Right now, nearly every effect that, in VT1, had it’s own chance to trigger, is now tied to crit.
This makes it a lot easier to grasp, to calculate, and possibly even to implement.
However, I believe it also makes it harder to balance, as certain weapons are just more suited to hitting a lot of targets with crit, and every hit counts (if the effect can be stacked). The effect is amplified by certain classes.
Suggestion:
- Give on-crit effects that can stack a cooldown.
- While the cooldown is active, the effect still procs, but at a lower potency.
- For a base of discussion, let’s take 0.5 seconds, and a 50% reduction in effect while the cooldown is active.
Anecdotal Evidence:
I’ve tried making the hp on crit talent work many times, and even if, through temporary buffs, I get close to 50% crit chance and hit multiple targets, it is plain worse than hp on kill. The only reliable way to crit a lot of targets at once is there being a lot of targets at once, and those frequently die when crit, so at best the effect is equal.
At the same time, the same critrate allows my Huntsman infinite ammo if as few as three enemies have the decency to line up.
Conversely, the cooldown/vent on crit traits are extremely powerful on Staves that hit a lot of targets, frequently, yet a lot less desirable on others.
Hypothetical effect of this change:
Let’s assume we go with the values from above;
- A critical arrow would replenish 2 arrows on the first hit target, then one more from every extra target.
Obviously, this would adversely effect non-penetrating rapid-fire weapons, but let’s leave that for later. - Vent on crit, used on a beam staff’s RMB, would vent 4 overheat on the first hit target, then on the others (I believe up to 9 more) it would vent two heat per hit; Similarly, it would drastically drop the venting when sweeping over a horde, but have only a minuscule effect when hitting a single target.
- skill cooldown on crit with flamethrowers wouldn’t instantly refill half an active bar in a second, but it would still have a notable effect - though I believe it would be easier if this trait just recovered a % of remaining cooldown, as it originally read
Lastly, it would weaken the hitpoint on crit talent, which could in turn be buffed to bring it somewhat up to the level of hp on kill. 3/1 would probably stratify it, but I genuinely believe that talent needs help, so maybe a 4/1 split would make more sense.
As a closing word, I don’t want to randomly nerf working things, but I believe the option of having cooldowns and modifiers would allow a more fine-grained balancing that lessens the risk of specific traits being mandatory on specific weapons/classes. Same with Talents, obviously.