Guild Wars 2

I’ve gone back and forth on this ever since the announcement, but I think I’ve arrived at the conclusion that crit damage % really is a problematic stat, and it’s probably a good thing they’re replacing it.

Why do I think that? Most people talk about the theoretical top-level effectiveness of zerker as a result of the way that triad scales. That’s true, but there’s a bigger issue than precisely how good the zerker stats are at level 80 that isn’t talked about as much. Essentially, the stat combination is back-loaded where as every other combination is front-loaded.

Every other combination starts at a healthy baseline then progresses in a mostly linear fashion, receiving gradually diminishing returns as the scale increases, while crit % and crit damage % are the opposite – they are very ineffective at the low end of the scale with hyperbolic growth at the top end, and the problem will get worse if they ever add more ways of getting more. Think about it – its two percentage stats that are directly tied together. No other stat combo has that. This is clearly not an ideal situation and not a sustainable framework.

You can tell the difference also if you’re playing a lower level toon. At level 30, your direct damage skills tend to be lackluster while your condition based skills are highly effective (particularly in PvE). This is because at that level you get a lot more bang for your buck out of condition stats and significantly less out of zerker stats. This eventually flip flops as you get closer to 80, and scales out of control the more bonuses you get to the relevant stats.

Anyway, I know this has been discussed to death but that’s just my two cents – you really shouldn’t have bonuses to two % based stats that directly affect each other on the same set.