Critical Hit
Critical Hits are a recurring feature of the Dragon Quest series.
Function
Every time any character makes an attack, they have a small chance of that attack being a "Critical Hit," which drastically increases the damage dealt on that particular turn. Since critical hits ignore defence, it makes them an instant kill on all metal monsters, provided the monster does not dodge the critical hit. Weapons that strike multiple times, such as the Falcon Knife Earrings, can strike critically but weapons that strike multiple targets cannot (Flails, Whips, Boomerangs).
However, many monsters also can get critical hits, usually termed a terrific blow, brutal hit, or desperate attack.
Appearances
Dragon Quest & Dragon Quest II: Luminaries of the Legendary Line
The critical hit rate is fixed at 1⁄64.
Dragon Quest III: The Seeds of Salvation & Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen
Martial Artists and Tsarevna Alena have rate depends on their level, being calculated as Level/256. The cap is level 64, with a rate of 25%.
In the Nintendo DS and cell phone versions of IV, Alena's critical hit rate was tweaked to (Level x 0.75)/256. In the Nintendo DS version, the effect stops at level 64 still, making her critical rate cap at 18.75%; however, the phone version raises the cap to level 89, granting her a rate of 26.07% - provided, of course, the player is willing to raise her that high.
Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride
The critical hit rate returns to 1⁄64 and cannot be improved.
Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation & Dragon Quest VII: Fragments of the Forgotten Past
Characters have the standard 1⁄64 rate unless they become martial artists at Alltrades Abbey. After taking up the art of the fist, the character's rank in the vocation will improve their chance to land a critical until they hit the cap of 1⁄8 at rank 8. This gives a party of martial artists a 50% chance to score a critical when using normal attacks and single-target skills that utilizes their strength stat.
- Paladins have a similar vocation trait, in that they have a chance to instantly slay a target based on rank. Though this will not work on boss monsters, it will still slay metal slimes at a 1⁄8 rate when mastered.
Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King
A character will double their critical hit rate to 1⁄32 after investing enough skill points in the appropriate section. Yangus can raise his rate to 1⁄8 by equipping the Megaton hammer
Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies
Beginning in Dragon Quest IX and carrying forwards to X and Heroes, the frequency of critical hits became dependent on a character's deftness.
For IX, the algorithm is Deftness/100 + 3% (with weapon skill trait boost). Wearing the Critical Acclaim will add another 4%, and thus the maximum rate is 16.99% at 999 deftness. The natural, unbolstered rates for each vocation are:
- Ranger: 500 -> 5%
- Thief: 402 -> 4%
- Minstrel: 304 -> 3%
- Mage: 304 -> 3%
- Luminary: 259 -> 2.5%
- Gladiator: 256 -> 2.5%
- Martial Artist: 256 -> 2.5%
- Priest: 206 -> 2%
- Warrior: 111 -> 1%
- Armamentalist: 110 -> 1%
- Sage: 57 -> 0.5%
- Paladin: 9 -> 0.09%
Dragon Quest X
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Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age
Every 200 points of deftness increases the critical hit chance by 1%, leading to a natural cap of 5%. Skill panel, pep boosts and equipment bonuses can raise this chance even further.
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Critical Hits are a unique trait to Hero's moveset in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. His Smash Attacks have a 1/8 chance to result in a Critical Hit, which doubles both the damage and knockback. The Critical Hit sound effect from the Dragon Quest series plays when it occurs. His Hatchet Man command in his Down Special: Command Selection will always result in a Critical Hit should it connect.
Weapons
Certain weapons can guarantee the chances of a character getting a critical hit in exchange for low accuracy. The Hela Hammer has an accuracy of 3/8ths, the Headsman's Axe has a 3/4ths accuracy, a 1/8th chance to critical, and a 1/8th chance to miss outright. The Megaton Hammer has a 1/8th critical chance and no reduction to accuracy at all.
These weapons would lose these traits as the series adopted deftness-based calculations with the ninth entry, and would often simply be powerful members of their respective weapon families in subsequent games.
Skills
With the implementation of skills in V, certain abilities were designed with instant critical hit rates in mind. These skills would often have a paltry MP cost, but suffer the same low accuracy as the above mentioned weapons in older titles.
Spells
Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies
Beginning with IX spells can also become critical hits, where the spell "goes haywire". This not only increases damage output of attack magic, but also boosts healing spells. If a status-changing spell goes haywire, its chance of working increases to 100% (barring the target being immune).
Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age
The Zam line of spells have a four-times higher chance to critical than other spells.
