Celestial/Minstrel Manifesto [Merged]

[Xenash.1245]

Don't have much to say aside from that I disagree about celestial, and that I'm on the fence about minstrel.

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

On 10/15/2021 at 6:01 PM, Vallun.2071 said:

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

Imagine talking about Celestial and Minstrel but not mentioning pure aids stats like Trailblazer and Dire which plagues WvW since they were added to the game.

[Charybdis.3695]

I like fighting full celestial builds.

It's like playing cat and mouse with players who haven't got a clue about stats designed with thresholds.

 

I also like fighting full minstrel builds.

Boon stripping and ccing exposes the diminishing returns that come with all that wasted extra toughness, with no stats to fight back.

 

Stats can make the difference between having to try harder with a lower success rate vs having a character that pretty much plays itself.  Some players go full stat or half and half, others tinker to find hidden balance.

[Xenesis.6389]

2 hours ago, Echo.6310 said:

I also like fighting full minstrel builds.

Boon stripping and ccing exposes the diminishing returns that come with all that wasted extra toughness, with no stats to fight back.

 

Are you really bragging about killing a zerg support build?

[apharma.3741]

So I didn't read everything because it's Vallun and he types 3 novels when 2 paragraphs will do, however comparing stat numbers is bit of a fools game.

You need to look at the stats effectiveness on builds, specifically skills, and compare the stat types against each other on this. One of the ways you can do this is to take a build and work out skills damage based on 0 stats and then work it out for each stat combination there is (stick to pure stats like all zerker) and compare each stat types increase over base. What you'll find out is that toughness is bonkers when paired with health and/or healing power in the levels minstrel and trailblazer give. This is because it both raises your effective health but also your effective healing.

One of the problems with this approach is that boon duration via concentration is VERY hard to quantify in a meaningful and accurate way as is non damaging conditions with expertise. This type of calculation is also very intensive to work out for every build but with some good excel skills (and a lot of time) you could probably create a system for comparing stats on builds.

What you'll find out is that depending on class and skill loadout Trailblazers is actually one of the strongest stat types, especially if you have good healing sources on the build, so not mesmer. What you also see is the effective healing of minstrels is way beyond most other stat types (this is self only btw) and that the power damage on zerker is also very nutty but balanced out by it's lack of everything else.

Celestial is very heavily dependant on the type of skills you're using (condition or hybrid) and really benefits from a decent source of extra heals and increased crit traits, it's not niche per say but it's not the be all, end all of stats for a given purpose.

 

[Charybdis.3695]

6 hours ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

 

Are you really bragging about killing a zerg support build?

 

I'm saying going full stat anything is a walking bag. Stats that are well organized makes all the difference, roaming or zerg.

[Xenesis.6389]

1 minute ago, Echo.6310 said:

 

I'm saying going full stat anything is a walking bag. Stats that are well organized makes all the difference, roaming or zerg.

 

Well you made fun of celestial and minstrel stats, so what do you expect them to run? berserkers to do their job of healing? Do you understand that there are roles in wvw?

[nerva.7940]

Cele is fine as is, but Minstrel kitten should have been removed years and years ago. There is literally no reason for it to exist, I don't know what they were thinking with this stat distribution. 

[Xenesis.6389]

28 minutes ago, nerva.7940 said:

Cele is fine as is, but Minstrel kitten should have been removed years and years ago. There is literally no reason for it to exist, I don't know what they were thinking with this stat distribution. 

 

Pve, raids.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

23 hours ago, TrollingDemigod.3041 said:

Imagine talking about Celestial and Minstrel but not mentioning pure aids stats like Trailblazer and Dire which plagues WvW since they were added to the game.

Going to agree here.  Trailblazer may be the worst offender by a long shot.  And this is coming from someone who's 'main' build is an immob druid.  

As for Cele and Minstrel, not sure it matters.  I run Cele a lot when I want to be lazy, but really could just build tanky and get the same results as most people in WvW are bad.  Minstrel is just ignorable if the support is alone, and if they are actually being support then I think it's fine, as WvW should have supports.  

I would ask the TC what they think is the optimal stat set? Can be two or three I guess: power, condi, and support? The answers to these will be telling.  

Edited October 19, 2021 by Gotejjeken.1267

[Aeolus.3615]

IMO celestials stats are good overall, still weak for some, excelent for others classes and m8 be quite strong for one or other build that has strong quoficient usage, overall in good spot.

About minstrels, it doesn't need to be removed at all, just swap the toughness for precision and every one will do some more damage (slightly) to cover the big nerf/balance patch that occurred in the past, while being more punishive to run boon bals with all  the defensive  stats (would be more like a risk reward balance thing), this way more support stats could start to be used over time rather than every on use only minstrell.

 

(EDIT)i know how most gw2 players hate risk reward , reason WvW is a tank wars...

 

Edited October 21, 2021 by Aeolus.3615

[kamikharzeeh.8016]

1 hour ago, Aeolus.3615 said:

it doesn't need to be removed at all, just swap the toughness for precision and every one will do some more damage (slightly)

 

way to say no and yes in one sentence. there is no difference between removing and totally messing that stat combo up is ... is that really hard to understand? supports dont do dmg bc they don#t run the stats for dmg, their whole weaponsets/skillsets/builds are forget to heal/boonprovide... to SUPPORT

 

it's making zero sense for them to invest stats into dealing damage

the point about the old dmg was, you could punish bold roamerglassbuilds with smart cc+chipdamage and retaliation. they couldn't just fire their whole crap onto your head and keep 111ing in the meantime. anet just messed that up. balance patches destroyed more fighting balance than they brought, by far

[Aeolus.3615]

1 hour ago, kamikharzeeh.8016 said:

way to say no and yes in one sentence. there is no difference between removing and totally messing that stat combo up is ... is that really hard to understand? supports dont do dmg bc they don#t run the stats for dmg, their whole weaponsets/skillsets/builds are forget to heal/boonprovide... to SUPPORT

 

it's making zero sense for them to invest stats into dealing damage

the point about the old dmg was, you could punish bold roamerglassbuilds with smart cc+chipdamage and retaliation. they couldn't just fire their whole crap onto your head and keep 111ing in the meantime. anet just messed that up. balance patches destroyed more fighting balance than they brought, by far

 

check how much power a minstrell with 25stacks fo m8 has. and some other buffs from wvw and other classes.

Basicly u end with arround 2k power and all the defensive stats and perma boons.

What retaliation are u talking about? so people die to 200-300 damage retaliations and minstrell that can reach  700-1k damage and be supper tanky in blob with perma buffs is useless for power build?

IF u go all out support u should be squishy or have low HP,  +Healing power+Boon Duration stats should do not have Toughness and Vitality together as well.

 

IN celestial is more balanced since stats are more speeded/diluted.

Edited October 19, 2021 by Aeolus.3615

[apharma.3741]

The problem with minstrels is that it's perfect stats for it's role, not that it's stats are too high or anything like that. This is why you need to compare stat types within builds, not stat numbers.

[Aeolus.3615]

27 minutes ago, apharma.3741 said:

The problem with minstrels is that it's perfect stats for it's role, not that it's stats are too high or anything like that. This is why you need to compare stat types within builds, not stat numbers.

This^.

Way to much imo, and  yet its not even the stat that gives more healing ouput.

Ence removing the toughness for something else like power/crit or only crit would make it more balanced stat, but would make the minstrell large blobbers QQ alot, since they would have to play more with active defenses rather than spam and stack.

 

 

Edited October 19, 2021 by Aeolus.3615

[Charybdis.3695]

13 hours ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

 

Well you made fun of celestial and minstrel stats, so what do you expect them to run? berserkers to do their job of healing? Do you understand that there are roles in wvw?

 

I don't have an issue with those stats, in fact as a main support player I only use 2 pieces of minstrels for a specific build that is viable for solo/roam/zerg. Again, I am saying stacking the same stat across an entire build shows a lack of understanding about how stats are designed with thresholds, so there's no point in complaining about those kind of players when they aren't challenging to begin with.

Building stats according to skill level can train a player to become better at expanding their role, but instead people are advising others to conform to PVP style builds (all stats the same save for runes).

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

Perhaps the real problem is that the 4 stat armors have two big stats and two small stats. How about just nerf the other major stat to the level of the to small stats. 

[kamikharzeeh.8016]

how about to stop this toxic nerfing game and try to equalize stuff by buffing the bad things....

 

sustain on grouplevel is by far not broken. if anyone thinks it is, you just need to learn to play dps correctly.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

59 minutes ago, kamikharzeeh.8016 said:

how about to stop this toxic nerfing game and try to equalize stuff by buffing the bad things....

I'm actually all in favor of massive buffs all around (not stealth).

59 minutes ago, kamikharzeeh.8016 said:

sustain on grouplevel is by far not broken. if anyone thinks it is, you just need to learn to play dps correctly.

Rapid Fire + OWP + sicem or EE + Grenade Barrage downs everything (those are just examples, not suggesting you run them). The problem with the current balance is that it was lopsided and unfinished. What you experience on your preferred class may not be the experience of others on other classes.

[AliamRationem.5172]

On 10/18/2021 at 1:57 AM, TrollingDemigod.3041 said:

Imagine talking about Celestial and Minstrel but not mentioning pure aids stats like Trailblazer and Dire which plagues WvW since they were added to the game.

Trailblazer and Dire offer good sustain, but most builds can't pressure effectively with pure condi.

[DeceiverX.8361]

Sounds to me like the source of the problem has more to do with boon and diverse condi spam than celestial itself. 

[Vallun.2071]

On 10/18/2021 at 1:28 PM, apharma.3741 said:

So I didn't read everything because it's Vallun and he types 3 novels when 2 paragraphs will do, however comparing stat numbers is bit of a fools game.

You need to look at the stats effectiveness on builds, specifically skills, and compare the stat types against each other on this. One of the ways you can do this is to take a build and work out skills damage based on 0 stats and then work it out for each stat combination there is (stick to pure stats like all zerker) and compare each stat types increase over base. What you'll find out is that toughness is bonkers when paired with health and/or healing power in the levels minstrel and trailblazer give. This is because it both raises your effective health but also your effective healing.

One of the problems with this approach is that boon duration via concentration is VERY hard to quantify in a meaningful and accurate way as is non damaging conditions with expertise. This type of calculation is also very intensive to work out for every build but with some good excel skills (and a lot of time) you could probably create a system for comparing stats on builds.

What you'll find out is that depending on class and skill loadout Trailblazers is actually one of the strongest stat types, especially if you have good healing sources on the build, so not mesmer. What you also see is the effective healing of minstrels is way beyond most other stat types (this is self only btw) and that the power damage on zerker is also very nutty but balanced out by it's lack of everything else.

Celestial is very heavily dependant on the type of skills you're using (condition or hybrid) and really benefits from a decent source of extra heals and increased crit traits, it's not niche per say but it's not the be all, end all of stats for a given purpose.

 

Good way to discredit yourself: "I don't like this person and also didn't read what they said, but I will go ahead and repeat their sentiment anyway"

[Vallun.2071]

On 10/17/2021 at 4:24 PM, ollbirtan.2915 said:

I really liked your videos since they are all about build variety and not always sticking to 'meta'. But this post feels like a back stab...You request to simply REMOVE one stat combination and nerf the other one - do you want the last bit of "fun" taken away from competitive mode that still allows variety? Or do you prefer WvW to become castrated like sPvP today?  

I promote build diversity by removing the stat that everyone takes because no one uses anything else when minstrels dominates. I would be promoting zerg support builds like a plague doctor tempest, a crusader druid, commanders mirages, but at the end of the day minstrels is just generally better so i made this post instead

[Zikory.6871]

12 minutes ago, Vallun.2071 said:

I promote build diversity by removing the stat that everyone takes because no one uses anything else when minstrels dominates. I would be promoting zerg support builds like a plague doctor tempest, a crusader druid, commanders mirages, but at the end of the day minstrels is just generally better so i made this post instead

Can you elaborate on why you think those classes would be more viable without minstrels? 

I'm actually trying to understand why you think removing minstrels would make those classes any more viable then they are now for zerg support builds. Firebrands and Scrappers can still get healing power and Concentration from other gear sets.

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

6 hours ago, Vallun.2071 said:

I promote build diversity by removing the stat that everyone takes because no one uses anything else when minstrels dominates. I would be promoting zerg support builds like a plague doctor tempest, a crusader druid, commanders mirages, but at the end of the day minstrels is just generally better so i made this post instead

Sometimes I wonder if you guys are trolling or are just plain naive at this point. Mirage isn't a support though in the slightest, even though it's busted for being mechanically broken, it still doesn't play like one. Chronomancer should be considered as support.
Beside that, the stats themselves are not the biggest problem with so called "build diversity" here, they're ofcourse busted for what they're doing, but they're just cherry on the top. Look at what does a Firebrand, Scourge and Scrapper in zergs, now compare it to Tempest and Druid, you really can't compete with broken stuff is in WvW with stats alone.