Guild Wars 2

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think there is a profession that has any significant anti-crit mechanics (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Critical_hit). Seeing this hole, and in the interests of toughening up a Bunker/Defence Warr, I thought they might be the ideal class for such a mechanic.

I see “anti-crit” as perfect for a Warr. By ANets own admission, Warrs are intended to be weak against Conditions. So in contrast we should be tougher against Direct Damage or Burst, the biggest source being Crits.

So not only does an Anti-Crit Warr become a Burst/Crit Builds hard counter, but it makes Condition Damage builds more attractive as a counter to the Anti-Crit Warr.

To demonstrate with examples, a few ways to do it:

1) Add Traits like “When you suffer a critical hit, you gain <insert effect here>”
2) Traited Toughness reduces enemies Crit Chance. This does also nerf “on crit” effects of sigils etc as well
3) Traited Toughness reduces enemies Crit Damage.

Just examples, there would be plenty more ways to do it.

Now I will add, that having played a Rogue and Mage in WoW I loathed the Resilience stat, but that was more annoying because it spanned all classes in PvP. I admit too my current main is a Warr. But the difference here is it doesn’t completely screw over all Crit Builds because they still all the other Professions and GC Warrs to be effective against. I would still loathe an Item based stat, Crits builds do need to exist and be awesome.

I loathed Resilience stat also, it just wasn’t a fun mechanic

All the 100%(or close) crit builds I’ve seen made me think of a debuff/condition. Basically like weakness except normal hits are normal and crits are 50% normal dmg. Weakness is nice but with builds like that, it barely does anything. Maybe they can put in a trait for warrior that switches regular weakness with that.

also, grandmaster trait in defense is spiked armour. 5sec retaliation when crit(15sec cd)

A “Critical Weakness” condition could be the answer. And yeah normal Weakness does little to nothing against a high crit build, so its a weak condition.

Without any sort of burst healing (except Healing Surge), we’re not going to tank anything of the sort.

More like.. Tank Warriors should still deal DPS (like.. buff armored attack and give tactics the same concept) except way lesser than a glass cannon but within reason to not be a Guardian duplicate.

Anti-crit is a dumb concept because how is that not different from a Guard? Warrior is supposed to be aggressive and Guards are more passive.

Need sustain really to bunker in this game, more so than damage reduction.

There really should be some sort of life-leech trait (it can either scale off of damage, or just a flat amount per hit). That way you get sustain but still are an “aggressive tank”.

Meh, there is alot of holes atm for trying to bunker with a warrior, more fixes are needed for that compared to a roamer glass cannon warrior. I don’t see them fixing this any time soon, since they haven’t even acknowledged the core problems really.

Palinois.1064:

All the 100%(or close) crit builds I’ve seen made me think of a debuff/condition. Basically like weakness except normal hits are normal and crits are 50% normal dmg. Weakness is nice but with builds like that, it barely does anything. Maybe they can put in a trait for warrior that switches regular weakness with that.

also, grandmaster trait in defense is spiked armour. 5sec retaliation when crit(15sec cd)

If you have 100% crit chance and want to deal damage it means you need to be a glass cannon. You don’t need any conditions apart from immobilize ( for melee attackers ) to counter that, CC ( stun, knockdown, daze, fear, knockback ) is the one that you need with also dodging at the right times. These builds throw out big chunks of damage but they can be killed extremely fast even with a tankier build. Shield is one of the best counters for these kind of builds as it will give you immunity for 3s, 1s stun to get the glass cannon off the flow ( these builds usually work on comboing skills and even a 1 sec stun with dodge after will mess their sequence ) and 90 more thoughness ( if traited ).

Tank warriors seperate themselves from guardians by dealing more damage where as the guardians heal and support a lot more ( which makes them the tankiest profession in the game ). Together they can be an unstoppable front line.

There’s no point being an “aggressive tank” if the damage is still less than special and mobility is bad. Agree that a life-leech trait best fits the concept, but that really has Necromancer flavour all over it.

Possibly for Warr, more and/or improved Retaliation could be an option?

I use GS and axe + shield as an aggressive tank. The GS provides the mobility I need but the weakness for conditions by nature is hitting quite hard. Note that dual melee setup is quite bad in sPvP ( I focus on wvw and dungeons, using rifle instead of GS in dungeons). I wouldn’t say it’s not worth it as I hit from 700 to over 1000 with my axe critting with every 2nd attack on avarage, while having over 3000 armor and bursting for 4 to 6 k on one target making my build really nice in zerg playing or group roaming.

“anti-crit” mechanics are stupid because crit is just damage.

The only issue with tank warriors is that the trait lines for it are kind of weak.

I think this is actually a pretty smart idea. I could see a trait or two giving a percentage damage reduction to incoming critical hits, though for the sake of balance I doubt it would be high enough to make a significant difference.

I could definitely see a trait or two combined/created to address Warrior options for direct damage. It’s not ‘stupid’ to add diversity to builds and a Warrior one specifically designed to counter direct damage sounds exactly like a warrior tactic.

Something like “Crits received daze the source”. You still take the damage, it just won’t be fast-spam crits down you in an instant and channeled crit abilities are directly countered.

A trait where “Having a Shield equipped automatically blocks 1 critical hit (cooldown 45sec)” would cull the initial nuker who readied his best attack an initiates with his strongest burst.

A stat is probably out but perhaps a unikittenfect like Mesmer has Distortion, tied to Adrenaline where if you activate your adrenaline bar (maybe with F2) critical hits are reverted to normal hits but costs Adrenaline per hit (crit or regular).

Leo G.4501:

I could definitely see a trait or two combined/created to address Warrior options for direct damage. It’s not ‘stupid’ to add diversity to builds and a Warrior one specifically designed to counter direct damage sounds exactly like a warrior tactic.

It’s stupid to make “anti-crit” mechanics because crit is just direct damage.

It’s smarter to make new mechanics to help mitigate direct damage in general because the current mechanics for that are lacking.

Specifying crit is the stupid part. Crit is not a special form of damage. It is simply damage.

And sure there are things that proc off it, but if you add mechanics that counter crits then those mechanics become niche. They are super effective against people who happen to have on-crit sigils or traits, and not as effective against people who choose straight stats or other sigils. I don’t see how that would be helpful to the warrior overall. We need things that are consistently good and worth speccing into in the defensive traits. Not situational things.

Not to mention this idea is too much of a Guardian duplicate. Need something that makes Warriors unique such as “damage per survivability” or maybe even life steal.

So far armored attack needs to be buffed to 10%-15% and tactics needs something similar.

It’ll be balanced because you’d have low critical rate anyways to even have outrageous DPS while actually being able to “tank” or at least soak aggro.

Khristophoros.7194:

Leo G.4501:

I could definitely see a trait or two combined/created to address Warrior options for direct damage. It’s not ‘stupid’ to add diversity to builds and a Warrior one specifically designed to counter direct damage sounds exactly like a warrior tactic.

It’s stupid to make “anti-crit” mechanics because crit is just direct damage.

It’s smarter to make new mechanics to help mitigate direct damage in general because the current mechanics for that are lacking.

Specifying crit is the stupid part. Crit is not a special form of damage. It is simply damage.

Well, it’s damage that has special stats for it (percision and %critical damage) as well as mechanics specifically aimed at crits (on-crit effects).

It’s not just damage. It’s damage that has stats and mechanics tied to it. And as the rest of my post mentions, an ‘anti-crit’ doesn’t specifically have to be ‘take less damage from them’ but could have some sort of countering mechanic.

Think of it like how you have effects and sigils that have a % chance to trigger and then the ones that have a % chance to trigger on crits. We already have runes and effects that have a % chance to trigger when struck (Rune of the Monk, for instance) and abilities that have a % chance to trigger when struck by a critical hit (Spiked Armor). Now you just need a few more of those types of traits/utilities that aren’t weak and more defensive.

Go for Furious Reaction and Spiked Armor? Those traits should help you punish those heartseeker spammers and Endure Pain works like a dream, it just needs to have its cd dropped by about 25 % or 20%

Making too much of that " Anti-Crit " mechanism will just break the game as protection and retaliation works together like a beast ( or high thoughness and retaliation)

Leo G.4501:

Khristophoros.7194:

Leo G.4501:

I could definitely see a trait or two combined/created to address Warrior options for direct damage. It’s not ‘stupid’ to add diversity to builds and a Warrior one specifically designed to counter direct damage sounds exactly like a warrior tactic.

It’s stupid to make “anti-crit” mechanics because crit is just direct damage.

It’s smarter to make new mechanics to help mitigate direct damage in general because the current mechanics for that are lacking.

Specifying crit is the stupid part. Crit is not a special form of damage. It is simply damage.

Well, it’s damage that has special stats for it (percision and %critical damage) as well as mechanics specifically aimed at crits (on-crit effects).

It’s not just damage. It’s damage that has stats and mechanics tied to it. And as the rest of my post mentions, an ‘anti-crit’ doesn’t specifically have to be ‘take less damage from them’ but could have some sort of countering mechanic.

Think of it like how you have effects and sigils that have a % chance to trigger and then the ones that have a % chance to trigger on crits. We already have runes and effects that have a % chance to trigger when struck (Rune of the Monk, for instance) and abilities that have a % chance to trigger when struck by a critical hit (Spiked Armor). Now you just need a few more of those types of traits/utilities that aren’t weak and more defensive.

You can’t choose your opponents, so why would you want something that counters specific things like on-crit sigils and on-crit traits?

Also, we have no idea what crit chance monsters have so who knows how useful such traits would be for dungeons.

I just want a solid reason to spec in the defensive traits like… take less damage. :|

My hammer warrior with full soldier’s gear and 30/0/30/0/10 shrugs off crits easily in WvW. You should try it.

Khristophoros.7194:

You can’t choose your opponents, so why would you want something that counters specific things like on-crit sigils and on-crit traits?

I think you completely missed the point and you’re on a completely unrelated subjects. I never suggested the topic’s idea to specifically counter on-crit sigils/traits. I said it could work like on-crit sigils/traits since they do exist.

And if such a change were made, you would be taking less damage.

Also, if mobs’ crit rate is very low, you can always adjust them. Make it so they have a decent crit chance while also lowering their damage to break even. Suddenly, everyone’s taking a bit less damage (since a mob would need to crit to get as much damage as they do now…although the weaken condition might not be as powerful against them) and now you have room to add more crit-taken traits across the board for more dynamic play.

The biggest effect would be on PvP though since that’s where you encounter high crit chance and damage along with its plethora of extra effects.

You do realize how big change this would be to the game? All the dungeons ( and mobs in the game ) should be re-worked and I do not want to give those knights in TA a chanse to crit (you know what I mean if you have run the exp paths).

Critical hits do immunities and blocks even more useful as more damage you avoid the better time to use them.

I really think adding a mechanic to counter crits any special way is not the way to go as ANet should then re design the whole game. Reflection works too good against projectiles ( I love those pistol pistol thieves instakilling themselves ) and melee crits shouldn’t be a problem as melee is easily avoided with immobilize and cc.

DarnDevil IV.2143:

You do realize how big change this would be to the game? All the dungeons ( and mobs in the game ) should be re-worked and I do not want to give those knights in TA a chanse to crit (you know what I mean if you have run the exp paths).

Critical hits do immunities and blocks even more useful as more damage you avoid the better time to use them.

I really think adding a mechanic to counter crits any special way is not the way to go as ANet should then re design the whole game. Reflection works too good against projectiles ( I love those pistol pistol thieves instakilling themselves ) and melee crits shouldn’t be a problem as melee is easily avoided with immobilize and cc.

Not very big change.

Anti-crit is niche. No one would bother bringing these traits.

DarnDevil IV.2143:

Go for Furious Reaction and Spiked Armor? Those traits should help you punish those heartseeker spammers and Endure Pain works like a dream, it just needs to have its cd dropped by about 25 % or 20%

Making too much of that " Anti-Crit " mechanism will just break the game as protection and retaliation works together like a beast ( or high thoughness and retaliation)

Those traits are a good example of the concept. But Furious Reaction is just too weak. And Spiked Armour could do with either more a powerful Retaliation (special stacking effect maybe?) to make it a real deterance or add in Protection as well.

runeblade.7514:

Not very big change.

Anti-crit is niche. No one would bother bringing these traits.

(Almost?) every Burst damage build is about Crit and Crit Damage. Its not niche, its a logical counter, but the mechanic simply doesnt exist in GW2 in any meaningful way.

Khristophoros.7194:

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I just want a solid reason to spec in the defensive traits like… take less damage. :|

Crit builds are getting double damage and near 100% crit rates. Having traits around Enemy Crits could obviously make you take less damage.

DarnDevil IV.2143:

You do realize how big change this would be to the game? All the dungeons ( and mobs in the game ) should be re-worked …..

Forget about PvE, I was talking PvP/WvW. Sorry if I wasnt explicit in my OP.

Heck for all I care the current +0.1…3% Burst damage from Discipline could be replaced with +1…30% critical damage resistance (-1…30% critical damage received). I like the general idea of warrior being more resistent to direct damage than other classes (including Guardian), be it through traits or some other odd way.

Leo G.4501:

Khristophoros.7194:

You can’t choose your opponents, so why would you want something that counters specific things like on-crit sigils and on-crit traits?

I think you completely missed the point and you’re on a completely unrelated subjects. I never suggested the topic’s idea to specifically counter on-crit sigils/traits. I said it could work like on-crit sigils/traits since they do exist.

And if such a change were made, you would be taking less damage.

Also, if mobs’ crit rate is very low, you can always adjust them. Make it so they have a decent crit chance while also lowering their damage to break even. Suddenly, everyone’s taking a bit less damage (since a mob would need to crit to get as much damage as they do now…although the weaken condition might not be as powerful against them) and now you have room to add more crit-taken traits across the board for more dynamic play.

The biggest effect would be on PvP though since that’s where you encounter high crit chance and damage along with its plethora of extra effects.

So what exactly is the reason to do this instead of just damage reduction or some general defensive thing that doesn’t depend on crits?

What about anti-crit is good exactly? It’s a random chance that varies from opponent to opponent. Why ever would I want my defense to be based on that?

Trump.9803:

runeblade.7514:

Not very big change.

Anti-crit is niche. No one would bother bringing these traits.

(Almost?) every Burst damage build is about Crit and Crit Damage. Its not niche, its a logical counter, but the mechanic simply doesnt exist in GW2 in any meaningful way.

Khristophoros.7194:

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I just want a solid reason to spec in the defensive traits like… take less damage. :|

Crit builds are getting double damage and near 100% crit rates. Having traits around Enemy Crits could obviously make you take less damage.

If you are against an opponent with 100% crit chanse and they are doing big damage use endure pain and go through one full axe autoattack chain and throw an evicerate after that and you have succesfully downed a player.

5 seconds immunity to direct damage while being able to attack = all you need to kill a glass cannon

Khristophoros.7194:

So what exactly is the reason to do this instead of just damage reduction or some general defensive thing that doesn’t depend on crits?

What about anti-crit is good exactly? It’s a random chance that varies from opponent to opponent. Why ever would I want my defense to be based on that?

The question is, why not? It’s not like the OP said to implement the idea, forgo all other defensive options for Warrior or replace defensive traits to focus on ‘anti-crit’ as a build spec. Ideally, you’d want to shore up mitigation and supplement it with something like this. Guardians are tough just because they heal all the time, but because they have the toughness and condition removal to back those heals.

I agree that the current setup, where nothing stops crit but easy cleansing stops condition damage and weakness harms only those who don’t go for high crit… is madness. Maybe we’re desensitized because it’s been that way for months now, but can anyone explain from a game design standpoint how it makes sense to have it that way?

People stacked resilience in wow and hated it, but they did it anyway, because it was useful. What we have here is a bizarro-world anti-resilience, which no one really pays attention to because of its worthlessness in every place that matters.

However, I don’t think that making anti-crit a warrior exclusive is the answer. I don’t agree that it logically follows from the warrior design philosophy, and if it must be class-specific I should think that any of the condition classes would be a better choice.

The easiest and smartest way to do it would be to make fumble convert some percentage of crits into regular attacks in addition to its normal function. 50% might be too great a percentage.

I just don’t understand the idea as warriors are naturally good against direct damage and conditions are their weakness if not going for shout spec with soldier runes.

By having a mechanic that would reduce the damage from crits would make the tankiest builds in this game survive for hours ( mainly bunker ele and guardians )imo, which is not fun at all. After all you want to make some kind of progress in fights to have a some kind of result before you need to go to sleep.

As for me I play heavy armored dps build and try to out damage my opponents whenever I happen to feel like playing with my 80 charr warr.

DarnDevil IV.2143:

I just don’t understand the idea as warriors are naturally good against direct damage and conditions are their weakness if not going for shout spec with soldier runes.

Or Mending & a warhorn with Quick Breathing. I worked out I can cure just under 15 conditions per minute (and 10 per minute for those around me)… the only time I can’t cope is when there’s multiple enemies repeatedly throwing conditions on me as soon as i cure them, but then which class can cope with that?