RIP power builds in roaming

#1 - Jan. 17, 2014, 4:15 p.m.
Blizzard Post

From the stream today: crit damage (being replaced with a stat called ferocity) is going to become the secondary stat (AKA a zerker piece with 90 power, 60 prec and 2% crit damage will now have 60 feroicity instead of crit daamge). Ferocity overall will also be less effective than crit damage because of a different algorithm.

Zerk builds were barely holding on. There was a benefit in that you’d be able to min/max slots because of the way crit damage was rounded, but now that it’s just a stat that’s not possible anymore.

Condi builds still have 50% condi duration from just food. RIP power builds forever and always, anything less than 6v6 will just be condi bunkers all the way down.

EDIT: A lot of you are missing the point. Slap on dire or settlers gear for a condi build: outlast everyone, be insanely tanky while putting out good long term damage. To acheive the same on a power build you have to min/max with crit slots, such as with celestial and on trinket jewels. This won’t be possible next patch, as ferocity will reflect a numerical stat instead of a percentage.

This is potentially nastier than the 10% nerf, as zerkers does a LOT of damage in WvW (Game is balanced around the ~60% or so crit damage found in sPvP, WvW can reach 120% or more).

#113 - Jan. 22, 2014, 10:26 a.m.
Blizzard Post

The proposed changes to critical damage gear aren’t specifically PvE-focused, but focused rather on the stat weighting of critical damage itself. We’re not aiming to make crit damage unviable, just to bring it closer to other gear sets.

As for the first feature build, there will be other factors coming into play that could very well offset the changes, including reworked runes/sigils, the ability to use sigils in new combinations (including 2 on a two-handed weapon), and the profession balance changes. Just something to keep in mind.