Guild Wars 2

How is it soloing HoT content? For the most part I’m having a lot of issues staying alive I was curious if the balance would be strong? Was curious before I dropped a ton of gold and laurels getting the gear

If you really need more survivability for open world, why not just go Defense and take double endure pain? That way you can keep the berserker gear and have good damage in addition to high self regeneration. You won’t die with this setup, trust me.

Celestial gear is simply a waste of money. It will give you unnecessary stats and reduce your damage significantly.

Celestial is great if you’re semi-frequently swapping between builds, or testing builds… which is why I have it and use it.

For a static build you always use, if there’s a couple stats you wouldn’t use in the celestial gear, then it’s not worth the celestial gear.

That being said, when I’m geared in my ascended celestial, I do just fine tromping around HoT solo. Solo PvE play is my preferred mode. A hybrid build using AH (which you should always use AH no matter what) utilizes all the stats from celestial pretty effectively.

edit: Celestial is definitely so costly as to not be a decision made lightly. I spent many months debating whether or not it’d be worth the investment. I’m happy with my decision, but I’m also happy that I took all that time to decide.

~EW

I have full celestial ascended set for my warrior. No problem in solo pve and it gives pretty good general purpose stats for WvWvW as well, around 3240 armor, 30k+ health, with all the usual wvwvw buffs + food (not including keep/tower buffs).

Celestial is not optimal for any of the above, but it gives very good sustain if you use a build where healing power + condi + direct power is not wasted. E.g. take 4 shouts, heal a LOT. Longbow and sword both are good hybrid weapon choices.

You do not have to go FULL celestial. Grab a few trinkets, done.
These are easy and do not cost “a ton of gold” if you play their respective content for purchasing them.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ascended_trinket

I think it’s 5 of 7 stats being used and celestial is an efficient choice.

So I was thinking and generally I’d say +200 toughness/vita is a good boost to survivability in HoT for a warrior. Other classes I’d say closer to +300 toughness/vita and people who cry about getting wrecked or 1 shotted would enjoy the game a little more.

To get ~ +200 t/v with celestial, 2 rings & 2 earrings.
-214 toughness and 214 vita
-642 offensive stats in power/precision/ferocity

Just going a couple p/v/t trinkets it took 1 ring & 2 earrings. I will add in a berserker ring’s stats for direct comparison of these 4 trinket slots.
-233 toughness and 233 vita
-642 offensive stats (yes exactly on the nose, just creepy)

Conclusion
In a setup aiming for ~ +200 v/t :
-Celestial gives 214 more condition dmg/healing power.
-Pvt trinkets gives 19 more toughness/vita.

Made a set of light, medium and heavy Ascended celestial and glad I did.
Each new class of character I make is much easier to do, having access to solid defense and then swapping out pieces as my abilities with each new class progresses.

Oddly, with Celestial, I never felt a real need for the level of defense that Adrenal Health gives in addition, and have found the discipline line more helpful than defense in PvE Hot or core Tyria. Some things in HoT are so overpowered or unavoidable that your just gonna die whatever your using…