Guild Wars 2

Crit damage is unfairly downscaled. As most people know, the way to calculate your ‘effective power’ is to run your power through a series of crit chance/dmg modifications followed by overall damage modifications (eg +10% dmg traits). Obviously players need to be scaled.. and if you are in a zone which demands players do half their 80 damage.. then of course power will be halved. Crit damage should therefore remain static if we want to achieve the same benefits from those stats wherever you are in the world as is the case with precision, toughness, vitality, power etc.

Here are my stats when in different places around the world:

LA
51% crit chance
107% crit dmg

Straits of devastation
51% crit chance
90% crit dmg

Fireheart rise
51% crit chance
84% crit dmg

Sparkfly fen
51% crit chance
78% crit dmg

Shatterer
51% crit chance
52% crit dmg

Dredgehaunt cliffs
52% crit chance
37% crit dmg

Harathi hinterlands
52% crit chance
37% crit dmg

Gendarran fields
49% crit chance
24% crit dmg

Kessex hills
48% crit chance
20% crit dmg

Queensdale
33% crit chance
5% crit dmg

At 80 my stats show a 80.07% increase in my average damage thanks to my crit chance and crit damage.
When I fight shatterer or travel in that zone, my stats show a 52.02% increase in my average damage thanks to my crit chance and crit damage.
When I run around dredgehaunt cliffs my stats show a 45.24% increase in my average damage thanks to my crit chance and crit damage.
When I run around kessex hills my stats show a 33.6% increase in my average damage thanks to my crit chance and crit damage.

See the problem?

fadeaway.2807:

See the problem?

No, because the toughness of enemy mobs, their total amount of HP and the amount of damage they do are progressively lower the lower levelled a map you go.

Damage = Power * Weapon damage * Skill multiplier / Armor of target

Have you attempted to kill a moa in multiple areas and note the amount of time it takes to down one?

If anything, they die the fastest in Queensdale.

The problem with your calculations is that you’re completely ignoring the mob side of the equation.

I was rolling my eyes and thinking bad thoughts but then I got over myself and had another thought. Does the level of the particular area on a map have an affect on the stats? Level 5 gear only has one stat on it so does being in a level 5 area of Queensdale (just for example) bring all the pieces of your gear down to one particular stat do you think? Is that maybe what you’re seeing or is it just drivel?

Not really. The mob armor will impact a pvt user in the same way it will impact a zerker user.

What if I told you that your +40% condition duration food only gave you +20% condition duration on certain maps? What if I told you that your force sigil only gave you +2% damage on certain maps? What if I told you that your +15% damage modifier from warrior GM strength trait only gave you +7% damage on certain maps?

That is exactly what is happening here.

The whole point of downscaling is to make sure a lvl80 player have the same power as a low level player.

Low level armor only have 2 stats. That’s why a huge chunk of crit damage is taken out to even the play field.

If you check the other armor with 3 stats. Similar things happened. I don’t see anything wrong with it.

Something which really points this out is Banner of Discipline. If you are level 30 on level 30 area you get 15% Critical Damage. If you are level 80 on level 30 area you get maybe 4% Critical Damage.

To be honest, no idea how they could easily fix this without reworks. If they let us keep our Critical Damage the damage difference between 30 and 80 would be much bigger.

Its no secret that the up and downscaling system of this game is terrible.

laokoko.7403:

The whole point of downscaling is to make sure a lvl80 player have the same power as a low level player.

Low level armor only have 2 stats. That’s why a huge chunk of crit damage is taken out to even the play field.

If you check the other armor with 3 stats. Similar things happened. I don’t see anything wrong with it.

Unfortunately that’s not correct.
Here are stats for a completely naked, untraited level 80 guardian with 1 ascended amulet on.

Soldier amulet:
LA
1042 power
1001 vitality
1001 tough
916 precision (4% crit)
0% crit damage

Kessex
196 power
188 vitality
188 tough
172 precision (4% crit)
0% crit damage

Zerker amulet:
LA
1042 power
916 vitality
916 tough
1001 precision (8% crit)
9% crit damage

Kessex
196 power
172 vitality
172 tough
188 precision (8% crit)
2% crit damage

In all cases apart from the crit damage… the downscaling was to 18.8% of the original stats.
With the soldier amulet your average bonus damage went from being +2% in LA to +2% in Kessex. (No change).
With the zerker amulet your average bonus damage went from being +4.72% in LA to +4.16% in Kessex. (My zerker gear gave me a bigger boost in LA than it does in Kessex).
Scale that up to a full gearset and you see the loss in damage caused by incorrect scaling of crit damage.

The funny thing is, my zerker warrior has less crit chance when she is downscaled to <insert level below 80 here> than when she actually had that level. So yea, crit chance scaling is broken.

Since it’s very easy for zerkers to kill things whether in downscaled zones or not, perhaps the real issue is that zerker’s get too much crit percentage and too much crit multiplier at max.

Odd…is LA a level 80 zone? I guess it is. Then why do you have more crit chance in Hirathi or Dredgehaunt? Guess you are getting a good deal there.

Lol, I’m glad I’m not a min-maxer. Too much stuff to stress over, which isn’t fun for me.

Funny. First, they say only zerker is viable. Now they say zerker is getting unfairly downscaled and thus isn’t really viable. THE WOLRD IS GONNA END!!1!!1!!!oneleven!!!

:D

That being said, you probably mow through most mobs in seconds anyway on maps where you’re downscaled; so I don’t see any issue here.
Also, don’t forget that you’ve also got a bunch of traits and you’ve got three different stats on your equipment, in addition to it being of exotic rarity. Thus, you’re still much stronger than characters on the level you’re downscaled to.

fadeaway.2807:

laokoko.7403:

The whole point of downscaling is to make sure a lvl80 player have the same power as a low level player.

Low level armor only have 2 stats. That’s why a huge chunk of crit damage is taken out to even the play field.

If you check the other armor with 3 stats. Similar things happened. I don’t see anything wrong with it.

Unfortunately that’s not correct.
Here are stats for a completely naked, untraited level 80 guardian with 1 ascended amulet on.

Soldier amulet:
LA
1042 power
1001 vitality
1001 tough
916 precision (4% crit)
0% crit damage

Kessex
196 power
188 vitality
188 tough
172 precision (4% crit)
0% crit damage

Zerker amulet:
LA
1042 power
916 vitality
916 tough
1001 precision (8% crit)
9% crit damage

Kessex
196 power
172 vitality
172 tough
188 precision (8% crit)
2% crit damage

In all cases apart from the crit damage… the downscaling was to 18.8% of the original stats.
With the soldier amulet your average bonus damage went from being +2% in LA to +2% in Kessex. (No change).
With the zerker amulet your average bonus damage went from being +4.72% in LA to +4.16% in Kessex. (My zerker gear gave me a bigger boost in LA than it does in Kessex).
Scale that up to a full gearset and you see the loss in damage caused by incorrect scaling of crit damage.

You forgot the point. The point of downscaling is to make a lvl80 character at the same power as a low level character.

So a lvl80 berserker became similar to a lvl35 dps character.

And a lvl80 soldier became similar to a lvl35 defense character.

You are looking at the tiny picture instead of big picture. None of the low level gear even have crit damage. So it is compensated differently.

If you think a lvl35 dps character suck compare to a lvl35 defense character. Maybe you should complain about that instead. I’m not sure that is even the case.

Except a lvl80 soldier doesn’t become similar to a level 35 defense character. All stats from PVT scale well so you get lots of extra.

Zerkers treated unfairly? Hahahahahahaha.

So if a mob has 100 health, does it matter if you crit for 150 points of damage or for 200 points of damage? If I had to guess, I’d say the difference is to prevent one shotting mobs in lower level areas.

I’m not going to get too excited about theoretical numbers. I’ll wait to see evidence that it actually impacts player’s ability to do the content. And no I’m not going to cry if it means full zerker’s won’t let me steamroll everything in my path.

The real test would be to take a power based character and a crit based character and time them against a particular type of mob in a level 80 area, then time them against the same type of mob in a lower level area and see if there’s a discrepancy. And you should take a decent number of samples given the unpredictable nature of criticals.

Wethospu.6437:

Except a lvl80 soldier doesn’t become similar to a level 35 defense character. All stats from PVT scale well so you get lots of extra.

Maybe people like to QQ how lvl80 berseker is too OPed in lower level content but no one ever complain about lvl80 soldier.

They nerfed lvl80 characters because too many people complained that either “lvl80 character is too easy in low level zones” or “lvl80 character is too much better than low level character”.

OK, but what does this actually mean? How does it affect you?

Saturn.6591:

Funny. First, they say only zerker is viable. Now they say zerker is getting unfairly downscaled and thus isn’t really viable.

Zerkers getting a raw deal, who knew xD

Even if it is… how can you tell? as a zerker I can either 1 shot or 2 shot any mob that isn’t in a level 70+ zone…

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Even if it is… how can you tell? as a zerker I can either 1 shot or 2 shot any mob that isn’t in a level 70+ zone…

I was going to make a remark to regarding this. But I think people are going to point out champs and such. If I got my full crit damage in a low level zone, I’ll be a 1 man champion wrecking ball.

64% crit chance lv 31 in Gendarran
63% crit chance lv 47 in Bloodtide Coast
57% crit chance lv 80 in LA

How did you manage to get a lower % in Gendarran than LA?

Khisanth.2948:

64% crit chance lv 31 in Gendarran
63% crit chance lv 47 in Bloodtide Coast
57% crit chance lv 80 in LA

How did you manage to get a lower % in Gendarran than LA?

Who wastes food while in LA?

Downscaling has been a total fail. Level 80s easily 2-shot foes in lower level areas.

The goal of downscaling is not to be as a wet noodle as a lowbie or as powerful as a god. The goal of downscaling is to maintain fun in lower area levels. It still take me from 1.5 to 2 hours to complete an area, compared to 2 to 3 when I was a lowbie. I sure wouldn’t want it to take as long.

Downscaling? They do that pretty well.

Complaining about downscaling? Really?

I think GW2 isn’t the game for you.

There is a difference between complaining and pointing out something which is obviously incorrectly implemented and could even be labelled as a bug. The “zerkers are fine” comments are the funniest replies. People are funny.

If you ever want to improve something, first you must fix any faults. You can’t just build over the top of broken foundations.

a bug you say?

we have a forum for that.

Do you think it is incorrectly implemented then?

unsure, i would like to see some more stats covering other low level maps first.

certainly, in queensdale the crit dam seems oddly diminished in relation to crit chance.

perhaps it is merely a starter map/queensdale train nerf?

The issue you mention – ,the way to calculate your ‘effective power’ is to run your power through a series of crit chance/dmg modifications followed by overall damage modifications – is also the same reason why zerkers are so strong at higher levels – that is, multiplicative stats on gear.

So what we are saying is that…

Low level mobs should be killed in 1 hit rather 2 hits from whatever auto-attack you have?

You should be able to engage 30 low level mobs rather than only the ~15 you can now without getting hurt?

fadeaway.2807:

There is a difference between complaining and pointing out something which is obviously incorrectly implemented and could even be labelled as a bug.

Downscaling is supposed to bring a higher level character closer to the effectiveness of an on-level character. Perhaps you should look into what kind of crit chance and (especially) critical damage percentage increases are available to on-level characters in the various zones.

Yet PVT-users are able to keep all of their stats. In my opinion that’s the issue.

This just in, the scaling in Guild Wars 2 is shoddy at best!