Critical: #?

What does the critical number mean in a weapon? Also, come to think of it, how do you do critical damage if the damage amount is within the normal range? I see yellow (critical?) numbers on the screen that are the same as the white.

 

It is actually really hard to answer this since all we have is educated guesses at this point XD

 

My testing showed (fairly accurately) that the Critical # in the weapon description is a flat percentage.

As far as damage, it looks like a crit is simply double damage. So, for the sake of argument, let's use a Halbred as an example. Base damage is 8-25, which means Critical damage would be 16-50. Which explains why you can score a crit, and still only deal 16-25 damage - within the Base damage range.

 

So if we were to expand that to show stacking damage, what's the range for a Halbred stacked 5 times?

 

I'm only talking standard strikes, not utilizing any combat skills/maneuvers. Haven't gotten around to devising a way to effectively test that, in regard to repeatability.

EDIT: Actually, I'm assuming it'd be the same scenario with special attacks - so whatever damage you'd get from a 5-stacked Puncture, it'd be doubled on a crit.

 

main spanner in the works is how does dex affect crit chance XD

 

From what I saw, it doesn't. Not yet, anyway. It didn't even appear that Attack Skill modified Crit Chance. I firmly believe, as of right now, the only things that modify Crit Chance are those skills (either active or passive) that specifically state such.

 

we know this so far:

a weapon has two base damage ranges. this refers to base damage of auto attack, not glyph attack.

for example a cutlass v. shortsword:



the base damage is 4 - 13 v. 4-12

so you will loose a slight amount of DPS over a long time sample with a short sword.

what we don't know is the base % chance of a critical hit chance, but we can assume that there is a small base hit chance for criticals along with buffs and de-buffs such as the stillness buff that gives you +x% spell crit bonus.

what we also don't know is what the critical range is. my best guess is that it is the low number from the base and the critical value as the high so for the cutlass that would be a range of 4 - 21 damage. (keep in mind this isn't counting damage increase from innates, armor buffs, equipment buffs, nutrition, etc.)

i hope this helps at all, with some scientific experimentation, i am sure we can get some nice expressions going here, but like Themo Lock says there are alot of unknowns and other values coming in to play to determine what value that floating little yellow number will have when your weapon strikes.

 

I posted the averages of these numbers in another thread, but I suppose the specifics would be better here.

This was auto-attack only, against the first Footman in the Owl's Head Sewer, using a Halberd. Yellow signifies a Critical Hit.

(Halberd stats: 8-25 damage, Critical 3, Strength Bonus High. Player stats: Level 42, STR 41, DEX 41, INT 41, Attack Skill 123.)

First combat: 17, 16, 11, 21, 11, 5, 18, 21, 9, 21, 13, 16, 18, 23, 22, 12.
Damage per swing equates to 15.88, with a crit rate of 0%.

Second combat: 33, 14, 5, 14, 1, 20, 3, 20, 8, 21, 17, 17, 12, 18, 22, 13.
Damage per swing equates to 14.88, with a crit rate of 6%.

Third combat: 22, 5, Miss, 21, 15, 8, 16, 22, Miss, 13, 2, 4, 8, 7, 18, 23, 23, 17, 12, 8, 13.
Damage per swing equates to 12.24, with a crit rate of 0%.

Fourth combat: 14, 20, Miss, 13, 17, 9, 7, 21, 5, 27, 13, 17, 21, 12, 10, 16, Miss, 17, 18.
Damage per swing equates to 13.53, with a crit rate of 5%.



Now, let's switch to an Apprentice Dagger. Same enemy as before, same player stats as before.

(Apprentice Dagger stats: 3-10 damage, Critical 30, Strength Bonus Low.)

First combat: 10, 21, 11, 8, 5, 9, 10, 4, 6, 10, 8, 15, 8, 1, 4, 2, 10, 8, 10, 19, 1, 2, 9, 10, 7, 14, 11, 3, 11, 6, 2, 8.
Damage per swing equates to 8.22, with a crit rate of 25%.

Second combat: 10, 8, 2, 6, 9, 3, 5, 11, 9, 2, 7, 15, 5, 10, 2, 7, 2, 18, 7, 12, 1, 4, 6, 7, 10, 6, 2, 16, 8, 5, 6, 10, 18, 7, 1, 8.
Damage per swing equates to 7.36, with a crit rate of 28%.

Third combat: 1, 9, 6, 8, 20, 6, 1, 7, 6, 2, 4, 12, 16, 4, 9, Miss, 7, 10, 9, 4, 17, 16, 11, 18, 9, 8, Miss, 5, 9, Miss, 1, 15, 6, 7.
Damage per swing equates to 7.74, with a crit rate of 32%.

Fourth combat: 10, 6, 8, 21, 7, 12, 8, 10, 16, 15, 8, 3, 15, 11, 1, 17, 20, 10, Miss, 4, 13, 9, 18, 17.
Damage per swing equates to 10.79, with a crit rate of 46%.



So, to summarize...

The halberd, whose stats say it causes between 8 and 25 damage (16.5 avg), caused an average of 14.13 damage per swing over 4 combats (including misses). Its stat for "Critical" says 3 - and over those 4 combats, it caused an average crit rate of - you guessed it - 3%.

Meanwhile, the Dagger's stats say it causes between 3 and 10 damage (6.5 avg). Over 4 combats, it proved to inflict an average of 8.53 damage per swing. And for "Critical", it shows 30 for a value... And over four combats, its average crit rate was 32.74.

The slight variations off the statistical absolutes lead me to believe I was simply luckier using the dagger than the halberd, nothing more. One thing that throws me is the couple hits where the damage inflicted was less than the weapon's minimum. Damage Resistance coming into play, perhaps? The other thing I can't explain is the two hits with the dagger for 21 damage - more than double the weapon's maximum listed damage - where we saw nothing of the sort out of the halberd.



Therefore: As far as standard attacks are concerned, a weapon's Min and Max damage are semi-absolutes - with little to no variance due to a player's level or stats. The Critical stat, listed on each weapon, is the percentage rate at which you can expect to inflict Critical hits - again with little to no variance due to the player's level or stats.

The straightforwardness of this leads me to believe much will change in the future, as far as combat statistics.