Guild Wars 2

Is there a consensus, or at least some math, on how much celestial is “optimal” for a D/D elementalist in WvW? I’ve been told that full celestial is inferior to mixed celestial, but I’ve never read any sort of justification for this.

Thanks!

Full cele is too little offense (no actual PRESSURE!), and too much defense/healing. Plus the stats are too spread out to make use of the chance you got in wvw to buff damage into ridiculousness.
That was my experience. Take it with a grain of salt, i haven’t tried full cele post-patch. The burning changes might have bumped up the offense considerably.

I remember a while ago some people told me they said shoot for around 125 to 175 points worth of Celestial gear. At the time, it was a decent estimate and it’s still kinda what I shoot for. Going completely full celestial will give you great sustain, but not enough damage output to really do anything over than kite.

A full set of ascended celestial yields you 207 points worth of celestial. I wouldn’t suggest going much higher than that in terms of how much celestial gear you bring to the table.

If you ask about roaming than go full celestial fire/water/arcane with condi food/power utility. D/D or D/F utilize both power and condi damage. You will be able to burn warriors under Endure Pain and rekt people who dance near Ring of Fire. You will be able to regain health after you missed mesmer or thief stealth burst (~10k), your burning will force them go back to stealth.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJAoYhcMoyhFOwzB8RMQAYUT4IEFiCQAIIWrhkYZA-TlTBAB0s/QYKF4SZAf6AGVVF0UCelSkuUS0xJAoS1CKTJEiaBwUFCAeAABAQAuZbGADdoDdoDdoVnD9m38mlC4plRA-w

Still one of the best roaming builds I have seen for Ele. Used by an amazing Ele, went by the name Intigo. It really hits all the breakpoints… Good power, armor, 15k hp, 32% crit chance (so 52% with fury), might stacking through strength rune, etc. I personally switch up a few things, but it’s a good basis to go off of.

Full celestias doesn´t have enough power is the problem. Larger the group you play in is, the more you need power/toughness and less relevant other stats become: Healing from team surpasses vitality and your own sustain, conditions get cleaned so efficiently they lose most of the damage potential.
To break it down further

In large groups you need
-power/toughness, you want to max these, power is the best damage source and toughness the best tool for survival in prolonged combat (which is every bigger engagement) Power is king though, so as much power as you can get while still being able to survive and contribute (if you keep escaping and kiting to survive, you aren´t doing damage)
-vitality only enough to survive the burst untill waterfields and team heals kick in
-healing power scales bad and most of the sustain comes from team anyhow, you do need a bit as ele for when you get focused or separated from team.
-precision/ferocity aren´t a focus. You´ll do better focusing on power because breakpoints where precision or ferocity gives more damage than power are so high, that after the baseline vit/toughness you can´t hit them (also berserker pieces, which you want to use as your power sources, give these anyhow)
-condition damage isn´t relevant, too much aoe condi clear around.

While roaming you can treat is as 1v1 wih time limit, you need to max killing potential while staying alive, so most of the defensive stats from celestial goes to waste, and you´d much rather have higher offensive stats. Long fights will get you killed because there is always more enemies coming, just a matter of time.

Basicly, like people have said, 150-250 points worth of celestial is a sweet spot where you get basic survival efficiently from celestial, and the the damage potential from the rest of the equipment.

I find full celestial to perform very well. The damage is very good if you trait/rune/sigil for might stacking.