Stop nerfing crit to ground

Darkstorne · January 2021

I feel like it's also harming a lot of set viability. Anything that relies on a crit to proc, is now a nerfed set.

Iceheart only has a 20% chance to proc on a crit, so needs that %chance either increased significantly or removed altogether (always procs when you crit).

Storm Master has always been one of my favourite non-meta just-for-funsies sets, but is now even more of a joke with the reduced crit chance. It procs when you crit with a fully charged heavy attack, which at 20-30% crit chance is just... no dude. I'm not starting combat by swinging 3-6 heavy attacks to get my proc set rolling. It's now only viable for Cloak Stamblade builds, and again, only as a fun set that's far from optimal.

Ascarl · January 2021

I am not convinced by the change but if the devs insist on doing so, they should nerf Malacath and buff Khajiit. Right now they nerf a sub-par race and even fuel the foul Malacath meta.

Suna_Ye_Sunnabe · January 2021

I hear so much "it's too easy to have crit without building into it, everything I do is crit, crit is overpowered, nerfs are good". Umm... show me an alternative?? Critical damage is the only way a magicka dps can be worth anything in endgame content. Every magicka build in endgame wears mother's sorrow aleady, and many wear false gods (which has quite a lot of crit) and are using precise weapons, and many use the thief stone also. How is this not building into crit?? What more can we do to build into crit? Show me an alternative. When the crit was higher, build diversity was great. I actually had characters I could use other sets on besides mother's sorrow and be viable. But now I have to wear the same garbage on everyone again, and it's getting worse next patch. Where will we get damage if not for crit? Where is it? It's always nerfs with no alternatives.

crazywolfpusher · January 2021

While i agree that crit was the best stat for pve this will only make Malacath outperform in pvp which is weird because is already doing it.

Suna_Ye_Sunnabe · January 2021

crazywolfpusher wrote: »

While i agree that crit was the best stat for pve this will only make Malacath outperform in pvp which is weird because is already doing it.

Exactly. Build diversity is being strangled more and more, especially in favour of items attached to paid content.

Starlock · February 2021

Darkstorne wrote: »

I feel like it's also harming a lot of set viability. Anything that relies on a crit to proc, is now a nerfed set.

Iceheart only has a 20% chance to proc on a crit, so needs that %chance either increased significantly or removed altogether (always procs when you crit).

Storm Master has always been one of my favourite non-meta just-for-funsies sets, but is now even more of a joke with the reduced crit chance. It procs when you crit with a fully charged heavy attack, which at 20-30% crit chance is just... no dude. I'm not starting combat by swinging 3-6 heavy attacks to get my proc set rolling. It's now only viable for Cloak Stamblade builds, and again, only as a fun set that's far from optimal.

This is a significant concern of mine too and it cuts across sets and into class abilities as well. Surge and morphs will need to be looked at. I don't know what my lightning mage is going to do. Crit surge is the only way he heals himself, and I have already had to make sacrifices to his character (like being forced to run precise) to get his crit back to where it needs to be for that to be reliable. With his crit chance dropping probably by 10% next patch, I just... don't know what I am going to do. The poor mer has been so abused by patch cycles over the course of this game's history.

YandereGirlfriend · February 2021

Starlock wrote: »

Darkstorne wrote: »

I feel like it's also harming a lot of set viability. Anything that relies on a crit to proc, is now a nerfed set.

Iceheart only has a 20% chance to proc on a crit, so needs that %chance either increased significantly or removed altogether (always procs when you crit).

Storm Master has always been one of my favourite non-meta just-for-funsies sets, but is now even more of a joke with the reduced crit chance. It procs when you crit with a fully charged heavy attack, which at 20-30% crit chance is just... no dude. I'm not starting combat by swinging 3-6 heavy attacks to get my proc set rolling. It's now only viable for Cloak Stamblade builds, and again, only as a fun set that's far from optimal.

This is a significant concern of mine too and it cuts across sets and into class abilities as well. Surge and morphs will need to be looked at. I don't know what my lightning mage is going to do. Crit surge is the only way he heals himself, and I have already had to make sacrifices to his character (like being forced to run precise) to get his crit back to where it needs to be for that to be reliable. With his crit chance dropping probably by 10% next patch, I just... don't know what I am going to do. The poor mer has been so abused by patch cycles over the course of this game's history.

Surge really should not be a problem assuming that you're keeping your rotation up and have concurrent ticks of damage occurring each GCD.

Starlock · February 2021

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Starlock wrote: »

Darkstorne wrote: »

I feel like it's also harming a lot of set viability. Anything that relies on a crit to proc, is now a nerfed set.

Iceheart only has a 20% chance to proc on a crit, so needs that %chance either increased significantly or removed altogether (always procs when you crit).

Storm Master has always been one of my favourite non-meta just-for-funsies sets, but is now even more of a joke with the reduced crit chance. It procs when you crit with a fully charged heavy attack, which at 20-30% crit chance is just... no dude. I'm not starting combat by swinging 3-6 heavy attacks to get my proc set rolling. It's now only viable for Cloak Stamblade builds, and again, only as a fun set that's far from optimal.

This is a significant concern of mine too and it cuts across sets and into class abilities as well. Surge and morphs will need to be looked at. I don't know what my lightning mage is going to do. Crit surge is the only way he heals himself, and I have already had to make sacrifices to his character (like being forced to run precise) to get his crit back to where it needs to be for that to be reliable. With his crit chance dropping probably by 10% next patch, I just... don't know what I am going to do. The poor mer has been so abused by patch cycles over the course of this game's history.

Surge really should not be a problem assuming that you're keeping your rotation up and have concurrent ticks of damage occurring each GCD.

This doesn't help players who don't do "rotations" which is probably a fairly large portion of the player base. It also doesn't help players who prefer to use single-target, non-DoT abilities. Please remember to consider this from a standpoint that isn't just the score pushers. The ability is a lot less fun and rather weird for regular players who just use it as something they enjoy - high cost for very little benefit. Storm Master has the same issue, as will Iceheart.

Suna_Ye_Sunnabe · February 2021

Starlock wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Starlock wrote: »

Darkstorne wrote: »

I feel like it's also harming a lot of set viability. Anything that relies on a crit to proc, is now a nerfed set.

Iceheart only has a 20% chance to proc on a crit, so needs that %chance either increased significantly or removed altogether (always procs when you crit).

Storm Master has always been one of my favourite non-meta just-for-funsies sets, but is now even more of a joke with the reduced crit chance. It procs when you crit with a fully charged heavy attack, which at 20-30% crit chance is just... no dude. I'm not starting combat by swinging 3-6 heavy attacks to get my proc set rolling. It's now only viable for Cloak Stamblade builds, and again, only as a fun set that's far from optimal.

This is a significant concern of mine too and it cuts across sets and into class abilities as well. Surge and morphs will need to be looked at. I don't know what my lightning mage is going to do. Crit surge is the only way he heals himself, and I have already had to make sacrifices to his character (like being forced to run precise) to get his crit back to where it needs to be for that to be reliable. With his crit chance dropping probably by 10% next patch, I just... don't know what I am going to do. The poor mer has been so abused by patch cycles over the course of this game's history.

Surge really should not be a problem assuming that you're keeping your rotation up and have concurrent ticks of damage occurring each GCD.

This doesn't help players who don't do "rotations" which is probably a fairly large portion of the player base. It also doesn't help players who prefer to use single-target, non-DoT abilities. Please remember to consider this from a standpoint that isn't just the score pushers. The ability is a lot less fun and rather weird for regular players who just use it as something they enjoy - high cost for very little benefit. Storm Master has the same issue, as will Iceheart.

Well said. It seems pve is viewed exclusively through the lens of endgame trial builds, when that simply isn't the case. Not everyone plays with a rotation like you said, or uses meta gear, or has healers and tanks specced out in maximum buff/dubuff gear following them around constantly, or even goes into trials at all. It's unfair to balance around expecting to have all those things for everyone.

YandereGirlfriend · February 2021

Be that as it may, the developers balance the game around the assumption that players are using multiple skills.

So your choices are either to add more damage skills to your toolbar or else to add in another source of healing (using the Matriarch is likely the easiest option for that).

Stahlor · February 2021

Well, everybody has golden MS, Medusa and Advancing Yokeda gear now ---> time to give us a new grind!

zvavi · February 2021

Stahlor wrote: »

Well, everybody has golden MS, Medusa and Advancing Yokeda gear now ---> time to give us a new grind!

AY is still stronger than what it was before they buffed it. And most of us already have tzogvin somewhere.

Starlock · February 2021

Suna_Ye_Sunnabe wrote: »

Well said. It seems pve is viewed exclusively through the lens of endgame trial builds, when that simply isn't the case. Not everyone plays with a rotation like you said, or uses meta gear, or has healers and tanks specced out in maximum buff/dubuff gear following them around constantly, or even goes into trials at all. It's unfair to balance around expecting to have all those things for everyone.

To me it's more a question of game development goals rather than fairness. It's very clear from the development history of this game that ZoS is not interested in balancing around min-maxers. They take min-max into consideration, but they develop and balance content for "average" players who aren't doing things like consulting spreadsheets and scouring minutia in patch notes. Average players won't notice gameplay changes unless they are significant and substantial in magnitude, but when they do, they might wonder if something is broken or bugged.

When it comes to crit, I think average players are really going to notice this drop depending on what abilities they are using. It sounds like crit is going to take about a 10% hit for some characters, and for players who have maybe 20-25% crit that is halving the number of crits they will be seeing. Quite noticeable, probably, though again since I'm not allowed to PTS I can't really test any of this for myself to know for sure.

What they should probably do is remove crit as a possible proc condition for item sets or abilities. Considering they did a pass recently trying to streamline these and make them less... er... more reliable and less calculation-intensive, makes sense to just drop it as a condition. No more "you must crit" for iceheart or storm master or surge (though surge might need a bit of retuning if the crit condition is eliminated).

YandereGirlfriend · February 2021

Surge is fine.

The sets you reference do need buffs - though that was true even before this PTS.

the1andonlyskwex · February 2021

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Surge is fine.

The sets you reference do need buffs - though that was true even before this PTS.

I agree that Critical Surge is probably still fine, despite the crit nerfs. I'm a little less sure about Power Surge. Power Surge doesn't proc on overhealing and healers don't necessarily run as many HoTs as high end DPS run DoTs (especially with lifesteal no longer being attributed to the caster). Unlike other classes, sorc healers don't have any other class HoTs to fall back on, so if Power Surge stops being reliable they pretty much lose what little class identity they have.

I know that the last round of crit nerfs severely hurt my khajiit sorc healer's output, and another round is just going to make things worse.

YandereGirlfriend · February 2021

I'd agree that a Power Surge buff is eminently reasonable.

LightYagami · February 2021

Bone_Demon wrote: »

Doczy wrote: »

whats the point of crit damage if we cant crit ?

What's the point of khajiit i wonder since they introduced malacath's....

This one knows business.
ZOS has malacath if you have coins.

Sahidom · February 2021

On the PTS wearing 5pc Mothers Sorrow, 5pc Medusa and a helm set that offers crit% was 55ish% without any buffs but did invest in CP 2.0 critical chance.

Critical chance is a quick 50 CP but the cost exchange to improve critical damage equal to Malacath Band consumes 100 CP. This one of many reasons why the band is superior to the critical chance and damage because one mythic ring will save you upwards to 150 CP in the new system with a 100% uptime versus +25% for an average of 67-70% uptime. Yes the base critical damage helps balance the damage comparison but the cost investment in multiple sets, CP and racial choices are much higher than slotting a 1 slot mythic item.

The alternative was the Strangeler gloves but ZOS broke the mythic item: where they could have made the item competitive without the load screen or stealth prohibitions.

There's little reason not to slot Malacath Band since it's bonus applies to almost 99.9% of the outgoing damage sources.

HankTwo · February 2021

Easy fix for nerfing crit in PvE without touching PvP: Give Bosses 20% crit damage resistance just like players have. Then balance crit sets accordingly.

Doczy · February 2021

they cant split pve and pvp .thats biggest problem. %50 damage taken %50 damage shield %50 heal is not balance.

they should remove that debuffs or buffs at pvp. they need to adjust skills class by class . because skills are not balanced.

Septimus_Magna · February 2021

Doczy wrote: »

they cant split pve and pvp .thats biggest problem. %50 damage taken %50 damage shield %50 heal is not balance.

they should remove that debuffs or buffs at pvp. they need to adjust skills class by class . because skills are not balanced.

I dont agree, you need to balance way more variables if you remove the battle spirit. The battle spirit is the filter between PVP and PVE. It gets a lot more complicated if you the values for healing are fine for PVE but in PVP healing is way too strong for example. You would have to nerf all healing skills (so healing is right for PVP), nerf boss damage (so healing is fine for PVE), nerf tank skills (otherwise tanking gets too easy in PVE) which makes tanking too weak in PVP, you have to adjust all damage skills which affects PVE as well.

Its easier to reduce healing by 50% in PVP, if that doesnt work increase/decrease that amount and its fixed for the moment.

ne.ga.kurai_ESO · February 2021

All they had to do was remove critical chance sourcing from the CP tree. Has anyone tried building for crit in noCP with the changes? You have to give up pretty much everything to get anywhere near 40%

Athan1 · February 2021

Nerf crit to the ground! Gaming should be about skill, not just luck. Crit is meant to spice things up with a nice little bonus damage, not be your only source of damage.

the1andonlyskwex · February 2021

Athan1 wrote: »

Nerf crit to the ground! Gaming should be about skill, not just luck. Crit is meant to spice things up with a nice little bonus damage, not be your only source of damage.

That would be fine by me, if we didn't have so many things in this game that require high crit to be useful/good. Some examples:
1) Khajiit
2) Sorcerer's Surge ability
3) Nightblade's Hemorrhage passive
4) Some armor sets (e.g. Iceheart, Combat Physician)
5) The Shadow mundus

I know I have one character that relies on 4/5 of the things I listed, and I probably missed things that other people rely on.

Vildebill · February 2021

Athan1 wrote: »

Nerf crit to the ground! Gaming should be about skill, not just luck. Crit is meant to spice things up with a nice little bonus damage, not be your only source of damage.

Then let's remove Khajiit and Nightblade from the game since they no longer fill a purpose

Qbiken · February 2021

Athan1 wrote: »

Nerf crit to the ground! Gaming should be about skill, not just luck. Crit is meant to spice things up with a nice little bonus damage, not be your only source of damage.

That's why we equip 4 procs + Malacath, can't have those lucky crits carrying us can we

FrancisCrawford · February 2021

Starlock wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Starlock wrote: »

Darkstorne wrote: »

I feel like it's also harming a lot of set viability. Anything that relies on a crit to proc, is now a nerfed set.

Iceheart only has a 20% chance to proc on a crit, so needs that %chance either increased significantly or removed altogether (always procs when you crit).

Storm Master has always been one of my favourite non-meta just-for-funsies sets, but is now even more of a joke with the reduced crit chance. It procs when you crit with a fully charged heavy attack, which at 20-30% crit chance is just... no dude. I'm not starting combat by swinging 3-6 heavy attacks to get my proc set rolling. It's now only viable for Cloak Stamblade builds, and again, only as a fun set that's far from optimal.

This is a significant concern of mine too and it cuts across sets and into class abilities as well. Surge and morphs will need to be looked at. I don't know what my lightning mage is going to do. Crit surge is the only way he heals himself, and I have already had to make sacrifices to his character (like being forced to run precise) to get his crit back to where it needs to be for that to be reliable. With his crit chance dropping probably by 10% next patch, I just... don't know what I am going to do. The poor mer has been so abused by patch cycles over the course of this game's history.

Surge really should not be a problem assuming that you're keeping your rotation up and have concurrent ticks of damage occurring each GCD.

This doesn't help players who don't do "rotations" which is probably a fairly large portion of the player base. It also doesn't help players who prefer to use single-target, non-DoT abilities. Please remember to consider this from a standpoint that isn't just the score pushers. The ability is a lot less fun and rather weird for regular players who just use it as something they enjoy - high cost for very little benefit. Storm Master has the same issue, as will Iceheart.

Force Shock (either morph) hits 3 times per cast, so that helps. Assuming you weave it and have Wall of Elements up (either morph), that's 5 hits in a second, which should be plenty at any realistic crit chance.

Even if you're on a Frags GCD, that plus a DoT tick plus a LA weave gives you 3 chances to crit in a second.

Moith · February 2021

You have the power to tell ZOS to stop nerfing and changing character classes and its not complaining in the forums. Its called money. Hit ZOS in the pocket book by not giving them your money

Annurang · February 2021

Ascarl wrote: »

I am not convinced by the change but if the devs insist on doing so, they should nerf Malacath and buff Khajiit. Right now they nerf a sub-par race and even fuel the foul Malacath meta.

The 12% critical damage is already a huge ammount of "ganking" potential making them better than any other race as an "assassin" playstyle (whether it be stam of mag). With that number gone up it remains to be seen if they might be above even Orcs and Dark elves for PvE dps. In PvP though, problem is, with every1 having upwards of 16k life even 3 shotting someone will be a far away dream soon. And yeah malacath is a cheat. Maybe the solution to Malacath would be to introduce 2-3 mythic items that boost the damage of other builds/playstyles (like crit builds). Imagine if we had our very own "Mephala's Band" that might boost crit damage or give us a DoT on crits, that would make malacath "just another option".