Celeste! The girl who commands the stars is one of the strongest mages this patch. If you manage to make it past her early game, one of the weakest on the Rise, she becomes a terrifying late game hypercarry with the potential to wipe out entire teams with her massive AoE abilities and crowd control abilities.
Abilities
DE CW BM Eve/FB Aegis/MJ JB/HC, pretty much in that order. You almost never want to max defense before all 4 damage items unless the enemy has no shielding beyond T1, in which case leave a piercing shard and complete defense if you must.
Build
You almost always want to go four offensive items on her, as on most other mages. 3 severely cuts down her damage potential. Because playing with a single defense item is significantly harder, it naturally makes her a very high skill cap hero (as does the fact that all her abilities need to land for her to be effective).
Early game
Either start off with a crystal bit and energy battery, double crystal bit or, if against a laner who can out-trade you very effectively like Skaarf, crystal bit and light shield. Wait the mind-numbingly long 55 seconds, then start crystal buff with your top laner. If the enemy attempts to contest, dissuade them with well placed Heliogeneses. Make sure you get the crystal buff. If your top laner tries to secure it make sure you use your supernova to last-hit. Clear the double minion camps with your top, then either clear the healer with them or head to mid. On first back buy boots, shield if you need it, heavy/eclipse prism to begin building into DE.
Mid game
Finish DE, go into CW. Buy T2 boots if you need the mobility, shielding if you haven’t already. Note that you can buy shielding against the biggest threat on the enemy team, even if you don’t plan to complete it if they fall off late - for example, against a Krul, early armor might be beneficial but you almost always want to sell it and replace it with a block to prevent nasty ganks later.
Celeste’s first power spike is getting DE. Make sure to utilize it. Always use her A to set up a perimeter, making life very difficult for the enemy laner - supernova Helios when they try to last hit. If you don’t have a cam in the lane brush, try and place your A there frequently - Celeste is easily ganked.
Late game
This is where Celeste comes into her own. Finish building BM, then choose situationally between Eve and FB. If you’re against at least one hero who sticks on you, like a Krul or Reim or BF, get FB. Eve is generally preferred for the massive lifesteal on big DE-stacked ults.
General tips
- Make your Heliogeneses a wall. Even if you can’t always land them, place them on strategic locations so you can supernova them for massive burst damage. The Rise doesn’t have as many choke points as the Fold, but you should still keep an eye out.
- The key to mastering Celeste is learning how to land her B. In teamfights, you generally want to save it for heroes who dive you - heroes like Fortress, Blackfeather, Grace, and if for some reason you haven’t banned him, Taka. You typically want to place your core collapse on top of yourself when dived - slightly behind if Taka ults you. It’s very hard to stun a good Taka though.
- Use your ult wisely. It’s not that great of a snipe tool unlike Kestrel’s ult - its travel speed, while faster than it used to be, is still not great so cross-map snipes on fleeing targets may be difficult. I like to use it after accumulating at least a few DE stacks - the more the better. Landing a fully stacked ult on the entire team is almost guaranteed to wipe them out if you can last that long.
- Having said that, if you know or suspect the enemy team is taking an objective (even if you don’t have vision, some abilities show up on the map, like Taka’s ult, Baptiste’s A, etc.) then don’t be afraid to throw a Hail Mary ult. Maybe you’ll secure it, in which case, starry eyes imminent! If you don’t, not to worry, 30s or so later and it’ll be back up.
- Don’t underestimate Celeste’s objective take. While not as fast as crit carries like SAW, Joule etc., she has fantastically fast objective clear. Utilize this to your advantage. If you see your enemies focusing other lanes, take your mid turret even if you have to die for it. You also take blackclaw and ghosting very fast as Celeste.
- CS matters! Even if you aren’t aiming for perfect cs, try and get the most in the game or at least more than your enemy mid laner.
- Celeste is best played mid, though she can be flexed top. If the enemy has a SAW, GO TOP. DON’T THINK, JUST DO IT.
- Weave in auto attacks in between your abilities. They do lots of damage and keep up DE stacks. Also stutterstep.
- An OP combo is A-B-A. If you manage to land all of these, the enemy should be below half hp.
That’s all I can think of, sorry if it’s a bit long!