New spell crit system affects non-persistent spells?

[Rophez]

I read a couple posts that seem to suggest that the new spell crit system will affect spells like fireball. Is this the case? If so, I have to strongly protest.

I think that one-off spells should have the same damage for everything in their blast radius - either you nailed a crit or not. Can you imagine having a pack of 10 trolls chasing you around, and having to hit 10 crit fireballs before they all died?

I guess this is one way to sell more SP pots off the DDO store...

[hityawithastick]

Why would you need 10 non-crit fireballs to kill 10 trolls?

[Kralael]

The new system is divided in 2 portions:

- Critical hits on spell damage can apply randomly on persistant damage spells each time they tick.
- Critical hits now apply individually on all creatures, players and targets affected by them.

OLD: You cast a fireball and crit: 10 monsters get critical damage and dies.
NEW: You cast a fireball : 1 monster get critical damage and die, 9 still runs after you.

[hityawithastick]

I am of the opinion that if your spell won't do significant damage without a crit, you shouldn't cast it in the first place. For me, a crit is a pleasant surprise. "Oh, I had planned to kill that half-health troll with my normal scorching ray, but two of them critted for 123 damage. How nice."

[Kralael]

So you're saying that casters shouldn't use damage spells in end-game content ? Elite/Epic difficulty ?

[Kmnh]

The "old" crit system's math was like that of swinging a vorpal weapon: If it required you 5 spells to kill those mobs, and one of the fisrt 3 critted, the mobs died and you saved a ton of sp and time. You could count on it happening about half the time.

Under the new system it's very likely that you will need the 5 spells, because some mob didn't get hit by any criticals. It's shaving off 20% of the caster's sp and dps on this scenario.

Taking one or two more minutes to kill epic red-nameds is not cool either, but I can live with that

[Legendary_Agent]

I read a couple posts that seem to suggest that the new spell crit system will affect spells like fireball. Is this the case? If so, I have to strongly protest.

I think that one-off spells should have the same damage for everything in their blast radius - either you nailed a crit or not. Can you imagine having a pack of 10 trolls chasing you around, and having to hit 10 crit fireballs before they all died?

I guess this is one way to sell more SP pots off the DDO store...

ignore the unexperient ppl out there claiming that this wont change anything blablabla, they never tried real builds with significant damage, yes i can confirm for you that in lammania update 8 this change is applied, it affects all spells aoe spells, like fireball or firewall, and youre right to protest, while the damage output will be the same, it will be very erratic leaving plenty of foes alive and overkilling other foes which are almost dead, ive explained this in a thread here that already:

Make sure to read the next post aswell as it compares the new system to the old system.
New System: http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p...3&postcount=24
Old System: http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p...5&postcount=25

[Goldeneye]

I am of the opinion that if your spell won't do significant damage without a crit, you shouldn't cast it in the first place.

Monsters get a slight increase in hp end-game.
That rule doesn't apply after level 10 :P

[Vellrad]

For me this change is unfun because of one simple reason:
It greatly eliminates random factor from fights.

For me its quite exciting if I get critical meteor, and I will kill all those evil cultists with one spell.
Now it'll be easy to calcutale, for example if I know there is 18% chance for critical hit, and if there is group of 12 mobs, I will most probably score 2 critics with BDFB, meaning 2 mobs dies and 10 loses about ~33% HP. Then next DBFB will most probably critically hit 2 mobs, killing them instanly and remaining mobs will lose another ~33%HP. After 3rd DBFB critical hit won't matter, and all mobs probably will be dead.
In current system, 1st and 2nd spell got 18% change on destroying whole group at once, while 3rd will most probably finish them all, if there was no critical before.

[TechNoFear]

ignore the unexperient ppl out there claiming that this wont change anything blablabla, they never tried real builds with significant damage, yes i can confirm for you that in lammania update 8 this change is applied, it affects all spells aoe spells, like fireball or firewall, and youre right to protest, while the damage output will be the same, it will be very erratic leaving plenty of foes alive and overkilling other foes which are almost dead, ive explained this in a thread here that already:

Make sure to read the next post aswell as it compares the new system to the old system.
New System: http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p...3&postcount=24
Old System: http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p...5&postcount=25

As I said in the original thread....

Your math is incorrect.

The first example has 10% crit chance, the second 18%.

The random way you allocated crit damage in the first example made it take 2 extra casts.

If you use the correct math both take 13 (12.5) casts.

[TechNoFear]

for example if I know there is 18% chance for critical hit, and if there is group of 12 mobs, I will most probably score 2 critics with BDFB, meaning 2 mobs dies and 10 loses about ~33% HP. Then next DBFB will most probably critically hit 2 mobs, killing them instanly and remaining mobs will lose another ~33%HP. After 3rd DBFB critical hit won't matter, and all mobs probably will be dead.
In current system, 1st and 2nd spell got 18% change on destroying whole group at once, while 3rd will most probably finish them all, if there was no critical before.

Lets consider your scenario and the amount of damage you/your party takes while you kill these 12 mobs.

Current system:
1st 18% crit [so 18% of no damage, 82% of 12 x damage]
2nd 32.76% crit [14.76% of 12 x damage, 67.24% of 24 x damage]
3rd rest killed

So 18% no damage (0), 14.76% of 12 x damage (1.77) and 67.24% of 24 x damage (16.14)

This means that you will take (on average) 17.9 x mobs average damage while killing them under the current system.

New System:
1st [2.16 killed by crits, 9.84 x damage]
2nd [1.77 killed by crits, 8.06 x damage]
3rd rest killed.

So 9.84 + 8.06 == 17.9 x mobs average damage.

Not exactly the game breaking change people are forecasting.....

Under the new system you can more accurately predict the SP costs and damage (as the massive crit peaks have been evened out). The old system was hard to predict the timing of a crit and so balance casters to melee.

This change in the mechanics also allows spell damage to be raised in the future, without the crit peak damage becomming over-powered.

[FluffyCalico]

If your first cast has a 10% chance of a crit your 2nd 3rd 4th 500th cast have a 10% chance of a crit. Please do not post the cumlative chance that at least one will be a crit and call it the chance the individual spell will crit. This is not only misleading but plain wrong.

[TechNoFear]

If your first cast has a 10% chance of a crit your 2nd 3rd 4th 500th cast have a 10% chance of a crit. Please do not post the cumlative chance that at least one will be a crit and call it the chance the individual spell will crit. This is not only misleading but plain wrong.

Not sure if this is directed at me.

This is only true if the events are 'individual' (preceeding events are irrelevent to the probabilty of the next outcome).

The chance of tossing a 'head' on a true coin is 50%.

The probability of tossing 10 heads in a row is NOT 50% and IS cumulative, because the probability of each individual event must be considered (the first 9 tosses must also be heads).

[Vellrad]

Under the new system you can more accurately predict the SP costs and damage (as the massive crit peaks have been evened out). The old system was hard to predict the timing of a crit and so balance casters to melee.

That's exactly what I mean.
I don't know what's with others, but personally I like having a random factor in game. Sure, it will stay here, but will be smaller.

[Legendary_Agent]

As I said in the original thread....

Your math is incorrect.

The first example has 10% crit chance, the second 18%.

The random way you allocated crit damage in the first example made it take 2 extra casts.

If you use the correct math both take 13 (12.5) casts.

as i said in my original thread aswell drop it, and read the first one again, the first one also had more hits than just 1 per spell ur maths are wrong not mine as youre disregarding some critical hits from my first one, on top of that im actually favoring the new chance system a bit as you see since cast number 9 to 15 there are no more 10 monsters already, there are less and u still critical 1 of the remaining ones which ofc is not 10% anymore, its bigger.

And for the last time, i have no clue what is so hard for you to understand that your maths are plain wrong as youre comparing damage to kill.
One allocates critical in random monsters which theres far more than 50% chance for it to kill the weak monsters and leave some alive, thats how the new system works and thats how itll probably remain, are u seriously asking me to critical each monster in a row? because that will happen ingame as much t ime as ppl winning the lottery and thats the reason of why ppl including me complain of the new system.

Thats what the new system does, allocates damage where is not needed while the old one if 1 needs it everyone on the group will need it aswell as the critical in the old system will automatically critical the entire group instead of just random foes.

[Legendary_Agent]

Under the new system you can more accurately predict the SP costs and damage (as the massive crit peaks have been evened out). The old system was hard to predict the timing of a crit and so balance casters to melee.

Yes you are right, in the new system u can predict SP cost more effectively than the old system because in the old system if u criticaled the mob it meant that u actually got spared with mana and time, in the new system theres more than 90% chance of not achieving that: sparing mana thanks to critical hits never happen as you will fail to critical all monsters evenly which ofc is what the old system did and the new system will never achieve, making critical chance there irrelevant as you are wasting as much mana, time and spell casting as you would without a critical chance at all to kill the entire group, i tested it ingame and its very consistent with my theory, u could try it too its not that hard.

So excuse me to tell u this but: while u do predict SP in the new system ure forgetting that the sp predicted cost is almost equal to not having critical chance at all, which ofc its nothing good at all, its just sad.

[kernal42]

Lets consider your scenario and the amount of damage you/your party takes while you kill these 12 mobs.

Current system:
1st 18% crit [so 18% of no damage, 82% of 12 x damage]
2nd 32.76% crit [14.76% of 12 x damage, 67.24% of 24 x damage]
3rd rest killed

So 18% no damage (0), 14.76% of 12 x damage (1.77) and 67.24% of 24 x damage (16.14)

This means that you will take (on average) 17.9 x mobs average damage while killing them under the current system.

New System:
1st [2.16 killed by crits, 9.84 x damage]
2nd [1.77 killed by crits, 8.06 x damage]
3rd rest killed.

So 9.84 + 8.06 == 17.9 x mobs average damage.

Not exactly the game breaking change people are forecasting.....

Under the new system you can more accurately predict the SP costs and damage (as the massive crit peaks have been evened out). The old system was hard to predict the timing of a crit and so balance casters to melee.

This change in the mechanics also allows spell damage to be raised in the future, without the crit peak damage becomming over-powered.

You appear to be mistaking the average for the expected outcome. They are different.
The old system and new system will do the same amount of damage on average, but the old system will tend to kill the entire group in fewer shots. The new system, with (# of Mobs) more rolls will have a higher variance and more extreme deviations from the average, making it more common that N casts do not kill the entire group but instead leave one or more stragglers. This will be more noticable by soloing casters than grouped casters.

For one-shot single target spells (ie polar ray): Unchanged
For one-shot AoE spells (ie CoC): This is a nerf
For DoT spells (ie Firewall): This is a buff [excepting crit fishing]

In my opinion, the nerf to one-shot AoEs is pretty insignificant end-game, but will probably affect levelling arcanes, but as always, YMMV.

Cheers,
Kernal

[Legendary_Agent]

You appear to be mistaking the average for the expected outcome. They are different.
The old system and new system will do the same amount of damage on average, but the old system will tend to kill the entire group in fewer shots. The new system, with (# of Mobs) more rolls will have a higher variance and more extreme deviations from the average, making it more common that N casts do not kill the entire group but instead leave one or more stragglers. This will be more noticable by soloing casters than grouped casters.

For one-shot single target spells (ie polar ray): Unchanged
For one-shot AoE spells (ie CoC): This is a nerf
For DoT spells (ie Firewall): This is a buff [excepting crit fishing]

In my opinion, the nerf to one-shot AoEs is pretty insignificant end-game, but will probably affect levelling arcanes, but as always, YMMV.

Cheers,
Kernal

Very well said except for the end game, ppl used to laugh at me when i used damage spells instead of whails in shroud untill they saw me in action taking care of most of portals alone, the reason of that was that whail of banshee isnt very reliable on a sorcerer compared to a necro wizard so i did it the sorc way and it was still pretty ok.
Not trying to say sorc are better than wizard in pve by any means, imho its the other way around these days.

[corpman]

over the long haul of using up your sp bar the damage will average out. do enjoy laying down 9 firewalls just to get a crit out of one and for highend nukers one out of 4 or 5. I think someone needs some cheese.

[Matuse]

AOE healing spells have applied their crit on a per-person (and for undead, per-enemy) basis since day 1.

It has never been a big deal.

This won't either.