Celestial Harbinger Broken

[igmolicious.5986]

For cele harb, the best way to fight is just to bring a lot of cc (reflects are also great for stopping most of their shroud burst AND the tossed elixers). Harb doesn't have much access to stability and unless they are stacking stunbreaks in utility, not a lot of ways to get out of knock/stun/daze.

[TheGrimm.5624]

9 hours ago, MalekithDG.6124 said:

I have huge respects for you in regards that you really care about your game experience, friendly to the community and solution oriented but if we are being serious the effort it takes to kill thiefs (if such a thing even possible) are just so high and demanding (tailored builds...) that it becomes clear that they are not balanced. Same thing with willies and same thing with harbs. You go around this issue by making these mind gymnastics, I go around the issue by changing my roaming location. I no longer roam the wilderness of WvW, I roam the forums, much more balanced.

Its the same thing with your celestial takes. Which again I respect but ultimately disagree like many others. I think you are defending a status quo thats most people is aware that shouldnt be defended. If you are doing this just for your own end then you get more respects from me. If you are doing this because you absolutely think that this is the correct way forward and better for everyone then I dont know what to say man. 

I respect your friendliness but I hope you do realize that what you are doing is just downplaying others problem. Every single time. If it were just a single dude in a month that opened up the topic I would be okay with downplaying since none else would seem to have a problem on that topic. But certain classes, stats etc. are being whined about for a while now. It is clear that people are not enjoying the experience man. A middle ground has to be found between parties on topics that are highly debated over. We cant just accept Cele gear, for example, as balanced when it is not but we cannot just "delete it" either as, like you defend, it is one of the options.

I think we should be more aware (you, me, rest of the community), that as a group who mainly plays player versus player gamemode in a MMORPG, that things by deisgn and genre will be unbalanced (not having a competent balance team doesnt help either). Nothing being discussed in this topic will change the outcome. Its not like ANET is going to buff/nerf anything being discussed here, they probably dont even read. What we can do at best is at least accept what we are abusing in game is indeed broken. Everyone's day would be so much better. For example if a willbender came to me in forums and said "Hey man, I get your frustration, being able to teleport out of existence is indeed busted" I would 5000x happier than someone saying "Hurr durr, you bad, I skilled. WB good!". WB isnt unkillable but it is at least S tier. You can still cook a random WB with a B tier class/espec just by skill alone but risk/reward ratio and numbers are just there man.

Harbringer is indeed broken. So is Cele gear. It doesnt take a highly specialized detective. Its the latest spec and they needed to sell the EoD expansion, they are short on staff (clearly) and balance is not their priority let alone any PvP/WvW change. So nothing gets adjusted. ıts fine.

lol, I had a book written out but tried to thin it down since I appreciate the reply and will try and keep it short since I do agree I will tend to pop up in certain threads.

Never a fan on any callout asking for an entire armor set to be changed. It impacts too many players which may account for people not on the forum since they are just out having fun in the game. We have seen threads about a lot of gear sets over time and try and tend to say no to those as well. I still remember requests asking for soldiers to be nerf back in the Zerk or go home days. First thought there remains, build it, play it, request changes to in skills and classes first.

I am not trying to downplay anyone not having an issue with a class and build, but I can't quite agree that are they aren't also adjusting their own to deal with sudden influxes of builds  either. I can't speak for servers I am not linked with so mileage will vary on the next bit. A guildmate that pops in and out of game overtime put it a good way. When I lose a fight my first thought isn't on their build its on mine. If I am going to keep running into the same fight or others on their server use the same build what do I need to change on mine to counter. Now this is what you might refer to as specialize. If that's the case, I admit that is something I will do, which is partially why I say I am an alt-o-holic. What am I running into, ok toon hope off of this class and build and grab that other one. That's where I think we can disagree. I see having to change toons as part of the game. I can appreciate people not wanting more toons nor wanting to switch, but that's why you might catch me asking questions did you make any changes on your side or are just asking their side to be changed. If you are asking for the other side, then do it from the view of build that toon and try it out and then bring the details. 

Side note: I did create a Willbender after the various threads of them after they came out and I did keep it since I designed it as a anti-thief build which I will grab if the other side has too many running around or too many runaway builds.

[Benjialarue.3790]

I tried it, but not in full Cele (only trinkets and backpack), yes it's sightly easier for me in duel vs players at same skill level, but very experienced players still crushed me easily.
It confirms what I think since my debut in WvW (and in competitive games in general), very strong build helps a lot but experience and knowledge of the matchup will always make the difference. (Of course, experienced players with very strong builds are indeed a nightmare.🤣)

[Cyninja.2954]

15 minutes ago, Benjialarue.3790 said:

I tried it, but not in full Cele (only trinkets and backpack), yes it's sightly easier for me in duel vs players at same skill level, but very experienced players still crushed me easily.
It confirms what I think since my debut in WvW (and in competitive games in general), very strong build helps a lot but experience and knowledge of the matchup will always make the difference. (Of course, experienced players with very strong builds are indeed a nightmare.🤣)

and this is the correct answer/approach to the issue.

Celestial gear is strong. It's bullied out a lot of other roaming build gear sets by sheer stat advantage (which factors into longer boon uptime as well). It's effect on blobs is smaller due to stronger specialization. Ultimately, celestial has reduced the amount of viable gear combinations/builds for small scale/solo. As such, most roaming builds need to run celestial. The complaint from players who do not run celestial is understandable due to frustration, but balance wise it has actually brought things closer together by removing a ton of stat sets as viable options (or making it far harder to succeed on them).

Harbinger as well as some select other builds just synergize very well with celestial gear. It's a double wammy against non celestial builds which are both disadvantaged against the stat set as well as a good elite spec/stat setup.

Chance of celestial gear getting nerfed are near 0 imo. The reason celestial was buffed in the first place was PvE and the main goal was to basically remove any and all gear necessity for open world content (and some instanced content). Celestial will carry every class through nearly 90% of this games PvE content. Even the highest end PvE content, raids/strikes/CMs, is easily beaten by full celestial squads and the only reason those aren't run as often is due to specialization into roles.

So for now, the best approach for players is:

- adapt to the celestial meta by running celestial yourself

- run builds which counter popular celestial roaming builds

- get good enough to beat others

TL;DR:

There is no point in asking celestial gear to get nerfed for WvW because the reason it was buffed in the first place has nothing to do with WvW and supersedes the balance concerns for this mode.

Edited October 14, 2023 by Cyninja.2954