PvP Mechanics - Critical Resistance & Crit Self Healing
NxJoeyD
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With the onset of subclassing the Crit power creep has gone into orbit. PvP really would benefit from the following adjustments to mechanics:
1) Crit Resistance: The PvP environment clearly does not have enough sources or values of Crit resistance available, period. I’m personally in guilds with players who’s Crit damage modifier is so far above the soft cap that even with 7 pieces of Impen & Rally Cry they’re still outputting at or near the Crit modifier soft cap. This is is game breaking. Some ways we might approach this could be: a) increase the amount of Crit Reist each piece of Impen provides by significant amounts, b) add named Major & Minor buffs that specifically increase Crit resistance.
Personally, I think the Impen adjustment approach is the easiest because it doesn’t require anyone to think about where the access or sources of named buffs might go (scribing, weapon or world skill passives, etc). Impen is already designed to combat Crit it just hasn’t been able to keep up; especially in the Subclassing state.
2) Critical Self Healing: Have self healing that critically applies to one’s self be capped at 25%, flat. The reason is because with high modifiers players are essentially critically healing themselves with such high values that they’re mitigating far too much damage, seeing themselves go from near execute levels of health back to full in one burst. What this adjustment would do is still enable people to heal themselves but it wouldn’t allow them to heal themselves instantaneously.
Now mind you I’m suggesting this ONLY for SELF heals, a healer who is outwardly healing their group would still have the full critical healing modifier apply to maintain a strong healing factor; we just would no longer see “self healers”, which we shouldn’t have anyway.
Self heals should be viewed as a strategic element of combat, not the “get out of jail free cards” that they are right now. This would also work to reinforce healing roles in PvP.
These changes wouldn’t see anyone’s builds “nerfed”, high crit chance builds and high crit damage modifiers would still keep crit scaling and frequency but their targets wouldn’t be guaranteed to take the full amount of that damage because effective counterplay would now be available.
Nobody should be guaranteed that every one of their crits actually deals the full scope of their damage; that’s a lack of balance. That’s like going into battle without armor but just in socks & underwear.
The same goes for crit healing. Everyone should have access to self healing should they choose but self healing should never be a full combat mitigator and in the current state of crit, that’s what it is.
These adjustments would have no impact on PvE; the critical self heal cap of 25% would apply through Battle Spirit.
I think this would go a long way in curbing some of the negative feedback we’re seeing in PvP combat that’s one sided as well as some of the negative feedback we’re seeing from Subclassing.
1) Crit Resistance: The PvP environment clearly does not have enough sources or values of Crit resistance available, period. I’m personally in guilds with players who’s Crit damage modifier is so far above the soft cap that even with 7 pieces of Impen & Rally Cry they’re still outputting at or near the Crit modifier soft cap. This is is game breaking. Some ways we might approach this could be: a) increase the amount of Crit Reist each piece of Impen provides by significant amounts, b) add named Major & Minor buffs that specifically increase Crit resistance.
Personally, I think the Impen adjustment approach is the easiest because it doesn’t require anyone to think about where the access or sources of named buffs might go (scribing, weapon or world skill passives, etc). Impen is already designed to combat Crit it just hasn’t been able to keep up; especially in the Subclassing state.
2) Critical Self Healing: Have self healing that critically applies to one’s self be capped at 25%, flat. The reason is because with high modifiers players are essentially critically healing themselves with such high values that they’re mitigating far too much damage, seeing themselves go from near execute levels of health back to full in one burst. What this adjustment would do is still enable people to heal themselves but it wouldn’t allow them to heal themselves instantaneously.
Now mind you I’m suggesting this ONLY for SELF heals, a healer who is outwardly healing their group would still have the full critical healing modifier apply to maintain a strong healing factor; we just would no longer see “self healers”, which we shouldn’t have anyway.
Self heals should be viewed as a strategic element of combat, not the “get out of jail free cards” that they are right now. This would also work to reinforce healing roles in PvP.
These changes wouldn’t see anyone’s builds “nerfed”, high crit chance builds and high crit damage modifiers would still keep crit scaling and frequency but their targets wouldn’t be guaranteed to take the full amount of that damage because effective counterplay would now be available.
Nobody should be guaranteed that every one of their crits actually deals the full scope of their damage; that’s a lack of balance. That’s like going into battle without armor but just in socks & underwear.
The same goes for crit healing. Everyone should have access to self healing should they choose but self healing should never be a full combat mitigator and in the current state of crit, that’s what it is.
These adjustments would have no impact on PvE; the critical self heal cap of 25% would apply through Battle Spirit.
I think this would go a long way in curbing some of the negative feedback we’re seeing in PvP combat that’s one sided as well as some of the negative feedback we’re seeing from Subclassing.
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MincMincMinc✭✭✭✭✭
✭The easiest action plan would be to immediately raise the impen value to account for the difference compared to the old perfectly fine crit meta balance. Then to make traits choices balanced again you would slowly reduce impen each patch as you add other crit resist sources back into the game. Zos would have to remember to do this though, so at the very least impen immediately does the job for them if all else fails.Before players had roughly 50% crit damage and likely averaged between 60-80% on crit builds. People commonly ran 3050crit resists or 45% mit. Now a days it has swung so wildly with crit damage stacking sources. Normal non crit specific PvP builds sit around 100% crit damage and crit damage builds are hitting 180% to overcap the common 3762(57%) crit resist and hit roughly around the cap of 125%
At the very least we would want our impen no set crit resist to match the average player in todays game and have around 90% crit resist. Base we have 20% so the 7x impen has to make up for 70% or 10% each being 660 crit resist per impen.Edited by MincMincMinc on 25 September 2025 21:05Zos should hire pvp consultants5 -
NxJoeyD✭✭✭MincMincMinc wrote: »The easiest action plan would be to immediately raise the impen value to account for the difference compared to the old perfectly fine crit meta balance. Then to make traits choices balanced again you would slowly reduce impen each patch as you add other crit resist sources back into the game. Zos would have to remember to do this though, so at the very least impen immediately does the job for them if all else fails.Before players had roughly 50% crit damage and likely averaged between 60-80% on crit builds. People commonly ran 3050crit resists or 45% mit. Now a days it has swung so wildly with crit damage stacking sources. Normal non crit specific PvP builds sit around 100% crit damage and crit damage builds are hitting 180% to overcap the common 3762(57%) crit resist and hit roughly around the cap of 125%
At the very least we would want our impen no set crit resist to match the average player in todays game and have around 90% crit resist. Base we have 20% so the 7x impen has to make up for 70% or 10% each being 660 crit resist per impen.
That would work perfectly and it wouldn’t be hard to do.1 -
YandereGirlfriend✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Buff Impen and make Critical Healing Chance its own separately sourced stat.Edited by YandereGirlfriend on 26 September 2025 00:030 -
Sluggy✭✭✭✭✭
✭YandereGirlfriend wrote: »Buff Impen and make Critical Healing Chance its own separately sourced stat.
Simply buffing impen isn't really the best option. A slight buff would be fine, say 10% or so. But you can't buff it to the point that it would negate the current level of crit damage otherwise we'd end up in the same spot as before - where there is exactly and precisely one valid trait to use on all armor. It would also effectively nerf crit to the point that it has no more value. It would also mean that everyone gets to have their cake and eat it too. They can change nothing , sacrifice nothing and suddenly gain a significant damage reduction for free.
Again, I think a slight increase to impen would be great but really there should be other sources of crit resists. One that makes us hem and haw and stress about making choices with our builds. Another set that provides it to the wearer alone and without the bonus to damage like on RC. Another CP star in the red tree that provides it. Another mundus. Another food. Transform one of those useless Undaunted skills into something that gives us a crit resist buff for twenty seconds. Maybe make Reguards actually have a useful passive for once in seven years? The world is our oyster so why pigeonhole ourselves with such limited and boring options as simply buffing impen?
Edited by Sluggy on 26 September 2025 00:330 -
NxJoeyD✭✭✭YandereGirlfriend wrote: »Buff Impen and make Critical Healing Chance its own separately sourced stat.
Simply buffing impen isn't really the best option. A slight buff would be fine, say 10% or so. But you can't buff it to the point that it would negate the current level of crit damage otherwise we'd end up in the same spot as before - where there is exactly and precisely one valid trait to use on all armor. It would also effectively nerf crit to the point that it has no more value. It would also mean that everyone gets to have their cake and eat it too. They can change nothing , sacrifice nothing and suddenly gain a significant damage reduction for free.
Again, I think a slight increase to impen would be great but really there should be other sources of crit resists. One that makes us hem and haw and stress about making choices with our builds. Another set that provides it to the wearer alone and without the bonus to damage like on RC. Another CP star in the red tree that provides it. Another mundus. Another food. Transform one of those useless Undaunted skills into something that gives us a crit resist buff for twenty seconds. Maybe make Reguards actually have a useful passive for once in seven years? The world is our oyster so why pigeonhole ourselves with such limited and boring options as simply buffing impen?
I agree that more sources of Crit resistance should be in the game but that takes time to plan and execute.
CP is not a good idea because then BG’s & non-CP PvP would be overrun by Crit.
In combat Crit is supposed to be a “chance” an incidental factor, not an “every attack occurrence”.
Making builds that utilize critical strikes as part of a build strategy is one thing; to make a build that is solely reliant on them is a whole other issue. In a balanced scenario the opportunity cost to achieve such a strong crit factor would see such a build exposed in some other area, most often, durability. But since healing can crit scale too these players don’t have to worry about their defense because they can single burst themselves to full health, negating the logic of balance in builds.
Increasing Impen is the quickest and easiest thing the Devs could do to address their mess in the here & now. The amount of an Impen increase is debatable and would also rely on whether or not an adjustment to crit damage modifier was also installed; meaning an adjustment that wouldn’t allow a player to exceed the soft cap for crit modifiers; this would make current crit resistance more effective and reduce the need for as high of Impen.
I’d prefer just the Impen because it’s easy and it gives everyone time and it allows the devs to separately adjust the critical self healing factor without destroying current crit damage.
This wouldn’t be destroying current crit damage it would simply ensure that crit damage wasn’t a guarantee, which it shouldn’t ever be.
Part of this conversation also includes a consideration for how much of a factor critical striking and critical damage should play in PvP combat. Some would argue that 80% crit chance while also at max modifier is excessive. Should “Critical” be able to be “Constant”? If we look at other mechanics there’s a significant trade off for that; in most cases a player can proc an attack to always Crit but only if a resource is below a certain point; exposing the player to a risk vs reward factor.
The current Crit environment doesn’t do that; it’s allowing for “always on”, “always high” Crit attacks paired with healing that’s also Crit scaling and enabling the player to mitigate so much damage. At that point where are the combat strategies? Where are the tactics when all one has to do is indiscriminately spam and yield more damage and healing than anyone else in the field?
As Minc said, once we have more broad sources of Crit Resitance then Impen can go back to normal values and it would be up to builds as to how much and what sort of Critical resistance they want to include, but in the meantime we need an interim patch. Subclassing has dialed what was an already existing issue up to 11 and has now made it far worse.Edited by NxJoeyD on 26 September 2025 01:390 -
YandereGirlfriend✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭YandereGirlfriend wrote: »Buff Impen and make Critical Healing Chance its own separately sourced stat.
Simply buffing impen isn't really the best option. A slight buff would be fine, say 10% or so. But you can't buff it to the point that it would negate the current level of crit damage otherwise we'd end up in the same spot as before - where there is exactly and precisely one valid trait to use on all armor. It would also effectively nerf crit to the point that it has no more value. It would also mean that everyone gets to have their cake and eat it too. They can change nothing , sacrifice nothing and suddenly gain a significant damage reduction for free.
Again, I think a slight increase to impen would be great but really there should be other sources of crit resists. One that makes us hem and haw and stress about making choices with our builds. Another set that provides it to the wearer alone and without the bonus to damage like on RC. Another CP star in the red tree that provides it. Another mundus. Another food. Transform one of those useless Undaunted skills into something that gives us a crit resist buff for twenty seconds. Maybe make Reguards actually have a useful passive for once in seven years? The world is our oyster so why pigeonhole ourselves with such limited and boring options as simply buffing impen?
There's an entire canon of "How to buff Crit Res" material strewn across various threads, so my short form answer would be, "Yes, of course!"
Like, we have two un-hybridized Weapon/Spell Damage Mundus that could be merged and then replaced with a Crit Res Mundus. We should have better availability of Minor Enervation as well as a new Major Enervation debuff so that they match the Force series. My personal pet issue is buffing Sturdy Horn, etc. We could probably use another group Crit Res set like Transmutation as well. You could add Crit Res to Alchemy, etc.
So, yes, let's do all of those things along with buffing Impen.2 -
MincMincMinc✭✭✭✭✭
✭MincMincMinc wrote: »The easiest action plan would be to immediately raise the impen value to account for the difference compared to the old perfectly fine crit meta balance. Then to make traits choices balanced again you would slowly reduce impen each patch as you add other crit resist sources back into the game. Zos would have to remember to do this though, so at the very least impen immediately does the job for them if all else fails.Before players had roughly 50% crit damage and likely averaged between 60-80% on crit builds. People commonly ran 3050crit resists or 45% mit. Now a days it has swung so wildly with crit damage stacking sources. Normal non crit specific PvP builds sit around 100% crit damage and crit damage builds are hitting 180% to overcap the common 3762(57%) crit resist and hit roughly around the cap of 125%
At the very least we would want our impen no set crit resist to match the average player in todays game and have around 90% crit resist. Base we have 20% so the 7x impen has to make up for 70% or 10% each being 660 crit resist per impen.
That would work perfectly and it wouldn’t be hard to do.
The funny thing is that Impen is actually fairly balanced based on the other traits. If anything nirn and reinforced is out of wack. Zos had balanced impen down so traits were all fair choices......but forgot that impen first and foremost had to be balanced against crit damage. They put on the blinders for the rest of the game and only looked at traits compared to themselves. Taking off the blinders we see impen could be upwards of 10% like I said and still kinda not enough to balance out the amount of available stacking crit damage.YandereGirlfriend wrote: »Buff Impen and make Critical Healing Chance its own separately sourced stat.
Think of how many dlc proc set quotas zos could fulfill if they actually had more stats be useful or available. Health recovery anyone?Zos should hire pvp consultants1