Critical strike
From WoWWiki
- This article is about physical critical strikes only. For magical critical strikes, see spell critical strike.
Critical strike, often abbreviated as "crit", refers to 100% bonus physical damage (twice your normal damage) that occurs as a result of an attack made with melee or ranged weapons. The chance to critical strike increases by 1% per 22.08 critical strike rating points at level 70 and 14 critical strike rating points at level 60.
The chance to critical strike can be viewed in the character pane under melee stats and is affected by Agility, critical strike rating and talents. Some classes have talents that increase the amount of bonus damage for critical strikes. Attacks made by mobs can not result in a blocked critical strike, but this can result on a player attack. It can also be viewed by opening the spell book and mousing over the "Attack" ability. Notable about critical strikes is that any non-spell attack on a sitting target will always result with a critical hit.
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Attack Rating and Defense
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Mobs which are the same level as you always have a 5% chance to crit. A mob's or player's crit chance is modified by the difference between the attacker's Attack Rating and the defender's Defense. The attack rating equals the skill with the currently equipped weapon (WS = Weapon Skill), being level * 5 for mobs and the same for player chars with maximum weapon skill. Each point of AR exceding the target's Defense will increase chance to crit by 0.04%.
This table assumes a player attacking either a mob or another player:
| Target type | Target's Defense | Difference to basic crit chance [basic crit chance: tooltip value for players, 5% for mobs] |
|---|---|---|
| player or mob | Def = AR | no change |
| mob | Def < AR | no change |
| mob | Def > AR | - 0.2% per point of difference [unsure, if correct] |
| player | Def > AR | - 0.04% per point of difference |
| player | Def < AR | + 0.04% per point of difference |
Example: Level 70 player at maximum weapon skill against boss mob (level 73).
Mob's crit chance against player: 5% + 0,04%*(365-350)= 5,6%
Player's crit chance against mob: tooltip crit chance - 0,2%*(365-350) = tooltip crit chance - 3%
Agility
The Agility you need to acquire 1% critical hit chance depends on your class and level.
| AGI per 1% Crit | ||
|---|---|---|
| Class | L. 60 | L. 70 |
| Druid | 20 | 25 |
| Hunter | 33 | 40 |
| Mage | 20 | 25 |
| Paladin | 20 | 25 |
| Priest | 20 | 25 |
| Rogue | 29 | 40 |
| Shaman | 20 | 25 |
| Warlock | 20 | 25 |
| Warrior | 20 | 33 |
Effect of increased crit or hit chance
Both increased hit and crit chance have a kind of "diminishing returns" mechanic built in. A 1% increase of either stat will not increase the total damage output by 1%, but usually by a little less. Consider the following Attack table:
- 2% base miss
- 5% dodge
- 5% parry
- 5% block
- 25% crit
Damage = BaseDamage * ((1.00 - 0.02 - 0.05 - 0.05 - 0.05 - 0.25) + 2 * 0.25)
= BaseDamage * 1.08
(With 0% crit we'd do 83% of BaseDamage)
Now the same calculation with 26% crit chance:
Damage = BaseDamage * ((1.00 - 0.02 - 0.05 - 0.05 - 0.05 - 0.26) + 2 * 0.26)
= BaseDamage * 1.09
We increased the total damage output by 1% of the base damage. Since the total output is more than 100% of that base damage, the actual increase in total damage output is "only" 0.93%. If the total output is significantly greater than the base damage, this percentage will be smaller, if the total output is below the base damage, the resulting increase will even be higher than 1%.
What's better, +to hit or +crit?
In principle they are equal. Which is better depends on circumstances. An increase in hit rate will usually yield a constant level of damage, whereas a high crit chance gives a spiky, more random damage distribution over time. An important factor is whether there are procs related to either hits or critical hits. Also, both ratings have caps (which are not fixed to a certain % but rather depend on multiple factors such as hit chance, enemy's level and defense rating). To hit can only be used to counter the base chance to miss (5% for one-hand users without any off-hand weapon, 9% for two-handers and 24% for dualwielders), whereas the crit chance cannot become higher than available space for hit chance. If a dualwielder attacks a target with a high chance to dodge or parry the attacker can lose crit chance because the attack table is full.
Enhancers
Equipment which increases critical hit rate stacks together, so it is possible to achieve relatively high critical hit rates (20% are easily possible with pre-Karazhan gear).
Elixirs
Enchantments
Gems
| Color | Name | Effect(s) | |
|---|---|---|---|
 Meta
| [Enigmatic Skyfire Diamond] | +12 Critical Strike Rating | 5% Snare and Root Resist |
 Yellow
| [Stone of Blades] | +12 Critical Strike Rating | |
| [Smooth Lionseye] | +10 Critical Strike Rating | ||
| [Smooth Ornate Dawnstone] | +10 Critical Strike Rating | ||
| [Smooth Dawnstone] | +8 Critical Strike Rating | ||
| [Smooth Golden Draenite] | +6 Critical Strike Rating | ||
| [Smooth Amber] | +4 Critical Strike Rating | ||
 Orange
| [Assassin's Fire Opal] | +6 Critical Strike Rating | +5 Dodge Rating |
| [Inscribed Pyrestone] | +5 Critical Strike Rating | +5 Strength | |
| [Enscribed Fire Opal] | +4 Critical Strike Rating | +5 Strength | |
| [Inscribed Noble Topaz] | +4 Critical Strike Rating | +4 Strength | |
| [Inscribed Flame Spessarite] | +3 Critical Strike Rating | +3 Strength | |
| [Inscribed Ornate Topaz] | +5 Critical Strike Rating | +10 Attack Power | |
| [Wicked Pyrestone] | +5 Critical Strike Rating | +10 Attack Power | |
| [Deadly Fire Opal] | +5 Critical Strike Rating | +8 Attack Power | |
| [Wicked Noble Topaz] | +4 Critical Strike Rating | +8 Attack Power | |
| [Unstable Citrine] | +4 Critical Strike Rating | +8 Attack Power | |
| [Wicked Flame Spessarite] | +3 Critical Strike Rating | +6 Attack Power | |
 Green
| [Jagged Seaspray Emerald] | +5 Critical Strike Rating | +7 Stamina |
| [Jagged Chrysoprase] | +5 Critical Strike Rating | +6 Stamina | |
| [Jagged Talasite] | +4 Critical Strike Rating | +6 Stamina | |
| [Barbed Deep Peridot] | +4 Critical Strike Rating | +3 Stamina | |
| [Jagged Deep Peridot] | +3 Critical Strike Rating | +4 Stamina | |
| [Sundered Chrysoprase] | +5 Critical Strike Rating | 2 mana every 5 sec | |
Racial abilities
Some races have racial abilities which increase the critical strike chance with certain weapons by 1%:
- Dwarf: Gun Specialization
- Troll: Bow and Thrown Specialization
- Orc: Axe Specialization (as of patch 2.3.4, orc axe racial no longer gives 1% crit. It now increases weapon expertise by 5 for Axes and Two-Handed Axes.)
- Prior to Patch 2.3.0, these racial abilities affected weapon skill instead.
See also
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