Critical strike
- For information about the success floating text, also referred to as "cosmetic crits", see Damage#Successful ability casts.

A critical strike is a damage event that deals 175% of its normal value by default, denoted as critical strike damage. This can occur on some items and abilities, and almost always on basic attacks. Depending on the effect, a critical strike would occur under specific conditions, or based on
critical strike chance.
Critical strikes interact exclusively with the game mechanics of critical chance,
critical damage, and Resilience. The most common form of critical strike occurs on basic attacks, which cannot critically strike structures. The exceptions are , , , and .
Champions can modify their critical strike chance and
critical strike damage or can even guarantee a critical strike event (passively or actively) via certain items and champion abilities. Critical strikes are especially valuable for champions who primarily output basic attacks rather than abilities, since champion basic attacks have lower cooldowns compared to most abilities. Some champions, like , have an affinity for critical strikes and benefit more than others from items that improve them.
Critical strike chance[edit | edit source]
Critical strike chance (often shortened to crit chance, or % crit / crit%) is a stat that denotes the probability, or chance, that a basic attack will critically strike. Some damaging effects may be able to critically strike using the same chance, some others may scale with critical strike chance but are usually not able to critically strike themselves, and some may critically strike without a pre-requisite for this chance but based on other conditions.
- Critical strike chance
stacks additively, and each point acquired directly adds to the statistic (1:1).
All champions start with 0% critical strike chance, and can only increase it via items or certain abilities. Critical strike chance cannot exceed 100%, but some effects may be special-cased to benefit from the excess, such as by granting additional statistics (e.g. ).
Algorithm[edit | edit source]
The probability of a critical strike dynamically updates based on how many attacks have critically striked.
If an attack does not critically strike over multiple attempts, the probability will progressively increase for future attempts—this can occur vice versa, where multiple successful critical strikes will cause the probability to progressively decrease for future attempts.
When averaged over a high number of basic attacks (i.e. calculating damage per second), critical strike chance is essentially a damage multiplier. At base critical strike damage (75% bonus damage), every 1% of critical chance equates to a 0.75% damage increase.
- For example, the damage dealt with basic attacks by a champion with 50% critical strike chance and base critical damage is on average 137.5% of the damage they would deal if they had 0% critical strike chance.
For this reason, critical strike chance scales well with both attack damage and attack speed. The formula for this damage multiplier is:
- Average damage multiplier = 1 + (Critical chance × (0.75 + Bonus critical damage))
Increasing critical strike chance[edit | edit source]
Items[edit | edit source]
This table is automatically generated based on the data from Module:ItemData/data.
Champion abilities[edit | edit source]
Critical strike chance as scaling[edit | edit source]
Some game elements scale with the champion's amount of critical strike chance.
Champion abilities[edit | edit source]
- and
- and
- and
- and
Modifying critical strike damage[edit | edit source]
General[edit | edit source]
- In most cases, critical strike damage
stacks additively.
- Damage modifiers apply to critical strike damage normally.
Champion abilities[edit | edit source]
- when used to
Items[edit | edit source]
Guaranteed critical strikes[edit | edit source]
Some game elements can critically strike with no dependence on critical strike chance.
Champion abilities[edit | edit source]
- second attack
- fourth attack and shot
- against low health enemies
- after killing the first target hit
- when used to
- when used in melee range
- when it collides with terrain
Items[edit | edit source]
- against enemies below a health threshold
Game elements that can critically strike[edit | edit source]
Champion abilities[edit | edit source]
- Basic attack modifiers
Many abilities in the game enhance basic attacks, causing them to deal increased damage. Since these are basic attacks, they can critically strike, with a few exceptions (see below), however, the ability's damage itself will only be amplified by a critical strike for the following abilities:
- and
- (only the base damage)
- basic attacks
- (only to primary target)
- and with
- Modified damage
The following enhanced basic attacks deal a modified total damage that is unaffected by critical damage modifiers, but the basic attacks themselves can still critically strike for bonus damage in addition to the modified damage:
- *
- Critically striking abilities
The following abilities are special cased to be able to critically strike:
- , , and
- and
- and
- and (while )
- and
- and
- and physical damage chain
Items[edit | edit source]
The following item's damage will critically strike if the triggering basic attack does:
Basic attacks that cannot critically strike[edit | edit source]
- - both enhanced attacks cannot critically strike.
- - the first attack cannot critically strike.
- - enhanced attack cannot critically strike.
- - enhanced attack cannot critically strike.
- - cannot critically strike.
Critically striking against structures[edit | edit source]
Critical strikes do not affect structures, with the following exceptions:
- - second attack will also critically strike turrets.
- - the fourth attack will also critically strike turrets.
- (bug) - the additional attack can critically strike turrets.
- - the first attack will also critically strike turrets.
Interacting with critical strikes[edit | edit source]
- wind up percentage when critically striking enemies. sprays 6 missiles in a wider cone when critically striking enemies and has a reduced
- 6 pellets in a wider cone when critically striking enemies. sprays
- grants him movement speed when critically striking enemies.
cooldown when critically striking enemies.
reduces its armor penetration against
bonus armor.
grants all critical strikes cooldown when or critically strikes enemies and will grant extra stacks when or critically strikes enemies.
will further reduce its - Resilience reduces the damage dealt by incoming critical strikes from enemies.
Trivia[edit | edit source]
- In many MMO settings, a number of attack damage-based assassins or secondary assassin-based champions also benefit from high critical strike chance in varying forms, as a means to help finish off targets faster as well as to deal more damage in bursts overall.
- Most champions have special basic attack animations that play when they critically strike, even champions who may not usually opt into critical strike chance.
- A few champions that typically itemize critical strike chance may have quotes that play when they critically strike.
- Some champions may actually use their critical strike animation for an empowered basic attack, when consuming a single-use on-hit effect (this is entirely cosmetic by itself and does not represent an actual critical strike).
- At negative attack damage, critical strikes from basic attacks are also multiplied by the same amount (e.g. − 50 AD → − 87.5 critical physical damage).