Critical Hit

Critical Damage

Critical hits are otherwise normal weapon strikes that randomly deal increased damage on enemies. The likelihood that an attack will be a critical hit is based on the weapon's critical hit chance, and the additional damage dealt by a critical hit is determined by the weapon's critical damage multiplier. Each attack, or each pellet in the case of most shotguns and weapons with Multishot, rolls its own chance to critically hit.

When a weapon deals a critical hit (or "crits"), the damage is displayed as a yellow, orange or red number on the HUD instead of the usual white coloring. Bear in mind that critical hits on shields are still blue and attacks benefitting from the stealth damage bonus are always yellow, even when they don't crit.

Critical Chance

Chance that any given attack will do bonus Critical Hit Damage. Values over 100% have a chance to become Orange Critical Hits, and over 200% have a chance to become red.

—In-game Description

Each weapon has a base chance to critically hit, which can be increased through mods and various buffs.

Relative Increases

Most increases to crit chance are relative to the base chance. Multiple of these stack additively with each other:

$\text{Total Crit Chance} = \text{Base Crit Chance} \times (1 + \text{Relative Bonus})$

Where the Relative Bonus is the sum of all applicable bonuses.

$\text{Relative Bonus} = \text{Bonus}_{1} + \text{Bonus}_{2} + \text{Bonus}_{3} + \cdots$

As an example, a  Braton with  Point Strike and  Critical Delay has a crit chance of:

12% × (1 +  150% +  48%)

= 35.76%

---

Absolute Increases

A few effects grant absolute amounts of crit chance. This includes  Arcane Avenger, Cat's Eye and  Covenant. These are applied after relative bonuses.

$\text{Total Crit Chance} = \text{Base Crit Chance} \times (1 + \text{Relative Bonus}) + \text{Absolute Bonus}$

Where the Absolute Bonus is the sum of all applicable bonuses.

$\text{Absolute Bonus} = \text{Bonus}_{1} + \text{Bonus}_{2} + \text{Bonus}_{3} + \cdots$

As an example, a Braton with  Point Strike (relative) and  Arcane Avenger (absolute) has a crit chance of:

= 12% × (1 +  150%) +  45%

= 75.00%

---

Blood Rush

 Blood Rush and the Gladiator Set Bonus are unique in that they scale off of Melee Combo, stacking additively with other critical chance mods:

$\text{Total Crit Chance} = \text{Base Crit Chance} \times (1 + \text{Relative Bonus} + \text{Blood Rush Multi} \times (\text{Combo Multi} - 1)) + \text{Absolute Bonus}$

As an example, a  Skana with Blood Rush,  True Steel, and  Arcane Avenger has a crit chance of:

5% × [1 +  60% × (2 - 1) +  120%] +  45%

= 59%

(Prior to Update 26.0 (2019-10-31),  Blood Rush and Gladiator Set Bonus provided a multiplicative increase in critical chance after all other mod bonuses and even after absolute ones.)

Critical hit chance can surpass 100%, for further information read Crit Tiers.

Sources of Critical Chance Bonus

• Rifle
• Shotgun
• Pistol
• Melee
• Arch-Guns
• Arch-Melee
• Companions
• Abilities
• Warframe Augments
• Weapon Augments
• Gladiator Mods
• Warframe Arcanes
• Virtuos Arcanes

PointStrikeModU145.png

 Point Strike

 Critical Delay

 Argon Scope

 Proton Jet

BlunderbussModU145.png

 Blunderbuss

 Critical Deceleration

 Laser Sight

 Motus Setup

PistolGambitModU145.png

 Pistol Gambit

 Primed Pistol Gambit

 Creeping Bullseye

 Hydraulic Crosshairs

 True Steel

 Blood Rush

 Maiming Strike

 Sacrificial Steel

 Critical Focus

 Parallax Scope

 Tempered Blade

 Bite

 Hunter Synergy

Cat's Eye 19.6.3.png

 Cat's Eye

	4 100	Covenant Protect nearby allies with an energy force that absorbs all damage and converts it to a Critical Chance bonus for all those under the Covenant. Headshots are amplified even further. Introduced in Update 21.0 (2017-06-29)	Strength:5% (base critical chance) 1.50% (critical chance per 100 damage)
			Duration:3 / 4 / 5 / 6 s (invulnerability time) 6 / 8 / 10 / 12 s (critical chance time)
			Range:N/A
			Misc: 4.0x (headshot multiplier to bonus critical chance) 50% (bodyshot critical chance cap) 200% (headshot critical chance cap) 50/250 m (affinity range/open-world affinity range)

• Info
• Augment
• Tips & Tricks

Info

• Harrow expends 100 energy to break free of his shackles in a whirlwind of impenetrable energy, imbuing himself and allies inside his Affinity Range with complete Invulnerability to damage and Status Effects for 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 seconds. While invulnerable, any enemy damage prevented by all affected players during this time accumulates into a total pool.
  • Affinity Range is not affected by  Ability Range but is affected by Fosfor and  Vazarin's  Mending Unity.
• After the invulnerability phase, all affected players receive the Retaliation buff which provides an additive weapon Critical Chance bonus lasting for 6 / 8 / 10 / 12 seconds. Retaliation provides a 5% base critical chance, plus extra critical chance converted from total damage prevented at a rate of 1.50% per 100 damage points prevented. Additionally, the combined critical chance percentage is multiplied by 4 on headshot hits.
  • Critical chance bonus is capped at 50% on bodyshot hits and 200% on headshot hits.
  • The critical chance applied to the weapons is a flat value applied after mods.
    • Example: A weapon with 10% base critical chance which has a Rank 5  Point Strike equipped and is affected by a capped Retaliation buff will have
      10% × (1 +  150%) + 200% = 225% critical chance on headshot.
• Protection and Retaliation buffs affect both players and their Companions.
• Covenant cannot be recast while its buffs are active.
  • Multiple Harrows can cast Covenant independently of other players' active invulnerability and critical chance buffs.
• Casting animation of 3 seconds is affected by Casting Speed. Casting Covenant is a full-body animation that stops Harrow's movement and actions.
• During the invulnerability phase, the current total of damage prevented is displayed to the right of the aiming reticle, represented by a shield-like emblem.
  • After the invulnerability phase, the critical chance bonus and its headshot multiplied percentage are briefly displayed at the same position, represented by a bullet-like emblem.
  • An audible whispering sound plays when each buff's duration ends.
• Covenant's buff icons for invulnerability and critical chance are displayed beside the shield and health indicators, with the critical chance bonus percentage located at the top-right of the icon and buff timers at the bottom.
• Harrow and affected allies are visibly surrounded by a gust of energy while under Covenant's effects. This visual effect expands or contracts depending on the phases of the ability, and is affected by Harrow's chosen Warframe energy color.

Augment

Main article: Lasting Covenant

Lasting Covenant is a Warframe Augment Mod for  Harrow that increases  Covenant's critical chance buff duration each time an enemy is killed with a headshot.

Lasting Covenant

Tips & Tricks

• It synergizes well with abilities that buff critical damage, such as  Electric Shield.
• Also pairs well with the  Dual Toxocyst since they are at their optimal power when you are getting headshots.
• Since the critical chance applied is additive, this ability can turn a  Nukor modded with  Primed Target Cracker (and possibly other critical damage mods such as a Riven) into a viable critical secondary.
• As Covenant's critical chance buff is capped, Harrow may opt to build on Ability Duration over Ability Strength, as not only does the increased invulnerability protect him longer, the damage he negates during the extended invulnerability phase can be enough for him to cap the aftermath Retaliation buff.
• Stacks with  Arcane Avenger, resulting in an additive +95% critical chance on bodyshot and +245% on headshot with both effects maxed.
• Casting this while attempting to revive a teammate makes for a reliable survival strategy, as the invulnerability phase will protect you from enemy fire.
• If the mission has Environmental Hazards, like the toxic waste in the Grineer Shipyard tileset, you can use them to stack extra damage negation during the invulnerability phase.
• Covenant synergizes well with a Kitgun equipped with  Pax Seeker, with its projectiles gain benefits for critical chance to headshot from this ability.
  • However, headshot kills by Pax Seeker's projectiles won't trigger  Lasting Covenant augmentation.

 Concentrated Arrow

 Enraged

 Piercing Navigator

PrimalRage2.png

 Primal Rage

 Teeming Virulence

 Amalgam Ripkas True Steel

 Deadly Sequence

 Exposing Harpoon

 Gladiator Aegis

 Gladiator Finesse

 Gladiator Might

 Gladiator Resolve

 Gladiator Rush

 Gladiator Vice

 Arcane Avenger

 Virtuos Shadow

Critical Multiplier

Critical Hit Damage is multiplied by this value. The added Damage is doubled for Orange Critical Hits, and tripled for red.

—In-game Description

When a critical hit occurs, that hit's damage is increased and the damage value's color is changed to yellow. The stat describing by how much a crit is strengthened is displayed in the arsenal as a multiplier.

$\text{Modded Crit Multi} = \text{Base Crit Multi} \times (1 + \text{Bonus}_{1} + \text{Bonus}_{2} + \text{Bonus}_{3} + \cdots)$

---

As an example, a  Braton with  Vital Sense has a crit multi of:

= 1.6 × (1 +  120%)

= 3.52

Sources of Critical Multiplier Bonus

• Rifle
• Shotgun
• Pistol
• Melee
• Arch-Gun
• Arch-Melee
• Companions
• Abilities
• Warframe Augments
• Vigilante Mods
• Tek Mods
• Virtuos Arcanes
• Focus

VitalSenseModU145.png

 Vital Sense

HammerShotModU145.png

 Hammer Shot

 Bladed Rounds

InfCrpShockSwarm.png

 Mutalist Quanta's alternative fire; shooting bullets through the Infested orb will boost the weapon's critical multiplier

RavageModU145.png

 Ravage

 Primed Ravage

 Shrapnel Shot

TargetCrackerModU145.png

 Target Cracker

 Primed Target Cracker

HollowPointModU145.png

 Hollow Point

 Sharpened Bullets

OrganShatterModU145.png

 Organ Shatter

 Amalgam Organ Shatter

 Gladiator Might

 Strain Infection

 Critical Focus

 Hollowed Bullets

 Bleeding Edge

 Bite

	3 50	Electric Shield Volt deploys an obstacle of energy, providing cover in any situation. Introduced in Update 5.3 (2013-01-10)	Strength:N/A
			Duration:10 / 15 / 20 / 25 s
			Range:N/A
			Misc: +50% (damage bonus) +100% (critical damage bonus) 6 m x 4.25 m (static shield) 2 m x 3 m (current shield) 6 (shields limit)

• Info
• Augment
• Tips & Tricks
• Bugs

Info

• Volt expends 50 energy to create an electrical energy barrier 4.25 meters high and 6 meters wide that blocks enemy fire, lasting for 10 / 15 / 20 / 25 seconds. Shots fired through the shield made by Volt and his allies gain +50%  Electricity damage and +100% critical multiplier. A maximum of 6 Electric Shields can be created at a time.
  • The critical multiplier is applied after weapon mods.
  • The  Electricity damage bonus is an additive bonus that's applied to the weapon's base damage, similar to an elemental mod. For an unmodified weapon that inflicts 100 base damage, firing through a shield will increase the total damage to 100 × (1 + 0.5) = 150. The weapon now inflicts 100 base damage and 50  Electricity damage.
  • Firing through multiple Shields will cause the  Electricity damage bonus to stack additively (e.g., firing through 3 shields will grant a 150%  Electricity damage bonus). The critical multiplier bonus on the other hand does not stack with additional shields.
  • The  Electricity damage bonus does not combine with other elemental types to create secondary elements; the weapon will separately proc the elements present on it and  Electricity from Electric Shield.
  • Warframe abilities do not gain bonuses from being fired through the shield, with the exception of  Ember's  Fireball,  Frost's  Freeze,  Oberon's  Smite, and  Vauban's Flechette Orb.
  • Casting Electric Shields after reaching the maximum will remove the oldest shield.
• Volt has the ability to pickup one of his Electric Shields through a context action (default X ). Doing so will cause the shield to decrease in size to 2.0 m × 3.0 m and become mobile as a hovering frontal shield that reorients itself to face the player's camera direction, as well as  Ragdolling enemies that come into contact with it. Activating the context action again will place down the shield and revert its size.
  • Only one shield can be equipped at a time.
  • Transference will unequip the shield.
• Electric Shield affects certain weapons differently:
  • All primary and secondary weapons will gain  Electricity damage and amplified critical damage.
    • Pellets from gunblades, like  Redeemer and  Sarpa, also gain the buff.
  • Thrown melee weapons, such as the  Glaive, are not affected by Electric Shield.
  • Weapons that have additional sources of damage, such as the  Quanta, will have their additional sources affected by Electric Shield so long as the damage can be modified. For example, firing a  Torid grenade through a Shield will affect the projectile damage and the area damage. Firing a  Mutalist Quanta orb through a Shield will not affect the orb's contact damage, but it will affect the orb's explosion damage.
  • Held-trigger weapons will gain hitscan properties.
• While most hostile gunfire and area of effect damage are blocked by Electric Shield, weapons with innate punch through, such as a Scorch's  Ignis, can bypass Electric Shield.
• Prevents self-stagger from area of effect weapons if the player shoots behind the shield.
• Ability Synergy: Casting  Shock through an Electric Shield will electrify it, inflicting 100% of Shock's damage to enemies that pass through it (e.g., Electric Shield will deal 260 damage if Shock's modified damage is 260).
  • The bonus damage from Volt's passive will also be stacked onto the damage from Shock (e.g., Electric Shield will deal 810 damage if Shock's modified damage is 260 and the Passive bonus is 550 at the time Shock is cast).

Augment

Main article: Recharge Barrier

Recharge Barrier is a PvE and Conclave Warframe Augment Mod for  Volt's  Electric Shield that restores allies' shields when they pass through the barrier.

Recharge Barrier

---

Main article: Transistor Shield

Transistor Shield is a Warframe Augment Mod for  Volt's  Electric Shield that allows allies to pick up and move Electric Shields. Additionally, a percentage of enemy damage absorbed by the Electric Shield(s) will add up to Volt's Static Discharge passive.

Transistor Shield

Tips & Tricks

• Multiple instances of the Electric Shield can provide a 360^o wall of protection, or can be used once if backing up into a tight space, blocking enemy fire from all angles.
• Note that Electric Shield does not protect its users from above and below attacks. Placing them above and below the player can be done to counter this.
• As Electric Shield doesn't buff Warframes directly but instead the weapons fired through it, it's one of the only ways to increase Operator damage output. This is particularly useful for Eidolon hunts.

Bugs

• The  Penta does not gain any damage bonuses.
• The  Ignis,  Embolist and  Opticor lose their AoE properties.
• If Shock is cast through Electric Shield with the max bonus damage from Static Discharge (1000) the total damage dealt may be slightly lower than expected (e.g., if Shock adds 100 damage to Electric Shield plus the 1000 bonus damage from passive, the amount of damage inflicted will only be 1098 instead of 1100).

 Empowered Quiver

 Vigilante Armaments

 Vigilante Fervor

 Vigilante Offense

 Vigilante Pursuit

 Vigilante Vigor

 Vigilante Supplies

 Tek Collateral

 Virtuos Strike

Crit Tiers

Modded Crit Chance		Crit Tier & Coloration
x = 0%	No hit can crit	Tier 0
0% < x < 100%	Chance for a yellow crit
		Tier 1
x = 100%	All hits yellow crit
100% < x < 200%	Chance for an orange crit
		Tier 2
x = 200%	All hits orange crit
200% < x < 300%	Chance for a red crit (tier 3)
		Tier 3
x = 300%	All hits red crit (tier 3)
300% < x < 400%	Chance for a red crit (tier 4)
		Tier 4
x = 400%	All hits red crit (tier 4)
400% < x < 500%	Chance for a red crit (tier 5)
		...
...	...

Three different color tiers of critical hits along with normal damage color

When a weapon achieves a crit chance higher than 100%, every attack will crit but it also gains a chance to deal an even stronger crit. As the critical hit chance increases, the tier of critical damage does so as well.

Although the coloration remains red after a certain point, crit tiers continue to increase.

---

As an example, a  Lenz with  Point Strike has a crit chance of:

= 50% × (1 +  150%)

= 125.00%

This means it will have a 25% chance to trigger an orange crit, while all other hits (75%) will yield a yellow crit.

The critical damage multiplier for these can be calculated as follows:

$\text{Crit Multi} = 1 + \text{Crit Tier} \times (\text{Modded Crit Multi} - 1)$

As an example, a Lenz with Point Strike and  Vital Sense will have an orange crit multiplier of:

= 1 + 2 × (2.0 × (1 +  120%) − 1)

= 7.8

In addition, each mod of the Vigilante Mod Set has a 5% chance to increase a critical hit's tier by 1. This effect stacks with other Vigilante Mods installed, up to a 30% chance with all six Vigilante Mods equipped.

Critical Headshots

This picture displays a headcrit dealing 4x regular headshot damage using an unmodded  Lex.

Certain body parts on enemies, most notably heads, will receive additional damage when struck. This location-based damage increase is usually a 2.0x multiplier, but if the strike is a critical hit, then it receives an additional damage bonus. For yellow crits, this is another 2.0x multiplier on top of the location multiplier and the crit multiplier but in general, it uses the formula:

$\text{Total Crit Multi} = \text{Headshot Multi} \times (1 + \text{Crit Tier} \times (2 \times \text{Modded Crit Multi} - 1))$

The Headshot Multiplier is 2.0x in almost all cases. The bonus damage from headshot crits is specific to heads and not generalized to all special body parts. The MOA, for example, has a "fanny pack" which normally receives 3.0x damage, but does not receive any additional multipliers from a critical hit. The Jordas Golem, however, has a 1.0x multiplier on his engines, but still receives quadruple damage if critically hit. Corpus humanoids do not receive headcrits, instead only taking the normal 2.0x headshot damage even after their helmets are removed.

Average Damage

When comparing builds it can be helpful to calculate how much damage the weapon will deal on average, which is effected by how often critical hits occur and at what critical multiplier. The following equation accounts for critical hits.

$\text{Average Damage Multiplier} = 1 + \text{Total Crit Chance} \times (\text{Total Crit Multi} - 1)$

As an example, a  Paris has an average damage multiplier of:

= 1 + 30% × (2.0 - 1)

= 1.3

 Paris with  Point Strike and  Vital Sense has an average damage multiplier of:

= 1 + (30% × (1 +  150%)) × (2.0 × (1 +  120%) - 1)

= 1 + (75%) × (4.4 - 1)

= 3.55

So for a Paris without critical mods, the damage are multiplied by 1.3 on average; yellow crits of 2x for 30% of the time. With the 2 base critical mods, the damage are multiplied by 3.55 on average ; yellow crits of 4.4x for 75% of the time.

See also

•  Hunter Munitions, a chance to apply on critical hit for primary weapons.

Patch History

Hotfix 28.0.4 (2020-06-12)

• Fixed Critical Hits not triggering for Glaive mid-air detonations.

Update 21.0 (2017-06-29)

• With Harrow's enhancement to Criticals, we have slightly tweaked the colour gradient in which Critical hits are displayed. Introducing: Orange Crits! These now occur in between Yellow and Red Crits. Before, Crits became Red when 100% Crit Chance was achieved. Now Crits will be ORANGE in the 100.01-200% range, and Red will start at 200.01%+! This is solely a visual change.

Update 14.10 (2014-10-08)

• Changed Critical Chance logic by allowing it to occur on Radial Explosions (both friendly and enemy where applicable). This fixes an issue with the Torid’s gas cloud not allowing for criticals.