Crit. Power
| Crit. Power | |
|---|---|
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| Type | Mechanic |
Crit. Power is the Combat statistic that decides how hard a critical strike lands. A critical hit with none of the stat behind it already triples the damage of the swing, and every point of Crit. Power stretches that multiplier further. The stat travels with the weapon rather than the farmer, so picking it up means choosing a blade that carries it, forging Jades into one, or wearing a Jade Ring. It only pays off when critical hits actually happen, which makes it the natural partner of Crit. Chance and the reason the two stats appear together on the same handful of daggers and clubs.
Overview
The multiplier climbs in an orderly way. Fifty points of the stat add a whole extra multiple, so a weapon with fifty of them quadruples its damage on a critical hit instead of tripling it. A quarter of that, twenty-five points, is worth half a multiple. That steady rate is why the late-game numbers look so extreme: two hundred points on a single weapon push a critical hit to seven times the base damage of the swing.
The weapons that carry the stat fall into clear tiers. The Obsidian Edge, the Yeti Tooth and the Wind Spire carry a small amount and lift a critical hit only slightly. The Steel Falchion and the Lava Katana sit above them, and the Lava Katana in particular pairs that bonus with real armour, which makes it a comfortable mines weapon rather than a specialist. The Dragontooth family and the Kudgel all carry fifty points and reach the fourfold mark. The Dragontooth Shiv doubles that, and the Iridium Needle stands alone with four times as much again, making up for its modest plain damage range.
Three things add Crit. Power to gear a farmer already owns. The Jade Ring raises the stat by a tenth, which behaves as a separate multiplier layered over the weapon's own figure, so two of them stack. Feeding Jades into the Forge raises the weapon's natural Crit. Power directly, and a melee weapon can take up to three forgings. A Dragon Tooth enchantment on a lower-level weapon can also roll a large innate Crit. Power bonus, which is one of the best outcomes that set of enchantments offers.
The Desperado profession is the multiplier on top of all the others. It doubles the damage of a critical strike outright, which means every point of Crit. Power is worth twice as much to a farmer who took Scout at the middle of the Combat skill and Desperado at the top. Stacking a high-power dagger, a pair of Jade Rings, an innate enchantment and Desperado produces single hits in the thousands, far beyond anything a non-critical build reaches. The catch is that those hits only arrive as often as Crit. Chance allows, so the stat is wasted on a weapon that rarely crits at all.
Choosing between the two routes comes down to temperament. A Ruby-forged Infinity Blade or Infinity Dagger delivers near-identical damage on every swing and clears a floor at a predictable pace. A critical build is streakier: when the rolls land the monster dies instantly, and when they do not the weapon's low base damage shows. The bigger multipliers earn their keep against the serpents and armoured monsters of the Skull Cavern, where a single hit still leaves a target standing.
Notes
Jade is worth keeping for this reason alone. It comes out of the frozen middle floors of The Mines in quantity, and a farmer who banks it early has the gems for both the ring and the forgings long before the Volcano Dungeon is open.
Forged gems can be taken back out. Unforging a weapon strips the Jades and returns part of the Cinder Shards, so a weapon built for critical damage can be rebuilt around flat damage or speed if the critical rolls prove too unreliable.
All Mechanics
Every entry in this group, with its key details.
