What is the stance against big potency skills having auto-crit?

Obviously most of us want 2 minute party burst meta gone, but seeing as we're likely stuck with it until next expansion, what would happen if every job's "big skills" all had auto-crit like Midare now has? Confiteor, Double Down, Hyosho Ranryu, Blast Arrow, Revelation, Resolution, Phantom Rush, etc. to reduce the RNG in pulls in the mean time? Why would you be against this?

I'm not for or against, I just want to hear opinions on the topic.

I think it would just force everyone to run Crit/DH builds for every class. Leaves leaves little to no room for improvement. So you just take the class that does the most damage per auto crit.

I would not mind Selfdestruct and Final Sting doing auto crits tho.

But I think that would make the game boring no?

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Originally Posted by MagiusNecros

I think it would just force everyone to run Crit/DH builds for every class.

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Don't most jobs already do this with very few outlier cases using skill/spell speed?

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Originally Posted by Mithron

Don't most jobs already do this with very few outlier cases using skill/spell speed?

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The few outlier cases is half the jobs. So the answer is no.

An ability that always crits is the same as ability that never crits. See where the problem is?

Also big lol at whatever claims that crit/dh isn't the default for everything except BLM. As a stat, crit is simply miles ahead of anything else.

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Originally Posted by Azuri

An ability that always crits is the same as ability that never crits. See where the problem is?

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Well the problem is you either crit the big potency skills or you hate the pull, sometimes even causing wipes like week 1 P8s. Obviously fixing this is a deeper issue, so auto-crits on the big skills is a band-aid so we don't suffer as much in the mean time.

The more you see auto crit the more players will do Crit/DH and Determination will become a dead stat.

Skill speed is for meeting a desired GCD.

Spell Speed is for faster casts and sometimes CD reduction on certain abilities. I enjoy it greatly on Summoner.

Piety and Tenacity I feel are worthless and come stat capped on a variety of gear anyway.

So it really boils down to 2 choices in the long term. Crit/DH or Crit/Det.

Maybe a rare case might be DH/Det and SpS/Det.

But the way the game is aging most of your damage is coming from super crits which is gonna push most classes to go Crit/DH.

A hit from a Deathflare or a Xenoglossy noncrit hits like a wet noodle compared to a super crit and results in a lot of missed potential damage. Which can make or break a run in time attack content.

If players have the choice of hitting for 20k or 60k they will take the 60k everytime.

I don't know what's more healthy for the game, but personally, I like big potency abilities that have a chance to roll direct crits. I think it fits the 2 minute meta better and rewards good play and synergy if you use your big cooldowns during raid buffs, giving you the best chance to roll these higher potential numbers

I just want them to settle on something, do they want the 2min burst meta, or do they not? SAM was the guinea pig for this testing, with how in 6.1, they took so much potency from SAM's 2 minute burst and shifted it into its combo abilities. They wanted to flatten the damage variance, but that doesn't play well in 2min meta

Then they went and changed the way auto-crit functions with crit raid buffs. Again, what do they want to do?

But yeah like you mentioned. P8S Phase 1 was sus during low crit runs week 1, so maybe my idea for the game is not a good one

I'm just throwing out random thoughts I have regarding this topic, they're doing a lot of things that don't make sense to me right now because of how they're pushing things out incomplete and in waves. Like how confused we were with the direction of 6.1 SAM, but now with the crit synergy, it seems like its in a good place regarding numbers

I personally hate the auto crits. Its boring imo.

Knowing the devs. In 7.0, the 2 minutes burst will be there and they are going include dhit/crit on certain abilities to solidfy this new meta. Because, remove 2 minutes burst will
be too hard to implement something else due to they have 4 persons to balance it.

Because in the same way that the devs buff things instead of nerfing things because people don't like nerfs. They do this so that they don't have skills say "Cannot crit or direct hit".

I like my big hits being able to do that.

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Well the problem is you either crit the big potency skills or you hate the pull, sometimes even causing wipes like week 1 P8s. Obviously fixing this is a deeper issue, so auto-crits on the big skills is a band-aid so we don't suffer as much in the mean time.

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I'm fine with have lows if i also have highs. I love old astro cards even if there was a big swing in how good different buffs were. It was the gambler. I like a bit of chance with these thing to add big moments.

I didn't really think much of it besides how it affects the speed I clear, then eventually, hitting this tier where I used to joke about "just dcrit harder" ended up being very important during earlier weeks of p8s p2 where dcritting phoenix under raidbuff had a very big difference.
A normal hyosho hits as much as a dcrit hyosho during this period, and under ideal raid buffs, it hits as hard as almost 3 hyoshos during it. Having poor luck during this phase usually means dying from enrage or almost dying from enrage.

Sam's would still need to pray their midare/namikiri/ogi direct hits as crit is now forced, but still having an impact.

I'm not sure what prompted them to make these changes for SAM and why they want to rework DRG when it seems okay-ish, but the upside was WAR finally getting some value from buffs like litany with their forced crits.

Some people think that dhits should go away and just put it inside crits, I don't mind this idea either cause I'm interested on how it'd go for these two pieces of RNG potentially making a run or not early on.

I actually don't care for forced CRIT/DH Balance abilites, I dislike hard hitting moves being very dependent on RNG.
Doesn't matter either way CRIT/DH abilities, they exist *currently* for a reason to balance damage variants, the changes so auto crit jobs work with "crit/DH" buffs makes sense even if it's another simplification. (Some simplifications are good some are awful)

mind you RNG isn't a bad thing but at the same time Crits/DH aren't even interesting RNG that changes what you're going to do. Good RNG (Like Procs) actually give you variety in rotation and make you think on the fly, Procs are actually something I'd consider meaningful RNG (at least to making rotations more fun)

Direct hit is always just been a weird stat for me, whats the point in having another crit like mech but smaller? I just really don't see much purpose behind it, it's obviously a good stat to have after you melded crit.

Overall: I dont think forced DH/CRITs are actually a bad thing, maybe disappointing to people who would like to have the risk chance of hitting harder sometimes.

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Originally Posted by Ransu

I personally hate the auto crits. Its boring imo.

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I agree it's overall boring to better game design that doesn't need them, but isn't seeing your high potency attacks only do 30k instead of 120k more boring and unhealthy for the game's fight design in the mean time? Can you elaborate why you think it's boring and shouldn't be added for now?

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Originally Posted by Ransu

I personally hate the auto crits. Its boring imo.

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It killed the entire joy when you had a massive potency ability and it did crit. Now it’s always the same boring number. Like the moment I had old Sam and my ogi did crit for 45 k in buff windows I had pretty enjoyable moments. Same with every other non autocrit job. When my opener on drk goes crit/Dh bananas I love it.

I would prefer more multi hit than auto-crit.
Jobs are really dependant on crits on big potency skills.

I know many will lose the dopamine effect of big numbers but it's been a while since I actually watched the numbers.
On the other hand, auto-crit abilities makes crit buffs much more reliable.

I'm not for or against it, I acknowledge both situations have their upsides and downsides.
As of now, I would like big potency skills such as Hyosho, Double Down, Confiteor being on either multi hit or auto-crit to reduces the damage variance.

Big idea! completely remove crit that is not meritocratic and brings nothing to the actual gameplay and add depth to the gameplay by adding mechanics to produce more damage and adding random timeline during boss fights

I would prefer to have 12 GCDs that deal 100 more potency then one skill with 1200.

I don't like to have my DMG depending on a few big skills and the hope that they crit.
Simply to avoid the mentioned problem.

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Originally Posted by Mithron

I agree it's overall boring to better game design that doesn't need them, but isn't seeing your high potency attacks only do 30k instead of 120k more boring and unhealthy for the game's fight design in the mean time? Can you elaborate why you think it's boring and shouldn't be added for now?

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50k+ crits for midare on samurai for example basically always do around 25k now or whatever it is for this tier I dunno as I dropped sam this tier. Around 25k is what midare would do on a non crit. They basically removed the ability of big hitters to actually hit big and always have them do the same damage every time. Its boring. The entire appeal of building up resources and then dumping it into a big potency move was to potentially see that big crit. That was the entire enjoyment of samurai for me at least.

Am I doing something wrong? I see lots of talk about stacking Crit and DH but as a Black Mage I have been stacking Crit and Spell Speed. Am I doing this wrong?

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Originally Posted by Eraden

Am I doing something wrong? I see lots of talk about stacking Crit and DH but as a Black Mage I have been stacking Crit and Spell Speed. Am I doing this wrong?

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Depends on which build you're doing.

If you go spell speed build you should essentially have no crit materia or gear. It should be SpS then DET/DH in materia slots where you can't place SpS or you have reached 2287 SpS (with food).

If you go crit build you're basically dumping crit into everything and only having around 840 sps (with food). I believe there's a mixed build with 1200 SpS and high crit, but its apparently not optimal. Look up the balance discord and I'm sure they can give a way better answer than me.

From what I understand, the difference between the two is pretty small. Crit built has the higher max dps potential though. I went sps since I'm new to BLM this tier so I wanted to be able to cast faster to make managing mechanics easier. I might try the crit built late in the tier to see how different it feels though.

I think a middle solution would be good. For RPR something like Plentiful Harvest always critting, and the next Communio afterwards always critting. Something like that. That way, there is still some RNG preserved, but the variance is smoothed out at least a little bit. Currently it's just too damn high.

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Originally Posted by Briarthorn

Because in the same way that the devs buff things instead of nerfing things because people don't like nerfs.

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Nerfs are one of the best changes in balance when they happen usualy. But thats luckily because the devs do understand some key balance features quite well: when you balance things, you want to avoid touching old content. which simply means only the newest buffs are being handled. And in most cases they decide to underpower every thing they arent sure about to be able to buff it later on.

However, such system cannot compensate for game breaking issues. If a certain skill from the previous expansion ends up overpowered (or just plain broken). Nerfing might still be needed. But by being safe with buffing, this rarely happens.

It also follows the general flow of power creep. As you get further into the game, your skill is demanded to improve, so mechanics can be harsher, which are usualy the greatest nerf towards players. It just doesnt feel like that to them.

Note that the savage boss damage reduction could also have been handled by buffing all the other bosses. The simple reason not to do that is because buffing feels better (and reducing boss health is a buff here).

But this only works in a pve based system. When its PvP, nerfs are generaly required in order to avoid instant kills, or to add vulnerabilities (avoiding the unkillable). In PvP they normaly buff the weakest and nerf the strongest. And even if it isnt perfect. The change of meta can change a lot (and over time, even without any change, just because of a certain aspect a certain class can turn out a lot stronger).

However, even in pve. Nerfing is sometimes just needed. If abilities make you able to do excessive things, nerfing might be mandatory because it avoids the situation in which you have to buff everything to a broken state. And especialy when a single job is OP. Nerfs are the way to go. Making everything OP is a disgrace towards the balance team as they generaly balance things towards the current state, and not the buffed one.

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Originally Posted by Ransu

Depends on which build you're doing.

If you go spell speed build you should essentially have no crit materia or gear. It should be SpS then DET/DH in materia slots where you can't place SpS or you have reached 2287 SpS (with food).

If you go crit build you're basically dumping crit into everything and only having around 840 sps (with food). I believe there's a mixed build with 1200 SpS and high crit, but its apparently not optimal. Look up the balance discord and I'm sure they can give a way better answer than me.

From what I understand, the difference between the two is pretty small. Crit built has the higher max dps potential though. I went sps since I'm new to BLM this tier so I wanted to be able to cast faster to make managing mechanics easier. I might try the crit built late in the tier to see how different it feels though.

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I am currently running with about 2.1K Crit and 2K Spell Speed before foods. Hopefully that is ok.

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Originally Posted by Eraden

I am currently running with about 2.1K Crit and 2K Spell Speed before foods. Hopefully that is ok.

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I'm actually kind of impressed you got over 2k in both, but you're wasting stats doing that though.

https://etro.gg/gearset/bd1b7a52-589...c-d47aea22d8d2
https://etro.gg/gearset/12deb5db-9f3...a-f8be8ddcb97d
https://etro.gg/gearset/73f9f3af-2fa...3-a0f6adbb5e28

These are the recommended BiS stats/gear from the balance discord.

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Originally Posted by UkcsAlias

Nerfs are one of the best changes in balance when they happen usualy. But thats luckily because the devs do understand some key balance features quite well: when you balance things, you want to avoid touching old content. which simply means only the newest buffs are being handled. And in most cases they decide to underpower every thing they arent sure about to be able to buff it later on.

However, such system cannot compensate for game breaking issues. If a certain skill from the previous expansion ends up overpowered (or just plain broken). Nerfing might still be needed. But by being safe with buffing, this rarely happens.

It also follows the general flow of power creep. As you get further into the game, your skill is demanded to improve, so mechanics can be harsher, which are usualy the greatest nerf towards players. It just doesnt feel like that to them.

Note that the savage boss damage reduction could also have been handled by buffing all the other bosses. The simple reason not to do that is because buffing feels better (and reducing boss health is a buff here).

But this only works in a pve based system. When its PvP, nerfs are generaly required in order to avoid instant kills, or to add vulnerabilities (avoiding the unkillable). In PvP they normaly buff the weakest and nerf the strongest. And even if it isnt perfect. The change of meta can change a lot (and over time, even without any change, just because of a certain aspect a certain class can turn out a lot stronger).

However, even in pve. Nerfing is sometimes just needed. If abilities make you able to do excessive things, nerfing might be mandatory because it avoids the situation in which you have to buff everything to a broken state. And especialy when a single job is OP. Nerfs are the way to go. Making everything OP is a disgrace towards the balance team as they generaly balance things towards the current state, and not the buffed one.

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To be clear, i'm not anti-nerf. I'm simply saying in the way that square would rather fix problems by buffing the weak then nerfing the strong, they'd rather say it always crits/direct hits then say it never does. Even if it means the same thing in practice.

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Originally Posted by Mithron

What is the stance against big potency skills having auto-crit?

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Here's a secret about game design: some amount of variance is fun. Crits, direct hits, and direct crits are dopamine hits that lose much of their value without the variance of mostly often not getting them.

Further, having two sorts of big moves - high potency and guaranteed crit/DHit/DCrit - opens up the design space for abilities without too much added complexity.