Guild Wars 2

Take a look through some of the builds from this weekend’s Euro qualifier. Except for dedicated bunker guards, the majority of specs are running Celestial hybrids with Strength, Hoelbrak, or Pack runes.

During the massive condi meta of summer 2013, players complained that stat combos like Rabid allows players to have too much sustain + damage at the same time. Does the stat distribution of Celestial have a similar damaging effect, by allowing players to obtain significant amounts of direct damage, condi damage, and sustain in a single spec?

As long as thiefs are around, amulet is not a choice.

Go celestial or go downed.

(Ele)

Marcos.3690:

As long as thiefs are around, amulet is not a choice.

Go celestial or go downed.

(Ele)

Could not agree more. +1

Marcos.3690:

As long as thiefs are around, amulet is not a choice.

Go celestial or go downed.

(Ele)

Hrm i play FULL zerker DD (lightning flash, arcane wave, arcane projectile, arcane brilliance) and thiefs are my smallest problem (really rarely meet one i cant beat).

Problem are rather Terrormancers, Warriors (due to their insane invul-uptime + revenge if you down em) and to some extent power guardians. (in that order)
First is rarely played on good maps(i.e. not Skyhammer) , second is a problem hence its a very common encounter, third not that common as an encounter can be extremely annoying though.

Duran.3196:

Marcos.3690:

As long as thiefs are around, amulet is not a choice.

Go celestial or go downed.

(Ele)

Hrm i play FULL zerker DD (lightning flash, arcane wave, arcane projectile, arcane brilliance) and thiefs are my smallest problem (really rarely meet one i cant beat).

Problem are rather Terrormancers, Warriors (due to their insane invul-uptime + revenge if you down em) and to some extent power guardians. (in that order)
First is rarely played on good maps(i.e. not Skyhammer) , second is a problem hence its a very common encounter, third not that common as an encounter can be extremely annoying though.

Although your claims are suspect it doesn’t really matter if you can win ALL 1v1s versus thiefs; they will still down you in a split second and make you a liability in team fights.

Although you can do the same to them, you lack all their mobility and stealth and will thus rarely get the initiative

ens.9854:

Duran.3196:

Marcos.3690:

As long as thiefs are around, amulet is not a choice.

Go celestial or go downed.

(Ele)

Hrm i play FULL zerker DD (lightning flash, arcane wave, arcane projectile, arcane brilliance) and thiefs are my smallest problem (really rarely meet one i cant beat).

Problem are rather Terrormancers, Warriors (due to their insane invul-uptime + revenge if you down em) and to some extent power guardians. (in that order)
First is rarely played on good maps(i.e. not Skyhammer) , second is a problem hence its a very common encounter, third not that common as an encounter can be extremely annoying though.

Although your claims are suspect it doesn’t really matter if you can win ALL 1v1s versus thiefs; they will still down you in a split second and make you a liability in team fights.

Although you can do the same to them, you lack all their mobility and stealth and will thus rarely get the initiative

Thieves are a broken class tbh. At least d/p is. The only reason its such a threat is because it can insanely burst anyone from stealth and constant restealth/reset the fight. S/D is hard to fight but more respectable. d/p is full cheese. It has the same damage as eviscerate with air/fire proc yet eviscerate is a telegraphed animation that can be dodged consistently by a good player while the same is not true about backstab on thieves.

It’s tough to argue against the merits of using celestial builds but not every weapon set suits them. i.e. you probably don’t want to play longbow ranger with celestial as it’s hard to bring the damage up to par as it is. You might also have some wasted investment, for instance, healing power on the hambow spec doesn’t scale much despite having ~700+ on average with celestial.

For the moment, I wouldn’t call them entirely OP since other amulet specs(i.e. berzerker/soldier/rabid) are still the norm. If, however, at some point in the future it’s all you see.. then I’d say it’s time to look at scaling them back a bit.

SkylightMoon.1980:

Thieves are a broken class tbh. At least d/p is. The only reason its such a threat is because it can insanely burst anyone from stealth and constant restealth/reset the fight. S/D is hard to fight but more respectable. d/p is full cheese. It has the same damage as eviscerate with air/fire proc yet eviscerate is a telegraphed animation that can be dodged consistently by a good player while the same is not true about backstab on thieves.

Backstab is easily dodged by good players as well…

mooty.4560:

It’s tough to argue against the merits of using celestial builds but not every weapon set suits them. i.e. you probably don’t want to play longbow ranger with celestial as it’s hard to bring the damage up to par as it is. You might also have some wasted investment, for instance, healing power on the hambow spec doesn’t scale much despite having ~700+ on average with celestial.

For the moment, I wouldn’t call them entirely OP since other amulet specs(i.e. berzerker/soldier/rabid) are still the norm. If, however, at some point in the future it’s all you see.. then I’d say it’s time to look at scaling them back a bit.

You’d be surprised actually, longbow/GS (or S/D) with Read the Wind, Sun Spirit, cele gear, and runes of the pack is a already an absolute bear to deal with 1v1. Once the Longbow is buffed next balance patch, it’s going to be an excellent solo queue spec.

I’d use other amulets if they didn’t seem so underwhelming on paper.

Well I wouldn’t say its OP or not. I would say it is unbalanced.

Lets look at the following numbers.

Celestial amulet gives:3038
Berserker amulet gives:2340
Any other amulet:2208

Celestial amulet gives 27% more stats then a non berserker amulet….

In this case you would look at which stats are use full. For like a necro healing power wont do that much or most thief builds don’t do much condi dmg.

So what happens in this case it’s not worth it. But if you want lets say your whole team on celestial you would have to all use classes which work best for it.

in MY opinion the classes that have most potential from celestial
Ele,
Warrior,
Engi,
Ranger,

By doing this you have 5 times 27% more stats then the enemies.

In numbers(lets say you have 2 zerker 3 other amulets in a normal team):
3×2208=6624
2×2340=4680
total of 11304

Celestial x5= 15190

thats 3886 more, that is almost enough for 2 non zerker/celestial amulets

This looks really unbalanced to me….
In facts your almost fighting a 5v6 based on amulets

This would kind of kick all of the classes that don’t use celestial to full potential in a lower tier in the meta.

Main problem is always thieves.

Seiishizo.7162:

Well I wouldn’t say its OP or not. I would say it is unbalanced.

Lets look at the following numbers.

Celestial amulet gives:3038
Berserker amulet gives:2340
Any other amulet:2208

Celestial amulet gives 27% more stats then a non berserker amulet….

Thanks for this post. It hadn’t ocurred to me that Cele grantes almost a 1/3 more stats than other amulets. That strikes me as really odd, and definitely unbalanced.

celestial is meant to have unbalanced stats because they do not focus on 3 stats but all stats instead.

non celestial stats may have lower overall numbers, but they are more focused.

i.e.
soldier, berzerker, Valkyrie will always have highest stat in power.

it is all working as intended.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

celestial is meant to have unbalanced stats because they do not focus on 3 stats but all stats instead.

non celestial stats may have lower overall numbers, but they are more focused.

i.e.
soldier, berzerker, Valkyrie will always have highest stat in power.

it is all working as intended.

Problem is, runesets like Strength + Hoelbrak allows these hybrid specs to pack nearly as much overall power as a Soldier spec with much more condi damage and as much (or more) defensive potential .

Helly.2597:

SkylightMoon.1980:

Thieves are a broken class tbh. At least d/p is. The only reason its such a threat is because it can insanely burst anyone from stealth and constant restealth/reset the fight. S/D is hard to fight but more respectable. d/p is full cheese. It has the same damage as eviscerate with air/fire proc yet eviscerate is a telegraphed animation that can be dodged consistently by a good player while the same is not true about backstab on thieves.

Backstab is easily dodged by good players as well…

lol no its not, it can’t be consistently dodged, its pure luck or good timing because you know when your opponent will backstab be he predictably does it. even then, you can backstab anytime while you are within the window of stealth which could be over 10 seconds. how is that even remotely similar to the telegraphed animation of eviscerate? its not.

Errant Venture.9371:

Problem is, runesets like Strength + Hoelbrak allows these hybrid specs to pack nearly as much overall power as a Soldier spec with much more condi damage and as much (or more) defensive potential .

If might stacking rune sets and sigils were exclusive to celestial amulets, I would complain about it, but that’s not the case. They also allow power heavy amulets like soldier and berserker to add even more power, etc.

cele isnt op on its own, the runes that facilitate might stacking makes it so. primarily strength and hoelbrak

yes other amulets can also use those runes, but they are missing 1/3 of the total stats of celestial.

I don’t follow this logic. Because you can might stack with celestial that makes it overpowered, even though you can might stack with any amulet?

I think the argument is more like might stacking makes celestial much more viable, not that it makes it overpowered. It’s true that the damage is that much less without might stacks, thus making it a crutch that can be countered, where as berserker spec’d players get even more damage out of might stacking while it’s not entirely necessary.

Errant Venture.9371:

Take a look through some of the builds from this weekend’s Euro qualifier. Except for dedicated bunker guards, the majority of specs are running Celestial hybrids with Strength, Hoelbrak, or Pack runes.

During the massive condi meta of summer 2013, players complained that stat combos like Rabid allows players to have too much sustain + damage at the same time. Does the stat distribution of Celestial have a similar damaging effect, by allowing players to obtain significant amounts of direct damage, condi damage, and sustain in a single spec?

Well, I for one an amazed at the variety of builds you can use for sPvP. So many choices to choose from, especially for the Guardians. LOL

/sarcasm off

It’s really a shame that they worked so hard to provide all these traits, runes, sigils, and amulet combinations simply to have one or two of them used all the time while the others are never looked at. Such great potential going completely unused.

/sigh

Celestial is balanced
It’s rune effects that make it imbalanced

Perhaps they need a system that filters which runes can be used with certain amulets
Such as in GW1, some armor runes were class specific only
Only a Warrior, could use runes that increased knockdown time

Hello frands! Vee Wee here, #1 Engi NA and world first rank 80!

Celestial is fine! It’s the classes that need to be worked on! Basically every class that runs Celestial Amulet also has insane amount of sustain, damage, and conditions all in one! A popular build that runs Celestial is the Eviscerate Warrior! They stack a 327532978 radius fire field that you can’t escape out of, blast it 20 times for permanent max stacks of might, put permanent burning on you (which is like one of the strongest conditions), place a debuff that gives you 5 freakin torment stacks that you can’t remove, and then capable of a huge burst attack! It’s just inthane in the membrane all of the power and condi damage that it has! Not only that but Celestial works best with might stacking and the classes that use Celestial the most are amazing might stackers! Nerf the might stacks and everything will be fine!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

SkylightMoon.1980:

ens.9854:

Duran.3196:

Marcos.3690:

As long as thiefs are around, amulet is not a choice.

Go celestial or go downed.

(Ele)

Hrm i play FULL zerker DD (lightning flash, arcane wave, arcane projectile, arcane brilliance) and thiefs are my smallest problem (really rarely meet one i cant beat).

Problem are rather Terrormancers, Warriors (due to their insane invul-uptime + revenge if you down em) and to some extent power guardians. (in that order)
First is rarely played on good maps(i.e. not Skyhammer) , second is a problem hence its a very common encounter, third not that common as an encounter can be extremely annoying though.

Although your claims are suspect it doesn’t really matter if you can win ALL 1v1s versus thiefs; they will still down you in a split second and make you a liability in team fights.

Although you can do the same to them, you lack all their mobility and stealth and will thus rarely get the initiative

Thieves are a broken class tbh. At least d/p is. The only reason its such a threat is because it can insanely burst anyone from stealth and constant restealth/reset the fight. S/D is hard to fight but more respectable. d/p is full cheese. It has the same damage as eviscerate with air/fire proc yet eviscerate is a telegraphed animation that can be dodged consistently by a good player while the same is not true about backstab on thieves.

I am very curious as this insane burst you are talking about? In WvW it is something, but in sPvP I rarely see any stabs higher than 5k.

As for celestial gear: I think it is fine. Strength runes are the problem…

Strength runes aren’t a problem at all anymore. Many people don’t even run them, but run hoelbrak, pirate or pack instead.

Celestial is overpowered, for sure.

Strangely though, without the overbuffed Celestial stats, Bunker Elementalist would probably quickly fall out of the meta due to its very low base stats.

Regardless, I do believe Celestial needs to be nerfed. It helps tanky builds do too much damage, which is pretty unbalanced.

Maybe a little. Not a lot, but a little.

It seems like the problem is mostly based in how much it benefits from boons.

problem is more like alot abilitys or trait procs give free condis too

there are spells in game which spam like 5-6 condis for free on you even when he dont tried

or look on all this mesmers^^ – even shatter mesmer spam condis on you

they would be stupid when not use celestial for free extra dmg

reduce the spammy things ingame before

ArrDee.2573:

Hello frands! Vee Wee here, #1 Engi NA and world first rank 80!

Celestial is fine! It’s the classes that need to be worked on! Basically every class that runs Celestial Amulet also has insane amount of sustain, damage, and conditions all in one! A popular build that runs Celestial is the Eviscerate Warrior! They stack a 327532978 radius fire field that you can’t escape out of, blast it 20 times for permanent max stacks of might, put permanent burning on you (which is like one of the strongest conditions), place a debuff that gives you 5 freakin torment stacks that you can’t remove, and then capable of a huge burst attack! It’s just inthane in the membrane all of the power and condi damage that it has! Not only that but Celestial works best with might stacking and the classes that use Celestial the most are amazing might stackers! Nerf the might stacks and everything will be fine!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

This right here^^

It’s not just one thing.

Celestial is overpowered because it makes condis on power builds more of a problem to handle.

Condis are overpowered because they’re too easily applied and their application easily outpaces the majority of classes capabilities to remove them.

But condis and celestial alone aren’t enough to push things so heavily in the direction we see things right now. It’s really the might stacking and the ease in which numerous classes can stack it that are making things unreasonable.

How do you fix this though and ensure classes like Mesmers and Eles remain viable without pushing classes like Rangers and Guardians out of the meta?

I’ve fought ppl on glass builds takes so many c/ds to preassure gain momentum and it could change at any time!

Then I made. Celestial shout warrior and killed specs and players I used to dance around by auto attacking… Sure it took much longer but I’d always get the force off point and took 2-3 ppl to down me. The Dmg is crummy but I still would murder glass cannons without trying.

I decided to give it a test to see its endurance and gave it to a newbie guildie, not inept but also not that great. With well lined burst on a glkittenter mes it took a bit to bring it down but was reasonable I just had to dance more, my ele s/d or s/f took like half an hour for the thing to die, and my guard… Got tired and called it a night.

Anyways I do think it’s a bit strong in the low risk higher reward department… But I don’t think nerfing the survivability is where it’s at… Tho I do think glass needs more play to deal with this kind of thing. The condi on certain setups like celestial ele are also a bit to strong.

ArrDee.2573:

Hello frands! Vee Wee here, #1 Engi NA and world first rank 80!

Celestial is fine! It’s the classes that need to be worked on! Basically every class that runs Celestial Amulet also has insane amount of sustain, damage, and conditions all in one! A popular build that runs Celestial is the Eviscerate Warrior! They stack a 327532978 radius fire field that you can’t escape out of, blast it 20 times for permanent max stacks of might, put permanent burning on you (which is like one of the strongest conditions), place a debuff that gives you 5 freakin torment stacks that you can’t remove, and then capable of a huge burst attack! It’s just inthane in the membrane all of the power and condi damage that it has! Not only that but Celestial works best with might stacking and the classes that use Celestial the most are amazing might stackers! Nerf the might stacks and everything will be fine!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

Pretty much nailed it on the head.

ArrDee.2573:

Hello frands! Vee Wee here, #1 Engi NA and world first rank 80!

Celestial is fine! It’s the classes that need to be worked on! Basically every class that runs Celestial Amulet also has insane amount of sustain, damage, and conditions all in one! A popular build that runs Celestial is the Eviscerate Warrior! They stack a 327532978 radius fire field that you can’t escape out of, blast it 20 times for permanent max stacks of might, put permanent burning on you (which is like one of the strongest conditions), place a debuff that gives you 5 freakin torment stacks that you can’t remove, and then capable of a huge burst attack! It’s just inthane in the membrane all of the power and condi damage that it has! Not only that but Celestial works best with might stacking and the classes that use Celestial the most are amazing might stackers! Nerf the might stacks and everything will be fine!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

Long answer short: just look at the stats..do the maths, you’ll get your answer about celestial amulet’s positions compared to others.

Remove burn from warrior. Problem solved.

This is probably not going to be the most loved potential solution but it would help the issue a ton: (note: I am not exactly saying this is the only solution nor am I saying that it is the most optimal, I am only providing potential things to look at for future reference)
Instead of making might a huge intensity stack of 35 pwr and condi dmg per stack, just change it to a 150 pwr and condi dmg buff with a duration stack. It is enough to give a significant buff without making it so strong you can get all your dmg off of it. Voila, might stacking issue solved.

PvE is OP.
/15pvecharsrulepvp

Ario.8964:

This is probably not going to be the most loved potential solution but it would help the issue a ton: (note: I am not exactly saying this is the only solution nor am I saying that it is the most optimal, I am only providing potential things to look at for future reference)
Instead of making might a huge intensity stack of 35 pwr and condi dmg per stack, just change it to a 150 pwr and condi dmg buff with a duration stack. It is enough to give a significant buff without making it so strong you can get all your dmg off of it. Voila, might stacking issue solved.

PvP only? Or game wide? Because we’ve seen people suggest things like this before and ANet never seems to take them seriously.

Like just limiting might to 4 stacks. Poison duration to 20 seconds. etc etc.

I wonder why ANet doesn’t do things like that more often. That way the gameplay doesn’t change, only the damage is reigned in for PvP some.

well at some point the meta for all classes will be celestial amulet. at least it will be balanced then.

Ario.8964:

This is probably not going to be the most loved potential solution but it would help the issue a ton: (note: I am not exactly saying this is the only solution nor am I saying that it is the most optimal, I am only providing potential things to look at for future reference)
Instead of making might a huge intensity stack of 35 pwr and condi dmg per stack, just change it to a 150 pwr and condi dmg buff with a duration stack. It is enough to give a significant buff without making it so strong you can get all your dmg off of it. Voila, might stacking issue solved.

I actually really like this, they would need to balance out the might duration on a lot of things (thrill of the crime gives 50% might uptime with no boon duration). Might it by far the strongest boon because of how much power all the stacks are and the duration they can be kept up.

Atherakhia.4086:

Ario.8964:

This is probably not going to be the most loved potential solution but it would help the issue a ton: (note: I am not exactly saying this is the only solution nor am I saying that it is the most optimal, I am only providing potential things to look at for future reference)
Instead of making might a huge intensity stack of 35 pwr and condi dmg per stack, just change it to a 150 pwr and condi dmg buff with a duration stack. It is enough to give a significant buff without making it so strong you can get all your dmg off of it. Voila, might stacking issue solved.

PvP only? Or game wide? Because we’ve seen people suggest things like this before and ANet never seems to take them seriously.

Like just limiting might to 4 stacks. Poison duration to 20 seconds. etc etc.

I wonder why ANet doesn’t do things like that more often. That way the gameplay doesn’t change, only the damage is reigned in for PvP some.

Lol..how could thy ever take something like that seriously..Making might stack in duration would destroy all fire fields,would essentially just give free PERMANENT points to every class,make every class that has its damage balanced around stacking might underpowered,every class that has meta builds that dont stack a lot of might overpowered..and finaly it would completely destroy several traits that are based around stacking might inculding grandmaster that require huge investment.
So yeah..maybe thats why they never listen to that kind of ideas.

Avead.5760:

Atherakhia.4086:

Ario.8964:

This is probably not going to be the most loved potential solution but it would help the issue a ton: (note: I am not exactly saying this is the only solution nor am I saying that it is the most optimal, I am only providing potential things to look at for future reference)
Instead of making might a huge intensity stack of 35 pwr and condi dmg per stack, just change it to a 150 pwr and condi dmg buff with a duration stack. It is enough to give a significant buff without making it so strong you can get all your dmg off of it. Voila, might stacking issue solved.

PvP only? Or game wide? Because we’ve seen people suggest things like this before and ANet never seems to take them seriously.

Like just limiting might to 4 stacks. Poison duration to 20 seconds. etc etc.

I wonder why ANet doesn’t do things like that more often. That way the gameplay doesn’t change, only the damage is reigned in for PvP some.

Lol..how could thy ever take something like that seriously..Making might stack in duration would destroy all fire fields,would essentially just give free PERMANENT points to every class,make every class that has its damage balanced around stacking might underpowered,every class that has meta builds that dont stack a lot of might overpowered..and finaly it would completely destroy several traits that are based around stacking might inculding grandmaster that require huge investment.
So yeah..maybe thats why they never listen to that kind of ideas.

Because 4 might is 140 which is close to the 150 proposed in the other person’s suggestion…

Avead.5760:

Atherakhia.4086:

Ario.8964:

This is probably not going to be the most loved potential solution but it would help the issue a ton: (note: I am not exactly saying this is the only solution nor am I saying that it is the most optimal, I am only providing potential things to look at for future reference)
Instead of making might a huge intensity stack of 35 pwr and condi dmg per stack, just change it to a 150 pwr and condi dmg buff with a duration stack. It is enough to give a significant buff without making it so strong you can get all your dmg off of it. Voila, might stacking issue solved.

PvP only? Or game wide? Because we’ve seen people suggest things like this before and ANet never seems to take them seriously.

Like just limiting might to 4 stacks. Poison duration to 20 seconds. etc etc.

I wonder why ANet doesn’t do things like that more often. That way the gameplay doesn’t change, only the damage is reigned in for PvP some.

Lol..how could thy ever take something like that seriously..Making might stack in duration would destroy all fire fields,would essentially just give free PERMANENT points to every class,make every class that has its damage balanced around stacking might underpowered,every class that has meta builds that dont stack a lot of might overpowered..and finaly it would completely destroy several traits that are based around stacking might inculding grandmaster that require huge investment.
So yeah..maybe thats why they never listen to that kind of ideas.

The easier solution is just nerf the duration.
Currently there’s just too many blast finishers in the game, and too many easy access super huge long duration fire field too! (LB F1, Ele, you name it)
Maybe make blasting fire field only grant 10 sec mights instead of 20 secs default.
Also I’d say 875 points of both power and condition is too much, maybe cut it from 875 to around 500 for max stack.

I have no idea why they gave the fire field such radius. Nerf the fire field radius (pvp only is fine for me) and we all are fine. To fight a warrior in his fire field is never a pleasure.

And a very tanky ele with 20+ stacks of might is also very annoying because he is a bunker with too much damage

I’d certainly not say OP, it’s clearly BiS for some builds like DD/engi but that doesn’t make it broken. Other build types still want soldiers/clerics/zerk and celestial isn’t competing with those.

azuzephyr.7280:

I’d certainly not say OP, it’s clearly BiS for some builds like DD/engi but that doesn’t make it broken. Other build types still want soldiers/clerics/zerk and celestial isn’t competing with those.

The damage output of some celestial specs is way to high because of might stacking. Strength sigils and celestial together are broken.

Avead,
The reason I suggested that is BECAUSE there are builds that only have super good dmg because they can stack so much might while specing to be super tanky at the same time. Imo, builds in this game should be about making sacrifices to get something (i.e sacrifice tankiness for damage or vice versa) I believe it is wrong for a build to be able to have as much damage as a full zerker while still being as tanky as a full pvt build. Traits can also be reworked to give bonuses while under the effect of might.

Errant Venture.9371:

Take a look through some of the builds from this weekend’s Euro qualifier. Except for dedicated bunker guards, the majority of specs are running Celestial hybrids with Strength, Hoelbrak, or Pack runes.

During the massive condi meta of summer 2013, players complained that stat combos like Rabid allows players to have too much sustain + damage at the same time. Does the stat distribution of Celestial have a similar damaging effect, by allowing players to obtain significant amounts of direct damage, condi damage, and sustain in a single spec?

recently i played spirits ranger with celestial amu (more balanced than rabbid)
we can figure out the next meta is celestial (pvp or wvw)

Stop trying to tinker with the peripheral stuff (celestial) while stepping over the major issues which cause them. Celestial is not the problem. Many classes hit like a wet towel if they equip celestial.

seriously stop complaining about might stack.

might boon is very easily removed.

Most people forget that Celestial was actually buffed some time ago. If Celestial would only grant the same amount of total stats as other amulets, it would be sub-par for obvious reasons. The problem with Celestial is the way I see it: Might-stacking.
Since Might grants Power and Condition Damage it works extremely well with Celestial stats.
It’s difficult for me to make a perfect change without being able to test it, but I’d assume changing might to the following would be ideal:
35 Power and 15 Condition Damage per stack.