Can someone explain what critical is in this game and how it works?

JustSnilloc

I'm sure this seems like a dumb question, but all I really understand is that critical attacks have more "uumph" to them. Other than that little bit, please fill me in on how it works.

Also, what build combination would maximize critical attacks? (I'm guessing Khajiit and DW Daggers, but not sure after that)

Nestor

Critical Attacks are 50% more than the base damage, or, they give 150% of the base damage when they happen.

Critical Strike % is the chance you can have a Critical on each strike. A good target is about 60% as going above that does not increase the frequency all that much, because you have criticals most of the time anyway. Once you reach 60% or so, then investing in factors that increase damage, Base or Critical, or regen may be beneficial to your character. Again, it all depends.

Certain Gear and certain passives can help increase the Critical Strike Chance. Certain gear and passives can increase the amount of Critical Strike damage. Although, increasing Base damage also increases Critical Damage when it happens, so what is best to increase all depends on your build and playstyle and gear.

Please note, a skill that knocks you back is not a critical strike, it is a knockback or knockdown. It can still be a critical attack, but Impenetrable will not help with the knock back, just the crit damage reduction.

PVE Mobs don't have Critical Strikes, only Players. So, if your PvE, then you don't need Impenetrable, if your doing PvP, then you probably want some of those traits on your gear.

Van_0S

Its like this your tool tip says that x skill or swallow soul does 8000 damage but when you use it, the damage is less (like 5000~7k ) compared to your tool tip damage.

So, critical grants x% of that damage, what the tool tip as shown. The higher the critical the chance for you to deliver the tool tip damage every time.

Smasherx74

All divines, Theft stone. With Khajiit you can get up to 90% crit chance.

Expert Hunter on fighters guild passively increases your crit chance, same with Mage light under mageguild.

As the person above stated, crits scale off your base damage. Therefor increasing weapon damage increases crits, however you can also increase crit power so it crits even harder. The shadow stone increases crit power, same with templar aeydric passives. The only time you should use Daggers is if they are maelstrom. Else you should just use swords for the extra weapon damage.

Once you hit 3000+ weapon damage then you should focus on 70% crit chance. Anything else should probably be focusing on the crit power which can only be done through Mundus stone, abilities (like rearming trap in fighterguild), and CP point. For CP it's better to focus on the weapon damage perks instead of heavily investing into Critical strike, you will get more damage and higher crits by having higher damage.