Celestial/Minstrel Manifesto [Merged]

[Vallun.2071]

Recently Celestial stats were given a buff from having every stat except boon duration and condition duration to having all stats including those, meaning it went from having 7 stats to 9 stats. While I liked this change and have been making lots of celestial builds, it made me realize a huge issue in the diversity of playstyles that exists in WvW. Celestial is a bit overpowered in small scale World vs World and Minstrel is likewise overpowered in large scale. While that's not too uncommon for WvW to be unbalanced, at least having some diversity is nice. This is why I think celestial should be nerfed and minstrel should be removed.

 

Celestial

Doing some quick math, you can see that the celestial ascended gloves give 22 to every stat while any 4 stat combination would give 22 to its minor stats and 40 to its major, so the ratio of celestial to 4 stats is approximately 9 to 6, and when you compare it to 3 stat gear its an even rougher ratio. The balance here is that without any specific specialization in stats you don't fit into a specific role or that sometimes you don't get the most out of each stat because your build will struggle to get synergy if it tries to reach every stat. Also celestial isn't really going to give you enough stats to deal meaningful damage compared to a full damage build or even a full trailblazer build which is still pretty tanky for how much damage it gives. When you look at the damage that celestial gives, even though you have a decent amount of hybrid stats, its still pretty pathetic. However, when used with a build that can generate a good amount of might, the damage skyrockets because of the hybrid synergy from the power and condition damage bonuses. Combined with the boon duration, a celestial build can upkeep quite a bit of might, allowing them to do significant damage especially in drawn out fights which their tanky builds allow them to create. 

The thing is, its not just the amount of raw stats that celestial gives, it's the variety. The way Guild Wars 2's combat system works, most weapons have the potential to do both power and condition damage, so long as I theorycraft a build that can get synergy from both condition and power damage I can generally get good value out of the damaging stats. 
Then the defensive stats are very conveniently allocated. Toughness is a really good stat to have just a little bit of because a build with no toughness is very squishy, but a build with a lot of toughness gets diminishing returns on the stat due to its exponential nature. Vitality is the same way, you want just enough health to not get bursted, but also having too much vitality is a waste without sustain. 

The sustain definitely is there though, healing power scales very linearly, so there's no threshold for too little or too much healing power, however, some classes have better healing power scaling on their abilities which mostly you need to research through the wiki. While some classes like warrior and thief do not have access to great healing power coefficients, there are some basic mechanics like regeneration and healing combo finishers that all classes have access to which do scale very well with healing power. 
Now here's the part where celestial really goes over the top. The recently added boon duration and condition duration add interesting synergies, but when you realize that the entire combat system has been designed around simplifying buffs and debuffs into specific boons and conditions, you realize that celestial has way more utility than just stats. For example, the weakness, immobilize, and chill condition getting longer duration gives even more potential to debilitate your opponents. Also boon duration doesn't just give you more sustain from protection and regeneration or damage from might and fury, it also gives utility from quickness which makes your animations harder to react to, and it gives more vigor uptime which allows you more mobility and avoidance. While power builds wouldn't necessarily go for condition duration, you can still see how they would benefit from it just from increasing their vulnerability uptimes and such. So as long as you are running the right build, celestial gives great damage over time, sustain, tankyness, support, and even utility.
I'm not saying celestial shouldn't have all 9 stats, because I think its interesting, but maybe it shouldn't have so much of each. Instead of being a 9 to 6 ratio of cele to 4 stat types it could be an 8 or 7.5 to 6 so giving 20 or 18 instead of 22 on the gloves for each stat. I still think celestial should be one of the best options for small scale builds, but not by such a wide margin. 
However, you also have to remember that most of the optimal builds for small scale include shadow arts thieves, nade scrappers, and soulbeasts, but this is mainly because their class mechanics provide them so much utility. For other classes to compete with them, they kind of need celestial, which is why I suggest that some of the changes that were made in PvP be ported over to WvW such as the shadow arts nerfs, the grenade nerfs, and the dolyak stance cooldown increase. Yes, these things have already been nerfed in PvP but not in WvW. 
If we bring celestial down a bit, and nerf the insane utility of some of the classes that already dominate small scale without the use of celestial, it should promote a lot more variety in classes and builds.

Minstrel

Obviously the celestial issue isn't much of a problem because in larger scale WvW fights, the composition of groups is much more role based. You have your zerker DPS and your minstrel supports. You don't need a jack of all trades build in your squad because everything is covered by the composition. What allows this very binary composition to exist within large groups is the fact that minstrels allows you to play two roles in one. In the past, there were frontliners who could take the brunt of an engagement, mostly warriors and guardians. Then there were backliners who provided the damage and support, mainly necros and elementalists. While it is great that more classes like revs and engineers exist in squads nowadays that is mostly due to elite specializations. But the diversity in classes is opposed by the diversity in playstyles. There is no longer a need for this kind of backline frontline arrangement because minstrels gear allows your supports to also be the tanks. This is the same reason why minstrels was removed from PvP, to play around a minstrels composition you simply needed overwhelming damage or superior rotations because you can't focus the supports since they are bunkers and you can't focus their DPS because they have an insane support with them.

The removal of minstrels would place these support builds on more fair and interactive stat types like plague doctor, clerics, harrier, magis, etc. Because none of these stat types have EVERY defensive stat, there is some weakness to them. This would mean positioning is much more important, because supports can't just sit in the middle of all the damage and keep pumping out their heals. They would need to avoid damage to survive and provide their support which would also make it more difficult to land their heals on their allies. So their allies would also need to have good positioning. This would promote splitting up much more often, because large groups can't just stick together in a big ball if they can't bunker up with minstrels, it may even promote smaller squad sizes. A 20 person squad is much more interactive and manageable for the servers and the average player's computers to handle, and can allow much more diverse play than just zerging and sitting on top of one spot.

Some potential arguments against the removal of minstrels:

"My guild is 500 players and we often squad up to play together."
Just because your guild isn't in the exact some spot as each other doesn't mean you can't be in communication with them and still interacting with them through strategic movements around the map.

"I prefer zerg balling in 50 person squads, why remove that potential?"
Removing minstrels does not remove tanky supporty builds, it just makes them more fair. There are just some tradeoffs you'll need to make to maintain that playstyle which will allow others to play around you. Just because you like winning doesn't mean you deserve to win.

"No minstrels means even more pirate ship because no one will want to push."
Wrong, large zergy combat is why no one wants to push, because the team that does not win the engagement gets punished much harder.

"Aren't firebrands and scourges more of a problem than minstrels?"
When the meta is to stack together, these classes are the best at doing that yes. When there are more varieties of ways to play the game, firebrands and scourges can still be good in larger fights, but not every fight would be a large fight if we promote splitting them up. I could see a slight nerf to these classes too, such as bringing the 60 second cooldown of stand your ground in PvP into WvW (though this may just promote stacking more firebrands to make up for that loss of stability?)

This suggestion does make WvW more punishing to play and more skill requirement for sure, which could be harder for the casual player to feel rewarded in, but let's be fair to both sides of the argument and understand that the average casual player also may not be accepted into a public squad because they're not running optimal builds or classes, so I think the trade off is worth it. You still can zerg up if you want but there should be less incentive to do so.

 

TLDR:
Provide more variety in WvW play by promoting different size squads and more class representation by removing Minstrels and nerfing Celestial while also bringing in some utility nerfs to some of the overpowered skill: Shadow Arts, Grenades, Dolyak Stance, Stand Your Ground

[Enduronex.4865]

I agree.

[Dawdler.8521]

TL;DR delete marauders because it dominate power dps?

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

Cele is a blank slate. It is what you make it out to be.

I can build a Cele warrior with over 4k power with periods of 100% crit rate and well over 200% crit damage for instance. Is it all super powerful? No.

The additional stats help make a few builds work better, but honestly in the scheme of things this is not something to worry about.

Minstrel blobs are more of a problem because of the Feb2020 damage nerfs and not the stats specifically.

[Infusion.7149]

Not sure what meta you're playing in that scourges and elementalists are dominant along with berserker stats...
I find that scrappers are far more dominant since 2019 gyro reworks and then doubly so with the quickness change. A scrapper makes even those minstrel builds hit harder due to quickness uptime while also upping heal output on med kit.

If you nerf minstrel stat you still have nomad's , giver's, trailblazer's, cleric's, karka potions, and durability runes. Even other things such as fighter runes with +225 toughness are missing from your list. Maybe that's an omission on your part. I know you LOVE small scale but consider that in large-scale which WVW is balanced off, celestial isn't a problem because expertise and condition damage aren't useful stats for the most part. That means you get a miserly amount of power/ferocity for a power build , with an okay amount of healing power that nets you 70-80% effectiveness of full minstrel due to heal scaling. People used to run Grieving with celestial trinkets scourges and I'm sure you know about carrion burn-type builds as well , all those faded away with Purity of Purpose scrappers. Hence you see power scourges more or less exclusively.

As an example, here is the gw2mists firebrand swapped to all Nomad's:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PWwAYl7lRwkYcMMmJmyWrvbA-z1IY+om/MyUKkuKQjHiAsHeLtvZB-w
3828 toughness, 25.7K health
total healing power = 1150 ; boon duration 29%

And the scrapper on pistol+shield in nomad's (keep in mind you only need ~33% Boon duration for 100% quickness uptime because quickness is not split from PVE):
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PegAo6lNweYeMH2Je6TntSA-zxIY+ohvMSKBquA89gIgaAK9WafzC-e

3563 toughness, 23.7K health
1326 heal power, boon duration 42%

Also it is certain a nerf to minstrel would return warriors to cleric's shoutbreaker. That was the initial iteration of shoutbreaker after all. Likewise support chrono doesn't actually make use of healing power or concentration much on its build.

Before the Celestial change to add expertise and concentration I already warned about the overall stat total being far higher than 4 stats. However, the power and condition output is not favorable to most builds because you generally specialize in one damage type (that being power for large-scale). The notable exceptions are firebrand and condi renegade. Note condition renegade isn't a thing in large scale WVW unless you are talking about small scale since there is a ramp time for torment , shortbow is projectile, and it is ineffective against moving targets. Firebrand isn't able to put out as much burning as it does in PVE also.

Minstrels cannot stand in stacked damage even after Feb 2020 nerfs. If you have enough concentrated damage from power DH/hammer rev/DPS scrapper/weaver/Berserker/etc it will still down especially if a well of corruption and/or Winds of Disenchantment is placed at that location. (see a trend here? , concentration is useless in this context)

I don't understand the strawman about 500 players, that is more than a map queue. I also don't understand the tirade about "fairness" or 20 player squads. Fairness is about not cheating into keeps/towers, not using tag spies, or having things that aren't available to you as a rule-abiding player. Is stealth gyro fair if the other team has no scrappers or 5 fewer players in comms?

You wrote "20 person squad is much more interactive and manageable for the servers and the average player's computers to handle". Everyone has the same client and people can turn down shadows/reflections/etc. Even without any addons and optimizations just turning down model limit I could hit 20+ FPS in EBG 3 ways with a 10 year old 2nd gen quad core because it is single thread bound for the most part. We're in 2021 already so that argument is quite weak since a $500-600 Ryzen 5 5600G system with any discrete GPU ~$100+ MSRP (like GTX 1050 / GTX 750) can do that kind of performance. On top of that the DX11 client is already in beta. If you want to lower server and client load, nerfing stats isn't the way to achieve that: reducing the amount of status effects and DOT AoEs would.

You do have a point about some of the PVP nerfs not making it to WVW. Grenades in particular , even if they don't see any use in large scale. Dolyak stance doesn't need a nerf because stability's value in WVW is lower than in PVP due to the nature of the number of things you will be CC-ed by.

All in all it seems like a veiled excuse to nerf minstrel's (a zero damage stat type) and celestial because you feel they are difficult but not impossible to kill in full glass builds (your aforementioned nade builds, SA thieves, and boonbeasts). Even if you nerf said stat types , squads still won't take projectile builds like thieves with rifles/pistols or condi shortbow rangers.

[displayname.8315]

Would agree celestial is good roaming but only on certain classes like ele, necro, maybe guard. 

 

Most classes would be better off building for power strikes or support.  Stuff like thief or Mesmer better off with condi or power.

 

Biggest issue is and always will be 1 push bads forcing your team to retreat and then log from the boring gameplay.

[Telgum.6071]

2 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

TL;DR delete marauders because it dominate power dps?

Yeah because having extra vitality is the same than having both extra vitality + toughness while playing a mechanic consisting of waiting until the enemy die while you mitigate all their damage.

[Exzen.2976]

Well said Vallun 👏 

[Svarty.8019]

Do we get a refund on all our time and effort for acquisition of gear?

[Flacki.3075]

I'll have to disagree on the Celestial point.

 

Celestial actually enables more diversity "overall". Especially in PvE i can utilize with celestial gear the full potential on certain classes, which by default are build to be more broader and utilitarian in design. So Elementalist, (boon)Guard, Engineer do benefit exceptionally from celestial gear due to how spread the skills are over pure hit damage, condition- and boon generation.

Chrono and Soulbeast also can utilize celestial to a degree, but in my opinion are better off with different gear to maximize their damage.

 

Celestial overall makes my characters using it always hang behind others who do NOT use celestial but rather dedicated dps set ups, like the zerker evegreen.

Alot of classes actually are better off with different stats, primarily in wvw, rather then running celestial.

 

Minstrel in PvE is also rather underwhelming if not specifically build around it. Hizen for example show in his various videos the capabilities of building around minstrel gear, BUT WITH THE PENALTY of loosing a lot of frontloaded damage and needing to invest a lot of time into encounters.

 

In WvW i think primarily the problem is not particular gear stat combinations, but the overall powercreep we have had with PoF and all subsequent balance patches of the boon puke happening.

 

Your request, Vallun, of better balancing small scale encounters by just removing and outright nerfing those stats to "try" to make those secenarios (for you?) more appealing is kinda weird, especially after you putting out so many videos over the last year especially recommending celestial gear.

 

IMHO small scale and zerg fights CAN NOT be reasonably balanced against each other, or even should be affected by each other, by simply removing and heavily nerving stats and therefore should not be measured against each other by bringing up stat sets which are powerfull for just some classes and in just some scenarios but don't actually are relevant for everything else.

 

Nerfing celestial will not only diminish variety and diversity in builds, it will especially hit normal PvE gameplay again, forcing everyone into the same boring maximum dps set up that is available.

--------

edit: i have to point out, that even with celestial gear my Elementalist is still unbelivable weak and my Warrior does actually fair better with more dedicated stats such as zerker/assa ADN both classes feel extremely left behind compared to the other classes.

Engineer with Scrapper only feels good enough for me currently becuase i love jack of all trade builds and utility and the ~recent changes to the Gyros makes it play really better than all those years before.

Still, if i'd want to play something with more oomph adn being able to just mow through content, i'd just choose another class on zerker gear and be done with it.

Edited October 15, 2021 by Flacki.3075

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

@Vallun.2071, I realize that some of your commentary on Celestial is due to having experimented with it on your Warrior right?
 

Its worth pointing out that while Cele is a blank slate, that doesn't mean every class gets the same mileage out of it. Warrior has high base HP and high base defense and can have higher defenses in Cele gear than some other classes in Minstrel gear. Warrior can also load up on stat increases from their traitlines be it power or condi, and have very high crit chance and critical damage even in Cele gear.

This is not going to be the same experience for a Daredevil for instance.

 

There isn't anything inherently OP about celestial, but there are classes that can make better use of the stat set than others.

Edited October 15, 2021 by Lan Deathrider.5910

[Zikory.6871]

Remove Minstrels and the first comp I'm doing is stacking range, CC and SS. We are going to pirate ship until our players are good enough to melee without Vit or toughness, once we figure out how we can melee vs most groups. Its back to business as usual. 

Or if I was in a large guild that rolls 50+, I'd just stack more people and wkey like you can now without Minstrels. 

I just want changes in WvW so if Minstrels is it, so be it but this will just punish weaker players/groups without more fundamental changes in WvW.

Edited October 15, 2021 by Zikory.6871

[Deniara Devious.3948]

Your experience may vary, but at least here in EU tier #1 most small scale roamers don't use celestial.

Thief is probably the most popular roaming class and most deadeye or daredevils are using more or less berserker stats. Some thieves go for a condi build. Celestial stats sacrifice too much damage, especially condition damage.

Same for rangers, which are probably the 2nd most common roamers. LB rangers go for power damage (berserker), but condi rangers are not uncommon either.

Mesmers either choose power burst or condition bunker. Condition revenants are still pain a to fight against.

Dragonhunter guardians usually go for direct damage to be able flip camps fast. Firebrands take minstrel, but that is a zerg build.

Elementalists and guardians could benefit from celestial stats, but I think I have fought more against pure condition elementalists than celestial. Zerg staff eles are usually full damage.

Most engineers play holosmith or scrapper. The former almost always going for direct damage and scrappers go minstrels, but that is a zerg build.

Necromancer isn't particularly well suited for roaming due limited mobility (wurm).

Warriors are probably the least commonly played roamers.

 

[Vallun.2071]

3 hours ago, Flacki.3075 said:

I'll have to disagree on the Celestial point.

 

Celestial actually enables more diversity "overall". Especially in PvE i can utilize with celestial gear the full potential on certain classes, which by default are build to be more broader and utilitarian in design. So Elementalist, (boon)Guard, Engineer do benefit exceptionally from celestial gear due to how spread the skills are over pure hit damage, condition- and boon generation.

Chrono and Soulbeast also can utilize celestial to a degree, but in my opinion are better off with different gear to maximize their damage.

 

Celestial overall makes my characters using it always hang behind others who do NOT use celestial but rather dedicated dps set ups, like the zerker evegreen.

Alot of classes actually are better off with different stats, primarily in wvw, rather then running celestial.

 

Minstrel in PvE is also rather underwhelming if not specifically build around it. Hizen for example show in his various videos the capabilities of building around minstrel gear, BUT WITH THE PENALTY of loosing a lot of frontloaded damage and needing to invest a lot of time into encounters.

 

In WvW i think primarily the problem is not particular gear stat combinations, but the overall powercreep we have had with PoF and all subsequent balance patches of the boon puke happening.

 

Your request, Vallun, of better balancing small scale encounters by just removing and outright nerfing those stats to "try" to make those secenarios (for you?) more appealing is kinda weird, especially after you putting out so many videos over the last year especially recommending celestial gear.

 

IMHO small scale and zerg fights CAN NOT be reasonably balanced against each other, or even should be affected by each other, by simply removing and heavily nerving stats and therefore should not be measured against each other by bringing up stat sets which are powerfull for just some classes and in just some scenarios but don't actually are relevant for everything else.

 

Nerfing celestial will not only diminish variety and diversity in builds, it will especially hit normal PvE gameplay again, forcing everyone into the same boring maximum dps set up that is available.

 

 

Celestial already isn't amazing in PvE encounters where you have DPS/Support roles, but where cele is really good is where you can optimize your output by playing a support role while still providing some dps, which will still be good with a slight nerf to all the stats. In open world it will still be amazing to run cele stats with a slight nerf. Remember my suggestion is only nerfing it somewhere between where it is now and where it was before the buff.

I'm able to enjoy playing cele builds while also recognizing that they are overpowered and need nerfing.  Mostly rev, guard, engi, ele are the best uses for it, but as of late ive found that even a thief and mesmer can use it, and those builds felt nasty to play in terms of how uninteractive they were.

[Telgum.6071]

1 hour ago, Vallun.2071 said:

I'm able to enjoy playing cele builds while also recognizing that they are overpowered and need nerfing.  Mostly rev, guard, engi, ele are the best uses for it, but as of late ive found that even a thief and mesmer can use it, and those builds felt nasty to play in terms of how uninteractive they were.

I was starting to think I'm crazy. Kinda surprised how much people deny how broken Celestial is, specially on classes with extreme synergy like Herald or Elementalist.

And the same goes for Trailblazer. Thankfully there isn't much people with the low shame to say the opposite.

[Swagger.1459]

Pointless ideas. Not sure why some are hung up on stats, when the issues with GW2 have always been about professions themselves.

 

Also, wvw isn’t the dropped esport spvp, so let’s keep that spvp design mentality separate from this mode. 
 

And what kind of suggestion is this? “You still can zerg up if you want but there should be less incentive to do so.”

 

WvW drew inspiration from DAoC, it’s meant to be a mode for large groups to come together to play against one another. Sure, players have the autonomy to do what they want, and most might want to group up, but so what? That’s the main premise of the mode… Don’t worry about what other players do, and don’t try to change the mode to something it’s not. Play how you want to play and don’t worry about what other players do with their time. And again, WvW certainly doesn’t need any elements from the mode that was dropped by ESL. 

Edited October 15, 2021 by Swagger.1459

[displayname.8315]

Would be interesting to see these builds seriously tested by some skilled groups and duelists. 

 

Still of the opinion that the burst from a high DPS build can be more effective in most situations.  And of course the classes played make a big difference in build choices, especially when you only play solo like the OP, then it's much more of a paper/rock/scissors.

 

 

[kamikharzeeh.8016]

i'm heavily against this. don't remove stuff and stat combos, that's just a really poor way to balance and fix things. nerfs should be the last way to ever happen. in the end that just ruins fun and playable builds.

 

like, big, we play cele for several useless stats then? i'd guess no.  just some other tank stat.

 

supports need to tank and heal, there is zero point in making life harder for them. potato smallscaler group healer do use cele yet. supports shouldn't be more vulnerable to some bad thief/ranger etc memes than they are yet... it's insanely easy to gank, even for objectively mechanically inexperienced players.

 

@Lan Deathrider.5910 for the 1337th time... there are no "minstrel blobs" existing... at least 40% of squads are damage classes, at times even more, depending on which players u get on the map.

 

the feb20 dps nerfs mostly affect the non-roaming dps builds and the dmg output of support classes. anet messed up any balance between specs on a smaller scale there, as you'd need to templateswap before u even get into "in battle" state.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

12 minutes ago, kamikharzeeh.8016 said:

i'm heavily against this. don't remove stuff and stat combos, that's just a really poor way to balance and fix things. nerfs should be the last way to ever happen. in the end that just ruins fun and playable builds.

 

like, big, we play cele for several useless stats then? i'd guess no.  just some other tank stat.

 

supports need to tank and heal, there is zero point in making life harder for them. potato smallscaler group healer do use cele yet. supports shouldn't be more vulnerable to some bad thief/ranger etc memes than they are yet... it's insanely easy to gank, even for objectively mechanically inexperienced players.

 

@Lan Deathrider.5910 for the 1337th time... there are no "minstrel blobs" existing... at least 40% of squads are damage classes, at times even more, depending on which players u get on the map.

 

the feb20 dps nerfs mostly affect the non-roaming dps builds and the dmg output of support classes. anet messed up any balance between specs on a smaller scale there, as you'd need to templateswap before u even get into "in battle" state.

More like calling out the unfounded concern of Vallun. Minstrel is only a problem because sustain was not nerfed as much as overall damage. Cele is useful, and leads to very versatile build crafting, but is not OP.

[Dawdler.8521]

10 hours ago, Telgum.6071 said:

Yeah because having extra vitality is the same than having both extra vitality + toughness while playing a mechanic consisting of waiting until the enemy die while you mitigate all their damage.

Yes because you're playing the mechanic of overwhelming power to kill the enemy before they kill you?

People always seem offended when I bring marauders, but if you want to know the simple reason:

Delete all 3+ stat gear. The other gear only watered down the gameplay. Go back to letting us build our own stats by combining gear, with the drawback of pushing some stats will loose other stats.

I see no point in halfarsing suggestions by exclusively targeting either minstrels or celestial or trailblazer etc like so many do.

[Dagger.2035]

I must be playing a different game.  I don’t see any issue with Minstrel or Celestial stats.  DPS builds can overwhelm healing in zerg fights and you can kite or walk away from roamers who run too many defensive stats.  The stats can be good in certain situations but I wouldn’t say they are OP.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

Unless there is some crazy out-of-the-box builds that I'm not thinking of, I can't see celestial being worth it most professions.  Yes, it is great on Ele, Shortbow Renegade, and Guardian, but everyone else seems too imbalanced to use it.  Having 5751 total stats as compared to 3612 or 3303 seems great at first, until you consider each one individually:

 

Power: only good on weapons with good power coefficients.  Since this is a good scaling stat, it suffers the worst from differences.  That 400 extra power on marauders translates to a 33% damage bonus (before runes/traits).

Precision/Ferocity: Those are just modifiers to power, and little else.

Condition Damage: Only good on weapons that inflict a lot of damaging conditions.  Not some.  A lot, otherwise they'll be cleansed away.  Trailblazer does 50% more damage on everything but burn, and 33% for burn (before runes/traits).  

Expertise: Again, this is only good if you can inflict a lot of conditions, either damaging or debilitating.  Otherwise it will be cleansed away.

Toughness:  Has around a 25% damage reduction for light armor.  Less for other armor sets.  However, in condi metas, toughness is mostly useless.

Vitality: A universally good stat.  Can always be considered.

Healing Power:  Healing coefficients are wacky and very inconsistent.  Important thing to note is that the primary heal skill almost always has poor scaling.  So, unless the profession has a lot of additional supplementary heals littered about its toolkit, then this can be disregarded.

Concentration: This is only good if you have a lot of self-booning.  Not some.  A lot.  Getting 3 seconds of protection once every 30 seconds isn't significantly better if that gets changed to 4 seconds.  Changing 6 seconds of might to 10 seconds basically amounts to two auto attack chains with a minor benefit to damage, since your burst probably takes less than 6 seconds anyway.

 

So, for most professions you're going to end up disregarding nearly a third of these stats.  You'll have professions where healing, concentration, condition damage, and expertise are all nearly useless.  You'll have professions that disregard power, precision, ferocity, and healing power.  Every stat rendered functionally useless can be considered as deducting 639 points from the stat total.  So, if your profession can't make good use of 3 of these, that is deducting 1917 from that 5751 total, putting them at 3834 functional points.  That is right next to what the 4-attribute sets give.  If you can disregard 4 of those stats, then you'll be less than what the 3-attribute sets give.

To make use of Celestial, you'll need to have a profession that inflicts good power damage, inflicts a lot of damaging conditions, inflicts plenty of debilitating conditions, has a lot of healing that doesn't come from the heal skill, gives itself a lot of boons, and it does this all at the same time.  It must do this seamlessly, nearly automatically.  If you have to go out of your way to use either power or condition skills, then that is functionally inferior to just using an appropriate skill in a more focused build.  There's finite space for utilities and traits, after all.  Out of all of the professions, there's only 3 I can think of that does those things seamlessly: Ele, Rev, and Guardian.  Considering how strong those three are currently in roaming, I do not see nerfing celestial producing any sort of class balance or increased diversity.  

[Flacki.3075]

9 hours ago, Vallun.2071 said:

Celestial already isn't amazing in PvE encounters where you have DPS/Support roles, but where cele is really good is where you can optimize your output by playing a support role while still providing some dps, which will still be good with a slight nerf to all the stats. In open world it will still be amazing to run cele stats with a slight nerf. Remember my suggestion is only nerfing it somewhere between where it is now and where it was before the buff.

This is exactly what i was saying in regards to which classes actually can utilize celestial stats and that all the other classes do NOT have anything to gain from it.

Celestial is not a stat group which enables builds, it amplifies those classes which always have been about utility and had a spread out tool kit.

But only because Revenant currently is OP anyways, celestial is not the problem, it exaggerates the problem with Revenant.

Same with Guard. Just because celestial gear really shines on the boon puke with Guardians does not mean celestial is the problem, it's the class and how it is build.

Same with Necro right? Scourge has been complained about of having to much support whilst also being able to provide decent dps. Here we have a class which does not really profit from celestial but everyone acknowledges that the class is inherently to strong due to the way it is currently designed.

 

My point is still, that you're to much emphasizing the wrong thing for the wrong reasons.

First, it's not the celestial stats, but the design of the classes which is borderline, so nerfing the gear would be a bandaid solution again, whilst the op classes still will be very strong.

Second, nerfing the gear because it is "problematic" in WvW will ...again... result in nerfs for PvE, which does not suffer those problems (you perceive).

Third, celestial has been nerfed in the past and it was garbage after that, currently celestial is ok'ish, especially in PvE where benchmarks should show that everything dedicated outclasses it, but the margin is tolerable to sacrifice some performance for flexibilty on some classes (outside of raids and hight tier fractals).. So currently it is a valid option, which will be taken away and furthermore reducing build options.

Lastly, even if those nerfs would be coming, what do you think will happen next? People will naturally gravitate towards the next best thing and start using these.

For zergs, removing trailblazer or minstrel will not change anything, except the gearing obviously, it will still be blobbs puking boons, maybe they'll focus more on frontloading more dps then, as someone on the thread already mentioned. Amazing.

Small scale fighting will still be scuffed, due to how skewed class balance is and how some classes super easily outperform others.

 

Quote

I'm able to enjoy playing cele builds while also recognizing that they are overpowered and need nerfing.  Mostly rev, guard, engi, ele are the best uses for it, but as of late ive found that even a thief and mesmer can use it, and those builds felt nasty to play in terms of how uninteractive they were.

Here you're stating those classes, which currently are the typical boon pukes, whilst Engi only shines due to the recent changes to Gyros and the stacking of Superspeed and Quickness.

Rev and Guard have been op for way to long, even without cele, so nothing really will change much there, Ele still is an underdog even with the bandaid of celestial on it, and Thief, Mesmer and Soulbeast usually prefer other stats above celestial to actually have enough oomph, but i agree that all those classes "can" benefit from using celestial gear, but will still be supbar to more dedicated gear stats.

 

I said i already before, the problem is not celestial, but that since PoF everyone has got an enormous access to boon spam. Which does get exaggerated in (larger) groups.

 

Just my anecdotal observation: Running celestial on my Firebrand in WvW does not make me a threat to anyone i encounter and i actually am quite glassy and get popped alot by either condi spam or typical burst builds easily. There are so many classes being a hard counter to my build independent of their or mine gear.

I can no outheal anything, i can't outrun anything and i am not able to bunker even remotely due to the small amount of vitality and thoughness from the gear.

Running with more focused gear tho makes me quite more durable and able to play at least as a supporter to buff allies.

 

In PvE my Firebrand, whilst being a welcome boon supporter, does not break any benchmarks for dps or healing, nor is my boon support long lasting just because i run celestial. Again i would be better off taking diviner's for PvE.

 

Again, you're focusing on the completly wrong things (and imo for the wrong reasons too).

Edited October 16, 2021 by Flacki.3075

[Sugar Min.5834]

So i guess OP wants a nerf to Celestial and to remove Minstrel gears because he couldn't instant down or two-hit down players with those stats? Talk about wanting to be over powered. And @Lan Deathrider.5910, please do not lie and try to mislead people by saying that the Feb 2020 big nerfs only affect damage nerfs. Support, heals, boons durations, boons ICDs were all heavily nerfed too. Be honest about it, after all it's only a game.

Edited October 16, 2021 by Mil.3562

[GoldenPants.1870]

14 hours ago, displayname.8315 said:

Would agree celestial is good roaming but only on certain classes like ele, necro, maybe guard. 

 

You’d be surprised on how effective it is. It is extremly effective, like, on all classes, you just need to make the most of the important stats like condi, power, and concentration.

 

And evey proffesion has traits to do that.