It depends on the profession/build how much you can benefit from Celestial Gear. Obviously Hybrid builds benefit the most. In Open World and Story Misssion builds suited for celestial gear provide a lot quality of life. Another area where celestial gear/builds shins is WvW (roaming).

And even in so-called endgame content, e. g. Raids, (CM) Strike Missions and (CM) Tier 4 Fractals, I would suggest to find other people to play with, if your group complains about you running a celestial build. Assuming of course that your build is suited for celestial gear and you know what your are doing.

Usually among Beserkers as my first set on a new character. But it depends what kind of content you want to play. Do you need to hit DPS marks as a quickbrand? Will you have more toughness then the tank? Some things to keep in mind.

I don’t think you’d find a spot in optimised meta groups, since celestial is kind of a “Jack of all Trades” statline.

That said, I crafted ascended celestial for my Guardian and it has been hella fun. I’m not sad I put the time into making it.

I'd say it is pretty useful, when you are playing casually. Easy for beginners, because of the survivability and fits almost every build. The downside is obviously that its far from optimal for any spec. You are not a good healer, have not that much boon umtime and your power/condi dps are not good.

Personally I would not build it, but wouldn't change stats if I get a piece for free.

I feel like that celestial gear is insanely usefull when doing open world content like events or general exploration. In fact endgame content like raids requires a different type of gear (mostly in raids or fractals or strikes) If you want one set for open world AND pve instances celestial gear would be a bad choice. If I were you I would take general condi or powergear instead.

For Open World and WvW Cele gear is really good. For organized group content it depends on the role you try to fill:

1. Healing is possible in all gamemodes but a bit scuffed for Quickness application. In addition to that you will likely be the Tank (highest toughness), which can be overwhelming.
2. DPS no problem in fractals and easy strikes but you will do considerable less dps than others, dont do it for Raids.
3. Boon-DPS dont do it.

In terms of absolute efficiency and pure, utter meta: yes it's a waste and you should feel bad for even considering it.

In literally every other term ever, Celestial fine to good, in some niche cases even great. Especially in open world and more low-tier endgame content. Naturally, tryhards will bitch at you.

I guess bigger picture, even if you later decide that it's not what you want, you can easily just convert it to another stat or transfer it to another alt (provided they wear the same armor class, of course) so there's little downside in the long term.

@asal I can speak from my experience. I made Celestial Ascended gear for my Alac mechanist. It was really just a project for me, was looking for something to do in game. I don't really have much interest in Fractals, but now I'd be ready. I think if your intent behind making cele ascended gear would be to get into fractals, know that cele will likely only get you so far. Higher end groups look for specific stats for the most part.