How to balance celestial in WvW?

[Buran.3796]

On 10/12/2023 at 10:07 PM, Kuya.6495 said:

I dunno. It seems to be the common denominator between all the builds people complain about except possibly thief. There's a very resilient vindi build that effectively uses shortbow to kill people and it's only really possible because of celestial stats.

  After the WvW clan in which I played for 4 years faded due lack of content  after PoF I've became mostly in a roamer. I run Revenent, Guardian and Warrior builds in WvW. Outside marauder Willbender, DH or maybe Bladesworn, the other five builds I run rely in celestial.

   After the EoD specs, most of the legacy specs are unable to compete, since they lack mobility or the cc/burst combos to deal with the top new specs. Firebrand as a solo roamer without cele is just a joke, as example.  What I mean is if cele gets cut out of WvW as happened in PvP, I'll probably cease playing this game mode, since the specs I run are overall unable to deal with EoD specs in WvW roaming if they don't have the extra stats.

[Junkpile.7439]

I come balance celestial with my new celestial mace shield core engineer. 

[Sarlan.7682]

7 minutes ago, Buran.3796 said:

  After the WvW clan in which I played for 4 years faded due lack of content  after PoF I've became mostly in a roamer. I run Revenent, Guardian and Warrior builds in WvW. Outside marauder Willbender, DH or maybe Bladesworn, the other five builds I run rely in celestial.

   After the EoD specs, most of the legacy specs are unable to compete, since they lack mobility or the cc/burst combos to deal with the top new specs. Firebrand as a solo roamer without cele is just a joke, as example.  What I mean is if cele gets cut out of WvW as happened in PvP, I'll probably cease playing this game mode, since the specs I run are overall unable to deal with EoD specs in WvW roaming if they don't have the extra stats.

have to admit that not being able to roam on power/condi rev builds is more of a ltp rev issue since it got some very viable to meta options. dont know bout warri outside of czerker and bladesworn but id bet you can make atleast spb work as well. on the flipside it perfectly describes what cele is good at: making you survive long enough to learn the game. id be personally against completely gutting its stats to 3stat values but they should 100% remove conc/condi duration and maybe even slightly reduce its offensive stats so you have to add other stat combos to get more punch which in return makes you squishier

[Jski.6180]

4 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Depends. I'd rather have it from class effects first.

I do not like class lock out if every class can boon strip on some level boons over all will be less effect. Or you just have pt of 5 + chrons or scorges/reapers.

[Arianth Moonlight.6453]

it's simple: remove Celestial.

but also remove Thieves and Mesmers and Willbenders and also anything that give Endurance, oh, and Elementalists and since we're removing anything we don't like, remove mag too.

[InappropriateInnuendo.1395]

On 10/13/2023 at 2:00 AM, TheGrimm.5624 said:

You would face the other 45 different builds that players are now roaming on that might include cele renegades as well as power and condi ones as well lol.

Straight question, is anyone really seeing roamers that are just a class? Just an elite of a class in mass? 

While roaming in NA we have all classes, all elites, all gear sets out there.  I couldn't really point to this one has the most right now that I have seen, maybe its a small world after all.

I think I am seeing an increase in soulbeasts and willbenders since the balance patch. Though that could just be my bias, since I can't help but notice evade dodge dodge dodge block block block invul invul invul that dominates my screen.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

11 hours ago, Jski.6180 said:

I do not like class lock out if every class can boon strip on some level boons over all will be less effect. Or you just have pt of 5 + chrons or scorges/reapers.

Engis have boon strip. Warrior has boon strips. Thief has boon strips. Ranger has boon strips. There are lots of places to increase boon removal that are not Mesmer/necro.

[Kenjiro.5074]

2 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Engis have boon strip

not anymore we don't

mine field no longer strips

throw mine strips 1 boon on a 24 second cooldown 

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

52 minutes ago, Kenjiro.5074 said:

not anymore we don't

mine field no longer strips

throw mine strips 1 boon on a 24 second cooldown 

That is what I mean, they keep nerfing them in the game mode where they are most ubiquitous and there for most needed.

[Gorani.7205]

17 minutes ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

That is what I mean, they keep nerfing them in the game mode where they are most ubiquitous and there for most needed.

Eles have no boon strip, too. My first though was to add a boon strip to when you hit an aura, but that might make Catas stronger compared to other Elites (who are already on the top of the Ele food chain)?
PS: Old grumpy Ele here can still remember blasting fire fields for might. Telling that to new(er) players that joined the game after PoF will shake their heads in disbelief.

[Jski.6180]

4 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Engis have boon strip. Warrior has boon strips. Thief has boon strips. Ranger has boon strips. There are lots of places to increase boon removal that are not Mesmer/necro.

Ele dose not! Nor dose gurd both classes that should have such effect.

[XenesisII.1540]

1 hour ago, Jski.6180 said:

Ele dose not! Nor dose gurd both classes that should have such effect.

No, stay in your own lane. Both those classes already do everything else.

Edited October 14, 2023 by XenesisII.1540

[Jski.6180]

6 minutes ago, XenesisII.1540 said:

No, stay in your own lane. Both those classes already do everything else.

But what do the other classes with boon strip not do? If you want to counter cele though boon strip you need to make sure every one can boon strip or it just become a class that is the counter to cele not a build.

[XenesisII.1540]

8 minutes ago, Jski.6180 said:

But what do the other classes with boon strip not do? If you want to counter cele though boon strip you need to make sure every one can boon strip or it just become a class that is the counter to cele not a build.

Sure let's hand the two boon spamming classes boon strips. Be sure to add stealth to them too.

[Jski.6180]

25 minutes ago, XenesisII.1540 said:

Sure let's hand the two boon spamming classes boon strips. Be sure to add stealth to them too.

We seem to be fine with say mez having boon spam, boon strip spam, healing, condi clear dmg and, stealth...

I am all for letting classes have the ability to do every thing relic or combos that kind of should be the point of them. (I want an relic set that buff an combo type as well relic of blasting, leap etc.. that would give you added set effect on an icd for this talk i want to see the relic of leap to be an aoe boon strip at the end of your leap combo.) We need relic that do more then just give + dmg % and self def as well as support. Boon strips should be a real thing on even the existing relic that seem to have no real use atm. Say Relic of Peitha should have an strip on it as well when you shadow step.

[Zyreva.1078]

Buffing boon strips is not the answer to celestial imbalance.

It doesn't adress the imbalance between cele and other stats whatsoever. Cele builds aren't the only ones that utilise boons. Also access to boon strip varies massively in both quantity and quality among different classes and specs, so it's not something that should become mandatory, as that would just add further imbalance.

[XenesisII.1540]

1 minute ago, Jski.6180 said:

We seem to be fine with say mez having boon spam, boon strip spam, healing, condi clear dmg and, stealth...

I am all for letting classes have the ability to do every thing relic or combos that kind of should be the point of them. (I want an relic set that buff an combo type as well relic of blasting, leap etc.. that would give you added set effect on an icd for this talk i want to see the relic of leap to be an aoe boon strip at the end of your leap combo.) We need relic that do more then just give + dmg % and self def as well as support. Boon strips should be a real thing on even the existing relic that seem to have no real use atm. Say Relic of Peitha should have an strip on it as well when you shadow step.

You mean the boon spam that has been nerfed multiple times, cluelessly changing alacrity and quickness on chrono multiple times while handing it out to every other class, adding alacrity on mirage only to spend the next year nerfing it into oblivion lmao, overall boon strip constantly nerfed for 3 years on mesmer necro warrior, (and you want to hand that back to the classes they were suppose to be countering? slap in the face much?), bottom of the barrel healer, group stealth balanced by the highest stealth cooldowns. I'd rather they boost strips on engineers, rangers, thieves first before ever giving any to guards or elementalist. You give strips to those two classes then I demand they boost boon spam on mesmer again and make a legit top 3 stab/healer out of one of the specs.

No, how about we boost all the nerfed boon strips from the past few years instead? But we all know none of this will happen because anet only wants boon spam combat, their excuse to nerf boon strips to see how boon spam was performing is absolute nonsense, and you don't need two years to figure this out. They really don't give two kittens about the general population of gw2 trying to play their own way, only in the way of their organized blob fight buddies.

The one and only solace I have about the anet balance team at this point is at least they're not the diablo4 team....

[Jski.6180]

@XenesisII.1540

I think your mixing up having a lot of an effect vs simply having some of an effect. I am not asking for ever class to boon strip as well as say an mez i want every class to have the ably to boon strip on some level.

[XenesisII.1540]

30 minutes ago, Jski.6180 said:

@XenesisII.1540

I think your mixing up having a lot of an effect vs simply having some of an effect. I am not asking for ever class to boon strip as well as say an mez i want every class to have the ably to boon strip on some level.

That answer is still No, stay in your lane. Those two classes already got enough "buffs" the last two years with op specs and favoritism.

[Jski.6180]

19 minutes ago, XenesisII.1540 said:

That answer is still No, stay in your lane. Those two classes already got enough "buffs" the last two years with op specs and favoritism.

But why only 2 classes are not in that "lane" it seems more like an oversight of lack of boon strip relics then any thing.

[subversiontwo.7501]

The videos in this recent other thread about celestial builds shows quite clearly that it is much less about the stats or even boons on their own and much more about all the gratuitous passive and spammy sources of barrier, heals and boons persistant among the traits of many builds. Celestial may add to make those things more problematic but it is not the root cause and many of those things would remain problematic even if you outright deleted celestial stats.

The real problem is years of PvE-only balance that is being clawed back in far too limited scope - even if balance passes are more frequent now. Many of the things we see throughout a number of builds these days goes against alot of the original design principles in this game. The original developers were very cautious with these kind of synergies in the early years of the game for good reason. Many of the originally tanky classes paid for it through things like mobility. Classes that had boons or breaks paid for it with limited access to conditions and strips etc. Much of that original concept design just went out the window when ArenaNet went full PvE-hard.

Celestial is ultimately relatively unimportant. If they want to make WvW balance better they should revisit the concept design of each class and make sure that they excel at the few things they should excel at each - and trade away from it with specialisations that gives something else.

Edited October 15, 2023 by subversiontwo.7501

[ArchonWing.9480]

8 hours ago, XenesisII.1540 said:

The one and only solace I have about the anet balance team at this point is at least they're not the diablo4 team....

The problem with Blizzard is they nerf by giving you less of a game. In D3 everyone used life steal because heals sucked so they deleted it. The loot sucked because the game was balanced around you using the AH, so .... they deleted that too. In Starcraft 2 I remember learning cool new builds from friends only to get them removed at the end of the week. Sometimes units.  Then they nerfed custom maps by destroying them completely most likely due to them not wanting people to get rich off custom content (like what happened with DOTA I guess?)

The biggest nerf though was going from 8 player games to 4 player games though. Blizzard apologists defended it by telling us the technology is not there yet and Diablo 2 was an old game with old graphics and that's why they could have so many players.... all while Diablo 2 resurrected has modern graphics and has 8 players games lol. No wonder why they abandoned it when D4 came out.

Funny enough, the game best known as the most balanced game is the classic known as Starcraft (1): Brood War. But the thing here is that Blizzard barely balanced the thing at all and mostly grew its famous competitive scene because of its community (especially the South Korean one). Its longevity was because of custom maps that mitigated balance issues. Basically the game remained competitive because the community made up its own version of the game (just like WvW!) , but then Blizzard came back in Sc2 and tried to reclaim this all by themselves and tried to manufacture an esport (ya know, like spvp)  it really had no place in being and thus Koreans didn't really embrace Sc2 as it did Sc1. Not that Sc2 was a bad game by any means.

Edited October 15, 2023 by ArchonWing.9480

[cyberzombie.7348]

15 hours ago, Kenjiro.5074 said:

not anymore we don't

mine field no longer strips

throw mine strips 1 boon on a 24 second cooldown 

Engineers also used to have acidic elixirs which stripped a boon per thrown elixir. That got cut during the traitline rework through. 

[manu.7539]

I'm not a fan of boon strips since some builds as mine struggle already to keep up their few boons. Some boons are just too powerful especially with a permanent access to them. Nerf concentration is a better idea imo.

Oh wait, its a post about celestial, not boon or boon strip! Sorry, I just followed the derailing train 😛

[Caffynated.5713]

23 hours ago, XenesisII.1540 said:

Sure let's hand the two boon spamming classes boon strips. Be sure to add stealth to them too.

Put it on trait lines that don't spam boons, like fire, that rarely if ever get used by boon spam builds.

Burning precision could remove 2 boons in a 240 radius when it procs. Not much for a single ele, but coordinated with other people can add up, especially if coordinated for a bomb instead of randomly spammed.