Guild Wars 2

Hey guys,

So recently I released a video discussing the turret changes and the traits/stat divorce and it’s effects on the celestial amulet. You can watch the full video. I give my opinions on turrets in the video but what I really want to talk about is the potential Celestial amulet nerf and the effects that the Traits/Stat changes will have on it. If you’d rather not read then the vid above is just for you.

So as we are all well aware, Celestial is currently a powerful amulet with it’s amazing stat combination. And with the new revamp coming soon, it’s set to be even better than it was before, should it transition without major tweaks.

The reason for my apprehension is the fact that the devs have said that Stats lost in transition from the Old system to the new system will be given back as stats in amulets and base stats on our characters. Taking that literally without any compromises and putting it in context with regards to Celestial provides me with a scary thought; specs which wouldn’t have had access to certain stats in the Old system will have access to those stats (and then some) in the new system, making Celestial more than just a viable choice for all professions.

You may not have been following me there, so let me explain it with an example; take for instance you’re an Ele who uses your 0/0/2/6/6 spec with Cele right now. Your stats are currently

+438 Precision +0
+438 Power +0
+438 Ferocity +0
+438 Vitality +300 from traits
+438 Toughness +100 from traits
+438 Healing Power +300 from traits
+438 Condition Damage +100 from traits

You’re currently not gaining anything to precision, power or ferocity because you don’t have points in the lines that provide them. In the new system, if the stats from traits are put directly into Cele as I assume. It would look more like this;

+438 Precision +200 (from revamp) +100 (to base stat) -10% = 674.2
+438 Power +200 (from revamp) +100 (to base stat)-10% = 674.2
+438 Ferocity +200 (from revamp) +100 (to base stat) -10% = 674.2
+438 Vitality +200 (from revamp) +100 (to base stat) -10% = 674.2
+438 Toughness + 200 (from revamp) +100 (to base stat) -10% = 674.2
+438 Healing Power +200 (from revamp) +100 (to base stat) -10% = 674.2
+438 Condition Damage +200 (from revamp) +100 (to base stat) -10% = 674.2

Simply put, in the new system, you’ll be gaining stats from lines you didn’t put points into when you were in the old system. This means that you’re guaranteed an overall buff to your effectiveness as a player no matter what class you play if you run Cele.

THAT, is scary.

Yes, other amulets will get the same treatment and they will be more effective at what they do but you have to consider that Cele just got better at doing everything in that scenario and is a better bang for your buck than specializing in pure damage.

My question is, is this how things will be? Is my conjecture correct? If yes, then let’s just leave celestial at 438 and ride our carriages home. If no, then great, I can live partially relieved that this is just all in my head.

Another question is though, if we are planning to call this new system specializations and with this system we have people focus on doing certain specific things which slims down the range of possible choices, why then do we have an amulet that contradicts all that?

I really want to get people’s opinions on this so bumping this up.

I don’t see anywhere that you have incorporated the -10% nerf to cele amulet stats ?

I refrained as I don’t know how item stats are being adjusted to close the stat gap as only 72 is being added to base (going from 928 to 1000). Not sure where your “200 revamp” is coming from.

Cele gear, though, was already stated that it is getting shaved by 10%. Whether this means Cele gear is getting lowered 10% with NO stat boost, or 10% after considering redistribution. But let us consider the loss with no stat boost:

As this is PvP, we only care about Cele Exotic: 438 to all stats. 10% drop from that is about 44, so new stats would be 394. You now have 72 more to each base, making 466 the new baseline + gear. 466 – 438 = 28. 28 * 7 stats = 198 stat point gain. However once you take into account that you could potentially put 1400 points into stats (max of 300 in a given stat, 1400 assuming you’re not being diluted by condi/boon duration or class mechanic (which most eles are)) there is quite a significant potential point drop.

As I see it now, the cele d/d is going to get a gain in damage and a loss in survivability (just looking at stats, specializations will of course change this). They gained max vitality, healing power, and boon duration – all critical points in ele survival. Even if boon duration is folded in to baseline, I doubt the full 30% will be, hurting might, regen, and protection uptime.

As they have an eye on Cele, and it’s the easiest to translate (and possibly nerf) in the redistribution, I’m not really worried about it becoming too much stronger with HoT. My bigger concern is 3-stat gear and how that would be balanced without it being a major stat loss.

I still don’t get if we get any stats from choosing a certain trait-line. ANet wrote: “Each profession’s attributes will be updated to have half of their functionality be part of a specialization and half of their functionality will be a baseline for that profession. For example, elementalists now have a base attunement recharge of 10 seconds, which is reduced to 8.7 seconds when the arcane specialization is equipped.” – it’s still not clear if this only considers the attributes specific to each class, like attunement recharge, max Life-Force etc. or for the other stats as well.

@topic: Cele isn’t as possible because it gives you all the stats, but because certain specs could get enough points where they wanted them through traits, mightstacking etc and it kinda worked out with cele.

take cele engi for example: he’ll now just have way less power, when he’d probably rather choose to loose some other stats in favour of more power.

cele-ele gets tons of power/condi-dps from mightstacking, so he’d rather have less points there, but more in stuff like healing power, thoughness and vita.

If there’s no stat-gain from traits at all, then this will also affect certain zerker-builds, like Medi-Guard, that still got tons of thoughness because of how you selected the traits.

I think it’ll positively affect the metagame, it’ll be easier to balance etc.

PowerBottom.5796:

I still don’t get if we get any stats from choosing a certain trait-line. ANet wrote: “Each profession’s attributes will be updated to have half of their functionality be part of a specialization and half of their functionality will be a baseline for that profession. For example, elementalists now have a base attunement recharge of 10 seconds, which is reduced to 8.7 seconds when the arcane specialization is equipped.” – it’s still not clear if this only considers the attributes specific to each class, like attunement recharge, max Life-Force etc. or for the other stats as well.

@topic: Cele isn’t as possible because it gives you all the stats, but because certain specs could get enough points where they wanted them through traits, mightstacking etc and it kinda worked out with cele.

take cele engi for example: he’ll now just have way less power, when he’d probably rather choose to loose some other stats in favour of more power.

cele-ele gets tons of power/condi-dps from mightstacking, so he’d rather have less points there, but more in stuff like healing power, thoughness and vita.

If there’s no stat-gain from traits at all, then this will also affect certain zerker-builds, like Medi-Guard, that still got tons of thoughness because of how you selected the traits.

I think it’ll positively affect the metagame, it’ll be easier to balance etc.

As I understand it you will be getting half the amount from a specialization as you will from the current trait lines. So you will still get some stats, just not as many.

The thing that confuses me is the percentage based ones (condi duration, boon duration, class mechanic boosts) as those are only attainable from rune sets and traits (class mechanic tends to be strictly from traits).

This means that those specs that have those in them would still have an inherent advantage in stats over the pure stat lines as armor/amulets being the way to replace the missing stats won’t replace the boon duration loss in the new system.

We know Ele is getting it’s base attunement swap cd lowered, so we can assume (maybe) that all classes will get something similar in regards to their mechanics.

Maybe they are increasing base durations of all boons/Condis to make up for it, or maybe they are moving those two percentage based stats into a point based system like they did with crit damage and ferocity. Really we just don’t know :/

Father Busho.2796:

I don’t see anywhere that you have incorporated the -10% nerf to cele amulet stats ?

Thanks, I have edited my original post to reflect that.

Drawing Guy.3701:

I refrained as I don’t know how item stats are being adjusted to close the stat gap as only 72 is being added to base (going from 928 to 1000). Not sure where your “200 revamp” is coming from.
.

Whilst I doubt the points being added to Cele will equate to 72 points, I did miss the fact that they only added 72 to the current base stats. Then again, those numbers may just be rough estimations on their part based on them saying things like “should be at 900” and “upto a thousand” in relation to the base stats. I don’t believe they mention any specifics on the calculation. All I did was take the statement; “we’ll be splitting stats between base stats and gear and we’ve boosted your base stats to about 1000” to make my calculation.

I’ve seen a suggestion to make every amulet have all the missing stats for instance Berzerker having +200 toughness and health because of the revamp, and I think that would alleviate this issue I’m having by quite a bit.

I do understand that the calculation won’t be as cut and dry as I’m making it out to be but that’s not something I can easily account for.

PowerBottom.5796:

I still don’t get if we get any stats from choosing a certain trait-line. ANet wrote: “Each profession’s attributes will be updated to have half of their functionality be part of a specialization and half of their functionality will be a baseline for that profession. For example, elementalists now have a base attunement recharge of 10 seconds, which is reduced to 8.7 seconds when the arcane specialization is equipped.” – it’s still not clear if this only considers the attributes specific to each class, like attunement recharge, max Life-Force etc. or for the other stats as well.

That’s a very good quote, thank you for that. But it has been clarified that the stats themselves will be split as well.

Dirame.8521:

So as we are all well aware, Celestial currently rules the day in GW2, from Eles to Guardians, down to Engies.

Guardians either wear zerker or Cleric. So that’s Elementalist, Engineer and Warrior.

3/8 classes.
-
37.5% of the classes use Cele amulet in their meta specs.
-
Of the 37 viable specs on metabattle, 5 of them use celestial amulets: 2 Ele specs, 2 Engineer specs and 1 Warrior spec.

That’s 13.51% of all viable specs on metabattle.
-
How exactly does Celestial “rule the day”?

Jasher.6580:

Dirame.8521:

So as we are all well aware, Celestial currently rules the day in GW2, from Eles to Guardians, down to Engies.

Guardians either wear zerker or Cleric. So that’s Elementalist, Engineer and Warrior.

3/8 classes.
-
37.5% of the classes use Cele amulet in their meta specs.
-
Of the 37 viable specs on metabattle, 5 of them use celestial amulets.

That’s 13.51% of all viable specs on metabattle.
-
How exactly does Celestial “rule the day”?

I’ll rephrase that part if it makes you feel better.

Jasher.6580:

Dirame.8521:

So as we are all well aware, Celestial currently rules the day in GW2, from Eles to Guardians, down to Engies.

Guardians either wear zerker or Cleric. So that’s Elementalist, Engineer and Warrior.

3/8 classes.
-
37.5% of the classes use Cele amulet in their meta specs.
-
Of the 37 viable specs on metabattle, 5 of them use celestial amulets: 2 Ele specs, 2 Engineer specs and 1 Warrior spec.

That’s 13.51% of all viable specs on metabattle.
-
How exactly does Celestial “rule the day”?

Of the 5 classes, which are curently considered meta, 3 use celestial.
But the name “celestial meta” is not about the amulet. It’s about the playstyle. Meditation guards adopted that very playstyle and build template, even without running celestial stats.

The only specialist class/build in the current meta is thief and that’s because no matter what you do to the meta or to the game, thief will always find a place to shine.

naphack.9346:

Meditation guards adopted that very playstyle and build template, even without running celestial stats.

Meditation Guards run zerker amulet. This thread is about how the trat/stat divorce will make the amulet OP.

Zerker Medi Guards have absolutely nothing to do with anything “Cele”.

There are more than 5 builds in the “meta”. They just change that list on metabattle based on whichever team won that last big tourney… otherwise Hammer Medi Guard would have still been under “Great Builds”. All the “Great Builds” are potentially “Meta” builds.