Guild Wars 2

So looking at early traits, explosives are looking very power oriented except maybe bombkit 2/3 and shrapnel trait.

Whereas firearms is shifting closer to condi.

Aswell, this;

The amulets will be rebalanced to compensate for the loss of stats originally gained from trait lines.

This is probably as good of a place as any to mention that we’ll also be using this opportunity to rebalance PvP’s celestial amulet to be slightly less effective. We’re probably looking at a 10%~ decrease in overall stats, but this number can change as we draw closer to releasing the core specialization changes.

discuss…

At the moment the celesital gear gives a bonus of 3500 total.
A “three stats gear” gives a total ammount of 2577.

When celestial get`s a 10% nerf, it will still be 3150 — so a lot more than the 3 stat one.
(In pvp the total numbers are a bit lower, but the thing itself remains the same)

So a celestal hybrid would not disappear totaly, and it would not change the difference in the sum of all stats too much.
I think a little nerf to celestial would be worth a try, because I guess it shoult be like: specialise on a job = 3 stat, be versatile = cele.
At the moment a whole celestial gear is versatile, AND you can specialise slightly by runes and traits, which is a huge advantage over the 3 stat one.
I play celestial most of the time, and I realy love the flexibility which is so kitten nice on the engineer. But I see that the possibility to outrun a specialised one by rune and traids is definitly existing right now.
However anet, please don`t nerf it too much since it`s such an awesome stat combi for the engineer ^^

Since we lose the 300 power in explosions with the new trait system, the cele engi is not going to be as high damage as it used to be.

my thought exactly… we only get around 70 power to compensate when the baselines are upped to 1000… amulets are getting more stats however with cele having them spead out, it’ll be watered dwn in the power department…

Not really, if you look into how easy it is to get x% dmg increase in the explosives line.
10% baseline + additional 10% (or even +15% / +20%) when the target has vuln, which is almost always the case when going into explosives, + the amount of vulnerability-stacks itself are really awesome dmg modifiers, all on the natural trait-way that you’d pick with nades.

If you run a condi-hybrid build, you’ll want napalm specialist + ICP, so you take target the maimed on the way as well – even more vulnerability from precise sights + infused precision. Then you also pick up the rifle trait on the way, which most likely gets a 10%-20% modifier to its critical chance.

If you ask me, power-hybrid builds are definitively still as capable as before, and with all the TBD on the way, we still could get some sweet surprises out of the Alchemy- or Inventions-line.

I do really hope so! I love hybrid damage and would be gutted if builds got horseshoed into power or condi or useless.

looking at it so far, we can stack tonnes of %dmg increases with grenades but to get a burn outside of runes requires 6 in firearms leaving only one more specialization.

This loses out on either speed outside combat, stunbreak reacharge @ 25%hp etc from tools Or vigor + ststain or protection inj’ etc…

FWIW, someone did some math on Reddit about this:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/33txr5/cele_amulet_will_receive_a_10_overall_stat_nerf/cqoe1gx

I took a good read at it. Slightly lowering power while upping the condi and precision a bit is a decent trade off. I have been meaning to go for a celestial who leans a bit on the condition side.

Remember you can mix and match stats on gear! I’m currently running around with zerker armor and celestial trinkets, which I feel gives me a good balance.

cele rifle is a power build that uses IP and cele amulet because theyre really strong. it just happens that a lot of the things it can do also come with a damaging condition, but those skills all scale equally well or better with pure power too. the cele rifle playstyle is going to be preserved through the changes, but maybe it wont be hybrid because hybrid stats wont be as good and IP is moving. it isnt really gonna just end.

If you look at the currently previewed specialization changes though, the engineer is getting a mad influx of blast finishers.. which means more might stacking and water blasting potential. If anything, this could also lead to the engi being even stronger with the celestial amulet (And we’re the best at utilizing its stats atm imo).

Compared to the Warrior or Elementalist, the Engi was never as reliant on might stacks to have offensive pressure when running Celestial. How this will play out, I have no idea. But when Water Staff Eles could self blast x2/3 times a water field to tank everything, Evasive Arcana was promptly nerfed~