Guild Wars 2

Hello.
I am an engineer who enjoys PVE open world and dungeon content, and running with either the Zerg or Havoc groups in WvW. My preferred builds are grenadier, elixir infused bombing(love the longevity , especially in dungeons), or the beloved flamethrower-elixir build (Thanks Phineas Poe!).
I feel my play style benefits most from Power and Crit, but Condition Damage, Healing, Toughness, and Vitality also play an important role.
As a fairly casual player, I had crafted 2 pieces of Ascended Celestial armor, but no Ascended weapon yet, and now I am reading about a nerf to Celestial.
Does it make sense to switch my Ascended crafting focus away from Celestial? Is Berserker really the only other fairly effective option?
Thanks for the input.

I’d recommend waiting until after the Crit damage + sigil changes before using up mats/money on crafting any more ascended armor.

It’s a long wait, that’s for sure, but I wouldn’t want to waste a lot of gold only to have to make another set later.

The real benefit of celestial gear is allows you to obtain a massively high crit dmg number, more so than any other gear set up. There are so many aspects of the Engi mechanics that don’t benefit from crit dmg (turrets) or weapon strength, or builds that use 30 pts in Tools, or things that are immune to critical hits, or who knows how kits actually work…

Given the ridiculous cost of exotic celestial and difficulty in crafting Ascended celestial, I would save it for another character class that can truly benefit from high critical damage stat.

I can’t say if it’s right for you, but I went full celestial and I’m happy with the results. Base approx. 2500 armour, 450 condi, 60% crit dmg, 25% crit chance, 2500 attack, 500 heal, 22000 health. It synergies well with the engie’s power/condi setups. With might stacks and trait line specialization, plus fury for the extra 20% crit chance, you still cause a fair bit of pain without trading off too much power and/or survivability with other sets. Only problem with celestial is the charged crystals are time gated, just like the ascended mats. Takes a little longer to complete the set, but once you’re done there’s no real need to add more to your wardrobe.

I went with ascended Celestial myself. Even with the critical damage nerf, I think it’s a completely overpowered armor set if you can make use of both power and condition damage (as well as the healing power) for WvW roaming.

And I do carry a Berserker exotic armor set around for when we’re concerned with speed clearing stuff. But for most everything else, Celestial is quite good if not preferential (i.e., Tequatl/Wurm and high-level FOTM).

I don’t regret my decision making Celestial armor in the slightest, even with the upcoming nerf. For ascended jewelry and weapons, I’d stick with Berseker though.

It’s certainly a good set, but I would hardly call it overpowered. You get a ton of stats, but that crit damage doesn’t come for free.

My own hybrid mix I’m looking at:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqelIqiYH5yuF17IyoCdGoH6VehXfe8WsFEC-jwBBYhBk8AkCBIDtIas1gFRjVJjIqWdDTKAYmDA-e

Full Celestial:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqOGRGVozA9AAAgR8zDAAAgQA-jQBBYjBMRtIas1gFRjVVjIqWlETKAYmDA-e

I went a bit condition heavy, but I could easily drop a bit of that and add in some more power to equal the Celestial build and still have considerably higher condition damage. Don’t get me wrong, Celestial is a good all around build and I don’t think it’s wrong to choose it, but you certainly don’t get everything. As hybrid builds go it leans a lot more towards direct damage than condition. If that’s what you like, go for it. If you want more condition damage, try making your own mix like I did.

It’s overpowered in the sense that you get significantly more stats added into your build than any of the triple-attribute insignias. It’s not the best at maximizing your DPS, but if you make use of each stat (as we do) then it’s just about as ideal an armor set as you’d want for your engineer.

And for the amount of gold invested making an armor set, you better be sure you’re going to be using it a lot.

Thanks everyone for the input! Love the engineer community.

Phineas Poe.3018:

It’s overpowered in the sense that you get significantly more stats added into your build than any of the triple-attribute insignias. It’s not the best at maximizing your DPS, but if you make use of each stat (as we do) then it’s just about as ideal an armor set as you’d want for your engineer.

And for the amount of gold invested making an armor set, you better be sure you’re going to be using it a lot.

You’re right. It is a very flexible set of gear. When making ascended armor as an Engineer, it’s a good choice to make. Going with Rabid/Carrion/Zerker just pigeon holes you if you ever want to change builds which I’m assuming most people do.