Seems pretty obvious it is an atma nerf. I'm a little disappointed, since blood pacts were also benefitting from crit damage.
I think we all knew it was coming, a well geared thf, mnk or nin with 3 atmas including RR/GH/apoc etc can kill a mob quicker than a whole alliance on XP mobs and on NMs they do so much damage they can tank and keep hate over a spamming healer, a huge part of this is down to crit damage. It's always been the case that if you're having too much fun on a DD job it won't last forever.