Guild Wars 2

When I run dungeons on my Guardian, I tend to pug more than I run with guildies, so I use Knight’s armour in my otherwise full-zerker set, just to be able to withstand the occasional stuff-up from running with a disorganised group.

I’ve always been aware though, that for Guardians, Vitality is mathematically a far better defensive stat to invest in than Toughness, because of our high base armour relative to our health. But I couldn’t find anything else that gave that defensive bump without sacrificing too much damage.

Enter Celestial armour: while at first glance I never seriously considered it, the more I thought about it the more it seemed like it could work. So I ran it through Buildcraft and found that it gives both higher Effective Health and Effective Power; the extra Vitality more than makes up for the lost Toughness (because of our heavy armour), and the extra Crit. Damage adds more than we lose with the relatively lower Power.

“But wait!” you say, “the loss of Toughness reduces our Sustained Health!” Not so: Celestial gear also grants Healing Power (+140 for a set of armour, +205 for trinkets, +80 for weapons).

Also, it adds Condi Damage. Ok, so even fully decked out in Celestial gear it would only add 106 burning DPS, but hey, free DPS is free DPS.

And if that wasn’t enough, free Magic Find to top it all off (18% armour, 30% trinkets, 6% weapons).

TL;DR: If you are a Guardian, Celestial > Knight’s.

I can believe this rather than the typical celestial > berserker

Good post

How about if we go with celestial on trinkets and weapons too? Would that be viable?

I was also thinking about switching my ARMOR from knights —> celestials. But thats because crit dmg is very nicely itemized into the new celestial armor (hello 6% crit dmg on chestpiece) and you end up gaining more than you lose DPS wise from the switch.

Trinkets are definitely staying zerker though. 8 crit dmg on ring and 9 on ammy is way too good to pass up

But buildcraft isnt updated with the new celestial gear, is it?

celestial > knight it’s right… but the real question is:
do you really need to use a full set of knight?
I think you can get better stats from mixing soldier and berserker…
the only problem is the crit damage which is pretty high with celestial set but again the question is:
can you really use your “great” crit damage?
The answer is: no, you cant.
Basically for the lower crit chance which make your crits very hard even with fury (you still need 50%+ crit chance to get a viable quantity of crits, without fury) and even if you do a crit damage you still get a low damage due to the low power.

remember that:
1% crit damage = 29 EP
1 power = 2.5 EP

• 1% crit damage = 11.6 power

the difference of power in a full celestial build is huge

I was going to make a post about how it just won’t work. Then I realized there isn’t any point.
Without linking your build I can’t compare

1. Ok, follow this link:
   http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.3|c.1g.h8.d.1g.h1b|9.1a.hz.e.1a.h15|1n.71g.1n.71g.1n.71h.1n.71h.1n.79.1n.79|1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1g.67|a2.u2ab.0.k28.a1|39.1|v.1a.18.19.g|e
2. Note the stats (especially Effective Power and Effective Health).
3. Now, to simulate swapping Knight’s armour for Celestial armour, enter the following into the manual stats page:
   power: -84,
   precision: -84,
   toughness: -175,
   critical damage: 19,
   vitality: 140,
   healing power: 140,
   condition damage: 140,
   magic find: 19
4. Compare new stats with old.
5. ???
6. Profit.

Don’t people just go full glass for PvE anyway?

Kjeldoran with staff and 10% crit dmg I land crits enough commonly to have perma-vigor from 15 points in honor trait

@Christos de Soufre good luck with running full-glass in some areas
There are situations where my friend guardian who is more dps concentrated but he is away from being full glass would die without my help (support bunker guardian):)

Christos de Soufre.3802:

Don’t people just go full glass for PvE anyway?

Not really. The ones who have some clue what they are doing tend to mix in some knights pieces with the zerker to provide an optimal performance in any kind of PvE.

The ones who go full glass are the ones i am rezzing all the time or who are complaining they are getting kicked out of CoF1 for warriors.

It really depends on your traits and other gear, but I agree that if you are already around 3k toughness and 2k power swapping some pieces of knight’s for celestial is probably an overall win.

Guardians really don’t need high Toughness to benefit, simply because of the huge disparity they have between base armour and health. The build I linked has 1231 Toughness and even that gets a survivability buff from Celestial.

Only thing toughness is good for in pugs is gaining aggro

Gearing toughness in the hope of reducing incoming damage is a silly concept as you’ll attract more hits your way

Vit all the way unless you want the aggro

DargorV.8571:

Only thing toughness is good for in pugs is gaining aggro

Gearing toughness in the hope of reducing incoming damage is a silly concept as you’ll attract more hits your way

Vit all the way unless you want the aggro

Thats why I stack to 3000 armour, I WANT that aggro, I can keep myself 100% w/o vit from AH/EM. Not only do I no longer have to chase the mob, I can just facetank it in place, leaving 4 people to smash their dps.

My stat is 3000 armour, 3000 atk, 45% crit, 75% crit dmg (unbuffed)

Clerics > all

Junkpile.7439:

Clerics > all

Not if you want to kill anything.

fishergrip.4082:

Junkpile.7439:

Clerics > all

Not if you want to kill anything.

They will eventually kill themselves out of sheer boredom.

sticking with knight’s, not enough benefit from celestial.

also the magic find % will be removed anyways.

Charak.9761:

also the magic find % will be removed anyways.

And compensated for. It anything the removal of mf will make celestials more interesting.

knights armor with ascended celestial trinkets and weapons <3 tough but can heal good. and do consistent damge. :p With your defensive weapons as knights too whereas offensive weapon as celestial.

Brutaly.6257:

Charak.9761:

also the magic find % will be removed anyways.

And compensated for. It anything the removal of mf will make celestials more interesting.

Exactly. The idea floating around is either boon duration, or bonus stats added. Either one is fine since we benefit from both.

The MF in there was really what killed celestial because you were wasting stat points on an attribute which was borderline worthless. So even though you had like 10% more stats compared to regular prefixes, once you factored MF out, you were in fact gaining LESS.

Actually, I’ve found that toughness is king personally. Our entire class is built on it. We have high sustained healing, which means all we need to do is slow down the damage that’s coming in to compliment that. Adding more HP makes no sense in that equation except if you’re taking massive condition damage. However, condition damage is mostly prevented due to the ability to shed conditions easily.

I’ve never understood why people think VIT means anything for a Guardian.

Vit lets take you big hits and condition dmg
Toughness lets you shed light but rapid hits.

What this means is that vit helps you survive burst while toughness helps you tank trash mobs better. In addition since protection flat out reduces dmg by 33%, it pretty much multiplies your health and +vit items by 1.33. What this means is that the more you stack vit, the better it becomes with protection.

You might have noticed but most deaths come from spike dmg, very rarely will you see a party wipe due to condition pressure, especially now that people run PoV + soldier runes. More often than not someone will get 1 shot by the archdiviner or the shaman during enrage. Also once you hit lvl 40+ fractals, you start seeing lvl 83 mobs which quite frankly cannot be tanked. Some of them are quite bursty, like the humanoid mobs in cliffside fractals who can 3-4 shot even guardians. Taking on one of those guys with 3.5k armor and 13k health is much harder than 2500 armor and 20k Health assuming protection is up

Last but not least, Valor already gives you 300 armor for “free” as well as another 150 by strength in numbers. Therefore its even easier now to hit the soft cap of 3k armor.

PS: Math gurus, please don’t hurt me. Im only approximating.

Lord Trejgon.2809:

Kjeldoran with staff and 10% crit dmg I land crits enough commonly to have perma-vigor from 15 points in honor trait

sorry but “perma vigor” due to crits isn’t a dimostration of crit damage nor crit chance.
1) you always use aoe so you get multiple it… which mean that also with 10% hit chance you have a 100% crit chance over 10mobs with 1# spam
2) i said also “crit damage will be very low”…

Hunter.4783:

Vit lets take you big hits and condition dmg
Toughness lets you shed light but rapid hits.

Also once you hit lvl 40+ fractals, you start seeing lvl 83 mobs which quite frankly cannot be tanked.

Would Toughness not take those big hits…and make them smaller hits? As long as you have effective condition removal, condition damage really isn’t an issue either. Also…those big hits should be dodged or blocked anyhow.

However, perhaps you’re right, my group’s just been farming fractal 36 for a while now, I guess I’ll see post 40.

what about celestial for an AH build?

In most cases in this game balance is ideal. If you really want a Vit build that’s fine. But don’t just ignore toughness. Because what you did right there, is just made a build weakness. When you find proper balance in what you want. That’s how you make builds people follow. Think of it as a scale and look at say Vit and Toughness as a split. Then start to test the split going 70% 30% for example until the ideal numbers you get are there. You can also easily tell if the idea is fail too.

Kjeldoran.3849:

Lord Trejgon.2809:

Kjeldoran with staff and 10% crit dmg I land crits enough commonly to have perma-vigor from 15 points in honor trait

sorry but “perma vigor” due to crits isn’t a dimostration of crit damage nor crit chance.
1) you always use aoe so you get multiple it… which mean that also with 10% hit chance you have a 100% crit chance over 10mobs with 1# spam
2) i said also “crit damage will be very low”…

It’s demonstration of how often I crit
btw. all the AoE that can crits is capped to 5 targets
I don’t need crits to anything more actually – I’m a bunker and I need crits to have my vigor up.

but after some playing thoughts etc. (actually undergroud fractal at lvl 18 with that icy boss at the end) I think I need to little boost up my crit chance – in fight with sigle enemy It’s more difficult to have my vigor up
but I have no idea how to make that without swaping all the things….

Swap all the things. Bunker gear is useless in PvE anyway.

/facepalm

Here we go again….Since when was knights gear bunker?

Hi guys.

I just tested in the editor. My current build is full zerker weapons/armor and full knight tinkets (I know, should be the oposite!). So I tested in the editor the effectiveness of using celestial tinkets instead.

My current build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNAR7elYgqCnFyLEm4ERWBRipAjw/6hDlIDB-jEyAYLBZySgoCwJvioxWZLiGreBTdSEV7PKiWNA-w

1st I tested full celestial:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNAR7elYgqCnFyLEm4ERWBRipAAA46hDBADB-jkyAYLBZySgoCwJvioxWZLiGruPy6FMVLguNpe+ioVDA-w

Then I tested just the slot of my knights to be celestial:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNAR7elYgqCnFyLEm4ERWBRipAjw/6hDlIDB-jEyAYLBZySgoCwJvioxWZLiGreBTdSEV75LiWNA-w

Aftermath I realize there is no big difference between Full knight Vs knight/celestial tinkets. They are about the same, both DPS and Tank.

Now Full Celestial Vs Knight with Celestial:

In full celestial tinkets I lose:
- 90 of power;
- 178 of armor.

But I get:
- 1500 HP;
- a really tiny critcal damage coefficient (1.4216 compared to 1.4095 – but consider that I will lose power);
- 150 of healing power (18,75 with regeneration per second, considering that all other heals scales awfully, or not scales at all);
- and 150 of cond dmg (37.5 of DPS with burning.)

For me it is worthless becouse HP, healing power and condition damage does nothing for me, I would lose more than get something. Celestial for me is still worthless and will be worse when they remove the magic find.

@CptAurelian tell it to all that guardians that died in the middleway to orr because “bunker is useless in PvE”
and tell it all that ppl that survive because of me nearby
also I’m PvE/WvW player and I use same build all the way because swaping build back and forth is not thing I like to

@Hunter and tell when I told I run knights?
I don’t
thing about bunker was to me when I said that I’m wondering how to little boost crit chance without swapping all the gear

@EDIT: Mikau when they’ll remove magic find they will compensate this in all gear that have it – so celestial can be more worthy then

Frankly I think Knight’s gear is highly overrated. That being said, I’d speculate that it’s probably on par with celestial. My issue with Celestial is the wasted stat points into condition damage—the points simply add nothing to most builds.

If you do value vitality over toughness, have you tried working with Valkyrie? Yeah you lost precision, but you could do a mix and match.

Kilandros.2098:

Frankly I think Knight’s gear is highly overrated. That being said, I’d speculate that it’s probably on par with celestial. My issue with Celestial is the wasted stat points into condition damage—the points simply add nothing to most builds.

If you do value vitality over toughness, have you tried working with Valkyrie? Yeah you lost precision, but you could do a mix and match.

No matter You want or do not You are still passivelly burning every fifth atack
so that point into condi dmg isn’t such great waste

For the poster that says HP, healing power and condition damage does nothing. I would like to point out the following:

1. HP is the only thing that protects you from condition dam. Given the recent buff of Necros, and our frequent access to protection, trading toughness with HP and healing power is not a bad choice.

2. healing power scales very well with dodge heal. We also often have vigor.

3. If you run a build that can stack might, then trading some power with crit dam might not a bad choice since crit dam will also increase the power comes from might.

4. Conditional dam ignores armor. Although I would have to agree that Condition dam on Guardian is not very valued, but it does helps a little.

Lord Trejgon.2809:

Kilandros.2098:

Frankly I think Knight’s gear is highly overrated. That being said, I’d speculate that it’s probably on par with celestial. My issue with Celestial is the wasted stat points into condition damage—the points simply add nothing to most builds.

If you do value vitality over toughness, have you tried working with Valkyrie? Yeah you lost precision, but you could do a mix and match.

No matter You want or do not You are still passivelly burning every fifth atack
so that point into condi dmg isn’t such great waste

My point wasn’t that it’s an absolute waste, but that those points are far more valuable going into stats other than condition damage.

Hunter.4783:

/facepalm

Here we go again….Since when was knights gear bunker?

/double facepalm

It was pretty obvious that he did not talk about Knight, otherwise he wouldn’t have to worry about crit chance against single enemies.

Lord Trejgon.2809:

@CptAurelian tell it to all that guardians that died in the middleway to orr because “bunker is useless in PvE”
and tell it all that ppl that survive because of me nearby
also I’m PvE/WvW player and I use same build all the way because swaping build back and forth is not thing I like to

Utterly bad players are hardly an argument for the value of ominous bunker gear. By the way, what is it exactly? Clerics, which is at least partially usable? Or even junk like Soldier/Sentinel?

Kilandros.2098:

My point wasn’t that it’s an absolute waste, but that those points are far more valuable going into stats other than condition damage.

I agree. However when I compare the gear I usually ignore the stats I don’t think is useful. In this case MF and condition dam.

For a normal piece of chest armor it contains 245 total stats or 173 stats and 5 crit dam. For celestials it contains 45 × 5 = 225 stats and 6 crit dam (assume you remove conditional dam and mf).

If you run a build that can use all these stats (which only a few class can) then you are getting 52 stats and 1 crit dam for free compare to zerker, and trading 20 stats with 6 crit dam for other chest pieces.

The real question is whether these stats are more or less equally useful in your build. I would say for AH, this might not be the case, since healing scales badly with AH. But mixing and matching might be ok. Even then you will likely not notice huge difference between these two unless in certain situations. Personally switching from zerker rings to celestials rings makes a huge difference in solo survival while doing slightly less dam.

CptAurellian.9537:

Swap all the things. Bunker gear is useless in PvE anyway.

CptAurellian.9537:

Hunter.4783:

/facepalm

Here we go again….Since when was knights gear bunker?

/double facepalm

It was pretty obvious that he did not talk about Knight, otherwise he wouldn’t have to worry about crit chance against single enemies.

Lord Trejgon.2809:

@CptAurelian tell it to all that guardians that died in the middleway to orr because “bunker is useless in PvE”
and tell it all that ppl that survive because of me nearby
also I’m PvE/WvW player and I use same build all the way because swaping build back and forth is not thing I like to

Utterly bad players are hardly an argument for the value of ominous bunker gear. By the way, what is it exactly? Clerics, which is at least partially usable? Or even junk like Soldier/Sentinel?

mine?
on armor that was magi…
and tha trinkets actually I wanted to skip exotic part and go staright to the ascended and I have clerics amulet clerics ring and some similar accesory and back item…
but now I aslo swapped my build n traits a little so I’m no longer specing straight into bunker/support.