Trickster gives you 60% critical. Trickster, like the other shadow spells, have huge tradeoffs. There is no way to actually get rid of all backlash. If you use it to hit, you have to hit each round to reduce it which is tough so to use it on one hit makes it that you really can only use it at end of fights if you are going to kill.
Now for healing. It does nothing. I have very little natural block. I trickster and heal. It says critical and I get 0 extra heal. If you are going to have a system where damage is not your damage and heals are not your heals because your actual damage or heal is based on critical and block comparisons and not actual damage plus a chance of critical, at least make it do more than 0 at all times on healing if you get a message that says critical. Trickster critical is broken and does not go into the calculation of healing and I assume damage although I did not test it. Because of backlash, the shadow forms are already almost useless except for one shots. The heal shadow is almost totally useless because although you get a boost on your first heal, you then have to continue to heal twice just to reduce the backlash to a point where it took away any benefit. 4 rounds to heal yourself for some bonus that is still taken away is kind of worthless. In 4 rounds without backlash, you could add heal boosts and do a lot more healing than shadow form gives you without penalty.
Now to the bigger picture. The current critical and block system is confusing and is about to send players from the game. It does not improve the game, it adds cognitive dissonance into the game in that adding damage gear to your set up does not increase your general daily damage because you have added another stat to it, kind of like pet damage is a mixture of 2 pet stats.
if you want to nerf critical in both damage and healing, its much easier and more comfortable for players to use standard terminology. You critical or not, you get blocked or not. If you critical and dont get blocked or critical heal, there is no reason it has to be double. If people know that critical will only add 30 percent, 50 percent or any other reasonable percentage rather than double, we will at least know what builds we prefer. Critical is good as a bonus and occasional reward. Giving most high level players a critical message every hit or heal but without any actual bonus is kind of annoying
I have played this game now for more than 10 years. The current system for critical and block for heals and for damage is the worst idea yet for players. I honestly do not know anyone who likes it because we have no idea of gear which is what these type games are mostly about: levels, spells, and gear. It is very clever but cleverness does not always work. I have never seen a game where critical is part of the damage calculation rather than a variable bonus on top of the damage calculation and have never seen a game which gives you a message that says you have criticaled and does nothing.
