Guild Wars 2

I’m sitting at 32% crit chance and really want more, but the problem is doing so lowers my power and I don’t want to lower my other stats. So here’s what I’m looking at:

60 power vs 6 crit chance.

Keeping in mind I use Empowering might in combination with Strength rune, what’s your opinion on this? Should I give up 60 power for 38% crit chance?

I would choose the crit chance. Mind posting your gear and trait points (you don’t have to disclose the full build)? Maybe there is a way to change something to up your crit chance while keeping your other stats.

[Edit] I misread the numbers and changed to crit chance… now I understand why every onechose crit chance lol

I really like precision, but that really depends. Ask yourself: Is my crit damage high enough to sacrifice my power for crit chance?

Cuz in my case it is. I am sitting at somewhere around 40% Crit Chance with 100% Extra Crit Damage so more Crit Chance with whatever is welcome, however if your crit damage is not high enough, I would stick with Power

Again this is completely dependable on your build. If you rely on vigor generation, empowering might and other critical dependent skills, go for prec. Personally I have 39% crit chance and 1920 power. I’m pretty happy with it since you will also gain fury from SY. That’s +20% more.

Like others have said, all about the build. If you run sigils that proc on crits, consider upping your precision to around 50%.

Right now the easiest way to make that call is to go to gw2buildcraft and compare the effective power between the two sets. Then, calculate how many additional Might stacks you would get from the higher crit chance, and compare the additional effective power to how much more might you are getting. That should tell you what you need to know.

Please be careful when using that site. It still bugs on me from time to time.

I’d rather not disclose my build, for personal reason of course. But really, you can tell a lot about my build just from the first post. Empowering might and Strength depend on crit chance, which is why I’d like higher crit chance. Vigor regen is not a factor imo since it has such a high CD anyways.

I’ve been using the gw2buildcraft calc for awhile now. Actually been using it since it was released. Awesome tool too btw! What’s really funny is that my effective power is higher with the extra 6% crit chance instead of the extra 60 power!

6% crit chance equals to 126 precision. Why are you comparing 126 precision to 60 power?

Again, think of your Critical Damage. If it’s high enough, then it’s worth it, if not, then dont bother xD

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

What’s really funny is that my effective power is higher with the extra 6% crit chance instead of the extra 60 power!

Which isnt that surprising tbh.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Critical_hit

Ex: If you have 3k attack then 60 power corresponds to 2%. An increase of 5% crit chance will be better if you have 0% crit damage or higher. The more crit damage you have the better crits become as a dps increaser. In wvw I run with 3k attack, 95% crit damage, and 50% crit chance. At those levels a 1% increase in crit chance corresponds to almost 1,3% increase in dps. So for me 6% crit chance corresponds to about 240 power, so its 240 power versus 126 precision. If i done the math correct, drinking beer and watching ice hockey.

So the statement that power is better isnt absolute even though a great guideline, it depends on what you have invested in previously and also what you can invest in next.

But on topic, besides having decent crit chance for vigor and EM i find high crit chance to make dps more predictable, especially with skills like mb, with lots of power/crit damage and low crit chance you might be doing great dps versus bosses but in pvp controlled burst or predictability in dps is king.

Brutaly.6257:

Ex: If you have 3k attack then 60 power corresponds to 2%. An increase of 5% crit chance will be better if you have 0% crit damage or higher. The more crit damage you have the better crits become as a dps increaser. In wvw I run with 3k attack, 95% crit damage, and 50% crit chance. At those levels a 1% increase in crit chance corresponds to almost 1,3% increase in dps. So for me 6% crit chance corresponds to about 240 power, so its 240 power versus 126 precision. If i done the math correct, drinking beer and watching ice hockey.

With 3k attack, 95% crit damage and 50% crit chance, 6% more critical chance (126 precision) equals to ~101 power, not 240. No idea how you ended up with that number.

w/o any real boon duration, EM is only going to give you 3-4 stacks of might on average.

This trait is sooo overvalued it’s insane, unless you’re running AH.

If not, go w/ something else. Srsly.

Amins.3710:

w/o any real boon duration, EM is only going to give you 3-4 stacks of might on average.

This trait is sooo overvalued it’s insane, unless you’re running AH.

If not, go w/ something else. Srsly.

Let’s just assume I have a lot of bd.

haviz.1340:

Brutaly.6257:

Ex: If you have 3k attack then 60 power corresponds to 2%. An increase of 5% crit chance will be better if you have 0% crit damage or higher. The more crit damage you have the better crits become as a dps increaser. In wvw I run with 3k attack, 95% crit damage, and 50% crit chance. At those levels a 1% increase in crit chance corresponds to almost 1,3% increase in dps. So for me 6% crit chance corresponds to about 240 power, so its 240 power versus 126 precision. If i done the math correct, drinking beer and watching ice hockey.

With 3k attack, 95% crit damage and 50% crit chance, 6% more critical chance (126 precision) equals to ~101 power, not 240. No idea how you ended up with that number.

Frankly nor have I, its a lot of stuff in that post that doesnt make any sense what so ever. Was just plastered when i jolted down those numbers which reminds me of why i try to stay away from the computer when partying.

The point was though that there is a threshold (combination of power and crit damage) when precision becomes more worth for overall dps.

In pve its pretty straight forward since long encounters in dungeons are the norm but in pvp crit chance has other functions than just increasing overall dps.

I remember we did the math on this forum a couple of months ago and what we found is that power is pretty much always better than precision for raw damage.
Given a fixed critical damage, the higher your critical chance is the better is to invest additional stats in power. I seem to remeber that with 100% critical damage you get the best raw damage with critical chance at 25% and everything else in power. Or something like that.

Obviously 6% critical chance will be pretty much always better than 60 power, but why compare 126 precision vs 60 power?

if you have 2k power you need 100 more to increase dps with 5%

If you have 55% crit damage you need 99 precision to increase damage with 5%

If you have 80% crit damage you need 80 precision to increase damage with 5%

So precision can be better when:
1. You have high crit damage.
2. You have lots of power.
3. When you combine high power and crit damage.

Or have i missed out on something?

Brutaly.6257:

if you have 2k power you need 100 more to increase dps with 5%

If you have 55% crit damage you need 99 precision to increase damage with 5%

If you have 80% crit damage you need 80 precision to increase damage with 5%

So precision can be better when:
1. You have high crit damage.
2. You have lots of power.
3. When you combine high power and crit damage.

Or have i missed out on something?

Not a bad train of thought to be honest. Having a good / high power base is important just so that your base damage when you crit will already be pretty high considering that a crit with no damage bonus is 150% of your base attack. I personally have 3.3k total attack (I forget the power amount exactly atm), 55% crit damage bonus, and using maintenance oils run nearly 30% crit chance. So my crits (depending on who I’m fightinging) are anywhere between a consistant low of 2k to my highest being 9k. I am planning on getting the berserker/valkyrie ascended accessory to complete my ascended jewelery acquisition on my Guardian, so these figures will change quite a bit once I get it.

Brutaly.6257:

if you have 2k power you need 100 more to increase dps with 5%

If you have 55% crit damage you need 99 precision to increase damage with 5%

If you have 80% crit damage you need 80 precision to increase damage with 5%

So precision can be better when:
1. You have high crit damage.
2. You have lots of power.
3. When you combine high power and crit damage.

Or have i missed out on something?

You have. Your calculations are 100% correctly under assumption that you’re current crit chance is 0% (which is impossible).

Basically, what you seek is Jacobian which will point directions of increases. Magnitude of those directions are rates of increases. Partial derivatives with respects to power and precison could be simplified to:

∂f/∂Pwr = 1 + (Prec-828)/2100*CritDmg

∂f/∂Prec= Pwr/2100*CritDmg

As you can see, gradient of power is always equals or greater than 1, unlike gradient of precision.

A simple example in the case haviz’s approach is too abstract.

We have 2k power, 40% critical chance and 80% critical damage.
So our damage is:
1+0,4*1,3=1,52
We add 100 power, the damage increases by 5%, so we go to:
1,52*1,05=1,596
How much precision do we need to get the same result?
We have to increase critical chance by x, so that:
1+(0,4+x)*1,3=1,596
If we solve the simple equation we find that x=5,85%, so we need 122,85 precision.

While math can be fun, let’s not also forget about the other benefits to crit chance: the boons you can potentially get. In particular, the two boon givers mentioned in the above post, or simply put, might stacking.

Now with my current build, and crit chance of 31%, I’ve never been able to get 25 stacks of might solo, unless I use staff#4. This is also assuming a high boon duration, which I think is key to might stacking. That being said, I don’t normally use staff in combat situations.

Further I feel that I’m losing out on might stacks due to not critting every 2 seconds (the cd from Strength sigil).

I guess then at this time, does the loss of 60 power = the potential might stacks I could be getting? Let’s also leave out the AH factor, unless it applies to you personally. I don’t use AH, even in grouping. Let’s also think mostly about boss situations in PvE since trash mobs aren’t really a factor imo, but don’t exclude WvW either.

With such low crit chance it’s often better to equip different sigil.

haviz.1340:

With such low crit chance it’s often better to equip different sigil.

So what do you think then would be a good crit chance % to warrant the use of Strength?

It depends on your additional boon duration and how many mobs/players are you attacking at the same time. But honestly, if you just want to use sigil of strength, sigil of force is often much better.

With all due respect haviz, did you read any of the above replies I’ve made? I’ve already put a few assumptions out there that answer those depending factors.

Let’s assume I have a LOT of boon duration, forget trash mobs, and concentrate on bosses. Let’s also assume 1v 1/2/3 only in WvW (albeit, I didn’t put that out there).

What exactly are you trading out in your build that is causing you to lose power for crit chance? Gear? Traits?

0/5/30/30/5
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUMQNAR7elYgqCnFyvDfIFRuAbBYPwYGh/1DHSRGC

Altruistic Healing / Empowering Might Build.

If your looking for DPS
Armor/trinkets – Full Bezerker

If your looking for Survivability
Armor/trinkets – Full Knights

If your looking for the best of Both worlds
Armor – Full Knights
Trinkets – Full Bezerker

Indure.5410:

What exactly are you trading out in your build that is causing you to lose power for crit chance? Gear? Traits?

Gear. My traits will never change* as I’ve found a build that I absolutely love. I’m mainly trying to tweak around my gear to min/max it. I think I’ve got my optimal figured out, but I’ve come up with a crossroads with two gear builds. One with less power but more crit chance, something which I was trying to get more of anyways. The other with more power, but less crit chance. I’m quite familiar with the advantages to either, including the maths Brutality is alluding to. I’m leaning towards adding the extra 6% crit chance, but want to be sure I’m not missing something from my thoughts by the loss of that 60 power.

@Excursion. I’m not really sure why you felt the need to advise me on a build. I’m more than familar with all the builds out there, including unconventionals/unpopulars, and have tested and spent quite a bit of gold testing them. I’ve been playing since release, but I appreciate the thought nonetheless.
Also, that’s not the only gear choices out there.

*assuming the fundamentals to the build don’t get nerfed to crap or there is a drastic change in other trait lines.

If you can exchange 60 power for 6% crit chance (126 precision) why are you even asking? Power is better but not twice better unless you have very low crit dmg.

Calculating effectiveness of sigil of strength is a bit troublesome, I don’t see you mentioning what kind of weapon do you use. But let’s assume GS. With +90% might duration while autoattacking just one target you should achieve ~2.3 stacks of might on average. With 38% crit chance its ~2.7 stacks of might. Assuming your current power as 1800 the conclusion is that sigil of force will give you effectively 2.57 stacks of might but that’s under the assumption that you will have no stacks of migth ever (sigil of force effectiveness increases with adding more stacks of might). Effectiveness of sigil of strength will increase with fast attacking skills like Whirling Wrath (because you have low crit chance).

haviz.1340:

If you can exchange 60 power for 6% crit chance (126 precision) why are you even asking? Power is better but not twice better unless you have very low crit dmg.

Calculating effectiveness of sigil of strength is a bit troublesome, I don’t see you mentioning what kind of weapon do you use. But let’s assume GS. With +90% might duration while autoattacking just one target you should achieve ~2.3 stacks of might on average. With 38% crit chance its ~2.7 stacks of might. Assuming your current power as 1800 the conclusion is that sigil of force will give you effectively 2.57 stacks of might but that’s under the assumption that you will have no stacks of migth ever (sigil of force effectiveness increases with adding more stacks of might). Effectiveness of sigil of strength will increase with fast attacking skills like Whirling Wrath (because you have low crit chance).

Interesting! If you’re right, considering Whirling Wrath, multiple mobs and Fury (Save Yourselves alone gives a good % uptime) Sigil fo Strength could be a very good choice!

BTW, like said many times no doubt can exist between 60 Power and 6% Critical Chance.

haviz.1340:

If you can exchange 60 power for 6% crit chance (126 precision) why are you even asking? Power is better but not twice better unless you have very low crit dmg.

Calculating effectiveness of sigil of strength is a bit troublesome, I don’t see you mentioning what kind of weapon do you use. But let’s assume GS. With +90% might duration while autoattacking just one target you should achieve ~2.3 stacks of might on average. With 38% crit chance its ~2.7 stacks of might. Assuming your current power as 1800 the conclusion is that sigil of force will give you effectively 2.57 stacks of might but that’s under the assumption that you will have no stacks of migth ever (sigil of force effectiveness increases with adding more stacks of might). Effectiveness of sigil of strength will increase with fast attacking skills like Whirling Wrath (because you have low crit chance).

Codo.2860:

Interesting! If you’re right, considering Whirling Wrath, multiple mobs and Fury (Save Yourselves alone gives a good % uptime) Sigil fo Strength could be a very good choice!

BTW, like said many times no doubt can exist between 60 Power and 6% Critical Chance.

I guess I’m just hesitant to give up that 60 power since it doesn’t rely on chance. It’s always a guaranteed benefit.

Thanks for those two posts, gentlemen. That really puts things in perspective. I’ve done some testing with Strength several times, but seeing the math up there really backs up my conclusions.

Hop on gw2buildcraft and input both setups; compare the outcomes. My input: go with more precision. ~40% is the sweetspot for Guards from my experience. Have you tried food too?

somsom.5201:

Hop on gw2buildcraft and input both setups;
compare the outcomes. My input: go with more precision. ~40% is the sweetspot for Guards from my experience. Have you tried food too?

Thanks for the input nonetheless:

Lonewolf Kai.3682:
I’ve been using the gw2buildcraft calc for awhile now. Actually been using it since it was released. Awesome tool too btw!

Yes, food and tools are factored into my build. I also agree about having +40%.

Generally speaking, giving up power is a no-no. A better way to look at your situation is to see how much vit/tough you’re willing to give up for more offense.

Thz.7569:

Generally speaking, giving up power is a no-no. A better way to look at your situation is to see how much vit/tough you’re willing to give up for more offense.

No can do. Vit/tough are exactly where I want them. no more, and definately no less.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Thz.7569:

Generally speaking, giving up power is a no-no. A better way to look at your situation is to see how much vit/tough you’re willing to give up for more offense.

No can do. Vit/tough are exactly where I want them. no more, and definately no less.

Then power will always come out on top.

He wants to exchange 60 power for 126 precision.

Brutaly.6257:

if you have 2k power you need 100 more to increase dps with 5%

If you have 55% crit damage you need 99 precision to increase damage with 5%

If you have 80% crit damage you need 80 precision to increase damage with 5%

So precision can be better when:
1. You have high crit damage.
2. You have lots of power.
3. When you combine high power and crit damage.

Or have i missed out on something?

Remember weakness also. It’s next to useless if you have a lot of crit chance. So that’s a + for prec I guess.

when i changed my build recently i dropped 200 power to gain 2% crit chance and 20% crit damage, since then ive noticed a massive increase in my damage output (crit chance is now 46% and Dmg is 70% ) so in my experience the high dmg of crits over takes power in scaling dmg

According to my math that’s a 12.5% decrease in all damage for what adds up to an extra 9.2% average damage per hit. Overall it’s a loss.

I find keeping Precision and Power as close to even as possible nets me the best results. Currently i sit at 1800 Power, 1793 Precision, 2911 Attack Power, 46% Crit Chance, and 72% Crit damage. I find this to be a decent balance for myself. Im still tweaking it some though as things sit to improve my hp some.

Thanks for the input everyone. I’ve decided to go with the Prec.

Some great points in this discussion, and I applaud everyone that contributed to it.

haviz.1340:

Brutaly.6257:

if you have 2k power you need 100 more to increase dps with 5%

If you have 55% crit damage you need 99 precision to increase damage with 5%

If you have 80% crit damage you need 80 precision to increase damage with 5%

So precision can be better when:
1. You have high crit damage.
2. You have lots of power.
3. When you combine high power and crit damage.

Or have i missed out on something?

You have. Your calculations are 100% correctly under assumption that you’re current crit chance is 0% (which is impossible).

Basically, what you seek is Jacobian which will point directions of increases. Magnitude of those directions are rates of increases. Partial derivatives with respects to power and precison could be simplified to:

∂f/∂Pwr = 1 + (Prec-828)/2100*CritDmg

∂f/∂Prec= Pwr/2100*CritDmg

As you can see, gradient of power is always equals or greater than 1, unlike gradient of precision.

Sorry for necroing this but im been away on work and i find it polite to answer.

I just wanted to say that i now understand how to calculate this, thx for the reply.