Statistical rant: Critical

[Legendary Rose]

With the update of the new critical system, I'm not sure if anyone else understands it. But now it's a bit more of a chance, and it works well for those who usually don't hit on a critical to have a chance to hit critical.

Under the old system, prior to the Polaris update, I've listed basically how it worked on the lower half of this post. Prince of Shadows reiterated, and clarified some major points that I missed.

But under the new system? Both sides are a die roll now.

Using the D&D example below, but with two 10-sided dice, you can say that the percentage of your critical is also the limit of number that you can roll to go critical. If your critical rating was 33% (Like my Balance's is), then any roll of 33 or below would mean that you go critical on your spell. But now, that critical is absolute. It's a definite critical strike without a number put on it.

The only real way that the critical system is different is in the block now. Their block is also absolute, depending on their threshold. The only difference is it's based off of a separate roll, their own role- meaning the enemy you're going critical against does have less of a chance now to block, but they still do. And I get it, it's annoying in mob battles when you've got that one guy that blocked your critical, and decides to start bolt spamming you. Still, you have to live with it, it's the new system.

They also, of course, changed the numbers. And yes, I denied it while it was in test realm, but after witnessing it and experiencing it for myself in live, level decay is a thing now. I don't know the specific base it's on, someone else might be able to figure that out.

Also, under the new system, each part of the attack is counted towards blocking. So if you cast a Deer Knight on a mob, there's a chance that there could be one, two, or no blocks on a single creature. The chance of a block however, with Critical being absolute now, is still somewhat low that this will actually be the case.

Either way, this was bound to happen. People, on this thread (Literally one person though), across this site, and across social media have complained about the old critical system, and even KingsIsle admitted themselves that they personally erred in making it the way it was. It wasn't meant to be that way, and it was outdated to the point where people were getting anywhere from 500-800 critical/block rating in-game, which under the old system would have been 100-160% chance.

In my opinion, it feels more fluid and far smoother and efficient than before, and schools with less critical that manage to put out one are more likely to hit with the critical than without. It feels like there's more good that came out of it, at least to me, than bad. But I digress.

I hope this part, again, helps. Thank you for taking the time to read this.

-----
Okay, this is aimed at a broad range of people.

Lately among many, many Wizards, I've seen complaints about how they have higher critical than their opponent, and in theory should be making every critical strike just because their rating is stronger than their opponent's block. Yet, their opponents block their critical strikes every time.

I'm tired of people ranting saying that KingsIsle made a "Broken game" because of this. Because they DIDN'T.

If anyone's played any tabletop dice-based RPG, then you should know how rolling a bad strike, a good strike, and a critical strike work. In Dungeons and Dragons (I have participated in other RPGs that played similarly, but not D&D. I'm taking information from a friend), If you roll anything below 5, you make a bad strike against your own team. If you roll 5-19, you roll anywhere from a low-damage to a high damage strike, ultimately hitting a critical if you roll 20.

Critical strikes and critical blocks are based on chance in a die roll of 100. If your critical strike is at 80%, and mine is at 60%, then here's how it would go.

80% is equal to a 4-in-5 chance of landing a critical strike. Theoretically, you should have one non-critical for every four criticals you fire off. But if you're using your 80% critical against my 60% block? You might have 4 out of 5 chances to make a critical, but against me your critical has a 75% chance of failing.

In other words and working theory, only one in four criticals of your 80% threshold will make it against my 60% defense.

It's not 60% of blocking a critical out of your 80%. If your 80% suddenly equaled 100%, it wouldn't make any sense. The engine runs on fixed numbers.

I don't have a 3-in-5 chance of blocking your critical. Because 6/8 is equal to 3/4, I have a 75% chance of blocking your critical, and you have a 25% chance of landing a successful one. I will say again, you have a 1-in-4 chance of making it through my block successfully.

And no, don't say that your critical starts from 100, and my block starts from 0. It doesn't work like that, all numbers start from 0 and go up. Only golf scores work like that.

So, if you want to roll a successful critical strike in these odds? 1-60 means you critical, but your opponent blocks it. 61-80 means that you make a critical and it goes through on the opponent, and 81 and above means that you don't even critical at all.

Look at your statistics vs your opponent's before you say that KingsIsle made a broken game. Always. PvP's damaged enough in the game lately because of cries for nerfs, and it's irritated the daylights out of me.

[Dreadful]

This helped me understand the critical rating system much better. I always sort of thought that if you had a big spinning wheel divided into an amount of parts equal to the amount of critical rating (say I had 420 critical rating, the "wheel" is divided into 420 parts) and spun that wheel, whatever it landed on is the critical amount for that hit (given it does critical) and that the same went for block.

I didn't quite fully understand since I'm so slow, but it's not too much like that, right?

[Legendary Rose]

This helped me understand the critical rating system much better. I always sort of thought that if you had a big spinning wheel divided into an amount of parts equal to the amount of critical rating (say I had 420 critical rating, the "wheel" is divided into 420 parts) and spun that wheel, whatever it landed on is the critical amount for that hit (given it does critical) and that the same went for block.

I didn't quite fully understand since I'm so slow, but it's not too much like that, right?

Kind of. I'm basing this directly off of the percentage, and not necessarily the rating. But 420 rating v 300 block (appx 84% vs 60% with the recent update) does mean that you have a 16% chance of failing to critical, a 60% chance of making the critical and having it blocked, and a 24% chance of making it through. 2 of 25 not making it, 15 of 25 critical and being blocked, and 8 of 25 a successful critical strike without being blocked. It's also a ratio of 17:8 un/successful.

If everyone is able to understand fractions and ratios, and knows the theory of die-rolling (In theory, if you roll a six-sided die twice, how many chances are there of rolling a 3?), then they should understand that it's just a typical hit-or-miss roll.

Glad this was helpful.

[firewiz46]

I finally, and I mean after reading so many threads on this over 3 1/2 years, finally understand how critical and block function. Thank you for a great explanation.

[Prince of Shadows]

I agree with the spirit of this thread - the critical system is NOT broken, but many players misunderstand it.
You are absolutely right about it being probability - based.

That said, there are a few things in the explanation given that may cause confusion. It's important to realize that block is NOT a fixed percent chance. You are NOT simply die rolling.

Da Rules:

1 - base your comparisons on final percent of crit and block, not on raw rating. Under the new system there is a more linear relationship between rating and percent, but there is still a level penalty, and rating for crit and block do not convert equally.

2 - any critical percent over your level penalty gives that chance for a critical. Casting a crit is chance, and not dependent on block. Landing it is different.

3 - any block percent above level penalty gives some chance of blocking. There is no level of crit that can not be blocked, though if the crit % is high enough, there's a good chance of landing it. You can get to "almost always" against low block opponents but there will always be some chance of blocking.

4- stated block % is relative to 100% crit. This is key! Effective block is not a set probability, but varies based on the crit of the attack. If you show 50% block and your attacker has 100% crit, you should block half the attacks, but if the attacker has higher crit, you'll block fewer; if the attacker has less, you'll block more.

5 - chance to block = stated block % / attack critical %
5a - because of that, if your block is higher than the attackers crit, you will ALWAYS block.

That's why it's so hard to land crits on some bosses. If you have 50% crit, but your target has 50% block, they will block every attack, not just half. If you up your crit to 75%, you'll crit 3/4 times, but only land 1/3 against a target with 50% block. So I might feel tough with a 400-ish rating, but even against an opponent with a 'wimpy' 50% block, out of 12 attacks I'd crit 9, but land only 3 for a 25% success rate.

Conversely, you can partially over-power block with higher crit, but not completely.
If I have 150% crit, I'll crit every time, and land 2/3 against a target with 50% block. Better than I would at 100%, but still not a sure thing.

I hope that makes sense. Crit can be very useful, but it has limitations. The better you understand it, the more effectively you can use it.

[Kiley2Sweetz]

BLAH BLAH BLAH! Yes block is broken. As a jade a healer, if I wear block boots from Malistaire, I will block more than the jade boots or baddles rockstar boots. This game is based on luck though. There were times I even block failed with conviction on. In my experience playing so much tournaments, I believe the block and critical is broken. It has nothing to do with percentage at all. A hitter can have poor block than me and block everything. Where as myself, my block can be 385 and block fail a hitter. It really is a lucky land for hitters. This game is gambling and rolling the dice all the time just makes me unlucky. Higher based items like teeth wand and Malistaire boots can block a critical hit but then I will sacrifice my resist. OH WAIT! But Ki raised the pierce, so jade healers resist is lame now. Infallible+blade+shrike=GG! The whole game just got broken to new updates.

[bored471]

@Legendary Rose , yes I totally agree that critical is a chance/probablility thing. But what about low level PvP? It gets so ruined there that people start calling 'critical' as 'luck'.

[FamilyWiz]

I agree with the spirit of this thread - the critical system is NOT broken, but many players misunderstand it.
You are absolutely right about it being probability - based.

That said, there are a few things in the explanation given that may cause confusion. It's important to realize that block is NOT a fixed percent chance. You are NOT simply die rolling.

Da Rules:

1 - base your comparisons on final percent of crit and block, not on raw rating. Under the new system there is a more linear relationship between rating and percent, but there is still a level penalty, and rating for crit and block do not convert equally.

2 - any critical percent over your level penalty gives that chance for a critical. Casting a crit is chance, and not dependent on block. Landing it is different.

3 - any block percent above level penalty gives some chance of blocking. There is no level of crit that can not be blocked, though if the crit % is high enough, there's a good chance of landing it. You can get to "almost always" against low block opponents but there will always be some chance of blocking.

4- stated block % is relative to 100% crit. This is key! Effective block is not a set probability, but varies based on the crit of the attack. If you show 50% block and your attacker has 100% crit, you should block half the attacks, but if the attacker has higher crit, you'll block fewer; if the attacker has less, you'll block more.

5 - chance to block = stated block % / attack critical %
5a - because of that, if your block is higher than the attackers crit, you will ALWAYS block.

That's why it's so hard to land crits on some bosses. If you have 50% crit, but your target has 50% block, they will block every attack, not just half. If you up your crit to 75%, you'll crit 3/4 times, but only land 1/3 against a target with 50% block. So I might feel tough with a 400-ish rating, but even against an opponent with a 'wimpy' 50% block, out of 12 attacks I'd crit 9, but land only 3 for a 25% success rate.

Conversely, you can partially over-power block with higher crit, but not completely.
If I have 150% crit, I'll crit every time, and land 2/3 against a target with 50% block. Better than I would at 100%, but still not a sure thing.

I hope that makes sense. Crit can be very useful, but it has limitations. The better you understand it, the more effectively you can use it.

So PvE question: Basically I've been emphasizing crit block over crit in my gear/stats because bosses and now mobs at high level usually block the crit anyway and I want to likewise block theirs. Am I making a mistake in doing so?

[Prince of Shadows]

So PvE question: Basically I've been emphasizing crit block over crit in my gear/stats because bosses and now mobs at high level usually block the crit anyway and I want to likewise block theirs. Am I making a mistake in doing so?

Nope, that's a sound plan, especially playing solo. Failing to block can be instant defeat.

[FamilyWiz]

Nope, that's a sound plan, especially playing solo. Failing to block can be instant defeat.

That's what I figured. Thanks!