About the evolution of celestial equipment in WvW.

[Reyhan.1208]

It came as a shock when my viewers told me on stream today about the incoming changes to celestial stats in WvW (the removal of concentration and expertise on October 8).

1. This will kill celestial zergs and bring us back to a meta in which every zerg is the same, from what I saw, power-based zergs and celestial zergs are on par and brought variety to the WvW experience.

2. Elementalists are designed for celestial stats. They are currently good for roaming but not used in meta zergs. The only top tier function that would be left for them is scepter roamers with ritualist stats, all other current builds will become low tier.

3. In many cases, power-based builds are outperforming celestial. The power willbender is incredibly superior to the celestial willbender. Same goes for pretty much any kind of warrior, or thief. It really feels like trying to repair something that's not broken.

4. Having a balanced approach is part of Guild Wars 2's DNA, and celestial stats reflect that well.

5. If this goes through, what kind of compensation will I get ? Such a change would mean :
    - spliting builds that work in both pve and wvw into two different equipment slots. Do I get free equipment slots ?
    - over 9 characters, I have 15 equipment slots using celestial stats either fully or as a base, that will need to be revamped. Do I get back the hundreds of gold I spent for these, the runes on them, materials for the ones I crafted, the thousands of Memory of Battle, and the many very real-life hours spent acquiring these soon to be useless because underperforming items ? 

6. If you sincerely do think that celestial should be nerfed, why not do it with a decrease on stats ? Why not simply tone it down, instead of breaking it with a hammer ? A -45 on all stats, which would basically cancel out the celestial food, would be a balanced option, satisfying both those who want celestial stats to be nerfed and those who would otherwise lose so many builds and equipment that goes with it ?

[CafPow.1542]

Of course but you know, gotta allow those willys to gank my face.

Cele nerf is just another guardian buff 😄

[Chiral.8915]

28 minutes ago, Reyhan.1208 said:

 

5. If this goes through, what kind of compensation will I get ? Such a change would mean :
    - spliting builds that work in both pve and wvw into two different equipment slots. Do I get free equipment slots ?
    - over 9 characters, I have 15 equipment slots using celestial stats either fully or as a base, that will need to be revamped. Do I get back the hundreds of gold I spent for these, the runes on them, materials for the ones I crafted, the thousands of Memory of Battle, and the many very real-life hours spent acquiring these soon to be useless because underperforming items ? 

LOL.

[Dean Calaway.9718]

The squeaky wheel gets the grease, a great number of players have been convinced they lose because everyone else is on Celestial gear.

Do they try that gear for themselves to see what's what?

No.

They come to the forums and cried "OP" long enough to get Anet to go "kitten, just nerf the thing, that'll shut'em."

I'm very excited to see what the next boogeyman will be 😏

[Mimizu.7340]

A nerf to Cele wont fix anything.

WBs are intentionally OP and anet plainly refuses to nerf them.

On the top of that is the widespread use of macros and hack tools.

Nothing will change.

 

 

 

 

[Aratoa.7398]

Elementalists existed long before the celestial buff. You'll adjust, just like everyone else does when they get nerfed.

[Dreamonology.8362]

51 minutes ago, CafPow.1542 said:

Cele nerf is just another guardian buff

? lol wb directly benefited from cele the most next to cata, they can pump every boon in the game and keep it up forever, almost every single one of them were running cele for roaming, they are not a issue in Spvp for a reason. They need to look at the other stats like diviners and other sources of concentration and nerf those to in wvw and things will be way more balanced in zerg and roaming.

all they have to do to nerf WB is nerf renewed focus which has been the problem for like 5+ years on all their builds for pvp.

Edited September 14 by Dreamonology.8362

[Chiral.8915]

51 minutes ago, Dean Calaway.9718 said:

The squeaky wheel gets the grease, a great number of players have been convinced they lose because everyone else is on Celestial gear.

Do they try that gear for themselves to see what's what?

No.

They come to the forums and cried "OP" long enough to get Anet to go "kitten, just nerf the thing, that'll shut'em."

I'm very excited to see what the next boogeyman will be 😏

Minstrels needs to be kicked in the nuts very very hard. 😆

[Ferus.3165]

3 hours ago, Reyhan.1208 said:

6. If you sincerely do think that celestial should be nerfed, why not do it with a decrease on stats ? Why not simply tone it down, instead of breaking it with a hammer ? A -45 on all stats, which would basically cancel out the celestial food, would be a balanced option, satisfying both those who want celestial stats to be nerfed and those who would otherwise lose so many builds and equipment that goes with it ?

if the nerf on cele goes through i would honestly also start with a smaller nerf but a different one from what you proposed. I think simply reducing the condi and boon duration by half instead of completely removing it at the start would be a far better solution and if the nerf would not be enough it could always be nerfed further.

[Guybrush.4762]

1. "It will kill the celestial meta in Zerg." - Most likely yes. I believe it is very much the main intention behind this change, and to be fair, it is probably healthy for the game. Don't get me wrong, a few celestial build are great... but when half the squad run cele gear then it start to create clunky slow fights.
2. "Elementalist are designed for cele." - As an Ele player, I see where you are coming from but I also somewhat disagree, let me explain myself. My point is, while the attunement system make good use of cele, other classes also have good mechanical reason to pick cele too; in current balance era it is not unique. I would argue though - and there I will align with you - that for roaming specifically, Ele is the only profession that does not have a lot of strong power build. Sure, there is off-meta builds and fresh air scepter catalyst is ok I guess, but other class fill the same niche better.
3. "Some Power build are outperforming cele." - Yes that is absolutely true, I don't think it is the point of the nerf though. People who wanted cele removed often complained about "bunker-ish" build that are "less fun to play against"; and that is fair enough I guess. As long as we are not talking about removing every stat to the point where WvW gearing essentially become sPvP amulet system then I am good ^^.
4. "Celestial reflect a balance approach." - I don't understand what you mean. If you mean that cele nerf will kill some builds then yes, it is absolutely true and some of them really did not deserved to be destroyed... I am sad for those builds but hopefully other builds will appear.
5. "Gear slot to compensate." -  I don't think a compensation is needed, most WvW build don't do well in PvE and the other way around.
6. "Lower the amount of stat instead." - I mean I feel you, but... that reduction would probably need to be drastic to still affect point 1. Maybe later they will bring back expertise and concentration and lower the overall amount by say -20% or something like that. My ideal approach would have been to replace cele with a couple of 5 or 6 attributes gear. For example, something that is basically marauder stats but for hybrid damage instead of power would have been great imho; let's bring more aggressive condi and hybrid builds into the picture. ^^

Edited September 15 by Guybrush.4762

[MercurialKuroSludge.8974]

4 hours ago, Dreamonology.8362 said:

? lol wb directly benefited from cele the most next to cata, they can pump every boon in the game and keep it up forever, almost every single one of them were running cele for roaming, they are not a issue in Spvp for a reason. They need to look at the other stats like diviners and other sources of concentration and nerf those to in wvw and things will be way more balanced in zerg and roaming.

all they have to do to nerf WB is nerf renewed focus which has been the problem for like 5+ years on all their builds for pvp.

Diviners is garbage even in PvE lmao, its a crutch to PBoon builds that want more BD, but MASSIVELY lowers their dmg.
And its funny "WB gets access to everything" except Quick (Superspeed, CC, and a lot of tools a roamer wud want), 1 of THE most important boons for burst builds, and yet its still able to function like this, clearly something is VERY, VERY wrong with it, but Anet wud rather not rework it to something that feels better to play AND better to play against.

Edited September 15 by MercurialKuroSludge.8974

[Hotride.2187]

But didnt you know? You can min-max to get better effects than cele! I read it on every "nerf cele" thread right here on this forum section (so its gotta be true).

[CafPow.1542]

6 hours ago, Dreamonology.8362 said:

? lol wb directly benefited from cele the most next to cata, they can pump every boon in the game and keep it up forever, almost every single one of them were running cele for roaming, they are not a issue in Spvp for a reason. They need to look at the other stats like diviners and other sources of concentration and nerf those to in wvw and things will be way more balanced in zerg and roaming.

all they have to do to nerf WB is nerf renewed focus which has been the problem for like 5+ years on all their builds for pvp.

Except they don’t. Most willys go power.

the reason why they don’t need boon duration is that it doesn’t take that long to oneshot somebody.

ofc it’s harder to oneshot people if you put your willy in cele instead of damage gear.

[ArchonWing.9480]

11 hours ago, Reyhan.1208 said:

2. Elementalists are designed for celestial stats. They are currently good for roaming but not used in meta zergs. The only top tier function that would be left for them is scepter roamers with ritualist stats, all other current builds will become low tier.

?

Eles benefit from Cele because they have low base health and scale nicely with healing power.... this isn't going away. 

And in zergs, their main benefit is auras and healing , which again, doesn't get affected by boon duration anyways. I mean I guess there's regen to show off in arcdps except most people don't even have the healing addon so nobody really cares. Although meta for zerg is minstrel anyways? Cele offers nothing to a zerg.

Also this pretty much leaves all signet variants in small scale untouched. This probably does hit some immob spam tempests or whatnot, but I don't think many would miss those.

  

3 hours ago, CafPow.1542 said:

Except they don’t. Most willys go power.

  Yeaaaa...... literally 20:1 power/something else from what I see.

Edited September 15 by ArchonWing.9480

[CafPow.1542]

4 minutes ago, ArchonWing.9480 said:

?

Eles benefit from Cele because they have low base health and scale nicely with healing power.... this isn't going away. 

And in zergs, their main benefit is auras and healing , which again, doesn't get affected by boon duration anyways. I mean I guess there's regen to show off in arcdps except most people don't even have the healing addon so nobody really cares. Although meta for zerg is minstrel anyways? Cele offers nothing to a zerg.

Also this pretty much leaves all signet variants in small scale untouched. This probably does hit some immob spam tempests or whatnot, but I don't think many would miss those.

Yes pretty much. I like to play some „semi support“ in more or less organized pug zergs. The mix of healing and a little bit of dps contribution is nice there but in a serious zerg I’d go full zerker staff weaver or full minstrel support.

the thing that really hurts is expertise that gies away but you get a lot of cleanses anyways so I’m not sure if this is really such a biggi.

[ArchonWing.9480]

4 minutes ago, CafPow.1542 said:

Yes pretty much. I like to play some „semi support“ in more or less organized pug zergs. The mix of healing and a little bit of dps contribution is nice there but in a serious zerg I’d go full zerker staff weaver or full minstrel support.

the thing that really hurts is expertise that gies away but you get a lot of cleanses anyways so I’m not sure if this is really such a biggi.

It may make you reconsider "Aftershock" though it's still a solid skill anyways.

And yea, sometimes I am lazy and don't want to switch to support. So I switch to staff and cele meteor storm is >.> It feels like I am doing something but I'm not.  Although Fiery Greatsword is kinda meme.

I wonder why don't they buff those summoned weapons. Those would be fun to use.

 

Edited September 15 by ArchonWing.9480

[RaveOnYou.2819]

10 hours ago, Dreamonology.8362 said:

? lol wb directly benefited from cele the most next to cata, they can pump every boon in the game and keep it up forever, almost every single one of them were running cele for roaming, they are not a issue in Spvp for a reason. They need to look at the other stats like diviners and other sources of concentration and nerf those to in wvw and things will be way more balanced in zerg and roaming.

all they have to do to nerf WB is nerf renewed focus which has been the problem for like 5+ years on all their builds for pvp.

they dont need celestial to pump and sustain every boon. its wb main problem what we complain from begining. willbenders are laughing those cele changes and celebrating at opponents camps for few days 😄

Edited September 15 by RaveOnYou.2819

[CafPow.1542]

12 minutes ago, ArchonWing.9480 said:

It may make you reconsider "Aftershock" though it's still a solid skill anyways.

And yea, sometimes I am lazy and don't want to switch to support. So I switch to staff and cele meteor storm is >.> It feels like I am doing something but I'm not.  Although Fiery Greatsword is kinda meme.

I wonder why don't they buff those summoned weapons. Those would be fun to use.

 

Aftershock is always in 🙂

meteor n stuff is really better on power weaver. This is also ultra fun, i do this or that depends on what mood i have.

concerning conjures: fiery greatsword is strong and in roaming i see earthshield been used every now and then but timing it right can be risky. I think those conjureweapons should be like kits (but eventually on a cooldown). Dunno.

[joneirikb.7506]

I can't find the specific dates any longer, and I'm to lazy to go look through every single GW2 patch for the last 12 years.

• Elementalist was added at launch (2012 and the beta testing before)
• Celestial was added somewhere around 2013 (Power, Precision, Toughness, Vitality, Healing Power, Critical Damage, Condition Damage)
• Celestial got Concentration + Expertise 2021-05-11 (Thanks bq pd.2148 )
• Celestial lost Concentration + Expertise in 2024

So I'd argue that Elementalist wasn't designed around Celestial, and even if it was, it would have been designed around the original version, which they just nerfed Celestial back to anyway. I'd rather argue that Celestial just synergises well with any class that can make good use out of all stats at the same time (Elementalist and Guardian in core or back in 2013-2015).

Edited September 15 by joneirikb.7506
Correction

[ArchonWing.9480]

5 minutes ago, joneirikb.7506 said:

I can't find the specific dates any longer, and I'm to lazy to go look through every single GW2 patch for the last 12 years.

• Elementalist was added at launch (2012 and the beta testing before)
• Celestial was added somewhere around 2013 (Power, Precision, Toughness, Vitality, Healing Power, Critical Damage, Condition Damage)
• Celestial got Concentration + Expertise around 2020 somewhere
• Celestial lost Concentration + Expertise in 2024

So I'd argue that Elementalist wasn't designed around Celestial, and even if it was, it would have been designed around the original version, which they just nerfed Celestial back to anyway. I'd rather argue that Celestial just synergises well with any class that can make good use out of all stats at the same time (Elementalist and Guardian in core or back in 2013-2015).

Yea Cele Elementalist is an olddd thing that far predates the concentration/expertise. Other factors include the 2020 power nerfs encouraging some more cele usage, and generally some feeling that power builds for ele did not feel like it was worth the effort (common sentiment across many builds) Regardless it was kind of a double whammy.

[Bleikopf.2491]

A thread about the evolution of Celestial? Don't mind me!

13 hours ago, Reyhan.1208 said:

4. Having a balanced approach is part of Guild Wars 2's DNA, and celestial stats reflect that well.

Yes.
GW2 was designed to defy the holy trifecta of Tank, DPS and Healer. In that vein, every class should be able to do everything.
Solo gameplay profits from this the most. This is most likely why you get Celestial Armor if you take a level 80 boost.
Celestial gives everything. It is the 'baseline' prefix. Personally, I like this approach very much.

Why would you take other stat combinations then?
Because of synergy. If you take another prefix, you decide to specialize in something.
E.g., Berzerker gives up a lot to take the most out of power builds. Power, Precision and Ferocity synergize to create something bigger than the sum of its parts.

Condition had a problem of only scaling with Condition Power. Which is most likely why they added Expertise with HoT in 2015.

1 hour ago, joneirikb.7506 said:

Celestial got Concentration + Expertise around 2020 somewhere

The next part is based on my memory, because I fail to find evidence for that on the wiki.

Celestial received Concentration and Expertise with HoT, so close to 2015 2021.
When they added those stats, they just tacked them onto Celestial with the same rate as other attributes. E.g., if Celestial Staff gave +118 Power, etc. previously it now gave +118 Concentration and +118 Expertise additionally. They raised the stat total of Celestial by ~28%.

Suddenly you have a problem.
I have talked about how stats synergize with each other to create something bigger than its parts.
Since HoT we have a lot more boons. More boons means Concentration is more effective.
Imagine if the power coefficient of all skills just doubled. Power would be a more desirable stat then.
(On a sidenote, we also have no Concentration or Expertise on Runes, only flat "Boon Duration"/"Condition Duration" which, if translated to Concentration and Expertise, have higher stats than other attributes in that slot)

13 hours ago, Reyhan.1208 said:

3. In many cases, power-based builds are outperforming celestial.

And suddenly, this might not be true anymore.
Celestial allows you to have more sustain and innate tankiness and gives up some damage for it.
If you are able to stay longer in a fight, you will be able to put out more hurt.
So far, nothing changed from before HoT.

What changed is that boons now stay longer on you. And we got a lot more boons now.
If you can keep high stacks of Might and Fury on you, Celestial suddenly doesn't look so weak compared to e.g., Berzerker anymore.
What it gave up on specialized synergy it can make up with boons. The Concentration offered by Celestial gives +42% boon uptime.
High boon uptime with the added pure total stat advantage is what made Celestial so strong.

13 hours ago, Reyhan.1208 said:

6. If you sincerely do think that celestial should be nerfed, why not do it with a decrease on stats ?

I don't know. Celestial should have been nerfed in stats around ~20%, is my opinion. That would reduce the stat advantage (which would still be around +~40% to 3-attribute prefixes liker Berzerker) and keep the added Boon Duration a bit lower.
The other part of the formula is of course, that we have too much boon spam. If that were reigned it it would make Concentration less effective as well.

Maybe their idea of a 'baseline' stat doesn't use added Boon and Condition Duration?
Maybe they did not want to nerf all other stats like Power, Toughness, Healing Power etc by 20%, which would in turn force all Celestial wearers to compensate with boon spam?
Maybe they just wanted to flex their new tech, which allows to break all armor sets people invested gold and time in on a whim if people whine enough about some prefix?

 

As for your other points..

13 hours ago, Reyhan.1208 said:

1. This will kill celestial zergs and bring us back to a meta in which every zerg is the same, from what I saw, power-based zergs and celestial zergs are on par and brought variety to the WvW experience.

How are Power-based zergs and Celestial zergs on par if Power-based builds outperfom Celestial ones?
And yes, the intent was probably to kill Celestial zergs.
Maybe the want to force specialized builds? As I already said, the pure stat advantage of Celestial is at most half of the equation. The boon spam is also a problem.

13 hours ago, Reyhan.1208 said:

2. Elementalists are designed for celestial stats. They are currently good for roaming but not used in meta zergs. The only top tier function that would be left for them is scepter roamers with ritualist stats, all other current builds will become low tier.

No, they are not. Elementalists are designed as jack-of-all-trades. They were the best users of Celestial stats. And that even before Celestial got added Concentration and Expertise.
They will still be good with Celestial, although they might have to supplement that with some +Boon Duration runes and mix in some Concentration attributes.
There will also be more than just Scepter Roamers with Ritualist stats?
I don't know where the idea comes from that Elementalists can only exist with Scepter and/or Celestial in WvW ...

13 hours ago, Reyhan.1208 said:

5. If this goes through, what kind of compensation will I get ?

None.

Edited September 15 by Bleikopf.2491
Have been corrected on date

[bq pd.2148]

35 minutes ago, Bleikopf.2491 said:

The next part is based on my memory, because I fail to find evidence for that on the wiki.

Celestial received Concentration and Expertise with HoT, so close to 2015.

or if you do prefer the wiki one:
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Game_updates/2021-05-11#Items

 

so it was even more recent than the part you quoted.

[Fruit.7624]

ITT:

OP reveals himself to be a cele ele main who is incapable of playing the class in roaming without the baby wheels that is cele stats.

My advise to you is to reject cele. It's a crutch, it carries you hard in fights, you button mash and don't prioritise spells because you do good condi and strike damage with all of them anyways.  You don't pay attention to your own dodges because the permanent boons just sustain you anyways. You don't pay attention to enemy dodges because you button mash anyways. Cele roaming is almost exclusively a single minded tunnel vision approach to the game that doesn't teach you much, and passively saves you from dying.

I was like you once ,played cele on my ele before the boon duration and expertise was added even. But as you grow as a player you realise cele gameplay is boring both for you and your enemies. It's uninteractive.

Best Regards,

An ele main that roams on power builds

[Byaku.8273]

15 hours ago, Reyhan.1208 said:

    - over 9 characters, I have 15 equipment slots using celestial stats either fully or as a base,

Build variety . Clear indicator of no build variety + a stat being clearly superior to others. It has more total stats, it works with everything as the game was designed to let you play all healer, support & dps (condi & power) in one class. Cele will still be relevant, just not on every single class anymore.

L take overall :)

Edit:

Just some quick math (all values are based on a 2-handed weapon, the percent values refer to the increased compared to 3-stat gear):

• 3 stat gear total stats: 609
• 4 stat gear total stats: 666 (+9.36%)
• cele gear total stats: 1062 (+74.34%!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
• cele after nerf total stats: 826 (+35%)

After doing some math you should quickly realize to stop whining and git gud.

Edited September 15 by Byaku.8273

[CafPow.1542]

1 hour ago, Fruit.7624 said:

ITT:

OP reveals himself to be a cele ele main who is incapable of playing the class in roaming without the baby wheels that is cele stats.

My advise to you is to reject cele. It's a crutch, it carries you hard in fights, you button mash and don't prioritise spells because you do good condi and strike damage with all of them anyways.  You don't pay attention to your own dodges because the permanent boons just sustain you anyways. You don't pay attention to enemy dodges because you button mash anyways. Cele roaming is almost exclusively a single minded tunnel vision approach to the game that doesn't teach you much, and passively saves you from dying.

I was like you once ,played cele on my ele before the boon duration and expertise was added even. But as you grow as a player you realise cele gameplay is boring both for you and your enemies. It's uninteractive.

Best Regards,

An ele main that roams on power builds

I really don’t disagree and as a cele-ele myself i know, there is much room for me to improve.

i still have a question tho. I don’t know every class mechanic and every tech and trick in this game, i often fail to dodge the right thing or pump a cc into an invuln or whatever. Happens.

i am a mediocre player at best. I have now the option to be food when i go on a power build and get ganked every 2 meters or i just can play the game a bit.

these are crutches (and i repeat, i think the nerf is okay so far) but why do people who don’t perfectly press all the buttons in their 0.5second burst window combo not allowed to have some fun in this gamemode? Why are there always people making them feel bad? Are some people so insecure they have to whisper cele-wearing players and insult them with „lol no skill lul“?

 

i am totally on your side and try to improve, i frequently use a power build to „get into it“ more. Everybody should aim to get better but also, let people have fun. Unnerfed Cele is not the gamebreaking satan that makes it unplayable. And the nerf will not make eles (or new players) unplayable either like some people think.