The compounding effect of Celestial gear

[Meva.8327]

 Celestial gear is considered overpowered, especially in WvW.

However, Celestial gear is not the CAUSE of all imbalances in WvW but a CONSEQUENCE of ANet's bad decisions overall: gameplay, skill balance, new classes, new food, new stats, easy to generate boons, power creep and diminishing returns.

That said, there is indeed a side effect of Celestial gear that probably ANet did not foresee: the compounding effect of several buffs together.

In a nutshell, a compounding effect it means that "the whole is more than the sum of the parts". In other words, the more effects you add, the better.

I believe that balancing Celestial gear can be done by carefully balancing boons, power creep and diminishing returns for healing.

I showcase how Might could be tuned down to bring Celestial gear more in line, without surpassing Berzerker gear in power or Trailblazer in condition damage.

I also show how a linear scaling for Healing could make Celestial less overpowered with respect to Minstrel gear.

TLDR:

1. Celestial gear benefits much more from stacking different effects and and additions than non-celestial gear.
2. A Celestial player 25 stacks of might has more power than a Berzerker player without might.
3. Same with condition damage: Celestial player + 25 might has more condition damage than Trailblazer player without might.
4. A first balance attempt for Celestial gear would be to reduce the power and condition damage per stack of Might: the number crunching below suggests that 20 power and 15 condition damage per stack should be enough.
5. The diminishing returns in Healing power makes Celestial gear to cure more Hit Points for each Healing Power points than Minstrel gear.
6. Using linear scaling for Healing instead of diminishing returns would reduce the healing effectiveness of Celestial gear by an average of 30%.

Let me  prove my claims above with a data-driven approach.

WARNING: Heavy Maths and number crunching incoming!

Celestial armour and weapons were released in vanilla. At that stage, there was no concentration, no expertise, and no ascended gear.

When concentration and expertise were added, Celestial gear got them both. But ANet decided to keep the stats for celestial as they were. In consequence, celestial gear got from 7 stats to 9 stats, which means an increase of 29% on all stats points granted by gear.

Spoiler

9 / 7 = 1.2857 rounded to 1.29, meaning an extra 29%

Then ascended gear was added to the game. Each piece grants 5% more stats than exotic. But of course, celestial gear with 9 stats now benefits more of this increase: the joint effect of concentration / expertise and ascended is 35% more stats, which is more than the additive effect of 34%.

Spoiler

Compounting effect: 1.29 x 1.05 = 1.3545 rounded to 1.35, meaning an increase of 35%
Additive effect: 9% + 35% = 34%

As you can see, the more "celestial" effects you add, the better you do because of the compounding effect.

Now add ascended food to the equation.

Celestial food grants 45 extra points per each of the 9 stats: that means 405 (45x x 9) extra points. Compare with (say) power food, that grants 100 in power and 70 in other stat (e.g. precision or ferocity): this means 170 extra points. In terms of extra points, celestial food gives a ridiculous 138% more points than non-celestial food.

Spoiler

405 / 170 = 2.3824 rounded to 2.38, meaning an increase of 138%

Now we add sigil effects.

One-stat sigils grant a total of 250 (10 x 25) extra points of a given stat, say power. Celestial sigil gives 50 (2 x 25) extra points per stat, for a total of 450 (9 x 50) stat points. This means that celestial sigils give 80% more points than non-celestial sigils.

Spoiler

450 / 250 = 1.8 means an increase of 80%

Now let us mention power creep, and in particular how might affects power and condition damage.

Let me showcase a full celestial fire elementalist in a WvW borderland. My power in fire attunement is 2,183 and my condition damage is 709. With 25 stacks of might I get +750 power and condition damage. This means  2,933 power and 1,459 condition damage i.e. an increase of 34% in power and 106% in condition damage, respectively.

Spoiler

2,933 / 2,183 = 1.3436 rounded to 1.34, meaning an increase of 34% in power

1,459 / 709 = 2.0578 rounded to 2.06, meaning an increase of 106% in condition damage

Now let me compare with a full berzerker fire elementalist in the same WvW borderlands.

My power in fire attunement is 2,727 without Might. This means that a Celestial Fire Elementalist with 25 stacks of might has 8% more power than a Berzerker Fire Elementalist without stacks of Might.

Spoiler

2,933 / 2,727 = 1.0755 rounded to 1.08, meaning an increase of 8%

Now let me compare the condition damage of a Celestial Harbinger vs a Trailblazer Harbinger in the same WvW borderlands. My Celestial Harbinger has 1,347 condition damage without might, which becomes 2,097 with 25 stacks of might. My Trailblazer Harbinger has 1,784 condition damage without Might. This means that a Celestial Harbinger with 25 stacks of might has 56% more condition damage than a Trailblazer Harbinger without stacks of might.

Spoiler

2,097 / 1,784 = 1.5570 rounded to 1.56, meaning an increase of 56% in condition damage

In other words, playing with celestial gear with full might stacks is better than a dedicated power or condi gear without might.

How can we balance the Celestial gear by adjusting Might?

We need to set a clear goal for balancing Might for Celestial gear and Berzerker gear. I would argue that Celestial gear should never grant more power than a Berzerker gear without Might. This means that each stack of Might should only provide 20 power, not the current 30.

Spoiler

(2,727 - 2,183) / 25 = 21.76, rounded to 20 power per stack of Might.

With the new values, a Celestial player with 25 stacks of Might would attain

2,183 + (25 x 20) = 2,683

power, which is lower than the 2,727 power for a Berzerker player, as desired.

For condition damage, the argument is similar. I claim that I would argue that Celestial gear should never grant more condition damage than a Trailblazer gear without Might. This means that each stack of Might should only provide 15 condition damage, not the current 30.

Spoiler

(1,784 - 1,347) / 25 = 17.48, rounded to 15 condition damage per stack of Might.

With the new values, a Celestial player with 25 stacks of Might would attain

1,347 + (25 x 15) = 1,722

condition damage, which is lower than the 1,784 condition damagefor a Trailblazer player, as desired.

Let me touch the subject of diminishing returns and healing.

My Minstrel Auramancer (Tempest Elementalist) has 1,422 Healing, which cures 151 Hit points (HP) HP with Soothing Mist, 308 HP with Regeneration and 1,529 HP with an Aura.

My Celestial Auramancer has 709 Healing, which cures 115 HP with Soothing Mist, 219 HP with Regeneration and 958 HP with an Aura.

This means that my Minstrel gear has 101% more Healing points than Celestial gear. However, the healing effect is not doubled: it is +31% for Soothing Mist, +41% for Regeneration and +60% for Auras.

Spoiler

1,422 / 709 = 2.0056 rounded to 2.01, meaning an increase of 101% in Healing stats.

151 / 115 = 1.3130 rounded to 1.31, meaning and increase of 31% in healing per tick of Soothing Mist.

308 / 219 = 1.4064 rounded to 1.41, meaning and increase of 41% in healing per tick of Regeneration.

1,529 / 958 = 1.5960 rounded to 1.60, meaning and increase of 60% in healing per Aura.

How can we fix the healing factor in Celestial Gear?

I argue that we can bring Celestial gear in line by not using diminishing returns for Healing and instead use a linear scale. For this, we need to use units of Hit Points (HP) per 100 Healing Power points (HPP), that is how many Hit Points we cure for each 100 stat points we have in Healing Power.

The diminishing returns means that not all points invested in Healing Power are equal: the more Healing Power you have, the less you cure for each 100 points added. In other words, the stat points are more valuable at the earlier stages of healing Power.

Using this unit of measurement, it turns out that, for every Healing Power point (HPP) you have, the Celestial gear cures more Hit Points (HP) than Minstrel.

This is an aberration, and the orders of magnitude are ridiculous: Celestial cures 53% more than Minstrel with Soothing Mist, 43% more with Regeneration and 25% more with Auras.

Spoiler

Minstrel:

Soothing Mist: 100 x 151 / 1,422 = 10.6188 rounded to 10.62 HP per 100 HPP.

Regeneration: 100 x 308 / 1,422 = 21.6596 rounded to 21.66 HP per 100 HPP.

Auras: 100 x 1,529/ 1,422 = 107.5246 rounded to 107.53 HP per 100 HPP.

Celestial:

Soothing Mist: 100 x 115/ 709 = 16.2200 rounded to 16.22 HP per 100 HPP, i.e. 53% more HP per HPP than Minstrel.

Regeneration: 100 x 219 / 709 = 30.8886 rounded to 30.89 HP per 100 HPP, i.e. 43% more HP per HPP than Minstrel.

Auras: 100 x 958 / 709= 135.1189 rounded to 135.12 HP per 100 HPP, i.e. 25% more HP per HPP than Minstrel.

To correct this, we could use my Minstrel's 1,422 HPP as base. This would lead to the following new numbers for my Celestial: 75 HP with Soothing Mist, 154 HP with Regeneration and 762 HP with an Aura.

Spoiler

10.62 x 709 / 100 = 75.29 rounded to 75 per tick of Soothing Mist, i.e. 35% less heals than current value.

21.66 x 709 / 100 = 153.569 rounded to 154 per tick of Regeneration, i.e. 30% less heals than current value.

107.53 x 709 / 100 = 762.3877 rounded to 762 per Aura, i.e. 20% less heals than current value

With this adjustment, both Minstrel and Celestial gears would cure the same amount of HP per HPP, as intended.

Edited June 17, 2023 by Meva.8327

[Sylvyn.4750]

https://youtu.be/c29F96vWGkc

 

[Meva.8327]

57 minutes ago, Sylvyn.4750 said:

https://youtu.be/c29F96vWGkc

 

I am afraid you did not take the time and effort to read my post at all, and wrongly assumed I was anti Celestial.

Read my post, at least the TLDR.

I argue that the issue in GW2, as your video claims, is that there are way too many factors that contribute to imbalances, that Celestial is just consequence of the bad balance and design decisions from ANet, and that shoe-horning every bad thing in WvW into Celestial is wrong.

I also claim that that there is a lot of power creep that breaks the balance of the game, to the extent that "nerfing cele" per se is not goint to solve anything. Actually, I do not suggest nerfs to cele but rather nerfs to power creep by adjusting Might, and nerfs to diminishing returns by using a better scaling to healing.

Edited June 17, 2023 by Meva.8327

[Zyreva.1078]

2 hours ago, Meva.8327 said:

 However, Celestial gear is not the CAUSE of all imbalances in WvW but a CONSEQUENCE of ANet's bad decisions overall: gameplay, skill balance, new classes, new food, new stats, easy to generate boons, power creep and diminishing returns.

Cele gear might not be the cause of all imbalance, but it is imbalanced itself with up to ~ 73 % more total stats than 3-stat gear - before factoring in aditional stats from boons.

2 hours ago, Meva.8327 said:

A first balance attempt for Celestial gear would be to reduce the power and condition damage per stack of Might: the number crunching below suggests that 20 power and 15 condition damage per stack should be enough

This nerfs all builds, not just cele. You premise that cele has 25 stacks and other builds none is not true. In reality many builds are somewhere inbetween. Nerfing might just means players deal less dmg - hardly a good idea in an already very stale and sustain heavy meta, but it wouldn't change much in a cele vs non cele scenario. (For example it only requires a difference of ~ 5 stacks of might for the cele build to deal the same power dmg to a mara build than vice versa due to toughness).

2 hours ago, Meva.8327 said:

Using linear scaling for Healing instead of diminishing returns would reduce the healing effectiveness of Celestial gear by an average of 30%.

This basically means removing base healing and completely gutting sustain of builds that don't run any healing power. And if healing power becomes mandatory, what else can you run besides cele? (or minstrels if you want to go full healbot).

2 hours ago, Meva.8327 said:

When concentration and expertise were added, Celestial gear got them both.

Cele didn't had those additional stats until way later. And it was more or less balanced then. And if something balanced gets massive buffs while everything else remains the same - it can't be balanced anymore.

2 hours ago, Meva.8327 said:

 In other words, playing with celestial gear with full might stacks is better than a dedicated power or and condi gear without might.

Fixed. The problem isn't that cele can get x more power or condi dmg - the problem is that it get's both at the same time as well as all the other juicy stuff.

Edited June 17, 2023 by Zyreva.1078

[kamikharzeeh.8016]

if cele gear was even half as strong as people make it seem by posting about it, it would oneshot people from 10000 range (unblockable ofc)

[Meva.8327]

37 minutes ago, Zyreva.1078 said:

Cele gear might not be the cause of all imbalance, but it is imbalanced itself with up to ~ 73 % more total stats than 3-stat gear - before factoring in aditional stats from boons.
[...]

Cele didn't had those additional stats until way later. And it was more or less balanced then. And if something balanced gets massive buffs while everything else remains the same - it can't be balanced anymore.

Yes, you are absolutely right, Celestial gear gives way more stats points than other gear. That is bad design, and as I argued this effects gets exacerbated by the compounding effect of more and more +x% on stats.

 

37 minutes ago, Zyreva.1078 said:

This nerfs all builds, not just cele.

That is exactly my premise, namely that power creep is the real issue and Celestial gear just the easy scapegoat.

It is the boon orgy and how easy it is to attain and maintain 25 stacks of Might that is the problem.

If you can have perma protection that means you are tougher than a Celestial player without the boon.

A pure zerk Willbender can get from zero to 750 condition damage with full Might, which means their perma burn is definitely not negligible.

 

37 minutes ago, Zyreva.1078 said:

This basically means removing base healing and completely gutting sustain of builds that don't run any healing power. And if healing power becomes mandatory, what else can you run besides cele? (or minstrels if you want to go full healbot).

It is bad design that a player with zero Healing power can cure more Hit Points (HP) per points invested in Healing Power than a Celestial player (who Invests around 680 points in Healing Power). And both can heal more HP per Healing Power points invested than Minstrel, a dedicated healbot.

There are way more stats than Celestial to add Healing Power to a Power build (Zealot with Power, precision and Healing), a Condition build (Shaman with Vitality, healing and condition damage) or a Hybrid Build (Marshal with power, precision, healing and condition damage).

Edited June 17, 2023 by Meva.8327

[Zyreva.1078]

52 minutes ago, Meva.8327 said:

That is exactly my premise, namely that power creep is the real issue and Celestial gear just the easy scapegoat.

Cele is an issue on it's own. Boon spam is an issue too. It's not a contradiction, both can be true and both needs to be adressed individually. And one would be much easier to fix than the other, so it would make sense to get that one out of the way first.

52 minutes ago, Meva.8327 said:

It is bad design that a player with zero Healing power can cure more Hit Points (HP) per points invested in Healing Power than a Celestial player (who Invests around 680 points in Healing Power). And both can heal more HP per Healing Power points invested than Minstrel, a dedicated healbot.

Healing per hp "invested" is irrelevant. Are builds with healing power too weak and builds without it too strong? No absolutely not, quite the opposite is the case. The game is designed arround everyone having some baseline healing and the scaling is fine - too strong arguably even in some cases.

52 minutes ago, Meva.8327 said:

There are way more stats than Celestial to add Healing Power to a Power build (Zealot with Power, precision and Healing), a Condition build (Shaman with Vitality, healing and condition damage) or a Hybrid Build (Marshal with power, precision, healing and condition damage).

All of those stats are utter garbage compared to cele.

Edited June 17, 2023 by Zyreva.1078

[Xenesis.6389]

6 hours ago, Meva.8327 said:

 I believe that balancing Celestial gear can be done by carefully balancing boons, power creep and diminishing returns for healing.

But why?

Why try to balance the game to this set by trying to balance out all these other variables that will certainly affect all other builds?

Just remove the stats that made it overbearing in the first place, concentration and expertise. If people want to add these two stats to their build with celestial well there's other gear stats sets to use. 🤷‍♂️

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

2 hours ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

But why?

Why try to balance the game to this set by trying to balance out all these other variables that will certainly affect all other builds?

Just remove the stats that made it overbearing in the first place, concentration and expertise. If people want to add these two stats to their build with celestial well there's other gear stats sets to use. 🤷‍♂️

Because A-net made that mess in the first place with constant powercreep, so they should take responsibility and fix what they broke? I know it's an alien concept to them, but still... 🙃

[Xenesis.6389]

Just now, TrollingDemigod.3041 said:

Because A-net made that mess in the first place with constant powercreep, so they should take responsibility and fix what they broke? I know it's an alien concept to them, but still... 🙃

I mean yeah sure all that stuff certainly does need to be looked at, I just don't think it should be in regards to celestial stats. Remove or adjust the two things that made celestial suddenly good to use, and then look at all that other stuff separately. 🤷‍♂️

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

4 minutes ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

I mean yeah sure all that stuff certainly does need to be looked at, I just don't think it should be in regards to celestial stats. Remove or adjust the two things that made celestial suddenly good to use, and then look at all that other stuff separately. 🤷‍♂️

Now now, it's GW2, we do everything beside fixing root problems here, you forgot about that?

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

Someone mentioned as a joke in that other thread to make the 3 and 4 stat gear equivalent in stat to Cele gear, but their attempt at a joke was actually the right course of action.

Cele gives 639 to each of the 9 attributes. for a total of 5751 stats. 

3 stat gear is 3302. This requires a 42% increase in stats to have the same amount of stats.

4 stat gear is 3610. This requires a 37% increase in stats to have the same amount of stats.

I'm not in the nerf Cele camp. Any problem with a class running cele has to do with how that class is built rather than the stats, like 8/9 of the EoD specs. That said, balance wise, having the gear provided by stat to be normalized to the same total amount of stats provide is the right path. Whether this is a buff to 3 and 4 stat gear or a nerf to 9 stat gear, or a combination of both is irrelevant to me, just that it happens in some sort of way. That said if they went with nerf Cele to the level of 3 stat gear, they would also have to nerf 4 stat gear slightly.

For reference, when cele did not have concentration or expertise it had a total of 4473 and was barely used by anyone. Reverting to that stat total would be 497 to each stat, with 33% boon and condi duration and would only require 26% and a 22% stat buff to 3 and 4 stat gear respectively to reach parity.

[Burnfall.9573]

On 6/18/2023 at 1:03 AM, TrollingDemigod.3041 said:

Now now, it's GW2, we do everything beside fixing root problems here, you forgot about that?

History knows it very well and this is why it keep repeating itself, over and over again.

Endlessly.......................................

 

(Root of the problem, "No one can solve the problem for someone whose problem is that they don't want their problem to be solved")

Edited June 20, 2023 by Burnfall.9573

[Dawdler.8521]

42 minutes ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Cele gives 639 to each of the 9 attributes. for a total of 5751 stats. 

3 stat gear is 3302. This requires a 42% increase in stats to have the same amount of stats.

4 stat gear is 3610. This requires a 37% increase in stats to have the same amount of stats.

3302x1.42 is only 4689 stats and 3610x1.37 is only 4945 stats.

It should be ~74% and ~59% respectivly? 

Or maybe I fail at math.

[Sandzibar.5134]

Bring cele down to 42 * 100 in allocated stats.

Share and Enjoy.

 

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

2 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

3302x1.42 is only 4689 stats and 3610x1.37 is only 4945 stats.

It should be ~74% and ~59% respectivly? 

Or maybe I fail at math.

Maybe, I did math while un-caffeinated. I am human again so here it is:

3302x = 5751; x = 1.74. What I posted before is the percent total the extra stats are of cele stats.
4 stat is a 1.59 multiplier to get to current cele.

[apharma.3741]

5 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Someone mentioned as a joke in that other thread to make the 3 and 4 stat gear equivalent in stat to Cele gear, but their attempt at a joke was actually the right course of action.

Cele gives 639 to each of the 9 attributes. for a total of 5751 stats. 

3 stat gear is 3302. This requires a 42% increase in stats to have the same amount of stats.

4 stat gear is 3610. This requires a 37% increase in stats to have the same amount of stats.

I'm not in the nerf Cele camp. Any problem with a class running cele has to do with how that class is built rather than the stats, like 8/9 of the EoD specs. That said, balance wise, having the gear provided by stat to be normalized to the same total amount of stats provide is the right path. Whether this is a buff to 3 and 4 stat gear or a nerf to 9 stat gear, or a combination of both is irrelevant to me, just that it happens in some sort of way. That said if they went with nerf Cele to the level of 3 stat gear, they would also have to nerf 4 stat gear slightly.

For reference, when cele did not have concentration or expertise it had a total of 4473 and was barely used by anyone. Reverting to that stat total would be 497 to each stat, with 33% boon and condi duration and would only require 26% and a 22% stat buff to 3 and 4 stat gear respectively to reach parity.

Trust me, you do not want other stat combos bringing up to celestial in terms of total stats, all you would do is push everything to more extremes. Burst builds will one shot and kill you far quicker unless you're in minstrels and have perma prot, bunker builds will be a mess and trailblazer builds with constant protection will be a nightmare to kill. Just think how imbalanced these are and dial it up to 13. The next bit isn't directed at you, just the topic in general.

The OP is on the right track but is missing one very crucial bit of information. Elite specs and reworks happened which brought more to the table in single builds than core ever did (outside of 2 very strong builds). We saw elite specs that gave constant heals over time or extra skills that healed or mitigated damage using healing power, we saw weapons that applied conditions but also had non negligible power damage, we saw the boon spam grow and with it stacking to 25 might and maintaining it. Often a lot of this was in a single build and catalyst exemplifies this entirely, especially with the scepter rework.

We also saw the rise of "perfect stats" because if people think celestial alone is too strong I have news for you, trailblazer, minstrels and berserker/marauder/dragons mixtures are every bit as broken for their respective builds too. Think about how often you've fought 1v1 a minstrels person and died of boredom. Possibly fighting a trailblazer condition tank that for some reason has great healing for no investment. How about that burst guy that came out of nowhere and did 20K+ damage to you in 1s, heaven forbid 2 guys do it in co-ordination and you just die.

"But apharma, you're talking out of that place you 💩from, berserker was in the game in core and wasn't a problem!" This is true but again, if you were berserker, you were glass and most of the time you didn't have good sustain skills, ticking heals and the plethora of mobility, mitigation and regeneration offered by elite specs and expansions. We also didn't have frankly idiotic people in charge of balance that thought a 40% damage increase or that flat 15% damage reduction just for fighting was fine. Oh and their VERY obvious bias for their main classes.

There isn't an easy solution but minstrels and trailblazer stats should be removed, celestial probably going back to not including concentration and expertise as they already capitalise on both damage type and might (compounding effect as OP stated) or adjust the values down to compensate for having the 2 extra stats. We also need to have elite specs not have the plethora of healing, boon spam, might stacking and frankly crazy amounts of damage mods (or enabling crazy damage mods) on top of good power scaling with conditions being applied. A return to there being risks, trade offs and above else no perfect stats.

[Sylvyn.4750]

On 6/17/2023 at 2:22 PM, Meva.8327 said:

I am afraid you did not take the time and effort to read my post at all, and wrongly assumed I was anti Celestial.

Read my post, at least the TLDR.

I argue that the issue in GW2, as your video claims, is that there are way too many factors that contribute to imbalances, that Celestial is just consequence of the bad balance and design decisions from ANet, and that shoe-horning every bad thing in WvW into Celestial is wrong.

I also claim that that there is a lot of power creep that breaks the balance of the game, to the extent that "nerfing cele" per se is not goint to solve anything. Actually, I do not suggest nerfs to cele but rather nerfs to power creep by adjusting Might, and nerfs to diminishing returns by using a better scaling to healing.

To me it seemed Vallun was basically saying what you said in a different way, that Cele was Anet's design to help newer players, especially those that didn't have time to particularly "git gud" with a particular build and can step into something more forgiving and not have to worry about min-maxing them, so it allows them to jump in and have fun and be a jack of all trades but master of none.  Cele also works well for solo roamers that don't have a buddy and have to rely on their own boons and heals.  And yes, while the total combined stats can appear problemmatic, Cele should not be singled out as being the only issue behind power crept builds and it isn't used by default in all cases.  You're still going to take the Minstrel builds for healing support in a zerg or a fight guild comp, for example, even with the cost of that extra healing not being as efficient as it is with Cele.  Don't we see the same diminishing returns with how the 24 and 32 slot bags work versus 18 or 20 slot bags, paying exponentially more gold to eke out a small increase in total capacity such that the efficiency of the gold spent per bag slot goes down the toilet in the higher capacity bags?  Diminishing returns applies to gear as well, with the cost of exotic being more bang for your buck stat-wise than ascended, so for newer players, exotic is the way to go until they have a lot more gold and time to splurge on ascended, and then finally on legendary once they have reached full ascended gear, and that particularly expensive step offers no stat increases but only an increase in utility, or in fashion wars.  Anet seems to like this concept of diminishing returns, and Cele seems to be the starting point from which certain stats can be improved for those that want to specialize even more in power, condi or healing, though obviously at the cost of stats that may or may not even be useful to them.  Honestly, I'd rather see everyone running around in Cele than these one-shot power builds we have now...at least fights would be more determined by movement skills and combo rotations than by stats.

[Nefras.7314]

2 hours ago, Sylvyn.4750 said:

You're still going to take the Minstrel builds for healing support in a zerg or a fight guild comp, for example, even with the cost of that extra healing not being as efficient as it is with Cele.

Completly irrelevant as cele issues are only present in small scale/roaming. 

New player arguments are alos a non issue, since no new player should buy the game, boost a character and expect to succeed in any way shape or form in *roaming/small scale* which has these issues. 

2 hours ago, Sylvyn.4750 said:

Honestly, I'd rather see everyone running around in Cele than these one-shot power builds we have now...at least fights would be more determined by movement skills and combo rotations than by stats.

Most power based roaming builds arent *one shot* builds ... if you get one shot by a slb, wb, thief (etc) just bind your dodge key. Im sure youd love to see everyone run around in cele and duels taking a minimum of 5-15 minutes instead of the usual 45s-5mins. 

as to the video you mentioned:

The vast majority of small scale/gvg players and solo roamers in this game have been running power based builds for years now and enjoy fast paced action combat that gw offers. Vallun especially is insanely detached from the actual roaming community in this game which becomes very clear by his comments about "solo roaming being only viable because of celestial builds", "if you want fast paced fights with animation cancel [...] then go play a fighting game or play pvp". Check the comments more experienced players left for additional input on this matter. 

I understand that its hard for people to face countless whispers telling them to "Git gud" because they run celestial gear in wvw but the simple reality is that ... it takes the fun out of the game for alot of people. 

Edited June 21, 2023 by Nefras.7314

[ZTeamG.4603]

3 hours ago, Sylvyn.4750 said:

Honestly, I'd rather see everyone running around in Cele than these one-shot power builds we have now

Same. People running cele will at least fight you head on in a 1v1, and whoever wins usually comes down to who catches the other making a mistake in the drawn out fight and capitalizes on it. Having a 10-30s back-and-forth before that happens is fun. Most one-shot roamers, on the other hand, tend to follow the following process:

-Open with a one-shot burst, usually trying to attack without the target realizing you're there.

-When the burst gets dodged/otherwise fails, turn around and run to safety. If your target chases you, run from the target until your cooldowns are back (unless they're a new player that can't pressure you back).

-When cooldowns are back, turn around and try again.

-Rinse and repeat.

 

It's quite predictable every time and not very fun to play as or fight against, which does make it funny to me how those players are often the most vocal about celestial. Celestial does need a nerf to remove conc/expertise in WvW (or some 15ish% reduction in stats overall instead), but boons and stat bonuses in general need to be weakened or made much more difficult to get/upkeep. Without the easy access and upkeep of boons that we have nowadays, celestial wouldn't be anywhere near as strong as it seems now. And I certainly wouldn't want the bunker sets nerfed without a nerf also addressing the one-shot builds (or, worse yet, the bright ideas in this thread to just buff the already-strong power sets by 40%), because everyone running one-shots would be far less fun than everyone running celestial, and both situations would be worse than the mix of everything we have now. 

Of course, not all power builds are one-shot builds...but, the meta power builds tend to be one-shot builds, just like the meta condi builds tend to be celestial. 

[Nefras.7314]

12 minutes ago, ZTeamG.4603 said:

Same. People running cele will at least fight you head on in a 1v1

🤡

[Hotride.2187]

Just delete cele from wvw for a few months and see how that will go. You can always add it back. Or if you want to be moderate, delete the concentration and expertise stats (also in pve tbh).

The only compounding effect that cele has is, a cele build can continue pushing dmg due to passive mitigation and sustain, where any other build must play defensively against cele - to not die of the dmg that cele should not be doing.

But its just easier to play spvp where theres no cele.

[Polar.8634]

On 6/17/2023 at 10:52 PM, Meva.8327 said:

Celestial gear is considered overpowered, especially in WvW.

quality post with big brain math, it is a pity most people dont even read because if they read idk how they can not agree with your statements. Sometimes even reading math someone done for you is hard it seems.

[joneirikb.7506]

On 6/20/2023 at 2:25 PM, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Someone mentioned as a joke in that other thread to make the 3 and 4 stat gear equivalent in stat to Cele gear, but their attempt at a joke was actually the right course of action.

Cele gives 639 to each of the 9 attributes. for a total of 5751 stats. 

3 stat gear is 3302. This requires a 42% increase in stats to have the same amount of stats.

4 stat gear is 3610. This requires a 37% increase in stats to have the same amount of stats.
 

Just for fun:

Berserker with 3303 stats (normal):
Power: 1381
Precision: 961 (+45% crit rate)
Ferocity: 961 (+64% crit dmg)

Berserker with 5751 stats (celestial):
Power: 2404 (1023 higher power)
Precision: 1673 (+79% crit rate)
Ferocity 1673 (+111% crit dmg)

* NB: Remember to add the base 1000 power from levels as well. I'm not very versed in power scaling but the wiki said that +1000 power is roughly translated to doubling the strike damage.
* NB2: Also you can ignore the base 1000 precision as they do nothing at all and just slap on a base 5% crit rate. Precision is a dumb stat.
* NB3: Oh and remember the 150% base Crit damage stat, slap that on as well.

Naturally the same would apply to any other stat set like Nomads etc, but I leave that pita for someone else. The most important part is that he game would get very swingy and very extreme, using the above stats all you'd need is fury for over-capping 100% crit rate, and with all the boons and other buffs you could stack, I have absolutely no idea how high numbers they could make. 

Now someone could probably take the same numbers and put them on Nomads and see how that would compare to counter that high damage, I dunno. I definitively don't think it would be healthy for the game though.

----

Just for a compare, Marauder set to same stat value as 3 stat:

Power: 1072 (normal 1173)
Precision: 1072 (normal 1173)
Ferocity: 578 (normal 633)
Vitality: 578 (normal 633)

Not a major loss, wonder how much it would have changed how people liked it or not.

---

Now on the other hand, if we set Celestial to use the 3stat numbers, then it would get +367 to each stat (from +639). At that point I think the set would basically become completely useless.

If we set the set down from 9 to 7 stats, and give it same total as a 3stat, then it would get +471 per stat. Which still feels a bit poor.

And just for fun, same stat point as it currently has, but changed down to 7 stats, and it goes from +639 to +821 per stat. I'm not sure if that would be stronger or weaker than the current one since it would lose boon/condi dura.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

30 minutes ago, joneirikb.7506 said:

Just for fun:

Berserker with 3303 stats (normal):
Power: 1381
Precision: 961 (+45% crit rate)
Ferocity: 961 (+64% crit dmg)

Berserker with 5751 stats (celestial):
Power: 2404 (1023 higher power)
Precision: 1673 (+79% crit rate)
Ferocity 1673 (+111% crit dmg)

* NB: Remember to add the base 1000 power from levels as well. I'm not very versed in power scaling but the wiki said that +1000 power is roughly translated to doubling the strike damage.
* NB2: Also you can ignore the base 1000 precision as they do nothing at all and just slap on a base 5% crit rate. Precision is a dumb stat.
* NB3: Oh and remember the 150% base Crit damage stat, slap that on as well.

Naturally the same would apply to any other stat set like Nomads etc, but I leave that pita for someone else. The most important part is that he game would get very swingy and very extreme, using the above stats all you'd need is fury for over-capping 100% crit rate, and with all the boons and other buffs you could stack, I have absolutely no idea how high numbers they could make. 

Now someone could probably take the same numbers and put them on Nomads and see how that would compare to counter that high damage, I dunno. I definitively don't think it would be healthy for the game though.

----

Just for a compare, Marauder set to same stat value as 3 stat:

Power: 1072 (normal 1173)
Precision: 1072 (normal 1173)
Ferocity: 578 (normal 633)
Vitality: 578 (normal 633)

Not a major loss, wonder how much it would have changed how people liked it or not.

---

Now on the other hand, if we set Celestial to use the 3stat numbers, then it would get +367 to each stat (from +639). At that point I think the set would basically become completely useless.

If we set the set down from 9 to 7 stats, and give it same total as a 3stat, then it would get +471 per stat. Which still feels a bit poor.

And just for fun, same stat point as it currently has, but changed down to 7 stats, and it goes from +639 to +821 per stat. I'm not sure if that would be stronger or weaker than the current one since it would lose boon/condi dura.

Yeah. Personally, entirely from the perspective of normalizing stat totals, I think dropping Cele to 4239 total stats and raising the 3 and 4 stat gear to  the same stat total would be what I would do. I still maintain that Cele isn't the problem that people think it is, and that it is instead the problem especs instead. However, normalizing the 3 and 4 stat gear to the same stat total as the current Cele gear would make them too powerful due to their specialized nature. I don't think that method would be op, but would undo CMC's Feb2020 crusade against damage.