Bash ‘Em with PoE Increased Critical Strikes

By | April 3rd, 2018 | Categories: Path of Exile

High damage is great and all, but in most RPGs it’s not enough on its own to carry the day. You need that extra oomph to put your enemies in the ground fast before they have a chance to do the same to you. Path of Exile (PoE) is no exception, and you can get the extra power you need from the Increased Critical Strike Support Gem. By placing this support gem in your gear, you’ll be shredding your enemies’ life points like tissue paper! Let’s dive into PoE Increased Critical Strikes.

What is a Critical Strike?

In RPGs like Path of Exile, a critical strike is an attack that deals extra damage beyond a character’s base damage from stats and equipped items. Anytime an ability that can land a critical strike is used, there is a chance that it will crit instead of dealing damage in the normal range. Whether a crit is landed in PoE is determined on a skill-use basis, not a target basis. This means that if you use a multi-target ability and roll a critical strike, all enemies affected by the ability will suffer a critical hit, not just a single enemy.

When dealing with weapon attacks, the weapon itself will list a base critical strike chance, which affects attacks using that weapon and only attacks using that weapon. Spells, on the other hand, have their own inherent base critical strike chance, which is unaffected by the critical strike chance of the weapon used to cast the spell. You can increase the base critical hit chance of weapon and spell attacks with the Increased Critical Strike Support Gem. In addition, if you can find weapons with higher base critical hit chances, and apply Increased Critical Strike Support Gems to these, you will see your critical strike chance really skyrocket.

What is the Increased Critical Strike Support Gem?

As its name suggests, the Increased Critical Strike Support gem boosts the critical strike chance of any skill linked to it. A nice feature of this gem is that it stacks with other critical strike chance modifiers. However, an extremely important caveat is that this support gem will have no effect on skills that have no inherent chance to critically strike. Therefore, you can’t use an Increased Critical Strike Support Gem to make a curse able to critically strike. However, if a totem, trap, mine, or the like can critically strike, then linking an Increased Critical Strike Support Gem to the skill that creates the totem, trap, or mine will increase their critical strike chances. Level one Increased Critical Strike Support Gems provide a 50% increased chance to critically hit, while a level 30 Gem provides an additional 108% chance to critically hit. That’d be a lot of crits.

Where to Get Increased Critical Strike Support Gems

If you want to start landing chains of devastating critical strikes, then the first thing you have to do is actually acquire this Support Gem. Witches, Shadows, Rangers, and Scions can buy Increased Critical Strike Support Gems from Nessa after ‘The Caged Brute’ in Act 1. Every other class can buy the Gem from Siosa after completing ‘A Fixture of Fate’ in Act 3. Lilly Roth will also offer Increased Critical Strike Support Gems to all classes after ‘Fallen from Grace’ in Act 6.

Other Important Things to Keep in Mind Regarding Critical Strikes

In addition to your critical strike chance, there are other elements that affect your ability to land a critical strike, as well as the amount of that crit. The first auxiliary element is Accuracy. Your Accuracy determines your chance of hitting with certain attacks at all. When rolling for a critical hit on an accuracy-dependent ability, an additional accuracy check will be made. If you fail your accuracy check, you’ll only deal a normal hit, instead of a critical. Therefore, a poor accuracy will reduce the overall frequency of critical strikes dealt.

All players should also be aware of their critical strike multiplier. The critical strike multiplier determines precisely how much more than normal damage your critical hit will deal. The default critical strike multiplier is 150%. Just as you can increase critical strike chance with an Increased Critical Strike Support Gem, you can increase your critical damage multiplier, too. If you are sure to raise your critical strike multiplier along with your critical strike chance, then you’ll be on your way to dealing truly earth-shattering damage.

Finally, be aware that increasing your critical strike chance also increases your chance of applying elemental effects. This is because the elemental effects of ignite (fire damage), freeze (cold damage), and shock (lightning damage) are applied to enemies upon landing a critical hit. If your build relies on the application of these status effects, then you’ll want to ensure that you have a high critical strike chance.

Conclusion

Critical hits can make the difference between an ordinary exile and a damage-dealing powerhouse with the potential to tame Wraeclast. And, if you want to land more critical hits, then you’re going to need a higher critical hit chance. The surest way to increase your chance to critically hit is by putting Increased Critical Strike Support Gems in your gear. If you also maintain a high accuracy, boost your critical hit multiplier, and periodically upgrade your weapons to ones with a higher base critical hit chance, then you’ll be one of the most feared forces on the battlefield, and will be able to clear content like nobody’s business!

For more PoE, check this out: The Best PoE Class for Bestiary League

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