What's up with all the PvP Builds stacking Crit Chance now?

ArchMikem · February 2023

Started dabbling in PvP again and wanted to see what the current StamBlade builds were suggesting for gear and all of them mention building for Crit Chance/Damage. What happened to everyone having loads of Crit Resist making that useless? Cause that's what I had been doing with my Crit Kitty for forever but just tonight I dropped 500k on some new Spriggans weapons and gold mats to switch over to stacking Wep Dmg and Pen, and I actually started hitting harder than before.

Regardless of what works in PvP these days I've been feeling like just forgetting about Crit altogether. It costs so much to get Crit Chance high enough that now all I care about is buffing my base damage, and any Crits I do land is just a pleasant bonus.

Holycannoli · February 2023

Don't think many builds bother with too much impenetrable anymore? I guess with that trait falling out of favor high crit is useful again.

I use Spriggans on my main too but that was from years ago. But he's squishy. I'm just not good at making PvP builds lol. Don't know how to stack high health and weapon+spell damage at the same time. I only use crafted and overland sets and no arena weapons so that might be it lol.

Crit used to be the stat you ignored in PvP, because of impen. I think because of that lack of crit people stopped using impen, making crit more useful. I find pen a lot more useful but since I have to use sets to increase pen and damage my health and survivability suffer.

How is your health and resistance when stacking crit and now pen and damage?

ArchMikem · February 2023

Holycannoli wrote: »

Don't think many builds bother with too much impenetrable anymore? I guess with that trait falling out of favor high crit is useful again.

I use Spriggans on my main too but that was from years ago. But he's squishy. I'm just not good at making PvP builds lol. Don't know how to stack high health and weapon+spell damage at the same time. I only use crafted and overland sets and no arena weapons so that might be it lol.

Crit used to be the stat you ignored in PvP, because of impen. I think because of that lack of crit people stopped using impen, making crit more useful. I find pen a lot more useful but since I have to use sets to increase pen and damage my health and survivability suffer.

How is your health and resistance when stacking crit and now pen and damage?

When in Cyro my Stamblade has 29k Health and about 13k Armor I believe. Also a squishy PvE glass cannon setup, but before my changed yesterday I used to have 60% Crit chance with barely 5k Wep Dmg fully buffed, but only 7k Phys Pen. After switching out my Daggers for a Sword and sharpened Mace, and also went from Thief to Warrior mundus, I lost nearly all my Crit chance but now have nearly 6k Wep Dmg with over 10k Phys Pen, and I have noticed I hit a bit harder now, which I guess is a good thing in the end.

For years I've had the mindset that Critical Hits were the thing to have no matter what, but after multiple updates of ZOS nerfing sources of Critical Chance I'm just fed up trying to still build for it. Back then it used to be easy getting up into the 70's while maintaining other stats. Now it seems all the Crit builds rely on gear sets like Tzogvin's to buff your Crit high, but only mid fight using the stacks mechanic.

Pinja · February 2023

I personally was contemplating whether they over nerfed crit in pvp. I put together a crit healing set up with 6 crit bonuses and it only has 28.1% critical chance. (before potion)

lockesty · February 2023

I dont see how stacking crit damage when people use impen and rallying is bad? Its quite the opposite tho, crit dmg has "diminishing returns" the more you stack it but when an enemy reduces your crit dmg, your bonus crit dmg becomes more valuable

i do see however how stacking crit chance is bad when your enemy is running impen and rallying, but then again why would you stack such an awful pvp stat?

ArchMikem · February 2023

lockesty wrote: »

i do see however how stacking crit chance is bad when your enemy is running impen and rallying, but then again why would you stack such an awful pvp stat?

I couldn't say. Do a quick search for "ESO StamBlade PvP" and all the results from Alcast, Deltia, Hack the Minotaur etc all mentioned gear sets buffing Critical Chance and Damage Done. I DO understand, just from the basic sense that you're building upon the Class strengths, more so if you're a Khajiit Nightblade, but still for a PvP focused build where everyone has varying amounts of Impen? I'd rather emphasize building Penetration so more of your base damage gets thru people's Armor resists.

Brrrofski · February 2023

ArchMikem wrote: »

lockesty wrote: »

i do see however how stacking crit chance is bad when your enemy is running impen and rallying, but then again why would you stack such an awful pvp stat?

I couldn't say. Do a quick search for "ESO StamBlade PvP" and all the results from Alcast, Deltia, Hack the Minotaur etc all mentioned gear sets buffing Critical Chance and Damage Done. I DO understand, just from the basic sense that you're building upon the Class strengths, more so if you're a Khajiit Nightblade, but still for a PvP focused build where everyone has varying amounts of Impen? I'd rather emphasize building Penetration so more of your base damage gets thru people's Armor resists.

Crit also helps your healin though, whereas pen doesn't.

Plus NB meta is balorgh, rallying cry back bar, night mother's front bar, 1 piece trainee and a mythic. Khajit and shadow.

So you crit big. You crit a lot. So 5k pen all the time. Plus a boatload of pen when you ult.

Aces-High-82 · February 2023

Impen on full quality gear provides less than 2% crit mitigation (per piece). Really a nonfactor nowadays.

Kaelthorn_Nightbloom · February 2023

Aces-High-82 wrote: »

Impen on full quality gear provides less than 2% crit mitigation (per piece). Really a nonfactor nowadays.

Non-Sorc Healers still want Sturdy. Niche builds want Divines. But for most players, 6 impen 1 heavy reinforced is still BiS.

olsborg · February 2023

Crit in pvp is meh, its situational at best and best used for ganking and hitting and running. In my opinion and experience. I wish it wasnt so tho.

StaticWave · February 2023

ArchMikem wrote: »

Started dabbling in PvP again and wanted to see what the current StamBlade builds were suggesting for gear and all of them mention building for Crit Chance/Damage. What happened to everyone having loads of Crit Resist making that useless? Cause that's what I had been doing with my Crit Kitty for forever but just tonight I dropped 500k on some new Spriggans weapons and gold mats to switch over to stacking Wep Dmg and Pen, and I actually started hitting harder than before.

Regardless of what works in PvP these days I've been feeling like just forgetting about Crit altogether. It costs so much to get Crit Chance high enough that now all I care about is buffing my base damage, and any Crits I do land is just a pleasant bonus.

Crit Chance/Crit Damage is the best path for NB because it's easier for NB to reach high Crit Chance/Crit Damage values without sacrificing as much in other offensive stats.

Believe it or not, Crit Resist is not that easy to stack despite everyone running Rallying Cry. For example, a build with 7 Impenetrable, Rallying Cry, and Resillience CP will only reach ~4.5k Crit Resist. This is equivalent to about 68% Crit Damage Mitigation. The Crit Damage cap is 125%, meaning you'd still do 57% extra Crit Damage to someone with ALL of that active.

On a NB, you can get very close to the Crit Damage cap without sacrificing any 5 piece sets. 50% base, 10% from wearing 5 medium, 10% from NB passive, 8% from Fighting Finesse CP, 12% from Khajiit Race, 11% from Shadow Mundus, 10% from Minor Force, and you're at 111% Crit Damage already. If you use 2 Axes and wear a few Divine pieces, you've basically reached the cap.

This is an example of the stats I could get on a NB:

Front Bar:

Back Bar:

Sergykid · February 2023

blocking can't be crit. U can have full crit chance and full crit damage, all is zero against a blocking target. What u talk about is ganking weaker players

Aces-High-82 · February 2023

SkaraMinoc wrote: »

Aces-High-82 wrote: »

Impen on full quality gear provides less than 2% crit mitigation (per piece). Really a nonfactor nowadays.

Non-Sorc Healers still want Sturdy. Niche builds want Divines. But for most players, 6 impen 1 heavy reinforced is still BiS.

I'd argue that reinforced heavy chest piece and well fitted on the other pieces is bis except you run snb ofc (sturdy becomes bis by far).