Guild Wars 2

I’ve got a noob question. I keep seeing in build topics where people keep saying to keep your critical chances 50% or below, never more. Why? Wouldn’t it be better to hit a critical eith every hit versus every other hit?

I can’t speak for every thread you’ve seen, but in my personal opinion it is for the most part because pushing your crit rate beyond that point is not worth the other stats you have to sacrifice. I’m sure that glass cannon builds probably go over it, but most builds aren’t going to get much higher than 50% while keeping up the stats they need. Trying to force it to 60% won’t make that much difference, and that’s a lot of points you could have had in another stat to balance yourself out.

I disagree with Kaii …

Though builds, armour stats, runes and sigil, you can easily get to over 60% crit chance without sacrificing too much. Also, a lot depends on your class, play style and what you do, eg, solo PvE, or PvP or WvW …

I have successfully solo’ed a high crit chance (glass cannon) ranger through every PvE map in the game and farmed mats Orr. Plus, it was a lot of fun to play!

The difference between a 1 in 2 and a 2 in 3 chance of a crit is huge, particularly if you use sigils that trigger off crits. If you play ranged, you kill most single targets before they get near you.

Yes, you are not a tank, but then some classes are not meant to be. You learn how to dodge, evade, kite and pull mobs. You learn how, when and where to pick your fights.

If you do decide to go more defense to play a different role, then you can easily do so though accessories, and armour. And all the tricks you learned while ‘squishy’ will keep you on your feet that much longer.

EDIT: Just to add, I was playing longbow/greatsword with this build, and no problems going melee against vets and any pals.

In the wiki there’s a table of damage increase by critical chance vs. critical damage. I learned from it that critical chance is to prefer. My own limit for permanent increase therefore is 80%, for the remaining 20% “Fury” is responsible.
The other case is if one focusing on condition damage. Because this damage cannot crit, one can leave out precision and critical damage more or less… so in that case 40% would be too much, in my opinion.

Talyjta.9081:

In the wiki there’s a table of damage increase by critical chance vs. critical damage. I learned from it that critical chance is to prefer. My own limit for permanent increase therefore is 80%, for the remaining 20% “Fury” is responsible.
The other case is if one focusing on condition damage. Because this damage cannot crit, one can leave out precision and critical damage more or less… so in that case 40% would be too much, in my opinion.

critical damage is useless for condition builds, but most (of not all) classes in fact have traits that make you proc some sort of condition when you crit, so you want to in fact have a good critical chance even with a condition build due to that

It depends on what sort of style you go for. E.g if you are all about condition damage and sustained damage then you will not need crit or crit dmg as your primary source is to stack bleeds or whatever to create your dmg.

Kaii does bring up an interesting point, sometimes it maybe preferable to sacrifice crit chance for either more toughness/vitality allowing you for more room for error or survive those condition stacks with a larger health pool.

What bri talks about does make sense if you want to do high burst/spike dmg. However you will have to be on your toes. Normally with a glass cannon you will have a smaller margin for error where accounting for 1/2 direct hits may end you.

If you want to do dungeons a glass cannon build is not very viable. It IS possible to play but you have to be very keen when it comes to situational awareness to survive. Active defending is key but any mistake will lead to a down. I have seen countless cannon thieves or rangers expecting their build will work for dungeons but they do not for most occasions I have seen. The PvE is trivial compared to the one shot mob mechanics of dungeons.

You can play glass cannon builds in PvE very easily. Dungeons have some toughness so you can have more room for error. Once you have your class down you can go full glass cannon but you can do explore dungeons without any armour and not go down. Dungeons just needs awareness of teammates and situations that’s it.

So at level 80, 21 points of precision = to 1% increase in crit chance.

The trouble with crit chance is that is has a diminishing return in terms of it proccing.

If I go from 10% to 20% crit chance, I’ve doubled the number of critical hits I’ll land every 100 blows for 210 stat points. I’ve gone from Power+5 damage to Power +10 damage, assuming my crit damage is at 0 (1.5x a normal hit) and my Power related damage is 100.

If however, I go from 50% to 60% crit chance, also for 210 stat points I’m only criting 20% more often than before. I’ve gone from Power+25 to Power+30 damage. They key here, is that the 210 stat points actually buy me the same damage increase as before (5 damage per 100 blows). But the benefit to any on-crit traits lessens as crit chance goes up.

Now, to get that extra 30 damage per 100 blows, I’ve gone through 60*21 = 1260 stat points.

Base power is 916. Adding 916 power will double my damage. So I get 100 extra damage per 100 blows for 916 stat points. And then another 100 for the next 916 and so on.

The more power I have, the more quickly crit chance will benefit me.

@1832 power, 21 points of precision will add 10 damage per 100 blows, instead of 5 @916 power.

So there is a break point between where adding more power or more crit chance will give more DPS. Crit damage also needs to be considered.

Of course, if you’re building for burst it’s definitely a different game.

GummiBear.2756:

… but most (of not all) classes in fact have traits that make you proc some sort of condition when you crit, …

Yes, and then, I would argue, you are not focussed on condition damage. Then you have kind of a mixture. So yes, it’s true, I didn’t list the full variety of reasons for and against high crit chance values…

Thanks for the insight guys.

Just for info, I’m looking at doing a DPS guardian build, not so much glass cannon as say, maybe just cannon and was looking through the Guardian forums noticing what I said in the original post here. I just couldn’t figure out why ppl kept saying that over and over.

Keep in mind that for guardian, no matter what you do there is a condition element to your damage from the burning in Venegence. More so if you decide to trait for extra burning, use burning meditations/consecrations or use a torch. Guardians are also typically expected to survive a bit better than other glass cannons. My guess is that this is where a lot of that advice comes from.

One question I have to your first answer, Helequin. You say:

The trouble with crit chance is that is has a diminishing return in terms of it proccing.

I don’t think so. If you raise precision for 21 points, you’ll get 1% more critical hits. And that won’t change. So… I can’t see any “diminidhing” except a relative one, relative to the value already obtained. But this will happen to any value.

What I can confirm is that power is the best stat to increase, in terms of damage. I just did a couple of simple calculations, keeping all values fixed and only adding “one complete trait line” (or the outcame of 30 points spent) to one of the values. The total amount is of course depending of the foe’s armor (except for condition damage).
However, spending 30 points in the power trait line gives 3 times the increase as spending them to critical chance or critical damage. Increasing the condition damage seems to be in the same range of magnitude like the both crit values, however in this case I’m very unsure whether I did a correct abstraction.

For toughness, I found a diminishing also in the absolute outcome. If one has only a very weak armor, the trait line bonus of 300 points will absorb more damage, as if one already is very well-armored. (The increase of the minimum defense 1800 to 2100 will reduce the damage 3.5 times stronger than if the increase is from 3600 to 3900.)

@Talyjta, I agree power is typically the better stat for straight damage. I really need to calculate this out rigorously, but to get the best damage for a given stat point input power really shines. Only once power has been pushed quite high does it become worthwhile to throw in precision and prowess.

As for crit’s diminishing return, you’re right it is a relative one. I didn’t quite explain that properly. It’s still worth looking at if you are pumping crit chance for a proc effect though.

One of the main hassles with crit is gaining crit damage, since without pretty high crit damage, crit chance pales compared to power.

At final stats 2748 power, you’re tripling base damage. This is equivalent to 250% crit damage and 100% crit rating at base power. Or to 1832 power (2x base), 50% crit damage and 50% crit rate.

*if my quick mental math is right that is

The exact cooldowns of your crit triggers vs the frequency of the attacks that generate those triggers should also be figured into the decision of what will constitute an optimal crit chance for you build. And don’t forget the Food and Potions!

Talyjta.9081:

GummiBear.2756:

… but most (of not all) classes in fact have traits that make you proc some sort of condition when you crit, …

Yes, and then, I would argue, you are not focussed on condition damage. Then you have kind of a mixture. So yes, it’s true, I didn’t list the full variety of reasons for and against high crit chance values…

how is that not focusing on condition dmg?… get higher crits = get more stacks of conditions… you do have 3 stats to put on your armor, take my mesmer as example lvl 80 with the clones cause bleed on crit trait. Using 3 staff clones i go from around 8-10 stacks of bleed without that trait to about 14-16 stacks with about 45-50% crit chance and that trait… that is a LOT of more dmg from condition

Condition proc and condition damage are two separate things.

I did some math by my own now. Basically, I assumed a power of 1000, weapon damage of 1000, all other values as given at lvl 80, and 30 trait points, equal to a filled trait line, and calculated the total of normal damage. Filling the power trait line gaves roughly 30% more damage, precision led to 10% damage increase and crit damage only to 3%.
The high result for power is easy to explain – it also affects the normal damage, and that occurs quite often when crit chance is only 4%. The benefit of crit chance over crit damage is explained by the 50% bonus to every critical hit. Investing in critical damage therefore is less effectiv, as the bonus only occures in rare cases (as given by the lower crit chance).

@ GummiBear: I am still on the search for a mathmatical simplification for the boon and condition parts of GW2. But the different cooldown times make this a difficult task. I wonder whether you could give some abstractions to mak a little bit math with this?