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Critical hit chance (abbreviated as CC or ChC) is one of the most powerful and popular item modifiers in the game. Items and skills that grand Critical hit Chance increase a character's chance to score a critical hit, which causes an attack to deal bonus damage. Not only does this greatly increase the damage output, but many procs trigger off Critical Hits, making a substantial value in this stat essential for many of the more popular builds in the game.
Critical Chance and Damage basics
Critical Hit Chance and Damage are displayed atop the Character window.
Brand new characters of any class deal 5% critical hit chance at 50% critical hit damage. This figure can be raised by various skills and items, and boosting these values is one of the best ways to improve a character's damage in Diablo 3. Characters geared for success in the end game look for at least 30% ChC, and well-geared characters generally exceed 40-50%. Much higher values are possible.
A balance should be sought between the figures; high CD without much CC is a wasted opportunity, as is very high CC with little CD (though high CC can be useful simply to keep the procs clicking, aside from dealing damage.) The basic guideline is 40% / 400%, though well-geared characters usually exceed 500% CD.
Critical Hit Chance from Items
Critical hit chance can be obtained from numerous item types, and the modifier is among the most sought in he game. The following item types can roll CC on Magical, Rare, or as the random affix on Legendary/Set items:
- Amulets: 1-10% CC
- Gloves: 1-10% CC
- Rings: 1-6% CC x2
- Helms: 1-6% CC
- Bracers: 1-6% CC
- Off-hand (shields, quivers, mojos, and sources): 1-10% CC
Total: 54% from these items, if all were perfect seeds.
A number of legendary items provide CC from other item slots, or from partial item set bonuses, allowing characters to accumulate higher totals.
A number of legendary items of the above types have some inherent value of CC that will always appear on that item. Such items can not roll additional CC from their random modifiers, so the values will never stack higher than the above figures.
Paragon Points can also be spent to add additional critical hit chance, at the rate of .1% per point, for a maximum of 5% from 50 points.
Critical hit Chance by Class
The classes vary widely in the amount of Critical hit Chance they can add with skills. For instance, Barbarians can easily add 5% from Ruthless and 15% from Weapons Master, while Monks don't have any CC boosting skills at all.
The amount of CC required to succeed varies with character classes and builds, but 40%/400% is a good guideline for new players to aspire to. Well-geared characters will generally exceed those values, and should add in as much elemental damage as possible, to increase damage output exponentially.
As of January 9, 2013, the highest CC figures for skills + equipment (verified by Diablo3Ladders.com) were:
- Barbarians: 86.5%
- Demon Hunter: 100% (Via the Sharpshooter passive.)
- 77.0% seems to be the highest Demon Hunter without Sharpshooter.
- Monk: 61.0%
- Witch Doctors: 58.5%
- Wizards: 69.0%