Guild Wars 2

Is celestial still the best gear for d/d ele’s? Or is there some other sort of ascended gear to run? I’d just like to know before I go out crafting full ascended :p

its all preference and build. many skilled players can go more dmg vs survivability because they can mitigate dmg with rolls and other stuffs i use zerker valk for trinkets and for armor i use sent because of our bad base hp.

Celestial never was the best gear for ele.
How can something be the best if you haven’t even told us what the purpose for it is?
What kind of build are you running? If ascended armor meant you were going to fotm, full zerker is the best, then again going d/f may be wiser there. If it’s strictly for wvw mixed stats are better.

Celestial pvp necklace is a different story in a specific build yes.

I prefer celestial myself because I like the well-rounded resilience and every ability does what it’s supposed to. e.g. conditions aren’t neglected. And you’re tough enough to not be a free kill to glass cannon thieves and warriors.

Celestial is not the best.

Celestial direct dmg dps<soldier direct dps

min/maxing D/D (for a wvw guildraid vs blop) point of view means.

Full celestial vs Pvt armor, Pvt/zealot´s trinkets = ab bit more dmg for Pvt+zealot´s, but more healpower for a celestial build.

If i don´t need more defense>Pvt/zealot´s is better. If i need more dmg Pvt+berserker is better.
If i rly need the HEALpower + “nearly” the same defensive, celestial is better.

If we are fair……celestial is in 90% of all situations, not needed. Not better. Or even worse.
In about 10% of all situations it can (does not mean “it is”) better or equal.

Btw. celestial condidmg is included, when im writing about celestial vs soldier/mixed dps-

I find it hard to get a clearly superior damage output using soldiers/knights/zerk, while maintaining a certain level of toughness, without giving yourself too much vit. This is because of the lack of choices of high power gear (the kinds that really boosts your direct damage).

PPF (zerker)
PVF (valk)
PVT (soldier)
PPH (zealot)

That’s what you have to choose from. Compared to a celestial/cleric mix, if you mix zerker and soldier and keep your hp at the right level, then you lose toughness. If you then start throwing in knights instead of zerker to counteract that, you damage advantage starts to shrink.

Comparing these two setups:

zerk/soldier/knight: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFEQJAoYhcMKcW5wzBf0APAC5fD3JKQ5qJfC-T1RSwATUGUUPAg9Hqo0jqqFjUCCVNFyAwMGA-w

cleric/celestial: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFEQJAoYhcMKcW5wzBf0APAC5fD3JKQ5qJfC-TVRSwAF1DES53W1fAs/wIlgkBgZMA-w

Assuming 100% fury uptime (pack runes) and 10 stacks of might (easy enough), the z/s/k setup does around 15% more direct damage on average (including crits), while the c/c setup does around 14% more burning and 19% more bleeding damage. The z/s/k has 270 more health, the c/c heals for 20-30% more depending on ability.

Note that if our damage breakdown was half direct and half condition, there would be no overall damage advantage whatsoever. That’s an unrealistic assumption though and the actual ratio is probably going to vary from fight to fight depending on what gets dodged and how much armor and condition removal your opponent has. If say ~25% of your damage comes from burning and bleeding, that puts the damage advantage of z/s/k at around ~12%. The difference gets smaller as might stacks increase as well.

~12% damage vs 20-30% more healing? Doesn’t seem like there’s any one “best” choice. I think with either one your skill as a player will matter far more for how well you do.

This is solely from a wvw perspective of course. If the OP is talking about pve, then most people will definitely recommend a lot more berserker.

I hate when ppl compare celestial to soldiers and only consider the dps potential…

Celestial is a good baseline armor set. It enhances all the inherent abilities of ele, allowing you to specialize with trinkets and traits. I like to have a full celestial set for when I go “full bunker” in my term as I would never go full toughness/vitality set on ele. Celestial is more than enough to survive rough situations with Cantrip + trait aid.

Treat the armor set for what it is, a complementary set. The main reason Ele can actually get away with full celestial is due to the fact it can utilize every single stat efficiently, complementing everything ele does. Complementing, but not excelling.

To answer the OP’s question, the armor set is situational just like everything else, but it can indeed be “the best” in certain situations. If you have money to blow on ascended, I’d recommend it as you’ll be able to pack it around and potentially replace other armor sets with it for convenience. You’ll also gain infusion slots, and 300 extra HP is always nice.

Question: If I were to make an ascended armor set with the intent that it be viable in the widest variety of situations, would celestial be worth it, or something else? Let’s say I wanted to do a lot of dungeons, fractals, and a touch of WvW using this armor on my ele, necro, and mesmer. Would a full celestial armor set (with different trinkets depending on build) work in most situations? Or would some other set be better in all of those situations?

Xenon.4537:

Question: If I were to make an ascended armor set with the intent that it be viable in the widest variety of situations, would celestial be worth it, or something else? Let’s say I wanted to do a lot of dungeons, fractals, and a touch of WvW using this armor on my ele, necro, and mesmer. Would a full celestial armor set (with different trinkets depending on build) work in most situations? Or would some other set be better in all of those situations?

For dungeons, just use an exotic set of berserker’s armor/trinkets and if you really care about min/maxing for this game’s pve content, get ascended zerker weapon’s for pve as the damage increase is actually a bit significant. For WvW though pure celestial can work, but I personally think its damage output is too low.