Critical DoTs: Should we use them, or should we stick to front-loading DoT damage for Crits?

[Bopper]

Hopefully before you vote, you will read this. 

 

Backstory:

Back when the game was on Live, there was a limitation to how to handle Critical Hits. Each effect in an attack can be given a % chance to trigger (a Critical roll, essentially). However, when an attack has multiple effects, such as half the damage is smashing (that's one effect) and half the damage is energy (that's another effect), there would be no way to tie a single Critical roll that would execute both of those effects. So the work-around was to combine the effects and just do one type of damage. So let's say originally you did 50 Smashing damage and 50 Energy damage, your Critical hit would become 100 Energy damage.

 

That was no big deal as it effectively made no difference. You still did double damage.

 

When it came to DoTs, the problem was the same. You could not tie a single Critical roll to both an upfront damage and an accompanying DoT effect. So the work around became simply to add up all the damage and make it one Critical effect. This practice became so standardized that even attacks that are only the one DoT (Freezing Touch) still had the DoT damage summed together and created a single front-loaded damage Crit.

 

But Times Have Changed:

We no longer are limited by the mechanics that existed on Live. We now have something called Effect Groups that executes multiple Effects, and that Effect Group can be activated off of the one Critical roll. So it is entirely possible to now go through the game and change all of the Critical Hits from being a single front-loaded damage to actually executing all of the effects of the attack a 2nd time. So now we can have split damage types. We can have DoTs. If the Devs wanted to..they could even do extra secondary effects (but don't count on it). 

 

One of the reasons having the Effect Groups handle Crits for each effect is the fact some powersets come with mechanics that might scale their damage, and one of the old-timey ways of doing this front-loaded damage was to assume the lowest possible damage and add that up. For example (and this one doesn't pertain to a DoT), Street Justice uses a combo system that will increase the damage of their Finishers based on the Combo Level when the attack is cast. However, because the Critical Effect is programmed without knowing your Combo Level, you don't get boosted damage on your Crit. So you may do Combo 3 finisher, but you get a Combo 0 crit. Savage Melee uses Critical DoTs, so this does not directly apply, but it is able to retain the Blood Frenzy stacks on its Critical DoTs so you keep the damage you deserved.

 

Anyways, that's the Backstory and the education on what we can do now with the current game engine. I would like to gauge the Stalker community's interest on how they would feel if the Crit system were to change. Thanks for your time.

[kelika2]

go brute.  fury boosts toxic thorn dot, fake pet dot, etc.

 

if you want dot crits, give us mini crits

[aethereal]

I get that on some level the front loading of the crits was a technology limitation, not purely design choice, but it would be a nerf to change them to dots, and some amount of balance around crits has probably crept in over time. It's not like this was a straight up mistake, it was known and presumably balanced around.

 

So I'd only support a change for a set that felt overturned, or with a compensating buff. 

[Omega-202]

I'm glad that this is something that can be done (kudos on your ever more impressive game knowledge), but I don't see a compelling reason to do it.  It would be a net nerf to certain powers in an AT that is in a really good spot right now, and personally, I feel like it's counter to the Stalker "flavor". 

 

When I play a Stalker, I want to feel the big chunky hits when I crit.  "You'll hear two sounds: me hitting you and you hitting the floor" is what Stalkers mean to me.  Spreading out the front-loadedness of certain power's crits is the opposite of that.  

[Frosticus]

I think it would feel like a nerf for a lot of powers. 

I can say from my experiences with savage melee stalkers that the amount of wasted damage from hemorrhage crits is no small matter. The dot is pretty slow. 

I really like the power, but it is also heavily compensated with increased damage. 

[Leo_G]

I actually suggested in the past a support/melee AT that has an inherent that was a crit that effectively cast the skill twice (double the deduff/mez, but a flat amount of extra damage). It was called "Full Force". It would also decide upon power cast if it was going to hit all foes normally or all foes with Full Force to differentiate it from other types of crits (stalker/scrapper, corruptor, etc). 

 

Basically what I'm saying is, if the change is perceived as a nerf, you're likely better off making a new AT with this idea in mind. I personally probably wouldn't care and if I did, I would adapt, but then I'm not everyone else.