Help Understanding Celestial Gear and Gear Attributes

[Noko Anon.9154]

I am relatively new to the game, and did get a level 80 boost ticket. With that ticket, I got a brand new level 80 character wearing celestial exotic armor. The guild I joined explained that this gear allowed me the opportunity to play my profession however I wanted, while working towards replacing armor and weapons to find a niche. This is fantastic, but why would I want to trade off of celestial equipment?

Celestial exotic chest armor offers +63 in all stats, for a cumulative value of +567. Comparing that to something like an exotic Marauder's chest piece, which offers a total of +356 (+115 Power and Precision, +63 Vitality and Ferocity) to less than half of the stats that can be improved, or even Berserker's, which only offers +326 total (+134 Power, +96 Precision and Ferocity), makes me ask why anything is chosen besides celestial equipment, when celestial is so much more powerful? It also makes me ask, why isn't armor all weighted the same way? On the outside looking in, a chest piece of exotic Berserker's equipment would ideally have something like +233 Power, +167 Precision and Ferocity for a stat total improvement of about +567 to be like celestial, or a celestial exotic chest armor would be reduced to +37 for each stat to be more equal to Marauder's and Berserkers. With most of these new elite specs, like harbinger or willbender, doing both power and condition damage at the same time, and having all of these powerful boons, it seems like a no-brainer to someone new like to me stick solely to celestial equipment.

Edited March 11, 2022 by Noko Anon.9154
Clarification

[Asum.4960]

Celestial is the jack of all trades, master of none. That makes it a great OW choice for most specs, which is why I'm glad they replaced the level boost gear with it. 

The reason to switch off of it comes with more specialised builds, especially for more endgame/group content. 

 

I.E., if someone else in a group is covering boons and sustain for you via a support, stats like Vitality, Toughness, Concentration and Healing Power drastically lose value - as is the case with Power and Ferocity with Condition builds, and Condition Damage and Expertise for builds focusing on direct damage. 

In those cases overall lower but specialised stat sets perform better at that given role.

 

[Infusion.7149]

It depends on your build and weapons. If 90% of your damage is power or conditions for example, you're better off not using celestial.

Currently the best use of celestial is on firebrand, renegade, tempest, and possibly specter. Harbinger is better off with ritualist stats due to higher condition damage and larger health pool (which means more life force).

Edited March 12, 2022 by Infusion.7149

[Asum.4960]

4 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Harbinger is better off with ritualist stats due to larger health pool (which means more life force)and longer boon duration.

Ritualist and Celestial have the exact same amount of Concentration (the only difference would be ~4% extra if Twisted Medicine is Traited) - additionally the amount of LF Pool is irrelevant for Harbinger as it doesn't double as Health Pool, and all LF gains as well as Shroud degeneration are percentage based. 

 

As such, Celestial provides Harbinger with pretty much equal DPS, higher innate tankyness, and higher sustain, over Ritualist. 

 

/E:

Where Ritualist offers a niche though is for a Raid Quickness support, to not interfere with Toughness tanking.

Edited March 12, 2022 by Asum.4960

[Jerus.4350]

3 hours ago, Asum.4960 said:

Ritualist and Celestial have the exact same amount of Concentration (the only difference would be ~4% extra if Twisted Medicine is Traited) - additionally the amount of LF is irrelevant for Harbinger as it doesn't double as Health Pool, and all LF gains as well as Shroud degeneration are percentage based. 

 

As such, Celestial provides Harbinger with pretty much equal DPS, higher innate tankyness, and higher sustain, over Ritualist.

New Harbinger traits in the second line you can choose either 13% Vitality to Concentration or Expertise.  Ritualist seems tailor made for Harbinger.

 

 

[Asum.4960]

41 minutes ago, Jerus.4350 said:

New Harbinger traits in the second line you can choose either 13% Vitality to Concentration or Expertise.  Ritualist seems tailor made for Harbinger.

 

 

Conversion Traits aren't anything new with EoD specs (like Power of the Virtuous for Guardian in Virtues), although they might stand out more among Harbinger's generally very passive and bland Traits. 

Strength of Shadows which Specter got for example also does the same (Vitality to Expertise), while Vitality also contributes to a damage absorbing Shroud scaling at a whopping 150% off of it's HP, a synergy Harbinger lacks entirely, or even conversely, gaining a percentage based Health reduction via Blight - with synergy in Boon Duration from Ritualist for Alacrity as well. 

 

Not to say Ritualist is bad for Harbinger, it's not - just maybe a bit overvalued when considered "Tailor made for Harbinger" (a description more fitting for Viper's and Celestial) - especially since any Condi build likely will also run another conversion Trait, Target the Weak, in Curses, which grants Condition Damage based on Precision, which Ritualist entirely lacks.

[Mortime.1359]

I generally use celestial in WvW. It gives you a bit of everything. Some power to tag stuff, some sustain to keep yourself up, some vitality and touhgness to no die to random aoes. It's a nice set to have to just goof around and not have to be super sweaty about dodges and heals.

[Thon.3780]

Let say it is all rounder trade off

so you just change rune , sigil when there are update , rebalance, nerf trait or skill that make you change your play style. Like change from power base to condi 

 

if you don’t focus pvp. Or solo roaming . It should be ok.

 

[Danikat.8537]

The disadvantage of celestial is that it's rare for a character to actually use every attribute. It's often better to specialise because it doesn't matter if you have more points in total if many of them are in attributes you're never using.

For example if you're using weapons and skills which don't cause damaging conditions like burning or poison then condition damage and expertise are useless to you. It's the same for all attributes - any character can use them but it's rare that they're all used in one build.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

Celestial is good for open-world, but I never use the full set in because its a waste. You can mix it with stats like Marauder and still have plenty of defense once you learn the game. Thus, its role in PvE is mostly useful for rounding out your stats, e.g getting certain stats (like Toughness or Vitality) without losing others.

 

(For example, my Ele runs Marshal armor and weapons, and Celestial trinkets for 15k health.)

 

Full Celestial only really works on a few classes and shouldn't be used in end-game content, especially raids as it'll make you the tank due to the high Toughness value and that's a problem.

 

Full Celestial works well in WvW on many classes, if they can output both Power and Condition Damage. This is the game mode where it sees the most play, and is the most "newbie friendly" stat combination.

 

Celestial stats aren't available at all anymore in PvP.

 

Btw, you don't have to "give up" your Celestial gear. You have two equipment tabs and can purchase more by converting gold to gems. This allows you to equip multiple full sets of armor, weapons and trinkets to use with different builds from the build tabs.

Edited March 12, 2022 by Hannelore.8153

[Beorn Raukar.4328]

I believe what you are asking is why is it that the total stat allocation for something like celestial as opposed to something like dragons or berserker. The reason is because of how the compounding effect of stats work.

For example take berserker which is power, critical chance, and critical multiplier. Having an X amount on each of them is good, but having the same amount X on all of them at the same time is significantly better. That is because X power increases your damage, X critical multiplier increases your critical damage which is based on your X power, and X critical chances makes sure your critical damage procs as often as possible. Meaning you are triple dipping into the X number.

This is not the case for stats that affect differen kids of skills. For example having X vitality, and X power affects your caracter separatly and does not have the stacking effect from before.

To balance these two effects the more attribute distribution you have less point on each individual attribute (for the first point balance) but you have more total points (for the second point balance).

To test this you can compare celestial to berserker and you notice that for a particular piece, chest for example, as you noted the total number of points is more. But it has less ferocity, less power, and less precision.

[ChronoPinoyX.7923]

Celestial's benefits are very dependent on the content. For something like WvW where you want to have options for optimized damage output as well as sustain, Celestial helps to build up stats that you would otherwise lack in certain battles when using other stats combos. 

In most PvE content, it's better to create a build that has focused stats as opposed to outright spreading them. What happens with Celestial is in PvE is that it spreads the stats far too widely that it becomes apparent you won't be as effective as other people with a more focus attribute distribution.

Celestial's Grand Total bonus across all attributes is +196 per attribute on Exotic Armour (Full Celsestial Set). For a Power build that might sound OK, however when compared to something like Exotic Berserker, Celestial is easily outperformed in boosting the core attributes of a Power Build (Power, Precision, Ferocity). In total, Exotic Berserker gives +419 Power, +299 Precision, +299 Ferocity for Armour. It easily overtakes Celestial. 

When looking into stats, you don't add the different stats together, you add the amount of bonus a full armour set gives on specific attributes instead, which will give you the actual bonus you get for whatever stats you want to focus on. 

Edited March 12, 2022 by ChronoPinoyX.7923

[AliamRationem.5172]

It's certainly a good set for the right build, but if your purpose is very focused you will perform significantly better with a more focused set.  This is especially true for power-based damage builds which are very stat-dependent (power/precision/ferocity).  A berserker build in a power setup with full raid buffs will deal dramatically more damage than the same build equipping celestial.

Condition damage builds benefit a bit more - or perhaps it would be more accurate to say they don't lose out as much?  Still, you would not want to use celestial if your build's focus is to deal as much damage as possible.  Celestial in group play is generally used in support builds because it provides the ability to heal and provide boons without giving up as much damage as dedicated support stats.

Where celestial really shines outside of support roles is in scenarios where maximum damage isn't required and sustain is a priority.  This includes solo open world play and WvW roaming, where you can still deal enough damage while also being very hard to kill.  However, the caveat remains that this works much better for condition builds than it does power.  Generally speaking, if your build is power-based and not support-oriented celestial is a poor choice.

[Cyninja.2954]

Most responses cover this very well, let me try to condensce what was said. There are 2 main reasons why celestial gear will be more more less desirable (this actually applies to spreading out over multiple stats, but applies to celestial as well):

 

1. compounding stats

The way calculations are done for damage, focusing on 1 type of damage (strike aka power damage or condition damage) will yield a better result given the higher total amount towards that 1 type

 

2. Limited skill and trait availability

Being limited to a specific amount of weapon and utility skills affects of how many uses for different stats one can have. There is non point in having concentration if no boons are being generated, neither is there any use for condition damage or expertise when no conditions are applied. Those are then dead stats. 

 

In both cases, it is often advisable to specialize, use appropriate weapons and utility skills as well as traits which all synergize with each other over spreading out to thin over to many stats.

 

For genral purpose content where very high performance or min/maxing is not needed, celestial is good. In some cases even great, even for WvW, especially since the addition of expertise and concentration. Basically any time where you can either draw benefit from more than 3-4 stats or where specialization is not needed, celestial is a good alternative.

[Desh.7028]

What what does: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Attribute

Where to find it: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Attribute_combinations

Ascended trinkets in particular: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ascended_trinket

 

The game is lacking when it comes to explaining many things but the wiki almost always as your back.

 

[kobredabre.7518]

It is kitten that is killing WvW content...

Edited October 4, 2023 by kobredabre.7518

[Astralporing.1957]

On 3/12/2022 at 12:07 AM, Noko Anon.9154 said:

I am relatively new to the game, and did get a level 80 boost ticket. With that ticket, I got a brand new level 80 character wearing celestial exotic armor. The guild I joined explained that this gear allowed me the opportunity to play my profession however I wanted, while working towards replacing armor and weapons to find a niche. This is fantastic, but why would I want to trade off of celestial equipment?

Celestial exotic chest armor offers +63 in all stats, for a cumulative value of +567. Comparing that to something like an exotic Marauder's chest piece, which offers a total of +356 (+115 Power and Precision, +63 Vitality and Ferocity) to less than half of the stats that can be improved, or even Berserker's, which only offers +326 total (+134 Power, +96 Precision and Ferocity), makes me ask why anything is chosen besides celestial equipment, when celestial is so much more powerful? It also makes me ask, why isn't armor all weighted the same way? On the outside looking in, a chest piece of exotic Berserker's equipment would ideally have something like +233 Power, +167 Precision and Ferocity for a stat total improvement of about +567 to be like celestial, or a celestial exotic chest armor would be reduced to +37 for each stat to be more equal to Marauder's and Berserkers. With most of these new elite specs, like harbinger or willbender, doing both power and condition damage at the same time, and having all of these powerful boons, it seems like a no-brainer to someone new like to me stick solely to celestial equipment.

There are 3 general approaches to stats. First is exponential increase, where getting to higher levels of stats start offering better and better return for each stat point. Second is the opposite - the diminishing return approach, where the higher your stat gets, the more points you need for similar return. And third, is of course, linear, where a set amount of points always offers the same return, no matter how high (or low) your stat is.

GW2 on surface might seem like a linear increase system. Basically, with few exceptions (like caps on boon duration, condi duration and critical chance), it may seem like each stat increase brings with it the same value. So, based on this it one might think that "removing" some stat points from one stat and placing it in another could be a reasonable tradeoff. And, of course, it would also mean that having more stat points should generally be better.

All that however overlooks 2 important facts. First is that stats are not equal. Defensive stats, for example, just do not have the same value as offensive ones (and in PvE that difference in value becomes really massive). Second, while each individual stat uses linear increase system, multiple stats have reinforcing effects on each other. Toughness decreases damage received, which increases value of each hit point received from increasing Vitality. Expertise increases length of conditions, which multiplies the value of Condition Damage. The same with Power, Precision and Ferocity combination, where each of those stats increases the value of the other two.

As such, investing into a single self-reinforcing group of stats offers far better return than dividing those points between two or more groups. And, generally, investing in offensive set of stats offers far better return than investing in defensive ones. Specialization rules, and dps is the king.

As such, Celestial may have the most stats, but they are assigned inefficiently, with a lot of them being pretty much wasted, which makes the whole stat set mediocre at best.

Notice, though, that all this is about PvE, because PvP is a bit different. Here being specialized means that in addition to strength, you also have a glaring weakness, and, unlike mobs, other players can use that weakness against you.

[DanAlcedo.3281]

58 minutes ago, kobredabre.7518 said:

It is kitten that is killing WvW content...

Necro post. Check. 

Adds nothing of value. Check. 

Thread gets locked soon. Check. 

[Astralporing.1957]

2 minutes ago, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

Necro post. Check.

...uh, missed that one 😕

[DanAlcedo.3281]

Just now, Astralporing.1957 said:

...uh, missed that one 😕

Happens to the best of us. Don't worry. 😘

[TheQuickFox.3826]

Celestial is usually an excellent choice for any content where you cannot be guaranteed to play with dedicated roles. Things like story, open world, meta's and random pugs for instances.

If you go to content that is usually played with specialized roles like strike missions and raids, celestial is not ideal because other players expect you to take a role. DPS with DPS stats, healer with healing stats etc.

There have been some experiments with a full raid group all having celestial stats and this works great and makes a robust group to reliably clear hard content but it is not being used often and the clearing is a bit slower than with experienced groups with dedicated roles.

In short: Keep your cele gear for general gaming and make a second equipment tab if you want to play a role in instanced PvE.