Critical chance vs Damage balance

Disclaimer : I don't know the actual maths, so i'm just going by what i have heard on streams and my experience. So i may be off, but every time i have tested critical chance gear vs straight damage gear I do better in straight damage gear.

I would actually be interested if someone had found a build were stacking critical hit chance was better than just adding more pure damage.

TL;DR
Reduce the diminishing returns on critical chance. Then to balance this reduce the extra damage critical hits do from base damage modifiers.
So that making a trade off between critical hit chance and non critical hit damage is more worthwhile rather than damage being king. This should also have the added benefit of reducing the huge one shot critical hits we see.

Long version

So my understanding is that critical hit chance is a dimishing return mechanics. I seem to remember that to hit is a number made up of

1 -> a = defender dodges
(a+1) -> b = Defender glances
(b+1) -> c = attacker hits
(c+1) -> (c+(c*crit chance)) = attacker crits

If this is right then critical chance we see is not the actual critical chance number. It is the term in the equation of

Critcal chance / (1 + critical chance)

Which makes sense so you can never get this to 100%. But this diminishes very quickly.
So if you have a 20% critical chance (1 in 5) you actually crit 1 in 6.

If you do the numbers
Critical chance stat = 10% (1 in 10)
Real critical chance = 9.1% (1 in 11)
Difference = -0.9%

Critical chance stat = 20% (1 in 5)
Real critical chance = 17% ( 1 in 6)
Difference = -3%

Critical chance stat = 25% (1 in 4)
Real critical chance = 20% (1 in 5)
Difference = -5%

Critical chance stat = 33% (1 in 3)
Real critical chance = 25% (1 in 4)
Difference = -8%

Critical chance stat = 50% (1 in 2)
Real critical chance = 33% (1 in 3)
Difference = -17%

Critical chance stat = 75% (3 in 4)
Real critical chance = 42%
Difference = 33%

Critical chance stat = 100% (1 in 1)
Real critical chance = 50% (1 in 2)
Difference = 50%

As you can see these losses get large very quickly, with armor weak points and reasonable dex. This appears to already putting yourself towards the diminishing returns.

This makes putting critical hit chance on gear not generally a good idea, better to add damage or critical hit damage in all cases, at least i have not really found a reason where i get better performance out of the critical hit chance gear build vs a damage increase gear build.

So for the damage equation i have no real idea. But it does appear that increasing your base damage increases the critical damage. Which tips the balance even more in favour of just increasing damage over critical chance.

With skills and MW on weapons we can increase the critical damage.

The above seems to make a high crit chance build not very viable. As even though you will crit more, you will probably crit harder the fewer times by adding damage and critical damage that does not have diminishing returns. As it seems the critical damage stacks with your normal damage increase.

I would propose changing this somehow to push this curve so it is flatter for longer then goes up more steeply at the end. Allowing people to find a "sweet" spot between critical hit chance and damage for gear rather than this being choose damage. Then to balance this change the damage equation to put the critical additional damage on the base damage then be additive for the bonuses or something like that. Can't really say how as i don't know the maths, but make it that adding base damage does not scale up the critical damage as much.

Just when doing this remember to balance including things like fireflies, berserker stance and other ways you can increase critical damage.

This has 3 advantages as far as i can see.
1) Does not necessary buff or nerf DPS as you are trading off, and if the number are worked out this can effectively be a zero sum gain over time. Just more, smaller than now, critical hits, with lower damage non critical hits, vs less critical hits with more damage on non critical hits.
2) Limits to the lucky one shot critical damage.
3) Allow a real choice and comprise between more crits vs non crits for builds/gear.


Regards
Spung