Guild Wars 2

They’re nerfing crit. damage to make other stats more valuable. A 10% lost in damage is fairly significant for those running berserker’s. How do you all feel about this change?

Will this make condition builds any more usefull… no so this nerf is still crap….

I’m cool with it. It will be interesting to see where Celestial gear sits after some of the more math-savy members of the community analyze the changes thoroughly.

It’ll take more than these changes to move the dungeon group culture away from the ‘zerker-only’ mentality though.

Zerkers still best gear! Until condition cap bumped up or removed, this will always be true.

I think the way crit damage works and interacts with ferocity (similar to how precision and crit chance work) actually makes far more sense. A character running full Berserker will still have the highest DPS in the game, so their position doesn’t change, and I am hopeful that this change will increase the viability of some other builds. In general, I really don’t think that this change is bad at all.

You’ll only be able to kill Lupi in 1:38 instead of 1:30. I’m so sorry for you.

The DPS meta will remain, all this will accomplish is annoying people for no good reason.

As we work to increase support and teamwork between players throughout the game, we examined how we could change critical damage to retain it as a fun and viable approach to build-making while also allowing other builds to shine.

It has the LEAST effect on berserker’s which defeats the purpose of encouraging more builds/stat combination in terms of gearing.

Ferocity scale best with a Power main stat & Precision secondary stat and by normalizing all stats on all slots they kinda screwed over people who min-maxed who came up with a non full berserker’s combination to get the most effective power(common example would be assassin’s helm, chest, legs).

They effectively nerfed Valkyrie, Cavalier, Assassin’s & Celestial more than berserker’s and only though about Celestial in regards to compensation for (expensive/time gated)gear, but hopefully they would reconsider this and allow us to change stats on our Valkyrie/Cavalier/Assassin’s gear once.

tl;dr kitten this change just lowers the viability of Valkyrie, Cavalier, Assassin while promoting Berserker more

Th major nerf is in the trinkets, the crit.damage in a Berseker armor set is almost the same, maybe 1% or 2% less.

Adam.4103:

The DPS meta will remain, all this will accomplish is annoying people for no good reason.

This. This change hasn’t made any other stats scale differently, so Healing Power and Toughness are still going to be “less rewarding” per point into it. Another change to PvE at least would have to be making bosses hit for less damage more frequently, that is the only way the zerker meta will disappear.

I think this is a step in the right direction. It’s by no means the be all end all fix for the greater issue(s) in pve, but it’s a start. Some people seem to think that 10% is a huge deal, but it’s not. It will tone down some of the emphasis on running straight dps all the time, though not by much.

Still, ferocity should be easier for them to balance than crit in a % format was. It should comply with similar standards to other attributes. This should help in both up and downscaling builds as well, which is something I know many have felt needed to be looked at and adjusted.

It nerfed berserkers but it still leaves them at the top of the chain.

So it doesn’t make a difference relative to other classes/builds, but more between pre-nerf zerk and post-nerf.

Adam.4103:

The DPS meta will remain, all this will accomplish is annoying people for no good reason.

Consider a powerful potion. +10% outgoing damage, -10% incoming damage. What advantage does that give you?

A total of a 20% advantage. -10% damage is -10% advantage.

Zerkers will hopefully no longer be meta, but only time will tell. I welcome some godkitten diversity.

This nerf hurts some classes more than others; mainly Rangers. Just like the quickness nerf, Rangers to hit the hardest.

If there was one thing that worked for Rangers, it was stacking crit. I will reserve judgement however because being able to add 2 sigils on 2-handed weapons may more than make up for the loss.

I don’t really care about the nerf. It won’t change much. Yes i’m a little sad that i won’t do as high dmg as i used to, but its not a big deal.

But the key here is ‘’It won’t change anything’’. Everything will be the same. They didn’t fix the way condition work in party so Condition will remain kitten in PvE. They didn’t gave us any need for more healing or defensive stats. So the global situation will be the same.

Condition won’t be use in PvE.
Defensive and healing build will be view as suboptimal, only to learn, for casual and in end useless.
Direct Damage will still be the only way to go.

I’m fine with that. I don’t complain about it. Its just sad that their ’’fix’’ will change nothing.

It is actually fairly insignificant and won’t change build diversity at all (which I don’t really mind cuz I like my berserker set).

Example for my warrior:

Assuming the Berserker items will have ferocity equal in stats to precision e.g. for an exotic chest you now have 72 precision so most likely you will have 72 ferocity aswell..

I have 224 precision from armor and 352 precision from trinkets and finally 128 from my weapon.. so lets say this is the same value for ferocity + 30% crit damage from traits which will become 300 ferocity, i’m looking at a total of 1004 + 84 from my ruby orbs.. = 1088 total ferocity. 1088/15 = 73% crit damage rounded up. I’m now at 100% crit damage. So 27% crit damage lost, might look like alot but in reality it means those 10 sec boss kills will now take like what? 11 seconds? Who cares about that?

And I would imagine somewhere down the line they will introduce a new ‘ferocious’ stat allocation that has ferocity as the prime stat. Maybe some theorycrafters do the math and find using a few of those pieces squeezes out a few more % crit to boost overall dps to make the difference even smaller. The only thing that could change the zerker meta is if the new traits were so outrageously game chaning or if they somehow released new skills/weapon sets that make a non zerk build overpowered which I find hard to believe..

All this does is make fights last longer and reduce speed clear records by a small margin..I suppose the ‘statistical reward’ buff they are talking about for the 4, 5 and 6th rune bonus + 2nd sigil on 2 handers like gs warrior or gs guards.. kinda make up for the nerf aswell.. People are overhyping the ‘nerf’. It’s not really a nerf.. its a polish imo and should have been like this from the start. WIll still be rocking zerker on all my toons.

Recalibar.6482:

Adam.4103:

The DPS meta will remain, all this will accomplish is annoying people for no good reason.

Consider a powerful potion. +10% outgoing damage, -10% incoming damage. What advantage does that give you?

A total of a 20% advantage. -10% damage is -10% advantage.

Zerkers will hopefully no longer be meta, but only time will tell. I welcome some godkitten diversity.

Lol, you think this will make any difference whatsoever. Cute.

Do I agree with it? No.
Will I live with it? Yes.

I run zerker, I’ll run zerker after this patch. The whole thing was done to shut up all those people asking for a " zerker nerf " – they got it now, and they also got nerfed alongside with it.

Serves them right.

Well, it’s a nerf on some scenarios, it will be a buff for others … my critical damage was really suffering when downscaled in AC or other low-mid level content.
With the changes, things are going to explode (even faster) on those places.

This nerf has absolutely no effect what so ever on the meta

until mob AI mechanics change or condi caps change, there will be NO DIVERSITY what so ever.

I will NOT change my gear from zerk to something else because of this nerf lol.

ALL other stat combos are still below par (in terms of PvE , wvw/pvp is a whole diff story)

Again, there is 0 diversity in PvE for gw2.
This nerf did absolutely nothing period to add build diversity lol. I’m not sure what makes people think it will have an impact at all in PvE. Zerk will still be better than all other options, that is a fact.

Until anet announces a real change other than number tweaks, zerk will remain meta. Fact

Recalibar.6482:

Adam.4103:

The DPS meta will remain, all this will accomplish is annoying people for no good reason.

Consider a powerful potion. +10% outgoing damage, -10% incoming damage. What advantage does that give you?

A total of a 20% advantage. -10% damage is -10% advantage.

Zerkers will hopefully no longer be meta, but only time will tell. I welcome some godkitten diversity.

What are you even trying to say? Zerker is the highest dps option now and still will be after the update. Nothing will change.

It’s pointless, but hopefully it will shut up the “muh PVT toon isn’t the speedrun meta, nerf zerkers waaaaaa!!!!!!!” crowd for a bit.

They still haven’t understood that the problem was in the exponential outcome, not in the stat itself.
Celestial will be hit the hardest by this change, making hybrids even more useless than before.
Good job, heh.

I am interested how will this change effect critical rune sets. Something like Divinity rune will go down from 12% critical dmg to 4%? That is kinda hard hit for the most expensive rune set in the game at the moment, and Traveler rune? from 6% to 2%.

deepwinter.9015:

You’ll only be able to kill Lupi in 1:38 instead of 1:30. I’m so sorry for you.

Try 7 seconds.
http://youtu.be/OBUZ3MbjEHg

Zerk will still be the best, nothing will change.

golmgamer.4372:

I am interested how will this change effect critical rune sets. Something like Divinity rune will go down from 12% critical dmg to 4%? That is kinda hard hit for the most expensive rune set in the game at the moment, and Traveler rune? from 6% to 2%.

To compensate, we’re increasing the overall effectiveness of Celestial gear by improving all stats by 6% of their current values.

We’ll get a whopping 1 more to all stats to compensate. Rune of the eagle gets adjust to 6% from 5% on the 6th bonus so there might be hope for better Utility on Traveler.

Just another example of ArenaNet not understanding their own game.

Has anyone thought about Crit damage food? The crit damage you get from it is almost certainly going to be dropped by over 50%.

Standard food formula is 100/70. 70 Ferocity = 4.666’. So we’ve pretty much lost 5 – 6% from that. Trinkets are being destroyed for their damage and more than halved.

ANet has no idea what they’re doing. Berserker will STILL be king. In fact it’s just become the ONLY thing that’s viable. Before you could get away with Valkyrie/Knights hybrids. Now? Full zerk or go home.

Cavalier’s and Valkyrie builds are dead because of this. Crit Damage food is now useless too. GG WP Anet. GG WP. You haven’t even considered stats that utilize crit damage but aren’t full-zerk. You’ve completely nerfed specs in WvW.

So, if zerker is still top dog after the nerf, then what’s the point of this? Are we really saying that Anet devs are too stupid to do the math and know this?

I don’t think people understand how large 10% less crit damage makes an impact to World Bosses. If you ran full berserk group before, think that every single person is now doing 10% less damage and now you’ll understand where survivability may become an issue.

Well this is monster power creep in a way.
We get weaker while mobs remain the same.

Maybe they are going to introduce changes to some of the boss fight mechanics which will further nerf the berserker meta. We don’t know what is yet to come in the future blog posts.

Lunchbox.6970:

Maybe they are going to introduce changes to some of the boss fight mechanics which will further nerf the berserker meta. We don’t know what is yet to come in the future blog posts.

The changes would have to be pretty drastic though. On the other hand, I would love to see them make boss fight mechanics better. Tweak those that are clearly under-powered and those that are, well, overwhelmingly annoying. Why all the stacking with the boss fight in AC path 3??!! :P

Well, my condition bunkers in wvw are very happy. Easier to farm.

So… Zerker will do 10% less dmg? And how exactly this is going to make other builds more viable?

Soldier is still useless against 1-hit mechanism. Dmg remain lame.
Rabid is still useless in group fights. Dmg and survival remain lame.
Cleric is still useless overall. Healing is still a waste of time.

Seriously, I will like a detailed explanation how this is gonna make any other build “viable”

Also, renaming “Crit Dmg” with “Ferocity” and the new UI are going to make things easy to understand? You kidding right?

I am done with this game..

it takes me a year to build a full ascended zerker class (with everything)

And they nerfed it so HARD!!! 15ferocity = 1% crit damage LOL !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Great!

now I lose 25% crit damage!!1

25!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

just lol at this game turning more and more into a lame condi spam game.

Can i have your gold? Crit dmg was too much this will not comply fix it but its a good start.

It begins……….

I still don’t understand why it was made, even after carefully reading 2 times about it.

Nerfing critical damage users won’t make em want to play other builds that rely less on damage any more – even if the damage won’t be overall that much smaller. If nothing else, it will make me want to stack up as much ferocity as I can, and go full dps once again. If I had a say in it, I’d rather boost conditional damage or something.

So unless somebody has a…better explanation to me this was a nonsensical change.

I will so not miss the players who measure their awesome by the crit damage number on their character sheet.

And even with that nerf zekrer will still deal the best damage so what’s the point of crying again?

daimasei.4091:

So… Zerker will do 10% less dmg? And how exactly this is going to make other builds more viable?

Soldier is still useless against 1-hit mechanism. Dmg remain lame.
Rabid is still useless in group fights. Dmg and survival remain lame.
Cleric is still useless overall. Healing is still a waste of time.

Seriously, I will like a detailed explanation how this is gonna make any other build “viable”

Also, renaming “Crit Dmg” with “Ferocity” and the new UI are going to make things easy to understand? You kidding right?

What are you talking about? What 1-hit mechanics? My clerics healing shout warrior would like to have a word with you. Playing the game has never so easy since I changed to cleric’s set.

There is something that players don’treally get, the reason why zerker builds are viable and dps is still N1 choice isn’t because of blanace issues in the classes themselves, the issue is centered around the game mechanics, not pure stats.

Don’t ever await a balance issue that will make you wake up someday, happy with what you have got becasue the game’s issue was never balance but how the game works out.

Yet too many updates to be announced.

kitten this game!! I lose 25% crit damage!!

on full set I lose 30% crit damage!

also they deleted my topic, thanx Anet!

Thanx for letting us all run lame condi spam builds!

nicknamenick.2437:

also they deleted my topic, thanx Anet!

They merged it with this one. Your post is still there in all its frothing glory.

nicknamenick.2437:

kitten this game!! I lose 25% crit damage!!

on full set I lose 30% crit damage!

also they deleted my topic, thanx Anet!

Thanx for letting us all run lame condi spam builds!

That not a deleted that what you call an merger your very hyperbolic it seems.
Condi are week atm still even after the update if your talking about spvp nothing getting changed there at all and for wvw that type of game formant not made to be “fair” at all. This is mostly aimed at pve and crit dmg is king on bosses and it will still be king after the update now once they start making the mobs smarter this will hit a bit harder and its a good thing they are trying to make pve content harder to do it adds more to the game over all.

Jski.6180:

Can i have your gold? Crit dmg was too much this will not comply fix it but its a good start.

A good start for what exactly, having cheesy condi bunkers everywhere?

Fenrir.3609:

Jski.6180:

Can i have your gold? Crit dmg was too much this will not comply fix it but its a good start.

A good start for what exactly, having cheesy condi bunkers everywhere?

In what setting? (mind you the main post that from is from an “I quit” post so i responded in kind.) Spvp is not changing wvw already was like that so still no changes and pve never had that it would be a nice chose for ppl to try out though i do not think it will work all that well.

Sry a bit of a miss read i think its a good start because its going to make pve harder there by more meaningful to the player who can do it and to the player who needs to work to get it done. There talk about making boss mobs Ai better so you must make the “burn the mob down” speed slower so the mob can act out its full Ai.

Jski.6180:

Fenrir.3609:

Jski.6180:

Can i have your gold? Crit dmg was too much this will not comply fix it but its a good start.

A good start for what exactly, having cheesy condi bunkers everywhere?

In what setting? (mind you the main post that from is from an “I quit” post so i responded in kind.) Spvp is not changing wvw already was like that so still no changes and pve never had that it would be a nice chose for ppl to try out though i do not think it will work all that well.

do you really believe this doesn’t affect wvw also? where all zerkers builds build around full damage and zero defensive stats losing 30% crit damage is not a big deal?

REally??

where you can still build around with a simple dire stat combo going FULL defensive and still doing insane damage!

-30% crit damage is huge!

Can i change all crit dmg gear something more useful?