Guild Wars 2

Weve been told that the nerf would be a 10%.
But for example, if we look at the traits, the trait that gave crit dmg, if we filled it to max we would get 30% crit dmg, now we get 300 ferocity, which as i checked gives only 20% crit dmg, 34% nerf.
If we look at equipment, for example the Crystalline band ring,
We would get 8% crit dmg, as of now we get 68 ferocity which equals to 4.5% crit dmg only, thats over 40% nerf.
so how much did they realy nerf the crit dmg?

Read the stuff about the 10 % again. Or learn maths.

CptAurellian.9537:

Read the stuff about the 10 % again. Or learn maths.

how can this be then that i have a friend also, hes a thief, he always hit 8k and now only 5k

It was actually far more than 10% over all, but I haven’t bothered doing the math. It’s not relevant how much it got changed, but how much it is now.

IIRC our stats got pushed very close to sPvP, which previously was about 40/50% lower in crit damage – you could get over 100% crit damage in PvE/WvW without exterior buffs, while max in sPvP was about 65%, again, IIRC.

Which is a good thing, to be honest. Crit damage, and consequently power damage, in PvE and WvW was completely out of whack. Especially after applying foods and buffs and accounting for the “ganky” nature of WvW.

What got hit REALLY hard, however, was min-maxing. Previously crit. damage was not a normally distributed stat. Some pieces had far higher crit. damage-to-stat ratio than others, which allowed for min-maxing (i.e.: picking the right stats for the right pieces of gear) to get you a lot more stats overall on your gear. Given that ferocity is a normalized stat the “peaks” got hit the hardest, and min maxed gear saw some catastrophic losses (some possibly around the 100% mark).

Given how much some people invested in it (like myself) it kinda sucks a bit that we didn’t get a “one time gear change” for gear with crit. damage (like it happened to mf gear). But hey… Bit ham fisted and clumbsy, but overall a positive change for the game. A sacrifice I’m willing to make.

I think the crit dmg multiplier should be 12 instead of 15… this would have actually created ballance across the items while reducing the overall dmg potential slightly… I think 15 is too much…. for classes like ele who already struggle with stat potential… it was a hard blow…. Eles already have to choose between damage and survivability like no other class… this really forces us to choose… glass cannon or mediocre damage support class… but of course this move will simply change the expectations of what high damage is in the game… since it is a universal nerf…. it will effect us all equally… I guess well just have to learn to let go of all those pretty numbers… and wait for future updates :P

This has been discussed a million times before the patch and even afterwards.

The ‘10%’ was referring to the overall damage loss, and was something like 14% less damage on average across the board, counting all your attacks, not just the crits.
Critical damage itself by being changed to ferocity reduced the upper limit of critical damage from something like 260% damage (compared to a non-critting attack) to 220-230% (estimated numbers).

What people tend to forget as well is that previously, you saw ‘Critical Damage’ as a percentage, but that percentage was added to the default critical damage of 150%. So if you have 75% crit damage on your panel, it meant that you would do 225% the damage of an attack that wouldn’t crit.

The numbers have been posted numerous times. And yes, you do less critical damage overall now. But personally, I find the patch made going full zerker even better now, and it’s OMGLOLONESHOTTINGEVERYTHING when you’re downscaled because mobs have been weakened to account for having less traits and later with the addition of ferocity scaling better than crit damage when downlevelled.

So personally, I don’t mind the change. Just because your numbers don’t seem as big anymore in PvE (at level 80), nothing has really changed.

Naro.5496:

since it is a universal nerf…. it will effect us all equally…

Nope. The nerf aimed at the berserker players, but rather hit those who wanted a somehow more defensive setup (non-berserker armor and berserker trinkets) straight in the face. I find the unintended consequences of crying for a berserker nerf quite amusing, to be honest.

I tested my Ranger, with full Exotic Berserker with Longbow, with +200 power for 30 sec on kill, +10% crit dmg and t5 maintance oil. 30-30-0-0-10 stats for maximum damage possible for Longbow.
I was in cursed shore, killing risen

Did the highest 3.5k crits before Feature Pack update.

After patch, +200 power for 30sec on kill, +10% crit dmg got changed to 70 ferocity.
I did the highest 3k crits.

They meant the nerf will reduce the overall average damage (when crit) by 10%.
Of course, for pure crit build, it will be actually around 15% and up to 20%.

If you run full zerker and have 100% crit chance, the nerf is actually around 15.6%. This is the highest the overall damage can be nerfed, since it is impossible to crit more than 100% of the time.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

If you run full zerker and have 100% crit chance, the nerf is actually around 15.6%. This is the highest the overall damage can be nerfed, since it is impossible to crit more than 100% of the time.

But higher for the people who were using just the trinkets which used to have insane ferocity so to say.(zerk helm = buffed with ferocity change for example)
Also higher for Celestial, although compensated, still only partly(overall, a very big stat budget loss compared to what it was before)

CptAurellian.9537:

Naro.5496:

since it is a universal nerf…. it will effect us all equally…

Nope. The nerf aimed at the berserker players, but rather hit those who wanted a somehow more defensive setup (non-berserker armor and berserker trinkets) straight in the face. I find the unintended consequences of crying for a berserker nerf quite amusing, to be honest.

It hurt berserker players more. You are closer to berserker DPS than you were before the change.

I’m amused that you think you should somehow be immune to berserker nerfs when you wear berserker trinkets.

I have full knight. Haven’t notice any difference.

Evalia.7103:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

If you run full zerker and have 100% crit chance, the nerf is actually around 15.6%. This is the highest the overall damage can be nerfed, since it is impossible to crit more than 100% of the time.

But higher for the people who were using just the trinkets which used to have insane ferocity so to say.(zerk helm = buffed with ferocity change for example)
Also higher for Celestial, although compensated, still only partly(overall, a very big stat budget loss compared to what it was before)

Nope. Its lower. To get the maximum amount of nerf from the crit change, you need to run as much crit damage as possible with as much precision as possible. So, 15.6% is the highest reduction in overall damage you can receive, no matter what.

Junkpile.7439:

I have full knight. Haven’t notice any difference.

I hope this irony.

Algreg.3629:

Junkpile.7439:

I have full knight. Haven’t notice any difference.

I hope this irony.

It’s the truth. Anyone who runs a build that does not rely on critical damage, yes critical damage, not critical hits, is entirely unaffected.

Also, for those who think this affected berserkers the most do not know math, or realize other sets existed. Assassins armor was hit faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar harder than zerker gear because assassins relied on a near perfect critical rate for damage (god I loved the FGS damage), so when the critical damage took a hit, assassins took the biggest hit out of any armor set because it does not have a power primary stat like zerker.

Aidan Savage.2078:

Algreg.3629:

Junkpile.7439:

I have full knight. Haven’t notice any difference.

I hope this irony.

It’s the truth. Anyone who runs a build that does not rely on critical damage, yes critical damage, not critical hits, is entirely unaffected.

errm, like, “yes”? Of cause a set that never featured crit damage would be unaffected, hence the weirdness of this post?

They said 10% overall damage. However this would have been like 20% crit dmg. But I had 112% crit damage back then wich would be nowdays in our new system displayed as 262% crit damage. I have 212% now so … Yea. I lost the ferocity of my ruby orbs wich was 5.6% aswell 100 from traits (6.6%). But even then → 262% to 224.2% are -37.8% wich seems to be a bit more.

10% my butt the overall dmg now sucks. My ranger that had 100% crit dmg now has like 69% crit dmg. Dps got wrecked. They just keep making the game zerg friendly. They want everyone to run in a zerg and hold hands in their ptv gear. Is it too much to ask for redonk hp/armor builds that still do dmg to go away because they require no skill at all.

Xyonon.3987:

They said 10% overall damage. However this would have been like 20% crit dmg. But I had 112% crit damage back then wich would be nowdays in our new system displayed as 262% crit damage. I have 212% now so … Yea. I lost the ferocity of my ruby orbs wich was 5.6% aswell 100 from traits (6.6%). But even then -> 262% to 224.2% are -37.8% wich seems to be a bit more.

I hate this sounds rude, but learn to maths please. YES your critical damage was reduced by more than 10%. That is irrelevant and not the point Anet was making. Unless you’re running a solo 100% critical rate build in zerker gear, your damage loss IS in fact close to 10%. Why? Because people completely and utterly forget that overall damage includes critical hits and regular hits. If your critical hit rate is 100%, then your loss of damage is “100%” of the difference in critical damage pre patch and post patch. If your critical rate is 50%, your damage loss is 50% of the difference pre/post patch. If your critical rate is 25%, yep, you guessed it, your damage loss is 25% of the difference. Using the number you provided, in order that is ~38%, ~19%, ~10% loss in damage.

I remember a slightly rude but efficient estimate was made just after the announcement in January by assuming a maxed DPS char would have close to a 100% crit chance. Further assuming reduction in damage of 10% this arrived at a 1:14 ratio . The 1:15 suggests a slightly bigger nerf.

I imagine all of you talking about pve situations, also that only increased time spending on dungeon for a few extra minutes and a few extra rolls, right?

The reduction in critical damage doesn’t help promoting build diversity. For one, zerker is still more efficient, for two, there is no effective alternative stat-combo. There are 3 Power main combo’s, Power/Precision/Ferocity, Power/Toughness/Vitality and Power/Vitality/Ferocity. As before the choice is then between Berserker and Soldier’s, or a mix.

I don’t know why are you complaining since the patch made low level areas much easier, there was a constant complain about how they didn’t felt powerful enough due to scaling.
And high level areas just that little bit harder, again a very common complain how easy the level 80 areas was, the endless cry for “I want challenging content”, rings a bell?

I haven’t noticed much on the damage nerf, crit and otherwise. But then I didn’t run a full zerk warrior. I’ve been using Valk since pre patch. My crits are still the same, and regular hit damage is still the same. Although I have noticed that the higher level zones are a bit harder. But not by much. I understood that this nerf effected full beserker the most, it wasn’t just crit damage, but OVERALL damage. That, to me, includes non-crit hits. I would assume that if you took the total damage done in a single encounter, post patch and pre patch, and calculated the difference, you would find a ~10% difference. Overall damage doesn’t necessarily mean the amount of damage PER hit, but the total amount of damage done in an encounter. At least thats how I see it working.

Anyone notice that regular hits might be hitting a little bit harder? While crit damage is lower, and regular hits higher, it should balance itself out over the entire course of an encounter. It’s difficult to calculate just how much total damage you are doing in one or 2 hits, and most people tend to just look at crit damage as to how much damage they are actually doing. Just a thought….

Most classes were able to offset the damage loss from crit damage with the new traits, runes, sigils, etc. What Anet effectively did was push up the average damage through runes and sigils and reduced the amount of damage through a crit damage nerf. On average you should only be noticing about 5-10% difference in damage even if minmaxed, and depending on your spec and group comp, you might actually be getting more than before.