Critical hits, also known as crits for short, 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, the damage is displayed as a yellow, orange or red number on the HUD instead of the usual white coloring. However, critical hits on shields are still blue, and attacks benefitting from the stealth damage bonus are always yellow even when they don't crit.
Chance that any given attack will do bonus Critical Hit Damage. Values over 100% have a chance to become Big Critical Hits (orange), and over 200% have a chance to become Super Critical Hits (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:
Where the Relative Bonus is the sum of all applicable bonuses.
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.
Harrow expends 100energy 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.
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.
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.
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.
Gyre expends 75energy as she surges a potent electric current through herself as Gyral Blocks envelop her forearms. Cathode Grace grants Gyre a 25% / 30% / 40% / 50%Critical Chance bonus to her weapons (modded critical chance) and abilities (additive critical chance), as she constantly recharges 1 / 1.15 / 1.3 / 1.5 Energy points per second, lasting for an initial duration of 8 seconds. For each enemy killed directly by Gyre, or killed by any source while affected by a Status Effect inflicted by Gyre, Cathode Grace's remaining duration is extended by 3 seconds, up to a maximum duration capped at 60 seconds. In addition to the energy cost requirement, casting the ability triggers a 60 seconds cooldown before the next activation is allowed.
Cathode Grace's remaining duration is shown on the ability icon. Once duration elapses, the remaining cooldown timer replaces the duration timer on the ability icon.
The ability's cooldown starts immediately when Cathode Grace's duration timer begins to count down.
Audible cues play when Cathode Grace's duration ends, and when its cooldown is complete.
Kills made while manning a Railjack turret, be it with direct fire or abilities such as Shatter Burst, also extend Cathode Grace duration.
When the ability is cancelled (falling out of bounds) it takes the highest duration it gained from kills/assists and subtracts it from the Cooldown. Example: You reached 59 seconds on the ability icon and later on you fall out of bounds with 20 seconds on Cathode Grace's timer, Cathode Grace subtracts 59 seconds from the cooldown instead of the 20 seconds and your Cathode Grace will have no cooldown.
Ability Synergy:
Gyre's passive and Cathode Grace enable ability critical hits by granting 0% to 300% critical chance to damage and status effects dealt by Arcsphere, Coil Horizon, and Rotorswell.
Direct kills by Gyre's abilities, their Electricity status effects, and kill assists from allies extend Cathode Grace's duration.
Cannot be recast while active or on cooldown.
Casting Cathode Grace is a full-body animation that interrupts Gyre's grounded movement and other actions.
Gyre visually bows gracefully with hand gestures as hundreds of Gyral Blocks detach from her coil gown, electromagnetically levitating into the air. Gyre finishes her bow, culminating in a powerful posture that attracts and concentrates all Gyral Blocks to encircle her forearms in two spherical clusters. The Gyral Blocks rhythmically pulse in a wave-like pattern, while Gyre's body is enveloped in electricity.
As Gyre already generates her own Energy while Cathode Grace is active, she can forego of, or even sacrifice, Ability Efficiency stats in exchange for amplifying other stats, such as increased Duration with Constitution or firepower such as by equipping Blind Rage.
As Cathode Grace has a rather long animation time, Gyre is vulnerable while activating the ability. Equipping Quick Thinking not only gives her a safeguard, it also can make her tankier by expending energy to prevent lethal damage - which she can quickly replenish by constantly attacking and keeping Cathode Grace up.
This ability's energy regeneration is paused during channeled abilities, such as Gloom (while affecting enemies) added via the Helminth system,
Citrine summons crystal fractals. The fractals rush forward, seeking enemies. Enemies touched by the fractals are paralyzed crystalline growths. Hit the growths to deal Critical Damage.
Undermine the earthen crust below, as crystalline outcrops rampantly bloom. Citrine expends 100Energy to briefly rise before slamming into the ground. Upon landing, she summons fissures of crystalline fractals that rapidly travel and splinter while homing in towards all enemies within a 190° degrees sight detection cone spanning 30 meters. Upon reaching their targets, fractals inflict 250 / 300 / 400 / 500Impact damage while immobilizing each enemy inside 1 large crystal growth for 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 seconds. Hitting the growth directly sets weapon Critical Chance to 300% to inflict Tier 3 Red Critical Hits.
For Hitscan weapons, but not continuous or projectile weapons, critical damage is multiplied by 2x in addition to the critical chance bonus.
Sight detection occurs the moment Citrine slams into the ground. If she moves the aiming reticle and pans the camera away during the jump, enemies visible inside Citrine's player camera angle before the slam are not included in Crystallize's targeting.
Casting the ability while looking straight up or down allows the detection cone to encompass a 360° radial area, with height elevation difference accounted for by the additional 10°~ degrees angle.
Splinters will normally travel across the ground, but can move through the air in order to reach their targets.
Once targeted by Crystallize, fractal splinters will bypass environmental and generated barriers such as Arctic Eximus globes to reach them.
Crystal growths extend diagonally skyward away from the enemy, creating an enlarged object hitbox that also encompasses the body part where the crystal takes root.
Growths point toward the front, back, left or right sides, growing from one of the following body parts by random assignment on cast: head, chest, shoulders, arms, thighs, and legs.
Growths can clip through obstacles and terrain in the environment, allowing the crystal to be hit through walls.
The Critical Chance bonus locks weapon critical chance to 300%, regardless of mods or other critical buffs.
Can be affected by the Vigilante Mod Set, granting a chance to inflict Tier 4 Red Critical Hits.
Enemies protected by Overguard are still targeted by Crystallize, which inflicts all of its effects except crowd control immobilization.
Ability Synergy:
Crystallize contributes kills and assists to increase Preserving Shell's damage reduction.
Can be recast while active when at least one new enemy is in range and line-of-sight, but will not hit enemies already affected by Crystallize.
Casting Crystallize is a full-body animation that displaces Citrine into the air before forcing her into a diving sequence. While in the air, Citrine can reposition horizontally and aim the reticle at her intended landing spot.
Ability is not dispelled if Citrine falls out of bounds or enters an ability nullification zone.
Recrystalize is a Warframe Augment Mod for Citrine that allows Crystallize to spread to additional enemies when crystalized foes are killed by shooting the growths.
Particularly potent against Guardian Eximus enemies, since the crystal growth extends from the body through the rotating invulnerable riot shields that block most ranged attacks.
Weapons with a high critical multiplier and good accuracy but low critical chance, such as Basmu's primary fire, can benefit immensely from Crystallize.
Critical Hit Damage is multiplied by this value. The added Damage is doubled for Big Critical Hits (orange), and tripled for Super Critical Hits (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.
The base critical multiplier of a weapon is quantized.[1][2] This applies before mods, but after certain effects that are additive to the base value. The quantized base critical multiplier can be calculated as:
As an example, a Braton with Vital Sense excluding quantization for simplicity, has a crit multiplier of:
Volt expends 50energy 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 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 50Electricity 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.
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.
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).
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.
Multiple instances of the Electric Shield can provide a 360o 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.
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).
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. Every tier above 3 will produce an additional exclamation mark (!) up to three times.
In addition, each mod of the Vigilante Mod Set has a 5% chance to increase a Primary Weapon's 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[]
Certain body parts on enemies, most notably heads, will receive additional damage when struck. This location-based damage increase is usually a 3.0x multiplier, but if the strike is a critical hit, then it receives an additional damage bonus of 2.0xon top of the location multiplier and the crit multiplier:
As an example, a Lanka with Vital Sense, and a head shot multiplier of 3.0 will have an orange crit multiplier of:
The Headshot Multiplier is 3.0x 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 increase damage if critically hit. Corpus humanoids do not receive headcrits, instead only taking the normal 3.0x 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 that are not headshots:
As an example, a Paris has an average damage multiplier of:
So for a Paris without any critical mods, the damage is multiplied by 1.3 on average; yellow crits of 2x for 30% of the shots.
With the 2 basic critical mods, the damage is multiplied by 3.55 on average; yellow crits of 4.4x for 75% of the shots.
Removed the ability for enemies to deal critical hits to players, Defense targets, Extractors, Rescue targets, and all other friendly targets.
In most cases, enemies equipped with “player” weapons (Grineer Ballista using the Vulkar for example) could land critical hits due to those weapons using the same crit setup as their player counterpart. With a lack of feedback to inform players as to why or how sudden damage spikes were occurring, these enemies could easily jeopardize a mission. Additionally, while it makes sense to reward players for landing critical headshots, whether an enemy hits a head or not is outside of player control - which ultimately made countering it near impossible. So, in an effort to provide more consistent and predictable damage output from enemies, we have removed their ability to deal critical hits.
Update 34.0 (2023-10-18) Missed Note From Abyss of Dagath:
Updated our Damage Number system to add an exclamation point (!) for every Crit Tier above Super Crits, up to 3 total. Now you'll really be able to tell when you're doing a lot of damage!!!
With the new Ability Damage qualifier with the Enhanced Damage Numbers system, some players may think that certain Warframe abilities have had their Critical Chance nerfed. In truth, some Warframe abilities had a Critical Chance multiplier simply to add “oomph” to their damage numbers, without having an actual impact on Damage output. With this new Enhanced Damage System, that extra oomph is no longer needed, so those non-functional Critical Change values were removed, but the overall damage of these abilities are unchanged.
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.
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.
We have made changes to the way Criticals work on weapons that have been modded to have a crit chance greater than 100%. You may recall the existence of ‘red crits’ from many updates ago, which occurred with no clear formula other than “Synapse!”. Here is some clarity into the new system:
The brief:
A weapon with a critical chance greater than 100% will receive 2 calculations:
1) a guaranteed critical damage value - this normally appears as a yellow value.
2) a secondary red crit chance based on the remaining percent- this will appear as a new RED crit if successful!
This means:
If your rate is 125% you get one guaranteed crit and a 25% chance of a red crit.
If this Second Crit occurs, you will see a deadly Red crit value!