Critical strike

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A critical strike is a type of hitsplat that may occur in combat. Critical strikes are indicated by a large, bold and italic font. The colour of the hitsplat indicates the combat style used; by default this is orange for melee, green for ranged, blue for magic, and purple for necromancy. If legacy hitsplats are enabled then critical hits are identified by their orange background colour.

The appearance of critical hitsplats can be overridden by the Heroic Crit and Splat Pack, which are purchased from Solomon's General Store.

Mechanics

Critical strike chance

Abilities and attacks have a 10% base critical strike chance, which increases their damage by a variable amount based on critical strike damage. Critical strikes occur regardless of which combat style the player uses. Critical strike chance can be increased by various means listed in this article.

Critical strike damage

Critical strikes deal a fixed percentage of bonus damage determined by the level of the relevent combat stat (Strength, Ranged, Magic, Necromancy), as listed below. Base critical strike damage maxes out at level 90. Note that Strength level influences critical strike damage when using melee (rather than Attack).

Level	Critical strike damage
1	10%
20	15%
30	20%
40	25%
50	30%
60	35%
70	40%
80	45%
90	50%

For example, a hit that would normally deal $2, 000$ damage would increase to $2000 \times 1.5 = 3, 000$ damage if it rolls a critical at level 90.

Critical strike modifiers

Critical strike chance modifiers

Critical strike chance can be increased additively by various means, as listed below. Note that only the critical strike chance effects are shown; potential other effects are omitted.

Type		Critical strike chance increase	Conditions
Perks	Equilibrium	-100%	Removes ability to crit in favor of an 8-14% damage increase.
Perks	Biting	2%-8% (2.2%-8.8%)	2% per rank (2.2% for equipment at level 20).
Equipment	Warpriest of Tuska armour	3%-6%	1% per piece worn (minimum of 3, maximum of 6 pieces).
Equipment	Anima core of Sliske armour	6%	Same as Warpriest of Tuska armour when it inherits its effect and when 3 pieces are worn.
Equipment	Tectonic robe armour	1%-3%	1% per piece worn (maximum of 3 pieces).
Equipment	Elite tectonic robe armour	2%-6%	2% per piece worn (maximum of 3 pieces).
Equipment	Dracolich armour	20%	For 3 - 6.6 seconds after fully channelling Rapid Fire whilst wielding a bow.
Equipment	Elite Dracolich armour	40%	For 3 - 6.6 seconds after fully channelling Rapid Fire whilst wielding a bow.
Equipment	Tumeken's resplendence equipment	1.5%-7.5%	1.5% per piece worn while inside Sunshine
Equipment	Chaotic grimoire	7%	When activated while charged with torn chaotic pages.
Equipment	Erethdor's grimoire	12%	When activated while charged with torn grimoire pages.
Equipment	Reaver's ring	5%	-5% hit chance.
Equipment	Channeller's ring	4-20%	Each hit of a channeled ability has a stacking +4% increase to critical strike chance, so +4% for the first hit, +8% for the second hit, and so on.
Equipment	Champion's ring	3-4%	Against bleeding targets (4% after enchanted by an enchantment of heroism).
Equipment	Stalker's ring	3-4%	When wielding any bow (4% after enchanted by an enchantment of shadows).
Ability	Fury	25%	For the next Melee hit after using Fury.
Ability	Greater Fury	100%	For the next Melee hit after using Greater Fury.
Ability	Shadow Tendrils	100%	Shadow Tendrils is guaranteed to critically strike.
Ability	Smoke Tendrils	100%	All channelled hits of Smoke Tendrils are guaranteed to critically strike.
Ability	Concentrated Blast	5-15% (15-45%)	Each channelled hit increases critical strike chance by 5% for the next Magic attack, including each hit from Concentrated Blast. If empowered by Runic Charge then this increases from 5% per hit to 15% per hit.
Ability	Greater Concentrated Blast	7-21% (17-51%)	Each channelled hit increases critical strike chance by 7% for the next Magic attack, including each hit from Greater Concentrated Blast. If empowered by Runic Charge then this increases from 7% per hit to 17% per hit.
Ability	Wild magic	10%	Wild magic has a 10% increased chance to critically strike.
Special Attack	The Final Flurry	25%-50%	The Final Flurry has 25% increased chance to critically strike for its first 2 hits, and 50% increased chance to critically strike for its 3rd hit.
Familiars	Kal'gerion demon	1%	Passively increased while summoned.
Familiars	Kal'gerion Demon scroll (Crit-i-Kal)	5%	For 60 seconds after using the scroll.
Prayers	Eclipsed Soul	4%	Consumes 150 Prayer points per minute.
Player-owned farm perks	No Fear	20-40%	Only affects Meteor Strike. 20% chance with the tier 1 perk, and 40% with tier 2.

Training dummies when set to Maximum Hit mode will guarantee all eligible abilities to critically strike on the dummy.

Critical strike damage modifiers

Certain boosts outside of levelling one's combat stat affect the damage of critical strikes. These include:

Type		Critical strike damage increase	Conditions
Equipment	Fractured Staff of Armadyl	15-25%	Increases critical strike damage by 15%-25% while equipped.
Equipment	Enchantment of heroism	1.5-6%	Grants additional effects to the champion's ring: increases critical strike chance from 3% to 4% and increases critical strike damage by 1.5% for each bleed affecting the target.
Equipment	Enchantment of metaphysics	2.5-12.5%	Grants an additional effect to the channeller's ring: magic channelled abilities gain 2.5% critical strike damage, increasing by a further 2.5% with each additional hit dealt.
Equipment	Enchantment of shadows	3%	Grants additional effects to the stalker's ring: increases critical strike chance from 3% to 4% and increases critical strike damage by 3% when wielding a bow.
Ability	Wild Magic	20%	Wild magic deals 20% increased critical strike damage.
Special Attack	The Final Flurry	25-50%	The Final Flurry has 25% increased critical strike damage for its first 2 hits, and 50% increased critical strike damage for its 3rd hit.
Buff	Channelled Might	15-35%	After fully channeling asphyxiate, increase critical strike damage by 15% for 3.6 seconds. If 5 pieces of Tumeken's resplendence equipment are worn, instead increased critical strike damage by 35% for 9 seconds.
Debuff	Smoke Cloud	6-15%	Increases critical strike damage by 15% for 120 seconds. 40% effectiveness for non-magic attacks.

Critical strike interactions

Ultimate abilities

The mechanics of ultimate ability Tsunami utilises critical strikes. In the 30 seconds after use, each critical strike dealt, including that of the ability itself, generates 8% adrenaline. This will be doubled to 16% adrenaline gained if under the effects of Natural Instinct in any PvM scenario.

Damage over time abilities

Most damage over time abilities (bleeds, burns, etc.) can never critically strike and are unaffected by all forms of critical strike chance increases. The initial hit of Bloat may critically strike, but the subsequent hits cannot critically strike.

Note that channelled enhanced abilities under the effects of Greater Barge are not considered bleeds and may critically strike.

Player-versus-Player

In PvP situations, critical strike damage has only 20% effectiveness compared to PvM situations. This means critical strike damage increases up to 10% at level 90 when fighting other players.

Necromancy

Necromancy has a few variations in critical strike chance: Conjured spirits are not able to land critical strikes on their target. Death Skulls follows a unique rule in that if the first hit lands as a critical strike, the remaining hits will all critically strike; if the first hit does not critically strike, then the remaining hits do not.

Fractured Staff of Armadyl

The special attack of the Fractured Staff of Armadyl grants the Instability buff for 30 seconds. While this buff is active, landing a Magic critical strike on the primary target will also fire a Lightning Surge, dealing 70%–90% ability damage and landing 1 game tick after the source hit.

Historical

Before the combat update of 4 March 2024, there existed two types of critical strikes. "Natural" critical strikes happened when you rolled above 95% of your max hit, and "forced" critical strikes happened when an ability, item or buff forced a hit to be above 95% of max damage.

Before the Legacy Mode update of 14 July 2014, critical hits functioned via a critical bonus, a probability of how often a player would land a critical hit. There was a separate bonus for each of melee, ranged, and magic, and each bonus could be increased by wearing jewellery, capes, scrimshaws, and certain weapons. These critical bonuses replaced the pre-EoC equipment bonuses (Strength bonus, Ranged strength, and Magic damage).

When a player landed a critical strike, they dealt 100% to 105% of their attack's maximum damage. This applied to both abilities and auto-attacks.

Critical bonuses were changed to damage bonuses with the Legacy Mode update.

Gallery

Magical critical hitsplat
Melee critical hitsplat
Ranged critical hitsplat
Necromancy critical hitsplat

Update history

This information has been compiled as part of the update history project. Some updates may not be included – see here for how to help out!

update 4 March 2024 (Update):
- Critical Strikes
  - Modernised the 'critical strike' system for Melee, Ranged, and Magic.
    - Players now have a base Critical Strike Damage of 10%, increasing with levels up until 50% at level 90.
    - Adjusted the damage of guaranteed critical strike abilities such as Shadow Tendrils and Smoke Tendrils to take into account their extra guaranteed damage.
  - Reduced the adrenaline gain from the critical strike buff from Meteor Strike, Incendiary Shot, and Tsunami to account for the player's additional base critical strike chance:
    - 10% → 8%
- Damage Hit Cap
  - Damage cap: 10,000 → 30,000
  - Removed and replaced several effects from items that affected the hit cap or were affected by the hit cap as they were no longer relevant.

hidden 7 August 2023 (Update):
- The biting perk now works with the Warpriest of Tuska armour set effect.

patch 6 December 2021 (Update):
- Fixed an issue that was reducing forced critical strike damage by 1.