Full all-stat gear viable? (celestial, sigil of stars, all-stat runes)

[forsaken.5026]

So none of the celestial builds I ever found use sigil of stars nor all-stat runes (e.g. rune of the revenenat).

 

Does that mean the all-stat boosts (esp. with the recent update of  "all stats" actually meaning all 9 stats) are not viable?

any thoughts on running such "true full celestial" build?

thx

edit for clarity: i don't want to restrict the viability scope to particular game mode. i'd like to hear thoughts on all game modes. also, feel free to pick a game mode you feel like you have an opinion about, and disregard the rest 🙂

having said that, soloing hard PvE content (bounties, fracs..) and WvW roaming is what I'm mostly interested in.

Edited June 26, 2021 by forsaken.5026

[Omega.6801]

Viable for what?

What works in PvP might not work in Fractals. What works in Raids might not work in WvW.

[forsaken.5026]

@lokh.2695thx, updated the original post for clarity 🙂

[Ashantara.8731]

I find Celestial builds quite redundant in general, because you never ever get as much damage or healing out of them as you would with stat-specific gear.

[Omega.6801]

For open world, events, farms, exploration, world bosses etc. anything is viable and depends on what you like. For everything else, people like to run specialized builds over generalized ones, which means that, as Ashantara said, people would rather lean into power or condi damage, healing or support(boon duration mostly) to perfom a necessary role in the content. In the early dungeons and low level fractals, maybe even in some raids you may be able to "compete" with a full celestial, "jack of all trades" like build, but when the game needs you to fullfill a certain role, these builds/stats just aren't as good/viable as dedicated builds/stats that are minmaxed for their purpose. For everything that relies hevily on a group, it depends on the group, but basically if you're the one guy running full celestial, other players will have to adapt. I'm not saying it isn't possible to kill a raid boss in celestial, but you need to discuss this with your group and the group will have to make adjustments for the one person not being "as well geared as possible" for any given role that needs to be available. Same goes for mid to big scale WvW I guess. Sure, you can zerg along in full celestial, but neither aer you doing as much damage as you could in other gear, nor do you heal/support as much as you would in according gear.

tl:dr; Jack of all trades builds work for you if you're happy playing them, but as soon as other players(and their repective happiness) are involved and the content gets harder, it's better to run specialized gear for the role you are supposed to fulfill which is why you seldom see full celestial builds in Raids, PvP or WvW.

[Alaia Skyhawk.5064]

I wouldn't recommend running Divinity Runes/Sigil of Stars with any Celestial build, quite simply because you're losing out having a 6th rune set bonus, many of which have very good effects, and you'd also be losing out on many useful available sigil effects.

 

Instead just generally keep in mind though that certain professions can make better use of Celestial stats than others. Celestial Firebrand and Renegade, using damage-oriented runes/sigils, can take ridiculous advantage of Celestial stats in open world and in WvW to an extent as well. Both can still hit really hard with power damage when using those stats, but also are capable of pumping out ludicrous bursts of Burning and Torment respectively for large amonts of condition damage as well. Celestial Renegade with Torment runes, with the Mallyx elite skill running, gets huge amounts of self-heal from the runes when in the middle of a crowd, never mind the lifesteal from Battlescars, resulting in 2-for-1 damage+sustain. Celestial Firebrand can, if you want to mix things up a bit, use Firebrand runes and have enough quickness duration boost to maintain permanent quickness on themselves and others with only a modest damage drop if you swap out one of your sigils for Sigil of Smoldering so you can still reach mid-high 90% burn duration). This is all in addition to both of them self-buffing themselves with a decent selection of boons and having large amounts of flexibility in utility. Tempest ele is also a good choice for Celestial, again mainly for openworld or WvW though, and is an absolute monster for pumping out boons.

 

Basically if you're not bothered about having "top dps" which to be honest you don't need outside of Raids or high teir Fractals, running Celestial stats on certain professions is very strong in terms of damage/condition damage, but you get all the additional advantages of the extra health, boon duration, and healing that the set provide. Since the change in Celestial stats, I've actually geared a Renegade, Firebrand, Reaper, and Soulbeast to run hybrid damage builds, and all are fun to play, with Firebrand and Renegade being my favourite, and Reaper a close 3rd 🙂

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

There do exist challenges where people try to get certain broken/useless gear working. But that is a different league. The results usually give insights about about special synergies, which can be (ab)used in real builds afterwards = experimental builds.

 

The last challenge regarding celestial-stats I remember was in 2019, with the focus on using as many all-stat-pieces as possible. The profession with probably the best chances to use celestial-stats is the Elementalist. 

 

Regarding the celestial-themed runes, they can be used in certain builds. Especially the Traveler Rune is excellent if you are running a power-build, but require a condition to up in order to trigger a certain passive. It enhances movement speed as well, so you can ignore Swiftness and it even grants mediocre boon-duration. I consider it one of the more-useful all-stat-runes.

 

Another example for an underrated all-stat rune is the Superior Rune of Leadership. It has the highest boon-duration bonus of all runes. I have only met two players so far, who ever said they used that rune. I used it as well for a while, but replaced it with radiance.  

 

Superior Rune of Divinity is something you can run on an Elementalist, as the class has a horrible HP pool anyway. I currently have an experimental build using it and am quite happy with the results.

 

Personally, I try to avoid going full-celestial and rather use single gear-pieces, a rune or sigil to adjust minor imbalances. As far as I noticed, going full-celestial comes with more negative than positive side-effects :S. But that is only my opinion.

 

[Infusion.7149]

79% boon duration alac hybrid condi renegade

[Sobx.1758]

7 hours ago, forsaken.5026 said:

having said that, soloing hard PvE content (bounties, fracs..) and WvW roaming is what I'm mostly interested in.

You can get some ele, rev, necro, maybe ranger builds that will be viable, but not optimal.

[SkyCake.4216]

Farming Drizzlewood Coast with a Cele Tempest build is some of the most fun I've had. Deals enough damage to make me feel okay about arcDPS. Water Attunement is actually useful and I adore that. I found the usual Fire Condi Weaver build pretty boring. That being said, a good player would take the usual Weaver build into instanced PvE over the Celestial Tempest. I'm using Superior Rune of the Tempest and they work nice with the Gale Song trait. Especially in Drizzlewood! I also eat Dragon's Revelry Starcake for the all stats. 

 

If you're just trying to do some open world PvE (where the game shines in my opinion), then Celestial can be a lot of fun with the right class/build. Open World PvE tends to be more lenient. They're also pretty decent or even great in WvW in the right situations. It's really higher-instanced content where they start to fall apart and a more focused stat-spread is preferred. 

 

I've been trying to make a Celestial build work with Engi, but it hasn't been going as well. Mostly because I limited it to "no Holosmith". Trying to use some of Engi's less useful traits also hasn't been helping. I asked the Engi forums and no one seemed to be able to reach the minimum bar set or (more likely the case) no one was interested. Makes me sad because Celestial Rifle used to be a thing many years ago. 

 

If I had to suggest one class to you to try a Celestial build, it would be Elementalist. They already have "tried and true" Celestial builds and for both e-specs. 

[Jski.6180]

It would be kind of nice if anet did sit down and make sure every class is viable in all game types with full cele build your suggesting.

[TheQuickFox.3826]

I love Celestial for my general purpose and WvW Tempest build. Especially after the recent buff to this stat combination.

Discussion thread in the Elementalist forum:

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/92741-easy-condi-tempest-solo-build/page/2/?tab=comments#comment-1386296

Build link:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PGBFsE2aUZBJMq0GTMTrsRGqjqzVbD-zxIY1ovPMSqiuUR7UEk9zbZrpN-e
 

Build video:

 

And MetaBattle also has a similar build now:
https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Tempest_-_Cele_Tempest

[ArchonWing.9480]

Pretty much only useful for solo open world, story mode,  and maybe small scale wvw roaming, where the mix of stats can make you self sufficient.

 

Useless in PvE instances because you need slots on dedicated roles and damage is king. So either you bring a support or a damage; doing both halfhearrtedly is a waste of time. And you really shouldn't be stacking toughness/vit unless tanking (only in raid) and definitely not in fractals.

 

In large scale wvw, it may be worth taking for more survivability if you don't trust your group but in general dedicated roles are still very much preferred. However, some niche cases like support warrior can work because they don't really need the tankiness but the extra healing power does help and can output some damage. Celestial Tempest is very possible too and is probably the best use of it in general.

 

I do run (mostly) celestial Firebrand for roaming sometimes but there are some marauder/zerker pieces because damage was just too low. The boon and condi duration is extremely helpful though.

 

Edited June 26, 2021 by ArchonWing.9480

[Astralporing.1957]

Viable? Sure. Useful? Well, most of the time you'd be advised to at least use other runes and sigils. Also, as @Ashantara.8731 mentioned, no matter how good results you can get with celestial gear, you can always make a better build by switching to a more specialized set of stats.

[AliamRationem.5172]

It's not that all stat isn't good for players running all stat gear already.  It's that people generally take runes for the set bonuses primarily.  For instance, I could benefit from running rune of the weaver for my full celestial weaver in WvW as I typically run 4 stances.  That's a significant amount of barrier from the rune and the stats benefit my build. 

 

However, my build's weakness isn't lack of sustain, but lack of mobility and consistent pressure.  Given that, I place a much higher value on bonuses that can increase my burst.  For that reason I run aristocracy rune, which along with the rest of my build provides frequent sources of might so that when I am able to score a burst it counts! 

 

This is essentially a condi build, but much of the burst comes from power.  It needs that might to really pack enough punch to pressure opponents within the small windows of opportunity I'm able to create.