I just celestial everything now

[Al Masone.1274]

I quite like the options given by traits overall, for every class. What I simply can't bring myself to like is the attribute system. I'll leave PvP out of this, since in that mode you can change stats whenever you want without any hassle, and I guess pretty much every stat can have a place in the appropriate build. 

But of everything else, so Open World, fractals, raids, and wvw, I just can't understand the reasoning behind the system. There are so many atribute combinations to choose from, yet all I ever is full berserker, with the occasional viper for condi, diviner for renegade, and some minstrel or harrier for dedicated supports. The problem I see with this is that defensive stats are pretty much never a good option to focus on. It seems like you never look at vitality or toughness as relevant stats, and even healing power doesn't seem to be that important. Rather, all you're generally expect to be is pure damage, and sometimes concentration (for renegade or firebrand) when you need to maximise boons, in order to push out even more damage. 

And while that makes sense for the more fragile classes/specs, I just can't deal with it when it comes to tankier characters. 

Why am I expected to full zerker on spellbreaker or herald, or scrapper? I get it that it maximises damage, but at the expense of their core theme. 

As a herald I should be a defensive frontline, that distracts enemies and empowers allies, more or less like a traditional paladin. I should be expected to be as durable as I can, not to focus on pure damage.

So now I have gone for the middle way.

With celestial I get a little bit of everything, thus getting some of the resilience I personally crave, while still getting some offensive stats. And possibly the best part about it is that with cele gear, I can swap build whenever I want and always have at least some useful stats. 

As a "jack of all trades" gear, it will never be the best option, but it will never be useless either. Some builds benefit from it more than others, but again, every character can be somewhat decent with cele, and I don't have to get crazy about what I want or what I'm expected to build. 

I guess this is at least in part a rant, since they more I try to understand the reasoning behind attribute combinations, the more I get mad at how few options are actually meta. 

Inbefore "it's more nuanced than that", no it's not. Look at every site that gives you effective builds for group content, and see how many builds actually want you to build toughness or vitality as relevant stats. 

At least with cele gear, whenever a groups asks me to play a different build from my main, I just have to swap traits and nothing else. And since I main a reaper, this happens so depressingly often, which is why it gets me so mad. 

[draxynnic.3719]

Well... there are a few builds where Celestial IS the optimum combination. Condi herald is a good example - you've got a bit of healing, a few boons, conditions, and a bit of power damage, so nothing's going to waste. Particularly since there isn't really an optimised condi+support attribute set yet.

 

But yeah, there is a fairly narrow list of attributes that are actually useful. One gets the impression that ArenaNet has largely been throwing attribute sets at the wall and seeing what sticks rather than thinking about which sets would actually be used.

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

A-net could just make a system in which player would be capable of picking all 3/4 stats in any combination by themselves. That would speed-up process of finding most broken combos by a lot.

[Al Masone.1274]

10 minutes ago, TrollingDemigod.3041 said:

A-net could just make a system in which player would be capable of picking all 3/4 stats in any combination by themselves. That would speed-up process of finding most broken combos by a lot.

I would be ok with that in a game like diablo or path of exile, where finding the most broken builds is part of the fun. 

In a MMO like gw2 though I think that every spec should have very clear roles, and the attributes they have access to should complement their playstyles in very clean way. Of course every spec should have more than just one build path.

Let's take herald for instance: the traits let you focus on either boon sharing or on personal survability. But given your skills, you're always a mix of those things, and you're also a frontline character. Which means that at least toughness should be a big thing for you. Yet the way the game is balanced, you're encouranged in anyway to build tanky, because there's not really a role for it. Also, given how it's boon time is already pretty good, there's no real need to build concentration, and healing power isn't really very effective. So you just power or condi because they're pretty much the only stats that have a tangible effect. But that really hurts the character's theme, since outside of active skills, it won't really have much personal survivability. 

[draxynnic.3719]

To be fair, active skills are PART of survivability. One could just as easily argue that a feature of Herald is that the greater access to self-sustain and active defence means you can better afford to be full glass attribute-wise.

 

In the wider context of the game, I don't think there's any real benefit in trying to force herald (or anything else) to go tanky - especially if the profession already has good durability and it's getting the damage up that's the problem (there isn't much demand for pure tanks at the moment). And building tanky IS an option - trailblazer herald is one of the popular options for soloing group content in open world, and I think it's also popular in WvW.

Edited November 6, 2021 by draxynnic.3719

[Dadnir.5038]

2 hours ago, Al Masone.1274 said:

It seems like you never look at vitality or toughness as relevant stats, and even healing power doesn't seem to be that important.

Oh, toughness is relevant, you want as little as possible to not aggro...

Overall, I understand what you mean, however, in general, the combat system and end game encounter designs favor maxing dps over maxing survivability. It's been found out throught trial and error since the vanilla game that, in GW2, the best defense is offense. It's to the point that people readily accept to be carried by offensive boons and effects but struggle to accept that defensive boons and effects have the same value (at first, for 7 out of 9 years of GW2, they've been seen as useless while now that's they've been proven effective they are seen as OP...)

[Al Masone.1274]

1 hour ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Oh, toughness is relevant, you want as little as possible to not aggro...

 

But the monsters will inevitably aggro someone, right? Or do they get confused if none has any toughness?

[Buran.3796]

   Currently full celestial is a very good option for a WvW condi Herald roamer and the "only" choice that makes a Firebrand roamer in that game mode; can works also for hybrid Renegade builds but I think that combinations between viper and trailblazer (or grieving) are stronger for that class. Full celestial is also very strong for longbow + swords Spellbreaking roamers and for sure will fit well other specs.

   That's in WvW; in PvP the celestial amulet was removed, and in PvE is a decent "all terrain" choice for some hybrid specs, but the goal in PvE is just making a legendary armor AFAP and use seasonal ascended trinkets to experiment.

[draxynnic.3719]

13 minutes ago, Al Masone.1274 said:

But the monsters will inevitably aggro someone, right? Or do they get confused if none has any toughness?

Dadnir is referring to raids, some of which benefit from having a specific player hold the aggro of the boss and thereby control their movements. Aggro is determined by toughness - the character with the highest toughness will draw aggro. Therefore, in these raids it is important that no player has higher toughness than the designated bait.

[Pirogen.9561]

If you solo, you need versality. Becuase its only you and noone else around. And you still have to do all the tasks that are required to win the encounter.  Damage, survive, CC, whatever.

The number of task you have to do, doesn't change if there are more players around(a group). The same encounter, the same list of tasks to do. Maybe mobs are "bigger" because of scaling, but everything else is still the same.

So a  group can afford to have specialists. Not everyone has to be able to do all tasks. Maybe more then one different task, but not all have to do everything. And the bigger the group, the more you can afford to have "pure" specialists.

So you end up with "roles". And specific role, needs gear that fits.

Simpler version: its about "encounter". To win an encounter, you have to do specific tasks. Damage, survive, etc ... you can call them "roles". To be good at your roles, you need specific gear that fits your role. Thats why "Power DPS" uses Berserker. The best fit for a specific role.

Edited November 6, 2021 by Pirogen.9561

[AliamRationem.5172]

4 hours ago, Al Masone.1274 said:

I quite like the options given by traits overall, for every class. What I simply can't bring myself to like is the attribute system. I'll leave PvP out of this, since in that mode you can change stats whenever you want without any hassle, and I guess pretty much every stat can have a place in the appropriate build. 

But of everything else, so Open World, fractals, raids, and wvw, I just can't understand the reasoning behind the system. There are so many atribute combinations to choose from, yet all I ever is full berserker, with the occasional viper for condi, diviner for renegade, and some minstrel or harrier for dedicated supports. The problem I see with this is that defensive stats are pretty much never a good option to focus on. It seems like you never look at vitality or toughness as relevant stats, and even healing power doesn't seem to be that important. Rather, all you're generally expect to be is pure damage, and sometimes concentration (for renegade or firebrand) when you need to maximise boons, in order to push out even more damage. 

And while that makes sense for the more fragile classes/specs, I just can't deal with it when it comes to tankier characters. 

Why am I expected to full zerker on spellbreaker or herald, or scrapper? I get it that it maximises damage, but at the expense of their core theme. 

As a herald I should be a defensive frontline, that distracts enemies and empowers allies, more or less like a traditional paladin. I should be expected to be as durable as I can, not to focus on pure damage.

So now I have gone for the middle way.

With celestial I get a little bit of everything, thus getting some of the resilience I personally crave, while still getting some offensive stats. And possibly the best part about it is that with cele gear, I can swap build whenever I want and always have at least some useful stats. 

As a "jack of all trades" gear, it will never be the best option, but it will never be useless either. Some builds benefit from it more than others, but again, every character can be somewhat decent with cele, and I don't have to get crazy about what I want or what I'm expected to build. 

I guess this is at least in part a rant, since they more I try to understand the reasoning behind attribute combinations, the more I get mad at how few options are actually meta. 

Inbefore "it's more nuanced than that", no it's not. Look at every site that gives you effective builds for group content, and see how many builds actually want you to build toughness or vitality as relevant stats. 

At least with cele gear, whenever a groups asks me to play a different build from my main, I just have to swap traits and nothing else. And since I main a reaper, this happens so depressingly often, which is why it gets me so mad. 

This is a mismatch between what the game is and what you want it to be.  There are no tanks here.  The closest you get are contrived raid encounters where the boss fixates a target.  Your healers have no ability to target a specific ally either, so your DPS receive the same heals as your would-be tank.

[Kuma.1503]

I've been trying out cele on all of my characters. So far it seems to work best on:

Tempest - Was able to carry fractal groups with boons, heals, and some damage

Weaver - Plays the same as condi weaver, but with extra bulk. Still has great burst dps. 

Firebrand - Was able to hard carry groups with decent dps, boons, and heals with this setup

Mirage - Very comfy way to play alac staff mirage, and still does good damage. I mixed in a bit of viper trinkets

Druid - When I want to play druid but still contribute to dps. I just run the same build as Condi Support druid and go to town. Can run Staff over shortbow for more heals if needed. (This is also a great way to play Druid in open world and actually kill things quickly)

Soulbeast - Most played this in WvW. It's boonbeast, but you can spec into either power, condi, or hybrid depending on your mood. 

Scourge - Another hard carry. I played this with cele stats and 2 manned a few raid bosses with a friend. The kills took us an hour each or more, but we weren't in any danger. Add mercy runes for even more hard carry if you want

Holosmith - Also mostly a WvW thing. It's holo but even tankier than usual, and you can run either condi holo or power holo to great effect. (Remember Forge 4 and grenades both have some hard hitting condis tacked on)

Reneagde - It's literally meta. See: Condi Support Renegade

Herald - This is very likely also the optimal way to play it. 

Honorable shoutout to Mechanist and Specter who seem to be built to take advantage of Cele stats. 

Catalyst should be good as well... at least in theory. The spec as a whole needs work though. 

 

 

Edited November 6, 2021 by Kuma.1503

[SeTect.5918]

27 minutes ago, Kuma.1503 said:

I've been trying out cele on all of my characters. So far it seems to work best on:

Tempest - Was able to carry fractal groups with boons, heals, and some damage

Weaver - Plays the same as condi weaver, but with extra bulk. Still has great burst dps. 

Firebrand - Was able to hard carry groups with decent dps, boons, and heals with this setup

Mirage - Very comfy way to play alac staff mirage, and still does good damage. I mixed in a bit of viper trinkets

Druid - When I want to play druid but still contribute to dps. I just run the same build as Condi Support druid and go to town. Can run Staff over shortbow for more heals if needed. (This is also a great way to play Druid in open world and actually kill things quickly)

Soulbeast - Most played this in WvW. It's boonbeast, but you can spec into either power, condi, or hybrid depending on your mood. 

Scourge - Another hard carry. I played this with cele stats and 2 manned a few raid bosses with a friend. The kills took us an hour each or more, but we weren't in any danger. Add mercy runes for even more hard carry if you want

Holosmith - Also mostly a WvW thing. It's holo but even tankier than usual, and you can run either condi holo or power holo to great effect. (Remember Forge 4 and grenades both have some hard hitting condis tacked on)

Reneagde - It's literally meta. See: Condi Support Renegade

Herald - This is very likely also the optimal way to play it. 

Honorable shoutout to Mechanist and Specter who seem to be built to take advantage of Cele stats. 

Catalyst should be good as well... at least in theory. The spec as a whole needs work though.

i think scrapper works better with cele than holo. 

For the new specs also harbinger and Vindicator could go well with cele.

[Obtena.7952]

3 hours ago, Al Masone.1274 said:

I would be ok with that in a game like diablo or path of exile, where finding the most broken builds is part of the fun. 

GW2 is like this for sure ... find the right build for the right situation and you are doing exceptional things. 

Quote

In a MMO like gw2 though I think that every spec should have very clear roles, and the attributes they have access to should complement their playstyles in very clean way. 

You can think that if you like ... but it's not how GW2 is designed. It's the opposite in fact. The idea of 'roles' is very artificial and there are games out there that, if you like that style, do it superbly. Not GW2. It's got it's own thing and that's what makes it attractive to people. 

As for Celestials ... there are some, but not many, PVE builds that are optimal with it in specific situations but be aware, as someone that likes 'clear roles' and 'clean ways', Celestial does not accomplish that.  

Edited November 6, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

Full Celestial is a waste, but its good for rounding our your stats. For example, Marshal's+Celestial works very well on Ele. I do use full Cele on a few charas but only in WvW where more survivability is needed.

Edited November 6, 2021 by Hannelore.8153

[Kuma.1503]

20 minutes ago, SeTect.5918 said:

i think scrapper works better with cele than holo. 

For the new specs also harbinger and Vindicator could go well with cele.

For Scrapper, I've tried Cele and I wasn't too impressed. The condi stats mostly go to waste, and I wasn't generating as much barrier as I liked. 

I found better results running a mixture of Marauder and Diviner gear. The extra power damage translated into more durability and it doesnt' take much boon duration to cap on quickness ever since Anet buffed Kinetic Accelerators to give Concentration based on power. 

I have tried running Cele Heal Scrapper. ,but it didn't have quite the same punch as other Cele supports. It wasn't bad but wasn't great. I generally have better luck when running Harrier + Zealots with hammer if I want to output some dps on the side. The barrier makes up for the lost durability. 

Cele Holo works great because forge has built in condi pressure (and it's burning which naturally hits hard), they self apply 25 might and 25 vuln (expertise buffs vuln duration as well), and they work well with running pistol/pistol. (Scrapper can use this, but it's not as impactful without the might/vuln from forge)

 

Edited November 6, 2021 by Kuma.1503

[SeTect.5918]

1 hour ago, Kuma.1503 said:

For Scrapper, I've tried Cele and I wasn't too impressed. The condi stats mostly go to waste, and I wasn't generating as much barrier as I liked. 

I found better results running a mixture of Marauder and Diviner gear. The extra power damage translated into more durability and it doesnt' take much boon duration to cap on quickness ever since Anet buffed Kinetic Accelerators to give Concentration based on power. 

I have tried running Cele Heal Scrapper. ,but it didn't have quite the same punch as other Cele supports. It wasn't bad but wasn't great. I generally have better luck when running Harrier + Zealots with hammer if I want to output some dps on the side. The barrier makes up for the lost durability. 

Cele Holo works great because forge has built in condi pressure (and it's burning which naturally hits hard), they self apply 25 might and 25 vuln (expertise buffs vuln duration as well), and they work well with running pistol/pistol. (Scrapper can use this, but it's not as impactful without the might/vuln from forge)

 

Well holo isnt that good either. The thing is that in scrapper has nearly no condis so the condi dmg goes in waste and holo has nearly no healing and less boons so that goes a bit in waste.

Didnt think about this before so i ll just make a small analysis of stats used by scrapper/holo on cele.

Holo:
Power - check
Preci - check
Toughness - check
Vitality - check
Feroctiy - check
Healing power - lower use from it than scrapper but it can also make use out of it
condition damage - check
concentration - basically only useful if using 1 specific utility skill, otherwise it can be used for might generation only
expertise - check

Scrapper:
Power - check
Preci - check
Toughness - check
Vitality - check (arguably it can make more use than holo from it because the barrier can stack higher bc of vitality)
Ferocity - check
Healing power - check
condition damage - wasted stat
concentration - check
expertise - only good for non damaging condis on it so holo can make more use from it

Lets say they both r pretty okay with it and its situational. Scrapper is tankier than holo if both are using cele. But holo deals more damage with it.

Generally I am not a fan of cele scrapper and also no fan of cele holo.
Holo is too selfish so its not a support build. Its basically solo build only because for dps it would be better just running berserker or vipers. But also Trailblazers i found better than cele on holo.
For Scrapper its better just running full healer or full dps or full quickness support. Cele would also here be a pure solo build or a strange support/dps build but the dmg is too low. However I found marauder better for soloing.
For WvW i think both are viable. I would say holo is a bit better there with cele because the damage with cele scrapper is very low imo.
But in wvw i generally find Marauders scrapper or something in that direction better than cele holo.

Edited November 6, 2021 by SeTect.5918

[oscuro.9720]

9 hours ago, Kuma.1503 said:

I've been trying out cele on all of my characters. So far it seems to work best on:

Tempest - Was able to carry fractal groups with boons, heals, and some damage

Weaver - Plays the same as condi weaver, but with extra bulk. Still has great burst dps. 

Firebrand - Was able to hard carry groups with decent dps, boons, and heals with this setup

Mirage - Very comfy way to play alac staff mirage, and still does good damage. I mixed in a bit of viper trinkets

Druid - When I want to play druid but still contribute to dps. I just run the same build as Condi Support druid and go to town. Can run Staff over shortbow for more heals if needed. (This is also a great way to play Druid in open world and actually kill things quickly)

Soulbeast - Most played this in WvW. It's boonbeast, but you can spec into either power, condi, or hybrid depending on your mood. 

Scourge - Another hard carry. I played this with cele stats and 2 manned a few raid bosses with a friend. The kills took us an hour each or more, but we weren't in any danger. Add mercy runes for even more hard carry if you want

Holosmith - Also mostly a WvW thing. It's holo but even tankier than usual, and you can run either condi holo or power holo to great effect. (Remember Forge 4 and grenades both have some hard hitting condis tacked on)

Reneagde - It's literally meta. See: Condi Support Renegade

Herald - This is very likely also the optimal way to play it. 

Honorable shoutout to Mechanist and Specter who seem to be built to take advantage of Cele stats. 

Catalyst should be good as well... at least in theory. The spec as a whole needs work though. 

 

 

All I’m reading in this is that warrior is a superior class because it’s not listed here. That’s the message, right? This is a list of bad classes, right? RIGHT?!  xD

Edited November 6, 2021 by oscuro.9720
/s just in case anyone thought this was serious

[oscuro.9720]

9 hours ago, TrollingDemigod.3041 said:

A-net could just make a system in which player would be capable of picking all 3/4 stats in any combination by themselves. That would speed-up process of finding most broken combos by a lot.

They should just restrict armor to 2 stats only. More min-maxing reward, more trade offs in choosing gear sets, can combat some power creep. 

Only half joking. 

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

I started skimming after awhile, but I think nobody has explained all the reasons why Berserkers works so well in the game.  Its... a lot.

 

#1: This game's stat system was designed from the ground up with PVP in mind.  This means that each player had to be functionally capable on their own, no matter which distribution of stats they chose.  Customization and preference were the emphasis, not hard roles.  Because of this, the base stats of the player is sufficient enough to survive hits, do damage, heal, and buff themselves.  Not the best, but minimally competent.  All professions can survive with 1000 toughness and vitality.

#2: For convenience, you fully heal when out of combat.  This has a side effect, where long term survival is not an issue in this game.  Win by an inch or win by a mile, it is all the same.  You win, and then you're back to full.

#3: The game has a lot of active defenses.  Dodge, blind, weakness, block, invulnerability, counter-cc, self-healing, etc.  So much that your general performance in this game is dependent more on how you use these skills than it is what stats you bring.  The ability to keep enemies disabled is far more valuable than 600 toughness.

#4: The rally system means that, for downed teammates, killing an opponent acts as a form of ally healing.

#5: The other type of damage, condition damage, needs time to pass in order to do damage.  Strike damage kills immediately.

 

Combine all of these factors together, and you get the Berserker PVE meta.  The incentives for going full damage are many: you save time, you get loot faster, it is much easier to slot more active defenses than it is to change gear for different stats, it is harder to gain offensive power through traits/utilities than it is to gain defenses, dead enemies deal no damage, and as time goes on PVE content is designed with berserkers gear in mind.  The only downside is that you have to be functionally competent in playing the game, because there's less room for error.

That all said, it isn't as cut and dry as "everyone run berserker."  There's a lot of sets that have value in PVE:

Marauders: Has 91.4% of the damage of Berserkers, but has an extra 6k health.  I have one of these on nearly every toon, since the damage loss is nearly negligible but that 6k health has saved me time and again.

Grievers: Used on Eles and Guardians, mostly.  Good if you want both the power to kill little mobs, and also the condition damage for different utilities and tactics.

Vipers: The go-to condition set.  Condition builds have different tactics, which will let you beat fights that are really difficult for power sets.

Trailblazer: This is the condition variant of Marauders.  It's not used a lot in structured PVE, because the toughness messes with aggro mechanics and power damage is often needed for specific mechanics.  However, wandering the overworld this set can be nigh invincible while also doing high damage.

Harriers: This is the go-to healing set.  It does enough power damage to be useful, but it is great for buffing and healing allies.  You only use this in groups, though.

Seraphs: this is the condi variation of healing gear. 

Diviner: This is also a great set for ally buffing, and it is useful if you still want to do damage (roughly 75% of berserkers, not factoring in greater boon uptime).  Diviners is still competent enough to be used solo without losing much time.

[Asum.4960]

That's entirely down to how Anet decides to design specialisations and Traits, as well as encounters/general game difficulty or lack thereof. They could do a lot more to make more stat combinations valid. 

 

Give a spec Traits that close to max out all the condi durations it requires while giving it decent power coefficients on skills as well, and voila, Grieving is meta on that, and they can balance it around not needing that Expertise and Rune investment and having good hybrid damage, etc. 

 

Give a spec Traits that make (consistent) crit capping really easy without needing much Precision, and something like Valkyrie can at least partially be meta on it.

 

As for defensive stats, that one is a bit more difficult. 

Supports are just incredibly strong in GW2 and all you need for instanced group content, and especially outside of instanced group content the general game difficulty is incredibly low. 

Since the average mob in the game can be killed in <5 seconds by going full damage, without ever really taking a return hit - there is no point in ever taking defensive stats. All they do is slow down your time to kill making your play less efficient and giving the mobs more chances to hit you/the player more opportunities to make mistakes in longer encounters, causing you to actually take more damage as well. That makes defensive stats a loss loss.

 

If the game was more threatening over all as to where you simply couldn't survive without defensive stat investment (in some cases even just by increasing the time to kill of the general mobs, giving them a chance to get some hits in rather than being evaporated instantly by high damage builds - counter intuitively making mobs take longer to kill translating to defensive stats becoming more valuable), players would run them more - although that would slow down the game a lot, which while more interesting to play, certainly would upset a great deal of players. 

 

In a way though the irrelevance of defensive stats is a symptom of GW2 being a player skill driven game, rather than a stat driven game. The ability to dodge, circle strafe and/or using active defenses (Aegis/Block, Blinds, evades etc.) just naturally devalues defensive stats - unless the content is tuned in a way where all those defensive mechanics semi-skillfully used still aren't enough to generally survive, but then low skill players would really struggle and complain, which generally then leads to content nerfs, keeping all those stats irrelevant. 

 

All that said, I do think a great culling of Stat sets, Runes and Sigils, replacing them with a slightly more concise but more impactful and interesting list of options, as well as a major rebalancing of all the Professions to have some greater synergies with some over the other could make the game a lot more interesting if done right - rather than certain stats, runes and sigils being BiS on just about every Power, Condi or Support build respectively. 

That's unfortunately a massive undertaking though, and something even the massive Rune and Sigil rework of Nov. 2018 fell woefully short of.

Edited November 6, 2021 by Asum.4960

[draxynnic.3719]

53 minutes ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

Seraphs: this is the condi variation of healing gear. 

Plaguedoctor's is also used. Neither set is really ideal - the value of Precision on condi builds has been decreasing due to the removal of "inflict condition on critical hits" traits (although a few are still around), so it really comes down to whether you want that extra survivability or whether that precision is still marginally useful. The ideal would probably be a condition/healing power/expertise/concentration set.

 

19 minutes ago, Asum.4960 said:

Since the average mob in the game can be killed in <5 seconds by going full damage, without ever really taking a return hit - there is no point in ever taking defensive stats. All they do is slow down your time to kill making your play less efficient and giving the mobs more chances to hit you/the player more opportunities to make mistakes in longer encounters, causing you to actually take more damage as well. That makes defensive stats a loss loss.

It is worth noting here that people who take on challenges like soloing group bosses (champions and sometimes even legendaries) do use more defensive sets, since those enemies DO take a while to kill and it's usually pretty much impossible to kill them without taking at least some damage - extra defensive stats can be the difference between being able to survive and not. Trailblazer's is popular here, since for condi builds it provides a lot of extra survivability without really decreasing damage much compared to Viper's. There are exceptions, though: for instance, Lord Hizen during the beta was trying out a Bladesworn build using Valkyrie's, Cavalier's, or a mix therof, on the basis that since the majority of bladesworn damage was on single powerful attacks, a Sigil of Vision was sufficient to ensure that the important attacks were crits.

[Asum.4960]

5 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

It is worth noting here that people who take on challenges like soloing group bosses (champions and sometimes even legendaries) do use more defensive sets, since those enemies DO take a while to kill and it's usually pretty much impossible to kill them without taking at least some damage - extra defensive stats can be the difference between being able to survive and not.

 

Precisely, yea. With increased game difficulty, which you can unfortunately pretty much just find by tackling relatively few/niche pieces of expressly group content solo, defensive stats increase in demand.

[Kuma.1503]

11 hours ago, oscuro.9720 said:

All I’m reading in this is that warrior is a superior class because it’s not listed here. That’s the message, right? This is a list of bad classes, right? RIGHT?!  xD

I couldn't tell you. I don't have a warrior :')

[Opopanax.1803]

Though I only have Celestial Trinkets at the moment, I think celestial really shines for new players, and players that focus on open world.  Typically these players are not as aware about stats and are not as good at survivability, so I hope that Celestial continues to be an option that is offered by ANET for those types of players, and others who have not been able to invest in multiple sets of gear.