[CRITAL STRIKE REWORK] Making Crit work like Fervor of Battle (No more burst)

Aalydon·9/22/2017, 10:07:28 PM·73 votes·3,187 views
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Preface: I want to suggest a rework for Crit that makes it a stable, healthy, and easily balance-able stat. If by chance you don't agree with any of the scaling proposed, which are literally just trading the live stats 1 for 1 for comparison's sake, Riot can always tune them down to each individual auto attack because there is no longer any RNG. However, adc's will already "lose" a lot of damage to begin with. (0 burst damage, more sustained damage) Still, I would love to hear other peoples thoughts on where they think this rework misses any marks, or what edge cases could be too OP. (some topics I already thought of are in the -Misc- section.)

------ Crit Rework ------

  • The TL;DR of this crit rework is "crit works like fervor of battle"

This is a crit rework that "fixes" crit so it has zero RNG, does "less" damage at early stages of the game, "more" damage at later stages, and doesn't have any sudden burst element. The stat also has it's own built-in counter-play that isn't "buy more armor". Thus it'll make divers, skrimishers, and assassins better by proxy if they're able to do their job (prevent the carries from auto attacking) the reason for this is because it inherits fervor of battle's game space, where sustained auto-damage is useless if you get cc'd, bursted, zoned away.

"CRIT CHANCE" -> changed to: "CRIT RAMP" (conversion is 1-1: 10% crit = 10 crit ramp) "CRIT DAMAGE" -> changed to: "CRIT CAP" [base 200] (conversion also 1-1)

"For every auto attack against an enemy champion or epic monster, you additivlely stack [CRIT] equal to your [CRIT RAMP]. Auto attacks deal BONUS physical damage equal to: [CRIT]% BONUS AD. Maximum [CRIT] is [CRIT CAP] [CRIT] decays by [CRIT RAMP] after not attacking an enemy for [3 + 100% of total Attack Speed] seconds."

**EXAMPLE 1: ** You have 20% CRIT RAMP, the base 200% CRIT CAP, 60 base ad, and 50 bonus ad. (BF and Zeal item rush, more or less)

Your first auto attack deals 110 damage, the next will do 120 (110 + 20% of bonus AD), subsequently 130 (110 + 40% bonus AD), 140, 150, 160, 170, 180, 190, 200, 210, 210, 210.... 210..... etc. at this point you've hit your CRIT CAP and the "crits" do slightly less damage as live crits, but happen every auto. (live auto's crit for 220). This scenario can only happen if you manage to stay alive as an adc for 10+ seconds while consistently auto attacking. (getting chain cc'd means you might lose your stacks, if you don't die) Not a lot of adc's have much greater than 1.0 Attack speed by this point in the game either, so you only have 4ish seconds of breathing room between auto's (fevor of battle gives 8 for comparison)

Essentially, marksmen break-even with live damage numbers somewhere after 9 - 10 auto attacks and then do more damage afterwards, assuming with live's 20% crit chance you crit 2-4 times in 10 auto's (crit chance isn't linear unfortunately, so comparing to live is difficult). So at the beginning of a fight marksmen won't have the damage to melt face immediately and need to "ramp up" for their bonus damage on auto's. "lucky crits" that can burst you are gone. If divers, skirmishers and assassins can get to the adc, they'll have upwards of 8 of seconds worth of time before the adc is able to kill them (dosent necessarily mean the adc will die, just that the other class diving them can't die without outside intervention). Skirmisher's love medium extend fights like these, especially in the early game. However, if everyone leaves an adc unchecked in the middle of the fight, they'll eventually do more damage than any other class in the game, as they should. IMO adc's should be able to kill everyone, but only if they are able to respond to threats and auto attack consistently!

This still works late-game!

EXAMPLE 2: You have 80% CRIT RAMP, 250 CRIT CAP (+50 from Infinity Edge passive), 100 base AD, and 150 bonus AD

first auto deals 250, then 370, 490, 610, 625, 625, 625... 625... etc.

Obviously the CRIT RAMP stacks much faster per auto attack, yet in the first 3 auto's, an adc has lost anywhere between 390-765damage (2 or 3 crits in 3 auto's with 80% crit on live is fairly consistent) but in the next 3 auto's they've lost a maximum of 15 damage. ADC's are therefore still able to do the damage late game that they are known for, but only if they stay alive long enough and know how to position in order to auto attack those first couple of times. If they get jumped by a diver or assassin, those classes still have 3-4 seconds to do their Job. Late game those couple of seconds count for a lot.

---Notes----

The side effects of this rework are: that it heavily favors adc's with Attack speed steroids or extra auto attacks, adc's will opt into sustain AD items before crit to stay alive, and crit no longer works/stacks on minions. However, I believe it is still balanced in regard to marksmen as well as 3 of the melee carries that still build crit: Yasuo, Yi, and Tryndamere. The only exceptions are Jhin, Ashe, and Graves, who have crit scalings already in their kits; GP, as his play pattern doesn't support it; and Statikk shiv's lightning, which can't crit to start a fight.

Lastly, Crit Ramp as a stat is not something that adc's are going to rush, or something tanks are going to buy. They can't because it deals bonus damage based on their BONUS AD. If you first back and get a zeal with 15 ad in runes and 7 ad from a Doran's blade, the maximum bonus damage you'll get on your auto's is 44 after auto attacking a champion 10+ times! You're better off getting a BF which will just give you 40 AD out the gate, which also enhances your ability damage. IE rush also becomes situational/not effective as the passive doesn't come into effect until you're exceeding the base Crit Cap. Tanks won't build crit at all similarly because they'd still need to buy bonus AD in order to make use of the crit. Skirmishers would be the only class that can dip into crit itemization. (Another class CAN build crit with ad, such as a fighter or bruiser, but then their building into a skirmisher identity instead of their own class identity)

---- Misc----

Q1. What happens to abilities that crit? A. they can stay as is, crit strikes and crit ramp are comparing 'an effect on an ability' to a 'stacking stat buff', and most if not all of those abilities are "guaranteed crits" anyway, or riots way of saying "do bonus damage if X happens with some crit text flair". If however I'm forgetting any edge cases let me know. Yi and Garen would have to take a look at Q3

Q2. What happens to critical strike animations and the their crit damage text? A. probably something like: If ( %Bonus AD damage from Crit >= base auto attack damage) then: show crit animation. This visually makes it clear that you're "online" as an adc and that you've actually doubled your auto attack damage.

Q3. Could more abilities now interact with crit ramp and not exclusively auto attacks? A. Yes. In one of 2 ways. Either the ability gives Crit Ramp if it lands (abilities buffs auto's), or the ability applies Crit's bonus ad damage (auto's buff abilities). The best two examples of this would be Garen and Yi respectively, who already have the afore mentioned interactions. Garen could now get a crit ramp stack if he hits a champion with E ticks, buffing his next auto attack, and YI now applies all his bonus Crit AD to his Q, so it's tied even more to his auto attack pattern. (I'd really like to see adc's with similar interactions as above, like Lucian getting a Crit Ramp stack on his Q, and Jinx getting Crit AD on her W)

Q4. What happens to Jhin? A. not sure. IMO he still has his lethality build and he's not designed to be a tank buster, more of an adc/skirmisher/ranged assassin that focuses squishys. It's possible that he might be fine if his final auto always crits at the Crit Cap exactly the same way it does on live (with total ad as well) but he'll still lose all his crit ramp stacks after reloading as the trade off.

Q5. Ashe? A. her crit scaling is her passive. which just gives her bonus ad basically. Nothing has to change, she'd still keep her reliable auto attack scaling. The only difference is she wins fights the shorter they last compared to another adc, which has to Ramp up, since she starts the fights with the same immediate amount of bonus ad damage that she ends with.

Q6. Graves? A. The "crit scaling" I was referring to was that he gets extra shells in his buckshot when he crits. This is a strange case interaction where the best I can say is he gets +1 shell for every X amount of crit he's stacked. However, Graves's Identity is that of a burst ad caster now, not a sustained damage dealer. Something might have to be done similar to Jhin to accompany his reload mechanic and auto attacks.

Q7. GP? A. GP is a Burst orientated AD Caster that builds crit 'cause BARRELLSSS. Honestly, he'll probably have to build tankier and walk up into fight's to get auto attacks in if he doesn't just do his lethality build. I'm really not sure with him. it's hard to provide a crit rework that doesn't at least fuck with one of the crit melee carries. Trynd and Yasuo's interactions with crit ramp are actually not nearly as bad. Yasuo just gets double Crit Ramp, but a smaller Crit Cap, and is less bursty overall to begin with, and Trynd can still stack rage on minions, but won't be stacking Crit Ramp till he starts auto attacking champions.

Q8. What happens to Statikk Shiv/ other zeal items? A. simple answer is each of them can get a new unique interaction with Crit Ramp. Shiv can still do it's thing for the beginning of a fight/do aoe waveclear, and can also provide a base amount of Crit stacks so you always start a fight up 1 auto attack worth of Crit Ramp with the energized passive. Runaan's bolts can each give a small amount of extra Crit when they hit champions. Phantom Dancer can give extra Crit Ramp for attacking the same target, and Rapid Fire can add extra seconds to the decay timer so you can extend a poke pattern with it's bonus range.

Q9. What are the break points/ power spikes for Crit Ramp? They're at 10/20/33.33/50 without IE, hitting the Crit Cap in exactly 20/10/6/4 auto attacks, and 50/62.5/83.33 with IE, hitting cap with 5/4/3 autoattacks. (notice though the amount of gold you'd have to spend to only get Max Crit Cap 1 auto faster at this point.)

Q10. Would Randuin's omen anti-crit passive need to change? A. Probably not. It'd make every auto after the first to do 10% less total damage. If that's too overbearing though the passive could change to "an Enemy's Crit Ramp is reduced by 10 for auto attacks against you." Early game that means having 20 Crit Ramp - which usually takes 10 auto's to get the Crit Cap - would actually take 20 auto's. Late game it means much less, but by then ADC's are supposed to be able to handle tanks better. If that's **still ** a problem it can be a percentage decrease instead.


And that's the rework! The likely hood that this falls on deaf ears is pretty high but just in case... This is about as close to an "interactive critical strike" system that could be available to the game. If the rework has any merit, Riot, please iterate on it!

87 Comments

Rainfall9/22/2017, 10:43:51 PM8 votes

why do people make these posts? crit is here to stay.

Darkdemon6539/22/2017, 10:29:27 PM8 votes

{quoted} I want to suggest a rework for Crit that makes it a stable, healthy, and easily balance-able stat.

It already is, so what's the point?

Chembaron Yamada9/23/2017, 12:58:51 AM7 votes

Ashe Graves Jhin You mentioned these as the only champions with crit scalings/interactions in their kit, but that is not true. There are more champions affected by this change.

Caitlyn The damage of her passive is scaling with crit. Quinn The CD of her passive is scaling with crit. MissFortune Her ult is able to "mini-crit". Q is able to crit (just guaranteed if first target killed) Vayne The bonus damage from her Q is able to crit, not guaranteed. Xayah Damage of her E is scaling with crit.

Just wanting to point out: introducing this takes alot of rebalancing. More than you covered in your post. And especially Jhin would need a hefty rework to make him function again. Right now, every crit gives him a MS buff. That would just work with every 4th shot in your concept, but that's not how it should be. Jhin got this mechanic to improve his kiting in the late game. He would lose alot of his kite ability.

And in general I am worried how these changes benefit ADCs with AS steroid... Hyper carries ala Kog'Maw, Jinx, Tristana etc. are going to benefit alot more from these changes, while ADCs specialised in poking enemies from far away like Varus and Caitlyn would lose alot of damage.

SlashStriker9/23/2017, 8:41:11 AM5 votes

and crit no longer works/stacks on minions

Are you serious? Was that the actual problem about crits? Crit damage on minions?

IdveYsUfSK9/23/2017, 11:21:17 AM5 votes

seriously just remove crit already. Then implement them on skills like fiora's e for crit. That is a good design.

I Main Swain9/23/2017, 2:42:23 AM4 votes

i have several problems personally. for one, balancing adc's in the league of cc/mobility is pretty freaking hard because they have to be able to either survive for long enough or deal enough damage to have an actual impact, and quite frankly with your proposed changes that could make it horrendously difficult for many adc's. i personally am not a fan of making it so focused on attack speed alone because that itself introduces a lot of problems between champions that have really high AS steroids and the fact that AS isnt always the best thing to go for. if they implimented this they would have to make adc's as a whole a LOT more slippery, especially champions like varus and twitch who dont have particularly high self peel potential. not only that but there are some adc's who focus more on burst or poke rather than auto attacking for days. all this aside, youre forgetting the melee crit champions like yasuo and tryndamere, who are very much NOT meant to be in long lasting battles. i think youre going in the right direction, but i dont think this particular change would work out in the end.

imo crit should be more focused on being a late game power than an extended fight power because thats what its intended to be even now (early game low crit chance + sacrificed flat damage boost + late game high crit chance= weaker early game stronger late game). my idea that i had was something along the lines of converting crit chance to % bonus damage that scales with level.

Champion Skin9/23/2017, 11:14:44 AM4 votes

Q7. GP? A. GP is a Burst orientated AD Caster that builds crit 'cause BARRELLSSS. Honestly, he'll probably have to build tankier and walk up into fight's to get auto attacks in if he doesn't just do his lethality build. I'm really not sure with him. it's hard to provide a crit rework that doesn't at least fuck with one of the crit melee carries. Trynd and Yasuo's interactions with crit ramp are actually not nearly as bad. Yasuo just gets double Crit Ramp, but a smaller Crit Cap, and is less bursty overall to begin with, and Trynd can still stack rage on minions, but won't be stacking Crit Ramp till he starts auto attacking champions.

You could just have GP barrels scale with Crit Ramp like Xayah E which currently scales with crit 0-50% increased E damage going from 0-100% crit (though if the wiki is correct it apparently isn't capped at 100% crit)

TotalJerk9/23/2017, 3:41:08 AM4 votes

Removing resistances and regen from the equation: If a target has 1000 HP, there are effectively a few hard power levels

  • If an attack does 200-249 damage, it will kill the target in 5 hits
  • If an attack does 250-333 damage, it will kill the target in 4 hits
  • If an attack does 334-499 damage, it will kill the target in 3 hits
  • If an attack does 500-999 damage, it will kill the target in 2 hits
  • If an attack does 1000+ damage, it will kill the target in 1 hit

One of the reasons that some people say Nasus has a better mid than his late is because the gap between being able to 2 shot and 1 shot a squishy with Q is a fuckton of stacks. This kinda problem isn't as harsh for ADCs because their damage output isn't simply a matter of counting hits. If crit is to be removed, the hit counting aspect will need to be considered. If damage is consistent, ADCs may end up focusing on "x shot builds" and stopping the moment they get over a particular hard cutoff. You already see this with some assassins that will stop building any more damage after getting fed when they have enough AD/AP/pen to kill a target in one rotation.

Fütanari9/22/2017, 10:15:21 PM3 votes

no. keep crit and bring back dodge you know when league was fun?

Dengeden9/23/2017, 4:22:41 AM3 votes

First, google "Why Crit is good for the game + Riot" or something to find a Rioter defending it. Second, Riot does not want ADCs to be forced to farm in sidelanes to be relevant. And neither should anyone, what's the point in delaying the game like that?

ModKnightsKemplar9/23/2017, 4:35:00 AM2 votes

I would like for there to be good discussion around this post, because you make some really great points and it does address some of the problem with crit.

I don't love the ramping solution for other reasons, but I think talking about this stuff will give people ideas. It's certainly better than what crit is now. Good post.

Celestial Lion129/23/2017, 12:37:35 AM2 votes

crit is not the problem

Smitty Manjensen9/23/2017, 10:24:16 AM2 votes

Well, the idea seems decent at first but this would make them probably too weak, talking about ranged adc, melee aren't my concern. Also the main thing that you can see people qqing on these boards is how everyone is protecting them and stuff. This change is what really would make everything revolve around them, literally everyone will just build for the adc, and try to protect him until he has enough damage. This would probably make it even worse than now.

sutora39/23/2017, 12:06:28 AM2 votes

why are you trying to make this grolious build unviableitem 3147 item 3142 item 3087 item 3814 item 3031 item 3078 edit:here is an example https://giphy.com/gifs/8mQoTwF5yGMMM

Bard R Friday9/22/2017, 11:54:34 PM2 votes

I really like this idea.

dominusx9/23/2017, 12:06:56 PM2 votes

No this would mean adc would take skill. We can't have that happening. i say buff crit make it 300% instead of 200+50(IE)