What Are Your Thoughts On The New Critical Strike Changes In The "stormbringer" Update?

[richardddd]

As the title suggests, I'm interested in what you guys think of the new critical hit chances in regard to the mods available at the moment. I personally think the pseudo buff to critical hit chances is too much, I was able easily able to obtain a 100% chance with only a few fusions. I do agree that it was far too low before to be of any stable use but now it's substantially stronger and I feel it overshadows it's rival armor penetration completely now.
 

With that in mind, Is armor penetration still a good investment in comparison to critical hit chances?

 

I'm all ears! (:

Edited April 16, 2013 by richardddd

[ShadowsCrush]

Why not both?

 

Why not Zoidberg?

[LoRDxDeMoN]

Armor penetration is amazing. Crit chance, not so much. Nearly as useless as puncture mods.

[kiwicanfly]

critical chance mod is pretty useless unless you are ash or loki with a high chance weap such as duel zoren

[richardddd]

Armor penetration is amazing. Crit chance, not so much. Nearly as useless as puncture mods.

Oh? Would you care to elaborate as to why this is? (Keep in mind that I am new to the game) I sort of assumed that critical strike was decent when fighting the CORPUS and not so much for the heavily armored Grineer. 

[richardddd]

Why not both?

 

Why not Zoidberg?

Oh! I would most certainly get both, was just curious as to which is more beneficial in terms of damage output. 

[Cpl_Facehugger]

As the title suggests, I'm interested in what you guys think of the new critical hit chances in regard to the mods available at the moment. I personally think the pseudo buff to critical hit chances is too much, I was able easily able to obtain a 100% chance with only a few fusions. I do agree that it was far too low before to be of any stable use but now it's substantially stronger and I feel it overshadows it's rival armor penetration completely now.

 

With that in mind, Is armor penetration still a good investment in comparison to critical hit chances?

 

I'm all ears! (:

The trouble with this post is that the +100% chance crit mod doesn't actually mean that every hit will be a crit, it merely means that the base crit rate is increased by 100%.

[LoRDxDeMoN]

Vast majority of weapons have a base crit chance around 5%. Even if you use a +150% mod, it'd only increase it to a total of 12.5%.

 

Even for Loki or Ash it isn't very practical, since they already have 100% crit rate while invistealthed.

[ShadowsCrush]

Oh! I would most certainly get both, was just curious as to which is more beneficial in terms of damage output. 

Also your notion of crit chance is decidedly wrong.

The mod giving 100-120% crit chance is to your base value, meaning you're getting double of 7.5% or something like that depending on the weapon.

[richardddd]

The trouble with this post is that the +100% chance crit mod doesn't actually mean that every hit will be a crit, it merely means that the base crit rate is increased by 100%.

This is news to me, glad you took the time to post.

 

Is there a known average base value of crit chance across all guns? Do some have more than others?

 

I was wondering why I actually wasn't critical hitting on every shot. (:

Edited April 16, 2013 by richardddd

[richardddd]

Vast majority of weapons have a base crit chance around 5%. Even if you use a +150% mod, it'd only increase it to a total of 12.5%.

 

Even for Loki or Ash it isn't very practical, since they already have 100% crit rate while invistealthed.

It makes sense now. 

 

So the critical hit changes aren't as huge as I first thought they were. 

[Cpl_Facehugger]

This is news to me, glad you took the time to post.

 

Is there a known average base value of crit chance across all guns? Do some have more than others?

 

It all makes sense now! I was wondering why I actually wasn't critical hitting on every shot. 

I believe the average is around 5-7.5%? It got buffed recently, but I don't think the specifics were published. And yeah, some guns have a higher crit percentage. Autoguns tend to have the lowest, while single shot guns and certain melee weapons the highest, AFAIK.

[richardddd]

I believe the average is around 5-7.5%? It got buffed recently, but I don't think the specifics were published. And yeah, some guns have a higher crit percentage. Autoguns tend to have the lowest, while single shot guns and certain melee weapons the highest, AFAIK.

That makes sense, would you happen to know why crit got buffed? 

 

From my understanding now, it appears that armor penetration outshone it completely if they were to be compared as stand alone damage variables.

[Xrylene]

Critical chance is multiplicative, not additive, thus if your weapon has a 5% crit rate, as most seem to, a 100% increase is only an extra 5%, so 10% total. In other words, it's actually just plain terrible.

 

The thing is, even if it were additive it would be terrible. The reason? Let's say you have a weapon that deals 100 damage for ease of numbers, and on a crit it deals double damage. For comparison, let's use an additive 50% crit mod, versus a 50% damage increasing mod such as Serration, Hornet Strike, or Point Blank. 50% of the time, so every second hit on average, the weapon could deal double damage with the crit mod, so it's damage might look like this for ten consecutive attacks: 100/200/100/200/200/100/100/100/200/200, while the 50% damage increase would look like this: 150/150/150/150/150/150/150/150/150/150. Both increase your damage by 50% on average, but as you can clearly see one is reliable and the other is not. A consistent damage increase allows you to meter your damage and know how many shots it will take to finish a given enemy, potentially saving ammo and taking less time in the long run as you become more skilled. An inconsistent increase like crit may sometimes spike at a good time and take out an enemy earlier than normal, but at other times may not proc when you need it requiring more shots, and at other times still proc when the enemy was about to die anyway, making it a total waste.

 

I'll keep saying it until people get it, but crit is an outdated mechanic from Dungeons and Dragons that has no place in games that have an aiming system. In D&D it was a simulation of the chance of striking a vital area, such as the head, and other games used this as well because it stuck with players as being exciting at the time. However, something people often forget or don't realize, is that we already have a way to deal "critical damage" by headshotting enemies, which places it int he player's hands rather than the random number generator. Additionally, D&D relies on RNG for literally everything, including whether an attack even hits, what the attack's variable damage is, whether an enemy(or you) will die instantly from massive damage that otherwise wouldn't deplete your HP, whether or not jumping results in a massive leap or tripping, as well as the opposite of a critical hit, a critical fumble.

 

I'm sure people who LOVE critical strikes would enjoy shooting themselves in the foot with their Hek 5% of the time? Or how about Aiming at an enemy with a Snipetron, about to take the shot for a perfect headshot, but then having the bullet miss, not due to a glitch, but because the enemy has a dodge chance? Or how about getting hit by a Grineer Bombard or Ancient Infested having a chance to instantly kill you? Those sound fun right? Fact is, not only is crit terrible in this game, it's terrible design and has no place in this game either.

 

Edit: Oh, and Armour Pierce doesn't negate their armour like you might think it would do, it's not like other games. Here it does a percentage of your damage the same way fire, shock, or frost would, it's essentially a physical "elemental damage type", which is super effective versus Grineer, Corpus Crewmen headshots, and Ancient Infested if I recall.

Edited April 16, 2013 by Xrylene

[LoRDxDeMoN]

Informative post

 

I read the whole thing and agree with you, but DE is trying to add variety to spice up the mod scene. It's a bit dry at the moment.

[Xrylene]

It's dry because mods don't modify playstyle, they pretty much just mod damage, and there's an oversaturation of damage mods. We have the four elements, each with a purpose, that's fine. We have normal damage increases, which also effect those elemental damage types, which are mostly fine, but easily could be attached to rank seeing as they are absolutely necessary anyway. We have firing rate which trades ammo efficiency for damage output, a fair trade. Then we start getting into stuff that makes less sense. We have Multishot, which functions in the exact same way as additive crit chance would, the only thing that makes it worth it at all is the fact that it multiplies all of the preceding mods again, which seems a bit excessive. And then we have the completely redundant category, crit chance, which I've shown is terrible, and crit damage, which by proxy could be argued to be even more terrible.

 

What we actually need are more mods that change playstyle, not more damage mod options. At the moment even if multishot and crit were perfectly equivalent to normal damage mods, it would only result in redundancy because they all functionally do the same exact thing, it's just two of them rely on chance, which is not good for this game.

[richardddd]

Wow.

I never really considered that, I agree completely with you. 

 

So I should waste no more fusion cores on critical chance and start investing in armor piercing and stable damage mods?

 

Also you mentioned armor penetrations works the same as the other elements do, essentially making it in its own right the "physical element". How exactly do elements work?

[LoRDxDeMoN]

Each elemental mod adds a percentage of your total physical damage as an additional number. Your total physical damage is first modified by the corresponding mod, though (Serration, etc).

 

 

Sorry, sounds confusing. Exampe:

20 base damage + 100% Serration mod = 40 total physical damage

+ 50% armor piercing mod = additional 20 AP damage

+ 50% cold damage mod = additional 20 cold damage

Edited April 16, 2013 by LoRDxDeMoN

[richardddd]

Each elemental mod adds a percentage of your total physical damage as an additional number. Your total physical damage is first modified by the corresponding mod, though (Serration, etc).

 

 

Sorry, sounds confusing. Exampe:

20 base damage + 100% Serration mod = 40 total physical damage

+ 50% armor piercing mod = additional 20 AP damage

+ 50% cold damage mod = additional 20 cold damage

That's an awesome explanation! Thanks for that! So it's basically going to be more literal damage values withe each shot. Similar to say... Borderlands? How the fire damage is red text that sparks off as a damage over time with each shot.

[Xrylene]

That's an awesome explanation! Thanks for that! So it's basically going to be more literal damage values withe each shot. Similar to say... Borderlands? How the fire damage is red text that sparks off as a damage over time with each shot.

Indeed, this game actually has a lot of similarities with Borderlands, and the element system is one of them. So in Borderlands, Fire was good versus light stuff, electric was good versus shields, and corrosive was good versus armour. In this game, Fire is good versus infested, decent versus Grineer, and bad versus Corpus, Electric is good versus Corpus, kind of weak versus Grineer, and very bad versus Infested, Cold is very effective against shields but generally weak versus Grineer if I recall, and Armour Pierce is insanely effective against Grineer, deals massive damage versus Corpus Crewmen if you headshot them, and deals good damage versus Ancient Infested.

 

Overall, your best elemental choice is Armour Pierce, with Cold being generally second best, especially due to it's slowing effect. Pick fire as a third element versus Infested and possibly Grineer, and Electric versus Corpus, they all stack. Most importantly though, make sure your normal damage increase is high, because that will multiply not only the base damage, but every elemental damage type.

Edited April 17, 2013 by Xrylene

[richardddd]

Indeed, this game actually has a lot of similarities with Borderlands, and the element system is one of them. So in Borderlands, Fire was good versus light stuff, electric was good versus shields, and corrosive was good versus armour. In this game, Fire is good versus infested, decent versus Grineer, and bad versus Corpus, Electric is good versus Corpus, kind of weak versus Grineer, and very bad versus Infested, Cold is very effective against shields but generally weak versus Grineer if I recall, and Armour Pierce is insanely effective against Grineer, deals massive damage versus Corpus Crewmen if you headshot them, and deals good damage versus Ancient Infested.

 

Overall, your best elemental choice is Armour Pierce, with Cold being generally second best, especially due to it's slowing effect. Pick fire as a third element versus Infested and possibly Grineer, and Electric versus Corpus, they all stack. Most importantly though, make sure your normal damage increase is high, because that will multiply not only the base damage, but every elemental damage type.

*Takes notes on the elemental weaknesses and strengths*

Makes sense all over, was significantly easier once it was related to Borderlands. (:

[krisp]

Well, crit chance still sucks. They probably wanted to only make it viable on weapons with a high base crit, but it's still less viable than some elemental effects (AP, freeze, fire) even on snipers and such.

[DXXXVIII]

That's an awesome explanation! Thanks for that! So it's basically going to be more literal damage values withe each shot. Similar to say... Borderlands? How the fire damage is red text that sparks off as a damage over time with each shot.

Sure that Serration multiplicates elemental damage? thought it would just add another proc/number.

[krisp]

Sure that Serration multiplicates elemental damage? thought it would just add another proc/number.

I tested and it does stack with AP at the very least.

 

 

 

*Takes notes on the elemental weaknesses and strengths*

Makes sense all over, was significantly easier once it was related to Borderlands. (:

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/5812-damage-shields-mods-enemies-and-you/

 

AP is probably the most overpowered elemental effect since it wrecks grineer, does x10 damage to corpus crewmen heads and works against infested sentinels (and their heads). Freeze doesn't get any huge penalties, slows and is good vs shields. Fire is good against all infested but crappy against anything else and lightning is good against corpus but doesn't work against ancients which makes it the least desirable effect.

[vieuxchat]

Critical chance is multiplicative, not additive, thus if your weapon has a 5% crit rate, as most seem to, a 100% increase is only an extra 5%, so 10% total. In other words, it's actually just plain terrible.

 

The thing is, even if it were additive it would be terrible. The reason? Let's say you have a weapon that deals 100 damage for ease of numbers, and on a crit it deals double damage. For comparison, let's use an additive 50% crit mod, versus a 50% damage increasing mod such as Serration, Hornet Strike, or Point Blank. 50% of the time, so every second hit on average, the weapon could deal double damage with the crit mod, so it's damage might look like this for ten consecutive attacks: 100/200/100/200/200/100/100/100/200/200, while the 50% damage increase would look like this: 150/150/150/150/150/150/150/150/150/150. Both increase your damage by 50% on average, but as you can clearly see one is reliable and the other is not. A consistent damage increase allows you to meter your damage and know how many shots it will take to finish a given enemy, potentially saving ammo and taking less time in the long run as you become more skilled. An inconsistent increase like crit may sometimes spike at a good time and take out an enemy earlier than normal, but at other times may not proc when you need it requiring more shots, and at other times still proc when the enemy was about to die anyway, making it a total waste.

 

I'll keep saying it until people get it, but crit is an outdated mechanic from Dungeons and Dragons that has no place in games that have an aiming system. In D&D it was a simulation of the chance of striking a vital area, such as the head, and other games used this as well because it stuck with players as being exciting at the time. However, something people often forget or don't realize, is that we already have a way to deal "critical damage" by headshotting enemies, which places it int he player's hands rather than the random number generator. Additionally, D&D relies on RNG for literally everything, including whether an attack even hits, what the attack's variable damage is, whether an enemy(or you) will die instantly from massive damage that otherwise wouldn't deplete your HP, whether or not jumping results in a massive leap or tripping, as well as the opposite of a critical hit, a critical fumble.

 

I'm sure people who LOVE critical strikes would enjoy shooting themselves in the foot with their Hek 5% of the time? Or how about Aiming at an enemy with a Snipetron, about to take the shot for a perfect headshot, but then having the bullet miss, not due to a glitch, but because the enemy has a dodge chance? Or how about getting hit by a Grineer Bombard or Ancient Infested having a chance to instantly kill you? Those sound fun right? Fact is, not only is crit terrible in this game, it's terrible design and has no place in this game either.

 

Edit: Oh, and Armour Pierce doesn't negate their armour like you might think it would do, it's not like other games. Here it does a percentage of your damage the same way fire, shock, or frost would, it's essentially a physical "elemental damage type", which is super effective versus Grineer, Corpus Crewmen headshots, and Ancient Infested if I recall.

You sir speaks gold.