Guild Wars 2

Trying to gear myself correctly for WvW. Celestial gear takes to long to get and i dont have that kind of time.

Im in full knights right now, rings/access knights with celestial ammy. Im collecting a set of P/v/t gear but with the new content the temples are never open. Is there any other options for eles? Mixing Valk/Knights/Berserker? I just feel with less than 1,600 toughness however I die way to fast.

knight’s gear with soldier daggers and a mixture of celestial and cavalier jewelry works fine.

I like having PVT armor but with knights for head and chest. Beserker trinkets. A solder dagger and knight dagger.

High vitality, toughness, precision, and power.

Thanks for the replies. Do you find that under 1600 toughness you just melt? I try to go for near that. Divinity runes or 2 water/monk/divinity?

GitzZz.7345:

Thanks for the replies. Do you find that under 1600 toughness you just melt? I try to go for near that. Divinity runes or 2 water/monk/divinity?

It all depends on what weapon you use. For Staff I use Celesital but Zerk can work. For D/D I run a mix of Zerk+Knights with some PTV so I don’t melt instantly. I can do decent damage with about 16.5k HP and 2700 armor. Runes I just run all divinity. If you can’t afford 6 then 2 monk and 2 water can work. Ruby/beryl Orbs are good if you want more damage.

Divinity runes are the ticket ehh so $$$$ haha. I take it people use the 2/water/monk to synergize with sigil of battle allowing you to retain those stacks due to longer boon duration?

GitzZz.7345:

Divinity runes are the ticket ehh so $$$$ haha. I take it people use the 2/water/monk to synergize with sigil of battle allowing you to retain those stacks due to longer boon duration?

For cantrip builds, yeah. You can opt for major runes of water for a little more boon duration or superior runes of melandru to stack with lemongrass food for -50% condition duration.

Celestial gear is pretty bad for an ele.

covenn.7165:

Celestial gear is pretty bad for an ele.

I wouldn’t say that. Elementalists and engineers benefit from the celestials because all stats are usefuk. It’s a kitten to farm for, though.

Azunai.5974:

covenn.7165:

Celestial gear is pretty bad for an ele.

I wouldn’t say that. Elementalists and engineers benefit from the celestials because all stats are usefuk. It’s a kitten to farm for, though.

I’m going to strongly disagree on this point, not on the basis that celestial gear is bad for eles numerically, but that the current state of the game is not friendly towards celestial eles.

Elementalists would benefit far more if they could really capitalize on the condition damage. Unfortunately with a condi meta and the lack of condition variety compared to other professions, the math just can’t add up the way you want it to; eles can’t keep up with all the condi remove that’s become pretty standard nowadays. A higher investment in power is not only cheaper right now, but will probably be more effective for quite a while in terms of stats gained vs damage output.

Leuca.5732:

Azunai.5974:

covenn.7165:

Celestial gear is pretty bad for an ele.

I wouldn’t say that. Elementalists and engineers benefit from the celestials because all stats are usefuk. It’s a kitten to farm for, though.

I’m going to strongly disagree on this point, not on the basis that celestial gear is bad for eles numerically, but that the current state of the game is not friendly towards celestial eles.

Elementalists would benefit far more if they could really capitalize on the condition damage. Unfortunately with a condi meta and the lack of condition variety compared to other professions, the math just can’t add up the way you want it to; eles can’t keep up with all the condi remove that’s become pretty standard nowadays. A higher investment in power is not only cheaper right now, but will probably be more effective for quite a while in terms of stats gained vs damage output.

Ffff, don’t use any of that fancy logic on me!

Azunai.5974:

Ffff, don’t use any of that fancy logic on me!

I dunno, I keep seeing all these eles talk about celestial gear, but you’re never gonna see that burning last very long against anybody with condition removal; it’s pretty much the only threat you present in terms of conditions; our only other condition of note (unless you are playing scepter or staff condi, which is pretty subpar) is chill, which does no damage. If you manage to land a churning earth, that is really the only time that extra condi damage will pay off.

Glad I found this I’ve been wondering the same thing since there’s no way I’m ever going to get Celestial/Divinity stuff.

I don’t want to hijack your thread but perhaps it could be stated as what stats we should be aiming for. Me personally I play a Staff Ele in WvW so what stats should I be aiming for: i.e. Toughness =, Power =, etc.

I just personally find it hilarious to go full or nearly full zerk gears with regular traits. Staff, daggers, scepter, and focus, just go crazy.

After a lot of calculating and reasoning, I found that celestial and pvt would deal roughly equal damage (which makes sense, given that they fulfill the same role). However, on D/D celestial will be slightly better because it has more conditions. On staff, pvt wins because of the unpredictable nature of eruption, and not enough condition damage skills otherwise.

But they’re pretty close really…maybe when magic find gets removed, and celestial gets a compensation buff, it could come out on top.

ThiBash.5634:

After a lot of calculating and reasoning, I found that celestial and pvt would deal roughly equal damage (which makes sense, given that they fulfill the same role). However, on D/D celestial will be slightly better because it has more conditions. On staff, pvt wins because of the unpredictable nature of eruption, and not enough condition damage skills otherwise.

But they’re pretty close really…maybe when magic find gets removed, and celestial gets a compensation buff, it could come out on top.

Celestial stats assume that your condition damage will be left to tick off, but eles have very little to cover burning.

If you do the calculations on power damage for an all-celestials build and all-soldiers build, you will find that celestials deal way more power-damage (b/c of all that crit and precision).

The figure of merit is: (weapon damage + power) * crit% * (1.5+critDmg) where crit% is that expected with fury. Also it is 1.5+critDmg because a critical chance is normally 150% of a regular hit. If you plug in the numbers (assuming 80% fury uptime, or + 16% crit chance) on a 0/0/20/20/30 build. :

Celestials w/ 0 might: 2775
Celestials w/ 10 might: 3168
Soldiers w/ 0 might: 1563
Soldiers w/ 10 might: 1741

To put it in a ratio, the power damage with celestials is: 1.775 that of soldiers. Now, soldier’s will have more toughness, and w/ celestials you might want to take a couple toughness trinkets, but you will still far-outpace a soldiers build, with added healing and condi-damage to boot.

BlackBeard.2873:

If you do the calculations on power damage for an all-celestials build and all-soldiers build, you will find that celestials deal way more power-damage (b/c of all that crit and precision).

The figure of merit is: (weapon damage + power) * crit% * (1.5+critDmg) where crit% is that expected with fury. If you plug in the numbers (assuming 80% fury uptime, or + 16% crit chance) on a 0/0/20/20/30 build. Also it is 1.5+critDmg because a critical chance is normally 150% of a regular hit:

Celestials w/ 0 might: 2775
Celestials w/ 10 might: 3168
Soldiers w/ 0 might: 1563
Soldiers w/ 10 might: 1741

To put it in a ratio, the power damage with celestials is: 1.775 that of soldiers. Now, soldier’s will have more toughness, and w/ celestials you might want to take a couple toughness trinkets, but you will still far-outpace a soldiers build, with added healing and condi-damage to boot.

Pure soldier stats have long been outdated; plenty of people are running a combination of knight, berserker, soldier, valkyrie, etc. stats and getting respectable crit chance/damage without burning points on condition damage that has nothing to cover it.

If celestial gets boon duration, which im hoping it will, that will probably be the best ele gear to get. We pretty much HAVE to take boon duration runes for most builds since we need to have all those boons just to be at the baseline effectiveness of what other classes are without boons since we have such crappy stats. I’d definitely go for celestial if it got that since it would open up a lot more possibilities with different runes.

BlackBeard.2873:

The figure of merit is: (weapon damage + power) * crit% * (1.5+critDmg) where crit% is that expected with fury.

It’s:
weapon damage * power * skill_coeff / target’s_armour

where power should be averaged to:
power * (1 + crit_chance * (0.5 + crit_dmg)) * dmg_modifiers.

Just please don’t link gw2wiki. Someone edited it recently and it’s incorrect.

haviz.1340:

where power should be averaged to:
power * (1 + crit_chance * (0.5 + crit_dmg)) * dmg_modifiers.

Thanks for pointing this discrepancy out, I was unaware the wiki was wrong. Updated values:

Celestials w/ 0 might: 2218
Celestials w/ 10 might: 2722
Soldiers w/ 0 might: 2343
Soldiers w/ 10 might: 2728

This shows that soldier’s is actually expected to be a slightly better offensive performer direct-damage wise than celestials, with a lot more toughess/vitality to boot. It looks like celestial is inferior unless you realy want more healing power and condi damage. Of course your best bet is still a mix of gear.

BlackBeard.2873:

Of course your best bet is still a mix of gear.

A mix of gear, yes. However, an ele’s inability to reliably stack conditions on targets with even modest removal ability should pretty much remove condition damage from your factoring unless you do nothing but regular PvE.

So basically, what I wrote earlier turned out to be true after all.

Leuca.5732:

BlackBeard.2873:

Of course your best bet is still a mix of gear.

A mix of gear, yes. However, an ele’s inability to reliably stack conditions on targets with even modest removal ability should pretty much remove condition damage from your factoring unless you do nothing but regular PvE.

True, but damage can also be reduced through weakness and/or protection, which are usually left out of the calculations as well.

ThiBash.5634:

True, but damage can also be reduced through weakness and/or protection, which are usually left out of the calculations as well.

Eles have moderate ability to stack vulnerability and very high ability to stack might; they have innate ways to deal with these forms of damage reduction.

I am fully geared in Celestial , with celestial/ascended jewelry as well as a celestial Bifrost, superior sigil of fire/full set of scholar runes

Specced Full Air 0/30/0/20/20

I generally run with my guild in WvW (SG on JQ) milage may vary based on play style but I have high burst and decent survivability with this build and the ability to switch roles from support, to offensive, to team to 1v1 or 1vX pretty easily.

I don’t think you need to go with a standard build, or optimize against build/weapon type to understand the utility of the celestial gear, I’ve switched my traits up a number of times to try different builds out.

What I concluded is this: The beauty of celestial gear is that you are not locked into a gear set, celestial optimizes to your build no matter your role or how you play or weapon set.

For me this realization validated the time investment for gearing out in celestial.

and justified my investment in like 8k of the crystals when they were cheap