Guild Wars 2

What are your thoughts on the ascended Celestial trinkets versus something more conventional on a bunker D/D such as PVT?

Its better to get celestial armor and use the trinkets for something else. You can get some serious dps with it too.

Gotta agree with him there. I’ve tried both ways, You end up with better stats overall with celestial armor and use your accessories to fill in what you’re missing rather than the other way around. use one of those build editor thingies first to mix stuff up till you’re satisfied with your stats before you go through the trouble of getting that stuff though. it’s expensive and time consuming.

I did the math. From memory, Celestial armor gives 130-145% more stat points than other armors.

Celestial trinkets give 108-110% more.

There is no comparison.

abiyde.5064:

I did the math. From memory, Celestial armor gives 130-145% more stat points than other armors.

Celestial trinkets give 108-110% more.

There is no comparison.

If only i knew that back then. Arrggh!

I’d vote for not using celestial stats at all. To me, it’s complete garbage. As an example (with made-up numbers); having 100 toughness, 70 power and 70 precision will make you survive more and do more damage than if you had 42 power, 42 toughness, 42 vitality, 42 healing power, 42 precision, 42 condition damage and 1% crit-dmg. You can take any ele-build (actually any build of any class) and do the maths, and you’ll see that with celestial stats, your damage and your survivability will drop drastically compared to more focused stats. A mix of knights and zerker, or knights, valk and zerker, or full pvt or full knights or whatever… everything will give you better results for what you’ve built than celestial.

Of course; if you feel like doing a little bit of damage while being able to take a little bit of damage instead of doing some decent damage and being able to take a decent amount of damage – feel free to use celestial stats.

^actually you’re wrong. I used to use soldier daggers, knights armor, and cavalier trinkets. I mixed in some celestial stuff and noticed a significant increase in my damage. It’s just a matter of finding which pieces to use depending on what kind of build you’re making.

I run celestial amulet, 2 cav rings, 2 celestial accessories. I did like many go full celestial trinkets so I have the rings but I don’t use them anymore.

Some celestial is ok in the end really for a D/D ele it all comes down to Might stacks/fury.

As far as damage a PVT and celestial are similar until you add in might stacks. I am sure you kind find the math and topics out there just google Celestial vs Soldier for example.

It might not be in a ele forum but you can get the main idea from them.

I use celestial trinkets because there’s no kitten way I’m grinding out multiple sets of ascended jewelry. Armor is a mix of ascended and Knights. I prefer it over full knights for D/D personally, from a WvW, push-with-the-tank-group standpoint. I also prefer it when running solo/small groups.

I dislike neglecting condi damage completely on D/D especially. I’m not sure why so many people do that. Anyways, different strokes for different folks and all that but just thought I’d add that anecdotal evidence.

abiyde.5064:

I did the math. From memory, Celestial armor gives 130-145% more stat points than other armors.

Celestial trinkets give 108-110% more.

There is no comparison.

This is nowhere near accurate. If you do calculations with a fixed stat point value for crit damage like 8, trinkets and armor are both around 30% better than non-celestial counterparts. Armor is slightly better (~1.3x) while “earrings” are the worst (~1.27x) if I remember correctly.

Jabberwock.9014:

abiyde.5064:

I did the math. From memory, Celestial armor gives 130-145% more stat points than other armors.

Celestial trinkets give 108-110% more.

There is no comparison.

This is nowhere near accurate. If you do calculations with a fixed stat point value for crit damage like 8, trinkets and armor are both around 30% better than non-celestial counterparts. Armor is slightly better (~1.3x) while “earrings” are the worst (~1.27x) if I remember correctly.

You are right that my original post wasn’t accurate. I was working from memory like you were.

However, my conclusions are correct regardless of how you calculate.

If you give crit a value equal to the number of points lost to buy crit on Beserker gear as I did, then the range for armour is 1.39-1.54 (times the number of points that you get for equipping Celestial). Accessories (amulet, ring, accessories and back) are 1.21-1.29. Weapons are 1.19.

If you use your method of assigning crit a value of 8 points, which is about what it costs for all accessories but nowhere near what it costs for crit in armour and weapons, then armour is 1.24-1.35. Accessories are 1.18-.123. Weapons are 1.18.

So it is closer, but armour is better than accessories regardless of how you calculate it.

A few other conclusions for those trying to mix gear.

-If you want crit, get it in your accessories first unless you want to mix in Celestial gear.

-If you are adding Celestial gear, get it in your Chest and Legs first. Helmet depends on whether you use the first method (where it is the best bang for buck) or the second (where it is the worst among armour).

-If you want to maximize crit damage you want
Helm: Celestial
Boots/Gloves/Shoulders: Any crit armour
Coat: Celestial
Leg: Any crit armour
Amulet: Non-Celestial crit armour
Ring: Non-Celestial crit armour
Accessory: Non-Celestial crit armour
Back: Non-Celestial crit armour
Weapon: Celestial

-Here is how many skill points it costs to buy crit (ignoring Celestial)
Helm/Leg: 16 skill points per crit point
Coat: 14.4 skill points per crit point
2-H Weapon: 13.4 skill points per crit point
Boots/Gloves/Shoulders: 12 skill points per crit point
Amulet: 9.45 skill points per crit point
Accessory: 8.57 skill points per crit point
Ring: 8.5 skill points per crit point
Back: 7 skill points per crit point

What you do with this information depends on what you are trying to accomplish.

Sorry for not properly communicating this in the first place. I didn’t care to spend much time on the original post.

For my d/d elementalist I use Ascended Beserker’s Amulet and Cavalier’s rings, earrings and back piece. Expensive, but for Armor I use divinity runes, Celestial chest and leggings / PVT for the rest. With a friendly 0 25 0 15 0 30. But you can use a 0 20 0 20 30 before December nerf. But the new game play after December I guess supports a condtion ele tank meta, which is why you have a con remover in fire tree minor and a nerf in arcane. Dire, cough cough is the key now.

abiyde.5064:

Jabberwock.9014:

abiyde.5064:

I did the math. From memory, Celestial armor gives 130-145% more stat points than other armors.

Celestial trinkets give 108-110% more.

There is no comparison.

This is nowhere near accurate. If you do calculations with a fixed stat point value for crit damage like 8, trinkets and armor are both around 30% better than non-celestial counterparts. Armor is slightly better (~1.3x) while “earrings” are the worst (~1.27x) if I remember correctly.

You are right that my original post wasn’t accurate. I was working from memory like you were.

However, my conclusions are correct regardless of how you calculate.

If you give crit a value equal to the number of points lost to buy crit on Beserker gear as I did, then the range for armour is 1.39-1.54 (times the number of points that you get for equipping Celestial). Accessories (amulet, ring, accessories and back) are 1.21-1.29. Weapons are 1.19.

If you use your method of assigning crit a value of 8 points, which is about what it costs for all accessories but nowhere near what it costs for crit in armour and weapons, then armour is 1.24-1.35. Accessories are 1.18-.123. Weapons are 1.18.

So it is closer, but armour is better than accessories regardless of how you calculate it.

A few other conclusions for those trying to mix gear.

-If you want crit, get it in your accessories first unless you want to mix in Celestial gear.

-If you are adding Celestial gear, get it in your Chest and Legs first. Helmet depends on whether you use the first method (where it is the best bang for buck) or the second (where it is the worst among armour).

-If you want to maximize crit damage you want
Helm: Celestial
Boots/Gloves/Shoulders: Any crit armour
Coat: Celestial
Leg: Any crit armour
Amulet: Non-Celestial crit armour
Ring: Non-Celestial crit armour
Accessory: Non-Celestial crit armour
Back: Non-Celestial crit armour
Weapon: Celestial

-Here is how many skill points it costs to buy crit (ignoring Celestial)
Helm/Leg: 16 skill points per crit point
Coat: 14.4 skill points per crit point
2-H Weapon: 13.4 skill points per crit point
Boots/Gloves/Shoulders: 12 skill points per crit point
Amulet: 9.45 skill points per crit point
Accessory: 8.57 skill points per crit point
Ring: 8.5 skill points per crit point
Back: 7 skill points per crit point

What you do with this information depends on what you are trying to accomplish.

Sorry for not properly communicating this in the first place. I didn’t care to spend much time on the original post.

Of course comparing celestial armor to zerker armor makes celestial armor look really good. This is because zerker armor is really bad. That’s why I use 8 for the amount of stat points crit damage is worth, because that is about what you get with zerker trinkets, which are good. I then compare to the total stat points of normal armor (nothing with crit damage). I never contested the claim that celestial armor is better than trinkets (it is), but it really isn’t a very significant difference as you claimed.

So…If I were interested in making a set as versatile as possible using Celestial gear, it’s better to use Celestial armor and then slot whatever trinkets I want, than the other way around (Celestial trinkets, other armor)?

I’m approaching 80 and want to know how best to gear up for damage with survivability (corpses deal 0 dps).

Seras.5702:

So…If I were interested in making a set as versatile as possible using Celestial gear, it’s better to use Celestial armor and then slot whatever trinkets I want, than the other way around (Celestial trinkets, other armor)?

I’m approaching 80 and want to know how best to gear up for damage with survivability (corpses deal 0 dps).

Mm not really celestial is all about the stats you value. If you value healing power, condition damage, vitality, toughness as much as the offensive stats then that is when you slot celestial.

Like example you have 2000 power and 30% crit chance and say 300 healing power from 30 in water but YOU want more healing power but don’t want to give up to much damage then you would slot in celestial to get to say 400 if that was your goal.

If you think a little bit of condition damage is important in your build then you would slot celestial in there instead of taking 1 piece of armor and making it carrion or rabid or dire.

That’s really how you should look at celestial stats.

Look at these 2 builds
Celestial
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/elementalist/?1.0|8.5j.h2.8.5j.0.0.0.0|0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0|1j.7r.1j.7r.1j.7r.1j.7r.1j.7r.1j.7r|211.0.211.d13.311.d17.211.d1d.311.d19.2v.d13|0.a0.0.u150.u56b|15.1|1n.1u.1v.1s.28|e

Zerker
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/elementalist/?1.0|8.1g.h2.8.1g.0.0.0.0|0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0|1g.7r.1g.7r.1g.7r.1g.7r.1g.7r.1g.7r|2s.0.2s.d13.3s.d17.2s.d1d.3s.d19.2v.d13|0.a0.0.u150.u56b|15.1|1n.1u.1v.1s.28|e

That’s full offensive armor and trinkets vs celestial armor and trinkets. This should give you a idea on how it looks compared to. Both of them will be squishy. So will the healing power from celestial really make up the difference or is the vitality that will keep you alive longer there and the toughness compared to zerker. Is the celestial setups condition damage really going to keep up with zerker(obviously no).

Thats how you should look at celestial imo look at a specific stat on celestial and think of what you would slot in it’s place that is specialized and see if it REALLY will be a difference in damage, survivability.

I started off with all celestial gear, then adjusted based on my playstyle. Once I was comfortable with the more defensive utilities and abilities, I began swapping out pieces for more offensive gear. I still have a bit of work to do, but I think my armor set is done, just working on trinkets now.

Point is, all that crit damage isn’t going to do you any good if you can’t survive. start off tanky, then build into an offensive set as you figure out how much you can take.

Seems like I need to start at one end of the spectrum or the other and then work my way toward the other until I’m satisfied. Either 100% Zerker and then pepper in Celestial or 100% Celestial and then pepper in Zerker until I’m happy with the seasoning. I was hoping for a cost-effective method where I don’t have to buy more than 6 armor pieces and 5 trinkets.

I think I’m going to start with 100% rare Zerker stuff and start working in some Celestial exotics from there. Once I hit the survivability sweet spot, I can sub the rare Zerker for exotics for more punch.

Which pieces should I sub Zerk → Celestial 1st? The big ones like chest, head, & amulet or the small ones like boots and gloves?

Seras.5702:

Seems like I need to start at one end of the spectrum or the other and then work my way toward the other until I’m satisfied. Either 100% Zerker and then pepper in Celestial or 100% Celestial and then pepper in Zerker until I’m happy with the seasoning. I was hoping for a cost-effective method where I don’t have to buy more than 6 armor pieces and 5 trinkets.

I think I’m going to start with 100% rare Zerker stuff and start working in some Celestial exotics from there. Once I hit the survivability sweet spot, I can sub the rare Zerker for exotics for more punch.

Which pieces should I sub Zerk -> Celestial 1st? The big ones like chest, head, & amulet or the small ones like boots and gloves?

I wouldn’t go full zerk many people start learning with Soldier’s armor, whatever trinkets you like tbh, boon duration. Then start adjusting from there.

IIRC I started with 3 soldiers pieces on helm, soldiers, boot knights on coat and legs, I think my trinkets where knights/ruby jewels with 1 jewel beryl, daggers where knights.

So if you have the badges you can just get them all with WvW badges, I think soldiers armor you can get for karma from one of the temples but not sure.

Brigg.3961:

I started off with all celestial gear, then adjusted based on my playstyle. Once I was comfortable with the more defensive utilities and abilities, I began swapping out pieces for more offensive gear. I still have a bit of work to do, but I think my armor set is done, just working on trinkets now.

Point is, all that crit damage isn’t going to do you any good if you can’t survive. start off tanky, then build into an offensive set as you figure out how much you can take.

I disagree with this method. Not only does it teach you bad habits (rely on armor and not learn to dodge and survive when you are wearing your end armor) but it’s a haphazard way to do it and you waste money getting gear you don’t need.

In my opinion one should gear with a specific build concept in mind, and then learn to play that build’s playstyle. If it’s a fail, or you find out that you don’t like that style, then you find another build and/or another set of armor.

Of course, if your concept is to create a powerful “I have super stats” well-rounded build then by all means go all celestial, divinity runes. I will not be doing that just yet, though, as I prefer to specialize.

Here are the posts I typed up on a similar thread about celestial:

Anierna.6918:

WvW, use different sets of gear based on how you want to play. The only real req is this: stack enough toughness so a burst thief won’t insta-kill you, and a hammer war won’t kill you after the first stun.

After you reach that toughness threshold, you can go: 1) survivability; 2) condi dmg; 3) direct dmg. I recommend the last one via knights/cavaliers. You will never match a guard/war in survivability, or a necro in condis, so don’t even try. Ele’s got good burst, so take advantage of that.

Anierna.6918:

Forget “total stat points,” which factors in useless/almost useless stuff like condi-dmg. What you want is a mix of knights/cavaliers. Why? So you can hit the toughness threshold, above which a burst thief won’t kill you the moment you see him.

As an ele, you’ve got enough condi-removal that the toughness-threshold is what matters in the first 10 secs of a fight, not how much health you have, so spec into toughness rather than vitality.

The other thing that matters in those first 10 secs is how much damage YOU can do, so spec into power/prec/crit dmg. THAT is why you use knights/cavaliers, since both have toughness & power, plus either prec or crit dmg, so you can create a mix of them which optimizes your damage output. Your own damage matters so much because, if you don’t burst your enemy to death ASAP, you’re doomed. A war will out-survive you (healing sig and stuns are OP); a necro will out-survive you (fear’s OP); a thief will out-survive you (stealth’s OP). And of course, even the professions without obviously-broken mechanics will probably still out-survive you, so your only hope is to kill them at the very start of an engagement.