Critical Hit Mechanics
A critical hit is a double damage hit. That is to say, if you were going to hit for 1000 damage, but rolled a critical hit, the damage instead would be 2000.
This can be seen with the "show damage" option toggled on. Critical hits are shown in orange numbers.
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How do I get a Critical Hit?
First and probably most importantly, Don't Miss!
The operative word in the term is 'hit'. It doesn't matter how high a critical percentage you have, doubling 0 damage still gives you 0 damage. If you are constantly missing, you need to fix that first and foremost by increasing your Attack Rating by either adding more Agility or wearing more +Attack Rating gear until you are consistently hitting your targets.
Secondly, assuming you do hit, you have to successfully roll a critical hit. The chances of successfully rolling a critical hit on any given attack are determined by your actual critical hit percentage, which will be discussed in the next section.
How Critical Percentages Work
A common misconception among new players is that when an item says +50% Critical Hit Chance it means that you have a 50% chance to land a critical hit.
This is not true.
When an item says +X% Critical Hit Chance, it means that you are adding that X% to your base chance to land a critical, which is 3%.
Here is an example calculation to better explain how it works:
- Suppose you equip an item with +50% Critical Hit Chance.
- Your base chance to land a critical hit is 3%
| actual critical chance = | base chance critical x (1 + total item critical hit chance) |
- or with the base chance already factored in:
| Actual Critical Chance = | 3% + ( total item critical hit chance ) x 3% | [3] |
- and filling in the variables:
| actual critical chance = | 3% + (50/100) x 3% |
| actual critical chance = | 4.5% |
At first glance it may seem to you that basing a character around this relatively low critical hit chance is a bad idea.
However, some high level Critical Rangers can attain +500% Critical Hit Chance from items:
| actual critical chance = | 3% + (500/100) x 3% |
| actual critical chance = | 18.00% |
So roughly every 5th hit will do double damage. Assuming you don't miss of course. ;P
The Effect of Attack Speed on Critical Hits
In the simplest terms, if you swing/shoot your weapon more often you'll get more Critical Hits. How often?
Taking the same Critical Ranger as an example:
- actual critical chance = 18% or 0.18 criticals / attack
- attack speed = 0.30 seconds / attack
| time / critical hit = |
| = |
| ||||
| time / critical hit = | 1.67 seconds/critical |
If you're swinging or shooting every 0.30 seconds, you should be averaging a critical hit every 1.67 seconds or so.
Effect on DPS
Avg DPS
Assuming a player doesn't take into account misses,
the equation for calculating Avg DPS (Average Damage per Second) is:
| For Single Weapons: |
| |||||
| For Dual Wielding: |
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Avg DPS (Critical)
The equation for Avg DPS taking into consideration Critical Hits:
| Avg DPS (Critical)= | Avg DPS x ( 1 + actual critical chance ) | [4] |
- Substituting Avg DPS:
| For Single Weapons: |
| ||||||
| For Dual Wielding: |
|
One can see by comparing equations [1A] to [4A] and comparing [1B] to [4B], that the Avg DPS is multiplied by a factor of ( 1 + actual critical chance ).
Every little bit helps!
Example - Single Wield, Avg DPS (Critical)
Back to our Ranger,
- From his character sheet:
- Min Damage = 2000 and Max Damage = 4000
- Attack Speed = 0.30 seconds / attack
- and considering also his critical hits:
- actual critical chance = 18%
| Avg DPS (Critical)= |
| x ( 1 + (18/100) ) | ||
| = | 10000 DPS x 1.18 | |||
| Avg DPS (Critical)= | 11800 DPS |
Example - Dual Wield, Avg DPS (Critical)
Back to our Dual Wielding Fighter,
- from his character sheet:
- Main Min Damage = 1000 and Main Max Damage = 2500
- Main Attack Speed = 0.38 seconds / attack
- Offhand Min Damage = 1900 and Main Max Damage = 4300
- Offhand Attack Speed = 0.63 seconds / attack
- and considering also his critical hits:
- actual Critical Chance = 11%
| Avg DPS (Critical)= |
| x ( 1 + (11/100) ) | ||
| = | 4802 DPS x 1.11 | |||
| Avg DPS (Critical)= | 5330 DPS |
But I Crit more often when I'm fighting low level mobs
Right!
As with Attack Rating, there is an unknown and unpublished multplying factor that comes into effect when fighting mobs of lower levels. This of course applies the opposite way when you're fighting monsters that are a higher level than you. The general pattern is easily observable, but no one has actually done a significant amount of testing to determine what that factor is. In a nut shell:
- Fighting lower levels you, you critical hit MORE often.
- Fighting higher levels than you, you critical LESS often.
Rounding Errors
Fractional numbers in Dungeon Runners are represented as 8-bit fractions in logic calculations. There is a possibility that the calculations shown may not exactly match what will be displayed on the the Character Sheet.
There is an additional possibility that attack speeds may be (further) rounded due to animation and frame rate considerations.
See: Rounding Errors for more detailed information and sample calculation.