Q:
(edited by Kitty La Boom Boom.4065)
Celestial gear?
The truly honest answer is that no one knows for sure and we can only speculate about the usefulness of gear types. There really is no right answer anyone on this board can offer you.
If you just want the opinions of people, then I can offer mine at least. In PvE as we know it in the current game right now, there is no incentive for any stats other than Berserker or Sinister, so I’m assuming the only reason you would not choose one of those two combinations is for the added survivability for the expected needing of that survivability for raids.
And in that regard, I would definitely put Celestial stats as the next best set of gear after Berserker and Sinister. Simply due to the fact that Celestial has the overall greatest number of added stats (total number of stats ascended celestial gear adds is 4473 as compared to 3302 of any other stat combination), it is by far the most efficient stat combination when trading additional power for additional survivability. Even if you discount the value of healing power (as people sometimes do for some reason) and considered it as literally worthless, celestial still gives about 500 more stat points than other sets. Condition damage is easily utilized with Dhuumfire, which is optimal to take anyway as you will overkill on critical chance otherwise.
I only boost Celestial up so much because almost everyone who is not planning on running zerker/sinister is touting Valkyrie as the new go-to set, with the argument that taking two traits will max out your crit chance and so after that, it’s best to take an additional defensive line, because there’s no more meaningful way to boost their damage.
What they fail to realize is that taking Death Perception forgoes Dhuumfire, and they either fail to account for this opportunity cost, or they fail realize just how powerful Dhuumfire is. With 0 condition damage and 25 might/vuln stacks (which is easily reached in reaper shroud) and reaper shroud 1 spam with onslaught, you can maintain 5-6 stacks of burning indefinitely, resulting in about 1500-1700 extra damage per second. And so if you are looking to maximize damage, it makes no sense to take Valkyrie with Death Perception because (1) your Gravediggers will not hit as strong as often and (2) you lose Dhuumfire. And so Berserkers w/ Dhuumfire >>> Valkyrie damage.
Then the only rationale is that Valkyrie is an optimal tradeoff of damage for additional survivability, which is clearly also false because Celestial exists as a clear winner in terms of total stat points and usage of every stat point (because you can efficiently utilize condition damage with Dhuumfire) even if the usefulness of healing power is discounted (meaning, you don’t value healing power). You could point out that vitality synergizes well with with life force, because more vitality increases your life force pool, therefore increasing the “life” you have while in Death Shroud. This should be a “duh” thing instead of a feature of vitality; vitality is the stat that increases your life pool, whether its a round red orb or a green bar. That argument literally works with every single stat – “Death Shroud benefits from toughness because additional toughness increases your toughness in Death Shroud!”, “Death Shroud benefits from power because additional power increases your damage in Death Shroud!”, etc. The other thing is that life force decreases and increases at a percentage rate, so the total is largely irrelevant for how long you can stay in it. More vitality will allow you to stay in Death Shroud longer due to a larger life force bar, but so will toughness because toughness will decrease the damage you take… Therefore there is no special synergy between Death Shroud/Reaper Shroud and vitality that other stats don’t also have.
I would even go as far to say that Celestial + Dhuumfire outdamages Valkyrie + Death Perception, but I don’t have right math to back it up right now. But just a feeling either way.
tl;dr: No one knows for sure, so it’s a waste of time asking until the game is released. If you value maximizing damage above all, your best bet right now is Berserkers. If you want some more defense, definitely Celestial with Dhuumfire. Valkyrie is entirely overrated.
(edited by chunx.9521)
I’m one of those that actually appreciates Healing Power. I always have Blood slotted for support and survivability, and RS 4 seems to be even more effective than DS 4.
I also love to set things on fire, so Dhuumfire is also always slotted.
What I’m looking for is gear that will serve me well, regardless of what type of build I feel like playing on any given day.
Burning down mobs is fun, but so is rushing into the middle of melee to provide an AoE heal, or quickly rez downed players.
It’s also a blast to run around with my own little Army of Darkness, lol.
I’m one of those that actually appreciates Healing Power. I always have Blood slotted for support and survivability, and RS 4 seems to be even more effective than DS 4.
I also love to set things on fire, so Dhuumfire is also always slotted.What I’m looking for is gear that will serve me well, regardless of what type of build I feel like playing on any given day.
Burning down mobs is fun, but so is rushing into the middle of melee to provide an AoE heal, or quickly rez downed players.
It’s also a blast to run around with my own little Army of Darkness, lol.
While I do want to emphasize again that no one knows for sure what is coming, and that if content continues as it has right now full offense is the best, if there is ever a need for survivability, celestial would be my number one choice and it sounds like you’re pretty set on it as well.
Probably should start charging those quartz crystals every day then. If I remember correct it takes a month of time gated materials to craft a full set of celestial.
Celestial is not that good for PvE. Death Shroud likes vitality and healing. Death Magic likes toughness so the more you have with DM, the better it works.
The problem with Celestial-Divinity is that a lot of stat’s do not scale well. The difference between having zero and a thousand is not that great because base values for most stats are already pretty good. Celestial lies between pretty good at base and very good at maxed out. However, when you factor in specializations like Soul Reaping, Death Magic, or others you get more benefit by maxing stat’s they synergize with than going with a generalist approach to stats.
celestial gear generally sucks unless it is for PvP and only because of the signet build. Better to stick with one thing that focus on multiple.
The problem being that we don’t know how pve in HOT works, tho I could see celestial become a thing assuming pure damage meta gets gutted -looking at how one of the raid boss only takes condition damage- given that necro condition output isn’t exactly the best around, I was thinking that maybe a hybrid would work well so that I would not be useless in such a suituatin that require different damage types. I Was thinking crafting a set of celestial with runes of elementalist for my necro, if HOT looks to be demanding a such a gear set up type, then I’m most for sure going to craft the set.
Life blast should hit twice and have its damage halfed
If Rocket Charge is only 2 leaps then it should look like 2 leaps
True Shot should be cast on the move
If Rocket Charge is only 2 leaps then it should look like 2 leaps
True Shot should be cast on the move
I ran full celestial on my Necro main ever since the stat set came out. On the plus side, it works with all trait lines and most builds. I very, very rarely ever die. (only addressing PvE here, BTW.)
The downside is that you don’t kill things too quickly.
Most stat sets trade power vs. condi or offence vs. Defense. Celestial trades great at one thing off in favour of “good enough” at everything.
For Reaper I’m keeping about half of my Celestial. My rings are now Sinister and then I’m using enough Rampager’s to get my crit chance to 60% because my GS will have Strength and Torment runes (both proc on crit). I’m also going with Curses for Chilling Darkness (Nightfall and Well of Darkness benefit) which also adds in a bleed on crit.
The half celestial ensures I have some Ferocity to benefit the grits while also having Toughness and Vitality for melee.