Celestial IS balanced.

[GoldenPants.1870]

I said it, it had to be said, I'm sorry, but celestial gear is balanced, your stats doesn't reach as big as three or four stat sets, I think the issue no one wants to learn how to play and counter builds that uses celestial, if it wasn't balanced then no one would run anything but celestial. It's balanced, people just need to learn to play around it.

 

I have died several times on celestial harbinger, and people say celestial is unkillable, people just need to stop overreacting.

[Sereath.1428]

>have died several times on celestial harbinger
Bruh
💀

[Riba.3271]

Celestial has 4 defensive stats: Vitality, Toughness, Healing Power and Concentration. Concentration doesn't seem like a big deal but it does provide 50% longer duration on stability, vigor, regen, resolution and protection up to a point where it might be permanent.

So even if you would sacrifice defenses going more offensive stats, celestial player would outsustain you provided they run a build with decent amount of boons.

[KrHome.1920]

6 hours ago, GoldenPants.1870 said:

I have died several times on celestial harbinger, and people say celestial is unkillable, people just need to stop overreacting.

OK, for the case your post is serious:

As a necro player: Celestial Harbinger is one of the most broken things you can use for roaming. Period.

Celestial is only balanced if you use that gear for a build that does not utilize half of its attributes, like a power build or a build that has only one healing source or a build that does only self apply very few boons.

The harbinger roaming builds have a ton of hybrid damage, a ton of boons, a ton of regeneration scaling with healing power and vitality ... 

[Exzen.2976]

No it isn't. Its broken as hell.

[Dawdler.8521]

9 hours ago, GoldenPants.1870 said:

I have died several times on celestial harbinger

Well that clearly decides it.

[hanabal lecter.2495]

3 minutes ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Well that clearly decides

 

3 minutes ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Well that clearly decides it.

Who are we to deny this flawless evidence?

[subversiontwo.7501]

• I've been saying this in most anti-Celestial threads so I guess I'll say it in this pro-Celestial thread as well:
• It isn't a balance thing, it ultimately doesn't matter. It is rather a question of the balance it exists in.
• Some classes and builds are overperforming with Celestial and other classes and builds are overperforming without it.
• The reason we see many threads here as well as some sentiment from certain streamers has more to do with them mostly playing those other classes than anything else.
• We also see various oppinions about it from certain isolated subtexts of content (eg., solo duelling) that are governed by norms. As players you own those norms and can change them. If it's a duel you can agree upon not using Celestial if you dislike it. I've also noticed that plenty of people complain broadly about more defensively oriented stats by they tend to play very cautiously themselves. They've yet to learn that certain defenses break by taking risks.
• If you look at more objective balance points then Power stats remain less of a niche today than all other stats (combined) held before when Power reigned uncontested.
• That Celestial, possibly, leads to less entertaining content is both subjective and circumstantial. Though I would be prepared to agree with that myself, subjectively. I may consider Power more fun, but it is not more balanced. Fun and power are two different things.
• That leads into the main concern here: Ever since HoT the game's root balance has been completely uprooted and unique class mechanics remain wildly imbalanced.
• Some of that sees some impedance as some powerful traits mix things up on some builds and because crutches are built-in making some thing necessary.
• However, if Anet wants to rebuild better fundamental balance (especially one without as much hybrid-stat issues) that they can later build upon they would need to go all the way back to the concept level and redesign what they want the classes to be. What the classes are meant to "be" is what got ripped up by HoT and all subsequent PvE balance and that can not be solved by patching up major holes with select traits.
• It is also difficult to have any constructive discussions about this on the forums because most players (here) have difficulty distinguishing between concepts like "necessary" and "powerful".
• Ultimately that leads to all these threads of pie-flinging contests between classes A vs. classes B or scale/content A vs. scale/content B, that leads nowhere and shouldn't be listened to.
• If Anet goes back to look at the massive differences in stat-access and power/availability/scaling of class mechanics, well, then Celestial can either go or stay. It doesn't matter as Celestial isn't the problem. The problem is this context that Celestial exists in with uprooted concept design and trying to slowly peel back years of PvE balance from the other end.

Edited July 24, 2023 by subversiontwo.7501

[joneirikb.7506]

36 minutes ago, subversiontwo.7501 said:

• That leads into the main concern here: Ever since HoT the game's root balance has been completely uprooted and unique class mechanics remain wildly imbalanced.
• Some of that sees some impedance as some powerful traits mix things up on some builds and because crutches are built-in making some thing necessary.
• However, if Anet wants to rebuild better fundamental balance (especially one without as much hybrid-stat issues) that they can later build upon they would need to go all the way back to the concept level and redesign what they want the classes to be. What the classes are meant to "be" is what got ripped up by HoT and all subsequent PvE balance and that can not be solved by patching up major holes with select traits.

Pardon the snipping of the quote. Great post btw.

I'm trying to imagine what kind of way they would be able to fix the balance around wvw or even pvp at this point, and it just seems hopeless. Like they've dug themselves down so far into the mire of PVE-balance, bloated the system too much, and probably don't have a single Dev left from when they actually designed the original combat system in the first place (when it was still designed for sPvP). 

The only way I can see them pulling that off, is something as moronic as releasing GW2-classic, which I know they'll never do (even if they where willing to take on all the problems that would cause).

And if they did try to actually balance this, I suspect they'd have to start by chopping off the majority of build options, just to be able to reduce things down to small enough a system, that they can handle it. The build system at launch was already complex enough as to be a nightmare to balance.

Do you think there is any chance that ANet would even be capable of this? If so would you expect to see all current build option, or would they have to simplify some aspects just to reduce variables to balance around?

(To sum up my own opinions: I don't have a problem with Celestial, I have a problem with the builds that can benefit too much from it. I also wouldn't mind removing Expertise/Concentration from it, but I don't think the set is "broken" with them. Also I think Might should be changed as Celestial gains too much from them. I also liked the game much better before 2015/06/23 and the stab change at 2015/03/16)

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

1 minute ago, joneirikb.7506 said:

Pardon the snipping of the quote. Great post btw.

I'm trying to imagine what kind of way they would be able to fix the balance around wvw or even pvp at this point, and it just seems hopeless. Like they've dug themselves down so far into the mire of PVE-balance, bloated the system too much, and probably don't have a single Dev left from when they actually designed the original combat system in the first place (when it was still designed for sPvP). 

The only way I can see them pulling that off, is something as moronic as releasing GW2-classic, which I know they'll never do (even if they where willing to take on all the problems that would cause).

And if they did try to actually balance this, I suspect they'd have to start by chopping off the majority of build options, just to be able to reduce things down to small enough a system, that they can handle it. The build system at launch was already complex enough as to be a nightmare to balance.

Do you think there is any chance that ANet would even be capable of this? If so would you expect to see all current build option, or would they have to simplify some aspects just to reduce variables to balance around?

(To sum up my own opinions: I don't have a problem with Celestial, I have a problem with the builds that can benefit too much from it. I also wouldn't mind removing Expertise/Concentration from it, but I don't think the set is "broken" with them. Also I think Might should be changed as Celestial gains too much from them. I also liked the game much better before 2015/06/23 and the stab change at 2015/03/16)

Personal opinion, I would revert some of the Feb2020 changes. That would bring the non EoD specs up to par with the EoD specs. I'd also revert all their changes that have diminished boon rips/corrupts.

[subversiontwo.7501]

2 hours ago, joneirikb.7506 said:

The only way I can see them pulling that off, is something as moronic as releasing GW2-classic, which I know they'll never do (even if they where willing to take on all the problems that would cause).
And if they did try to actually balance this, I suspect they'd have to start by chopping off the majority of build options, just to be able to reduce things down to small enough a system, that they can handle it.

Yeah, that's essentially what I'm saying. Not a classic alternative perhaps, but really going back to revisit the fundamentals from classic that no longer hold true.

• A good example to illustrate with would be that a couple of weeks back I played my Guardians a whole bunch and this week I spend most of my time shaving the rust off and working on my Thieves.
• If you look at a Guardian it's F1 scales with condition stats, it's F2 with healing stats, it's F3 with boon stats and its weapons with power stats and its symbols with F-skill interactions.
• The Thief on the other hand doesn't really scale with any stats on its steal, initiative or stealth interactions.
• This makes one a natural hybrid, adds wildly different stat dependencies and makes their scaling very problematic going forward - from a development perspective.
• They are also both subject to a vanilla antiquity: They both come with rather impactful vitality holes. However, the way they are built - and in relation to stats - it impacts them very differently.
• Stats like Celestial could possibly be powerful on both those classes. However, one is clearly more dependent on them.
• That also says something about Celestial balance because whatever issue people have with Power and its scaling relative Celestial: The difference is nowhere near as large as when comparing power stats to old hybrid stat-sets.

Spoiler

It also affects both these classes' relationships to their elite specialisations as most Thieves are different flavours of the same root mechanics. Most Thief specs can be played with vanilla DP or SD interactions while their elite weapons mostly add dimensions to their content and engagement envelopes (adding eg., larger-scale appeal). To some degree DD could be argued superior and a Thief 2.0 but in most cases the specs are appropriately similar flavours of the same base.

The Guardian specs on the other hand are wildly different and in many cases what I called "crutched" in the above more theoretical post. For a long time Guardians has mostly maintained popularity through the necessity of stability and much less through its Virtue and Symbol interactions. The FB is without a doubt a Guardian 2.0 and while the DH has gone in another direction it is rather niched and crutched. It saw some popularity as a duelist through double-dropping traps, you see some use of it in clouds and tower-cowering but that's mostly through a rune-interaction giving it access to stealth which has nothing to do with its overall class concept and it has seen some use as a damage spiker in larger-scale content depending on range-melee balance. It's not bad but it has always been rather gimmicky. It is not until WB that the class got a more well-rounded option and most of that comes from exceptions to its root mechanics (like adding power to its F1, the typical exceptional immobilisation counter we see appearing on more and more classes because Anet are too lazy to properly balance the condition on its F2 and an F3 that also has far less dependency on stats).

On the contrary Thief has always had the option to go hybrid or conditions with little dependency but few people ever have since power has been regarded as more fun and power on the class generally is powerful enough. That includes its boon- and condition access which is perfectly leveragable without investing into stats thanks to initiative interations and gratuitous base uptimes.

Does this means Guardian is an unpopular class? No of course not, but people need to distinguish between popularity through need and power. Things like stability isn't necessarily powerful but it is needed in a broad spectrum of situations. Where it isn't needed many other options are also at least as powerful as counter play, eg., various block- and break interactions at smaller scale. On the flipside, stuns are very powerful but rarely necessary. They can be convenient, they can be crutches, but they rarely rise to the level of necessary.

I believe you will appreciate this added discussion, but it may go woosh over the heads of many other readers, yet ultimately, the point here isn't to say one class is good and another bad. The point is to illustrate that the game is currently built with natural (dependent) hybrids in mind and to fundamentally change that complexity and create a more solid game balance that either uses less-complex hybrid interactions or keeps hybrid interactions but pinpoints and reigns in their scaling issues (so other hybrid stats can compete with power as the game moves forward in development and scaling) they would also need to go back and address those same fundamentals. Perhaps they would need to change eg., Guardians' F1 to be the symbol mechanic to do-away with hybrid dependency and create a better interaction between its especs. There's plenty of things like that which you can do to many more classes, but it is a sizable project no matter how you look at it: To change things fundamentally you need fundamental changes and those need to be solid to not build another house of cards that just patches through patches.

Also, for the forums, I'd like to restate one of the least popular but most important points in all of this: Should Anet balance the game with smaller scale and roaming (true roaming) in mind? Sure, and Grouch has stated as much. WvW is about coexistance of different scales and content. Should Anet balance the game around 1v1 duels (or the fragile ego of someone who spends their entire time within 6 seconds of running distance to the safety of a tower or spawn and aims to never die)? No, not even 1%. Duelists can set their own rules and risk-reward is important in any discussion about actual balance. The exception is player numbers because numbers are mainly balanced by other (broken-) systems. You don't solve population-balance issues through class balance. I say that as someone who enjoys fighting smaller vs. larger or small-in-larger content.

Edited July 24, 2023 by subversiontwo.7501

[Stand The Wall.6987]

pls delete

Edited July 26, 2023 by Stand The Wall.6987

[hanabal lecter.2495]

Change might stacks to give a certain % power rather than raw stats, that way celestial can't benefit from huge stat boost due to overbloated stats+ boon duration and it will also nerf minstrel classes and groups doing some dmg as they won't be getting 750 power/condi but rather a percentage buff.

[ilMasa.2546]

He's using reverse psychology: if something doesn't work Anet does nothing. BUT on the other hand if you say that it is working perfectly Anet will surely get their hands on it.



 

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

2 hours ago, subversiontwo.7501 said:

Yeah, that's essentially what I'm saying. Not a classic alternative perhaps, but really going back to revisit the fundamentals from classic that no longer hold true.

• A good example to illustrate with would be that a couple of weeks back I played my Guardians a whole bunch and this week I spend most of my time shaving the rust off and working on my Thieves.
• If you look at a Guardian it's F1 scales with condition stats, it's F2 with healing stats, it's F3 with boon stats and its weapons with power stats and its symbols with F-skill interactions.
• The Thief on the other hand doesn't really scale with any stats on its steal, initiative or stealth interactions.
• This makes one a natural hybrid, adds wildly different stat dependencies and makes their scaling very problematic going forward - from a development perspective.
• They are also both subject to a vanilla antiquity: They both come with rather impactful vitality holes. However, the way they are built - and in relation to stats - it impacts them very differently.
• Stats like Celestial could possibly be powerful on both those classes. However, one is clearly more dependent on them.
• That also says something about Celestial balance because whatever issue people have with Power and its scaling relative Celestial: The difference is nowhere near as large as when comparing power stats to old hybrid stat-sets.

  Reveal hidden contents

It also affects both these classes' relationships to their elite specialisations as most Thieves are different flavours of the same root mechanics. Most Thief specs can be played with vanilla DP or SD interactions while their elite weapons mostly add dimensions to their content and engagement envelopes (adding eg., larger-scale appeal). To some degree DD could be argued superior and a Thief 2.0 but in most cases the specs are appropriately similar flavours of the same base.

The Guardian specs on the other hand are wildly different and in many cases what I called "crutched" in the above more theoretical post. For a long time Guardians has mostly maintained popularity through the necessity of stability and much less through its Virtue and Symbol interactions. The FB is without a doubt a Guardian 2.0 and while the DH has gone in another direction it is rather niched and crutched. It saw some popularity as a duelist through double-dropping traps, you see some use of it in clouds and tower-cowering but that's mostly through a rune-interaction giving it access to stealth which has nothing to do with its overall class concept and it has seen some use as a damage spiker in larger-scale content depending on range-melee balance. It's not bad but it has always been rather gimmicky. It is not until WB that the class got a more well-rounded option and most of that comes from exceptions to its root mechanics (like adding power to its F1, the typical exceptional immobilisation counter we see appearing on more and more classes because Anet are too lazy to properly balance the condition on its F2 and an F3 that also has far less dependency on stats).

On the contrary Thief has always had the option to go hybrid or conditions with little dependency but few people ever have since power has been regarded as more fun and power on the class generally is powerful enough. That includes its boon- and condition access which is perfectly leveragable without investing into stats thanks to initiative interations and gratuitous base uptimes.

Does this means Guardian is an unpopular class? No of course not, but people need to distinguish between popularity through need and power. Things like stability isn't necessarily powerful but it is needed in a broad spectrum of situations. Where it isn't needed many other options are also at least as powerful as counter play, eg., various block- and break interactions at smaller scale. On the flipside, stuns are very powerful but rarely necessary. They can be convenient, they can be crutches, but they rarely rise to the level of necessary.

I believe you will appreciate this added discussion, but it may go woosh over the heads of many other readers, yet ultimately, the point here isn't to say one class is good and another bad. The point is to illustrate that the game is currently built with natural (dependent) hybrids in mind and to fundamentally change that complexity and create a more solid game balance that either uses less-complex hybrid interactions or keeps hybrid interactions but pinpoints and reigns in their scaling issues (so other hybrid stats can compete with power as the game moves forward in development and scaling) they would also need to go back and address those same fundamentals. Perhaps they would need to change eg., Guardians' F1 to be the symbol mechanic to do-away with hybrid dependency and create a better interaction between its especs. There's plenty of things like that which you can do to many more classes, but it is a sizable project no matter how you look at it: To change things fundamentally you need fundamental changes and those need to be solid to not build another house of cards that just patches through patches.

Also, for the forums, I'd like to restate one of the least popular but most important points in all of this: Should Anet balance the game with smaller scale and roaming (true roaming) in mind? Sure, and Grouch has stated as much. WvW is about coexistance of different scales and content. Should Anet balance the game around 1v1 duels (or the fragile ego of someone who spends their entire time within 6 seconds of running distance to the safety of a tower or spawn and aims to never die)? No, not even 1%. Duelists can set their own rules and risk-reward is important in any discussion about actual balance. The exception is player numbers because numbers are mainly balanced by other (broken-) systems. You don't solve population-balance issues through class balance. I say that as someone who enjoys fighting smaller vs. larger or small-in-larger content.

Point of interest. A thief is able to augment their steal to have extra effects, including:

power damage (but not crit)
CC
Condi
Grant Boons
Steal Boons
Gain Endurance
Heal allies.

So, depending on how a thief did build their character they could leverage celestial even with their profession mechanic.

[Zyreva.1078]

Ah yes, lets just try and balance the entire game with thousands of different traits and skills and stats and upgrades and interactions arround a single bloated stat combination instead of reverting a single completely unneccessary buff. What could possibly go wrong ...

[ArchonWing.9480]

Celestial gear is balanced against other people that use Celestial gear. Wouldn't be surprised if that was the goal, so they can just delete the other stat sets eventually.

Guess the people that wanted a amulet system with limited stat selection won out.

[Zyreva.1078]

1 minute ago, ArchonWing.9480 said:

Celestial gear is balanced against other people that use Celestial gear.

I don't think "can stalemate each other" is a very fun and health way of balancing things.

[ArchonWing.9480]

5 minutes ago, Zyreva.1078 said:

I don't think "can stalemate each other" is a very fun and health way of balancing things.

Yea, I wasn't sarcastic enough.

[RazieL.5684]

what would be fun is to remove celestial... berserker, marauder and dragons...

[Kuma.1503]

Cele is broken 1vX, but doesn't scale well into larger fights. It's perfect for solo roaming when you expect to be outnumbered 24/7. 

Cele falls off the more people you add to both sides. That is where specialized builds start to shine. Marauder, Minstrel, Diviner, and Zerker builds start to shine more as you approach Zerg territory. 

Zergs are the optimal way to play WvW. It gets you the most rewards and the most value for your "team". 

 

Cele is balanced because it only shines in roaming/small sirmishes. People who mostly flip camps and occasionally take a tower when the enemy blob isn't looking. It gives you the best chance of coming out alive if 5+ people come to stop your solo push. 

 

If Cele builds were capable of impacting a WvW Skirmish to the same extent that zergs are I'd say it needs to be toned down ASAP. As it stands it's just a survivable option that lets you stay alive solo in a game mode where numbers can get skewed extermely hard in favor of the opposing side.

 

Edited July 24, 2023 by Kuma.1503

[Zyreva.1078]

52 minutes ago, Kuma.1503 said:

Cele is broken 1vX, but doesn't scale well into larger fights.

I wonder how often people actually tried proper cele comps at larger scale ... It certainly scales exceedingly well with small grps.

52 minutes ago, Kuma.1503 said:

Zergs are the optimal way to play WvW. It gets you the most rewards and the most value for your "team".

In terms of rewards yes, it's how the entire game is designed with it's "participation medals for everyone" philosophy that rewards leeching over efficiency. In terms of ppt, scoring and "per player" contribution - no. Zerging is often very inefficient in this regard, even after all the nerfs to small scale play.

52 minutes ago, Kuma.1503 said:

If Cele builds were capable of impacting a WvW Skirmish to the same extent that zergs are I'd say it needs to be toned down ASAP.

You are comparing two completely unrelated things. "Zerg" isn't a build or stat combination. Also "WvW is all about numbers so balance doesn't matter" doesn't equal "cele is balanced".

Edited July 24, 2023 by Zyreva.1078

[solemn.9670]

19 hours ago, GoldenPants.1870 said:

I said it, it had to be said, I'm sorry, but celestial gear is balanced, your stats doesn't reach as big as three or four stat sets, I think the issue no one wants to learn how to play and counter builds that uses celestial, if it wasn't balanced then no one would run anything but celestial. It's balanced, people just need to learn to play around it.

 

I have died several times on celestial harbinger, and people say celestial is unkillable, people just need to stop overreacting.

Thank you! Finally a sensible, fellow necromancer main to speak the truth. I've played literally nothing else but full celestial tank traits harbinger since End of Dragons release. I fully believe that it is the epitome of skill, and anyone who disagrees is a coping ele main who probably uses dragons tooth frequently. One time I had an ele cast dragons tooth on me, I panicked and stood motionless like a deer in headlights, as my demise loomed over my head; a portent of overpowered doom, I shrieked and accidentally farted in agony as it hit me exactly 3 whole seconds later (it was very hard to predict when exactly, I am not good with timing), dealing a total of 3000 damage and a burn stack that I instantly cleared. I then healed for 8500 and spammed my keyboard until the overpowered elementalist died. I was lucky this time. Most of the time, this is not the case ..... most of the time, the bad guy wins; necromancers suffer 😢

If celestial is to be nerfed ........ then I am quitting. What is life without my celestial necromancer? I only hope that when the nerf hits, Vallestial and CeleJen will be okay.

I cry every time

[Bale.3851]

I´m an ele main and i can approve of it. Cele isnt op. I jumped into a raid of 50 greens and couldnt even kill 1 guy. So basically its 1vX and i DIED... you guys lied to me. Which is why cele cant be op.

Flawless logic... thats where i gain my might stacks from....

[TheGrimm.5624]

15 hours ago, Zyreva.1078 said:

Ah yes, lets just try and balance the entire game with thousands of different traits and skills and stats and upgrades and interactions arround a single bloated stat combination instead of reverting a single completely unneccessary buff. What could possibly go wrong ...

I don't think you did your point justice, how do you picture WvW ever being balanced?  I was trying to stay out of this but....WvW balanced? I know you are looking at just numbers but those numbers are thrown out once its more than 1v1 and when a build can use those numbers else its a waste of stats. 

Edited July 25, 2023 by TheGrimm.5624