Why are Cele stats still in WvW, when they are removed in PvP for a reason ? (2024)

13 hours ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

Exactly. It is very different than dueling. This is why I said much earlier that metabattle.com should make a clear distinction between duel builds and proper roam builds. Right now, the only proper roam builds that can do what you mentioned efficiently, are Willbender, Druid, Thieves, Eles, Mirage. And that has everything to do with the virtue of the class designs for being very mobile, having a lot of stealth disengage, or in Ele's case, just having a lot of everything else to be able to peel and get to a door or something before being killed. And this is regardless of the stat lines ran.

Honestly, out of the archetypes that I mentioned, Willbender does power stats, Druid can run power or cele or w/e, Thieves are best on power, Eles def on cele, and Mirage can run w/e it wants. These are the top roaming classes, and it has everything to do with their mobility/disengage prowess. Make of it what you want.

Then we have things that are really strong in dueling, that could not kite 1vX and win or at least survive, in the same way Willbender, Druid, Thief, Ele, Mirage can. These are things like Condiserks, Renegades, Harbingers, and all of that wears cele because cele is clearly the stronger option for duel builds. Of course a good player who would be considered let's say plat+ in pvp, could win a 1v2 or maybe a 1v3 against a bunch of guys who would be considered gold 1 or lower in pvp, regardless of the classes they are on. But when we are talking players of actual equal skill values meeting in these 1v2s or 1v3s, a Cele Harbinger who is let's say gold 3, is not going to win vs. say a Spellbreaker, a Holo who are also gold 3. He won't be able to outrun them either.

In a true 1vX type situation, let's say a Cele-Renegade or a Cele-Condiserk walks into the wrong position and didn't notice a 30 man zerg that was stacked tightly around a corner somewhere, there is no way they can outrun & survive if even a 1/4th of that squad chooses to chase. But see a Willbender, Druid, Thief, Ele or Mes, actually has enough mobility skills & ports, stealth detargets, and random effects that deny projectiles, to actually be able to escape and survive getting too close to a 30 man squad. This is why they are the top roaming classes. These classes are so well designed for that, they can actually purposely go out of their way to follow around a 30 man squad and harass them continuously without being caught & dying. THIS is what I'm talking about, the difference between the real roaming classes, and dueling classes that are roaming.

It just so happens that the slower powerful dueling archetypes do indeed all function best with cele, for obvious reasons of being able to support their own boon generation, heals, condi durations for things like immobs, ect ect, having hybrid power/condi damage to ensure getting past opponent defenses. But when it comes to serious try-hard roaming on those specified classes, we have sort of two different archetypes for true top roamers ok:

1. The highly mobile roaming cele duelist - Druid can achieve this, Eles can achieve this, Mirage can achieve this. These are GREAT in 1v1s and they have the necessary components to go out and get serious roaming done. They can survive 1vXs pretty easily with a bit of map awareness, and wait for moments to catch players in 1v1s and 1v2s that they know they can win. But this archetype has a lot less burst damage than their power counterparts. I often find while running my Cele-Druid, I'll get into these 1v3s or 1v4s that I can survive, but I can't actually stay long enough before needing to kite, to deal enough damage to a single target to down it, to be able to actually start getting kills so I can win the 1v4. In these situations, I will often disengage and OOC and then swap to something like this ->
2. The highly mobile roaming power burst - Willbender can achieve this, Druid and Soulbeast can achieve this, all types of Thief achieve this, and Shatter Mirage def achieves this. When the invulnerable Cele-Druid doesn't have the damage to tag downs in that 1v4, I'll OOC can quick swap to the Sic Em OWP. And then I'll turn around and target something like a Harbinger or a Thief who isn't expecting it, and start generating downstates. If you can take apart their unit like this, due to high sudden burst and an element of surprise, then when there is only a couple of them left, they are easy to kite & finish. And then see, I've won a 1v3 or a 1v4 with a build archetype that is in no way as powerful in a 1v1 as the Cele-Druid. But see this is what I mean about different things being used for different purposes. This archetype is very different because it isn't trying to achieve staying power in the 1v2 or 1vX, it is trying to achieve literally "blitzkrieg" power, where it zips in and out and attempts to generate downstates very quickly and then get away and reset. This is also arguably better than the cele-roamer, when it finds opportune moments to join in on say a 5v5 or even like a 10v10, because its damage output is heavy enough that it can make serious impact while assisting small groups.

But see even this ^ is considering that you're some kind of plat+ player against a bunch of gold or lower. When we are talking gold vs gold or silver vs silver, all these interactions function entirely differently due to l2p issues and people not utilizing their class kits optimally. And in the event of let's say they did another wvw tournament like in years 1 and 2, then we get the best of the best try hard players showing up, and now we're roaming in an environment where only plat+ players are out there, where gold or lower wouldn't dare to even walk out into that farm land to attempt to roam alone. In this event, the dynamic entirely changes in extreme ways. Now you could be a plat+ player on what normally feels like an invulnerable Cele-Druid, but when every other roamer out there is also plat+, we are no longer realistically looking at being able to 1vX or even win 1v2s, but the goal is now to avoid 1vX entirely and to just be able to survive 1v2s and get to door something before you get killed. Because IE: if a plat+ Cele-Druid starts getting chased by let's say a SD Daredevil and a Willbender who are also plat+, who are both wearing pure power burst stats and have many ports, you aint outrunning that, and you aren't going to actually win that either. It's only a matter of time before these players dwindle you down with extreme damage output and the ability to stick to you like glue due to so many ports. If anything in this situation at this level of play, Running the Cele Build is actually putting yourself into an impossible to win situation for that 1v2. Although the sustain is great and the damage is generally good, it simply does not have the damage it needs to generate a downstate quickly enough to turn that situation into a 1v1, and it is only a matter of time before their DPS will outride your sustain and you will lose. In that situation, and any experienced player knows exactly what I'm talking about, and this is exactly why in pvp right now, the meta is pure burst damage. Because to win a 1v2 like that when we are talking plat+ vs. plat+/plat+, the only option for a win, is to also be running full damage, and burst one of those players down very very quickly so you can turn the situation into a 1v1. This is the truth.

After really tossing analysis at this, I feel like this "cele vs. power" thing has been being discussed without a very very important factor being included, and that is: "what tier of players vs. players are we talking about here?" Because some players like @Zyreva.1078or myself playing at plat+ levels roaming around on a Cele-Druid and engaging golds or lower and winning 1vXs, makes cele look godly. But a lot of what's going on there is very seriously mechanical l2p issues and people running poorly situated builds, who probably are trying to roam on what is intended to be zerg builds. Plat+ players are gonna stomp all over golds & lower, no matter what stats they run, even in 1v3s and 1v4s.

The reality of that try-hard plat+ vs. plat+ though, is much different. Just from the standpoint of a Cele-Druid which is one of the absolute roamers btw, when it comes to plat+ 1v1s, there are a lot of things that can deal with or actually kill the Cele-Druid if the Druid doesn't kite enough/stays too long/missteps at all. These things are:

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1. Power Spellbreakers - Yes, due to deep boon removal tagging you at the right time to remove any stab, and chains of CCs, these can kill you if you mess up at all or don't kite enough. If the Cele-Druid is good, this plat+ vs. plat+ matchup generally results in a stalemate where both players realize they aren't going to kill each other. But the Spellbreaker can kill you and it happens suddenly if you mess up at all as the Druid.
2. Cele-Renegade - Although it is slow and Druid can easily leave this 1v1 with twice the movement as the Renegade has, these are dangerous in isolated 1v1s. Again, if the Druid messes up at all, the Cele-Renegade will very quickly gain the upper hand, forcing the Druid to have to utilize its mobility to begin kiting away for reset. The Druid can win, but this is a fairly balanced match up, where I'd def say that if it weren't for the Druid's superior mobility, the Renegade would have advantage.
3. Power Willbenders - These are seriously dangerous lately. I generally don't lose to them as Cele-Druid, but I've come across some players who really really lay down extreme pressure as Willbenders. You can kill the ones who overextend their CDs and get stuck near you too long. But the good ones, eventually realize that the Druid has just a sliiiight advantage, and they'll disengage and leave. These can definitely kill the Druid if the Druid messes up at all, and it happens fast.
4. Power Thieves Of All Types - The build I run on Druid is Axe/Axe/Staff with Turtle, so I have 3x rotating anti-projectile effects. Due to this, I typically never die against thieves. But the good ones can infinitely reset and keep coming back over and over and over, and eventually what happens is that they harass you for so long, that eventually someone else shows up to + him and you find yourself in a 1v2. This is the true strength behind the Thief class and it is the worst + to deal with when they are good. If the Thief is good, you need to immediately kite away from the slower person and try to keep it a 1v1 against just the Thief.
5. VS. other Rangers -You either hard-counter Power Rangers as a Cele-Druid, or youcome across another Tank Ranger and it's a complete stalemate unless you can greatly outplay the other Ranger. I'm talking like a plat+ Cele Ranger might be able to tag an actual kill against a gold 2 or lower Cele Ranger. If you can't greatly outplay the other Ranger, itresults in a silly situation where neither ever drops bellow 90% or 80% health.
6. Cele Eles - These actually sort of counter Cele-Druid. Again, we're talking about plat+ vs. plat+. Everything about Ele is designed to just sort of bully around Ranger builds. This match up will almost always result in a complete stalemate where neither can kill each other, but the Ele will be the aggressor, and the Druid will have to kite all over the place to survive.
7. Mirages - Other Mesmer specializations don't cut it. The Mirage makes the cut to due to Jaunt. As the Cele-Druid, I find Cele-Mirage to not have threatening damage, and typically I eventually win if I push them and they don't disengage quickly enough. The problem comes in when they start mixing stats. I'm not exactly sure what's going on here, but I come across a lot of really weird Mirage variants that are not listed on any site. Like weird variants running Greatsword with Infinite Horizon, who are running maybe Grieving pieces? I'm not sure, but they have a great deal of pressure coming from both the power side and the condi side of their bursts. They are squishier, but the consistent high pressure coming off this steady stream of IH procs and power shatters is actually dangerous. I'd say the Cele-Druid still has the upper-hand, but the Druid can die quickly if it missteps at all.
8. Cele Harbinger - I actually don't have a problem against Harbingers due to the axe/axe/staff/turtle triple anti-projectile build I've got going on. But I am aware that other people who are not running triple anti-projectile, do have problems against Cele-Harb in 1v1, so we'll put it in this list.

The point being, is that out of all the things that can threaten the Cele-Druid in 1v1s when we are talking plat+ vs. plat+, 4 of them are power, and 4 of them are cele.

But see, at lower tiers, let's say gold 1s vs. gold 1s, this would be entirely different when players were not optimizing the use of their class kits correctly. A good example of what I mean would be let's say a gold 1 DP Daredevil wearing cele vs. a gold 1 DP Daredevil wearing serk. Within the tiers of gold 1 players, the cele DP will probably win. Because in this tier, players make a lot of mistakes and get hit a lot more often than they should, and they're bad at launching DPS combos. The cele DP will tank a lot harder in the world of these l2p issues, and as they trade blows with autos "which they shouldn't be doing" but they are because it's gold 1 tier, the cele is going to come out on top. But then if we are talking Cele-DP vs. Serk-DP at plat+ vs. plat+ levels, the Serk DP is going to **** all over the Cele-DP for several reasons as to why the DP Daredevil archetype is just not optimized with cele stats, and is definitely optimized when wielding full power stats, when the archetype is being played optimally, correctly.

This brings me to my ultimate point which I feel is the heart of this debate that we weren't noticing, going back to what @JusticeRetroHunter.7684was referencing. Under what premise of skill demographic are we trying to balance for? It needs to be defined. Are we discussing this from the standpoint of plat+ vs. plat+ players? Or are we discussing this from the standpoint of gold 1s vs. gold 1s, which is admittingly where the very large majority of the player base resides. This is extremely important to define for any further constructive debate, because the dynamic of stats/builds playing against each other in the world of gold 1s is much much different than how the dynamic plays out amongst plat+ vs. plat+.

This is not easy to answer, so I'll have to think about it a bit and get back to it later.

But here is something that needs to be posted to conclude the debacle of what happened with that core ranger vs. dh. Come to find out you were definitely right. There is actually a major bug going on with Ranger. After reading your post, I went in-game and tested it myself and recorded the Ranger heal up-tick bug, which is working very strangely might I add. I also recorded a demo of that DH's heal up-ticks. I found that for some very strange reason, every time a Ranger reapplies protection to itself, whether it is from dodge roll companion's defense, or protect me, or any source of prot, it for some reason grants a double up-tick at full value. It doesn't just stack duration of protection to allow Rugged Growth to continue granting up-ticks per second, no. It just instantly triggers an extra up-tick from Rugged Growth. The stranger thing here, is that it also makes it trigger an extra Regeneration up-tick. Why the hell is this happening? Absolutely no idea. I actually wish I woul have put on a food regen buff for the video to see if this bug is effecting ALL sources of passive regen on a Ranger. But it is definitely for some reason effecting both Rugged Growth and strangely also Regeneration. And it happens each time a prot is reapplied. This is actaully insanely busted and Arenanet needs to fix this. Then you can see when I record the DH's passive regens, it only ever up-ticks its F2 Absolute Resolve & Regeneration & food buff, once per second. I didn't take the time to test other classes and I wanted to keep this video upload very short and very small. But the footage provided shows that the Ranger is definitely majorly busted and the w/e is going on there, is not happening on a Guardian's passive regens. I'm not going to take the time to lay out a big number skew this time because it is unnecessary. You can plainly see in the video that my Ranger is getting several double up-ticks each time I reapply protection. And it's similar to his build, where the prot reapplies so often that I'm getting about 40% more passive healing than I should be. Again, like 14s of upticks in 10s, ect ect.

So can we move past this Cele Ranger vs. Serk DH thing and stop sh*tposting about it?

He wasn't using a hack. It's definitely a major bug in play. Ranger "which is my main class btw" is busted in the sustain department due to this and Arenanet really should fix it.

In conclusion to this:

See Also

Grand Marshal.4098's Content - Page 76

1. When we did his Cele Ranger vs. my Berserker Druid and Cele Druid, I was the aggressor in both rounds and was pushing him all over the place. He had to kite from my DPS to survive. He can go ahead and upload that footage if he wants to.
2. Even considering what we've figured out here, I still almost oneshot him on the DH. And he certainly should have been put down from the TOF, if he hadn't somehow crossed it while taking no damage. I think it's safe to say that the Power DH did fine against Celestial, even considering these strange anomalies surrounding the Core Ranger.
3. I'm not even a Guardian main. I rarely even play the class, haven't seriously played it since old HoT meta. When I logged in to duel him, I didn't even warm up. I just logged in and went to him. He is on his main class playing at what I'd consider plat+ levels, and go to him on a class that I'm playing at probably around a gold 3 level. You have to take this into consideration.
4. In the original duel of Power Soulbeast vs Cele Ranger, that really is a hard-counter situation that I willingly walked into. Any Ranger main would tell you: "Condi Ranger tanks just win against Power Ranger variants". It's just true, so lay off it. The only way I could win that and tag an actual kill would be if he had been playing g2 or maybe g3 levels, and in that case I would have had room to find moments to out-play, but this was not the case, so lay off it.

Anyway, let's veer this back towards discussion on cele vs. power.

-If plat+ cele vs 2 or 3 plat+ enemies, cele is extremely unlikely to win or even survive. Cele cannot down plat+ players fast enough, thus the only win condition is to go full power dps and get a lucky burst down on 1 player, and then follow up from there

-However, most full power dps builds will lose in 1v1 duel to cele builds, be it low tier or plat+

If that is indeed what you're saying, then I concur with it. That is something I didn't think about because I usually don't even engage fights against 2 or more high tier players, esp if they're playing meta classes. My primary objective in the game is to win almost all 1v1s, and the occasional 1v2 or 1v3 against low tier players. While a full power DPS build might surprise burst down plat+ players and even win the rare outnumbered fight which a cele build wouldn't be able to, that doesn't really satisfy me, because I know in an actual duel where the 'surprised' plat+ player is prepared and we go for say a best out of 5 match duel, I might not be able to beat him. So yes, I guess tier levels and roaming objectives do matter in this discussion.

Your example on thieves is true. Gold thieves might fare better on cele, but plat+ ones would fare better on power. I rarely have issues with cele thieves, the ones I struggle with the most are full berserker power thieves, esp if they're on axe/pistol or deadeye. But again, that is only the case if they are really good, in which case their low tankiness don't matter because they simply avoid damage via precise application of dazes, dodges, blinds, and positioning. Most thieves are not at that level though, and will get farmed if they try to go full berserker.

Regarding the cele druid matchups against other classes, I have a different experience than you, but that is probably because of different builds. Provided opponent is of equal/higher skill level and doesn't go ooc, here is my experience:

Power spellbreaker - Can beat almost all of them, endless fight with really good ones (both equally pressured)

Cele rene - Can beat almost all of them, endless fight with really good ones (I pressure more often than get pressured, though not enough to down them)

Power Willbender - Always win if he doesn't ooc or keep kiting

Thieves - Too many builds to consider here. Lost before to really good cele specter using scepter, good deadeyes, power axe/pistol and cele axe/dagger thieves.

Rangers - Can beat almost all of them, endless fight with good druids (both equally pressured)

Cele ele - Can beat most of them but it might take a long time. Endless fights against really good ones (both equally pressured). Lost to one ele before, he was using hammer cata with signet of astral ward to hard counter me.

Mirages - Can beat almost all of them, though have to be very careful not to get bursted down by dagger mirage. Their cooldowns and sustains are just inferior to druid.

Cele harbi - This one is odd. It is almost never an endless fight. I beat the lower tier ones (probably 70-80% of them), but lose to the rest. Sure I can disengage if I'm dying, but I count that as a loss

All that is granted I play during off hours more often than not (being Asian), so perhaps I have never met the truly top tier players.

Regarding the possible healing bug, such technicalities are really not my thing so I'll refrain from commenting on them.