Guild Wars 2

So I read another thread that wants Celestial removed.

Currently there are three classes who are celestial users in the meta.

If you look at the other classes they primarily run burst builds. Mediguard, power ranger, power necro, shatter mesmer, and thief. You can aslo add in fresh air ele. I’m leaving out condition builds as they’re more niche roles and primarily adequate in 1v1s when played well.

All of the burst builds are polarized. The objective on these builds is to kill people before they can kill you. Pretty straighforward.

Whereas when you are playing shoutbow, cele ele, and rifle engie you have two objectives.

1) Fight for points on point.
2) Help out your mates when they’re in trouble in ways burst builds cannot.

A very good cele dd ele saves his or her heals for their team when they’re engaged in team fights. Good engineers will peel and heal. Same with shoutbows. Burst builds are more selfish in nature. Thieves and mesmers have a little bit more value over the other burst classes, as they can take care of themselves a little bit better by disengaging when things are hot and heavy, and go for decaps or reset.

If you remove celestial amulet, people would revert back to bunker guardian and hambow. Whether you like bunker guardian or celestial ele is just a preference and has nothing to do with actual balance. But the added danger is that turret engineers would become an even bigger nuisance they are currently.

As far as actual balance goes…

There’s just one question. What do you prefer? 1) RNG factors of burst builds or 2) Some passives like IP and sustain?

I find neither of these to be preferable over the other. I main rifle engie but also play almost every build aside from shoutbow and power ranger when I just want to have fun and not tryhard. So I do understand both sides of the argument.

My only opinion about the current meta is that there’s one class that needs to be worked on to bring them in line with shoutbow, celestial ele and engie. That would be guardian. Currently they are underperformers in team support builds, and that shouldn’t really be the case. Anet should look at bringing Guardians on par with the three celestial users.

You complain about the meta, but at the end of the day if you nerf one thing, other things pop up. And after three months or so you will just complain about that too. I personally think the current meta is better than bunker meta. I didn’t play much in the zerk meta in spvp to know what that was all about. It could be fun, but the population of thieves would explode.

tl;dr

Real balance will never come because what most people think of “balance” is just player preferences.

ever heard of trade off?

because celestials don’t really have it atm

Personally I think the classes are balanced. If you know how to build your character and get to fight the way you intended, you have a good chance of “winning” encounters.

Anyone has a chance against anyone if you consider the scenario from the stage where you set up your characters skills.

Where things aren’t balanced are when classes combine and work together. If you have people working with you and choose to take advantage of that, the outcome of any match is heavily weighted in your favor. Its difficult for those of us that just que up to jump into pvp by ourselves and why burst builds are usually most effective for those “selfish” players.

1v1, I don’t see serious balancing issues.

Good post but people need to understand conquest’s main purpose is not fighting it’s assault,capture and decap. Whatever becomes meta there may not be active fight based that goes to TDM. Also since you don’t know what you will fight next and what your team will use and not everyone runs exact meta so a fair encounter is never possible.

Balance is an illusion here it’s either viable or not.

TBH the hammer medi guard is already part support.

Cynz.9437:

ever heard of trade off?

because celestials don’t really have it atm

There already is a trade off for using celestial amulet. You are trading in your ability to super bunker it up or go full #yolo with builds for something that offers a bit of both. SD engie with mines can instashrek a lot of things. But it isn’t a healthy build to play. I don’t play engie because it is OP btw, I play it because I find the style more fun than warrior (what I started out as).

I also do not believe a team game mode should be balanced about 1v1 match ups. When I’m playing a burst class, I’m perfectly fine with having match ups that aren’t coin flips determined by player skill. That’s how all MMOs I have ever played works (been playing mmos for over a decade). I believe currently 3/8 classes bridging the gap of support and damage is fine, but would be even better if Anet could bring guardians into the fold and have it 4/8.

I believe most mesmers, thieves, rangers, and necros are happy with the damage they do, and don’t think about running balanced builds. Admittedly those classes do not have much options available to them to do that in a conquest game mode.

When you have cele builds running in game it kind of ruins Conquest. You have a bunch of roamers looking to 1v1. That’s why you see players on mini map everywhere but points.

Bring back the bunkers, it makes fighting on points a lot more fun. Nowadays you have quick cap, run to next point. Nobody cares about holding position.

I personally put my engi on the shelf and elected to run a bunker guard, just to give my team mates a chance to defend from rangers and condi builds. It gets very old, very quickly, and reminds me more of a TDM style game than actual Conquest.

People go to Metabattle and just pick the 1st build for Conquest at the top. 3 of those builds use Cele and the other two Zerkers…ALL ARE DPS BUILDS with ‘light’ support. You think those builds didn’t become ‘Meta’ because they are a bit OP?

When gear isn’t a factor people will look for any unbalance to give them an advantage.

lighter.2708:

TBH the hammer medi guard is already part support.

Yeah to a point. But it still isn’t on par with the celestial builds.

Would rather have bunkers that deal no damage than bunkers that deal a lot of damage and are super mobile between points! Just sayin!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

Celestial just brings too much. Amulet should be completely removed from the PvP. It would freshen up the competitive scene too.

Royal.2693:

Celestial just brings too much. Amulet should be completely removed from the PvP. It would freshen up the competitive scene too.

Ele is naturally celestial that would be an insult. Again you are not here to roam, have duels and measure skills. It’s conquest you assault,cap and decap that’s why bruiser/bunker are important and usually come in 3’s while the other 2 are mobility or condi/power burst, if you want to be competitive you play to win you play the mode it’s the only ranked mode so of course players will choose what works best there and the devs balanced around it.

Pointless thread no offense to the OP ofc. The only balance people ever see is their 1vs1 match up ,as long as they win their 1vs1 nothing else really matter…how else would you explain complain threads about every single profession? the hatred some people feel towards a specific class?

It’s simple..they lose their 1sv1 and everything crumble, game it’s unbalanced for them and what did beat them , should be “nerfed” (deleted) from the game.

And here something else to further reinforce my point:
Do people who ask for nerfs ever discuss what should be given in return for a nerf/change?

All people see is this :" Professon X was able to beat me, this profession is faceroll and easy to use, the build is OP and should be deleted "

No matter what you say against..their opinion won’t change, reason why I find these threads useless and aggravating

Sagat.3285:

Royal.2693:

Celestial just brings too much. Amulet should be completely removed from the PvP. It would freshen up the competitive scene too.

Ele is naturally celestial that would be an insult. Again you are not here to roam, have duels and measure skills. It’s conquest you assault,cap and decap that’s why bruiser/bunker are important and usually come in 3’s while the other 2 are mobility or condi/power burst, if you want to be competitive you play to win you play the mode it’s the only ranked mode so of course players will choose what works best there and the devs balanced around it.

No it’s one Ele build, D/D. TBH D/D ele is very weak when compared to what they can do with a staff in terms of team support. But everyone wants to fly around the map looking cool like they are kittening Avatar which is fine, but D/D cele ele is a very selfish build.

Nathaniel.4905:

Sagat.3285:

Royal.2693:

Celestial just brings too much. Amulet should be completely removed from the PvP. It would freshen up the competitive scene too.

Ele is naturally celestial that would be an insult. Again you are not here to roam, have duels and measure skills. It’s conquest you assault,cap and decap that’s why bruiser/bunker are important and usually come in 3’s while the other 2 are mobility or condi/power burst, if you want to be competitive you play to win you play the mode it’s the only ranked mode so of course players will choose what works best there and the devs balanced around it.

No it’s one Ele build, D/D. TBH D/D ele is very weak when compared to what they can do with a staff in terms of team support. But everyone wants to fly around the map looking cool like they are kittening Avatar which is fine, but D/D cele ele is a very selfish build.

D/D ele is not a selfish build when played properly. Can help team mates with condi removal, give them heals, protection, and fury. Most D/D eles beginning and not taking the energy to learn the build can play it very selfishly.

Nathaniel.4905:

Sagat.3285:

Royal.2693:

Celestial just brings too much. Amulet should be completely removed from the PvP. It would freshen up the competitive scene too.

Ele is naturally celestial that would be an insult. Again you are not here to roam, have duels and measure skills. It’s conquest you assault,cap and decap that’s why bruiser/bunker are important and usually come in 3’s while the other 2 are mobility or condi/power burst, if you want to be competitive you play to win you play the mode it’s the only ranked mode so of course players will choose what works best there and the devs balanced around it.

No it’s one Ele build, D/D. TBH D/D ele is very weak when compared to what they can do with a staff in terms of team support. But everyone wants to fly around the map looking cool like they are kittening Avatar which is fine, but D/D cele ele is a very selfish build.

Let me be more specific 3 hybrid support bruisers and 1-2 roamer/ power or condi burst. 3 of them should be able to handle 2v1’s temporarily while doing sustain AoE damage d/d ele fits that. What you are witnessing is the post stage of a trinity game GW2 style, instead of strict roles you minimize the less needed and go hybrid like a tank/healer would spec for more damage once everyone is geared up and has experience.

Obviously thief is the best zerker and roamer while him and mesmer counter other zerkers thief counter mesmer so mesmer gets left out. Now you only need 1 thief 3 celes and a free slot if you are feeling generous for a boon hate/debuff spec like power/condi necro.

Nathaniel.4905:

Sagat.3285:

Royal.2693:

Celestial just brings too much. Amulet should be completely removed from the PvP. It would freshen up the competitive scene too.

Ele is naturally celestial that would be an insult. Again you are not here to roam, have duels and measure skills. It’s conquest you assault,cap and decap that’s why bruiser/bunker are important and usually come in 3’s while the other 2 are mobility or condi/power burst, if you want to be competitive you play to win you play the mode it’s the only ranked mode so of course players will choose what works best there and the devs balanced around it.

No it’s one Ele build, D/D. TBH D/D ele is very weak when compared to what they can do with a staff in terms of team support. But everyone wants to fly around the map looking cool like they are kittening Avatar which is fine, but D/D cele ele is a very selfish build.

What irks me its this blinded hatred for a specific ele build and not the class itself!

And let me guess why : it’s the only build eles have got to compete against every other profession in a 1vs1 scenario without the need for the ele player to MASSIVELY AND EXTENSIVELY OUTPLAY the enemy ( I’ve felt the need to use caps lock to emphasize the scope of the sentence ).

And it’s not the amulet alone, before celestial..the same people were complaining anyway about D/D ele, with the valk amulet…it was deemed OP also.

Always the same thread..always the same people : ArrDess ( engi ), Cynz ( thief ), Jportell( mesmer ), Simon ( warrior), Lordrosicky( necro), MrBig( thief ), Arken (med guardian)…( with other honorable mentions)

If you want to see these people in your thread…just mention two words : Celestial + Elementalist.

The only “balanced” version of elementalist that these people want is : a 1HP-no weapon skills- profession

edit- my list was not complete

Elementalist might just need a rework or some major tweaking. This class doesnt do the most damage yet it has to deal with the lowest base hp combined with the lowest armor. Meaning you need to spec for living ontop of anything else which already throws you into being a bunker to compensate for the classes ability to survive without certain traits and amulets.

I would go as far as to say that i’d prefer more straight-forward roles(dps/bunker/support). Not a huge fan of those that can do a multitude more and in some cases, better than those that focus on a specific role. It brings me back to say Bunker Guardian which was really only good at Support while having somewhat decent sustain, that was it. The trade-offs were a lack of dmg/cc/mobility in favor of mainly support and a bit of sustain.

I main Meditation Guardian and I almost feel like a thief without the ability to disengage. Obviously i’m tankier but that’s not the point. The Berserker meta was something that I considered to be far more skillful than any other iteration of balance we’ve received thereafter. Granted some skills/builds had the ability to literally one-shot you and needed to be looked at. Coordinated burst should be rewarded with a downed-player.

Passive procs and instant-cast skills are problematic (IP, meditations, Overcharged shot to name a few) don’t really provide for much counter-play for the player on the defensive end.

Arken.3725:

I would go as far as to say that i’d prefer more straight-forward roles(dps/bunker/support). Not a huge fan of those that can do a multitude more and in some cases, better than those that focus on a specific role. It brings me back to say Bunker Guardian which was really only good at Support while having somewhat decent sustain, that was it. The trade-offs were a lack of dmg/cc/mobility in favor of mainly support and a bit of sustain.

That won’t happen because we are experienced I used the trinity example just like dungeons were hard at first but random patterns would make it challenging kind of like Fractals but not really. Back to PvP remember you don’t know who you will fight against and with the 5v5 balance also puts a gamble on fair encounters. Celestial has trade-offs but you have to think archetypes those limit every class in some aspect.

Having customization of specs and stats leads to mixed role. Even without it it was never really fixed, you can’t have pure roles and that kind of customization at the same time nothing wrong with it tough. Keep in mind this is conquest and roles are not the same in TDM or upcoming SH.

ArrDee.2573:

Would rather have bunkers that deal no damage than bunkers that deal a lot of damage and are super mobile between points! Just sayin!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

iKeostuKen.2738:

Elementalist might just need a rework or some major tweaking. This class doesnt do the most damage yet it has to deal with the lowest base hp combined with the lowest armor. Meaning you need to spec for living ontop of anything else which already throws you into being a bunker to compensate for the classes ability to survive without certain traits and amulets.

If there is one thing I truly hate about this game is the way elementalist currently are. THeir low damage, low armor and hp is one of the most insane things about this game To me. There is no logic that I see, other than cuz they have a lot of skills.

I hate having to go into water to make a decent survivable build.

ArrDee.2573:

Would rather have bunkers that deal no damage than bunkers that deal a lot of damage and are super mobile between points! Just sayin!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

.

silvermember.8941:

iKeostuKen.2738:

Elementalist might just need a rework or some major tweaking. This class doesnt do the most damage yet it has to deal with the lowest base hp combined with the lowest armor. Meaning you need to spec for living ontop of anything else which already throws you into being a bunker to compensate for the classes ability to survive without certain traits and amulets.

If there is one thing I truly hate about this game is the way elementalist currently are. THeir low damage, low armor and hp is one of the most insane things about this game To me. There is no logic that I see, other than cuz they have a lot of skills.

I hate having to go into water to make a decent survivable build.

Exactly the same way i feel about it. Were to high risk for a medium to low reward for the effort we have to put into the class.

Were also built to gain boons for survivability but some classes have the ability to do more damage to a class that has boons on them. Necro and Warrior ik off the top of my head.

silvermember.8941:

iKeostuKen.2738:

Elementalist might just need a rework or some major tweaking. This class doesnt do the most damage yet it has to deal with the lowest base hp combined with the lowest armor. Meaning you need to spec for living ontop of anything else which already throws you into being a bunker to compensate for the classes ability to survive without certain traits and amulets.

If there is one thing I truly hate about this game is the way elementalist currently are. THeir low damage, low armor and hp is one of the most insane things about this game To me. There is no logic that I see, other than cuz they have a lot of skills.

I hate having to go into water to make a decent survivable build.

So you have to put points in a defensive trait line to play a defensive build? Don’t see what’s wrong with it.

Teru.2063:

silvermember.8941:

iKeostuKen.2738:

Elementalist might just need a rework or some major tweaking. This class doesnt do the most damage yet it has to deal with the lowest base hp combined with the lowest armor. Meaning you need to spec for living ontop of anything else which already throws you into being a bunker to compensate for the classes ability to survive without certain traits and amulets.

If there is one thing I truly hate about this game is the way elementalist currently are. THeir low damage, low armor and hp is one of the most insane things about this game To me. There is no logic that I see, other than cuz they have a lot of skills.

I hate having to go into water to make a decent survivable build.

So you have to put points in a defensive trait line to play a defensive build? Don’t see what’s wrong with it.

I think some people are actually misunderstanding this. Technically, the current meta doesn’t have Ele’s spend more than 2 points into their defensive tree. The other two are support and class respectively.

Teru.2063:

silvermember.8941:

iKeostuKen.2738:

Elementalist might just need a rework or some major tweaking. This class doesnt do the most damage yet it has to deal with the lowest base hp combined with the lowest armor. Meaning you need to spec for living ontop of anything else which already throws you into being a bunker to compensate for the classes ability to survive without certain traits and amulets.

If there is one thing I truly hate about this game is the way elementalist currently are. THeir low damage, low armor and hp is one of the most insane things about this game To me. There is no logic that I see, other than cuz they have a lot of skills.

I hate having to go into water to make a decent survivable build.

So you have to put points in a defensive trait line to play a defensive build? Don’t see what’s wrong with it.

They have to be taken for mostly every build or risk getting bursted down in 1-3 hits. Yes, they can be 1 shotted.

I’m sorry but those who disagree with OP seem to forget one thing: GW2 is designed to be different from other MMORPGS. That’ why there is no gear grind, no holy trinity, no raids and similar skill balances in pve and pvp. Stop trying to change GW2 into other MMORPGs because you can go play those, but leave GW2 niche players alone.

That said, celestial amulet has done more goods than harm. Now all zerker classes, especially thieves and mesmers, cannot just go ham on bunker classes. Every fight requires knowing class mechanics and specific skills as well as map awareness. Instead of bunkering a node while using stunbreakers, stability, and providing ckittenil someone goes down in mid and banner/spirit rez comes out, now its all about dodging the crucial CCs, countering professions, and engaging in small skirmishes.

The old meta was almost as same as mini wvw zerg. One person from each team caps home, rest go mid, 4v4 fight in mid until someone goes down, gets bannered/ rezzed, fight continues until someone gets defeated, then the team decides if they should send a thief to decap far or stay in 4v3 fight and cap mid. This all promoted zerging and heavy cc over individual skills. People who were good at 1v1, and 2v2 were swepted in zergfest.

Also the classes/builds were very limited, more so than current meta. It was hambow/bunker guard/spirit ranger/thief/mesmer. The other classes/builds had no room to actually influence a huge change in meta unlike celestial. Elementalists were totally out of competition, and few played s/f, but it mostly ended in gimmicks. Medi guards were outshined by bunkers and guardians were forever put in “good places” which meant no dps. Condi engies existed but with condi removal capacity of bunker guard and 4v4 fights in mid they were hardly effective. Necros still existed in terms of power and condi but lack of stun breaks, self-sustain, and survivalbility made it very hard to play.

Current meta includes almost all classes maybe except for rangers in high level competition, but at low and medium rangers could replace memsers. Mesmers, already with high risk and high reward situation, are now evolving from shatter mesmer to lockdown. Thieves still remain strong as they are in d/p and s/d but now their positioning/engaging in teamfights holds more value than ever since fights are 2v2s and 3v3s, with rotations. Guardians have changed from bunker to DPS, and no one has ever thought that hammer+meditation would go well, but now it is part of meta, at least in EU. Elementalists now have 1 build that can actually be used in conquest with help of celestial, warriors changed to shoutbow which replaced bunker guardian but with more team fight capabilities/condi removal and healing for teams, engineers changed to to cele rifle in order to provide the bruiser/assaulter role. A good necro can now change the course of fight.

Celestial meta emphasizes proper rotation, counter comps, and individual skills as well as small team fights. Every outcome of fight depends on players’ skills, and instead of killing celestials, removing them from nodes and decapping is already half of a victory since the conquest gameplay is more about holding nodes and getting points instead of killing players in 1v1.

Again, if you don’t like the way GW2 does not have holy trinity, then move on and find other MMORPGs that do have holy trinity. GW2 is known for its unique combat and game designs, and celestial meta reflects exactly that. Learn to rotate, watch the minimaps, and counter comp when you assault nodes.

The current meta is actually more varied than any past meta, but there are still frustrating aspects.

That being said, any complaints about individual classes is kind of moot at this point, as no major changes are going to be coming until HoT is released. After that, everything will change anyway.

For instance, d/d ele is incredibly strong right now, but it is useless against well-played zerker comps which can easily burst it down. Watch any games when oRNG get a good position, or Abjured play their zerker setup – cele eles and shoutbows just die without doing much. Further, you can look even at the preview they gave of revenants and see it is poised to single-handedly counter any boon-based class very simply. The skill “banish enchantment” will single-handedly crap all over any cele ele build by completely denying any and all access to protection while loading them with confusion and other condis. There is a clear move to make boon-stripping much more common, and I am sure they will introduce a hard-counter to boon-based bruiser builds. My only worry is that they make these hard-counters way too strong and we move into a rock-paper-scissors kind of game. In the end, it will be what it will be, players will play what works, and most of the discussion here won’t really do much to change it.

If you remove cele you pretty much kill ele and hurt warrior a lot. Engi is fine because condi is strong and has much more dps than cele.
The amulet is broken but it’s the only way ele is viable.

From my point of view, I do not know if it’s cele or the capacity of those professions to stack might that is the issue. Remove that capacity to run that much might and they’ll balance out without touching cele amulet itself.

robertul.3679:

If you remove cele you pretty much kill ele and hurt warrior a lot. Engi is fine because condi is strong and has much more dps than cele.
The amulet is broken but it’s the only way ele is viable.

Not really. Only d/d ele would be nerfed. You can still play staff ele (both support and dps), and d/d ele with valkyre amulet. Difference is that then it would actually be balanced instead of being insanely OP burster+tank+support+roamer+duelist like it is now.

OP, I’d give you a cookie if I could, thanks. I agree with you. Balance as it’s understood by most people apparently, it’s wrong.

In my opinion the meta right now is healthier than others (healthier, healing cuz of celes, huehue) but it’s not balanced at all. Not because celestial is OP; I find that balance is hard to achieve in the Conquest Game Mode, not that specs are godkitten strong, but that Conquest makes most of them look godlike.

Anyways, good post.

Quoting Vee Wee is the probably the best way to see how the situation should be handled. Even if you were to have TDM style gameplay, the same specs/amulets would be utilized regardless. None of them are confined to a single point. Every single specialization is incredibly mobile and tanky so anyone actually spouting how balancing around Conquest is difficult makes no sense.