Willbender and Harbinger have literally killed any resemblance of small skirmish

[Arheundel.6451]

Cele willbender and harbinger, It's virtually pointless to try anything that hasn't got the same level of sustain against them....12 years in this game and this is the first time I give up......they're simply far too broken, celestial gear is an utter disgrace for a so called balanced gameplay, that's all

[TheGrimm.5624]

Mileage will vary? In the last two weeks have seen 0 Harrbis and only a couple of Willys that died in first rotation. Mostly been SBs, Teefs(varied) and Mez(varied). As far as armor? Mind you not saying its not my mileage that varied either but saying its not a dominate thing in small scale nor in roaming.

[Dawdler.8521]

Just send a cele cata to fight them. 

If no one win everybody win.

[SleepyBat.9034]

I've seen a pretty even spread of classes and elite specs in the past few weeks.

[Sonork.2916]

Pretty much every class has a strong cele roaming build.  It's cele that's the problem, not so much the classes imo.

[babana.7521]

another Celestial thread hiding in plain sight.

[TheGrimm.5624]

11 hours ago, Sonork.2916 said:

Pretty much every class has a strong cele roaming build.  It's cele that's the problem, not so much the classes imo.

 

7 hours ago, babana.7521 said:

another Celestial thread hiding in plain sight.

Do the hybrid classes float?

[Arianth Moonlight.6453]

get ur own cele gear?

[Thomas.2564]

What's this cele, everyone keeps talking about? 

[Widebody.5071]

Celestial armor, armor that have stat increases to all stats. Then there's all the runes and food that boost all your stats, I just found out about this things late last year but they've been around for a few years folks just been keeping the news to themself.

Once I found out about the food I started setting the food out for all on the server can benefit both in pve and wvw, I figured might as well share the wealth and not be a hog. That's why so many roamers were so strong back in the day, but since it hit the general population there's been an plethora of calls to nerf and ban the armor from the game.  Basically folks don't want to play against what they've been abusing for so long. 

[XenesisII.1540]

1 hour ago, Widebody.5071 said:

Celestial armor, armor that have stat increases to all stats. Then there's all the runes and food that boost all your stats, I just found out about this things late last year but they've been around for a few years folks just been keeping the news to themself.

Once I found out about the food I started setting the food out for all on the server can benefit both in pve and wvw, I figured might as well share the wealth and not be a hog. That's why so many roamers were so strong back in the day, but since it hit the general population there's been an plethora of calls to nerf and ban the armor from the game.  Basically folks don't want to play against what they've been abusing for so long. 

Huh?

Celestial is not some massive hidden secret, it got buffed when expertise and concentration was added to it a couple years ago(some at that time were already saying that was an unnecessary buff), before that it was only useful on a couple specs that could pump might. Now it's extremely useful to the point it's replaced most condition stat gear in builds, and useful to boon spam specs.

The cost of it also went down so way easier to obtain.

[solemn.9670]

23 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Just send a cele cata to fight them. 

If no one win everybody win.

It's only an issue when ele does it, true. Everything else can be broken as long as we can blame ele for it

[Stand The Wall.6987]

omg guys hes being literal everyone pay attention now

[Widebody.5071]

1 hour ago, XenesisII.1540 said:

Huh?

Celestial is not some massive hidden secret, it got buffed when expertise and concentration was added to it a couple years ago(some at that time were already saying that was an unnecessary buff), before that it was only useful on a couple specs that could pump might. Now it's extremely useful to the point it's replaced most condition stat gear in builds, and useful to boon spam specs.

The cost of it also went down so way easier to obtain.

Well actually it was for me as it was for "T" above. I don't know when it got buffed or when it came out but it seems you know quite a bit. So "Thank You" for sharing your knowledge with us.

[joneirikb.7506]

Well, couldn't find a specific date atm, but it uses the crystals that was added with the Bazaar of the four Winds in 2013.  And it's listed as core game stat-set. And I do remember crafting ascended celestial gear way before HOT (2015)

So yeah, Celestial is certainly not something "new".

[stormemperor.3745]

On 8/13/2023 at 6:01 PM, Arheundel.6451 said:

Cele willbender and harbinger, It's virtually pointless to try anything that hasn't got the same level of sustain against them....12 years in this game and this is the first time I give up......they're simply far too broken, celestial gear is an utter disgrace for a so called balanced gameplay, that's all

I am roaming with cele harb minding my own business. Ganker thives, soulbeasts, virt wannabees, troll reapers and newb mechs always attack me. I just kite for a while, cc lock nuke and throw elite to finish them, some ragequit faster than doing the deed. Some people still attack while downed, I throw trebuchet as special service.

Why do they always attack me? I am just capping lands, they will be able to their daily after I capture.

I use celestial to punish those gankers. They deserve everything that happens to them.

[subversiontwo.7501]

1 hour ago, Widebody.5071 said:

Well actually it was for me as it was for "T" above. I don't know when it got buffed or when it came out but it seems you know quite a bit. So "Thank You" for sharing your knowledge with us.

1 hour ago, joneirikb.7506 said:

Well, couldn't find a specific date atm, but it uses the crystals that was added with the Bazaar of the four Winds in 2013.  And it's listed as core game stat-set. And I do remember crafting ascended celestial gear way before HOT (2015)

So yeah, Celestial is certainly not something "new".

The Wiki updated Cele to include concentration and expertise on may 12th 2021.

It had already been propelled to some prominence with the change of the Scrapper trait impact savant being changed into barrier from damage in late 2019. The old Scrapper build that rose to popularity before being adjusted down over time is a good example of a perfect storm like that because it was just choc full of things that were first overlooked with the 2019 changes (eg., weapon damages got cut down but they first forgot about kits).

Most issues that is ascribed to Cele mainly comes from three types of balance issues: 1) Things that did not have boontime adjusted - this include things like the early Scrapper rolemodel, the staff Mirage build that saw a short stint of popularity and recent Catalyst builds (which is a bit of a shame, because I really like what they can do outside of roaming, but they are still obviously too overblown on the boon uptime side; both in terms of base figures and the mechanics they employ); 2) Things that just do too much damage with the stats on too readily available application mechanics which includes things like the Harbinger and the Renegade (or rather, the Revenant Shortbow now come SotO) and 3) Which is my biggest gripe relative roaming: snowball mechanics like the impact savant change that feeds passive tanks or does other things to snowball an advantage over to sense of being untouchable (making some builds finish fights - that they were already winning - with full HP or the like). That is just poor game design and odd choices that were made, often unecessarily over the years, with ArenaNet's overall issues with keeping a vision. Shoehorning the Scrapper into some vision of a "Bruiser" was one such thing as it had already held a far better balanced damage role throughout HoT.

Spoiler

If you go look at something like the Scrapper you can see that their entire vision and concept design for it has changed multiple times. Not just balance mind you, but concept design. Now, that is something I think they should do on a broad scale. However, they need to properly think it through and set it down for all classes. The Scrapper changes is a perfect example of how not to do it where they rip up its entire concept every other year. Barrier can be seen as a specfic issue since it has not been balanced and dimensioned like heals. The amounts and mechanics that involve barrier would never been acceptable as a healing output but for some reason it is allowed to persist. Likely because there is some ill vested notion of barrier's mechanics (being temporary) is somehow limiting it far more than what it actually does - more so what it does in the PvP-environment of WvW with how damage comes or goes and its access to all stats.

Incidentally, and I may come off as some Guardian apologist here, the spec that benefit in some part from Celestial but has built-in limitations relative its other specs and little to none of the snowball mechanics, but that people still seem to complain about alot is the Willbender. That one still comes across as a bit of a surprise to me, if I am being honest, but I mostly chalk that up to the majority of these threads being created by bad Thief-only solo players or other people with a highly limited scope of interest who feel like they are somehow encroaching on their realm of play and then make completely overexaggerated claims about it (suggesting that it is faster than a sword-Thief or has far stronger sustain-damage relatives than a Warrior or so on; most arguments which are just flat out lies). As per always though, I play every class, I don't really care beyond being interested in actual balance 🤷‍♂️.

 

Edited August 14, 2023 by subversiontwo.7501
Wrapped two paragraphs to make it less daunting

[Zero.3871]

you can complain about perma aura by ele, so you get stunned, chilled everytime you hit that class (while projectiles literally useless against them) that leaves no counterplay

or perma invis stacking thiefes by using smoke + finisher that leaves no counterplay

or perma invuln,block chaining mesmers that leaves no counterplay 

or. 3000 range one shot pewpew by ranger in under 1 sec.

or berserker warri hitting you with 15k on like every skill in berserk form

i mean i have seen so many revs, guards, necros, rangers, mesmer,... [add here any class] that get oneshot by full power builds in under 1 sec by revs, guards, necros, rangers, mesmer,... [add here any class].

or whatever. There are million things you could complain about but the problem is neither cele nor balancing.

in the end its just a rock-paper-scissor problem. you cant beat everything on 1 build, cause game is not balanced around 1v1, but groupfights. if you have problems with willy and harb its your playstyle, class chose or skill thats wrong/lacking. play DE or SB and you wont have any problems with those 2 classes or accept that you have to be better than your opponent. in the same way e.g. harbs have to be better then the DE to win since harb is countered by DE.

[Fantasmer.1032]

19 hours ago, stormemperor.3745 said:

I am roaming with cele harb minding my own business. Ganker thives, soulbeasts, virt wannabees, troll reapers and newb mechs always attack me. I just kite for a while, cc lock nuke and throw elite to finish them, some ragequit faster than doing the deed. Some people still attack while downed, I throw trebuchet as special service.

Why do they always attack me? I am just capping lands, they will be able to their daily after I capture.

I use celestial to punish those gankers. They deserve everything that happens to them.

so you just proved the point for the OP?

[solemn.9670]

22 hours ago, stormemperor.3745 said:

I am roaming with cele harb minding my own business. Ganker thives, soulbeasts, virt wannabees, troll reapers and newb mechs always attack me. I just kite for a while, cc lock nuke and throw elite to finish them, some ragequit faster than doing the deed. Some people still attack while downed, I throw trebuchet as special service.

Why do they always attack me? I am just capping lands, they will be able to their daily after I capture.

I use celestial to punish those gankers. They deserve everything that happens to them.

"I admit my class is broken but its your fault for trying to play the game"

[Leger.3724]

Is being able to immobilize a player so they are unable to perform any action for 3-5 seconds good game design? No, no it's not good game design.

All this talk around "is this op or not op" and "this is rock paper scissors of course my build will beat your build but some build that's useless in 99.9999999999999999999% of all other situations can beat my build so it's fair"...

Is the pvp in this game fun and attractive to a wide audience? And the answer is no.

[XenesisII.1540]

The rock/papers/scissors format only forces players to run in groups, for obvious reasons.

So don't be pikachushocked when you "roam" and all you find are groups of "roamers", or why "roaming" is in a terribad state than ever before. Scissors runs into rock but then runs away to look for paper, paper sees scissors and runs away to find rock, paper finds rock, they duke it out cause rock is bored chasing scissors, group of hammer comes along and smashes both, siege buries them, hops on corpses, laughs their steelheads off and goes to the forums to tell everyone else to suck it up, git gud, find a group to gank "roam" too. The end.

[senftube.6081]

As always the whole problem is cele. Cele willbender, cele harbinger, cele renegade, cele soulbeast etc. all toxic kitten is always cele because you can see that you are fighting 400+ more stats instead of the player.

[Dawdler.8521]

8 minutes ago, senftube.6081 said:

As always the whole problem is cele. Cele willbender, cele harbinger, cele renegade, cele soulbeast etc. all toxic kitten is always cele because you can see that you are fighting 400+ more stats instead of the player.

The + in 400+ is a fairly big understatement here.

[Cuks.8241]

On 8/14/2023 at 7:25 PM, stormemperor.3745 said:

I am roaming with cele harb minding my own business. Ganker thives, soulbeasts, virt wannabees, troll reapers and newb mechs always attack me. I just kite for a while, cc lock nuke and throw elite to finish them, some ragequit faster than doing the deed. Some people still attack while downed, I throw trebuchet as special service.

That's pretty much my experience on my cele harbinger. Sometimes there is another cele like renegade, another harb, maybe willy where we throw punches and no one really drops under 60% so after a few minutes we each go our separate ways. Sometimes I don't feel like using my left hand so I just spam staff 2 and 3 aoe marks on a sweaty try hard thief till he can't cope with pressure anymore, usually he will run away so if I feel like using my left hand I CC lock and kill him or just leave him be.