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.