D4 Feedback - Critical Hit Damage and Critical Hit Chance

General Discussion
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D4 Feedback - Critical Hit Chance and Critical Hit Damage

It’s not easy to discuss itemization in D4 simply because we haven’t seen much about it and it is still early in development stage. I was waiting for the latest developer update, before I posted some feedback, to see if they are going to show itemization in more depth. Since they are going to show us that in a future update, I’ll provide feedback on what we know so far.

Blizzard stated many times they want our feedback and we can all agree good itemization is key to longevity of any loot-based ARPG. We are all gonna play D4, question is for how long? D4 does a lot of things good. It has huge potential. Getting itemization right will put Diablo back where it belongs, at the top. We all want this game to thrive, so they can add more classes, more world to explore, more dungeons, more progression systems and ways to play the game.

D3 has good gameplay, it’s fluid and fun (except zoom zoom bang bang gameplay), but it lacks the depth in itemization. You build every character pretty much the same: Crit%, CritDMG, CDR% and as many damage modifiers as you can get. Of course you need toughness, but everything is secondary to above-mentioned stats. It takes away the feeling of customization and experimenting with builds. In other words, you play for a while, you reach your end goal, and you get bored pretty fast.

D4 does a good job of hitting a lot of problems poeple have with D3. Art stlye is amazing, mobility and pacing is getting adressed, lots of techical improvments. Still there are some concerns, mainly Itemization and Skills/Passives. Even though game is not yet in alpha and things will change and iterate many times, we can still provide feedback based on what was shown.

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CRIT DMG

What is concerning about D4 is there is still CritDMG as a stat on items. Mayor problem is how do you balance CritDMG? We see this in D3 where Crit% and CritDMG are the best multipliers to increase your damage and nothing can compete with that combo. And it’s universal, it will always increase your damage output. You always want more of these stats, there are no downsides. It doesn’t add up to the gameplay, it just provides bigger numbers. And certain builds can be all about doing big, flat damage without having to rely on crit dmg. We have seen stats on items like “% melee damage” or “%physical damage”. If you have 50% Crit Chance and 500% Crit Damage, whats the point of regular hits? How do you balance it so that anything else can compete with it?
Way to solve this problem is to limit these stats somehow. Easiest way to balance Crit DMG is to make it always do 200% of attack dmg. Now you have a controlled stat that makes it easier to balance other stats.

  • Attack doing 100 damage with 1aps and 100% crit chance = 200 dmg
  • Attack doing 100 damage with 2aps and 0% crit chance = 200 dmg
  • Attack doing 200 damage with 1aps and 0% crit chance = 200 dmg

And you can have certain legendary items or skills/passives that break the 200% cap. It would make those items special because you can’t find that stat on other items.

  • Example leg item: “Critical hits deals 250% damage instead of 200%.”
  • Example passive: “Critical hits with lightning skills do +50% damage”

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CRIT CHANCE

As stated above, having Crit Chance and Crit DMG can be problematic if not balanced right, but Crit Chance on it’s own can be an interesting gameplay mechanic. You can have a lot of different builds centered on critical chance. Legendary powers, passives, runes can all have triggers on critical chance which open up different playstyles. Critical chance can be set to be inate at maybe 10-15% so every hit has a chance to be critical, but this removes it from the pool of stats and limits other potential builds. It doesn’t benefit the game to remove critical chance as a stat. You can also have diminishing returns, but problem with dimishing return is you will always want more of that stat. Better solution is to get rid of diminishing returns and put hard caps on stats. Let us reach reach 100%, but limit critical damage so it doesn’t scale out of control. Reaching those hard caps should be possible, but that means you will have to sacrifice other stats.

Few examples for crit effects:

  • Critical hit with bludgeoning weapon stuns target.
  • Critical hit with Fireball creates a bigger explosion.
  • Critical hit with a poison skill spreads the stack of poison on another target.
  • Critical hits while in werewolf form extends the duration of that form.
  • Critical hits activates runes…

These are just few examples of the top of my mind, but it shows the possibilities that Crit% has. Critical Hit Damage can’t do this because it’s just a multiplier.

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So to sum up my ramblings, there are few ways to approach problems with Crit DMG:

  • Solution 1 (hard to balance): keep Crit Chance and Crit DMG as stats on items, but make them equal with other stats in terms of power.

  • Solution 2 (gives occasional big number, but limits gameplay options): give 10-15% Crit Chance on every attack(you can’t increase it) and keep Crit DMG as a stat on items.

  • Solution 3 (provides gameplay options, easier to balance): keep Crit Chance without diminishing returns, but set Crit Damage to always be 200%.

  • Solution 4 (bad): keep Crit% and Crit DMG as it is in D3.

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Bellow I put some examples of different builds using the same skills but drastically different playstlyes. This is a kind of D4 I would like to play, that makes me think how I want to customize my character. A game which gives us creativity how to play the game, not force us into one and the same build for every player.

CRIT BUILD: Ligthning Sorceress - Lightning Bolt + Chain Lightning

  • 86% chc (56% crit chance on items + 30% leg item)
  • 300% chd (200% base crit damage + 50% leg item + 50% passive skill)
  • 1.05 aps (using 0.9 aps staff + 17% attack speed on items)
  • 8% status chance (8% items)
  • 92-250% mana regen (92% items + leg item)

Legendary items:

  • Critical hit damage +50% damage
  • +30% Critical hit chance, but regular attacks do 50% less damage
  • Chain Lightning deals +100% damage but costs +75% mana to cast
  • Mana regeneration speed increased drastically the less mana you have

Passives:

  • Lightning skills do +50% crit hit dmg
  • Double your Mana Pool

Way it plays: All about hitting hard. You’re a sniper. You opted to do as much damage in as few hits possible. You dont give the enemies a chance, you obliterate them before they can even act.

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STATUS BUILD: Ligthning Sorceress - Lightning Bolt + Chain Lightning

  • 32% chc (17% crit chance on items + 15% passive)
  • 250% chd (200% base crit damage + 50% leg item)
  • 1.59 aps (using 1.1 aps wand + 45% attack speed on items)
  • 62% status chance (47% items + 15% passive)
  • 84% mana regen (84% items)

Legendary items:

  • Critical hit damage +50% damage
  • Sorceress skills status effects are twice as strong

Passives:

  • Lightning skills have 15% increased crit hit chance
  • Sorceress skills have +15% status chance based on the element used (ice chills, fire burns, lightning shocks)
  • Sorceress skills status effects can now crit (ice freezes, fire explodes, lightning releases a nova)

Way it plays: All about applying status effects. You’re a master of the elements and they hurt a lot. You opted for a passive that activates additional effects upon criticals.
You control your enemies, they are your toys.

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ATTACK SPEED BUILD: Ligthning Sorceress - Lightning Bolt + Chain Lightning

  • 66% ranged damage (66% items)
  • 0% chd and chc (leg item penalty)
  • 2.50 aps(capped)/ 2.82 aps (using 1.1 aps wand + 127% attack speed on items +30% leg item)
  • 8% status chance (8% items)
  • 36% mana regen (36% items )

Legendary items:

  • Hitting an enemy increases you attack speed by 2% and last 1sec. Stacks up to 15 times. This goes above the 2.5aps cap.
  • Your attacks do 40% increased damage, but you can no longer crit
  • Your attacks mark a target. Marked targets recieve 5% more damage, stacks up to 5 times.

Passives:

  • Your Basic attacks generate Mana
  • Sorceress skills have additional effects upon hitting enemies 5 times based on the element used (ice freezes, fire explodes, lightning releases a nova)

Way it plays: All about hitting fast. You’re a machine gun fueled by lightning. You opted for a passive that activates additional effects upon stacking instead of on critical hits. You don’t do crits, you spitt out bolts of ligthning for a living.

5 Likes
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I’d simply remove crit from D4, simple as that.
It is just a DPS boost, something that stuff like extra damage and attack speed already do (so it is just more of the same under the illusion of having extra affixes).
That way not only we’d trim the fat and allow other more interesting affixes to shine, but would also remove the trouble of balancing the game around too much damage.

What they could replace crit with, though, are:

  • ‘On-hit effects’ (something I’ve noticed they are already doing, but with crit not being around, they can actually focus on it properly and allows us to make various on-hit builds).
  • Conditional damage boosts, where you’d get a damage boost for fulfilling certain conditions (duh) like ‘damage being boosted for X% for each second standing in place’, or ‘deal X% more damage while above Y% of max HP’, or ‘damage being boosted while surrounded by Y enemies or more/less’, etc (still a damage boost, but at least it makes gameplay more interesting).
6 Likes
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I’ve said before they should remove critical damage as a stat on items in D4.

Having two stats with synergize with each other so that getting more of one stat makes the other stat more valuable is going to create a feedback loop where it just becomes overpowered and the thing everybody wants again.

Either that or you balance them around the idea that the player will stack them, and they become garbage stats unless you are stacking them.

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I’m not entirely to remove the Crit but instead of % it should be a flat-damage bonus IMO

I’d also encourage to maybe change the “damage amplifier” to ATK (but flat number instead of percentage) increase

Therefore you’d have something like X% chance for your weapon to fire with +X ATK rating (therefore making it more interesting by giving a possibility to fight high DEF rating opponents like this), or maybe even completely define your build based upon certain effect that gives you Crit

For ex. a smaller weapon but has high Crit flat increase (something like 5k + 4k crit bonus, as opposed to a weapon of baseline 8k). The chances and bonuses would still have to end up being reasonable though, and I DO think that having a flat-bonus per hit when the effect procs (as opposed to damage-multiplied on target) simply allows more options for character build

And lastly but not the least, they could just maybe change the name anyway (something like “powerstrike” or “charged strike”)

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I’ve written about this problem in other threads.

Shameless Plug (Link Inside)

Scroll down to the “Items with a Purpose” section
[D4] Improving Itemization

I don’t see any one particular multiplier as a problem in and of itself. The trifecta/quadfecta problem existed because you could stack all of them on not just one item, but on every item.

I don’t think the solution is to remove crit chance and crit damage from the game. These are fun affixes that allow your character to occasionally get really big hits against enemy monsters. From a balance perspective, it is a player choice between doing steady, reliable damage and doing spiky, uneven damage. You balance around the average dps over a longer period of time.

The solution is to force a choice with multipliers. You do this by making most of your gear’s affixes scale linearly. You get 2 points here, 3 points there that all add to your total. But on rare occasions, you can weave in a multiplier. You can choose among various multipliers, but the game doesn’t let you stack them on the same item. The percent-based power gain is controlled.

  • You can have attack speed, but you give up base damage and crits to get it
  • You can have more crits, but you give up the attack speed
  • You can have crits that hit like a truck, but they’re rare

This makes you, as a player, specifically hunt for those items with multipliers, but also value the ones that simply scale linearly and give you base stats because gearing for strong, consistent power without the multipliers is also a numerically valid choice.

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Good that you took my advice and put the feedback on the forums as well!

I simply copy and past the response I gave to you in the reddit thread into here, for the sake of simplicity, so I don’t have to re-write it again.

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Crit Chance + Crit Damage is just too synergistic and therefore too powerful.

I think that Critical Hit Damage should not exist as a regular stat. It can roll on some very few Legendary Items and maybe a few Passive Talents, but it should not be a wide spread and easily accessible thing. There could be some builds that focus more on it, but it should not be by far as powerful so that it becomes mandatory like in D3.

If Critical Hits always deal 100% increased damage, that is totally fine and easy to balance.

Having some Legendary Items or modifiers on skills that work of landing a crit is also totally fine and interesting, but seriously, Crit Damage should not be a thing.

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Furthermore, since it is related to this issue, there also is Crushing Blow Chance and Crushing Blow Damage in D4.

Crushing Blow itself is totally fine. It can be balanced by reducing the amount of health drained based on the proc co-efficient of a skill (or reduced the chance to trigger based on proc co-efficient), the amount of players in the game and the type of enemy you are fighting (e.g. elites and bosses are less effected by CB) and also by reducing the amount of life drained in higher difficulties.

However, if Crushing Blow Chance gets combined with Crushing Blow Damage, then we have a similar problem than with Crit Chance and Crit Damage, as you have described in your original post. Its effects would just be too synergistic.

I think something similar can also be said about ADA Power + other affixes on items being gated behind a certain amount of ADA Power, but although that is a related issue, it is probably better suited for another topic.

1 Like
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I totally agree with Joat on this subject.
A character making 200 damage with 50% Crit Chance can have +500% Crit Damage, it still won’t do as much damage as one making 800 damage every time. You just need to make sure those crit affixes/talents choices cost you dearly in terms of normal damage.

The problem in D3 was the lack of choice in affixes. In D4 it’s clear we’ll have to specialize in Crushing Blows, +damage when Stunned/Slowed etc. Crits are just one proc among others that all benefit equally from Attack Speed. No reason to take them away and keep the rest.

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Full disclosure, I have no issues with crit builds nor large damage numbers they are what they are. I’m not scared by them, I do not find them incomprehensible, nor do I find them out of place in RPGs. Just because an ancient one back innthe 70s used single and double digits doesn’t mean they all have to be like that.

With that said, if they choose to go the crit route, all the need to do is add DRs. Internally cap crit at 50% say and cap crit damage at 300% say, and then you won’t have ever increasing and inflating numbers as a result. No matter how much crt% or crit damage you add it will not get above those caps.

Kilometer had a post comparing the affix list and D3 actually had more IIRC.

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Still prefer the flat-bonuses cause it’s easier to balance things out.

Let’s say you fight 700-750-ish DEF mobs at that time, with the first weapon you’ll do 50-100 damage, with the other you’ll do absolute minimal but when Crit happens you’d do 200-250 kind of thing

But what happens when the damage becomes 8k in late game (max-lvl give or take), what would a 50% crit look like ?, what if mobs are 7-7.5k DEF (which is fine cause the damage output would be 500-1000), but the 500% CRIT would result in what ?, 5k damage in single hit to a mob ?, that’s why I think could be cooler to have the Crit be a flat number

Could also add some “collectibles” you know, similar like charms, as long as you wear it on a ring or amulet gives you +X crit-damage sort of thing. (some might prefer to increase CC duration, some might prefer increase damage against elites or CC-ed targets, maybe lifesteal or resource steal, or even Crushing blow increase…, e.t.c.), but the long-story-short is that

IF, the Crit is considered as a flat-bonus increase (like a temporary weapon buff as opposed to damage-multiplier), the “outcomes in a fight” as well as build-options would be better (and probably better contesting on each other) overall

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It mostly comes down to a problem with the underlying math for the stats. In order to ensure that no one stat rules them all, damage stats need to be roughly equal in value to each other.

So +1% attack speed generally translates into ~1% more damage output.

At 300% critical damage bonus, 1% critical chance is now worth 3% damage output which makes it 3 times as powerful as attack speed.

However if you have only 50% critical damage bonus, 1% critical chance is only worth 0.5% damage output which makes it half as powerful as attack speed.

Although a particular build might skew the numbers a bit by special effects for things like attack speed, they’ll also do it for crit.

Granted there are a few balance dials to turn to skew that 3x and 0.5x as powerful numbers, but then it becomes a question of do you set the balance so crit is only useful when stacking both chance and damage or so that when you do that it becomes overpowered?

Capping isn’t really going to fix the problem as much as it’s just going to be the thing we all stack crit to.

2 Likes
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I know that. I was offering an example of something they could do. Frankly I’d do like BL3 and their post leveling progression. DRs on every stat so you cannot achieve massive percentages. Kind of how some people suggested a leveling system to 99-100 should work, normal exp gains to 90 then every level after takes much longer to reach. Cap normal % gains at say 20%. Ever % over 20 takes more of that stat to hit. Therefore, you really have to stack crit% of you want a crit build possibly at the expense of something else.

Just a thought since they are going in the crti%/dmg path again.

As far as capping, there will always be something to cap/stack no matter the system. Somone will find the “best” things to stack.

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Either have both crit chance and crit damage but reduced considerably so they never go anywhere near the absurdity D3 has with them

or

normalize crit damage so it’s a flat bonus and leave crit chance as the variable stat

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I think this is the critical idea. If 1% attack speed ~1% more dps, then if a max level item can roll up to 6% AS, then the CC affix should be adjusted to give a max of ~6% benefit, and the same with any other multiplier.

We deal with the stacking multipliers by limiting the number of multipliers a player may acquire on their items and forcing trade-offs. If only 5 gear slots can have offensive multipliers, then you have to choose whether you want to try and hybridize or specialize.

If CC and CHD simply scale too well when stacked together, then items can be designed such that they can only roll one or the other, but never both. In fact, a radical solution would be to limit it to only 1 multiplier per item, with all other affixes being additively stacking.

I actually prefer this because it allows you to put multipliers on item types, which makes your choice of weapon type a compelling choice. If you’re playing a barbarian stacking for crushing blows, D4 could be designed to have 2-handed mauls that add a base crushing blow multiplier that would be unique and would incentivize that barbarian to pick that type of weapon, even though it is a slow weapon. And you could give the sorceress a choice to pick a wand for more spell power or a staff with a passive shield on it. There is a ton of creative space to utilize powerful multipliers in such ways when the power gain from affixes is very tightly controlled and limited. It allows numerical space within the mathematical model of player power for devs to offer this kind of compelling choice. Heck, in D2 and D3, a legendary power might have been that it could roll a key multiplier on an item that normally couldn’t, allowing you to make glass cannon builds.

Ultimately, the devs are going to need to develop what I call a power budget, where each affix is allotted a certain percent of player power it may potentially provide if rolled perfectly. The item level then determines how much power it could potentially give. A level 30 item should grant a certain amount of potential power. A level 35 item should have a slightly higher potential so it generally ends up being an upgrade. If 4 affixes are on the item, the power budget is split between those 4 affixes, so an item could roll a base stat which offers a similar power as an AS roll, so that the player may choose which stats he wants not based on their ultimate power potential, but on the play style he wants and how these stats interact with his chosen skills.

1 Like
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Agreed that CHD needs to be removed as a stat. It’s not interesting and just leads to number bloat, as seen in D3.

And yea, Crit chance is good - Sure, you can just look at it as passive damage, but then you may as well remove every stat since most all of them can be boiled down to passive damage. Keep Crit Chance, remove CHD.

1 Like
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I think that there should only be two slots that revolve only around offensive affixes: weapon and off-hand (of course they also can have life on attack or RCR).

Helms, chest armor, belts, pants and boots could only have defensive affixes.

Gloves and in case they implement them shoulders and bracers, rings and amulets can have a mix of offensive and defensive affixes.

Or it could look different where e.g. also belts and boots have offensive affixes, it does not matter, it was just for the purpose of illustration.

But if there is a category of item that can both roll offensive as well as defensive affixes, then they should limit the maximum amount of offensive affixes that can roll on it to 3 out of 6 (assuming it is a rare item with a max of 6 affixes).

That is a possible solution, although to me it would feel a bit unsatisfying I have to say.

I would rather only have CHD as an affix that does not roll in general on items, but rather only on some legendaries and maybe some talents, but nothing that is widely available.

Like the Implicit Mods from PoE.

I also had that idea. Let these Implicit Affixes be a separate affix from the other items.

Furthermore, there could be different kinds of e.g. 2handed Hammers, like in Diablo 2, each with a different weapon damage, attack speed and implicit affix:

Great Maul
° Implicit Affix: x% Crushing Blow

War Hammer
° Implicit Affix: x% critical hit damage (maybe, assuming it can be balanced, maybe can come if combination with reduced attack speed)

Giant Mace
° Implicit Affix: x% chance to Stun enemies for 2 seconds

Oger Hammer
° Implicit Affix: x% reduced attack speed, + x% increased damage

Now you also could have an item or a cube recipe or an artisan that rerolls the Implicit Affix to another one of the 2handed Hammer category (meaning it can not roll something like Crit Chance, which may roll on bows).

You have a link to that post? I would like to read it as well.
Thanks!

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If a character makes 8k flat damages with 50%/+500% crits, then a character with no crit should make 28k. ^^
You have to keep in mind you’re going to loose basic damage when you choose crit bonuses. We’re not in the situation of D3 where you could max both.

That beeing said, I think it’s Crit Chance that needs to be carefully managed. If it stays around 30%, even a +40% Crit Damage affix wouldn’t be better than a +15% global Damage.

Actually it doesn’t, unless you have 100% Crit Chance. Attack speed increases the rate to which Crits happen, but it also increases non-Crits rate. No matter how much Crit Chance/Damage you have, when doing 200 average Damage, +1% Attack Speed always equals 202 average Damage.

I like your idea, it may even already be in the game in the form of Attack/Defense stat. :slight_smile:

It’s a bit too strict imo, I’d rather have them still have the potential to roll 1-2 offensive stats max out of 4.

2 Likes
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I can look. It was somewhere back around the reveal. So it may take some time.

1 Like
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Indeed, all else being equal, that should be the default goal for balancing affixes (of course, all else is not equal, but this is a good place to start)

As for crit vs. crit dmg scaling, I’d

  1. Make crit relatively weak on its own. Make it a mix of dmg and proc. So some skills might proc additional effects when they crit, that makes up for the relatively low dmg value from crit itself. Using skills with ‘on crit’ effects? You might want to look into crit chance/dmg, otherwise maybe other affixes might be better. More realistically, if you use some skills with on crit effects, and others without, crit might end up being in the middle where we ‘want’ it to be.

  2. I’d like if it might be viable to go for only crit chance or crit dmg in a build, instead of the two having to be used together for the insane scaling.
    Like maybe a skill (as default, or through skill modifications or legendary affixes) got 2x the crit chance from gear, but 0x value from crit dmg, making the crit dmg fixed on lets say 150%. Or getting 2x crit dmg from affixes, but crit chance being fixed at maybe 20%

  3. Specialization still means crit scaling has to be balanced, otherwise all builds will just only pick skills with on crit effects or special scaling.
    Keep crit chance/dmg relatively low in general (especially crit dmg), so they never get a chance to scale up too much, unless you specifically use them with any of the skills that scales well with them, either through ‘on crit’ procs, or due to their better scaling with either crit chance or dmg. It would be perfectly fine if going for low/mid amounts of crit chance/dmg was a bad choice in most cases.
    Maybe your choice is between 5% attack speed or 2% crit chance, or 10% crit dmg. 5% attack speed might pretty much always win in pure dmg there unless you get additional value from crit. But then attack speed of course comes with its own downside too, of increasing your resource cost per time.

In general I wish skill designs would just be very variable and different from one another (achievable through skill modification), to allow all affixes to shine in different builds.
The goal should not be to neuter crit as an affix, but to make it highly desirable in some cases, and completely useless in other cases. Same should go for all affixes.

I think that seems kinda boring and limiting. Blizzard holding our hands and telling us how offensive or defensive we can go.
Going far into offense, or far into defense should be perfectly possible. Just make sure it has consequences.
For going too much into offense, make damn sure that deaths matter, so you actually want the defensive stats. Dying should be a substantial loss in efficiency. For going too defensive, that tend not to be an issue, since the cost there is a direct loss in kill speed efficiency.

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But it was exactly like that in D2 as well.

Some pieces of armor only could roll defensive affixes on them (e.g. chest armor), while some others could roll with mixed affixes (e.g. gloves).

https://diablo3.ingame.de/diablodb/affix_index.php?lang=en&version=lod&patch=111

However, I do not have an issue with legendary chest armors or runewords for chest armors having offensive affixes, because that is part of what can make them special.

Cool, thanks!

One advantage of having some pieces of gear to only roll defensive affixes is that it reinforces the fantasy of these items being things that are primarily being used for defense, especially things like a cheat armor or a helm.

And there still would be armor pieces like gloves, bracers, shoulders, or whatever else they pick, (maybe belts as well) that can roll a mix of offensive and defensive bonuses.

Maybe boots and pants can also revolve around being the only pieces of gear that can roll with a bonus to movement speed…

However, especially with helms and chest armor, I would say that they only should roll defensive affixes. Like in D3 it never made sense to me why a helm could roll crit chance and a skill damage multiplier.