Crit power sucks for every class that isnât bounty hunter. When you take the time to think about how high your crit % is, which is very hard to conclusively state since Rotund Fishy is allergic to even the idea of any transparency at all, it is such a miniscule dps boost itâs almost comical. Your crit chance % likely wonât go past 20-25% if you get 5% on your weapon, charm, and trinket. Again, bounty hunter is the exception to this, and can expect to crit 1/4 of a horde every 10 seconds if using volley bow.
Crits are also almost completely out of your control. Theyâre rng by nature, so relying on them is a very bad idea. So letâs assume you get 5% crit on your weapon, charm, and trinket. Most classes have a 5% crit talent as well. Most weapons, according to what Iâve been able to find online, have a 5% base crit chance, some are 10% but an overwhelming majority are still 5%. Outside of very specific talents/passive, such as the witch hunter captainâs +8% crit chance on a taggable enemies death or Huntsmanâa passive aura, that 20-25% is the absolute max obtainable for most classes. And that assumes you can roll +5%Crit chance with any other half decent property in not just 1 or even 2 slots, but 3.
So, 20-25% crit chance is as high as you can realistically expect. That means 1 out of every 5 hits SHOULD crit , but itâs still not guaranteed. On weapons, meleeor ranged, the same slots that can roll crit chance can also roll crit power, which caps at 20% per item. Assuming you get a flawless roll on both your ranged/melee and charm, or possibly all 3, youâre looking at a cap of +40% crit power for most classes. Some can invest another talent point and boost that up to 60-65%ish i think. I know there used to be an issue with the way crit damage was calculated that made Crit power entirely worthless, but as far as I know they changed the formula to fix that. The formula still isnât 1:1 though, so your +40% crit power isnât making your crits do 40% more damage. After taking armor reduction, weapon crit multipliers, and a whole host of other things, including the way Vermintide 2 determines damage, it comes out to be significantly less. I canât claim to know the actual formulas used, but Iâve read posts made by folks much more knowledgeable on V2 damage calculations than I will ever be, and they all came to the same conclusion, given that crits are random, the damage formula used by v2, and the fact both your crit chance and crit power are both on the same slots so good luck getting that roll on both your weapon(s), unless youâre using one of the few classes with talents to further boost either or both, youâre looking at a best case scenario along the lines of every 5th hit or so being boosted by not quite 40% power depending on what youâre critting.
That makes 40% crit power, assuming rng decides to work in your favor perfectly, a, roughly 8% overall dps bump. Now the inevitable question, what are you critting that isnât dying in 1 hit and would that extra damage even do anything to help? Most things you would want to be able to 1shot crit, without the proper +damage vs, are simply not possible to 1shot crit using crit power instead of damage vs. Chaos warriors and hookrats will laugh in skaven at you. Do you really need +40% crit power to 1 shot zombies or slave rats though? Itâs not like you can kill them twice or make them extra dead. Unless you have ungodly luck you will not be critting every 5 hits either, so that already underwhelming 16% theoretical dps boost that you used 5 item properties, or more if doing both ranged and melee, and potentially a talent point or two to get turns out to be closer to like 12% in practice. Letâs even take talents out of the picture. Somehow you hit 25% crit chance without wasting a single talent point, which is not possible to the best of my knowledge but letâs say it is.
5 item properties for something in the neighbourhood of a 12-16% dps boost, (
which assumes none of your crits were âwastedâ either, ie the thing you critted would have died anyway from your next hit even if it wasnât a crit,) is a HORRIBLE deal. For those 5 properties you could have gotten +5% Crit chance/+10% damage vs chaos/+5% atk speed on your melee weapon, +10% vs chaos/armored/infantry/+5% attack speed on your ranged and charm, and hopefully not had to do anything with your trinket since +5%Crit chance/+33% curse resistance was and still is probably best in slot.
Do you know what the game classifies as infantry? Itâs literally every non boss, non armored, non berserker enemy there is. All of them, both chaos and skaven. Infantry account for like 90% of all enemies (thatâs just not the actual %, I havenât the faintest idea what real % of enemies you face are infantry, but it gets the point across that infantry account for an overwhelming majority of all enemies on any given map on any difficulty.) Anything that isnât a boss, a hookrat, or infantry is armored, which is probably equally as worthwhile as +power vs chaos since it accounts for Chaos warriors, storm vermin, mailers, and the weird specials like the gunner, who for whatever reason is wearing armor. If you give up crit power and are willing to sacrafice 5% Crit chance for a flat +10% power vs the world then +power vs infantry and armored is probably the best roll you could ask for on a charm.
+Power vs chaos is also amazing since the list of weapons that cannot 1 shot a chaos zombie on legend without +power vs is huge, and being able to easily and safely deal with chaos hordes, that probably contain a surprise berserker or 12 as well as a handful of chaos warriors who are shockingly light on their feet, is worth a slot or two on your gear somewhere. Infantry and armored, imo, are slightly better as they are not useless against 1/2 the enemies you face. Now, if you truly donât care about hitting breakpoints, by sacrificing 5% crit chance on just your charm youâve made yourself +10% more powerful vs all the things. For melee you can ditch crit power for +5% attack speed, another property that is useful at all times and in all situations, or further invest in +power vs chaos. Personally, i find most classes get more out of swift slaying and +5% attack speed than +power vs chaos since that means youâll be hitting more enemies in hordes and out and therefore critting more often causing more frequent procs of swift slaying etc etc, it snowballs really well is the point. Ranged is harder to generalize. It depends entirely on your role in the team and your weapon, but any +power vs other than skaven or berserkers will boost your damage significantly more than +Crit power would have.
You can also tweak things from there as needed. Playing slayer a ton? Grab a +10% power vs chaos/armored charm, consider dropping the attack speed on dual axes for +power vs chaos, and then massacre them almost instantaneously even on legend. Rocking a spear handmaiden focusing on wave clear/horde control? Ditch the attack speed for probably +2stamina on melee and grab a +power vs infantry/chaos charm then push stab nonstop across the entire map. You get the idea. Even if you donât care about breakpoints ditching +Crit power for power vs will make your life, not to mention your teams lives, much, much easier. You donât need to completely min-max all your setups. Just knowing what to shoot for and what sounds way better than it actually is, on even a basic level, is important for all legend players.
Now for the exceptions! Obviously bounty hunter is a special case. His passive means you crit every 10 seconds and after every single individual melee kill. That alone would make crit power exponentially better on him than probably any other class. Thatâs before realizing his volley crossbow will crit whatever is hit by the 3 arrow salvo, meaning, before even considering what that crit means for his ranged cleave ie piercing, youâre already potentially getting 3x as many crits from the 3 separate projectiles. In a horde itâll go through stupid numbers of enemies. Crit power on bounty hunter is, at bare minimum 3x more powerful than on any other class while simultaniously removing one of the biggest downsides of running Crit power focused setup, the fickle whims of RNG since his crits are 100% guarenteed every 10 seconds or on demand via melee kills.
I also think shade is an exception as the first hit during infiltrate is a guarenteed critical and shade has actually viable dual wield weapons like the dual swords. And yes, both swords will crit if you do a charged attack during infiltrate. Resourceful combatant is also super strong on shade for the same reasons. If you run the glaive instead of dual swords, dual daggers, or sword and dagger, then crit power, along with resourceful combatant, lose a lot of value. Youâre probably better off running attack speed where you can , swift slaying, and crit chance while stacking as much +power vs armored and chaos as you can possibly get.
Witch hunter captain is another interesting case. He has talents that cause crit headshots to instagib man sized enemies while also having a talent that gives the entire team +8% crit for a few seconds whenever a taggable enemy dies and having his career skill boost crit chance by an absurd amount for 8 seconds. With a rapier and proper stats you will crit probably as often as a bounty hunter, which would make crit power super valuable for him if not for that other passive that causes man sized enemies to instagib on crit headshots. Crit power loses almost all its value since the rapier will just murder almost everything instantly for 8 seconds every 40 seconds or so due to your 50% or so crit chance. More often if you ditch swift slaying for resourceful combatant.
Wow that was longer than intended! TLDR; No, outside of select few builds/classes, crit power is so much weaker than +power vs x+crit %+atk speed. Itâs not even close, crit power is just bad compared to other options, even ignoring breakpoints!
Even swift slaying doesnât work on everything.
for the length.