Criticals

Criticals in Ashes of Phoenix are a very math-heavy mechanic.

Criticals can occur, when shooting a target with a single shot. Whether aimed or unaimed. Thus, Bursts, as well as things like Molotovs can not critically hit.

A critical can have a range of devastating effects. The simplest of its effect is the increased damage you will do. This allows Snipers to dish out damage, even though they are shooting only one bullet at a time, unlike Bursters, who do their damage by shooting a range of bullets towards the target.
Criticals can also cripple limbs. Apply Debuffing Status Effects. As well as apply a higher amount of Bleed Damage, together with its increase in direct damage.

Critical Chance

In order to land a critical hit on an enemy, a proper amount of Critical Chance is needed. In your Character Tab, you have 2 different kinds of Critical Chances. Your Base Critical Chance (short: BCC), as well as your Aimed Critical Chance (short: ACC). Your aimed critical chance will always be higher as your base critical chance, as the aimed critical chance value starts out with the base critical chance.

Values above 100% are not wasted, as an enemies Critical Resistance will lower your Critical Chance. It is thus nice to have a value over 100% to ensure that your critical chance is as high as possible after being modified by your target's critical resistance.

Base Critical Chance

Base Critical Chance is used to calculate your crit chance when performing unaimed shots. Unaimed Shots are always shots in the Torso.

$BCC=(2*Perception)+(2*Intelligence)+(1*Luck)$

Further Stats modifying Base Critical Chance

Stat	BCC Change
Finesse	+10%
Living Anatomy	+3%
Steady	-10%
Blood Moon	+20%
More Crits	+10% per More Crits perk on your Weapon.

Aimed Critical Chance

Aimed Critical Chance is used to calculate your crit chance when performing aimed shots, apart from the Torso. This means, shots in the legs, arms, groin, head and eyes use your aimed critical chance.

$ACC=BCC+20+(21-Luck)*{\frac {Luck}{2}}$

Critical Resistance

Just like a shooter might have a critical strike chance, a target can and will have Critical Resistance. This causes them to have a chance to avoid a critical strike of a bullet, treating it like it didn't critical in the first place.

Critical Resistance has a non-linear progression. Thus there is no direct formula for it. The higher your luck, the more critical resistance you will have - however, Luck has diminishing returns. Higher Luck will give you less and less Critical Resistance.

For a full table you can look here: Critical Resistance Table

When an shooter fires a shot at the target, its Critical Chance is modified by the target critical resistance.

Example

Zmeja fires a shot at Gem, aiming for his left arm. Zmeja has an Aimed Critical Chance of 125%, while Gem has a Critical Resistance of 30%. What's the chance of Zmeja hitting a critical strike?

$125*{\frac {100-30}{100}}=87.5$

Zmeja has a 87.5% chance to hit a critical strike onto Gem.

Aiming

VATS targeting dummy

When using a weapon with the ability to shoot single bullets, you usually have the option to aim for different body-parts. Depending on where you shoot, different effects might occur.

Aimtable

Aim	Possible Damage	Possible Status Effects	Cost
Eyes	20% - 50% Bonus Damage	Knockout Knockdown Blinded Armor bypass Disoriented	+20 base AP Cost to fire -88% Hit Chance
Head	20% - 50% Bonus Damage	Knockout Knockdown Armor bypass Disoriented	+20 base AP Cost to fire -59% Hit Chance
Groin	20% - 50% Bonus Damage +20% Bleed	Knockout Knockdown Armor bypass Winded	+15 base AP Cost to fire -44% Hit Chance
Arms	20% - 50% Bonus Damage +10% Bleed	Weapon Drop Crippled Arms Armor bypass	+10 base AP Cost to fire -44% Hit Chance
Legs	20% - 50% Bonus Damage +20% Bleed	Knockdown Crippled Legs Winded	+10 base AP Cost to fire -30% Hit Chance
Torso / None	5% - 30% Bonus Damage	Knockdown Armor bypass Winded	+0 base AP Cost to fire -0% Hit Chance

Status Effects

Knockout

A knockout can be a possible critical effect. In this state, your character falls to the ground and will stay there, as long as your Knockout duration is.

Duration in seconds: $KODuration=3-(0.1*Endurance)$

Further Stats modifying Knockout Duration

Stat	BCC Change
Quick Recovery	-0.8
Quick Recovery (Armor)	-0.4 per Quick Recovery trait on your Armor.

Knockdown

A Knockdown can be a possible critical effect. When receiving a Knockdown, your character is locked into a falling down and standing up animation for a short moment, causing you unable to do any actions during this time. It also causes you to lose the Deployed stancem should you have been in one.

Crippled

Your limbs can be crippled - leading to stat debuffs, that will only go away once you heal the cripples with Doctor. Each limb has 3 stages it can be crippled to. A yellow limb is on its first level of being crippled. A red limb is on its second level of being crippled. A black limb is at its final, third level of being crippled. Each time you use Doctor, you only heal 1 limb and only 1 level of that limb.

Blinded

A blind is effectively a cripple to your eyes. It severely reduces your Sight Rance by removing 20% of it per level of eye-cripple. In addition to that, it cuts your Perception by 3 points for each Cripple level on your eyes.. With It also lowers your hit-chance by 15% for each Cripple level on your eyes.

Arms

Having your arms crippled severely reduces the performance of weapons you use. Each level of your arm cripple increases the chance of having your weapon dropped, when rolling against weapon drops by 10%. If the weapon is one-handed, you only use the lesser broken level of each of your arms - so having a fully broken arm, while the other is fine, will not increase the drop-chance. If the weapon you use is two-handed, both cripple levels are added together.

Each level of your arms cripple also decreases your Strength by 2 points for the purpose of weapon strength requirements. This means, that you might see a reduction in your hit-chance, if that makes you fall below the the requirement of your weapon. The same one-handed and two-handed rules apply here. If the weapon you use is one-handed, you only use the lesser broken level of each of your arms - so having a fully broken arm, while the other is fine, will not decrease the strength-level. If the weapon you use is two-handed, both cripple levels are added together.

If one arm is crippled at least to level 2. You will not be able to use two-handed weapons, until healed up. If both arms are crippled to at least level 2, you will not be able to use one-handed weapons, until healed up.

Legs

Having your legs crippled severely reduces the performance of your movement. Each level of leg cripple will lower your AP+ Regeneration by 0.75 Each level of leg cripple increases the chance of having being knockdowned, when rolling against knockdowns by 10%. Each level of leg cripple will increases your Runtime by 100 Runtime (Which effectively lowers your Runspeed of 5Hex/s to 3.3Hex/s) If one leg is crippled at least to level 2. You will not be able to run at all, only walk, until healed up. If both legs are crippled to at least level 2, your character will stop each time after walking 1 hex, requiring you to continuously issue the move command if you want to keep walking.