Celestial Gear needs to go, these builds are unfun and boring to fight against as well as to play.

[Zyreva.1078]

On 4/28/2023 at 3:00 PM, Gehenna.3625 said:

Make boons require 100% boost from concentration to be kept up 100% of the time and then suddenly the concentration stat isn't as powerful anymore.

Nerfing base durations of boons (or increasing cds) nerfs everything, not just cele (or other stats with concentration). In the end the disparity between cele and everything else remains the same.

Boon duration isn't only valuable if it allows 100% boon upkeep. There is no build that can keep up all of it's boon 100% of the time anyway. And there are boons that can have easy 100% uptime even without any boon duration and it's fine. Blanket changes to something that is as diversified as boons typically make balance worse, not better.

Like i have said plenty of times already, cele used to be in a much better spot, strong with the right builds but not as crazy as it is now, so there is absolutely no reason for any balance "experiments" in order to fix cele gear. Just revert the unneccessary buffs and call it a day. No risk, no downsides, we have been there and it was fine.

Edited April 30, 2023 by Zyreva.1078

[subversiontwo.7501]

3 hours ago, Zyreva.1078 said:

Like i have said plenty of times already, cele used to be in a much better spot, strong with the right builds but not as crazy as it is now.

Out of interest, what would you consider the right builds?

[Player.2475]

I see it as more of a design issue, not a stat issue.

 

Every goddamn EoD spec has the ability to inflict 3 different conditions with every attack while also dealing decent strike damage with no tradeoff, and pulse 2-3 different boons for 6-10 seconds with every other utility, trait or class mechanic, obviously Celestial shines above other stat combinations.

 

If Anet actually had a clue what they were doing, you'd have more builds that are more specialized to one damage type and aren't balanced around being able to maintain 25 stacks of every boon in the game, and Celestial wouldn't be that big a deal. That crappy design of making half of the builds deal condi + power damage while having decent sustain and also access to almost every boon in the game, that's what's carrying those ridiculous builds.

 

Celestial is great for survivability, but it lacks in burst damage despite the absurdity of hybrid damage.

Cele fighting Cele typically have a hard time killing the other. Actually, I'd argue they have a hard time killing anything that isn't using Marauder stats and has access to decent condi cleanses, unless you're playing the most meta builds like Cele Catalyst, Willbender or Harbinger. Do you see a pattern here?

[Dawdler.8521]

2 hours ago, Player.2475 said:

If Anet actually had a clue what they were doing, you'd have more builds that are more specialized to one damage type

We had that and everyone cried that condi was OP. 

Then condi was nerfed by 50-80% in dps and everyone cried that condi was still OP. 

Then Anet marginally nerfed power and made hybrid the meta and everyone cried about power now being useless and no one does any damage, because condi is still OP. 

Then people post 22k+ gunflame crits and you can bet your kitten that people will still cry that condi is OP. 

So yeah... about that...

Edited April 30, 2023 by Dawdler.8521

[Zyreva.1078]

4 hours ago, subversiontwo.7501 said:

Out of interest, what would you consider the right builds?

Hybrid builds with might typically. Cele was always a decent option for various ele builds for example, but also a solid option for many other specs such as renegade, all sorts of guardian, reaper, boonbeast and so on.

3 hours ago, Player.2475 said:

If Anet actually had a clue what they were doing, you'd have more builds that are more specialized to one damage type and aren't balanced around being able to maintain 25 stacks of every boon in the game, and Celestial wouldn't be that big a deal.

Yes and no. Certain classes have always been designed as hybrids with reliance on boons (most notably ele and guardian). And i don't think hybrid builds or boons are problematic per se. But cele is so blatantly overloaded right now that there is simply no reason to not build arround it on pretty much anything. And that's not something that can be fixed by changing traits and skills alone unless you completely destroy each and every hybrid build (and potentially kill entire classes in the process). Don't think that would be a reasonable approach. (That's not to say the powercreep outside of stats shouldn't be adressed - but it's an entirely different issue unrelated to cele).

Edited April 30, 2023 by Zyreva.1078

[RazieL.5684]

3 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

28k+ gunflame

 

[DeceiverX.8361]

7 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

We had that and everyone cried that condi was OP. 

Then condi was nerfed by 50-80% in dps and everyone cried that condi was still OP.

Yeah, because it still was, lol.

The only trait line options that actually had condition removal were generally in either lines that would utterly destroy most power build cohesion, or were considered too valuable to not take.  Or they just didn't exist lol.

Like thief quite literally didn't have on-demand condition removal on any skill activation via traits until they buffed Trickster in 2015 for HoT.  Your *only* options to remove conditions on-demand were:  Shadowstep, Signet of Agility (removed only a single condition at the time), or Hide in Shadows, which did not remove Torment and similarly did not remove any cover conditions.  That left your single positioning tool on its *reactivation*, putting you back on top or your enemy also with no stun break to cleanse ANYTHING.  On a lot of builds, you could literally full-combo your damage, while facetanking the power damage via Dire, and then just devote all of your resources to strictly defensive play and they literally were guaranteed to die if they didn't devote an entire trait line to strictly mitigating conditions via SE, which was at best once every 3 seconds.

In those days there were literally videos of people stat-checking power builds while using level 1 white weapons.  The builds were easier to play (literally run around and dodge/stealth on PU mesmer as the AI attacked for since it was a damage loss to shatter, P/D + D/P Uncatchable SA thief which just rotated either tons of condition output or sitting around waiting in stealth as it slowly drained your resources at a stat advantage and low-no counterplay, etc. etc. etc.)  Then you have a bunch of builds historically like trapper/immob thief and staff/staff confusion mirage that broke competitive modes for an extended period of time afterward and were absolutely braindead-easy to play.

And in WvW this is a major problem because the truth about condition builds is you only need at most two stats to deal its peak damage, and most of the condition traitlines are just better for defensive utility than the power damage ones.  You can't possibly tell me Curses Necro isn't just better in PvP environments than Spite necro.  That Chaos mesmer is weaker than Domination.  That pre-specs Critical Strikes thief was better than Deadly Arts.  That MMS ranger was historically better than Skirmishing options for any ranger that hasn't sat in bearbow for years.

While the gap has largely closed in terms of professions and build options that literally had zero options but to just die at the hands of condi players thanks to ANet eventually recognizing the need to add more/stronger cleanses to core game trait lines and utilities, there is a LONG history of condi builds being absolutely BROKEN and denying that disparity existed is either very dishonest or very misinformed.  My literal best builds are all condition ones with the sole outlier being my power reaper, but that's more a function of condi reaper being ineffective versus power since the absolutely warranted rework of Deathly Chill, and my reaper play being among the top in the game for a while as someone who coached a few top 50 reapers and a bunch in WvW until PoF where they hard-nerfed Speed of Shadows and made the spec one-dimensional. 

Heck, my free-win smallscale builds of choice to this day all remain condition builds with like 90% fewer hours than their power counterparts.  The ability to just build defense and still shell out damage not too dissimilar from various power builds with a strong set of utilities and trait interactions is just... better for raw performance in most cases and requires less from me as a player.

Edited April 30, 2023 by DeceiverX.8361

[DeceiverX.8361]

Double post.

Edited April 30, 2023 by DeceiverX.8361

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

5 hours ago, DeceiverX.8361 said:

Yeah, because it still was, lol.

The only trait line options that actually had condition removal were generally in either lines that would utterly destroy most power build cohesion, or were considered too valuable to not take.  Or they just didn't exist lol.

Like thief quite literally didn't have on-demand condition removal on any skill activation via traits until they buffed Trickster in 2015 for HoT.  Your *only* options to remove conditions on-demand were:  Shadowstep, Signet of Agility (removed only a single condition at the time), or Hide in Shadows, which did not remove Torment and similarly did not remove any cover conditions.  That left your single positioning tool on its *reactivation*, putting you back on top or your enemy also with no stun break to cleanse ANYTHING.  On a lot of builds, you could literally full-combo your damage, while facetanking the power damage via Dire, and then just devote all of your resources to strictly defensive play and they literally were guaranteed to die if they didn't devote an entire trait line to strictly mitigating conditions via SE, which was at best once every 3 seconds.

In those days there were literally videos of people stat-checking power builds while using level 1 white weapons.  The builds were easier to play (literally run around and dodge/stealth on PU mesmer as the AI attacked for since it was a damage loss to shatter, P/D + D/P Uncatchable SA thief which just rotated either tons of condition output or sitting around waiting in stealth as it slowly drained your resources at a stat advantage and low-no counterplay, etc. etc. etc.)  Then you have a bunch of builds historically like trapper/immob thief and staff/staff confusion mirage that broke competitive modes for an extended period of time afterward and were absolutely braindead-easy to play.

And in WvW this is a major problem because the truth about condition builds is you only need at most two stats to deal its peak damage, and most of the condition traitlines are just better for defensive utility than the power damage ones.  You can't possibly tell me Curses Necro isn't just better in PvP environments than Spite necro.  That Chaos mesmer is weaker than Domination.  That pre-specs Critical Strikes thief was better than Deadly Arts.  That MMS ranger was historically better than Skirmishing options for any ranger that hasn't sat in bearbow for years.

While the gap has largely closed in terms of professions and build options that literally had zero options but to just die at the hands of condi players thanks to ANet eventually recognizing the need to add more/stronger cleanses to core game trait lines and utilities, there is a LONG history of condi builds being absolutely BROKEN and denying that disparity existed is either very dishonest or very misinformed.  My literal best builds are all condition ones with the sole outlier being my power reaper, but that's more a function of condi reaper being ineffective versus power since the absolutely warranted rework of Deathly Chill, and my reaper play being among the top in the game for a while as someone who coached a few top 50 reapers and a bunch in WvW until PoF where they hard-nerfed Speed of Shadows and made the spec one-dimensional. 

Heck, my free-win smallscale builds of choice to this day all remain condition builds with like 90% fewer hours than their power counterparts.  The ability to just build defense and still shell out damage not too dissimilar from various power builds with a strong set of utilities and trait interactions is just... better for raw performance in most cases and requires less from me as a player.

The most disgusting thing I remember was table tennis Reaper at HoT release.
If enemy passive to send condies triggered before you, you pretty much won the fight. Like, how you're gonna deal with 22k bleed tick (yes, 22k bleed damage / tick) send at your face? You didn't, you just died in less than second with all other condies on top of that. Still, it was builded as tanky af...
There are still disgusting condi builds even today that have lot of advantages with 0 drawbacks and you can still kill just by 111111 with condies. They're more managable today thanks to runes and sigils, yet you still need to take tools in every roaming build to deal with them one way or another.

[TheGrimm.5624]

So to recap, Hybrid is OP, Power is OP, Condi is OP, Heal is OP, Sustain is OP, Range is OP, Melee is OP, Thief/Mez/Ele always OP. Frog with kite is UP and everything else is meh. Siege is not commented on and WvW map is OT. Does that sum it up?

[MercurialKuroSludge.8974]

2 minutes ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

So to recap, Hybrid is OP, Power is OP, Condi is OP, Heal is OP, Sustain is OP, Range is OP, Melee is OP, Thief/Mez/Ele always OP. 

Yup, pretty much every build imaginable is OP, and any class with mobility/speed boost is OP.
About sums it up, its typical player V player balance issues.

Welcome to League of Lege-.
Oh...

[TheGrimm.5624]

1 minute ago, MercurialKuroSludge.8974 said:

Yup, pretty much every build imaginable is OP, and any class with mobility/speed boost is OP.
About sums it up, its typical player V player balance issues.

Welcome to League of Lege-.
Oh...

lol, or even a conversation between paper, rock and scissors while grabbing lunch and a coffee.

[Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497]

Cele is a jack of all trades, master of none. It does a little of everything, but not well. In order for Celestial builds to work, there's something you need to do.

 

I've seen people running it, but not really knowing how. So it's worse off then just running zerks or a full bunker build.

 

But in order to compensate for Celestial's incredibly low damage, your class needs to be able to generate might and fury some how. Might would give you roughly 750 at full stacks, and furry would aid with low critical chances. This combined with your condi would bring damage comparable to zerker stats. But without that might generation, you're having a hard time killing none glassy or marauder builds. Heck, marauders with some toughness trinkets would roll them up.

 

And that said, you can see where the weakness lies here... If you rip boons from them, then they have the same problems I mentioned.

 

 

Edited May 2, 2023 by Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497

[Zyreva.1078]

9 hours ago, Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497 said:

Heck, marauders with some toughness trinkets would roll them up.

But i have already shown that with only a few extra might stacks (~5) cele deals as much power dmg to a marauder build as the latter to cele. But then cele also gets better overall boon uptime (which can further boost both offense and defense!), more healing and significant amounts of condition pressure on top. So how is marauder (with or without toughness, doesn't matter because you have to trade other stats in equal amounts - unless adding cele ofc) supposed to match up let alone "roll up" builds that have such big advantages?

I'm playing a cele build without a whole lot of might and can kill everything and more than i would be able to kill on a zerker or marauder build. The only thing that would be easier to kill with glassy power (assuming i'd play sic'em + lb) would be bad (shadow arts) thieves. Good thieves kill glass pew pew rangers tho, but they don't kill cele, so i don't care if they manage to run away a little bit more often.

Edited May 2, 2023 by Zyreva.1078

[Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497]

16 hours ago, Zyreva.1078 said:

But i have already shown that with only a few extra might stacks (~5) cele deals as much power dmg to a marauder build as the latter to cele. But then cele also gets better overall boon uptime (which can further boost both offense and defense!), more healing and significant amounts of condition pressure on top. So how is marauder (with or without toughness, doesn't matter because you have to trade other stats in equal amounts - unless adding cele ofc) supposed to match up let alone "roll up" builds that have such big advantages?

I'm playing a cele build without a whole lot of might and can kill everything and more than i would be able to kill on a zerker or marauder build. The only thing that would be easier to kill with glassy power (assuming i'd play sic'em + lb) would be bad (shadow arts) thieves. Good thieves kill glass pew pew rangers tho, but they don't kill cele, so i don't care if they manage to run away a little bit more often.

Anything kills glass pew pew rangers.

But no, It still requires more than just tossing on a gear set, and calling it busted. You said you can generate 5 stacks of might to outdamage a marauder. What's stopping the marauder from just generating 5 stacks of might to out damage you in a split second?

Marauder can't hold the buffs for long, sure. But in PvP modes you're never on target 100% of the time - so a landing a huge alpha strike and backing off will burn down a celestial build eventually. A power specter running chrono runes, and sigils of vision  can actually blow up a Celestial Build once they pop their sustain, as long as it's not something like a firebrand or a necro.

Edited May 3, 2023 by Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497

[Hotride.2187]

1 hour ago, Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497 said:

A power specter running chrono runes, and sigils of vision  can actually blow up a Celestial Build once they pop their sustain, as long as it's not something like a firebrand or a necro.

How weird then, that I've seen like 2-3 power specters  since eod drop. Every other specter was cele. Hmmm, hmmm hmm. Why would that be...

[Zyreva.1078]

9 hours ago, Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497 said:

Marauder can't hold the buffs for long, sure. But in PvP modes you're never on target 100% of the time - so a landing a huge alpha strike and backing off will burn down a celestial build eventually.

Even with equal might stacks - which is unlikely due to the boon duration disparity - the difference in power dmg is not that big (~ 12-15%). This will not make up for the disparity in healing, boon uptime and condition pressure. In practise cele builds are able to deal significantly more dmg to mara than vice versa in sustained combat while also being tanky enough to not die to burst. In general a mara build can not withstand the constant pressure of a cele build. Most mara builds also do not have enough dmg to punch through cele sustain. That's assuming equal player skill and builds that make sense ofc.

9 hours ago, Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497 said:

A power specter running chrono runes, and sigils of vision  can actually blow up a Celestial Build once they pop their sustain, as long as it's not something like a firebrand or a necro.

I have yet to meet a (post nerf) power specter that isn't a free kill.

The only mara build that has been a threat for my cele ranger is sa de in open field, because it can outrange/kite me, which negates counter pressure, while putting out fairly high and persistent high dmg. The moment i start using terrain to my advantage, they won't do much tho.

Edited May 3, 2023 by Zyreva.1078

[Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497]

2 hours ago, Zyreva.1078 said:

Even with equal might stacks - which is unlikely due to the boon duration disparity - the difference in power dmg is not that big (~ 12-15%). This will not make up for the disparity in healing, boon uptime and condition pressure. In practise cele builds are able to deal significantly more dmg to mara than vice versa in sustained combat while also being tanky enough to not die to burst. In general a mara build can not withstand the constant pressure of a cele build. Most mara builds also do not have enough dmg to punch through cele sustain. That's assuming equal player skill and builds that make sense ofc.

I have yet to meet a (post nerf) power specter that isn't a free kill.

The only mara build that has been a threat for my cele ranger is sa de in open field, because it can outrange/kite me, which negates counter pressure, while putting out fairly high and persistent high dmg. The moment i start using terrain to my advantage, they won't do much tho.

And I suspect that the power specters you see are scepter/pistol and Dagger/pistol?

The problem with most of the player base. And this is coming from an absolute noob in terms of PvP, is that most of them don't know the class. They know the builds. They blindly follow what they are told is meta - and don't care to understand what makes it work. rather than throwing something together that synergizes well with a particular playstyle. Or abuses certain strengths.

Power Specter isn't as crazy as they used to be where you could press 1 four times on scepter and finish with a three. But they do have a combo where you can blast somebody for roughly 27k damage in short notice. Now the complexity of the combo might mean they miss because its not 1,1,1,3.

I'm willing to bet that if you encountered somebody on your same skill level, that they would give you problems with what you think is a broken gear set.

Edited May 3, 2023 by Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497

[Zyreva.1078]

53 minutes ago, Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497 said:

And I suspect that the power specters you see are scepter/pistol and Dagger/pistol?

No. The very few i have seen were s/d + d/p. Scepter/x is pretty much always cele or condi.

52 minutes ago, Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497 said:

The problem with most of the player base. And this is coming from an absolute noob in terms of PvP, is that most of them don't know the class. They know the builds. They blindly follow what they are told is meta - and don't care to understand what makes it work. rather than throwing something together that synergizes well with a particular playstyle. Or abuses certain strengths.

That's true. Doesn't dispute anything i said tho.

53 minutes ago, Leo Schrodingers Cat.2497 said:

But they do have a combo where you can blast somebody for roughly 27k damage in short notice. Now the complexity of the combo might mean they miss because its not 1,1,1,3.

Everything (well, almost) can deal loads of dmg if the opponent just sits there and facetanks everything for several seconds. But that's not how combat usually works.

Edited May 3, 2023 by Zyreva.1078

[Burnfall.9573]

Trapper Rune and Celestial Gears Are Way Past Due Their Expiration Date To Be Thrown In The Trash. 

WHY ARE TRASH STILL BEING RECYCLED IN THE GAME??

Edited May 4, 2023 by Burnfall.9573

[Gehenna.3625]

On 4/30/2023 at 11:01 AM, Zyreva.1078 said:

Nerfing base durations of boons (or increasing cds) nerfs everything, not just cele (or other stats with concentration). In the end the disparity between cele and everything else remains the same.

Like discussed many times before, when you nerf cele it will be replaced by other 4-stat sets which will then be considered OP.

On 4/30/2023 at 11:01 AM, Zyreva.1078 said:

Boon duration isn't only valuable if it allows 100% boon upkeep. There is no build that can keep up all of it's boon 100% of the time anyway. And there are boons that can have easy 100% uptime even without any boon duration and it's fine. Blanket changes to something that is as diversified as boons typically make balance worse, not better.

I'm not talking about all boons 100% of the time and the base duration can stay the same. You misunderstand me. You can change how effective concentration is. Just lower the concentration bonus and the boons can still have their base duration untouched.

On 4/30/2023 at 11:01 AM, Zyreva.1078 said:

Like i have said plenty of times already, cele used to be in a much better spot, strong with the right builds but not as crazy as it is now, so there is absolutely no reason for any balance "experiments" in order to fix cele gear. Just revert the unneccessary buffs and call it a day. No risk, no downsides, we have been there and it was fine.

And as I've said many times, the concentration stat by itself  isn't the problem but how there is no real trade-off between having low or high concentration. That's the key issue imo and that goes for 4-stat gear as well. Taking concentration away from cele is just treating a symptom and not treating the cause as I see it. There should be a real point in having more concentration than just the bare minimum.

[Hotride.2187]

9 hours ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

Like discussed many times before, when you nerf cele it will be replaced by other 4-stat sets which will then be considered OP.

Lets get there first. Saying "but other things will be OP after cele isnt" doesn't mean cele isnt OP.

[cyberzombie.7348]

On 4/30/2023 at 6:36 AM, Player.2475 said:

If Anet actually had a clue what they were doing, you'd have more builds that are more specialized to one damage type and aren't balanced around being able to maintain 25 stacks of every boon in the game, and Celestial wouldn't be that big a deal. That crappy design of making half of the builds deal condi + power damage while having decent sustain and also access to almost every boon in the game, that's what's carrying those ridiculous builds.

This, having builds that can have both high damage and sustain has been a problem since vanilla. but they weren't as common, mobile, or boon-heavy up until PoF rolled out.

Though granted the expansion also introduced anti-support specs like spellbreaker, scourge, and deadeye as an attempt to keep things in check, but that's history.

[senftube.6081]

43 minutes ago, Hotride.2187 said:

Lets get there first. Saying "but other things will be OP after cele isnt" doesn't mean cele isnt OP.

 

But cele is op and the most broken thing atm in WvW roaming. And CMC and his robin still don't want to look at it because they think it is fun for the game to have some cheap hulahup in the game.

[Widebody.5071]

This celestial thread is funny, it's like listening to some toddlers when things don't go their way.