The Post Ferocity Nerf
Nerf isn’t a bad word. Sometimes the most logical decision for a game developer is to back something up rather then push 99 other things forward.
If you play an MMO and you find that X or Y is parsing you a good advantage over other options. You can expect it will be adjusted. The only way a developer really fails is if they leave it long enough for people to consider it not broken. Perhaps they did in fact fail there.
And since when celestials gave such an advantage? Yet they’re getting heavily mauled by the change…
o.O did the patch drop already?
Don’t see the notes, and I didn’t d/l an update….
And since when celestials gave such an advantage? Yet they’re getting heavily mauled by the change…
The crit dmg is down sure, its down on any gear that had it. The celestrial is the only set that is getting a buff on pure stats. So I am not sure I would consider it a nerf on them myself. The toon I run celestrial on doesn’t run them for the crit dmg… it was nice don’t get me wrong. I just think with the stat bump its not likely going to effect me much.
And since when celestials gave such an advantage? Yet they’re getting heavily mauled by the change…
The crit dmg is down sure, its down on any gear that had it. The celestrial is the only set that is getting a buff on pure stats. So I am not sure I would consider it a nerf on them myself. The toon I run celestrial on doesn’t run them for the crit dmg… it was nice don’t get me wrong. I just think with the stat bump its not likely going to effect me much.
Except that the “stat bump” is going to be a “stat decrease” overall. Those items are losing a lot of crit damage with the change, while getting a minimal amount of points spread out. Let’s take the ascended amulet. 54 stats to all, plus 7% critical damage.
6% of 54 is little more than 3 points, thus it will likely have 57 points to everything.
A point of critical damage is 15 ferocity, thus it will have a little less than 4% critical damage.
And this was one of the items with the higher amount of stats, second only to the two handed weapons. Others are getting 2 or single point increases, while seeing their crit damage almost halved.
On a set that wasn’t notable for his damage before, and will be noticeably worse after the change.
My prelim calculations suggest this “change” throws full zerker builds to around sPvP crit damage levels
It’s going to be rough ladies if it’s as bad as many are thinking
Wow, patch is not even out yet and already we have a QQ thread prepped just so you can get on here and complain as efficiently as possible.
ArenaNet feels crit damage needed this nerf, and needed to be retooled in anticipation of future updates. A lot of people agree, or at least consider Berserker stats to be problematic for being the only viable/worthwhile “meta” build previously.
Wow, patch is not even out yet and already we have a QQ thread prepped just so you can get on here and complain as efficiently as possible.
ArenaNet feels crit damage needed this nerf, and needed to be retooled in anticipation of future updates. A lot of people agree, or at least consider Berserker stats to be problematic for being the only viable/worthwhile “meta” build previously.
Because they haven’t even understood what is the problem, thus the solution can’t be anything else than a failure.
And the problem is in the formula itself, with those stats all multiplied together for an exponential effect.
Whose results are insanely high when the stats involved are high – berserker – and terrible when the stats involved are low – afterpatch celestials.
Nerf isn’t a bad word. Sometimes the most logical decision for a game developer is to back something up rather then push 99 other things forward.
Exactly this.
In fact, it stands to reason that excluding large-scale imbalances (which are more often alleviated via rule-changes instead of balance-changes), as many nerfs as buffs have to happen to achieve balance.
Because they haven’t even understood what is the problem, thus the solution can’t be anything else than a failure.
Here’s the problem:
- Crit damage is too easy to stack, appearing too plentiful on items.
- Crit damage is wrongly itemized, items with low item-budget sometimes field very high amounts of +critdamage.
This problem is rectified by:
- Crit Damage percentage → Ferocity rating. This alleviates the second issue.
- An overall nerf to attainable crit damage bonus. This alleviates the first issue.
What about this is difficult to understand?
The issue isn’t with some arcane Zerker vs Condition PvP issue, or Zerker PvE Dungeon running. The issue is simple: Crit damage is very oddly itemized, rounds weird, and is too easy to stack. That’s all the change tries to fix, after all. It doesn’t even try to fix the dungeon issue, but then, it was never meant to, either.
The strength of heart to face oneself has been made manifest. The persona Carighan has appeared.
(edited by Carighan.6758)
Defending ferocity due to oddly itemized is a farce.
Condi vs Power/Crit greatly favored Condi before this patch. Now that you are lowering the amount of damage for crit the scales are even going to be more tipped.
Here’s the problem:
- Crit damage is too easy to stack, appearing too plentiful on items.
- Crit damage is wrongly itemized, items with low item-budget sometimes field very high amounts of +critdamage.
And you, like the developers, are failing to see the problem.
Crit damage itself was never a problem, and neither the reason why direct damage skyrocketed in pve.
The formula is – since it is a multiplication based on three stats that can all be found on the same item set. Whereas the other stats are at most paired in their respective formula (condition damage & duration) or alone.
And neither how it was itemized, since its effect depended from the other two stats being present as well.
By having low amount of power and precision and high crit damage, celestial permitted to have a sort-of nice dps, alternating low damage with some spikes here and then. Now there is only the low damage.
This problem is rectified by:
- Crit Damage percentage -> Ferocity rating. This alleviates the second issue.
- An overall nerf to attainable crit damage bonus. This alleviates the first issue.
And since they weren’t issues to begin with, it only exacerbates the problem i’ve described above.
What about this is difficult to understand?
The issue isn’t with some arcane Zerker vs Condition PvP issue, or Zerker PvE Dungeon running. The issue is simple: Crit damage is very oddly itemized, rounds weird, and is too easy to stack. That’s all the change tries to fix, after all. It doesn’t even try to fix the dungeon issue, but then, it was never meant to, either.
See above – it was never the source of the issue: the damage formula is the problem.
They should just have fixed the formula – putting a sort of diminishing returns, for example. All they did was just to make other sets even less useful.
If they wanted so much to change it – even if, as i explained above, there wasn’t any sensible reason to do so – they should have rebalanced at least the celestial set, since its offense was based upon that crit damage. Instead, they preferred a lazy solution that doesn’t actually solve anything.
And you, like the developers, are failing to see the problem.
Crit damage itself was never a problem, and neither the reason why direct damage skyrocketed in pve.
The formula is – since it is a multiplication based on three stats that can all be found on the same item set. Whereas the other stats are at most paired in their respective formula (condition damage & duration) or alone.And neither how it was itemized, since its effect depended from the other two stats being present as well.
By having low amount of power and precision and high crit damage, celestial permitted to have a sort-of nice dps, alternating low damage with some spikes here and then. Now there is only the low damage.This problem is rectified by:
- Crit Damage percentage -> Ferocity rating. This alleviates the second issue.
- An overall nerf to attainable crit damage bonus. This alleviates the first issue.
And since they weren’t issues to begin with, it only exacerbates the problem i’ve described above.
What about this is difficult to understand?
The issue isn’t with some arcane Zerker vs Condition PvP issue, or Zerker PvE Dungeon running. The issue is simple: Crit damage is very oddly itemized, rounds weird, and is too easy to stack. That’s all the change tries to fix, after all. It doesn’t even try to fix the dungeon issue, but then, it was never meant to, either.See above – it was never the source of the issue: the damage formula is the problem.
They should just have fixed the formula – putting a sort of diminishing returns, for example. All they did was just to make other sets even less useful.
If they wanted so much to change it – even if, as i explained above, there wasn’t any sensible reason to do so – they should have rebalanced at least the celestial set, since its offense was based upon that crit damage. Instead, they preferred a lazy solution that doesn’t actually solve anything.
So you recommend that they add diminishing returns for stacking a stat. Would these diminishing returns roughly calculate to the amount of damage change that is going to be present with the Ferocity change? If so, your system would be literally identical to their change, only yours would be much more difficult to understand/convey to the user.
Any gear pre-patch that had Crit Dmg was stacking basically same amount of it. Celestial, Cavalier, Berserker. All of it. Diminishing returns would still hit these other armor sets.
It sounds like you think Zerker gear should just be removed from the game entirely. I also don’t know how you can blame the formula, but not the component of the formula that multiplies the amount of damage Power puts out. It sounds like you’re arguing semantics because you desperately want to be right and show everyone else that they are wrong. In this case, it seems a bit too desperate.
Carighan outlines the problem precisely. At this point, the sets can’t even be balanced because the stat weight of critical damage relative to the other stats is completely messed up. This change is fixing that, as well as tweaking the stat so it isn’t the easy fast-track to damage on sets that are only supposed to have damage as a supplement.
I welcome the change.
Alduin Nightsong, 80 Human Necro
“He’s like a man with a fork in a world of soup.”
“He’s like a man with a fork in a world of soup.”
~10% damage loss.
Zerkers are still the meta. Possibly more important than before due to overall decreased dps.
FGS/Frostbow buffed by 5%, which compounds with other damage modifiers. Likely outcome is full meta groups see an increase in overall dps despite the ferocity nerf.
2h sigils mostly remove the bloodlust change. Scholar runes unchanged.
Not worried, zerkers are still #1 by miles.
~10% damage loss.
Zerkers are still the meta. Possibly more important than before due to overall decreased dps.FGS/Frostbow buffed by 5%, which compounds with other damage modifiers. Likely outcome is full meta groups see an increase in overall dps despite the ferocity nerf.
2h sigils mostly remove the bloodlust change. Scholar runes unchanged.
Not worried, zerkers are still #1 by miles.
The point of this change like others smarter than me have said wasn’t to equalize zerker vs other stats.
Zerker will always be better until they finally start making content that can’t just be be easily beaten with high DPS. Personally, I suspect going forward content wise, they are going to start making it extremely hard for noobzerker to noob their way through content.
As u know im pro. ~Tomonobu Itagaki
This is an mmo forum, if someone isn’t whining chances are the game is dead.
This is an mmo forum, if someone isn’t whining chances are the game is dead.
noobzerker to noob their way through content.
I’m not following your logic here. Zerkers get 1 shotted a lot of the time if they don’t dodge correctly. It has been proven that a cleric guard can almost afk lupicus to death. Why wouldn’t the zerker require more active skill?
I assume you have a youtube channel full of you soloing the various critical-dodge bosses in the game, since it’s such a nooby/easy thing to accomplish.
I lost 20% damage on average on my power warrior.
As predicted the semi tanky builds (profiting from zerker trinkets) got hit the hardest. Did a lot of damage tests and yes, semi tanky builds not really worth it anymore.
Go full zerker or condi is my advice. As those got hit the least.
Warrior of [VcY], guild from Seafarer’s Rest
First troll to receive 10/10
Best golem driver EU
First troll to receive 10/10
Best golem driver EU
~10% damage loss.
A 10% damage loss for previously full glass builds.
For anyone that bothered to invest in some survivability stats (ie. anyone but a confident SA Thief in WvW, and PvE players), it’s a far greater loss than just 10%.
Nerf is Always wrong
Balance is good….
I see anet nerfing stuff to force people to change builds but for sure i don t see any balance and i never saw any effort for it in this game.
GW2 balance:
A PvE player is supposed to avoid a 1-2 second 1 shotting aoe.
A WWW player is considered uncapable of avoiding a 5,75 second aoe for half his health.
A PvE player is supposed to avoid a 1-2 second 1 shotting aoe.
A WWW player is considered uncapable of avoiding a 5,75 second aoe for half his health.
And you, like the developers, are failing to see the problem.
Crit damage itself was never a problem, and neither the reason why direct damage skyrocketed in pve.
The formula is – since it is a multiplication based on three stats that can all be found on the same item set. Whereas the other stats are at most paired in their respective formula (condition damage & duration) or alone.
Again, the problem is not about PvE-zerker-gameplay. Or about how the three power stats work together with each other.
I mean granted, personally I would have removed Precision as a stat, using innate crit% as a balancing tool for certain classes/abilities.
But the issue was that crit damage itself (just the stat, in a vacuum) was a) too easy to stack and b) was assigned really weirdly to some item slots, completely ignoring the item’s budget.
That’s it. This is fixed by Ferocity.
It’s not about Zerker builds or anything. It’s about Crit Damage. The stat.
The strength of heart to face oneself has been made manifest. The persona Carighan has appeared.
Nerf is Always wrong
Why?
It’s easy to make that statement, it’s difficult to justify when about all of MMO gaming design, development and production disagrees with it.
The strength of heart to face oneself has been made manifest. The persona Carighan has appeared.
Carighan maths is useless…
In game balance expecially WWW threw what was already unbalanced to ridiculously unbalanced.
I know for you math and lore is everything but if we want to bet gold on WWW complaints in 3-4 weeks you maybe will finally understand how much you are wrong.
(expecially since your math is wrong, lignoring lot of numbers related as always).
Nerf is wrong because its not balance.
If i reduce number to balance something is not a nerf…but anet doesn t reduce things to achieve balance, it reducethem to force meta changes thinking its useful…
Since they are clearly uncapable of pursuing balance they should avoid whack a mole.
Also i see since release a recurring attack to certain professions and defense of Others..
Any buff to first is marginal and useless any nerf is HEAVY and crippling
CAn you see the difference between 50% and 8%?
Or 250% nerf and 10%?
GW2 balance:
A PvE player is supposed to avoid a 1-2 second 1 shotting aoe.
A WWW player is considered uncapable of avoiding a 5,75 second aoe for half his health.
A PvE player is supposed to avoid a 1-2 second 1 shotting aoe.
A WWW player is considered uncapable of avoiding a 5,75 second aoe for half his health.
(edited by LordByron.8369)
guys, it’s not that bad! consider all the new possibilities of gameplay!
i for one will probably hang my dual daggers up and start a career as an npc.
with exciting new tasks like resetting sieges 24/7, buying trash items from other players, sup running over and over (but not attempt to flip a camp – after all, i’m a retired thief) and mining, mining, mining, cooking, cooking, cooking.
i will probably spend some money on new costumes, since actual armor doesn’t fit my new role
Former running-really-fast-man. Now proud member of Revenant clan.
guys, it’s not that bad! consider all the new possibilities of gameplay!
i for one will probably hang my dual daggers up and start a career as an npc.
Oh actually if you add the dungeon reward nerfs its exactly what is happening.
To win the game you have to be an NPC seller……
Also you don t even need to login to do that…you can use API to win the trading post and be the final gw2 hero.
GW2 balance:
A PvE player is supposed to avoid a 1-2 second 1 shotting aoe.
A WWW player is considered uncapable of avoiding a 5,75 second aoe for half his health.
A PvE player is supposed to avoid a 1-2 second 1 shotting aoe.
A WWW player is considered uncapable of avoiding a 5,75 second aoe for half his health.
Nerf is wrong because its not balance.
Again, why?
How is nerfing not balancing? Or rather, if nerfing is apparently not balancing, how can buffing be? The two are reciprocal of one another. By definition they multiply to the identity, keeping status quo. As such, one cannot exist without the other.
Ofc, if you mean the specific nerf here, do keep in mind that this wasn’t about WvW, PvE, Warriors and most importantly – for you – about Elementalists. This was about crit damage, a stat which needed a fix. The fix happened. Done. Now they can start balancing based on crit damage, because any changes beforehand are wasted if you plan to – because you have to – change the entire system down the line.
The strength of heart to face oneself has been made manifest. The persona Carighan has appeared.
So what LordByron is saying is that, when he subjectively considers something a “nerf”, it has a negative connotation and is wrong and bad. When he subjectively considers something “balance”, then it has a positive connotation and is good. That’s what I’m hearing.
Also, saying math is useless blows my mind.
Alduin Nightsong, 80 Human Necro
“He’s like a man with a fork in a world of soup.”
“He’s like a man with a fork in a world of soup.”
Cogh adn carighan you can read better….. rather than trying sarcasm that won t lead anywhere and in this case isn t even remotely fun.
P.S. I don t complain at all about PvE… i don t run celestial in PvE and i m fine with zerker.
The issue is WWW.
GW2 balance:
A PvE player is supposed to avoid a 1-2 second 1 shotting aoe.
A WWW player is considered uncapable of avoiding a 5,75 second aoe for half his health.
A PvE player is supposed to avoid a 1-2 second 1 shotting aoe.
A WWW player is considered uncapable of avoiding a 5,75 second aoe for half his health.
Also, saying math is useless blows my mind.
I like how both math and lore are bad. Because who would want reasons for what you do, development-wise. That’s silly.
The strength of heart to face oneself has been made manifest. The persona Carighan has appeared.
I lost 20% damage on average on my power warrior.
As predicted the semi tanky builds (profiting from zerker trinkets) got hit the hardest. Did a lot of damage tests and yes, semi tanky builds not really worth it anymore.
Go full zerker or condi is my advice. As those got hit the least.
This +100. The meta build range essentially hollowed out now. Before people would use tanky armor/weapons while using berserker trinkets, but this sort of hybrid build was the most nerfed with the change. This just pushed everyone to either side of full berserker or full condi/tank with nothing in the middle which is exactly the reverse of what Anet wanted.
In PvE, the non-zerker builds are non-viable because they simply don’t work, not because zerker is so attractive by itself. Condi builds? Useless due to condi stacking rules and poor scaling. Control builds? Useless due to defiance on bosses. Healing builds? Healing power scales poorly and most “hard” mechanics in PvE one-shot you so healing isn’t effective. Tank builds? See healing builds. Hybrid zerker/support build? You just got slam-jammed by the patch and probably went full zerker to regain some damage, next.
In my mind, they should have introduced NEW dps stats to compete with zerker if they wanted diversity. Stats like haste, armor piercing, cooldown reduction, etc would have been a fun way to PROMOTE build diversity instead of trying to make your customers mad and FORCING them out of their previous builds.
In my mind, they should have introduced NEW dps stats to compete with zerker if they wanted diversity
Not past tense. Future tense.
The patch was about changing crit damage to something which is actually obeying itemization budgets.
The strength of heart to face oneself has been made manifest. The persona Carighan has appeared.
They mentioned that they can now potentially make Ferocity a primary on gear. Not sure how that would compute w.r.t. Power being secondary, but if it’s Ferocity/Power/Toughness, odds are I’ll be springing for it.
If it shows up. The point is that now it CAN show up. I honestly don’t think it should, though.
Alduin Nightsong, 80 Human Necro
“He’s like a man with a fork in a world of soup.”
“He’s like a man with a fork in a world of soup.”
If hybrid builds were really hit by like 20% overall damage then thats pretty bad. I tried the full zerker meta guardian build and it just wasn’t for me. So I went like 2 berserker armor pieces with 3 trinket slows and combo’d the rest with knight and soldier. I knew my damage wasn’t as high as it could be but I liked it better.
But if its down by like 20% I might have to rethink I guess or try out another class that uses a greatsword (stuck now that I have Sunrise. First world problems).
IF Arenanet wants to get zerker builds under control, honestly I think the easiest way to fix that is to make Berserker Stat’d armor just not exist. Take it out of the equation. Sure people will still minmax to the next step but I doubt it would be nearly as bad.