Changes

==Critical Hits in Diablo III==

Exactly how critical hits work and how much damage they deal isn't yet entirely understood. This is partially due to the fact that the game remains under development and that the features are in flux, but it's also due to critical hits doing a lot of different things in D3. In previous games in the series critical hits were simple; they doubled physical damage. In D3, the biggest change is that critical hits work on all types of damage. Not just physical, or melee, but various types of spell damage as well, and apparently they can trigger from elemental damage on weapons as well.

The calculation of the bonuses is going to be interesting as well. In D1 and D2, critical hits were a huge bonus, since doubled the total physical damage dealt; a value that was often in the 1000s for a powerful combat character. In D3 critical hits will still (apparently) be that powerful for the Barbarian, but critical hits on spell damage would seem to be far less potent, since spells generally deal their damage over time, rather than in huge chunks per hit. Occasionally adding 10% to the critical hit damage of a 1-6 damage spell isn't very impressive, even if the spell is hitting 20x a second. A wizard would seem better off boosting the % chance of scoring a critical hit.

===Critical Deaths===

Monsters that die to a critical hit get a special "critical death" animation, which is extra gory. The monsters literally explode, leaving chunks of themselves scattered across the ground. These animations are customized for whatever type of damage killed them; the chunks have flames licking across them from fire damage, sparks and arcs from lightning, etc. Physical damage critical deaths tend to leave huge slicks of blood, and give a battlefield a lovely post-massacre patina.

These were demonstrated during a panel at Blizzcon 2008, an excerpt from which [http://www.gametrailers.com/player/41498.html can be seen here].

==Types of damage and effects==

Critical hits are a major part of the game in Diablo III, dealing double damage with every type of damage, inflicting bonus effects, boosting and being boosted by a wide variety of skills, and triggering special (extra gruesome) death animations.

* '''Lightning Damage: '''Critical hits from lightning damage stun targets for 2 seconds.

* '''Toxic Damage:''' Critical hits from toxic (poison) damage have an unknown bonus. Extra damage over time?

==Critical Hit Skills==

This is a partial list, since the game is still under development and skill descriptions and functions are bound to evolve over time. Looking at what sorts of skills add or otherwise interact with critical hits can be illustrative, though.

===Barbarian===

The Barbarian has a number of skills that increase the % damage of his critical hit, and a few interesting skills that boost other properties (such as fury generation rate and defense) when he scores critical hits. There aren't any known skills (yet) that increase his chances to score critical hits, though.

====Juggernaut Skills====

====Battlemaster Skills====

* [[Battlemaster_Skill_Tree#Deliberate_Defense|Deliberate Defense]]. "On a critical hit, +10% armor for 15 seconds." This skill is a sign of how integral Blizzard wants to make critical hits to the game. This one boosts the defense when a critical hit is scored. It would seem to directly incentivize standing toe to toe with enemies and smacking them in the face; the more critical hits you score, the less likely they are to hit you back.

====Berserker Skills====

* [[Berserker_Skill_Tree#Savage|Savage]]: This passive skill "Increases Fury generation 30% for 8 seconds after scoring a critical hit."

===Witch Doctor===

===Wizard===

====Arcane Skill====

No skills in this tree listed bonuses related to critical hits as of October 2008.

====Conjuring Skill====

No skills in this tree listed bonuses related to critical hits as of October 2008.

====Storm Skills====

* [[Storm_Skill_Tree#Lethal_Energy|Lethal Energy]]: Increases the chance to score critical hits with melee and spell attacks. Grants a 5% bonus at rank 1. This seems like a very powerful skill, if it indeed works for all spells, including those in other trees. It's a fairly high level skill though, and would require a substantial investment into the Storm skill tree to enable it, but it might still be worth it.

==Diablo III Critical Hit Items==

Nothing is yet known about this. It seems likely that bonuses to the damage and/or likelihood of critical hits will be found on equipment, but how common or rare such bonuses will be remains totally unknown. It's certainly something the D3 Team will work on during development and balancing.

==Diablo I and II Critical Hits==

Critical hits in Diablo II were a major factor in the game, but only worked with physical damage. Critical strike was called "[http://diablo2.diablowiki.net/Special_Modifiers#Deadly_Strike Deadly Strike]" on weapons, where it occurred on quite a few unique items, set items, and runewords. (But not magical or rare.) A number of character skills boosted critical strike as well. All of the [http://diablo2.diablowiki.net/Barbarian_Combat_Masteries Barbarian's weapon masteries] conveyed critical strike bonuses, as did the [http://diablo2.diablowiki.net/Amazon_Passive_and_Magic_Skills#Critical_Strike Amazon's Critical Strike], and the Assassin's [http://diablo2.diablowiki.net/Assassin_Shadow_Disciplines#Claw_Mastery Claw Mastery].

In Diablo I critical hits are a hidden bonus for the [http://diablo2.diablowiki.net/Warrior#Stats_and_Attributes Warrior] and [http://diablo2.diablowiki.net/Barbarian_(Diablo_I)#Stats_and_Attributes Barbarian] characters. They gain a 1% chance to deal double damage with each Clvl they gain. At level 20 they deal double damage 20% of the time, at level 30 they do it 30% of the time, etc.