Critical strike Critical strike ( often abbreviated as " crit " or " crit strike " ) refers to 100 % bonus physical damage ( twice your normal damage ) that occurs as a result of an attack made with melee or ranged weapons . The chance to critical strike can be viewed in the character pane under melee stats and is affected by agility , critical strike rating , and talent s . It is constrated with Critical Strike Rating , which ( as of patch 3 . 0 . 2 ) affects melee , ranged and spells . Some classes have talents that increase the amount of bonus damage for critical strikes or talents that increase their critical strike rating . Attacks made by mobs can not result in a blocked critical strike , but this can result on a player attack . It can also be viewed by opening the spell book and mousing over the " attack " ability . Notable about critical strikes is that any non - spell attack on a sitting target will always result with a critical hit ( taking into the account that you are more vulnerable sitting or lying down than you are standing face - to - face with your enemy ) . In Warlords of Draenor . The base chance to critically strike is now 5 % for all classes . There are no longer different chances to critically strike with melee , ranged , and spells . Critical Damage and Critical Heals in PvP combat now deal 150 % of the normal spell / ability effects ( down from 200 % ) . In Mists of Pandaria . All spells and abilities will crit for double damage , baseline . There are a few exceptions where crits can get larger , but the default is x 2 . 0 for everyone . Critical Strike Rating . Critical Strike Rating is a combat rating found on gear , enchants , and gems . As of Patch 3 . 0 . 2 , Critical Strike Rating affects melee , ranged , and spells . As of Patch 6 . 2 . 3 , it takes approximately 17 . 7 rating to gain 1 % critical strike at level 80 . Before the stat squish , it took approximately 22 . 08 rating to increase your critical strike chance by 1 % at level 70 . Attack Rating and Defense . Mobs which are the same level as you always have a 5 % chance to crit . A mob ' s or player ' s crit chance is modified by the difference between the attacker ' s Attack Rating and the defender ' s Defense . The attack rating equals the skill with the currently equipped weapon ( WS = Weapon Skill ) , being level * 5 for mobs and the same for player chars with maximum weapon skill . Each point of AR exceeding the target ' s Defense will increase chance to crit by 0 . 04 % . This table assumes a player attacking either a mob or another player : Example : Level 70 player at maximum weapon skill against boss mob ( level 73 ) . Mob ' s crit chance against player : 5 % + 0 , 04 % * ( 365 - 350 ) = 5 , 6 % Player ' s crit chance against mob : tooltip crit chance - 0 , 2 % * ( 365 - 350 ) = tooltip crit chance - 3 % Agility . The agility you need to acquire 1 % critical hit chance depends on your class and level . Keep in mind everyone has a base crit of 5 % from agility . Only agility on gear adds to the base of 5 % . Ex . If a level 80 paladin has 161 agility ( 90 base agility and 71 from gear ) the crit chance from agility will be 5 % + 71 / 52 . 08 = 6 . 36 % . Effect of increased crit or hit chance . Both increased hit and crit chance have a kind of " diminishing returns " mechanic built in . A 1 % increase of either stat will not increase the total damage output by 1 % , but usually by a little less . Consider the following Attack table : Now the same calculation with 26 % crit chance : We increased the total damage output by 1 % of the base damage . Since the total output is more than 100 % of that base damage , the actual increase in total damage output is " only " 0 . 93 % . If the total output is significantly greater than the base damage , this percentage will be smaller , if the total output is below the base damage , the resulting increase will even be higher than 1 % . What ' s better , + hit or + crit ? In principle they are equal . Which is better depends on circumstances . An increase in hit rate will usually yield a constant level of damage , whereas a high crit chance gives a spiky , more random damage distribution over time . An important factor is whether there are procs related to either hits or critical hits . Also , both ratings have caps ( which are not fixed to a certain % but rather depend on multiple factors such as hit chance , enemy ' s level and defense rating ) . To hit can only be used to counter the base chance to miss ( 5 % for one or two - hand users without any off - hand weapon , and 24 % for dualwielders ) , whereas the crit chance cannot become higher than available space for hit chance . If a dual wielder attacks a target with a high chance to dodge or parry the attacker can lose crit chance because the attack table is full . ( See the " Crit Cap " section below . ) For example , a dual wield in a raid , attacking from behind , with a 0 chance to hit , you have a maximum critical chance of 40 % . Any additional critical chance increase is wasted . This number might seem high but take into consideration talents , potions , buffs , procs and skills that increase your crit rate to 50 % or more , these are wasted . From a raiding perspective , your miss chance increases by 3 % ( so 8 % and 27 % - base of 8 % for special attacks ) and increasing your Hit to at the very least cover your Special attacks is seen as more beneficial than increasing your Critical chance . After you have hit that level , you can focus more heavily on Critical Chance . Crit cap . White - damage attacks made by a player with fully - trained weapon skill against a mob 3 levels higher have a fixed 24 % chance of being glancing blows . Therefore , with no + expertise / + hit gear on , and no talents or racial abilities that increase Expertise or the chance to hit , attacks made by a level 80 dual wield er against a level 83 mob have the following table from the front : Attacks against mobs made from the back cannot be blocked or parried ( thus , attacking from behind will never trigger " parry haste " on the mob ) . Losing those values from the chart makes the " combined hit + crit " entry appropriately larger . " Players " cannot dodge , parry , or block attacks from the back . It is not as bad if the same character attacks the same mob from the front with a two - handed weapon : This is a 40 % + your + hit + 2x your Expertise bonus crit cap . Finally , consider attacking the mob from the rear , where the mob cannot block or parry : All these crit caps could have been increased by increasing your Expertise ( 0 . 5 % increase per point from the front , 0 . 25 % increase per point from the rear ) and by + hit ( 1 % increase per percantage increase in your Hit chance ) . Dual wield full raid buffs example from the front : Dual wield full raid buffs example from the back : DPS Implications . Hit Rating is very important due to the crit cap . The following shows the difference in white damage between various stat options : Enhancers that affect critical strike . Various items can be added to your equipment ( or imbibed ) to increase your chance to critically hit . Abilities and traits that affect critical strike . Racial abilities . Some races have racial abilities which increase the critical strike chance with certain weapons by 1 % :