[Autumn]

As tempted as I am to "Umm aktually" in this thread and explain my perspective on what I think to be wrong with critical rates in this game (not exclusive to STR if you look at handguns/shotguns), I am instead going to focus down upon just saying that I think the community should attempt to form together what is actually wrong with crit builds, maybe dedicate one of the testing periods to just going over each of the builds that excel and the ones that don't and writing them down somewhere.

The global opinion is very divisive, and while I think personally it lays in buffing specific classes like MG, Duelist and Soldier. I don't think I'm entirely right in that either.

Sorry for going off topic for a moment however, it just looks difficult to get a solid answer in when everyone has different opinions on what is actually wrong with the melee critting archetype.

[Lolzytripd]

I honestly feel the solution is taking away crit damage from guile, Going back to a base modifier that is further amplified by class and item crit damage modifiers

1.5 + bonuses would be fine.

Guile is a stacked stat and is pretty fine without it now days.

If you needed guile to have "something to do" then how bout this. Guile ignores 1% Mdr/Physdr per 2 or per 4 points.

Strength Could ignore 1 armor/marmor per 5 or 10

[Sawrock]

easy solution

make all weapons excel weapons

[Miller]

The issue isn't strength though, it's CE. Just nerf CE, it should be a premium stat. 0.5 from luc and fai and we're good

You're telling me that in a build that requires STR/LUC/GUI plus the obvious SKI in higher amounts before defensives are put into play, that STR isn't the issue that these builds have next to no agency when it comes to stat distribution?

LUC gives you crit rate/crit evade
GUI gives you crit damage and situational hit.
SKI gives you hit and crit
STR gives you HP and SWA

HP is less useful on evasive builds with low DR since there's only break points of effective hits until you die, so that leaves STR as purely a SWA stat and nothing else for that brand of a STR critter.

I do think CEvade right now gets a bit too high too easily thanks to boneheart and BK, but the amount of stat investment you need to simply touch the bare minimum of what's required for these builds before bonuses are applied is higher than pretty much any other archetype in the game. Hence why STR giving 0.5 crit would alleviate this issue a bit, the average STR critter that runs softcap STR would save an upwards of 22 stats (and lose cevade in the process).

You could argue that this would raise an already high crit weapon like axes to even higher heights and, yeah that's definitely a concern. Axes getting +20 crit on top of their already pretty easily accessible crit rates would be a point of contention. 

IMO you either give STR crit chance to allow for stat leeway or adjust the weapons primarily used to run this archetype. Personally I would prefer the former and potentially adjust axe-related support a smidge so that they aren't critting with zero luck investment.

[Ray2064]

The issue isn't strength though, it's CE. Just nerf CE, it should be a premium stat. 0.5 from luc and fai and we're good

You're telling me that in a build that requires STR/LUC/GUI plus the obvious SKI in higher amounts before defensives are put into play, that STR isn't the issue that these builds have next to no agency when it comes to stat distribution?

LUC gives you crit rate/crit evade
GUI gives you crit damage and situational hit.
SKI gives you hit and crit
STR gives you HP and SWA

HP is less useful on evasive builds with low DR since there's only break points of effective hits until you die, so that leaves STR as purely a SWA stat and nothing else for that brand of a STR critter.

I do think CEvade right now gets a bit too high too easily thanks to boneheart and BK, but the amount of stat investment you need to simply touch the bare minimum of what's required for these builds before bonuses are applied is higher than pretty much any other archetype in the game. Hence why STR giving 0.5 crit would alleviate this issue a bit, the average STR critter that runs softcap STR would save an upwards of 22 stats (and lose cevade in the process).

You could argue that this would raise an already high crit weapon like axes to even higher heights and, yeah that's definitely a concern. Axes getting +20 crit on top of their already pretty easily accessible crit rates would be a point of contention. 

IMO you either give STR crit chance to allow for stat leeway or adjust the weapons primarily used to run this archetype. Personally I would prefer the former and potentially adjust axe-related support a smidge so that they aren't critting with zero luck investment.

Tbf axes by themselves 'only' give 7.5 extra crit, which while valuable isn't really the game breaker in itself

The true catalyst, I'm pretty sure , being the Berserker Shell which can amp up the critting potential of the weapon to exponentially potent levels (1/2 of missing HP being converted) 



I'm not really sure about how would we go about a nerf of the item in the case of an addition of crit to the STR stat, since if it'd go any lower than that, it'd probably feel quite negligible in comparison and would probably be probably be hardly worth it over other torsos , especially heavy armors

[Poruku]

Hey, 120-150 extra hp is nothing to scoff at. Whether it's on an evade build or not doesn't matter.

And one big issue with this is that we can't just put crit chance on strength because it makes no sense from a "lore" perspective. That's why I think changing the weapon stats themselves is the best method. Flat crit damage would make sense too though.

[Miller]

Hey, 120-150 extra hp is nothing to scoff at. Whether it's on an evade build or not doesn't matter.

And one big issue with this is that we can't just put crit chance on strength because it makes no sense from a "lore" perspective. That's why I think changing the weapon stats themselves is the best method. Flat crit damage would make sense too though.

Raising your HP gives you some extra stat leeway but the amount of VIT granted by 'base' strength is only around 0.33 of one point of vitality. Average strength weapon crit build is gonna have around 20+ base; giving you a whole 6~7 points of vitality that you can distribute elsewhere. Strength does not offer as much HP as you are implying in your post, it's more of a range of 50-80 HP pre-giant gene/endurance. Keep in mind this is an archetype with incredibly low stat leeway, so a majority of STR crit builds are running 20 base VIT and can't spare anymore points unless they're fine with giving up Die Hard. 

Evade/Tank does matter within the context of HP. If you're more tanky, each point of HP is more valuable. 2 HP on a build with 50% DR is around 4. It's useful for both ends of the spectrum and there's no denying that, but tank builds benefit significantly more from higher HP values than someone not investing in DEF/RES. Of course, there's strong DR abilities like Wraithguard and parries that make up for this but that's besides the point.

I have zero idea what you mean by a 'lore' perspective either. You can argue that higher strength makes it easier to land a decisive blow thanks to being physically stronger and more capable of piercing through armor/kinks in their armor. Flat Crit Damage and Critical Damage would make as much sense as critical chance, but the issue with these two options is that they do not change the issue that this specific archetype faces which again, is stat leeway and only amplifies what they're already good at. (Less so in the case of Flat Critical Damage)

[Senna]

• Crit evade is too high.
  

Crit evade is not high. It's easier to stack crit than it is to stack crit evade. How? I've made and witnessed many crit builds that doesn't have more than 10 Luc investment.

Ring of Thorns Plus is a powerful tool.

If you're not using BK or Ranger (One locks you into heavy armor and the other locks you into light armor), the highest you can get your crit evade with needless investment (25~30 in a stats you probably won't even use) is 90 without shooting yourself in the leg with a race with good luck or faith base. That's with Bone Heart (Giving up torso enchantment slots) and Metal Greaves Plus. (Giving up shoes slots).

So no, crit evade isn't high; it's at an okay spot. Someone with 130 crits has a 40% chance of criting them. People tend to have 110~130 base: higher 20~30 crit higher in battle. All it does is force a coin toss instead of guarantee crit.

The game has a lot of options that let you just lolstack your crit.

The problem is that those classes and options are either just rogue or request you to give up evade to do or pray to the RNG gods to maintain it.

And no, some str crit builds are sufficient. Str is already a powerful status, we don't need to make it any stronger than it is. Most weapons use things like two hands to provide them +20 SWA. More than enough as a crit build can still be funny enough, two turn someone who has no real response to it.

And before yall say it, no, 120 SWA is not low. That's quite standard. 120 is low for a SKILL build, not a crit build. Most crit builds are getting three attacks off in that turn. Two if they have to reposition.

The only thing I would say might need adjustment/work are bows. As they are strength weapons that depend on range (So they need a good investment GUI to even hit someone a few distances away) and don't have two-hand SWA to make up for it (So they have low SWA) while trying to fit the luck for it to work.

So yes, Bows, Certain San crit builds and CERTAIN evade Crit builds are the ones really struggling with the crit situation.

Builds that stretch stats thin.

And in all honesty, half these crit builds can be fixed with simple adjustments; perfect poise lasting for a set amount of turns when used by Attrait then dismiss on hit, the return of familiars (Four leaf clover), perhaps a torso enchantment that increases crit chance and crit damage and lastly, the ring of thorn plus HP nerf getting altered a bit.

Bows just need an extra scale added to their SWA (Just let them have two hands like everyone else) and some effect that helps with farshot struggles.

Or just, let GUI also provide a bit of crit chance; for it to become the stat for crits overall.

[Miller]

• Crit evade is too high.
  

Crit evade is not high. It's easier to stack crit than it is to stack crit evade. How? I've made and witnessed many crit builds that doesn't have more than 10 Luc investment.

Ring of Thorns Plus is a powerful tool.

If you're not using BK or Ranger (One locks you into heavy armor and the other locks you into light armor), the highest you can get your crit evade with needless investment (25~30 in a stats you probably won't even use) is 90 without shooting yourself in the leg with a race with good luck or faith base. That's with Bone Heart (Giving up torso enchantment slots) and Metal Greaves Plus. (Giving up shoes slots).

So no, crit evade isn't high; it's at an okay spot. Someone with 130 crits has a 40% chance of criting them. People tend to have 110~130 base: higher 20~30 crit higher in battle. All it does is force a coin toss instead of guarantee crit.

The game has a lot of options that let you just lolstack your crit.

The problem is that those classes and options are either just rogue or request you to give up evade to do or pray to the RNG gods to maintain it.

And no, some str crit builds are sufficient. Str is already a powerful status, we don't need to make it any stronger than it is. Most weapons use things like two hands to provide them +20 SWA. More than enough as a crit build can still be funny enough, two turn someone who has no real response to it.

And before yall say it, no, 120 SWA is not low. That's quite standard. 120 is low for a SKILL build, not a crit build. Most crit builds are getting three attacks off in that turn. Two if they have to reposition.

The only thing I would say might need adjustment/work are bows. As they are strength weapons that depend on range (So they need a good investment GUI to even hit someone a few distances away) and don't have two-hand SWA to make up for it (So they have low SWA) while trying to fit the luck for it to work.

So yes, Bows, Certain San crit builds and CERTAIN evade Crit builds are the ones really struggling with the crit situation.

Builds that stretch stats thin.

And in all honesty, half these crit builds can be fixed with simple adjustments; perfect poise lasting for a set amount of turns when used by Attrait then dismiss on hit, the return of familiars (Four leaf clover), perhaps a torso enchantment that increases crit chance and crit damage and lastly, the ring of thorn plus HP nerf getting altered a bit.

Bows just need an extra scale added to their SWA (Just let them have two hands like everyone else) and some effect that helps with farshot struggles.

Or just, let GUI also provide a bit of crit chance; for it to become the stat for crits overall.

An argument along the lines of 'trust me, I've done it' doesn't really amount to much though? You can get higher critical values than crit evade easier, but that doesn't exactly amount to much when denying one or two crits is enough to completely determine a fair amount of fights for the one fishing for them. A 40% Crit Rate is denying a third action from a decent amount of these builds 60% of the time, which often includes movement and leaves them in a disadvantageous spot unless they plan for missing in the first place. You're significantly understating how powerful CEvade is with your point. But even with all that said, I also don't agree with lowering CEvade on stats in particular.

I'm trying to understand this argument because you also admit that it's very class specific to amp up your crit or that you have give up evade. Poise could use a tune up, that's for sure; but it doesn't really fix the basic stat distribution problem these builds face, sans axes which have significantly powerful support when it comes to critical chance and damage. Four Leaf Clover is also an accessory that has a decent length CD. You're already running RoT+ in the example given prior, so they wouldn't even have room for another accessory even if they wanted it.

A basic weapon, IE: A Longsword with RoT+/Crownbleeder+ and Vorpal w/ 60 scaled SKI and 44 Scaled Luck tends to hover around 123% Crit Chance. On an imperialist, the amount of stats you need to invest for that is 91+42, the latter number being the invested points in aptitude. Now you need to invest in STR, which takes roughly 30~ for your softcap. This already leads us to only have 77 points left to distribute in GUI, VIT and CEL or DEF/RES. 16 points of that is going towards VIT which leaves you at 61 stat points to distribute.

In this example, even with a weapon enchant slot, an accessory slot and a hand slot, I'm only at the baseline listed in your post. With a more dedicated weapon, I could be at 133% crit. But this example only serves to show how much investment the average baseline STR crit focused build has to deal with, this isn't even accounting for weapons like polearms too.

Why would crit chance go on GUI? GUI already functionally does way more than STR does, so I don't see how you're saying 'STR is already a strong stat' when it just provides SWA for some weapons and HP. Meanwhile GUI provides SWA on some weapons, a farshot reduction, critical damage and bonus hit.

addendum*
With the example I just gave, if crit chance was on STR; these builds that struggle to meet a baseline can save an upward of 24 points that they can invest elsewhere. (IE: Defensives or more GUI.) The only demerit to a change like that would be the overall crit chance across the board being raised, even if it'd equal out with the combined total of CEvade stats.

[Autumn]

In my opinion, asking people to give up 10% of their HP so they can have a sliver more of a chance to critically strike does nothing for the archetype, especially when the issue currently lies in classes that are built entirely around the idea but have had many of their passives surrounding it changed and/or removed throughout the years. Rogues struggle much less with crit buffs because of Northern Wind, Archers struggle less because of Keyshot and amazing weapon parts, Monks struggle less because of Serpent Strikes and amazing critical parts. Bonder doesn't quite struggle because of the amazing stat buff that is Fight As One.

This leaves some other classes based around basic attacking wanting, Kensei has Absolute fear and a better Kagekiri I will admit, but the likes of Ghost, Firebird, DH and Shapeshifter all do not have meaningful critical buffs in their kits that should help them against crit evade, in an ideal world Crit Evade should lower crit rates to the likes of 50%, and not 10-15%. Its almost the exact effect as hitting and glancing an attack.

Right now crit evade is punishing classes that cannot buff their crit rate meaningfully far too much, with crit evade easily hitting in the 70s-90s on builds that feature either Luck or Faith and opt into an enchant worth 25 stat points alone (The next enchantment down, tanninheart only offers 12, for clarity), this means classes need to hit 140 crit to try and at least achieve the magical 50% mark, and some just straight up cannot do that, having to settle for 110-120 at their own maximum. And this isn't even hyper specialized crit evade machines that wall them out, these are just GENERIC builds

I'd rather make a thread about Boneheart than to complain about its extremely effective usage here though, either you are raising the critical chance through strength which would genuinely help out these classes quite a bit and give some stat efficiency to STR which sorely needs it above other archetypes right now, or you have to go through a sweep of every basic attacker in the game that feels wrong to play.