[Kung Fu Master] New mechanic of Searing Palm

[Falinnah]

Hello everyone!

 

As many of you may have noticed, one of the recent updates (most likely "Rising Waters") changed the way Searing Palm (the left tree, "PvE" spec with four stages) works quite drastically (without mentioning it in patch notes). I have reached out to the support, asking whether this change was intended or not but I was asked to reach out for help on the forums, so here I am!

 

For those who might have not noticed the change, I will be quoting the content of my ticket, which explains how it worked before, and how it works now:

 

Quote

Good Evening,

I have noticed a new behavior for the Searing Palm skill of Kung Fu Masters. Given the complicated nature of this skill, I have tested it in the past (before Rising Waters).

It worked like this (Let's say the user starts at 40% crit chance): 
Reaching Stage one gave the user extra 10% flat critical chance - 50% 
Reaching Stage two gave the user extra 20% flat critical chance - 70% 
Reaching Stage three gave the user extra 30% flat critical chance - 100% 
Reaching Stage four gave the user extra 50% flat critical chance - 150% 
Reaching Stage four had an additional "unleashed" effect of raising critical chance by another 100% - 250%

How it works now: 
The numbers stay the same, but instead of giving flat % without increasing the stat itself, it now instead increases the "Critical" stat by 10% or 20% or 30% or 50%, depending on the stage reached. The 100% flat increase upon reaching stage 4 is unchanged.

This is obviously a huge nerf compared to the previous version, as it makes anything below stage 4 unnoticeable. It was feasible before to rotate through the stages and stay full 10 seconds in every single one of them, but now it's better to just jump directly to stage 4 and then wait out the full minute cooldown before kicking it off again, making it effectively just a "10 seconds buff".

One could say that the previous version didn't make sense, as stage 4 itself granted 150% crit (why get more than 100%, right?) and while that is true, it still stays true, as stage 4 grants 50% "Critical" stat bonus, and then raises the critical rate by another flat 100%, making the stage 4 "Critical" bonus as senseless as before the change.

Is it possible that this "going way over 100%" with the "Critical" stat is simply a remnant of past, when the "Critical" stat raised "Critical Damage" as well? As that would explain the current behavior of the skill and would make the Stages 1-3 more valuable. However, this has been long changed and "Critical" has no effect on "Critical Damage", as they are completely separate stats now.

 

As stated above, my biggest concern was whether this change was intended or not. And as a new player with no previous experience from other versions of the game, I would appreciate it very much if some players from other versions could test it and share with us how it works on their version.

 

Please note that this is not a QQ thread, I am fine with either version, especially now with the changes to Smite and Searing Blow, which makes it very easy to instantly hit stage 4 and reset the cooldown faster. However, I would like to make sure that these changes were intended and if they were specific for our region, I'd also like to know what led to this change.

 

Thanks to everyone for reading and replying!