Guild Wars 2

Before the pach i had 100% crit damage -100% from gear and traits and the 150% that was hidden so that makes 250%.
Now i have 219% so that makes 150% base and 69% from gear and traits..
I used to run a mix of zerker valkyrie and Cavalier gear for a balanced build but now i feel like i have to swap alot of it for more zerker stuff to make up the loss of damage with higher precision.
If i remember the point of this change was to make more build diversity but it backfired at least for most of my builds by making me use more berserker gear to make up for the damage lost.
And wasn’t the change suppose to be 10% critical damage reduction not 30%? this feels like a ridiculous drop in damage.

10% overall damage not just critical damage. You have white damage and red damage you have to remember that. People where at a point all they cared about is red damage. They said 10% overall damage not 10% critical damage.

foste.3098:

now i feel like i have to swap alot of it for more zerker stuff to make up the loss of damage with higher precision.

As I see it, this is exactly as it is intended. You can either build for all out direct damage, all out condition damage, mediocre damage with tankiness, mediocre condition damage with tankiness, support/healing, or a combination of any of those. You no longer get to do the massive damage without investing fully in it. Working as intended.

Why would you need to “make up for the damage loss”? Are you aiming for a certain DPS number? It just strikes me as an odd line of reasoning.

Anyway, Ferocity was never going to change anything about gear choices.

The Zerker-meta was always (and still is) a PvE design issue and has nothing to do with stats or game balance. ANet is struggling to facilitate other stats aside from damage in their PvE encounters.

And admittedly it’s a trick issue. On one hand you want to avoid poorly telegrpahed instant-gib mechanics that are so prominent in this game. On the other hand if you make all damage avoidable people just stick with Zerker.

And all this is partially due to the whole “no trinity” combat concept. I know they intended for “Control, Support and Damage” to replace the standard model but failed in implementing it.

“Control” is practically non-existent in PvE since mobs can’t be reliably positioned due to opaque aggro mechanics. CC against mobs is limited too because of the limited CC itself as well as Definant.

“Support” does exist and is quite relevant. But for some reason ANet opted to give 80% of the support abilities to a single class, rendering all others fairly useless in this role. Yes, basically Guardians fill this role out entirely. And since Support and DPS aren’t mutually exclusive, Guardians can bring both.

That leaves us with DPS and that’s really all we got.

They nerfed profession and skill dps.
They buffed runes and sigils by a lot

You can compensate with tools available to anyone…

People is shouting OP at every rune and sigil but they reduced something to buff something other.

“the something other” is more balanced since its not profession/build related but universal.

LordByron.8369:

They nerfed profession and skill dps.
They buffed runes and sigils by a lot

You can compensate with tools available to anyone…

People is shouting OP at every rune and sigil but they reduced something to buff something other.

“the something other” is more balanced since its not profession/build related but universal.

Scratching my head, here. All damage comes through skills, which are linked to professions. Nevertheless, Ferocity is a stat that appears on runes and food as well as on gear and in trait lines. Since all professions have Ferocity as an option in their trait lines, this makes Ferocity as universal as runes and sigils.

Critical damage was reduced by ~33% — which translates down to anywhere from ~10% to ~14% overall DPS loss depending on sustainable critical chance. Yes, some runes/sigils got buffs, and these can to some degree compensate. However, that does not make Ferocity “profession and skill specific” and runes universal. Ergo, implying that what was gained is more generally available than what was lost is incorrect.

dancingmonkey.4902:

foste.3098:

now i feel like i have to swap alot of it for more zerker stuff to make up the loss of damage with higher precision.

As I see it, this is exactly as it is intended. You can either build for all out direct damage, all out condition damage, mediocre damage with tankiness, mediocre condition damage with tankiness, support/healing, or a combination of any of those. You no longer get to do the massive damage without investing fully in it. Working as intended.

So there’s no more hybridization. Zerker or get out.

Build diversity.