35 replies to this topic

[PiousFlea]

One line from the official Patch 1.07 preview sticks out as rather strange, and that is:

Quote

...Players often ask why their Sentry or Hydra doesn't inherit their Critical Hit Chance and Critical Hit Damage. The answer is that we want players to be able to build their characters in different ways, and we would rather Critical Hit Chance and Critical Hit Damage weren’t always automatically the right answer. While this is not something that will change overnight, "different stats for different builds" is a high-level design goal and introducing a very strong Ruby is a step in the right direction.

This sounds nice but it really isn't the case in the current D3 itemization. There are really only five ways to increase your DPS in diablo 3:
Weapon Damage
Primary Stat
%Attack Speed
%Critical Chance
%Critical Damage Bonus

Out of these, most of your weapon damage comes from your weapon (+/- offhand) and primary stat is mandatory on all pieces you wear. This leaves only three stats that actually increase your DPS. Skills that don't Crit basically lose 2 out of 3. There is no way to make up for the lost Crit.

The Blue posts make it seem like they want "weapon damage and attack speed" to be the alternative to "%Crit and %CDB". The problem is that weapon damage and attack speed multiply with %Crit and %CDB. Giving people the option to get damage and aspd doesn't make crit weaker, it means they will want all of the above.

=================
IMO: "giving players an alternative to Crit" will require the addition of competing DPS stats other than Crit and CDB. These alternatives already exist in game to some extent! Blizzard only needs to add a quadratic multiplier (like how CDB multiplies with Crit) to make it more of an investment. All of the alternative DPS stats should multiply with Primary Stat or else they won't remain viable at high gear levels:

1) Bleed Chance and +%Bleed Damage: Bleed exists on tons of gear but is currently very weak. What if it scaled with Primary Stat, and there was a separate +%Bleed Damage modifier? A player that stacked tons of Bleed would have very poor burst damage but very high sustained damage compared to a Crit player.

2) Proc Chance and +%Proc Damage: What if there was an affix that increased the damage of all procs? Everything from Hellfire Ring to Schaefer's Hammer to the skeletons summoned by Wailing Host. This would encourage alternative gear builds and make proc items more exciting - to some players but not others.

3) Crowd Control Chance and +%Damage vs CC: Chance to stun, fear, freeze etc all seem fairly weak right now, but what if there was an affix that increased player DPS versus incapacitated targets? This would not only be interesting gear-wise, but would encourage different skill builds to maximize CC uptime. The only drawback of this stat is that you could totally stack it with Crit. (ie, CM/Frost Nova)

[Bagstone]

PiousFlea, on 21 January 2013 - 03:31 PM, said:

The Blue posts make it seem like they want "weapon damage and attack speed" to be the alternative to "%Crit and %CDB". The problem is that weapon damage and attack speed multiply with %Crit and %CDB. Giving people the option to get damage and aspd doesn't make crit weaker, it means they will want all of the above.

What you said is not true, and you also failed to understand what they want. (Or I just fail to understand what you're saying, in which case I apologize).

Just a sketched (and not necessarily 100% accurate) example: Attack speed for Blizzard is kind of useless - you can cast Blizzard faster, but you still have to wait for its full duration because it doesn't stack, therefore basically rendering IAS useless for Blizzard. You want low APS but high sustained DPS. A CMWW wizard is the exact opposite: having 3.01 APS and decent APoC makes you almost invincible, but DPS is not that important (it's more important to have a good stunlock, once that works you care about how to actually kill stuff and increasing your DPS).

These two spells/specs show that you need two completely separate pieces of gear; I'd say if you're serious about this you need to switch at least half of your gear from one spec to the other, or you're gimping your build. This is what Blizzard is going for, and I really like that idea, it's (in my opinion) exactly the right direction and the best way to fix some of the main issues that exist in the game right now. To be honest, I can't find anything wrong about having a main stat - as a barbarian, you want to maximize strength in the first place, nothing wrong about that from an adventure point of view. And with the new crafting recipes no one should have troubles filling in the gaps here, either.

That being said, I like the rest of your post; nice ideas, nice way of thinking. The only problem is that "slow killing builds" are, just like kiting builds, almost extinct and frowned upon. The whole game has evolved into a race of "becoming the most efficient killing machine on the planet" or "being flamed as clueless noob". Never before in the history of Diablo were exotic builds so rare, and the blame is not entirely on Blizzard; the community is reacting strangely sometimes, too.

Edited by Bagstone, 21 January 2013 - 04:00 PM.

[Phredreeke]

Bagstone, on 21 January 2013 - 03:57 PM, said:

Just a sketched (and not necessarily 100% accurate) example: Attack speed for Blizzard is kind of useless - you can cast Blizzard faster, but you still have to wait for its full duration because it doesn't stack, therefore basically rendering IAS useless for Blizzard.

Now I'm no expert on Wizards, but wouldn't the solution here be to have attack speed reduce the time between Blizzard ticks?

[Bagstone]

With attack speed being beneficial for so many other wizard spells, it would completely contradict the intention of creating diverse gear incentives. Remember, it's not about making every spell benefit from the same stats, but exactly the opposite: how to make character A with spec X want a specific type of gear that is as much different as possible from the gear that character B with spec Y wants.

Edit: by the way, your title is absolutely right - "don't nerf crit, make other competing stats". It's exactly what they're trying to do, and what exists in the game to some extent already. I already have two sets of gear (one high APS, one low APS). So far it's the only "choice" I can see though; looking forward to the things to come.

Edited by Bagstone, 21 January 2013 - 04:10 PM.

[RMrulz]

Bagstone, on 21 January 2013 - 03:57 PM, said:

That being said, I like the rest of your post; nice ideas, nice way of thinking. The only problem is that "slow killing builds" are, just like kiting builds, almost extinct and frowned upon. The whole game has evolved into a race of "becoming the most efficient killing machine on the planet" or "being flamed as clueless noob". Never before in the history of Diablo were exotic builds so rare, and the blame is not entirely on Blizzard; the community is reacting strangely sometimes, too.

I can't tell you how much abuse I've taken from people over the existence of my sword+board tank barbarian.  I have sacrificed dps for survivability on many pieces of gear, with the result being a crazy tank that can stand there and take an incredible beating but kills rather slowly.  Why am I building such a character?  Because it's fun for me.  Not efficient, but fun.

[Shadout]

Blizzard is spot on with their intended goal here. Now if only they could implement it.

"Different stats for different builds" is desperately needed, for increasing variation in items, and spread out the demand between a lot more different stats.
This alone could also increase the likelihood of getting good drops - which is one of the main complaints about the game currently -  although a good drop would not be a an item desired by everyone anymore, but rather an item desired by a small part of the playerbase.
And it would again be possible to find very specialized items that inspired you to try new builds (or another class); something many people seemed fond of in Diablo 2.

As far as nerfing crit, people need to come to terms with the fact that nerfing is the same thing as buffing. There is no substantial difference between nerfing crit or buffing everything else (including enemy HP to compensate for higher player power).
Nerfing or buffing should be picked as tools depending on what is easiest. In this case it sounds a lot easier to nerf 2 stats (crit and crit dmg) than buffing like 20+ other stats.
In other cases, like Thorns or Bleed, it is easier to buff those, than nerf everything else.

You are totally right, that it would be pointless to nerf crit, unless there are other interesting stats in the game.
As much as these changes are needed right now, its unlikely to be fixed before an expansion I guess :/
So much needs to be changed at the same time; like 20+ new stats (including much needed +skill stats too), changing lots of the skills and runes to scale directly with some stats (like WD pickup radius synergy) etc.


P.S.  %-dmg vs crowd-controlled targets is a really neat idea. A perfect example of the type of stat that should be added to increase build/gear diversity.

Edited by Shadout, 21 January 2013 - 04:55 PM.

[PiousFlea]

Bagstone, on 21 January 2013 - 03:57 PM, said:

Just a sketched (and not necessarily 100% accurate) example: Attack speed for Blizzard is kind of useless - you can cast Blizzard faster, but you still have to wait for its full duration because it doesn't stack, therefore basically rendering IAS useless for Blizzard. You want low APS but high sustained DPS. A CMWW wizard is the exact opposite: having 3.01 APS and decent APoC makes you almost invincible, but DPS is not that important (it's more important to have a good stunlock, once that works you care about how to actually kill stuff and increasing your DPS).

I think what I was trying to say in the OP is this:
- Blizzard wants players to have a way to DPS hard without stacking %crit and %CDB.
- They suggest in their 1.07 preview, that stacking Attack Speed and +Weapon Damage is a way to DPS without having %crit.
- However, this is wrong. Anyone with high (100k+) DPS has a ton of crit. The guys with world-champion (400k+) DPS will have tons of Crit, CDB, Aspd, and +damage.
- This is because all of the damage increasers are multiplicative. There is no "choice". You want "all of the above".

If D3 gearing is supposed to be a "choice" then there should be enough stats to choose from that you can't simply get "all of the above". That is why there needs to be other competing stats besides Crit.

Also, a DoT centric build does not necessarily have to be "slow killing". See poison nova necros and plague javelin zons from D2.

[Pietrov]

Hmm.

This is a hard topic. I guess at some point Blizzard will be in a very bad position, because they will simply have to make a choice, when each choice will make the community go berserk (like after IAS nerf).

In my opinion there is no easy solution for this like "buff X / nerf Y", as the whole philosophy behind calculating damage is kind of... flawed.
Currently, everything goes down to the primary stats that you have to stack.

Possible solutions as I see it:

• Different critical hit/damage and attack speed coefficients for different skills
  
• Caps on the aforementioned values or just certain thresholds
  
• Remodeling all the skills to do damage based on a formula like this: DAMAGE=%PrimaryStat + %WeaponDamage (+%CC,%CD,%IAS - possibly)
  
• Increasing base amount of attributes per level and decreasing attribute rolls on items
  
• Forbidding certain rolls, so items won't roll with all the desired stats. Choosing gear will be a more complex process - if you don't get Trifecta rings anymore, then it means that you have to choose a stat to stack and choose a build that will benefit the most from the desired stat you are stacking

Unfortunately, these are serious matters and I guess we won't see any major improvements in this field before the expansion is released.

[Catalept]

I've always felt that it was a bad idea to let all DPS stats roll on the same item, as it meant that the best choice was the same for everyone... but it's too late now.

What I'd be interested in is changes that actually make IAS, CrC or CrD irrelevant or even harmful to certain builds. The problem with that, of course, is the it immediately makes those builds OP because they're so much cheaper to fill out... unless their DPS is fundamentally lower, but then no-one would bother with them. It seems like a Catch-22 that can't be solved without some very disruptive changes.

[shndany]

I think that the 4 stats:

- Average Damage
- Increased Attack Speed
- Critical Hit Damage
- Critical Hit Chance

Are ok right now. I seriously can't understand why people wan't critical hit chance nerfed. This stat, is the most important for CM Wizards and Demon Hunters who use Night Stalker to recover Discipline. If they cap it to 30 or 40% they would make this two builds completely useless. And I'm sure that most of them would leave this game. This is a terrible idea, and Blizzard should nerf this stats only to those who suggested it.

[inkcheese]

I've always thought better proc rates for CC on individual equips would heavily benefit IAS builds (and a better Ruby). The thing is, the best way for IAS, Crit Damage and Crit Chance to be balanced is to make them not roll on the same item at the same time.

[Shadout]

shndany, on 21 January 2013 - 11:47 PM, said:

I seriously can't understand why people wan't critical hit chance nerfed. This stat, is the most important for CM Wizards and Demon Hunters who use Night Stalker to recover Discipline. If they cap it to 30 or 40% they would make this two builds completely useless. And I'm sure that most of them would leave this game. This is a terrible idea, and Blizzard should nerf this stats only to those who suggested it.

CM stun spec could probably take a nerf in any case, but its not like Blizzard can't buff skills to compensate for nerfed crit, if they felt it was needed.

Hell, making crit a lot less useful in general, while making crit even more useful for CM wizards and nithgtstalker DHs for example, would fit very well with the "different stats for different builds".

Overall; crit nerf has very little to do with build nerfs.

Edited by Shadout, 22 January 2013 - 12:39 AM.

[Bagstone]

shndany, on 21 January 2013 - 11:47 PM, said:

Are ok right now. I seriously can't understand why people wan't critical hit chance nerfed. This stat, is the most important for CM Wizards and Demon Hunters who use Night Stalker to recover Discipline. If they cap it to 30 or 40% they would make this two builds completely useless. And I'm sure that most of them would leave this game. This is a terrible idea, and Blizzard should nerf this stats only to those who suggested it.

1. A cap of 40% doesn't make CM useless, you can tank MP10 ubers with 40% crit chance if your other stats are alright (mainly APoC)
2. It's okay to have certain builds that work better than others. However, for a wizard the difference between having CM (easy mode even on MP10) and not having CM (complete failure to get anything done on higher MPs unless you've got decent gear) is purely an extreme inbalance in the current design of the game. I love the wizard as a class, it has so much potential, but as soon as you try out a build without CM you feel like gimping yourself down to a useless tool. Blizzard needs something to do about this. There will be outcry in the beginning, yes, but in the long run it's the best they can do for this class.

Edited by Bagstone, 22 January 2013 - 12:50 AM.

[shndany]

I don't think that nerfing critical hit chance and critical hit damage will help to build diversity....
It seems kinda ridiculous: "Let's nerf critical hit chance and critical hit damage, let's make this two stats useless to create build diversity".
Because, basically that's what this guys are saying.
If I'm not wrong, you need at least 50% critical hit chance right? For the CM Wizard build, at least that's what almost all the good players I've heard say.
If you're playing a Demon Hunter, without the legacy Natalya's you need a lot of critical hit chance. That's because, the more critical hit chance you have, the better Night Stalker works. If they cap it, this will be a huge nerf to Demon Hunters.
So, I don't agree with this nerf.
They should make the other stats better, not nerf two stats that work perfectly.

Edited by shndany, 22 January 2013 - 05:54 AM.

[kablooie]

shndany, on 21 January 2013 - 11:47 PM, said:

I think that the 4 stats:

- Average Damage
- Increased Attack Speed
- Critical Hit Damage
- Critical Hit Chance

Are ok right now. I seriously can't understand why people wan't critical hit chance nerfed. This stat, is the most important for CM Wizards and Demon Hunters who use Night Stalker to recover Discipline. If they cap it to 30 or 40% they would make this two builds completely useless. And I'm sure that most of them would leave this game. This is a terrible idea, and Blizzard should nerf this stats only to those who suggested it.

right you are! all the stats are fine. i play a demon hunter and i used to have a crit build (100kdps with 50%cc, 450%cd) and now i have an average damage/attack speed build (2.97 aps) and my dps is 110k. crit is definetly not overpowered (sentry is! XD)

[Scare]

shndany, on 22 January 2013 - 05:53 AM, said:

I don't think that nerfing critical hit chance and critical hit damage will help to build diversity....
It seems kinda ridiculous: "Let's nerf critical hit chance and critical hit damage, let's make this two stats useless to create build diversity".
Because, basically that's what this guys are saying.

Literally nobody said make crit stats useless.   You are completely making up things other people are saying.

A reduced crit value on items, but an increased proc chance can completely balance out any changes to skills, which follows their behaviors so far.

Nobody wants crit useless, they just want it to be bad for some builds.  The builds that are dependent on crit, probably aren't going to be builds they pick to get rid of crit from.

[shndany]

Scare, on 22 January 2013 - 06:44 AM, said:

shndany, on 22 January 2013 - 05:53 AM, said:

I don't think that nerfing critical hit chance and critical hit damage will help to build diversity....
It seems kinda ridiculous: "Let's nerf critical hit chance and critical hit damage, let's make this two stats useless to create build diversity".
Because, basically that's what this guys are saying.

Literally nobody said make crit stats useless.   You are completely making up things other people are saying.

A reduced crit value on items, but an increased proc chance can completely balance out any changes to skills, which follows their behaviors so far.

Nobody wants crit useless, they just want it to be bad for some builds.  The builds that are dependent on crit, probably aren't going to be builds they pick to get rid of crit from.

They just have to buff attack speed and average damage, you know?
Most people use critical hit damage + critical hit chance because they are the stats that buff your DPS more. People like to see high numbers.
They need to buff the other stats. Puting a cap to critical hit chance it's going to affect some builds. Let's kill builds to create build diversity! That's basically what you guys are saying.

[shaggy]

shndany, on 22 January 2013 - 08:36 AM, said:

They just have to buff attack speed and average damage, you know?
Most people use critical hit damage + critical hit chance because they are the stats that buff your DPS more. People like to see high numbers.
They need to buff the other stats. Puting a cap to critical hit chance it's going to affect some builds. Let's kill builds to create build diversity! That's basically what you guys are saying.

I'm not sure the OP or anyone else is actually suggesting to "kill builds" to create diversity.  That seems to be something you dreamed up here.

What the OP is saying is that, regardless of what stats are good for your build every single "top" item has Primary Stat + IAS + Crit + Crit Damage - and that the "get everything regardless of if it's good or not so good" approach basically means that there isn't any diversity among gear.   This is a slightly complex problem; however, and I wouldn't expect it solved before an expansion.

As Catalept correctly points out, it's simply that we don't have to choose.  If your choice is between Primary + Crit + Crit Damage and Primary + Crit + Crit Damage + IAS.... why wouldn't you choose the latter?  But if the choice were between Primary + Crit + Crit Damage and Primary + IAS + <other stat that synergized well with IAS> then... THEN... you are presented with a choice which actually allows you to tailor your gear to your build.

As long as you can just throw everything on a piece, though, the only real choice becomes "get everything" regardless of what spec you're playing.

[shndany]

shaggy, on 22 January 2013 - 03:34 PM, said:

I'm not sure the OP or anyone else is actually suggesting to "kill builds" to create diversity.

Yes they're suggesting that. If they cap critical hit chance up to 30 or 40% they'll make useless the CM Wizard build (It would still work, but not at higher Monster Powers) and it would make useless the passive Night Stalker of the Demon Hunter. They'll make useless two type of characters in order to create build diversity, if they do this. Jesus Christ, how many times do I have to say it? Just thiiiiinkkkkkkk.
As I've already said, they shouldn't put a cap to critical hit chance and critical hit damage. They should buff the other stats.
Let's stop with all this "OMFG THIS STAT IS SO OP NERF NERF NERF" "OMFG THIS CLASS IS SO OP NERF NERF NERF".

Edited by shndany, 23 January 2013 - 12:34 AM.

[raitonx]

I agree with you about "not nerfing crit" subject. Because crit builds make our runs fast and we love living fast. Also making other stats competing will be good especially when we get bored "living fast" and try some different also fun builds