Guild Wars 2

There have already been many discussions already on the topic of Critical Damage and Ferocity change that will be coming. I would like to propose a way for handling this change that takes into account what the player base is asking for as well as taking into account the technical difficulties that may be present.

Many have suggested that we should be allowed to do a one-time stat change for ascended gears or at least ascended gear with Critical Damage stat just like how magic find was handled but from my observations there are some technical issues here.

I would like to also remind us that EVERY builds that uses even a single piece of Crit Damage gear (zerk/valk/sin/cav/cel) is affected by this change. Mix matching gear is all about finding the golden ratio that works for your needs and thus even gear without Crit Damage should be allowed to change as well when taking this into account.

Problem with one-time stat change items

Magic find items were not removed from the game but instead have been converted to “one-time stat change” items. The majority of ways to obtain “magic find” gear have indeed been removed but some still do exists, for example “There with Yakkington: A Traveler’s Tale” is still craftable.

Now, it is probably not the best solution or the most practical solution to convert all ascended gear with critical damage to “one-time stat change gear” as we are not dealing with removal of a stat but a re-balance. Applying the same method as how magic find gear was handled essentially means that for every Ascended gear made before the patch will be coded differently than ones after made the patch. This essentially means doubling the codes for ascended armor and weapons in the game.

And… if you are OCD like me, you don’t want to have Soro’s gear with Berserker’s Stats on non-transmuted gear and you want to be able to ping your gear and people can see the stats (Those people who have seen pings in chat of the old magic find rings will know what I mean.)

My Proposal

Please see the attached Chart

The method is not totally free but I think we can all agree that it is way better that having to make new ascended pieces from scratch.

Please note that I only see this as a TEMPORARY SERVICE that should only be available for only a couple of weeks just to ease the transition.

I really hope something like this gets implemented.

Reddit Thread

NOTE 1: This is just a suggestion, some people may have issues with this Proposal or there may just be flaws and loop holes that I have not considered. Feedback is very welcome.

Additional Points

Why are some people asking for stat change?

Seems like there are still people wondering why do you want to change stats on the ascended gear since Berserker will be the Highest DPS set still after the change.

• Currently Berserker/Assassin is the Highest DPS set up for many professions in an organized setup, this will not likely be the case after the change.
• Any mix using Valkyrie/Assassin/Cavalier will lose out on even more damage than Berserker pieces after the change.

Both people who considered maximizing Damage using zerk/sin mix and balancing defensive stats with Crit Damage pieces may feel that they are no longer optimal and may want to re consider the pieces they are using.

If anything people will be wanting to add more Berserker pieces to their setup than taking them away.

Ascended Gear is expensive and time consuming to make and that is why many people wish for a fair way to re-gear to the be more optimal again after ferocity is introduced without having to start from scratch.

Yes, Berserker will still be the best stat allocation for DPS, so the change will not affect the gear distribution at all. Since there is only one combat role, DPS, it makes sense that players will prefer gear that confers the highest DPS.

One thing it will do is remove the roughly 10% increase in power that Ascended gear brought in its first year, at least at the top end. I guess that’s one way to handle game balance under vertical progression. Anet giveth and Anet taketh away.

I just want to make it clear that I do not have a problem with Crit Damage changing to Ferocity and Berserker set ups being effectively “nerf” by about 10%.

What I am more concern about is mix/match setups, by changing Crit Damage to Ferocity effectively changes its ratio to other stats which may or may not decrease OR increase the efficiency of their builds.

Not everyone has every build made for PvE. WvW builds could change a lot (that is become substantially weaker) because of this change.

Also, weakening crit damage shifts the balance between critical damage and power (that is, for example, it may be better to take Soldier’s gear over a combination of Cavalier and Valkyrie)

TooBz.3065:

Not everyone has every build made for PvE. WvW builds could change a lot (that is become substantially weaker) because of this change.

Also, weakening crit damage shifts the balance between critical damage and power (that is, for example, it may be better to take Soldier’s gear over a combination of Cavalier and Valkyrie)

This ^

I will quote part of a response I made on reddit that is on a similar note to this to this

Quote:

Example of wanting to move to full zerker:

• You are using zerker/sin mix but since Crit Damage is lower critting becomes less significant and Power becomes more important again. It’s all about the Ratio. This example is mostly about min/mixing in pve.

Example of wanting to move way from zerker:

• You are using 3 Soldier and 3 Zerker (shoulders, hands and feet). due to normalizing of Crit Damage via Ferocity the shoulders, hands and footware which had very good Crit Damage ratio before the change, now have been hit the hardest. The extra Damage from these 3 pieces are a lot less now so you might as well go full soldier for a much better improvement in survivability.

The point is if the change was known earlier (before at least ascended armor came out) then these “new” decision making thoughts for the BiS gear would have happened before many people have crafted their set at all.

Maybe if bosses weren’t big bags of health Zerk wouldn’t be so common. People just don’t like pounding away at a boss forever to kill him/her.

I’m looking at you Bjarl the Ramager.

For people who think that this is a bad idea, or that it is unfair. I wish know what you think and why.

Some points I wish to clarify:

• Crit Damage change hurts berserker the least out of all the Crit Damage sets.

• Comparing the resources needed to craft a full set of ascended armor VS crafting a full set then using my proposed method to change the stats, the latter still costs more (more exotics insignias, more gold and laurels spent for new recipes).

• This offer to exchange stats was never proposed to be a permanent service. Should only be available TEMPORARY. I’d say 1-2 weeks is probably reasonable.