[Ray2064]

... Why is the baseline that you SHOULD be getting an extra action over everyone else every turn? Action economy is the strongest thing in any game like this. You should be fighting tooth and nail to GET that boost, we shouldn't be fighting tooth and nail to PREVENT you from getting that boost. Which begs the question... What baseline of crit should reasonable investment on both sides end up being? 60%? 80%? Or would you have it that investment on both sides ends up with 100% crit rate?

Why is a 78% chance to crit considered an 'only' in this case? That's a LOT. Even in a non-duelist case, hitting the crit twice for an extra action has a 60.84% chance of happening in those two hits. That's, at a baseline of 2 hits, 60+% chance of getting a free action if they don't put points into crit evade. Not counting fleur, not counting extra hits from rogue baseclass, not counting if they simply buffed up at the beginning of the fight, and certainly not counting the fact that crits are some of the highest damage sources you can get if you build for them correctly. (Quick edit, I didn't really account for APT-base that anyone would have for crit evade innately, but it still wouldn't be very much without investment.)

If you get 40 FAI or LUC (post apt), boneheart, and the APT bonus, you're only looking at 75-80ish crit evade. That's INVESTMENT versus ZERO INVESTMENT stat-wise to achieve this. When you start accounting for investment vs investment, and active crit bonuses that can be applied in a fight, you're easily pushing into 50+% chance. Even a NERFED northern wind completely nullifies boneheart in 3m, for 6 rounds.

Well, you first have to take into account that Crit builds are by far the less stat efficient archetype out there for a reason.

There are usually 30-40  points you dump into Luck, which is a stat that does essentially nothing for you but amp up your Critical rate (And CEvade too, but god forbid you wear a ROT +), and unless Lightning attack is part of your build, you're just looking at a big nothing-burger stat that you invest in to play the archetype (without any guarantee this won't die ln you, mind) , but alright,part of the cost for three actions a turn.

Assuming you paid your SKI tax, you'll be hovering around only 70-80 Critical for now.


Then you'll have to take into account how , as Milkinero said, there's another stat investment to be had for you attacks to deal more damage over the course of these three actions than the average John-Mage, who'll do so while not having bothered with any of this in the first place.

If you're a Gun/Dagger user?  Congrats, you can skip that step since your weapon type scales off Guile. Lucky you !
You can reach 55 or so of the stat without much issue. If you're using STR, well, hope you enjoy these 15 virtual extra points of VIT so you can invest invest the double in Guile.

That's another bunch of stats down the drain, once again, with no guarantee they'll return their investment in the case you're not critting.

Then there's the fact your equipment will usually have to be tailored specifically to reach extra amount of critical after that, unless you got Bonder/VA/Hexer-worthy roids.

And all of that to hit what- 115 crit pre-battle buffs , if you're really generous ?

If you're something like your ol' reliable Ghost/BK, and aren't using an axe, your only reliable crit buff comes from inflicting Fear (if they're not a Shaitan I hate Shaitan), for a grand total of...130 crit, conditionally. 

If you do use an axe, you sacrifice further of your defensive utility for extra critical, which is fairr, but remains an extra investment that can be just blown to the wind. Given Zerked Shell's boost equals to half of your current missing HP in percent, you'll be looking at a middle ground of 25 crit or so.

With the cost of essentially being left stat-starved, without any real utility to call your own , low on FP, defenses, etc. Having your cris denied makes you simply worthless