Why do critical strikes exist in competitive play?

[Deleted]

Its literally Hearthstone RNG tier where someone wins the coin flip and overwhelms the oponnent. You literally cannot defend this unless you lack basic logic and game design knowledge.
inb4 hurr its fun xD
yea in casual modes

[ro9ue]

It's mostly fine because a critical strike isn't a 1 hit. If you actually do play competitively you know the arena matches aren't coming down to lucky critical strikes. Health pools are large. There are situations where you might be so low whether or not you get crit means life or death, but in the context of the entire arena match, if you were that low to begin with you were likely being outplayed or outcomped.

[Archonite]

If you make everything too predictable then in the end its just math that decides who wins. Critical strikes create unpredictable events and require experience and quick thinking to counter or take advantage of. If you dumb down the game enough to predictable events with predetermined solutions than the best players will reach a level of skill where the game isnt decided by skill anymore but by minor imbalances between classes. The same goes for raiding too, if bosses would always cast the same abilities at the same players/area at the same moments, it would become very boring. RNG is needed to seperate those who can perform a fixed list of actions from those who understand a fight and can predict or react properly to events.

Having to start out your argument by insulting anyone who disagrees with you is a very poor way to discuss anything, you might want to clarify whether youre trolling, ranting or actually trying to discuss anything.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Talks of casual modes
Doesn't understand that competitive plays don't come down to lucky crits

GG OP, GG MLG.

[Nyel]

Well, I remember those Crits back in Vanilla where you actually could oneshot people (Soulfire is that you? Yes, I miss you, sincerely, a lonely Warlock).

[Atherions]

Well, I remember those Crits back in Vanilla where you actually could oneshot people (Soulfire is that you? Yes, I miss you, sincerely, a lonely Warlock).

Vanilla also didn't have competitive PVP. Only a mindless grind

[Lochton]

Its literally Hearthstone RNG tier where someone wins the coin flip and overwhelms the oponnent. You literally cannot defend this unless you lack basic logic and game design knowledge.
inb4 hurr its fun xD
yea in casual modes

Because it shouldn't always be easy to anticipate the combat? And yes, it is actually fun to slam someone with an unexpected critical strike attack - and I'm talking in areans. Sorry, but I'm not in to 'easy' mode, where we all have flat damage. And really, if you cannot hold yourself up from another player striking you with critical damage bonus, then maybe you should start looking in to your setup. Thought of taking a healer with you? Or, gear up more? Maybe pop some utility? You can't get one-shotted, and if you can, then I'll have to share the dreaded comment; "L2P".

[Nyel]

Vanilla also didn't have competitive PVP. Only a mindless grind

Still was - for me - the best time for PvP ever. It just has been fun, much more than today.

[snackfeat]

WoW is not a competitive pvp game.

[Korban]

OP is a wildstar player from Invective

[Trend]

Vanilla also didn't have competitive PVP. Only a mindless grind

Not true at all. WSG weekends when 2 HWL teams (both determined to go undefeated over the whole weekend) faced off on a heavy pvp server it was incredibly competitive. You may not have gotten to partake, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen. It was horrendously grindy, won't argue there, but there was some great competition on at least a few servers.

But even in vanilla with the huge crits, I don't think a whole match would have been likely to turn on that. The best teams could go undefeated over a whole WSG weekend - sometimes getting the lucky crits and sometimes getting lucky critted. If the RNG of the crits was so amazing there would have been more parity IMO.

[Ashkiman]

Do you realize competitive mode in games is also mostly played for "fun"?
Or do you work in a competitive mode playing company?

[Teri]

Because even pet battles with super simplified numbers get more interesting with critical strike chance.

- - - Updated - - -

Still was - for me - the best time for PvP ever. It just has been fun, much more than today.

Pre 1.12 server-only pvp certainly had it's charm. We had some rogues camp the enemy city battleground queue place to kill enemy players , and server forums were interesting.

And that was a PvE-RP realm too.

[Larynx]

Crit exists in PvP for the same reason RNG, gear divides, talent divides, and any power progression exist.

Because PvP is not competitive, and the average PvP player would hate a truly equal and competitive playing field.

[Jakisuaki]

Hurr it's fun

No but seriously, it is.

I've always felt fun>balance, which is why I heavily disagree with a lot of the changes that have been made to pvp through the expansions.

[Atherions]

Not true at all. WSG weekends when 2 HWL teams (both determined to go undefeated over the whole weekend) faced off on a heavy pvp server it was incredibly competitive.

On servers large enough to have several HWL groups going you would just que dodge to avoid the other premades. Vanilla PVP was all about being efficient and maxing your honor/hour. BGs did not have time limits back in the day, and killing a geared FC druid was next to impossible. So actual competitive WSG matches could last several hours, but still only give the same amount of honor as a 5 min match. The Vanilla PVP model directly discouraged any kind of Competitive PVP duo to this.

[shaunika123]

Talks of casual modes
Doesn't understand that competitive plays don't come down to lucky crits

GG OP, GG MLG.

let's be honest
they can come down to lucky crits
they just dont usually