Guild Wars 2

[quote=3819911;Nerelith.7360 I want to again express…. and if anyone has read My posts they know, I applaud the nerf to critical damage, I do think that " serker’s and zerg" is a Horrid meta for gw2.

But OP has a point. The nerf to critical damage does affect other gear sets more….
[/quote]

I am a little unclear on this statement. Anyone who doesn’t like the current zerker meta should be against this change, as it decreases the damage output more for hybrid and other builds that go less into full zerker gear. Try the exercise with a build that went for just berserker trinkets to bolster damage, or ruby jewels, or trait lines that bolster crit damage and you will see that they lose proportionally more of their damage. An ascended armor set, however, loses only the equivalent of 20 points in the new ferocity stat. For builds that started with less damage to begin with, this puts them even further behind compared to the full berserker geared builds.

I can’t agree with those who state that this change can’t be called a failure because it hasn’t gone into effect yet. It inhibits build diversity, which is the very thing it was stated to be designed to enhance.

DeceiverX.8361:

People QQ’ing about berserker viability don’t understand the subject. Refer to crit builds for the problems at hand. Ferocity changes nerf precision/crit builds more than power ones. It affects some classes harder than others.

So no, the damage nerf doesn’t solve anything. Berserker will still be the best dungeon set. It will still remain the dungeon meta. Nothing will change except dungeon speed in the all-berserker parties. 10% is already a big number. People are going to be even less-inclined to invite other people of other builds, now.

Agreed. Other builds starting with less dps than full berserker already are going to lose 15%+ of their damage, as demonstrated earlier in the thread. Berserker is becoming relatively more attractive from this change, not less. So yes, ferocity fundamentally fails to do what the developers claim is its design: to promote build diversity.

Chanra.3561:

Guys…..It’s mainly critical damage through your traits that is being nerfed, the armour sets are staying relatively the same as they were before with only slight decreases in damage output.

At the moment you can gain a total of 30% critical damage through your traits but after the update the total will be exactly 20% critical damage. Zerker build will still be as viable as ever and I do not understand why this post has been so negative towards it.

It’s the trinkets that are actually being hit the hardest, going from 44% crit damage for the set to 25% (with one point of ferocity left over). That is a decrease of 19%, or over 40% of the total. Therein lies the rub, those who invested some in critical damage but not completely get hurt the worst by this change to ferocity, not the much-maligned berserkers.

The numbers were provided by Anet in the post on critical damage. They even showed the impact on a set of runes.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/learn-about-critical-damage-changes/

15 points of ferocity to 1 percent critical damage is the working ratio.

This seems to keep getting derailed into discussions of full berserker setups. The whole point, which has been detailed very neatly and mathematically by DeceiverX and others, is that full berserker is not hit as hard as other gear setups with the switch to ferocity. Thus, the change to ferocity has fundamentally “failed” already in that it doesn’t do what it was designed to do. It makes berserker actually more attractive by crippling other builds worse, relatively speaking. That fosters less build diversity, not more.

Excellent post. The first assertion is unassailable. Full berserker builds do not get hit as hard by the impending change to ferocity as other damage or hybrid based builds. I concur that this will limit build diversity by making people gravitate away from builds that get hit harder and don’t have as much damage to begin with.

The reason lies in the well-explored fact that some gear offers a better tradeoff on critical damage for other stats. Those who went for full berserker gear took a less favorable exchange on armor pieces in particular, in order to squeeze out just a bit more damage. With a full set of berserker trinkets, you would gain 44% critical damage, currently. With the change to ferocity as a minor stat you would get 376 ferocity coming to 25% critical damage. A full set of ascended armor, on the other hand, currently gets you 17% critical damage and will instead offer 235 ferocity, 15% critical damage. So the net result is that if you invested in any berserker gear, then the more you invested, the smaller percentage of your critical damage and thus total damage you will lose.

I know nothing of “meta”, but can offer an example where the numbers come out rather easily. I have a warrior with 30 in the precision and 30 in the crit damage trait lines. I finally completed a set of ascended knight weapons and armor, except the leggings which are assassin. I went for scholar runes and keep signet of fury. To get some crit damage, I have full ascended berserker trinkets and enough precision infusions to bring the precision to 2187 or 65% crit chance. Assume fury and heightened focus, which I can always have up, and the crit chance goes to 100%. My crit damage of 86% will go down to 55%, a loss of over 15% of my total damage output.

Try this exercise with other builds where someone judiciously went for only some gear with critical damage, like ruby orbs/jewels and/or ascended trinkets. The result is the same. Non-maximized damage builds get crushed. To moderate the loss, I and others will have to switch to a more traditional power or berserker build. Thus, build diversity goes down, and no number of gimmicky new traits will change that. Hopefully Anet will see the fatal flaws in this change to ferocity and scrap it. Otherwise, many players who just got their full ascended sets complete will have to decide if starting over is worth it. I’m not sure, myself.