Minor spoiler about winter city ahead! I may have broken - not really - my game...

[Upcast Drake]

It was adding the damage to your weapon's base damage, so with a Galon's and 100 spellpower you have a weapon with ~100 base damage. Your attack power and crits would then scale off this. Now it's just a bonus of the same amount that doesn't interact with attack power or other buffs (like Power Wave, although twice as big of a bonus).

 

[Savin]

But how much damage do crits actually add?

A Critical Hit increases your Attack Power by 100 points + (Cunning * 3). (NPC Crits only give +50 Atk.)

So, of example, if you have a base Attack Power of 40 and use a power that adds +200 Attack Power, and then get a critical hit, your swing will deal +340% damage. Plus whatever your Cunning gets you.

Edited because I was wrong.

 

[Violyn]

No, it was the way those buffs interacted with Smite -- because it added base damage instead of bonus damage; in essence instead of giving you a weapon buff like nepatha does, it was giving you all the benefits of an entirely extra weapon hit. If you aren't using some tweaked-out buff build the end result should be about the same, but it won't get crazy scaling from certain arcane buff combos.

Ooooh, i didn't even know it worked like that, that's a dope change.

Just to clarify, if A,B and C buff were making smite crit crazy leading to nerfing smite, but not the buffs buffing smite, then does that not mean smite is tailored to using those buffs now?

Well, yes and no, even without buffing, i was still one shotting Alyssa no problem at all....

 

[Ossa]

I had already intended to pick up Smite Evil and Charged Weapon at level 4, but...wow, okay. I feel like I'm going to have to be careful not to trivialise the game.

 

[Violyn]

That's one way of seeing things. I rather like high numbers, it's a little show of how strong your character and your team are.

 

[Ossa]

I like high numbers for the same reason - but that means the responsibility falls upon us as a player to balance it ourselves. Hold back on our high-damage combos unless we think it makes sense for our character to do it, that sort of thing. If you can beat your enemy without them, do so, almost as if to challenge yourself and keep it interesting.

Then, when the real fights happen, you can uncase your power and show them why you're the champion and why that demoness's singled you out.

 

[Violyn]

I like high numbers for the same reason - but that means the responsibility falls upon us as a player to balance it ourselves. Hold back on our high-damage combos unless we think it makes sense for our character to do it, that sort of thing. If you can beat your enemy without them, do so, almost as if to challenge yourself and keep it interesting.

Then, when the real fights happen, you can uncase your power and show them why you're the champion and why that demoness's singled you out.

I love this comment in so many levels. Thinking about this when i'm roleplaying is just orgasmic.