Crit Sev (Diminshing Returns)

alliera7311 · March 2017

I have always wonder what the actual dmg return per 1% of crit sev is and at what point is it no longer beneficial to use over something else. Reason being at a certain point there may not even be a need to run Crit Sev companions or boons and food buffs. You could possibly slot something in thats a higher dmg return. Does anyone know what the return is?

dupeks · March 2017

Sharp put up a basic damage formula.

http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter#/discussion/1228351/pc-pve-basic-damage-healing-calculations

It's really hard to ask "what are the returns for crit severity" because they depend on your stats. It also may be the wrong question to ask, because this game is all about tradeoffs. It's not how much benefit do I get from 1% increase to crit sev, but what is the relative benefit I get from that choice vs. the next best choice (say additional power or something else).

There isn't a great generic answer. That said:

If you're crit severity is over 100% and you are at 100% crit chance, any additive % bonus to crit severity will contribute strictly less to your damage than the same multiplicative direct damage buff. So if you have 120% crit severity, 5% crit sev would be worse than 5% damage bonus assuming you already have at least 100% crit severity. (120% + 5% = 125% which is less than 120% * 1.05 = 126%). All damage buffs are multiplicative, so they do not have diminishing returns.

If your crit chance is less than 100%, you can calculate your effective crit severity by multiplying the two... but take note that the lower your crit chance, the more variable your damage output will be and the formula will only reflect a long-term average. For certain builds, being able to consistently time your big hits is important.

I hope I didn't get any of the math wrong up there.

Edit: take note that power is also additive in a similar sense. It has a linear relationship to damage increase, but that doesn't mean that adding 2,000 power gives 5% damage increase. It depends on how much power you already have. A power bonus will increase the damage output of a character with lower starting power much more than it would increase the damage output of a character with a higher starting power. The relative increase would be calculated as (new power % dmg increase - old power % dmg increase)/old power % dmg increase.

alliera7311 · March 2017

@dupeks so let me give you this example assuming I crit a 100% of the time. At a base of 85% with a addional 75% from a dread. Would adding 10% crit sev be better than 6% dmg increase?

dupeks · March 2017

assuming a 100% crit chance, your damage is (1+critsev) x (buffs) x (all other stuff) so at critsev 160% (85+75) adding 10% is (170-160)/160 = 0.0625. Meaning it's worth 6.25% effective damage increase on encounters, more on at-wills.

Edit: As a thought exercise, adding another +10% crit sev pet would add how much?
(180-170)/170 = 0.05882352941 so like ~5.9% effective damage increase. At that point it's better to slot the +6% dmg increase

jonkoca · March 2017

Base damage additions are hard to come by though. Beyond seigemaster 4% and the 2 archons - fire for 7% after 50% and the other one for 5% at enemy not at full health, its difficult to find. I have 200% critsev and 95% critchance. Even if I dropped gambit, and stacked some more power on my pet and mount stable instead of crit, I'm not sure the couple of 1000 pow would make up for the loss of 50% critsev. 150->200 critsev is a 33% damage hike, or the equivalent of 13200 pow, so even with bonding statsx3 effect, I'd somehow have to stack an extra 4400 pow on my pet.

Wouldn't mind a different pet than the erinyes I usually slot for 10%critsev, but the conditions required to fulfill the other archons for example make them unreliable. 190->200 critsev is a guarranteed 5% bonus or so.

dupeks · March 2017

jonkoca said:
Base damage additions are hard to come by though. Beyond seigemaster 4% and the 2 archons - fire for 7% after 50% and the other one for 5% at enemy not at full health, its difficult to find. I have 200% critsev and 95% critchance. Even if I dropped gambit, and stacked some more power on my pet and mount stable instead of crit, I'm not sure the couple of 1000 pow would make up for the loss of 50% critsev. 150->200 critsev is a 33% damage hike, or the equivalent of 13200 pow, so even with bonding statsx3 effect, I'd somehow have to stack an extra 4400 pow on my pet.

Wouldn't mind a different pet than the erinyes I usually slot for 10%critsev, but the conditions required to fulfill the other archons for example make them unreliable. 190->200 critsev is a guarranteed 5% bonus or so.

I agree your options are limited. I find earth archon isn't bad for some builds (I run on my gwf for instance) because with enough lifesteal you're not below max health for long. Some folks like a wild hunt rider if they use enough encounters to trigger reliably.

A quick note, I think your math is a little optimistic. You need to add 1 because at crit severity <100% your crits still do more damage than non-crits. So if you have 190% crit severity, the effective damage increase of adding another 10% crit sev is (300-290)/290 = 0.03448275862 or about 3.4%. Definitely not nothing, but virtually any damage pet would likely be better imo.

jonkoca · March 2017

Ahh ,ok, good to know - will swap in another archon, I have a tonne of lifesteal too.

dragonsbane3 · March 2017

jonkoca said:
Ahh ,ok, good to know - will swap in another archon, I have a tonne of lifesteal too.

For the HR I find the best dmg comes from running Air Archon, Fire Archon, Siege Master, Wild Hunt Raider which has almost 100% up time since its proc'ing off of gushing wounds dot, then any debuff companion ie sellsword, ambush drake etc etc.

dmcewen · March 2017

@dupeks Do you know how much damage you gain from the combat advantage companions assuming 100% crit and 100% CA uptime?

dupeks · March 2017

dmcewen said:
@dupeks Do you know how much damage you gain from the combat advantage companions assuming 100% crit and 100% CA uptime?

If you follow the link I posted to Sharp's damage formula, you'll see that CA is additive to the part of the calculation dealing with critical severity. So effectively if you have 100% crit and 100% CA uptime, adding to CA is the same as adding to crit severity.

The exception is the CA boon (in UD I think, maybe maze engine) that multiplies just the CA component by 1.1. The interaction there is a little more complicated, but it gets better the more you've already invested in other sources of CA.

You should note that CA pets are all additive now to the CA multiplier, rather than multiplicative as they used to be. So CA pets are worse the higher your CA or crit sev already is.

Again, that usually puts them below outright damage pets unless you have some niche situations going on.

dmcewen · March 2017

@dupeks Thank you.

Crit Sev (Diminshing Returns)

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