Controlled Destruction gem - a huge design oversight?

For reference, Controlled Destruction has the following stats on 20/20:
10% increased spell damage (from quality)
44% more spell damage
100% reduced Critical Strike Chance

More damage modifier, which works on all types of damage, is absolutely fantastic, as it doesn't force you to use some weird damage conversions to gain more multiplier, or use Added X Damage gems of elements that you don't really need.

However, here is the main problem - the gem works almost just as well for crit builds as it does for non-crit, even taking the penalty into consideration.

It actually provides way more damage than Increased Critical Damage gem, a gem which only works for crit builds. This doesn't really make much sense.

GGG had repeatedly, through countless iterations, reduced the effectiveness of crit damage scaling, reducing the amount of crit strike chance and multiplier available on both gear and skilltree.

Suddenly, they release a gem which provides an enormous dmg boost for a crit build with a very insignificant drawback.
This seems like a complete 180 degree reversal in their "crit should be balanced" policy, as if the current penalty was chosen by mistake and some how no one bothered to correct it.

What many people don't realise is that 100% reduced Critical Strike Chance for the vast majority of properly built crit builds is insignificant compared to the damage multiplier that the gem has.
In order for this penalty to have a negative effect on your clearspeed, your build must have a very low final critical strike chance, around 25% or below, this is when removing any amount of it starts to actually hurt. However, at this point you should ask yourself why are you playing the crit build in the first place, and not a non-crit build, if you don't crit most of the time?

To better illustrate the situation with the insignificance of the crit chance penalty, here is one example - let's say we play a crit Fireball build.
Fireball hjas 6% base crit chance, and lets assume your build has 56% final crit chance.
Using Controlled Destruction gem reduced final crit chance by 6% (100% of base crit), and you gain 44% more damage.
Would I drop from 56 to 50% crit in order to gain 44% more damage? Fuck yeah, give me this gem now!

Some of the highest damage crit builds in the game use Controlled Destruction in the main optimised 6L setup, here is an example.

Possible solutions to the situation, by changing the current penalty to:
a) 20% less critical strike chance.
With this, penalty will actually be noticeable for people with high crit chance, and at the same time it will be less impactful for builds with low crit chance. This will change CD from it being a no-brainer to the actual decision of whether it will benefit the build or make it worse.
b) Can't deal critical strikes
c) Critical strikes don't deal additional damage
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TL/DR - at the moment Controlled Destruction gem is almost as effective in scaling damage for crit builds as it is for non-crit, surpassing in effectiveness a gem specifically designed for crit builds. This shouldn't be the case.

Agreed, that's exactly what I said on release - penalty is inconsequential and the support is actually better for crit builds than inc crit strikes/damage. I'd personally settle for nothing less than 100% less crit chance.

You should have opened this in feedback, though.

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I'd personally settle for nothing less than 100% less crit chance.

Indeed. When it was teased I thought someone had accidentally written reduced instead of less, and now having seen it in action...that's still the most flattering explanation I can come up with.

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viperesque wrote:

When it was teased I thought someone had accidentally written reduced instead of less...

That's exactly what i thought too. Minus 5-7% crit chance for a 44% multi? Hell yeah, every day.

I always assumed this gem was meant as a straight up buff to casters. It came out in the same patch that they increased base damage of many spells at higher levels.

And it buffs casters with a drawback, because it will lower your chance to freeze/shock/ignite by 4-7% which slightly undermines (okay not very meaningfully) the advantage held by crit builds for applying elemental status ailments.

Viewed in that lens, it seems like the gem accomplishes it's purpose.

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1337fun wrote:

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viperesque wrote:

When it was teased I thought someone had accidentally written reduced instead of less...

That's exactly what i thought too. Minus 5-7% crit chance for a 44% multi? Hell yeah, every day.

ya i know. its completely trivialized by one copper/golden/platinum kris, or just the assassin's mark curse even.
in my build its the second biggest damage boosting gem, second to conc effect only. right now im on a big DPS kick. i just want to see the highest number i possibly can, so im loving this gem right now

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Crocodarrel wrote:

Viewed in that lens, it seems like the gem accomplishes it's purpose.

Sure it does, it accomplishes what it was designed to do and then some, the problem lies in that 'and then some' part.

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SaiyanZ wrote:

Yeah the gem is pretty good. It actually adds more damage to my Discharge 440str character than the Iron Will gem.

Edit: I'm RT anyway so even if it's 100% less crit, it will still be better than Iron Will.

That is not a good comparison. One is increased and other is a multiplier.

Interseting.
Smart people.

I honestly think it should have the critical strikes deal no extra damage thing that Kongors maul has. you can still crit with a kongors, it freezes, ignites, shocks, the full works, you just dont get any crit multiplier.

That way the gem is not at all for a crit damage build, it opens up ways to scale non crit that crit cant get in on (which surely is the point of this gem? If not that then what exactly?). But it also leaves open a thing there for using crit chance as shock/freeze/ignite chance if anyone so desired, you can still benefit from 'on crit' effects. I think thats more interesting and beneficial to non crit casters, attacking multi rather than chance.