Critical Strike

“

▶️ This next one is gonna sting.

— Tusk

”

Critical strike is a passive ability that gives a chance to deal bonus damage on a successful attack.

Mechanics[edit]

Wraith King performing a critical strike.
The red number displays the resulting physical damage before reductions.

A Critical Strike's occurrence is determined upon beginning an attack, and not upon attack launch or attack landing.

For example, if the hero has Crystalys and it starts an attack that procs Critical Strike, the attack applies Crystalys' Critical Strike value regardless of if the item is being upgrade in the middle of the attack animation. Or when attacking an enemy affected by Soul Rend, and the debuff expires during an already started attack animation, that attack still applies the Critical Strike, since the attack started while the debuff was still present.

Visual Feedback[edit]

When a Critical Strike occurs, a red-colored number pops up on the victim of the strike, with a lightning bolt icon on the right side of the number. This number shows the multiplied damage value before reductions or amplifications. Therefore, the displayed value does not equal the damage the target actually took from the attack.

Multiplier[edit]

An attack that triggers Critical Strike has its total damage value multiplied by the given multiplier of the source of the Critical Strike. This means a critical strike is basically an attack damage amplifier, as it does not add extra damage on top of the attack damage, but directly increases the damage of the attack by multiplying it.

It can be defined as

Critical Strike Multiplier = 1 + MAX C_i

The multiplier is applied before any reductions or amplifications on the target or on the attacking unit. It only counts the unit's main attack damage, plus any bonus attack damage (percentage and flat bonuses) it has, meaning any damage instances (i.e. conditional attack damage bonuses) added to the attack damage which is separate from the attack damage itself is not considered by critical strikes.

Therefore, if an ability adds its damage directly to the attack damage, then it may be considered by Critical Strike, though there are exceptions to this. See total attack damage for the complete calculation.

All chance-based sources of Critical Strike use pseudo-random distribution.

Stacking[edit]

Multiple critical strike procs are rolled from the strongest to the weakest multiplier, and stop rolling once proc occurs, so that two critical strikes cannot proc on the same attack, resulting in a diminishing behavior. This means when having multiple sources of chance-based crits, and the one with a higher multiplier proc, that attack is not counted for the other critical strike sources, since they did not roll. Thus their pseudo-random distribution states are preserved: the unrolled weaker critical strikes' current proc chance is neither increased nor reset for this attack.

For example, Tusk's attack will not proc the critical strike of Daedalus' (225%) while casting Walrus PUNCH! because the latter ability has a higher critical strike value of 1.

With cooldown-based critical strike sources (e.g. Mortal Strike), this means that when a stronger value occurs, the cooldown-based critical strike stays unused and does not go on cooldown for that attack.

Attack Modifier Interactions[edit]

Main Article: Attack Modifier

Critical Strike fully stacks and does not interfere with any attack modifier. If an attack modifier increases or reduces attack damage, it is counted by the critical strike multiplier.

Abilities that grant conditional attack damage bonus may or may not be affected by the multiplier.

The following common attack modifiers is calculated after the critical strike, which increases the value during a proc/trigger:

Lifesteal - Increases the amount lifesteal, not to be mixed up with lifesteal manipulation.
Cleave / Splash - Deals increased damage to all units within the cleave radius.

Sources Affected[edit]

Conditional Attack Damage Bonus Affected by Critical Strike

Sources Not Affected[edit]

Main Articles: Bash and Mana Break

Conditional Attack Damage Bonus Not Affected by Critical Strike

Abyssal Blade – Bash
Ancient Apparition – Chilling Touch
Clinkz – Burning Barrage Arrows³
Clinkz – Skeleton Arrows Multishot^{2b, 1}
Clinkz – Burning Army Arrows^{2a, 3}
Drow Ranger – Frost Arrows
Drow Ranger – Multishot Frost Arrows
Drow Ranger – Splinter Shot^{2a, 3}
Enchanted Quiver – Certain Strike
Enchantress – Impetus
Enchantress – Sproink^2a
Faceless Void – Time Walk^{2a, 3}
Faceless Void – Time Lock³
Maelstrom – Chain Lightning
Mjollnir – Chain Lightning
Gleipnir – Chain Lightning
Javelin – Pierce
Monkey King Bar – Pierce
Outworld Destroyer – Arcane Orb
Roshan – Bash
Shadow Blade – Shadow Walk
Silencer – Glaives of Wisdom^{2a, 3}
Silver Edge – Shadow Walk
Skull Basher – Bash
Slardar – Bash of the Deep
Sniper – Headshot
Spectre – Desolate
Storm Spirit – Overload^{1, 3}
Templar Assassin – Meld
Ursa – Fury Swipes
Warlock Golem – Flaming Fists
Anti-Mage – Mana Break
Diffusal Blade – Manabreak
Disperser – Manabreak
Demonic Warrior (Book of the Dead) – Mana Break
Demonic Warrior (Underlord) – Mana Break

¹ Requires

talent.

^2a Requires

Aghanim's Scepter.

^2b Requires

Aghanim's Shard.

³ The ability's multishot / bounces can proc critical strike. The bonus spell damage is not considered by critical damage.

Critical Strike Sources[edit]

The amount of damage increase is defined as:

Critical Attack Damage = %Critical / %Proc

Chance-based Sources[edit]

Chance-based Critical Strike Abilities

¹ Requires

talent.

^2a Requires

Aghanim's Scepter.

^2b Requires

Aghanim's Shard.

Ensured Critical Strike Sources[edit]

Ensured Critical Strike Sources

¹ Requires

talent.

^2a Requires

Aghanim's Scepter.

^2b Requires

Aghanim's Shard.

Unique Critical Strike Sources[edit]

The following sources have the MODIFIER_PROPERTY_PREATTACK_TARGET_CRITICALSTRIKE flag. These sources proc critical strike upon the unit's attack point against the affected target.

Unique Critical Strike Sources