How Critical Hits and Crit Chance Work In Borderlands 4

What happens on a Crit?

In Borderlands 4, when you hit an enemy's Weak Spot, regardless of your weapon, your hit will result in a Crit and receive the Critical Modifier, which is the equivalent of 100% added Gun Damage.

• Critical Hits achieved through Crit Chance effects on non-weak spot hits will also receive this 100% added Gun Damage.
• Asher's Rise is an exception to this, but not really relevant.

BUT! There's something else that is also added to that 100% sometimes.

Introducing... Weapon Card Crit

When we inspect a weapon in Borderlands 4, we get to see a few extra details of its boosts like, for example, Splash Radius and... Critical Damage.

This is commonly referred to as 'Card Crit', or 'Gear Crit'.

So, what happens on a Critical Hit when a weapon also has a Gear Crit boost?

When you hit an enemy Weak Spot, a Crit happens like normal and the previously mentioned Critical Modifier will apply.

When the weapon has a displayed Gear Crit stat, that number will also be added to the 100%! In the case of this Complex Root we have, the boost is effectively turned into 167%.

However...

Critical Hits achieved through Crit Chance effects on non-weak spot hits will NOT receive Gear Crit boosts.

Critical Hits achieved through Crit Chance effects on non-weak spot hits WILL receive (most) Skill Tree Crit Damage boosts.

So, let's exemplify!

Please don't make me aim?

Let's get a Truck Sniper Rifle. This one:

Take note of that 9515 Base Damage and 146% Gear Crit!

Now, let's get a Vex and spec Target Prescience, with no other boosts at at all, and try this out.

• This can also be an Amon with Catastrophe, for example. Any Crit Chance will serve!

Non-Weak Spot, Non-Crit Hit

• This might be commonly referred to as a 'Body Shot', however to cover for the existence of Weak Spots that are not an enemy's head, we shall use the above naming.

On a non-weak spot non-crit hit, we get the 9515 correctly reported back to us as Damage Dealt.

Weak Spot, Crit Hit

Here we should expect the following:

• 9515 x (Critical Modifier + Gear Crit) = Damage Dealt
• 9515 x (2 + 1.46) = Damage Dealt
• 9515 x (3.46) = Damage Dealt
• Damage Dealt = 32913

And that checks out!

Non-Weak Spot, Crit Hit

This is where one might expect the Critical Hit to behave identically to its Weak Spot variant, but what the game actually reports back to us is:

• 9515 x (Critical Modifier) = Damage Dealt
• 9515 x (2) = Damage Dealt
• Damage Dealt = 19030

This lets us conclude that Gear Crit is not applied on Critical Hits achieved through Crit Chance effects, such as Target Prescience, Catastrophe and Gun Critical Hit Chance on Class Mods.

Non-Weak Spot, Crit Hit, Skill Tree Crit Damage

So, we will now spec Vorpal Fiends (25% Skill Tree Crit Damage), and repeat the last test. The behavior reported back to us is:

• 9515 x [Critical Modifier + (2 x Crit Skill)] = Damage Dealt
• 9515 x [2 + (2 x 0.25)] = Damage Dealt
• Damage Dealt = 23787.5

This lets us conclude that the Skill Tree Crit Damage from Vorpal Fiends is applied on Critical Hits achieved through Crit Chance effects, such as Target Prescience, Catastrophe and Gun Critical Hit Chance on Class Mods.

In Conclusion...

Even with this knowledge, Investing in Crit Chance is not a bad idea at all.

Some general tips are:

1. When using weapons that have a high Gear Crit modifier, you should remember that to make the most of them you should aim for Weak Spots. However...
2. Gear Crit modifiers are essentially additive to Gun Damage and many other modifiers. This means they get increasingly less impactful to your overall DPS the more Gun Damage and other generally additive-to-each-other modifiers you have.
3. Crit Chance can be used to trigger specific weapon/gear or skill effects more frequently, like Undead Eye's. Even in the worst of cases, it is still a fallback to your damage.

One way to think of Crit Chance is as a boost to your Body Shot DPS:

• 5% Crit Chance, for example, will over time average out the the same as 5% Gun Damage. You trade a bit of peak damage in exchange for more burst and skill/effect trigger synergy.

1. Most Skill Tree Crit Damage sources WILL apply to Critical Hits achieved through Crit Chance.

• The Killer Specialization node is treated the same as Skill Tree Crit Damage, and will apply.
• The Infernal Sum skill is treated like Gear Crit in terms of formula, but still applies.

2. The A Honed Mind specialization can be used on gunshots through skills like Blood Shot and Dragon's Breath. It will be treated as Gear Crit, yet WILL apply even on Critical Hits achieved through Crit Chance when using those skills.

• This is likely due to Blood Shot and Dragon's Breath being Skills, and not exactly a "gun shot".

3. The Critical Hits enabled by the infamous 'Crit Knife' Jakobs Grenade are also treated as Crit Chance crits, meaning they will not benefit from Gear Crit.

4. The Deadeye firmware's Critical Damage (from the 2/3 and 3/3 effects) is treated like Gear Crit, and will not apply to Critical Hits achieved though Crit Chance.

• However, any Critical Hit will stack the 3/3 effect of the firmware, even though the damage boost will only apply to the Weak Spot Crits.