rebalancing crit

Player's being "OP" late game with high end gear is expected in ARPGs--and PoE is no exception. If the whiners get their way and bring everyone down to their own mediocrity, the game would stagnate and become exceptionally boring. No thanks.

As for the "it doesn't feel like a crit" argument, get over it. Very few games have that feature and limit it in a very strict way. Even D&D has ways to achieve high levels of crit chance and/or damage. It's a completely legitimate and fun way to play.

What most people seem to forget is that fun > balance. Games that try too hard for balance end up not being fun, and games that just try to be balanced "enough" are the most fun ones out there--including PoE. This is doubly true in ARPGs since PvP has a very small scene, and most people that want the eSports end of it just play mobas instead anyway (as they should, that's where balance matters).

Just to clarify, my issue is not that crit is OP. Is about how crit functions. If you think it is well designed, then good for you. It's very very VERY far from common in games to crit 9 out of 10 times though. And i disagree. High steady DPS should be a different thing, and a different playing style that building around critical strikes. As it is now, crit and non crit functions in exactly the same way. Building as high as possible steady DPS, and one results in being much better, given you can afford it. It's just how it is. And i repeat, my main character was a crit high end one.

I am not asking or even hoping for this to change, because it is just too late. But in my book, and feel free to disagree as much as you want, this was a design failure from day 1. Builds back in close beta, even high end ones like Invalesco's reached around 40% crit and that was it. The devs just failed to predict what would happen, when the community started crafting really high end gear, and figured out the possibilities. I bet there was not their intention at the time that reaching the crit cap would be realistic. Same as they did not beleive that level 100 was achievable back in open beta. Same with the introduction of Acuity, when they beleived that very few would actually get their hands on this item, while the community was sure that this item will break the game and will have to be nerfed. This list goes on.

Crits DONT have ANY balance AT ALL!

So caps will make more balance with legacy and non legacy items.

Crits needs more cap:
Crit chance = 40-45%
Chance to hit = 80-85%
Crit multi = 400-450%

At this point, you're just spamming without providing an argument, @Helpmegod. Repetition doesn't make it more true. In fact, it just makes it sound like you don't know what you're talking about.

@Poutsos,
Some games did try it the way you suggest, and they failed every time to make a crit-focused build viable. WoW (in its early days) and Wildstar immediately come to mind. I'm glad PoE has the option to do this, and CoC is an actually interesting mechanic that other games don't have. It shouldn't be ruined just because it's crit. However, I do agree with the argument that you can do consistent damage as crit or as non-crit, and that crit is strictly better in most cases--that does need to be addressed. I just don't think a hard nerf will achieve it without pushing people away from the game and feeling betrayed by GGG. I think the way you go about it is by having specific non-crit bonus damage available so it can keep up. The trade off then becomes that crit is more expensive but has more benefits while non-crit is cheaper and less gem-dependent. There are lots of other reasonable solutions present in this thread, but straight nerfing crit will probably do more harm than good to the game as a whole.

Well let me give an example on what i mean about going "Different playstyles"

Firstly i want to mention that i do beleive that crit playstyle should be the highest DPS playstyle in the game. Not arguing there. I am just arguing the means to do it. For example let's assumer a double strike crit character with 200K DPS, that has 95% crit chance and 400% multiplier. I am not arguing that 200K is too high. I am arguing that this character should have indeed 200K DPS but with -say- 40% crit chance and 1000% multiplier. This way, while you do have the same DPS there are downsides, which also encourage different playstyle:

1) The damage is not as reliable. You can be unlucky and not score a crit in a critical situation. This is something to consider as a player

2) Reflect will again be dangerous and not trivial as it is now. EG. you will need to search for reflect mobs and not blindly offscreen everything. Also special precautions should be made to run reflect maps.

3) Several situations like evasive monsters or maps with enfeeble will furtherly gimp a crit character's effectiveness.

This practically makes the playing style different, and creates decent trade offs to -say- an 80K DPS resolute tecnique double strike character that has 100% reliable damage in all situations, without actually nerfing crit.

HOWEVER, i do beleive that several situations, like ranged crit characters with GMP and chain do need a straight up nerf.

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Helpmegod wrote:

Crits DONT have ANY balance AT ALL!

So caps will make more balance with legacy and non legacy items.

Crits needs more cap:
Crit chance = 40-45%
Chance to hit = 80-85%
Crit multi = 400-450%

nice balance to make legacy items garbage

IS a 50 exalted CRIT build strong as a 50 exalted NON-CRIT build?
NO, NON-CRIT is far superior than CRIT builds, unless you have at least 500+exa gear


crit does not need a nerf at all, we are coming from aura % reserved nerfs, aura dps nerfs, passive tree aura reserve+effect nerfs, crit multiplier nerfs, crit chance nerf

then just remove crit from the game, give everyone 15k dps and 4k life, remove the items drop, so no one will cry anymore because they are JEALOUS of rich crit players

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InAshesTheyShallReap wrote:

then just remove crit from the game, give everyone 15k dps and 4k life, remove the items drop, so no one will cry anymore because they are JEALOUS of rich crit players

Sometimes I think that is what people want. Yes crit is more damage and it provides utility, but there are a great number of builds that can compete with crit for a while.

Crit caps are a terrible idea it reduces the options for gearing, passives, ect.

A crit cap would hurt the game significantly. It would restrict itemization even more, especially for archers. There would be no need to use slow and hard hitting weapons anymore like a harbinger because you could easily achieve 30-40% crit with a lionseye but with way more attack speed. The problem is that archers don't have a gem like multistrike or echo which significantly increases the attack speed. They need high damage from a single hit or the gameplay feels slow and sluggish. I'm honestly surprised people want ranged characters to be nerfed. Reaching the crit cap with an archer without giving a single shit about survivability is almost impossible. I was happy that they buffed the damage and crit chance on most bows in 1.2 but to be honest they are still not on a par with daggers or wands.

If the intention of crit is just to be a simple damage scaling mechanic, useable and desirable for any and all builds, then it's fine as is.

If the intention of crit is to be a different style of play, then it fails utterly in its current implementation. 95% chance to crit is ridiculous. Hell, 75% chance to crit is ridiculous.

I agree with some of the sentiments above; crit should be the highest DPS in the game. However, it's way too damn easy to achieve in the current environment. Like, trivially easy. Especially with bows, which when compounded with the fact that ranged kicks everyone's ass anyway, is unacceptable.

As I've said before about trigger gems, crit needs to be reworked (not nerfed!) for the sake of making balancing the rest of the game easier. Even Mark has said that crit keeps him up at night. The writing is on the wall, people. It's going to happen one way or another.

I think a 50% crit should be reasonable to attain, and I agree that 95% is pretty ridiculous. However, just putting hard caps on it will do more harm than good, and if crit chance gets nerfed, CoC will need to trigger every time instead of just sometimes. Otherwise, you kill crit in both providing dps, but also for its secondary effects (status effects and King of the Hill passive) as well as ruining CoC--which kills a play style too.

It's a volatile subject, and must be addressed with the utmost caution. Otherwise, the risk of wrecking many builds is very high, and the player base won't appreciate it. There's a fine line to walk when asking for balance changes. As I said in the Ele Prolif thread, it is better to leave it alone than ruin it, and many games tend to ruin features/aspects of it by knee-jerk over-reactions rather than small adjustments over time.

So while I'm not entirely against reviewing the necessity of crit balance, I would warn against being over zealous in the endeavor.