of them was able to kill the other one.
Is that what you mean for “more skilled”?

The Bunker Meta was funny but also Boring as hell.
We asked for years to change the meta and now you want to have it back?

If you don’t think that in the actual meta you need skills to win there’s something wrong and you’re a incredible Pro or a N00b.
Timing for burst or for active a defensive skill, Disengage, Positioning, Teamwork, there’s a Lot of things you need to do to kill the enemy.
I find out that to survive and be a good player in this meta you need to be seriously Better if compared to the Celestial meta.

Celstial is too good because grant ALL the statistics. And that make you Stronger than if you have 3 stat maxed.

Do you remember the Mercenary amulet and how much everyone cryed because was “too strong”?
It was strong not for the overall amount of statistics but because granted both Vitality and Toughness. That granted a more equilibrated and then Better defence.
Reduce the amount of weak spot is the best thing you can do in a game like that because you can just spam might and fury and you’ll be strong as if you use a Berserker amulet, with all the defence of a Celestial user.

I don’t want the Bunekr meta back and add the Celestial will only make EVERYONE use it.
It’s too strong, grant too much, cover all the weakness of different classes and make them insanely strong and force the gameplay into a Bunker meta.

Eles disperatly want it back only because they was insanely OP with it and was able to be Unkillable and spam out so much damage that was stronger than a Berserker user (seriously).
I don’t want to have to bunker meta back only to make a class happy. the ele is still the top meta and make teams win by himself. No need to grant him to be OP again.

Don’t add Celestial back, Pleas NO.

Crinn.7864:

Zuko.7132:

Lol if you think menders is good for an offensive build we need to have a long talk XD Power is fine. Only 560 precision so about 30% crit chance. No ferocity. No condi. Menders is a great sustain amulet. Damage? Not so much.

I’ve seen several core eles in platinum running mender’s builds generally focused on 1v1 (basically doing the same role as scrapper) FA Mender’s scepter is particularly nasty in that it’s practically impossible to win a 1v1 against because it’s damage is sticky and it’s nigh impossible to kill.

The Ele community needs to realize that you don’t need “zomg huuge crits!” to make a strong build.

I think it has more to do with the fact that nobody really needs an ele to be a damage dealer than the limitations placed upon the class by stat selection. Very few classes have the option to fill the healer role in PvP, and ele is by far the best at it.

We’ve all seen plat level staff or scepter elementalists filling a primary damage role. It’s not that it can’t be done. It’s that the class just tends to bring more to the table as a healer in PvP.

At least, that’s my take on it.

akaCryptic.2389:

The skill required in the cele meta was not a result of cele stats themselves. It was because defensive skills were fewer along with cc. Key skills needed to be timed well to outplay. Now builds are so much more forgiving, and passives are stronger than they should be.

That said, bringing back cele may not be the worst idea for build diversity. The 3 stats amulets give 3000 in total so 400 or 430 per stat might be reasonable (excluding concentration and expertise). This might be too strong for some PoF hybrids that have good might generation. But then again, boon hate is increasing too.

The funny thing is celestial was 560 to 7 stats while current quad stat amulets have 560 to 2 stats and 1050 to another 2 stats. In terms of stat increases celestial was only 700 points ahead of these quad stat amulets now which have a total of 3220 points.

Reducing celestial stats to 400 would make it a bit of a poor amulet and would be strictly worse than all amulets in stat points but 450 puts celestial at 3150 stat points for a very well rounded amulet.

Cele ele and cele warrior definitely take way less skill than any of today’s specs to play.

Just for an average PvPer, they can play these specs at a decent level and almost feel immortal. Both of them are too versatile while being the top duelist at the same time. This completely breaks balance and negates the necessity of other specs.

For example, current druid somewhat resembles the old cele ele with very good sustain and mobility. However, current druid can only do good damage using pet and lacks any kind of cleave. The old cele ele has both more direct and condition damage pressure while being one of the best cleave damage dealer in team fight.

Similarly, current healer tempest is very strong team fight healer. This is similar to cele shoutbow warrior which was also the anchor of the team fight. However, the difference was the old shoutbow warrior was also a top duelist who can wear down pretty much any non-cele user. Current tempest can’t do anything meaningful in a 1v1.

These are the essential trade-off you need for balance.

While current spec balance is far from being perfect, it is still 1000% better than the old cele meta.

Introduce all the amulets back but celestial should be nerfed to have the same number of stats as 4 stat amulets

Exciton.8942:

Cele ele and cele warrior definitely take way less skill than any of today’s specs to play.

This is far from true. are you seriously trying to say that mender scrapper, medi trap dh or berserker are harder to play than d/d ele, shoutbow or rifle engi? sorry but that’s a ridiculous statement. not a single elite spec takes more skill to play than the core specs. even with celestial, d/d ele, shoutbow or rifle engi wouldn’t stand a chance against elite specs, druid would simply outsustain an ele.

those builds weren’t bunker builds either, they were hybrid support bruisers, filling 2/5 spots to be an anchor for 2 nodes, cleansing and healing your dps thief/mesmer/X and setting up bursts with the cc they had. their healing was also rather low compared to today’s healing output, that’s why you took 2 and not one tempest that heals 600-650k per match.

a celestial amulet with 460 per stat would be balanced as the total stats would equal 4 stat amulets, putting it 39/stat above the release celestial amulet that was considered trash and 100/stat below the celestial meta amulet.

Jekkt.6045:

Exciton.8942:

Cele ele and cele warrior definitely take way less skill than any of today’s specs to play.

This is far from true. are you seriously trying to say that mender scrapper, medi trap dh or berserker are harder to play than d/d ele, shoutbow or rifle engi? sorry but that’s a ridiculous statement. not a single elite spec takes more skill to play than the core specs. even with celestial, d/d ele, shoutbow or rifle engi wouldn’t stand a chance against elite specs, druid would simply outsustain an ele.

those builds weren’t bunker builds either, they were hybrid support bruisers, filling 2/5 spots to be an anchor for 2 nodes, cleansing and healing your dps thief/mesmer/X and setting up bursts with the cc they had. their healing was also rather low compared to today’s healing output, that’s why you took 2 and not one tempest that heals 600-650k per match.

a celestial amulet with 460 per stat would be balanced as the total stats would equal 4 stat amulets, putting it 39/stat above the release celestial amulet that was considered trash and 100/stat below the celestial meta amulet.

Absolutely. I played a lot of these builds back in the day. They were waaaaay easier to play than any of today’s spec, even compared to trap DH.

Your logic is flawed when you compare the power level of these specs to today’s spec. Of course, today’s specs are all stronger but that doesn’t make them easier to play. Because you are playing against equally strong specs.

I agree that these specs are not solely bunker specs and I explained that in my original post as well. But that is exactly what made them OP as hell.

Just imagine today’s healer tempest also becomes the best duelist in the game. That would be totally broken. However, that was exactly what shoutbow warrior was back in the day. They carry teamfights while still being better than anyone else on point dueling.

Surviving on those specs is also much much easier than any of today’s spec. You can face tank so much more damage while today’s spec relies more on important skill. Again, take healer ele as an example, once you used your obsidien flesh, you are doomed if you get caught by a burst. Then think about old DD ele with rune of vamprism, even mesmer/thief moa burst can’t take it down. One can just go in mistform, go in water and come out full health in a matter of seconds.

Exciton.8942:

Jekkt.6045:

Exciton.8942:

Cele ele and cele warrior definitely take way less skill than any of today’s specs to play.

This is far from true. are you seriously trying to say that mender scrapper, medi trap dh or berserker are harder to play than d/d ele, shoutbow or rifle engi? sorry but that’s a ridiculous statement. not a single elite spec takes more skill to play than the core specs. even with celestial, d/d ele, shoutbow or rifle engi wouldn’t stand a chance against elite specs, druid would simply outsustain an ele.

those builds weren’t bunker builds either, they were hybrid support bruisers, filling 2/5 spots to be an anchor for 2 nodes, cleansing and healing your dps thief/mesmer/X and setting up bursts with the cc they had. their healing was also rather low compared to today’s healing output, that’s why you took 2 and not one tempest that heals 600-650k per match.

a celestial amulet with 460 per stat would be balanced as the total stats would equal 4 stat amulets, putting it 39/stat above the release celestial amulet that was considered trash and 100/stat below the celestial meta amulet.

Absolutely. I played a lot of these builds back in the day. They were waaaaay easier to play than any of today’s spec, even compared to trap DH.

Your logic is flawed when you compare the power level of these specs to today’s spec. Of course, today’s specs are all stronger but that doesn’t make them easier to play. Because you are playing against equally strong specs.

I agree that these specs are not solely bunker specs and I explained that in my original post as well. But that is exactly what made them OP as hell.

Just imagine today’s healer tempest also becomes the best duelist in the game. That would be totally broken. However, that was exactly what shoutbow warrior was back in the day. They carry teamfights while still being better than anyone else on point dueling.

Surviving on those specs is also much much easier than any of today’s spec. You can face tank so much more damage while today’s spec relies more on important skill. Again, take healer ele as an example, once you used your obsidien flesh, you are doomed if you get caught by a burst. Then think about old DD ele with rune of vamprism, even mesmer/thief moa burst can’t take it down. One can just go in mistform, go in water and come out full health in a matter of seconds.

celestial tempest existed on HoT release and was not a good duelling spec. tempest was only really strong with minstrel and has been neerfed multiple times and went from minstrel -> celestial -> cleric -> to mender amulet. post HoT specs are much more spam heavy than the old specs. there are far less important skills than before and the only good ones by design are chilled to the bone and reaper shroud 5. baiting dodges is by far less important than it used to be and all the specs have way more passive defense, more blocks, more invuls, more evades, more cc and more stability.

moa burst combo, or in general thief/mes/guard, were the reason why you had to run vampire runes in the first place. getting instant oneshot from stealth without being able to use your skills is about as bad as vampire runes themselves.

but that’s not the point of the thread. the point of the thread is that PoF boon hate would allow for a reintroduction of a nerfed celestial amulet because balance circumstances have changed against the favor of might/boon stacking which made celestial so strong in the first place.

If I remember correctly Celestial was removed solely based on Celestial Elementalist D/D build with Cantrip Might stacking.

They have since removed the Cantrip Might build and Introduced an intense power creep with HoT.

I think it’s time to bring back Celestial, even for unranked purposes atleast.

(my ONLY concern with Celestial is in Conjunction with Druid and Warrior builds.)

Bunker meta killed season 1 and GW2’s best chance at establishing a scene, so they got rid of cele and other amulets.

Imagine if they suddenly brought them back just in time for something to go wrong and bunker meta 2.0 destroyed PoF’s first season LUL

Would be hilarious. And tragic.

I’m okay with a trial for celestial, just not right away. Wait until PoF season 2 at least.

NotASmurf.1725:

Bunker meta killed season 1 and GW2’s best chance at establishing a scene, so they got rid of cele and other amulets.

Imagine if they suddenly brought them back just in time for something to go wrong and bunker meta 2.0 destroyed PoF’s first season LUL

Would be hilarious. And tragic.

I’m okay with a trial for celestial, just not right away. Wait until PoF season 2 at least.

the sole reason what broke season 1 was double support chrono. you could have played any amulet on that build and it wouldn’t have made a difference. anet took way too long to balance it. how about giving celestial a 1 season unranked only trial with PoF. if the amulet is balanced, bring it in for season 2 ranked.

Silv.9207:

If you don’t think that in the actual meta you need skills to win there’s something wrong and you’re a incredible Pro or a N00b.
Timing for burst or for active a defensive skill, Disengage, Positioning, Teamwork, there’s a Lot of things you need to do to kill the enemy.
I find out that to survive and be a good player in this meta you need to be seriously Better if compared to the Celestial meta.

This. Why would i worry about positioning, knowing what/when to dodge and relying on my support’s help when i can just use cele to face-tank stuff and then heal myself to full? Cele or anything X+Vitality+Toughness+Heal power would make stuff too tanky. Mender tempests are strong and sometimes they make the game boring as they are, we dont need to give them more stats.

As a cele guard/ele/necro that rarely dies while roamming in wvw and win 1×2~3×5′s constantly, i rather not have cele in pvp. Making people have to choose what they want to bring to the match is nice, i love being able to choose betwen amulets and runes and still having a good impact in the game. Having to play cele the entire time because its way better than everything else SUCKS.

If cele ever come back, i hope it have way lower total-attribute than other amulets so people would have to choose betwen being decent at something or mediocre at everything. Hope my post make sense, didnt sleep yet. lol

Cele amulet was great with core specs but HoT specs officially have too much to gain from cele stats. It’ll end up as a situation where there is seriously no reason to use any other amulet outside of celestial with might stacking builds. And allowing concentration/expertise to go on the existing cele stats is simply out of the question, that’s clearly too much.

The problem with celestial stats has always been this:

• Power/Prec/Feroc/Condi all getting like what was it +560 in pvp amy?
• Sounds small at first
• Now you put the cele on a build that can take advantage of well rounded stats. Classically, let’s use Ele/Tempest as example. No matter what spec is being ran, the Ele/Tempest always has ways to deal physical and condi. It also always has additional heals to make strong use of cele stats as well.
• Still seems like small damage compared to let’s say a dedicated Berserker build or a Viper’s let’s say.
• Oh but wait, Ele/Tempest is also a class that can stack itself to 25 might quite easily, even before sigil/rune updates. So now it would be REALLY EASY to maintain 25 might on any Ele/Tempest spec.
• 25 might = +750 to power and condi.
• 750 + 560 = 1310 power and condi, still with 560 precision and 560 ferocity.
• Start adding fury and team traits to that, you’ve got over 50% crit rate, easily.
• The Ele/Tempest or any spec that can abuse easy might stacking with cele is now nearly matching the DPS of a dedicated burst amulet build because it is wielding both physical and condi on the same character.
• But wait there is more. The cele amulet also has +560 vita/tough/heal, where a berserker or viper has +0.
• Additionally, the biggest exploit of cele/might stacking is that it allows a spec to run all defensive traits while exploiting the ability to still tag unreasonably high DPS for running a purely defensive spec.

Point being: If celestial was brought back, it’ll be a situation where only the classes that can exploit it, will be used anymore:

• Tempest becomes god tier again as it is the one class that can best exploit celestial stats and might stacking.
• DHs, Heralds, Druids, Scrapper, Reaper = 2nd tier. These can well exploit cele stats and might stacking but not to the degree of the evil elementalists.
• Berserkers, Daredevils, Chronos = fallen not only out of meta but also out of viability.
  These classes are designed for DPSing and don’t have the same type of traits/utilities/weapon skills to well exploit cele stats. They also don’t stack might so casually as the other classes. So wearing cele on these builds really isn’t a good idea. It would render a situation where it was still best to try and DPS on them but then they have no sustain in a world of celestial super bunkers that nearly match their DPS output with super casual perpetual 25 might stacking. A thief wearing celestial vs. a tempest wearing celestial, is no contest. The Thief won’t have the DPS it needs to kill, let alone even fight the Tempest and it won’t have the additional class given heals to keep up sustain vs the Tempest either. The same goes for Berserker/DD/Chrono all around. This same situation would happen with those 3 classes in a celestial meta, due to their lack of class given additional heals and ability to take advantage of dual damage setups with cele stats.

Simply put, Celestial stats honestly break the game’s pvp.
And the #1 reason why is might stacking is too godkitten powerful on celestial.

A super alternative answer to the problem of celestial stats would be to divide the effects of might. There should be a type of might that stacks for power and a type of might that stacks for condi. If they did this and shaved maybe 10 to 15% of the stats off cele, it would be fine in pvp again.

wow. all of y’all pretending to be so clever, but missing something so obvious.

all cele builds rely on might stacking for damage, & other boons too.

so riddle me this: considering how much boonrip spellbreaker & scourge have (as well as boonrip sigils etc). do you really think cele is going to be as strong as it once was?

like really you guys. we have so much boon hate in the new expansion & the new sigils. you would have to have the brainpower of a matchbox car to think might stacking builds can be as good as they were in the cele meta.

Trevor Boyer.6524:

Simply put, Celestial stats honestly break the game’s pvp.
And the #1 reason why is might stacking is too godkitten powerful on celestial.

you’re missing the whole point of this thread. sigil changes and PoF elite specs have high boon removal, that’s why celestial is possible as a balanced amulet.

Depends on how these new specs run. If there is more AoE boon removal, adding cele back in might be worth a test run. But as it stands now, having a few single target boon removals with higher cool down times than someone who is constantly might stacking to 25 in 10s or less, isn’t going to make much of a difference in the cele’s power. You’ve also got to consider how many boons that person has that is covering the might stack. A team of cele builds also means a team of full on bunker support specs who are constantly tossing boons to each other, including might stacks… So when you get 2, 3 or more guys on a node who are all constantly buffing AoE mights on top of everything else, these new boon removals you’re talking about aren’t going to make much of a difference unless they are deep boon removals with no number limit, such as contemplation of purity with flat out removes all condis. Team boon support will be absurd and infinitely cycling when teams are wearing/using nothing but cele and support bunker builds. And if I were wrong but you were right, are you ready for a meta with UBER sustain where no one deals damage? Because that’s what’s going to happen in a full on cele meta with too many boon removals.

Trevor Boyer.6524:

Depends on how these new specs run. If there is more AoE boon removal, adding cele back in might be worth a test run. But as it stands now, having a few single target boon removals with higher cool down times than someone who is constantly might stacking to 25 in 10s or less, isn’t going to make much of a difference in the cele’s power. You’ve also got to consider how many boons that person has that is covering the might stack. A team of cele builds also means a team of full on bunker support specs who are constantly tossing boons to each other, including might stacks… So when you get 2, 3 or more guys on a node who are all constantly buffing AoE mights on top of everything else, these new boon removals you’re talking about aren’t going to make much of a difference unless they are deep boon removals with no number limit, such as contemplation of purity with flat out removes all condis. Team boon support will be absurd and infinitely cycling when teams are wearing/using nothing but cele and support bunker builds. And if I were wrong but you were right, are you ready for a meta with UBER sustain where no one deals damage? Because that’s what’s going to happen in a full on cele meta with too many boon removals.

scourge has boon corruption on basically any skill, spellblade on most of the dagger skills and his ult completely denys boon application for 10s while removing 1 (or 2?) boons every second aoe for 8 or 10 seconds.

I agree with Trevor. Assuming spellbreaker and scourge successfully counter what would likely be the rise of multiple cele builds: (1) you force all teams to include both counter specs and limit build diversity, and (2) if all the needed boons are stripped away consistently, what would have been the purpose to reintroduce cele anyway? Assuming both counters cannot keep up with aoe boon support of multiple opponents, then you’ve successfully slowed down the game and forced cele use to compete, again limiting diversity.

Let us move beyond the nostalgia of yesterday and try to concretely determine what cele would actually bring to the current state of the game and what we anticipate with PoF. Show us some theory crafting of builds you would expect to become functional and worthwhile only upon introduction of cele that are currently not or otherwise would not be upon the expansion release AND that would also be good for the game and promote diversity.

Allarius.5670:

I agree with Trevor. Assuming spellbreaker and scourge successfully counter what would likely be the rise of multiple cele builds: (1) you force all teams to include both counter specs and limit build diversity, and (2) if all the needed boons are stripped away consistently, what would have been the purpose to reintroduce cele anyway? Assuming both counters cannot keep up with aoe boon support of multiple opponents, then you’ve successfully slowed down the game and forced cele use to compete, again limiting diversity.

Let us move beyond the nostalgia of yesterday and try to concretely determine what cele would actually bring to the current state of the game and what we anticipate with PoF. Show us some theory crafting of builds you would expect to become functional and worthwhile only upon introduction of cele that are currently not or otherwise would not be upon the expansion release AND that would also be good for the game and promote diversity.

spellblade will be mandatory with or without celestial.

might stacks are pretty easy to build up for some classes. also where is the mention of the now op sigil of battle? nice selective memory. even without might, cele is still the best stat combo to use for some classes; and because of this cele destroys diversity for those classes, not the other way around lol. its pretty obvious that you want cele back, but don’t try to tell me that its good for the game. I can see 4 hot classes using cele right now, maybe more with pof.

Stand The Wall.6987:

might stacks are pretty easy to build up for some classes. also where is the mention of the now op sigil of battle? nice selective memory. even without might, cele is still the best stat combo to use for some classes; and because of this cele destroys diversity for those classes, not the other way around lol. its pretty obvious that you want cele back, but don’t try to tell me that its good for the game. I can see 4 hot classes using cele right now, maybe more with pof.

so you’re telling me that diversity is good right now?

dh – marauder
berserker – berserk/demolisher (marauder)
thief – marauder
necro – marauder/carrion
rev – marauder/deadshot
engi – mender
ele – mender
druid – mender
mesmer – sage, which is basically mender with condi

Jekkt.6045:

berserker – marauder

Berserker is better off with either Demolisher or Berserker, not marauder.

Crinn.7864:

Jekkt.6045:

berserker – marauder

Berserker is better off with either Demolisher or Berserker, not marauder.

most likely. i listed it as marauder because it basically functions the same way and is only possible due to warrior’s armor class and health pool. will edit in my post above.

Sage is "new " celestial… at least for hibryd damage …

If they brought back celestial, menders would still be the go-to for ele. Even sage would still be better. Celestial would be a large loss in damage and healing.

Jekkt.6045:

Allarius.5670:

I agree with Trevor. Assuming spellbreaker and scourge successfully counter what would likely be the rise of multiple cele builds: (1) you force all teams to include both counter specs and limit build diversity, and (2) if all the needed boons are stripped away consistently, what would have been the purpose to reintroduce cele anyway? Assuming both counters cannot keep up with aoe boon support of multiple opponents, then you’ve successfully slowed down the game and forced cele use to compete, again limiting diversity.

Let us move beyond the nostalgia of yesterday and try to concretely determine what cele would actually bring to the current state of the game and what we anticipate with PoF. Show us some theory crafting of builds you would expect to become functional and worthwhile only upon introduction of cele that are currently not or otherwise would not be upon the expansion release AND that would also be good for the game and promote diversity.

spellblade will be mandatory with or without celestial.

if bunk firebrand becomes meta, & im betting it will. spellbreaker will become meta by default. it’s needed to counter the tomes & insane ressing power of firebrand.

5 Gauge & Phantaram theorise our new meta couple could be scourge + firebrand. the barriers, heals, boon hate, boon rip, & aoe support synergise really well. they also predict spellbreaker being taken specifically to counter this.

i would seriously recommend all of you check out their twitch stream where they go over specs. it’s very insightful. discussion starts about 1.44

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/164732843?t=6293

also @anyone who thinks cele builds work well when you boonrip their might constantly. no. you’re wrong. they hit like a wet noodle with no might. i used to run throw mine on my celestial bombs engineer & the boon rip made fighting any other cele build stupidly easy. oh man, that was a fun build. loads of heals, & with the boonrip it means no stab. so i could just ping pong ball everyone with big ol bomb, rifle 4, & throw mine. so funny.

If Ele and Engi were balanced around having Celestial it’d be great, all for it, but they’re overtuned in PvP with Celestial stats

Chaith.8256:

If Ele and Engi were balanced around having Celestial it’d be great, all for it, but they’re overtuned in PvP with Celestial stats

they should have balanced the classes, not removed the amulet(s) in the first place.

Jekkt.6045:

Chaith.8256:

If Ele and Engi were balanced around having Celestial it’d be great, all for it, but they’re overtuned in PvP with Celestial stats

they should have balanced the classes, not removed the amulet(s) in the first place.

Should’ve, could’ve, didn’t

And you’re talking about two different teams, PvP team does amulets, and balance team does IDK what

Jekkt.6045:

snipples

now switch half those with cele. what is the difference exactly, other then fights taking longer? that’s why they got rid of the bunker meta, because its boring to watch and play for most people. cele is a return to bunker meta.

ranger never really benefitted from celestial the biggest offenders were: ele, warrior and engi rifle – they were broken and overused. this was when s/d existed as well.

now with druid it could be different but not really, what made celestial so good was for hybrids with good power coefficients and condition dmg output with 25 might could output high condition damage on top of it and the amazing bunker that came with it…

with druid staff you have no conditions and the only pair off you could put with staff would be something like sword/warhorn or sword/dagger both of which are not condi heavy at all and provide mechanic sustain (evades) over any condition you would expect from it.

maybe a druid condi hybrid , but then you kind of lose the point of using celestial since if you use strict condi weapons, you have no power output.

druid/ranger has always suffered from this lack of hybrid synergy so celestial never worked in spvp (obviously you might be able to mix and match to achieve something in WvW)

condi will , again, do nothing but bring a handful of classes back to the top again and you’ll literally fall into the same hole you were in years ago only with HoT builds it was just be that much worse.

ZhouX.8742:

ranger never really benefitted from celestial the biggest offenders were: ele, warrior and engi rifle – they were broken and overused. this was when s/d existed as well.

now with druid it could be different but not really, what made celestial so good was for hybrids with good power coefficients and condition dmg output with 25 might could output high condition damage on top of it and the amazing bunker that came with it…

with druid staff you have no conditions and the only pair off you could put with staff would be something like sword/warhorn or sword/dagger both of which are not condi heavy at all and provide mechanic sustain (evades) over any condition you would expect from it.

maybe a druid condi hybrid , but then you kind of lose the point of using celestial since if you use strict condi weapons, you have no power output.

druid/ranger has always suffered from this lack of hybrid synergy so celestial never worked in spvp (obviously you might be able to mix and match to achieve something in WvW)

condi will , again, do nothing but bring a handful of classes back to the top again and you’ll literally fall into the same hole you were in years ago only with HoT builds it was just be that much worse.

Druid celestial would be rather effective with Ancient Seeds, and thats only 1 trait.

Ranger would hugely benefit from cele stats and might stacking. it seems it would be great for Soulbeast as well, given the hybrid nature of dagger.

out of the current elite specs mesmer would probably use it the most. after that possibly engi due to auto might from hammer but with a different build.

i don’t know how well rangers can use it without a shortbow or a torch.

ele would stay mender because shout healing was nerfed already, if you drop even more healing shouts will become obsolete.

necro could possibly use it but is most likely better off with a pure condi or pure damage build.

guard nope.
thief nope.
rev nope.
warrior maybe but i don’t think so.

it’s all about the might stacking. if the coming balance changes can keep that in check it won’t be a problem.

My Scepter/Dagger ele would love to see Celestial in PvP. Until that day, he’ll underperform I’m afraid. Now he has the choice to do damage without defense/healing or have defense and healing without damage.

Jekkt.6045:

out of the current elite specs mesmer would probably use it the most. after that possibly engi due to auto might from hammer but with a different build.

i don’t know how well rangers can use it without a shortbow or a torch.

ele would stay mender because shout healing was nerfed already, if you drop even more healing shouts will become obsolete.

necro could possibly use it but is most likely better off with a pure condi or pure damage build.

guard nope.
thief nope.
rev nope.
warrior maybe but i don’t think so.

it’s all about the might stacking. if the coming balance changes can keep that in check it won’t be a problem.

Mesmer wouldn’t use it, mesmer might stacking isn’t that great even with strength runes (probably use hoelbrak tbh) and shattered strength. Additionally you’d lose torment on shatter to take shattered strength so that’s a big loss of damage and the power stats aren’t high enough to make mind wrack or cry of frustration do much damage.

You could switch a trait line but without inpiration condi will absolutely destroy you and illusions is just too good to drop for most builds. Power shatter or condi shatter would be much better picks with zerk/marauder or sage respectively.

Many have tried making celestial builds with mesmer but it just doesn’t have the same long lasting might stacking potential as other classes, if shattered strength was 15s baseline it would be possible as you’d get to have 10-15 stacks all the time. Right now it’s not likely though mirage might possibly be a different story though that’s more about not shattering so not sure how you’d stack might without chaotic interruption or the GS trait that no-one uses.

I want celestial back. The current meta builds rely only on few amulets, so we could definitely use some more variety and bring back some builds which were deleted when so many amulets were removed.

Celestial was removed for a lot of reasons.

1. Cele Ele overperformed at sustaining on point while kittenting out burns
2. Ele, Necro, Warrior, Engi all used celestial. 3 of which just stacked might, which was the real reason it was op tbh
3. Sustain amulets that did damage did not fit the future of pvp that ANET invisioned
4. They wanted to sell HoT

If cele was brought back at 450 all stats (except concentration and expertise) it wouldn’t bring back more stats than any other amulet currently. It would also be essentially useless without might stacking and might duration, there’s not a lot of classes and builds that could take advantage of that or they would have better options currently like menders.

Edit: Since cele was removed there’s been a number of changes to might the boon, ways to stack might outside of traits with similar of battle nerfed and many traits that used to stack might have been reduced considerably. Also many sustain skills with HoT have had their base healing reduced and the scaling buffed so you need a considerable amount of healing power to see good numbers from it. 450 healing power will do very little for a healing tempest and Druid even though they can might stack in some ways.

No ty, celestial is broken