Breaking Down the Critical Strike And Vulnerable Damage Change - Diablo 4
As a result of community feedback and user data, Blizzard has decided to reduce the effectiveness of Critical Damage and Vulnerable Damage in Diablo 4's overall damage calculation. During last week's Campfire Chat livestream, Class Designers Adam Jackson and Charles Dunn broke down the planned changes and their design intentions.
Diablo 4 Season 2 Campfire Chat Liveblog Summary
We try to break down this monumental change, the core issues that caused it, Blizzard's intentions, and the reasons why bringing down Critical Strike Damage and Vulnerable Damage will be good for Diablo 4 in the long run.
Why Are Critical and Vulnerable Damage Being Nerfed?
Ever since the launch of Diablo 4, theorycrafters tried to wrap their heads around how exactly affix-based damage is being calculated. Eventually, the mystery in the form of the Damage Bucket Theory had been solved:
Damage affixes belong to different categories, or Damage Buckets, that are multiplied by each other, resulting in one big number, which will then be multiplied by your base damage. Most damage affixes like, for example, +% Damage versus Close Enemies or +% Fire Damage, are put into the same "Big Additive Damage Bucket".
Both +% Vulnerable Damage and +% Critical Damage, however, are their own Damage Buckets, meaning that they are separate damage multipliers in the damage equation, while most other damage affixes (which belong to the «Big Additive Damage Bucket») only add up with each other to form another multiplier in the damage equation. Additionally, both affixes already «behave multiplicatively» due to the nature of a Critical Strike (50% base bonus damage) and the Vulnerable debuff (20% base bonus damage).
In essence, stacking Vulnerable and Critical
