Guild Wars 2

So with the upcoming change to Crit-Damage/Ferocity I’m left a little awash about what implications it has for the future, in especially in regards to crafting Ascended gear.

In particular I’m unsure about what gear and stats it will promote/demote as multiple lines of reasoning make sense.

PS: For clarification I’m currently assuming Crit-Damage will be roughly 20% lower than it currently is (10% overall damage nerf on a class with 50% crit-chance = 20% nerf to crit-damage).

You could argue:

• Burst damage will be lower, hence fights will last longer, hence survivability will become more important. —-> Stack Valkyrie/Soldier’s gear.

• Burst damage is lower, hence there is less threat to us getting bursted, hence we can stack more offensive gear. —-> Stack more Zerker gear.

• Valkyrie gear + Hidden Killer is getting its primary damage dealer nerfed. Valkyrie is getting nerfed hardest, relatively speaking.

• Berserker gear is harder hit because it crits more often.

• Ferocity will be a bad stat. —-> Soldier’s is where it’s at.

• Or give up on Power damage all together and join the Condition overlords. But try not to fall asleep while doing so.

So what line of reasoning makes most sense to you? How will you go about your gear choices in the future, particularly in WvW?

Hah! Like some changes could ever separate me from my favorite build.
Hopefully the fights will drag on for a little longer now, that would be fun.

Dee Jay.2460:

PS: For clarification I’m currently assuming Crit-Damage will be roughly 20% lower than it currently is (10% overall damage nerf on a class with 50% crit-chance = 20% nerf to crit-damage).

I don’t know that this is a good assumption. The 10% figure given by ANet is for the “most extreme power DPS focused builds”, and 50% crit chance doesn’t qualify for one of those.

So what line of reasoning makes most sense to you? How will you go about your gear choices in the future, particularly in WvW?

Can’t make any decisions until I see what happens with Sigils and Runes in the same patch. The things I am watching for, though:

1. what happens to the stat budget on Celestial-style gear
2. if they are going to add gear with Ferocity as the “primary” stat (potentially a windfall for Hidden Killer)

another thief nerf. period.

thief is the only class that relies on crit dmg as hard as they do. so take away what they rely on…even 10% total dmg. and it makes guards/warriors/eles/engineers defense that much stronger.

Interceptor.2653:

Dee Jay.2460:

PS: For clarification I’m currently assuming Crit-Damage will be roughly 20% lower than it currently is (10% overall damage nerf on a class with 50% crit-chance = 20% nerf to crit-damage).

I don’t know that this is a good assumption. The 10% figure given by ANet is for the “most extreme power DPS focused builds”, and 50% crit chance doesn’t qualify for one of those.

So what line of reasoning makes most sense to you? How will you go about your gear choices in the future, particularly in WvW?

Can’t make any decisions until I see what happens with Sigils and Runes in the same patch. The things I am watching for, though:

1. what happens to the stat budget on Celestial-style gear
2. if they are going to add gear with Ferocity as the “primary” stat (potentially a windfall for Hidden Killer)

Well they spoke of an overall DPS nerf of 10% for the most DPS-focused builds.

Now Berserker gear + Critical Strikes tree will normally put you at around 55% Crit-chance without buffs or traits. The effective crit-chance is actually closer to 70% if you account for various traits and the occasional Fury.

So yes, a 20% reduction of Crit-damage may be slightly excessive but not too unreasonable. Maybe a 15% reduction is closer to reality.

The problem with any other stat-combination aside from Berserkers is that Power is so much better than everything else, by a long shot. So even gear with primary Ferocity won’t be more attractive.

The way I see it, the 10% overall DPS reduction is fine by me since that loss in DPS is automatically applied to Warriors even before I hit them due to the 8% passive healing nerf on their Healing Signet. So relative to Warriors, this is totally balanced since they will also suffer from the Crit-Damage nerf, so relative to Thieves, Thieves just received an improved survivability vs. Warriors — and it’s just about time. However, I’m not sure if that would be enough to force them to activate the signet though.

“•Ferocity will be a bad stat. —→ Soldier’s is where it’s at.”

Im agree with that nobody will take a gear who the ferocity is the principal stats

They should nerf a bit the effect of power on critical attack and i dont know the formule but maybe up the formule of ferocity for it make a real difference when you crit

Then people will have to choose if they want a strong critical attack or a strong normal attack, and this will depends of the critical rate you have (and maybe nerf a bit the critical rate, because if you can get 50% critical rate too easy all people will take ferocity)

Another step for d/d thiefs to use the cheese d/p build? And that’s not a good thing.

Probably quit game all together, that is my take. They bring out ascended armor and then decided to change stats after everyone already invested a lot gold into it. Condi tanks and warriors are dominating wvw and yet they nerf direct dmg, which is huge buff to condis, again. WHY? Why in the world would they do it?

In pve, people will still use full zerker because condis + npcs = does not calculate well. So this will only affect wvw and mostly classes that rely on high crit chance aka thieves, since everyone else runs either pvt or condi tank. So basically this is 10% dmg nerf to hidden killer thieves which will result in longer fights which will result in thieves die more since they can’t kill enemy as fast and have nothing for defensive really. I am guessing we will just see more p/d.

PvE: go roll warrior or don’t bother playing; LS made only t1 servers, if you are not on those might as well not try
WvW: hey, we want you to play condi tank or warrior, enjoy stats nerf
PvP: have fun getting skyhammer 4 times in a row and bunch of 4v5 in soloq because we are too lazy to implement ready button

It is like they trying to force people quit the game.

I will personally wait to see how hard Valkyrie gets hit before I make my decision afterwards, but I’m bracing myself

so when will the changes take place?

I’ve just decided to roll a thief since I could never beat one in game ( the ole if you can’t beat em join em gig) and now they are being nerfed? Lets hope thieves are still gonna be kick butt enuff to be a challenge to defeat and a threat on the field.

Stryker.1863:

so when will the changes take place?

When they fix Last Refuge (aka. never).

Only Crit-Damage will be nerf…

Meaning:

You have 123% Critical damage now
You may see a reduction for about 15%/20% and have 108%/103% with the same gear you have now.

Very little will change

Those of you who have played GW1 or Gw2 a long time – do you think Anet will let us refund Valk or Zerk ascended gear? I spent months on that, anythign with a ferocity stat should get a refund or do-over if it gets nerfed as hard as it sounds like it is getting nerfed.

I wont rage quit but i think i will lose-interest quit if Valk becomes totally crappy.

animalmom.1062:

Those of you who have played GW1 or Gw2 a long time – do you think Anet will let us refund Valk or Zerk ascended gear? I spent months on that, anythign with a ferocity stat should get a refund or do-over if it gets nerfed as hard as it sounds like it is getting nerfed.

I wont rage quit but i think i will lose-interest quit if Valk becomes totally crappy.

It wont become crappy, your crits will just do like 10% less damage

And remenber Magic Find gear?
No refund on that

When I heard about the -10% overall damage on berserker heavy builds I immediately thought about Hidden Killer.

We still don’t know how much crit chance you need to have your total damage output reduced by 10%. If we assume 50% crit chance is the amount they are thinking about when doing calculations, Hidden Killer 0/30/30/10/0 builds will have their total damage reduced by 20%, since they basically only land crit backstabs, which could mean the build won’t survive the change.

That being said, they may be accounting a higher crit chance. For instance, 87% crit chance is another good number to start calculations from since it’s the crit chance a warrior full zerker, 25 Arms, Banner of Discipline, Signet of Fury and Fury reaches and since the damage reduction itself seems to be conceived to address the “only warr, full zerk” issue. In that case, a reduction on Hidden Killer total damage would be around 11%.

People seem to forget that celestial is gonna hit the bodem the hardest of all.

GuildWars.2591:

People seem to forget that celestial is gonna hit the bodem the hardest of all.

Wasn’t there a dev post saying celestial was getting a boost to all its other stats as compensation?

Every time they nerf thief damage (under the guise of nerfing all crit damage) without also nerfing all the regens, protections and heals the enemy has puts thief farther and farther behind the pack and makes them less and less able to actually down anybody EVER in 1v1.

It’s already a “must play perfectly to have any chance at all” profession…

As far as I’m concerned, devs need to stop doing all of this crap behind closed doors and not listening to – or usually even considering – what all the playerbase says unless they say “nerf thief” like so many people always do (because they suck).

The nerfbat needs to hit even harder, to much crit damage in the game way to high crit chance in the game.

Especially since there is way to much AoE in the game even “melee damage” has stupid range an AoE, swords and greatswords cleave for stupid amounts of damage for example.

All the overpowered healing and regeneration was only introduced because of to much crit damage, the game will be better with less crit RNG and more planning beyond: Lucky crit streak? Yes, I win. No, reset and repeat later.

I’m waiting for the balance comes out to see what to do since Anet said there was “good” changes some to thief. Last time “good” changes came to the thief class we had perma stealth nerfed. It was a well deserved nerf but a nerf is a nerf. Maybe thief will actually get a buff :O Positive thinking!

^ The initiative change was a huge buff for a lot of builds. I don’t blame ArenaNet for avoiding this place.

Wow, as if fights weren’t long winded kitten shows as is…

Why nerf crit damage? It makes no sense and literally NOBODY gets any benefit for it outside of Condition builds.

Now stacking toughness/power is going to be a good option for every class. Why play glass cannon when your cannonball is essentially missing?