Some changes we're expecting to work on soon:
- We're probably going to put in some Competence bonus to Critical weapon profiles. This is going to require removing quite a bit of power that is currently in the tree. A lot of melee power is likely to be removed.
- 1KC: A Thousand Cuts is probably going to get an multiple-choice option which is completely passive and mathematically inferior. It will be the case that we expect maximum DPS to only be achieved with the most interactive gameplay version of 1KC, but players who simply don't prefer that gameplay style have an option which doesn't give up all of that DPS.
No one "advertised" this as anything other than what it is - 5% Incorporeality. That said, let's examine why
the following claim in red is mathematically incorrect:
Taking as a given this math is correct: If you got attacked 100 times for 1 damage each time, you take 36 damage without Whirlwind. With it, you take 34 damage.
36/34 => 1.058 ... => about ~5-6% less damage than you would otherwise take.
The TOTAL chance to be hit is irrelevant to whether or not this is reducing your chance to be hit or damage taken by 5%.
As an extreme learning example: If you (somehow) have 98% dodge, getting 1% more dodge would reduce (physical attack) damage by 50% of what it was previously. You are still only getting 1% dodge. You are also taking half the damage you used to. You can apply different words and interpretations here, but those facts remain true.
Yes, you can say you go from a total hit chance of 36% to 34%. That doesn't mean your miss chance is only changed by 2% by this ability, because this ability is independent of all sources
except other forms of Incorporeality -- which has
increasing returns, like Dodge. 5% Incorp is worth
more the more Incorp you already have.
So, yes. It's true that 5% is probably not really 5%. It's probably
bigger than 5%.
This is similar to what we saw in Legendary Dreadnought. We're happy to hear what you were getting with a Swashbuckler in Dreadnought.
That said, Dreadnought was certainly not the best Tempest DPS in our tests.
We are happy to hear your data and play experiences on this.
Players tested on Lamannia. Many players got some numbers pretty close to what we saw for similar builds and situations.
The best way for us to get wider, deeper testing data is to not restrict or constrain how players test and instead use any and all methods players come up with
in addition to the methods we test with. Calling out one or a few methods is contrary to the goal of
getting the right answer.
Again, we welcome hearing your data and testing methods.
I'm sorry you feel that there's no way we got the results we got. We'd love to see the methods you used to get the results you got.
Additionally: Convincing players we're right is less important than being right. It's not entirely unimportant, but secondary. I'm not sure why you think we're trying to convince you. We're not. We're trying only to convince ourselves balance is where it should be.
You seem to believe there was a change of goals where there were not any goals. We don't really have these wider goals inherent to "crit expansion" where you are pointing at them. Your question cannot be answered because it has a faulty premise.
Boosting Critical hits is a tool. The goal is class balance. Critical expansion is one tool amongst many that we can use. We are neither
inherently for nor against altering chances or damage of physical critical hits.
If necessary for balance we will change anything. That's why.
It's already been done. We are currently planning to undo that balancing work for other reasons, mostly related to Holy Sword. Those discussions aren't fully ready.
We're happy to see and quite possibly try to replicate your extensive, rigorous testing. Perhaps I've missed it. I couldn't find it in this post. We've seen other hard-data testing results that agrees with neither you nor with us, and those posts are great.
Critical expansion is neither too strong nor too weak. In a vacuum, that's meaningless. There is no reason to think it is necessary, nor to think it unnecessary.
Master's Blitz provides a lot of melee power. Some players have suggested the current implementation is overpowered and/or that other Destinies should provide equal melee power. Yet, somehow Legendary Dreadnought is
not consistently the highest DPS tree (including when testing Ranger). If anyone has testing showing otherwise, we want to hear the details - for Master's Blitz & Melee power, or for Ranger.
There is no reason a tool used in one place
must be used in every other place. Melee Power, like Critical profile, is just another tool. It is neither inherently good nor bad.
Agreed.
We appreciate the idea, and have had discussed boosting Dexterity more in Tempest, but ultimately we decided we'd rather not go far down that path (and instead focused on rewarding you a bit more for having high Dexterity already).