Guild Wars 2

From the stream today: crit damage (being replaced with a stat called ferocity) is going to become the secondary stat (AKA a zerker piece with 90 power, 60 prec and 2% crit damage will now have 60 feroicity instead of crit daamge). Ferocity overall will also be less effective than crit damage because of a different algorithm.

Zerk builds were barely holding on. There was a benefit in that you’d be able to min/max slots because of the way crit damage was rounded, but now that it’s just a stat that’s not possible anymore.

Condi builds still have 50% condi duration from just food. RIP power builds forever and always, anything less than 6v6 will just be condi bunkers all the way down.

EDIT: A lot of you are missing the point. Slap on dire or settlers gear for a condi build: outlast everyone, be insanely tanky while putting out good long term damage. To acheive the same on a power build you have to min/max with crit slots, such as with celestial and on trinket jewels. This won’t be possible next patch, as ferocity will reflect a numerical stat instead of a percentage.

This is potentially nastier than the 10% nerf, as zerkers does a LOT of damage in WvW (Game is balanced around the ~60% or so crit damage found in sPvP, WvW can reach 120% or more).

This stream… This whole game is just going over to condi.

Wait…people used zerkers in WvW? Did they WANT to contribute nothing and be the weakest link?

RyuDragnier.9476:

Wait…people used zerkers in WvW? Did they WANT to contribute nothing and be the weakest link?

Augmenting with Zerker is very popular and works quite well in skill groups, roaming and skirmish. Zergs tend to shy away from it but that is because they don’t run constructed parties most of the time.

Straegen.2938:

RyuDragnier.9476:

Wait…people used zerkers in WvW? Did they WANT to contribute nothing and be the weakest link?

Augmenting with Zerker is very popular and works quite well in skill groups, roaming and skirmish. Zergs tend to shy away from it but that is because they don’t run constructed parties most of the time.

Ding ding ding.

Yeah. I run PVT armor wither zerker everything else and roam as a thief.

WTF.

Crit was always supposed to be a secondary stat anyway. What they did mostly was nerf all the armor parts and trinkets that due to the rounding issues on crit damage had a lot more stat allocation than they should. Which results in a loss of 10 points of crit damage from maxed gear.

It also opens the way for a stat set with crit damage major I suppose :p

stof.9341:

Crit was always supposed to be a secondary stat anyway. What they did mostly was nerf all the armor parts and trinkets that due to the rounding issues on crit damage had a lot more stat allocation than they should. Which results in a loss of 10 points of crit damage from maxed gear.

It also opens the way for a stat set with crit damage major I suppose :p

I am curios if that is 10 percent off total damage or 10 percent of crit damage. Two very different things on a lot of builds. It will obviously have an effect but my guess this change was likely driven because it is difficult to see changes between tiers of armor. The 10 percent adjustment was likely to bring WvW damage more in line with sPvP damage.

My take on it: they’re normalizing the differences between different armor/trinket pieces and reducing the overall damage output by 10%, but this gives more allocation to berserker armor with the spreading of the stats, and means that anyone running berserker armor with defensive trinkets will actually experience a slight DPS increase.

I wonder…… Will we now get Infusions with +5 Ferocity?

What about berzerker necros?

The best warriors roam in pure zerker. Not everybody zergs.

Sucks for people that made ascendeds. This sort of wild nerfing is why I am not even going to make ascended armor. On a whim, the entire set could become useless.

They had this “big thing” they couldn’t talk about that they said would explain a lot of the decisions they announced. The market is betting it’s Ascended Trinkets.

PvP in GW1 became all about degen builds and hexes for the final years of the game. Is it really any surprise that the lazy balance philosophy is being carried over to this iteration?

Everything is going to be conditions and removing conditions now. All hail the necro/Guardian/Warrior era (for those of you who aren’t already there).

I’m impressed. They managed to find a way to make this game even LESS esports-viable than it was before.

Passive gameplay, for the win.

This pretty much kills all power based roaming builds in wvw, where conditions where already king of all.
Instead of adressing the actual problem (mobs/pve mechanisms), they wreck crit dmg.
Ppl will still run zerker in pve, it doesn’t change a kitten thing.
Once again wvw get’s shafted cause of pve scrubs crybabies.

Chris.3290:

All hail the necro/Guardian/Warrior era (for those of you who aren’t already there).

FYI: “Dhuumfire changed to make only Life Blast apply 3 sec burning with 10 sec cd”
This means most cond burst build are kaput (engi and ranger do it better, hell even warrior out does necro) and with this crit nerf all power builds get gutted even more. Guess necro just has to roll over and play dead when enemy is sighted.

How much would this effect a hybrid build?

Say you’re a mesmer and your stats are;

Attack: 2947
Crit chance: 42% no fury
Condition: 1401
Crit damage: 71%
No might.

How effective would the build still be taking into account that if someone has too much condi removal I usually have to rely on my zerk weapons and side of the build to effectively bring someone down.

sephiroth.4217:

How much would this effect a hybrid build?

Say you’re a mesmer and your stats are;

Attack: 2947
Crit chance: 42% no fury
Condition: 1401
Crit damage: 71%
No might.

How effective would the build still be taking into account that if someone has too much condi removal I usually have to rely on my zerk weapons and side of the build to effectively bring someone down.

This is going to hit hybrid builds which rely on crit being rounded wrong pretty hard. It’ll be like running hybrid builds in PvP – crit damage is allocated the same as any other stat, meaning you’ll just have as much crit damage as you would healing power or something like that as an alternative, if that makes any sense.

That being said, hybrid mesmers are pretty good in PvP so you should still be fine.

Brb, leveling my condi engineer.

Power based roamers will always exists in wvw, imo their deaths are an exaggeration. The more people that spec into conditions, the more frequent players will carry runes of melandru, automated response, diamond skin etc. And if the codition users want to kill then they will always have to have power in their build. Condition builds will always have to live with the fact that they can be hard countered, something power builds don’t have to worry about. Aka hard counters give more incentive to play power over conditions

Penguin.5197:

Power based roamers will always exists in wvw, imo their deaths are an exaggeration. The more people that spec into conditions, the more frequent players will carry runes of melandru, automated response, diamond skin etc. And if the codition users want to kill then they will always have to have power in their build. Condition builds will always have to live with the fact that they can be hard countered, something power builds don’t have to worry about. Aka hard counters give more incentive to play power over conditions

power builds don’t have counter? is this a joke?

weakness, block, invul, dodge…nope not a counter

Cynz.9437:

Penguin.5197:

Power based roamers will always exists in wvw, imo their deaths are an exaggeration. The more people that spec into conditions, the more frequent players will carry runes of melandru, automated response, diamond skin etc. And if the codition users want to kill then they will always have to have power in their build. Condition builds will always have to live with the fact that they can be hard countered, something power builds don’t have to worry about. Aka hard counters give more incentive to play power over conditions

power builds don’t have counter? is this a joke?

weakness, block, invul, dodge…nope not a counter

I said hard counters not just counters. Plus block invul dodge are mechanics that also work work on condi

RyuDragnier.9476:

Wait…people used zerkers in WvW? Did they WANT to contribute nothing and be the weakest link?

Being a zergling is fine, whatever gets you out in the game, but you could at least keep your uninformed opinions to yourself.

I wonder what will happened to my power nacro.
And all my ascended accessories that I just got with hard earned laurals if I have to change build T_T

Glenn.3417:

Once again wvw get’s shafted cause of pve scrubs crybabies.

It’s not their fault, they will probably hate it as much as the rest of us, given that their speed runs or w/e will be slower now.

Still, it’s stupid to give an entire type of pvp build a nerf because they want to change the pve meta. The wvw meta is tank gear+kitten loads of people, or tanky condi/thief for roaming. Did not need a crit damage nerf at all.

I play a Powermancer, and I’m not even concerned a little bit. Maybe people will start thinking about bringing more anti-condi traits/utilities to the table to counter Conditions instead of trying to burst Condi classes down before they die (and if they die, complaining that conditions are “passive play”.

I already carry a metric ton of condi cleanse because I recognize how strong they are regardless.

And to put it in perspective, let’s say a Life Blast crits for 4000 at +100% critical damage. Losing 20% critical damage will put it at 3680, or a loss of 320 damage per hit, which is an 8% damage reduction overall. Even if I lose 10% damage off the top, we’re looking at 3600 LB crits on the same target. If we look at hit counts:

X Y
4000 3600
8000 7200
12000 10800
16000 14400
20000 18000
24000 21600
28000 25200
32000 28800
36000 32400
40000 36000

The thing to consider instead of raw damage for PvP is the # of hits it takes to down them, as you are very plausibly doing more damage than necessary. Basically, if you need to do damage between X_n and Y_n+1, it’s going to take n+1 hits for either amount of damage. This goes until n = 9, where X_n = Y_n+1 and you feel the effects by requiring 1 more cast.

But those damage totals are quite high, and this is just on crits. I only bring 75% crit chance to the table on my Powermancer to opt for a bit more survivability,

So really, I think cleaning up the stat because rounding gives it too much value is a good idea, and I can’t help but not be concerned at all about taking a hit in burst damage.

Penguin.5197:

Cynz.9437:

Penguin.5197:

Power based roamers will always exists in wvw, imo their deaths are an exaggeration. The more people that spec into conditions, the more frequent players will carry runes of melandru, automated response, diamond skin etc. And if the codition users want to kill then they will always have to have power in their build. Condition builds will always have to live with the fact that they can be hard countered, something power builds don’t have to worry about. Aka hard counters give more incentive to play power over conditions

power builds don’t have counter? is this a joke?

weakness, block, invul, dodge…nope not a counter

I said hard counters not just counters. Plus block invul dodge are mechanics that also work work on condi

Weakness, toughness, protection. GL killing some condi semi-bunker before he litters you with condis and whittles you down with 50% condi duration and dire gear…

Glenn.3417:

This pretty much kills all power based roaming builds in wvw, where conditions where already king of all.
Instead of adressing the actual problem (mobs/pve mechanisms), they wreck crit dmg.
Ppl will still run zerker in pve, it doesn’t change a kitten thing.
Once again wvw get’s shafted cause of pve scrubs crybabies.

Chris.3290:

All hail the necro/Guardian/Warrior era (for those of you who aren’t already there).

FYI: “Dhuumfire changed to make only Life Blast apply 3 sec burning with 10 sec cd”
This means most cond burst build are kaput (engi and ranger do it better, hell even warrior out does necro) and with this crit nerf all power builds get gutted even more. Guess necro just has to roll over and play dead when enemy is sighted.

makes me wonder if all the nerds necro received after dumbfire will be reverted (yeah right)

This really doesn’t seem like that big of a deal to me.

dreztina.4820:

This really doesn’t seem like that big of a deal to me.

That’s most likely because you’re a rational human being.

The roaming meta is already tanky condi-builds. This just pushes it more towards that way. Hopefully, they will nerf some of the condi-spam output somehow too.

if PvP becomes more condi damage based (more than it is already), well, I’d be ok with it if certain classes had access to more conditions. Eles and guardians especially.

Cogbyrn.7283:

dreztina.4820:

This really doesn’t seem like that big of a deal to me.

That’s most likely because you’re a rational human being.

Why I check these forums in my spare time continues to allude me. +1 for no big deal.

Writetyper.1985:

From the stream today: crit damage (being replaced with a stat called ferocity) is going to become the secondary stat (AKA a zerker piece with 90 power, 60 prec and 2% crit damage will now have 60 feroicity instead of crit daamge). Ferocity overall will also be less effective than crit damage because of a different algorithm.

Zerk builds were barely holding on. There was a benefit in that you’d be able to min/max slots because of the way crit damage was rounded, but now that it’s just a stat that’s not possible anymore.

Condi builds still have 50% condi duration from just food. RIP power builds forever and always, anything less than 6v6 will just be condi bunkers all the way down.

It’s ogre, Bara. Condi Wars 2 has begun. It’s all ogre, our efforts have been in vain. Let us rest in peace now.

Jaxs.5830:

RyuDragnier.9476:

Wait…people used zerkers in WvW? Did they WANT to contribute nothing and be the weakest link?

Being a zergling is fine, whatever gets you out in the game, but you could at least keep your uninformed opinions to yourself.

I run solo, act as a scout, small man, etc. I do a bit of everything in WvW, it depends mostly on how I feel and if I think I should try taking something solo or with a group.

The few times I’ve seen zerkers, they’re taken care of far too fast and easily. In zerg to zerg combat, I’ve seen zerkers fall (on both my side and the opponent’s) and only serve to rally the opposing forces from their death. In small mans, the zerkers are taken out first just because they’re easy prey. Solo, I’ve beaten a zerker easily. They don’t survive very long at all, and don’t seem to do much damage before taken down.

This btw is from what I’ve seen of my tier of WvW, I’m sorry what I’ve seen does not reflect what you’ve seen.

timidobserver.7925:

Sucks for people that made ascendeds. This sort of wild nerfing is why I am not even going to make ascended armor. On a whim, the entire set could become useless.

I think berserker armor will see a bit of a buff compared to berserker trinkets. It’s the (ascended) trinkets that will take the biggest part of the hit – the ones were picked first for power/crit builds because they had the best return on investment.

sephiroth.4217:

How much would this effect a hybrid build?

There is no way to know beforehand.

Currently the total crit damage is 50% plus what you get from gear. Ferocity will probably get a base, like power and precision, plus what you add from gear and they may start with making it behave like it does currently so that it starts with +50% and ends at about the same for what is on full berserker. But they could make it completely different, say start with 60% and end with 90% max, or start with 30% and end with 120%.

My guess, if they want to make non-Berserker more attractive, is they’d buff the base and nerf the top.

The notes said zerker would not be affected in PvP, but it’s not clear if that means WvW too (?).

I still don’t think anet realizes, or they simply don’t care about how their balance efforts affect WvW. Concerning the trinkets in particular, it’s obvious they were an overlooked mistake stat wise from the beginning that offered too much CD% compared to armor and weapons. It was not an accident that when cavalier was added it was primary toughness, and all valkyrie was not an ascended trinket combo.

So now they finally fix this little mistake and take a dump on anyone who invested time in ascended zerker trinkets, or has a build that’s is borderline in the condi spam dominant meta and won’t work with more stat loss. Guess we’ll find out if it really matters at all, but it makes the devs look even less thoughtful for resisting easier gear stat changes at every turn because it’s SO FUN to re-gear if you have to play an entirely different build after a balance change…

If they just did that and got rid of the condi duration food, wvw roaming would be in a much better state. The CD% has actually needed to be addressed for a long time because it’s been over the top with with thieves in particular.

RIP My freshly made celestial ascended gear :c

zen.6091:

The notes said zerker would not be affected in PvP, but it’s not clear if that means WvW too (?).

I thought they were talking about Wvw. Pvp has far more limited gear choices and buffs.

So now they finally fix this little mistake and take a dump on anyone who invested time in ascended zerker trinkets

The change will give them more handles to tweak. They stated it’s their intention to keep berserker the top damage dealer and they have nothing to gain by making it obsolete.

kek.

Power will still be extremely viable…

Less QQ plox

Good thing is that you don’t have to roam. Try take some keeps or go play sPvP.

Straegen.2938:

RyuDragnier.9476:

Wait…people used zerkers in WvW? Did they WANT to contribute nothing and be the weakest link?

Augmenting with Zerker is very popular and works quite well in skill groups, roaming and skirmish. Zergs tend to shy away from it but that is because they don’t run constructed parties most of the time.

Not to mention that they stated the overall DPS decrease would be ~10% or so…. if we put that into WvW, it means a backstab thief will now “only” hit for 12.2k instead of 13k. Or a killshot warrior “only” hitting 14.2k instead of 15k.
The other professions, such as rangers, guardians, elementalist, engineer and mesmer will still be relatively unaffected as their crit damage applications are less spike and more consistent. Rangers will take a hit to the 23k Maul build, but that build is not very widely used anyway.

I imagine WvW is rather hard to gather data for, but usually you want to steer your game toward an ideal mix of builds rather than one being best. We’ll see where they push it in the future.

frans.8092:

The change will give them more handles to tweak. They stated it’s their intention to keep berserker the top damage dealer and they have nothing to gain by making it obsolete.

It will be top damage dealer by virtue of having 3 offensive stats. Assassin’s and Rampager’s are the other two with all offense and are not usually as high in pure damage output.

The point was it’s possibly a very significant change to the game, and a lot of WvW players use pieces of zerker gear whether they roam or not. I have shoulder / gloves / feet and a 20 laurel amulet with a 20 laurel infusion on my zerg guardian, plus cavalier trinkets that may also be nerfed a bit. The thought that my gear, which I had dialed just to my liking may possibly need to be changed with more gold, laurels, stones, and countless hours wasted again makes me want to throw up a bit. If it was as simple as pressing a button to change stats like sPvP I’d have no problem with it, the game obviously needs balance changes…

The combination of having hard to get/replace gear, entire stat change, pushing to condition damage instead, 10% damage reduction, make this a really kittenty situation. On the other hand it nerfs thieves and their spike damage so I’m all for that :P

But the silver lining is I’m going to assume any gear that have crit damage % on it will be able to choose another stat combination, much like they did with the magic find % gear, unless they’re going to be real kittens and not even allow that.

Xenesis.6389:

The combination of having hard to get/replace gear, entire stat change, pushing to condition damage instead, 10% damage reduction, make this a really kittenty situation. On the other hand it nerfs thieves and their spike damage so I’m all for that :P

But the silver lining is I’m going to assume any gear that have crit damage % on it will be able to choose another stat combination, much like they did with the magic find % gear, unless they’re going to be real kittens and not even allow that.

Why would they do that? It’s not like the crit damage got outright removed from the item.
Back then with MF gear, the problem was that they couldn’t just slap on a rangom stat or leave the gear at 2 stats, so they had to offer the stat change. MF gear was used for a very specific purpose around that time and it could no longer be used for that purpose. This time, however, things are different. Crit damage is not removed, it gets rebalanced… And the gear still serves the exact same purpose(dealing damage) as before.

Times like this I’m glad I run hybrids…

Anyway, the thing with power builds in WvW is that it depends on both the philosophy and the circumstances. For zergs, many people way to run with PVT gear as to avoid being killed or downed by stray enemy fire. This is a defensive philosophy, and it often overlooks the flaws that come with it: in PVT, your stray fire does less damage and is less likely to down someone. A defeated player works as a rez for your own team, so the quicker you can defeat a player, the more quickly you can rez your own team, and the more overall health that gives the zerg.

I personally follow the offensive philosophy: If you get immobilized and run over by a melee train, or if you get focus fired by a small group, you are going to die really quickly no matter what gear you are wearing. By contrast, by having high damage you have a high deterrence rate for being attacked, and make a larger immediate impact on the field. You become less influenced by retaliation and confusion, since you perform more efficient attacks. Hopefully, you’ll be engaging enemies in a position of power (in the train, on the wall, at superior range, etc), where defense is handled by superior positioning and tactics instead of passives.

The problem being that, since I am much squishier, should I find myself in a compromising position, I’m more likely to go down due to ambient damage. Unfortunately it is a tradeoff that works best when assuming Fabian tactics, and always trying to engage at a point of power.

Over reacting much?

Wait and see how it’s gonna turn out.