"Critical attack guaranteed for the first attack made."
— Come Out Swinging skill description, Yo-kai Watch 3
Critical hits are powerful. However, it usually still takes some luck for them to trigger. On a particularly bad day, even attacks with an increased critical hit chance may keep failing at scoring one.
To get around that problem, some attacks (or skills, items, and conditions) have a surefire way to land a critical hit. This can be quite effective at taking down particularly tanky enemies, such as those of the Metal Slime or Armored, but Frail kind, as most games implement critical hits as an Armor-Piercing Attack. However, to prevent them from becoming a Game-Breaker, they usually have drawbacks, such as:
- Having terrible accuracy.
- Requiring conditions to be fulfilled first.
- Only working once per encounter.
- Being exclusive to one character.
- Needing to specifically hit the target's weak points.
In some games, characters may have equipment or skills that either reduces the damage taken from or outright nulls critical hits, making these attacks less useful.
See also Boom, Headshot! for when aiming and shooting at a target's head always causes critical damage, Back Stab when attacking an enemy from behind does this, and Critical Hit Class for characters that specialize in critical hits.
Examples must grant the guaranteed critical hit on their own. Having a guaranteed critical hit by stacking effects from various sources doesn't count.
Examples from Video Games:
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Idle Games
- Stimulation Clicker: "Critical Mode" makes every one of your clicks trigger a critical hit, which yields more Stimulation than usual from clicking the button.
MMORPG
- Final Fantasy XIV:
- As of the Dawntrail expansion, the Warrior Job has four weaponskillsnote Inner Chaos, Chaotic Cyclone, Primal Rend, and Primal Ruination which are guaranteed to be critical direct hits. These skills must be procced before they can be used, however.
- This occurs near the end of of the Heavensward expansion with the final boss of Dun Scaith, Diabolos Hollow. After beating the Beam-O-War intermission between phase one and phase two, Diabolos Hollow begins the second phase with a stoneskin spell that grants this effect until the stoneskin is broken and the raid can finally start damaging it again.
- Guild Wars:
- Attacking a moving target from behind with a melee weapon always lands a critical hit.
- The Paragon skill "Go for the Eyes!" in PvE mode grants allies a chance for critical hit to their attacks for ten seconds, which becomes guaranteed with Command Level 15 and above.
- Assassins have "Critical Strike" (makes a Dual Attack that following an off-hand attack deals a critical hit) and "Malicious Strike" (procs crit if the target has status ailments).
- Warriors have "Keen Chop" (an Axe Attack that always crits), Wild Blow (Always crits, but costs all adrenaline), and Decapitate (Axe Attack that always crits and inflicts Deep Wound, but costs all adrenaline and Energy).
- Guild Wars 2:
- Relic of the Daredevil makes its user's next attack after dodging or evading always crits.
- The outer edge of the "Mind the Gap" skill always scores a critical hit.
- "Holographic Shockwave", besides always dealing a crit, also launches foes upward.
- Berserkers have "Wild Blow" hits a foe with a critical hit and knocks them down, also granting you fury and extend the duration of berserk mode.
- The Elementalist profession has "Arcane Blast" (shoots a projectile that always crits), "Arcane Wave" (Hits enemies with a wave that always crits), and "Arcane Briliance" (Blasts foes with critical damage and heals yourself).
- RuneScape: Exclusive to the Runescape 3 version of the game is an ability known as Tuska's Wrath. When cast on a non-boss slayer target, it will deal a critical hit equal to the player's slayer level times 100, capable of hitting up to 15000 Life points in a single hit, but this effect has a two-minute cooldown between uses.
- Star Wars: The Old Republic: The sniper skill "Laze Target" guarantees that the next use of "Ambush" will crit.
MOBA Games
- Dota2:
- Bounty Hunter's "Jinada" deals a guaranteed critical hit every 3 seconds once the ability reaches its highest level, however his left level-25 talent can remove the cooldown altogether.
- Phantom Assassin's "Methodical" facet gives her a guaranteed critical hit after six attacks against the same hero (or four attacks on a non-hero unit).
- Heroes of the Storm: The game doesn't normally have critical strikes, however the character Samuro is still designed as a Critical Hit Class. Passively, every fourth basic attack he makes will deal bonus damage, and he can get a crit on demand by activating his Critical Strike ability. He can also pick up a late-game talent that makes all of his attacks crit when striking enemies under crowd control effects.
- League of Legends: The game primarily factors "Critical Strikes" as something delivered through basic attacks and dice rolls dependent on critical strike chance, though there are a handful of champion-specific abilities that tweak how they're delivered. Accounting only abilities that modify attack-based crits as intended note Some abilities deal increased damage when conditions are met which the game calls "critical strikes", but these are usually cosmetic definitions as they accompanying spells with entirely unique designs :
- Jhin, in stark contrast to many other champions in the game (and MOBA characters in general), has a finite magazine for basic attacks, having four shots before he needs to reload. Every fourth shot is a guaranteed crit that additionally deals bonus damage based on the target's missing health, ideally used as a brutal Coup de Grâce. His "Curtain Call" ultimate ability functions with a similar gimmick, having four shots, the fourth dealing a guaranteed crit.
- Fiora's "Bladework" ability gives her next two basic attacks with bonus range, attack speed, and two different buffs: the first slows her target, the second is a crit.
- Kindred's "Mounting Dread" marks an enemy for death, rewarding them for landing three basic attacks in quick succession. On a successful three hits, the last one becomes a crit with damage based on the target's missing health and any marks claimed from previous prey.
- Rengar's "Savagery" buffs his next two basic attacks to deal guaranteed crits, the damage of which increases based on any crit chance he's built.
- Shaco's "Backstab" passive grants him bonus damage considered crits while landing most of his stabbing-based attacks on an enemy's backside.
Platform Games
- Rockman 4 Minus ∞: The ? Dagger, received after defeating Super Shadow Man, makes all your attacks deal critical hits.
Role-Playing Games
- Blue Archive: Some students possess abilities that ensures a critical hit.
- In her Dress variant, Kayoko's EX skill, "Shadow Shot" becomes guaranteed to deal a critical hit if she's in infiltration mode, but it also ends the mode.
- Mika's sub-skill "Benedictio" ensures her attacks to always land a critical hit when it's active. Her swimsuit variant also has this effect with "Sursum Coda", also a sub-skill.
- Miyu's Swimsuit variant has "Seagull Attack" as her EX skill, which damages all enemies within a straight lane with a critical hit.
- Nozomi has "All Aboard!" as her sub-skill, which guarantees critical hits to her attacks as well as increases her Attack Speed and Critical Damage.
- Saori's normal skill "Leading the Target" deals guaranteed critical hit whenever it activates. Her EX skill "... and all is vanity!" deals a critical hit in even greater multiplier.
- Yukari has her EX skill "Boldness of Youth" always deal a critical hit to enemies within range. Its damage multiplier depends of her Prayers stack.
- Cassette Beasts:
- The "Type Advantage Crit" attribute makes moves that hit an enemy's elemental weakness always scores a critical hit.
- "Yule Regret That", the Elfless line's exclusive move, lands a critical hit if the target has already taken damage in the same turn.
- Cyberpunk 2077:
- The "Nerves of Tungsten-Steel" perk ensures critical hits on headshots with handguns and precision/sniper rifles, provided that Deadeye (a prerequisite perk which requires V to have at least 85% stamina) is active.
- The "Style over Substance" perk ensures crits with throwable weapons while dodging, sliding, or crouch-sprinting.
- Damage dealt to enemy weakspots revealed by the "Vulnerability Analysis" perk will always be crit damage.
- Firearms equipped with the Tier 5 version of the XC-10 Cetus suppressor will deal guaranteed critical hits on headshots outside of combat.
- Certain Iconic weapons can guarantee crits when certain conditions are fulfilled. The Amnesty, for instance, will always crit when hipfiring a shot at an enemy's head immediately after drawing it, the Sovereign ensures crits at point-blank range, and the Iconic Techtronika weapons exclusive to the Phantom Liberty expansion ensure crits when hitting enemies affected by their unique Burn effect.
- Digimon Adventure (PSP):
- Togemon's "Coconut Punch" skill always deals a critical hit, but it has low accuracy.
- The Ultra Counter DigiPiece always triggers a Counter-Attack that always deals a critical hit.
- The "Gamble Attack" DigiPiece, when equipped, allows its user to use an attack that always lands a critical hit if it connects.
- Disgaea:
- Starting from the second game, the next attack taken by someone afflicted with the "Sleep" ailment will always be a Critical Hit.
- Disgaea 5 instead has items and Curries that increase Critical Hit Rate; Professional Innocents adding onto the resulting damage. Eating the well-known "100 Thimble" Currynote Any item as the base, 100 Thimbles added as secondary ingredients maximizes all allies' Critical Rates to 100% for as long as it's active.
- In Divinity: Original Sin and Divinity: Original Sin II, backstabs are automatic critical hits. Both games require the attacker to be almost directly behind the target with a dagger or light blade; the first game also requires the talent "Back-Stabber".
- Dragon Quest: Having perfect crit chance is useful for hunting Metal Slimes and their kin in this series since critical hits bypass their nigh-invulnerable defense.
- The Hela's Hammer has poor accuracy, but always lands a critical hit when it does hit. It loses this after the series changed its critical hit mechanic starting from the ninth game.
- Critical Claim is an extremely powerful skill that is learned at high levels in later games. It always deals a critical hit and never misses. The only drawback is its very high MP cost, and that it can only target one enemy.
- Lightning Thrust, the upgraded version of Thunder Thrust, is a spear-based skill that has 50% chance to either score a critical hit or outright miss.
- The Hatchet Man ability has relatively poor accuracy, but will always be a crit when it lands. It also appears in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate as one of the spells the Hero can select, capable of killing lighter characters below 50% damage if it hits.
- In the Nintendo 3DS version of the eight game, Morri has POWER Pummel, a club-based skill that always deals a critical hit if it connects.
- Epic Battle Fantasy: Introduced in EBF4 is Stagger, which upgrades the next incoming hit into a critical.
- In Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas, the Alien Blaster (and its Firelance variant in the former game) always causes a critical hit.
- Fire Emblem:
- Triangle Attack has the initiating unit always lands a critical hit to their target.
- Selena's personal skill, Fierce Rival, makes her always lands a critical hit if her partner in a Pair Up scores a crit.
- The Prayer Ring in Gaiden makes its wearer always inflict critical hits if their current HP are lower than half their max HP.
- In Gaiden, Alm's attack will always deal critical hit if he is adjacent to Celica. This is dramatically nerfed in its remake Echoes, from 100 to 20 critical hit rate, since the remake also added a postgame dungeon.
- In Genealogy of the Holy War, critical hits are tied to skills and weapons, instead of being an innate part of battle. Weapons that deal effectiveness damage to an enemy, like bows against flying enemies, automatically deal a critical hit against specific targets.
- The skill Wrath has this characteristic in Genealogy of the Holy War and Thracia 776. In the former, Wrath will make the unit's attack deal a critical hit if their HP is below half, but if the opponent happens to use Steal, it also always lands a critical hit. In the later game, Wrath only affecting the unit's next counterattack to deal a critical hit. Every game since then changes it to merely a boost to their critical hit rate.
- Final Fantasy:
- Deathblow in VII and Brave Exvius deals a critical hit at the cost of accuracy.
- Some games have the Critical status buff (not to be confused with the low HP status) that makes all attacks from that character lands a critical hit.
- In V's GBA remake, one of the possible effects of Finisher (a Gladiator class skill) is dealing a guaranteed critical hit to a foe.
- The Vortex weapons from the collaboration event between XIV and XV always deal a critical hit.
- Genshin Impact:
- Attacks that hit an enemy's weak point always deals a critical hit.
- Xinyan's Level 2 Constellation, "Impromptu Opening", makes her Elemental Burst always deals critical damage to enemies when cast.
- Hu Tao's Level 6 Constellation, "Butterfly's Embrace", increases her CRIT Rate by 100% for 10 seconds when either her HP drops below 25% or when taking a lethal hit.
- Honkai: Star Rail:
- Feixiao's Technique, Stormborn, makes her pulls enemies and, when entering battle, dealing Wind damage with guaranteed critical hit chance at the start of each wave.
- Robin's Ultimate, "Vox Harmonique, Opus Cosmique", puts her in a state where she hits enemies her allies attacked with an attack that always lands a critical hit until the effect ends.
- Look Outside: The "Aim the Killshot" skill obtained by playing Kill to Shoot ensures that Sam's next attack will always be a critical hit.
- Marvel Mystic Mayhem: Once Misty Knight obtains the "Lock & Load" ability her first shot after each reload (every fourth basic attack) is automatically a critical hit. This stacks with her usual "Bail Bondswoman" passive ability, which boosts the base damage of the same post-reload attacks.
- Mesmerizer!:
- Casting "Round Round" ensures your next attack to land a critical hit if it connects.
- Miku's "Broken Megaphone" has a guaranteed critical hit chance to all enemies.
- OMORI:
- Omori's "Stab" attack has a 100% critical hit chance. If Omori is under "Sad" status, it also becomes an Armor-Piercing Attack.
- Kel's last learned skill from level ups, "Tickle", makes all attacks to his target deal critical hits in the next turn.
- In the special version of the Boss Rush that only available for console versions, equipping Basil with Gladiolus Headband allows him to use "Gladiolus", which always scores a critical hit.
- Persona 5: The Phantom X:
- When Regular Mont has at least 10 Crystal Ice stacks on her, after she uses a skill, she will use a follow-up Resonance attack that is guaranteed to be a critical hit.
- Skull/Ryuji's God Hand Burst skill is a Charged Attack that will always be a guaranteed critical hit if he has Rebound, a buff available when he has 75% or less health during his turn.
- Pokémon: There are several moves that always land critical hits when they connect. For game balance reasons, only a few species can learn them.
- Pokémon Black and White: Storm Throw and Frost Breath are the first moves with this characteristic. The latter is notable as it's the only Special-based move with perfect critical hit rate.
- Pokémon Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee!: The partner Pikachu can learn Zippy Zap, one of its signature moves, from a move tutor in Cerulean City. It always deals a critical hit AND has increased priority.
- Pokémon Sword and Shield: Urshifu, debuting in the Isle of Armor DLC, has two different signature moves with perfect critical hit chance (while Urshifu's Ability makes sure that it's also an Always Accurate Attack even if the target attempts to block it) upon evolution. The Single Strike Style gets the Dark-type Wicked Blow, while the Rapid Strike Style learns the Water-type Surging Strikes.
- Pokémon Scarlet and Violet: The final evolution of the Grass-type starter, Meowscarada, has a signature move in Flower Trick, a Grass-type move that not only deals a critical hit, it also never misses.
- Unicorn Overlord: Soldier's Level 15 passive skill Keen Call allows an ally's attack to automatically deal a critical hit. In addition, the passive skill Hawk Eye, from the Sniper's Amber Lens accessory or Amalia's skillset, both automatically deal a critical hit and it cannot be dodged.
- Various Daylife: The "True Arrow" ability, which only available to the Knight job class, incurs a guaranteed critical hit onto its target.
- Wondrous Lands:
- The Critical Strike skill always delivers a critical hit.
- Flurry of Blows ends with a critical hit.
- Wuthering Waves: The first node of Chixia's Resonance Chain guarantees that the special attack you can trigger after shooting 30+ bullets in the DAKA DAKA state will always crit.
- Yo-kai Watch:
- Elemental Rock–Paper–Scissors in the series works by making Yo-kai who get hit by their elemental weakness suffer a Critical Hit.
- The skill Come Out Swinging makes the first attack used by Yo-kai with it always a Critical Hit.
- Righteous Zazel's skill, Godspeed, lets him move first with a single, guaranteed Critical Hit.
- Zenless Zone Zero:
- Seth's sixth Mindscape upgrade, "Idealist", makes the finishing blow of his held Basic Attack a guaranteed critical hit, in addition to increasing its crit damage by 60%.
- Caesar's sixth Mindscape, "Overlord's Will", guarantees critical hits for her Assist Follow-Up and second EX Special Attack.
Roguelikes
- Darkest Dungeon II: Crit tokens cause the next attack from the combatant they're bestowed upon to become a guaranteed critical hit, which deals the maximum possible damage and bypasses 20 percent of the target's resistances for the purposes of inflicting debuffs or Damage Over Time.
- HoloCure: Hoshimachi Suisei's main weapon, Axe Swing, has its final level upgrade make its critical hits become guaranteed and have said crits deal three times the damage. This also works well with Suisei's abilities which activate on crit proc.
- Mega City Force: The Scout's special ability allows her to activate a laser sight which makes all of her attacks critical for a short period of time.
- Risk of Rain 2:
- Using the equipment Ocular HUD grants the user guaranteed critical strikes for 8 seconds.
- A couple of survivors have ways of dealing critical strikes without relying on their critical strike chance: The Bandit's Backstab passive lets him deal critical strikes by attacking enemies in the back, while the Railgunner's secondary skill allows her to deal critical strikes to an enemy by attacking its weak point.
- Streets of Rogue has the "Always Crit" buff, which turning every attack to NPCs into a critical hit.
Shooter Games
- Overwatch:
- Most, but not all, weapons are capable of dealing critical damage on a headshot. A headshot usually deals double damage, with few exceptions.
- Mauga's Volatile Chaingun deals critical damage to burning targets. Also, his Overrun deals critical hit and knocks down enemies it lands directly on.
- Enemies under Hacked status effect take critical damage from Sombra's Virus ability, but only on its initial hit.
- Reinhardt's Earthshatter deals critical damage to opponents in its melee range.
- Team Fortress 2: A number of weapons and situations guarantee critical hits. Some examples:
- Most of the Sniper's primary weapons score guaranteed crits on a headshot when scoped in.
- The Spy's melee weapons are guaranteed to score critical hits whenenever he successfully backstabs someone, while his Diamondback can store guaranteed crits for every building destroyed while being sapped.
- The Engineer's Frontier Justice can store guaranteed crits based on a destroyed Sentry Gun's kills and assists. His Gunslinger, while unable to score critical hits randomly, gets a guaranteed crit every time he melees an enemy three times without missing.
- The Ubercharge granted by the Medic's Kritzkrieg gives the target guaranteed critical hits for eight seconds.
- The Pyro's Flare Gun is guaranteed to score a crit if used on a burning enemy, while his Backburner guarantees crits when used on someone from behind.
- Vermintide II:
- The Witch Hunter Captain talent "Riposte" allows him to follow up a perfectly timed block with a guaranteed melee critical hit. Also, his capstone talent "Fervency" modifies his Career Skill to make all his melee attacks critical hits while it's active.
- The Bounty Hunter passive ability Blessed Shots automatically makes one ranged attack per ten seconds an automatic critical hit, allowing him to time his most powerful shots for maximum impact.
- The Zealot talent "Smite" and the Mercenary talent "Helborg's Tutelage" completely replace the character's critical hit chance with an automatic crit on every fifth hit.
- The Necromancer talent "Soul Harvest" draws power from enemies who die while afflicted by her cursed flames, guaranteeing a critical hit after every eighth death.
- The Shade — a Stealth Expert specializing in critical hits — has the perk that melee attacks from stealth are always critical hits.
Tower Defense Games
- The Battle Cats: Units with perfect critical hit chance tend to have lower overall stats, low attack rate, and slow recharge. This makes them only really useful against weaker Metal enemies, whose trait reduces all damages to Scratch Damage except critical hits.
- Cheerleader Cat, Sunny Neneko, and their stronger forms always land a critical hit whenever they attack.
- Crazed Moneko's final hit on her attack (where she bows down) always lands a critical hit if it connects. This also applies to her evolved form Corrupted Moneko.
- Kubiluga's True Form, E. Kubilan Pasalan, trades its knockback ability for 100% crit chance, which carries over to its Wave Attack.
- Million-Dollar Cat and its evolution Hundred-Million Dollar Cat also always deals a critical hit, but their pathetic stats made them outclassed by other critical hitters except in certain circumstances.
Examples from other media:
Anime and Manga
- Teasing Master Takagi-san: Referenced. Nishikata's horoscope tells him he will score a critical hit, which he takes to mean he will be successful for once in his teasing war with Takagi. However, nothing is going his way that day, while Takagi still manages to tease him endlessly...until he offhandedly mentions that he skipped going off to play video games with his friends so he could walk home with Takagi. Unfortunately for Nishikata, he has no idea that he scored the hit, as Takagi hides her reaction until after he runs off in embarrassment. From that moment forward, any time Nishikata offhandedly mentions enjoying spending time with or choosing to be with Takagi over others, he manages to fluster her, with it being referenced as a Critical Hit, though he largely remains unaware of the effect he has on her.
Myths and Religions
- Celtic Mythology: One of the traits of the Mac An Luin, the sword of Fionn Mac Cumhaill, is that whatever it cuts or pierces is destroyed utterly.
Tabletop Games
- Daggerheart: When a Player Character runs out of Hit Points, they may opt for a "Blaze of Glory", gaining an automatic critical success on an attack or other action, then immediately dying.
- Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition:
- Attacks against paralyzed and unconscious creatures within 5 feet of the attacker are automatic critical hits, if not necessarily a Coup de Grâce.
- The Assassin subclass for Rogue gains the feature Assassinate at level 3, making any successful attack against a surprised creature a critical hit. Surprising creatures is not a guarantee to happen in every combat, either due to poor stealth rolls or lack of opportunity, but also the idea of being surprised is open to DM interpretation rather than being a strictly defined Status Effect.
- The One Ring: A ranged combatant can take a full round to line up their next attack, guaranteeing it to threaten a Piercing Blow if it doesn't miss. Piercing Blows are a One-Hit Kill against most enemies and a serious problem for the rest.
- Pathfinder: Helpless is perhaps the worst condition a creature can be in as it almost certainly spells death. As a full round action, another creature can perform a Coup de Grâce on the helpless creature that is treated as an automatic critical hit. The helpless creature then has to make a fortitude saving throw against 10 + the damage dealt or die instantly. Perhaps the only saving grace is that Coup de Grâce provokes attacks of opportunity, so allies could potentially save them.
- Star Wars d20 Saga Edition: Destiny Points are an extremely limited resource, spent on Luck Manipulation and supercharging some abilities. One use is to skip the attack roll and inflict an automatic critical hit.