Guild Wars 2

if you watched the stream
http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2/b/496005243

Critical Damage getting nerfed not only for PvE but also for WvW -_-

about 10% nerf.

i’d guess that this is a fix for the additional damage ascended berserker gear was able to deal. which….. would indicate that ascended gear was just tacked on, as opposed to them having it planned to go in all along like they said when they first announced ascended gear a year ago.

all in all, i’d say it’s yet another black eye for gw2.

Why nerf zerker instead of buffing the other sets is beyond me. When you go zerker , you already sacrifice defense and you’re very squishy. That compensates for the extra damage, but no. Nerf, nerf and nerf.

It didn’t need a nerf and the other stuff didn’t need buffed.

This change was because of PvE. This is the wrong way to address the PvE issues.

I don’t think it was done for any balance reason per se.

The obvious reason to change the way Critical-Damage works is because of scalability.

For future content, new levels and new gear you can’t have fixed % on gear. You need abstract numbers that are easier to scale.

WoW had the same problem in vanilla when their crit-chance was based on fixed-%. Obviously this doesn’t work well when you want to maintain the relative power of characters while still making them chase upgrades.

I’m not sure why ANet didn’t learn that from WoW in the first place.

Either way, the 10% nerf is probably just an attempt to reduce burst-damage that can be a tad excessive in this game. But it’s not the reason they changed the scaling of Crit-Damage.

If there is any indication then that they are future-proofing GW2 for future level-increases. So there you have it, we might yet see a new expansion.

Dee Jay.2460:

I don’t think it was done for any balance reason per se.

The obvious reason to change the way Critical-Damage works is because of scalability.

For future content, new levels and new gear you can’t have fixed % on gear. You need abstract numbers that are easier to scale.

WoW had the same problem in vanilla when their crit-chance was based on fixed-%. Obviously this doesn’t work well when you want to maintain the relative power of characters while still making them chase upgrades.

I’m not sure why ANet didn’t learn that from WoW in the first place.

Either way, the 10% nerf is probably just an attempt to reduce burst-damage that can be a tad excessive in this game. But it’s not the reason they changed the scaling of Crit-Damage.

If there is any indication then that they are future-proofing GW2 for future level-increases. So there you have it, we might yet see a new expansion.

actually, you can have fixed percentages on gear, providing you’re not creating a gear treadmill. you can’t easily add new tiers of gear in with percentages, but you can with the typical MMO math.

LOL… anyone over-thinking ArenaNet’s logic needs to get a reality check. This was to care for PVE carebears.

ony two words: Condition Damage
if they think not to change anything on cond damage fire and forget no skill stuff i will say GLHF to this game

Some might find this funny for me to say, but from a WvW perspective I would have said that PVT/soldier’s gear is what needed the biggest nerf. If you were to sum up all the armor worn regularly on NA I believe PVT would make up the biggest portion. In EU the same except they use a little more zerker/damage.

The thing is Anet still see WvW as part of their PvE content. We will probably not see a nerf to PVT armor because of this. I honestly think berserker needed to be balanced, but PVT needed it moreso. But outside of WvW there is no need to wear anything else other than berserker’s unless your messing around with a condi build or some other “fun build”.

I shouldn’t be surprised by the amount of Chicken Littling going on, but for some reason I always am.

Is that 10% really the difference in your small-scale fights out in WvW in your full zerker set?

This only really matters in roaming. Big groups are still going to oneshot you in 2 seconds if you don’t position yourself properly.

As a power well glassy necro… QQ T-T. It’s not my fault people stand in the wells and die!

just for an example

Warrior DPS was on the nerf for the last 4-5 patches, on the other hand Condis didnt get a nerf, instead they got introduced to Dire set.

what reason will be left to run a power roaming build after this patch ?

It’s going to ruin Celestial gear unless ANet specifically adjusts for it. gg.

Visirale.6097:

As a power well glassy necro… QQ T-T. It’s not my fault people stand in the wells and die!

Apparently they also stood in Choking Gas and Poison Grenade and died.

Convenant.7092:

LOL… anyone over-thinking ArenaNet’s logic needs to get a reality check. This was to care for PVE carebears.

+1. and what works in WvW does not work in PVE. it’s time they made hard separations there, just like sPVP.

Watch out with these posts! i got infracted 2 points for bringing up the idiocy of the crit damage nerf affecting WvW! LOGICCC!

I remember when people said Ascended gear grinds would imbalance the game…Now we get a 10% reduction after grinding (well some people) for ascended boosts…

LAWL

I spent all my laurels on zerker trinkets and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.

The reduction is a good one IMO since it will hit glassy gank builds the hardest. It will unfortunately be offset by the removal of shared sigil counters and extra sigil slots on two handers. Zerk two hand warriors are about to deal a nice chunk more damage even after giving up 10% on crit.

Cogbyrn.7283:

I shouldn’t be surprised by the amount of Chicken Littling going on, but for some reason I always am.

Is that 10% really the difference in your small-scale fights out in WvW in your full zerker set?

Some players will have to learn to play instead push button to win.

It’s all about scalability. How can you compare 5% crit damage to +70 precision? They can’t correlate correctly, but if you could mathematically figure it out, the current crit damage stats available are actually more powerful than the equivalent of numbered stats. You get the most bang for your buck with crit damage over another stat. By reducing it 10% they are normalizing it. It will not be a 10% reduction to everyone that has any crit damage. It may be a 0%, 1%, 2%, up to 10% effective change based on how you’re geared. If you’re min/maxing, the added sigil slots for 2h weapons and changes to rune stats may easily make up for this.

TL;DR just wait and see how it plays out before you freak out

Aeolus.3615:

Cogbyrn.7283:

I shouldn’t be surprised by the amount of Chicken Littling going on, but for some reason I always am.

Is that 10% really the difference in your small-scale fights out in WvW in your full zerker set?

Some players will have to learn to play instead push button to win.

I don’t see how this pertains to condi builds, because they are just push button to win…..

King Amadaeus.8619:

Aeolus.3615:

Cogbyrn.7283:

I shouldn’t be surprised by the amount of Chicken Littling going on, but for some reason I always am.

Is that 10% really the difference in your small-scale fights out in WvW in your full zerker set?

Some players will have to learn to play instead push button to win.

I don’t see how this pertains to condi builds, because they are just push button to win…..

Anet please nerf push button winning, give me no button pushing winning noa….real tears have been shed until this is resolved.

I think someone from Anet cough balance team cough needs to take a class, outfit them in full zerker gear and go find a target that is in full tank gear and hit said target repeatedly. Take note of both the average and maximum damage.

Then let the full tanked target hit the berzerker target repeatedly, and take note of both average and maximum damage. Then decide if crit damage really needs a nerf, or if in actuality it needs a buff.

When you have a scenario where a fully tanked target can do more average and max damage to a full zerker target; than the zerk target can dish out to the tank, there is a problem.

Crit damage doesn’t have scaling issues, toughness does. Toughness needs to be scaled back, while crit increases. Hopefully, having a second sigil available for 2H weapons makes up for the imbalance, but only time will tell.

DeadlySynz.3471:

I think someone from Anet cough balance team cough needs to take a class, outfit them in full zerker gear and go find a target that is in full tank gear and hit said target repeatedly. Take note of both the average and maximum damage.

Then let the full tanked target hit the berzerker target repeatedly, and take note of both average and maximum damage. Then decide if crit damage really needs a nerf, or if in actuality it needs a buff.

When you have a scenario where a fully tanked target can do more average and max damage to a full zerker target; than the zerk target can dish out to the tank, there is a problem.

Crit damage doesn’t have scaling issues, toughness does. Toughness needs to be scaled back, while crit increases. Hopefully, having a second sigil available for 2H weapons makes up for the imbalance, but only time will tell.

That is quite class dependant tho. My ranger with 2900 defense and 22k HP still gets 3 shorted by zerker thieves…

Not every class uses 2 handed weapons with berserker gear, so that change doesn’t solve everything.

I think it’s time that WvW got its own balance changes separate from PVE and closer to pvp.

Before the nerf a thief would kill me (warrior) 3-4 hits, after the nerf thief can still kill me in 3-4 hits. Stop whining about this miniscule nerf, build a bridge and get over it already!

wah wah wah theif op… wait no they arent you just need to put a little effort into beating them. on my full support guard if I get ganked by a thief (which I go out and look for just for kittens and giggles) I absolutely destroy them. Its just not even a possibility of them winning unless another person comes to help. Im not talking stalemate, sure many times the thief runs away but sometimes I catch them and finish them off. Zerker is not OP and if you think that maybe you should get out of your zerg and try it out. See how little room for error you get.

DeadlySynz.3471:

Crit damage doesn’t have scaling issues, toughness does. Toughness needs to be scaled back, while crit increases. Hopefully, having a second sigil available for 2H weapons makes up for the imbalance, but only time will tell.

You only need to look at PvP to see that you’re just plain wrong.

Nothing people say is going to change the fact that PvP gear stats are far more balanced than PvE. Is it better? Hell if I know, but it is definetly more balanced. And in PvP, 50% crit damage is pretty much a berserker. That’s how big the difference is. Toughness? Its not related in PvP. On my 20/30/20 “damage” oriented PvP Mesmer I only have 35% crit damage, lol.

But of course that wont work in PvE, sadly. You can still too easily achieve impossible PvP combos. If Anet could find a good “middle ground” and unify PvE and PvP to something that is acceptable for both sides, that’d be great. Dont think its going to happen though.

i think its a very good thing. more mind game and less presseverythingfrom1to10
i like the idea of mixed armors.

So I guess I can still play my full conditions build/ perplexity runes, and laugh about power builds trying to kill my engineer =D

10% isnt that big of a damage drop

Oh, and the 10% was scheduled for fully, maxed out damage specifications. More balanced build would not be hit as much, if I correctly understood what they said at the live-stream.

Those who said to not look further than PvE are right. The point of the crit damage nerf is that and only that. Condis in PvE aren’t that strong cause of the max stacks and the fact that only one “instance” of any condi can be apply on a single target. What’s the point of having multiples condi spec while running a dungeon when 1 or 2 can already put full stacks on every condi in the game on the boss, it only becomes over reappliance of the condis and doesn’t result in more damage. While there is no limit of direct damage that can be applied. So yes, in regard of doing a speed dungeon run, a bunch of zerker heavy damage dealing guys will go through a lot faster than a group of condi dudes. That’s the end of Anet’s thinking.

WvW is a collateral damage that they don’t really care about. We all know it and they barely hide how they do not care about WvW. For example, there have been lag and skill lag, disconnections, exploits, bugs, hackers and more since lauch in WvW and they barely addressed it while only a couple weeks ago they made a surprise patch to adress some minor lag in LA. So yeah, Anet’s only investment in WvW is 1 guy appearing in the forum to say they care and occasionnaly reply that our posts are being looked at and stuff (whatever he feels like we need to hear to calm the WvW players).

So crit damage change is ONLY a PvE balance thing and WvW players have to deal with it. End of story.

I do not see this change as affecting me at all regardless if I play my hammer / crit war or my guard defending against those or my ranged melee train nuker or my roaming mes.

So what will happen on a practical scale ? Hammertrains will need an extra 1-2 auto attacks to down/kill someone ? They are already way out of hand and need a serious nerf as it is not this. Increase it to about 50% so that its actually noticable, 10% is just no where near what is needed to bring them in line.

@ Tongku: It’s getting close to it lol, combine the 10% crit damage nerf with the previous 20% Earthshaker damage nerf and you got a pretty decent nerf in that respect.
Although a 10% overall nerf on crit damage to every power spec won’t affect zergling that much, it will affect smaller scale fight quite a bit, especially since the condi meta is already king for small scale battle, it’ll just make it even more inbalanced for that kind of play. WvW is a complicated beast where everyone should find it’s fun, large and small scale battle have their place there and any change “should” take both into consideration. Unfortunatly, neither are, WvW players are dependant/victim of Anet’s focus on PvE.

Rezzet.3614:

10% isnt that big of a damage drop

um…. backstab dmg, kill shot, one shot eles….10% from that dmg is huge

i personally spent like 300+ g just remaking my entire set and buying new trinkets to get extra 14% crit dmg; now it is all gonna land in the toilet thanks to anet

this change is indirect huge buff to condi builds, because you know they are so weak….

yeaaaaaaaah, let’s nerf direct dmg while we are in condi meta /tabelflip

this change is as brainless and not thought through dhummfire change from the past

the best joke, this change will change ABSOLUTELY NOTHING in pve, ppl will still run full zerk

I can’t see why anyone would have an issue with this from a WvW perspective. 10% crit damage isn’t going to effect zergs at all. It will effect some roamers, but not that significantly since most roamers are lolconditionspam at the moment anyway.

The only reason to have a big issue with this change is if you were one of the people that built a full set of celestial ascended armor.

I just say take that 10% from your ability to tank and add it to your dmg out put being that most wvw build are not all in glass builds.

Shows their utter disregard for WvW.
This developer is dead to me.