Critical Damage | Elden Ring Wiki

This page was last edited on 7 August 2026, at 15:16.
From Elden Ring Wiki

Critical Damageis one of the Damage Types in Elden Ring. It is a special damage type that is dealt in specific situations. Damage types are a major part of the calculation that determines how much damage is dealt in Combat and are affected by many factors including your equipment, skills, and temporary buffs.

Elden Ring Critical Damage

  1. Attacks that Deal Critical Damage in Elden Ring
  2. Elden Ring Critical Attack Invulnerability
  3. Weapons Dealing Critical Damage in Elden Ring
  4. Critical Damage Stats in Elden Ring
  5. Critical Damage Weapon Class Multiplier in Elden Ring
  6. What are Motion Values for Critical Damage in Elden Ring
  7. Critical Damage Type and Resistance/Absorptions in Elden Ring
  8. How to Increase Critical Damage in Elden Ring
  9. Elden Ring Critical Damage Notes and Tips

Elden Ring Attacks that Deal Critical Damage

Critical attacks are powerful moves that can be performed under specific conditions and amplify the amount of damage done by the weapon. There are several situations where performing a critical attack is possible in Elden Ring:

  • Attacking certain enemies from behind (known as a "backstab"). This deals less damage than other forms of crit.
  • Attacking certain enemies in a vulnerable state due to having been parried by the player (known as a "riposte").
  • Attacking certain enemies in a vulnerable state due to being afflicted with the Sleep status.
  • Attacking enemies in a vulnerable state due to being dismounted from their horse. This can be performed to enemies on horseback, such as Mounted Knight and Night's Cavalry.
  • Attacking certain enemies in a vulnerable state due to having their Stance broken. In the case of some large enemies and Bosses, they can be put into a vulnerable state after dealing enough damage to certain body parts, or after dealing enough damage in general. This is the primary way of dealing critical damage in PvE.

If performed correctly, the player and the target are locked in a short animation where the player performs a highly damaging attack, often finishing off weaker enemies instantly. The animation varies by Weapon type and neither the player nor the target can be damaged by outside sources until the animation has finished.

Elden Ring Critical Attack Invulnerabilityxx

  • During a critical attack animation, the player is invulnerable to damage. All surrounding enemy attacks will go through the player harmlessly. Therefore performing a critical attack can protect the player during chaotic dangerous moments.
  • The invulnerability includes Fall Damage: it is possible to avoid a lethal fall by performing critical attack on an enemy as the player falls off a ledge.

    mechanics fall damage critical attack elden ring wiki 480px

Weapons Dealing Critical Damage in Elden Ring

Critical damage multiplies the weapon's normal base damage so that a critical attack will do several times more damage than a normal attack. The multiplication of damage is mostly based on two partial factors:

  • The weapon's critical stat shown in the equipment interface.
    • Example: the Highland Axe lists a critical stat of "110" which means a 110% or 1.1x multiplier.
    • Warning: The critical stat component shown in the interface is generally a far smaller factor than the hidden multiplier discussed below.
  • The weapon's inherent category type.
    • Example: daggers have an inherent 4x multiplier (i.e. 400%) on critical attacks.
    • NOTE: This multiplier is hidden from the player and never appears in the game's interface.

Those factors are multiplied by the weapon's Attack Rating which includes both the weapon's core base damage and the additional letter-based scaling. Whips, ranged weapons and spell implements cannot be used for critical hits, despite displaying a critical damage stat of (100).

Elden Ring Critical Damage Stats

The critical stat appears as a three digit number in the game's interface but equates to a percentage multiplier. The critical stat only represents how much crit damage the weapon does compared to a weapon in the same category that has a critical stat of "100." In other words: a "110" crit stat means 110% (i.e. 1.1x multiplier) crit damage compared to a "100" crit stat weapon in the same category. NOTE: Because the displayed critical stat multiplier is often tiny (~10% bonus) compared to the hidden category-based multiplier (e.g. 3x), the critical stat can be considered misleading.

Most weapons possess a critical damage stat of 100, with some exceptions:

  • The Misericorde has the highest value (140)
  • The second highest is shared between the Rapier and Dagger (130)
  • Most other Daggers and Claws (110)
  • Exceptions within other weapon types are noted in the table below:
Axes Curved Greatswords Fists Greataxes Greatswords Spears Straight Swords Thrusting Swords
Highland Axe (110) Morgott's Cursed Sword (110) Pata sote new (110) Executioner's Greataxe (115) Lordsworn's Greatsword (110) Death Ritual Spear (110) Lordsworn's Straight Sword (110) Rogier's Rapier (110)
Sacred Relic Sword (110) Ornamental Straight Sword (110) Carian Sorcery Swordsote new(110)
Noble's Slender Sword (110)
Velvet Sword of St. Trina sote new (110)

Critical Damage Weapon Class Multiplier in Elden Ring

Separate from the critical stat discussed above, a weapon's type generally has a far larger impact on critical damage. For example, daggers innately deal more critical damage than other weapon types. Erdsteel Dagger does 4.4x damage on a riposte while Lordsworn's Greatsword only does 2.75x, though both have a listed critical stat of 110.

Approximate critical damage multiplier by weapon category, in descending order, for a riposte, assuming critical stat of "100":

Note: the pairs of values listed above with a plus sign reflect two separate damage multipliers for two-hit critical attacks. Some critical attacks involve two distinct hits of the weapon: often the first hit does 50% of the weapon's base damage, while the second hit does significantly more (e.g. 2x or 3x etc).

In cases where a weapon has a listed critical damage stat in the interface higher than 100, the above category-based riposte multiplier would furthermore be multiplied by a percentage that corresponds to the listed crit damage stat.

Example Calculation: Dagger

  • Listed critical stat is 130. In other words, the critical stat component of the critical damage multiplier is 130% or a 1.3x compared to a "100" Critical stat dagger.
  • The Dagger's category-based multiplier for a riposte is approximately 4.0x (see list above) as for all daggers. This multiplier is hidden from the player and never appears in the interface.
  • The total combined multiplier for riposte critical attack damage by a plain Dagger is therefore approximately 5.2x. (I.e. 1.3 times 4.0.)
  • If the player's Dagger currently has normal attack damage of 80 + 10 (i.e. 80 "base" damage plus 10 "scaled" damage), the critical multipliers will apply to an Attack Rating of 90.
  • Final critical damage, if the enemy has no defense and no resistances, would be approximately 5.2 x 90 = 468.

What are Motion Values for Critical Damage in Elden Ring

The game internally represents and assigns a so-called "Motion Value" to every particular attack type of every weapon. The motion value can be thought of as a single specific multiplier applied to the base damage for each of the weapon's types of attack. For example, a plain Dagger's motion value for a riposte is approximately 546, i.e. 5.46x, which approximately aligns with the two-part analysis above (listed critical stat of "130" or 1.3x, multiplied by a dagger riposte multiplier of 4.0x). So a player can either refer to a database of exact Motion Values per weapon and per attack type, or, conveniently approximate the final multiplier by using both the listed critical stat and the weapon category multipliers discussed above.

Critical Damage Type and Resistance/Absorptions in Elden Ring

Damage Type applies to critical attack damage. An enemy's resistances/absorptions counter-act or exaggerate the critical damage. An enemy that is weak to Strike damage will take more damage from a Strike-based critical attack.

The melee damage type of a critical attack is based on the visible physical attack performed in the critical animation, not on the weapon's damage type labels indicated in the equipment interface. Be warned that the damage type listed for weapons in the game's interface can be inconsistent and misleading. Examples:

  • Lordsworn Greatsword performs a visible stabbing motion for the critical attack. The critical damage is therefore Pierce type damage.
  • Scimitar, a curved sword, does a visible stabbing motion for the critical attack. Even though the weapon's damage type listed in the equipment interface is only "Slash", the critical attack damage is Pierce type.

Critical damage is based on base damage and multipliers (see above). Therefore all factors that affect base damage will affect the critical damage:

  • Smithing stone upgrades will increase critical damage
  • Increased letter scaling that harmonizes with your character's stat build will increase critical damage
  • An attack type for which the enemy has a negative resistance (aka particular vulnerability) will do more critical damage.
  • An attack type that is substantially resisted by the enemy will decrease critical damage, for example a non-Strike critical attack against a Miner. But a highly upgraded weapon that is resisted by the enemy may still do more damage than an "appropriate" weapon if the inappropriate weapon has substantially higher base damage.

Defense. In normal non-critical situations, defense creates a flat negation of damage (e.g. 100 defense will subtract 100 damage from an attack). Critical attacks have a special effect of progressively nullifying the enemy's defense based on the ratio of damage to defense. In the most severe case, if the player's attack rating multiplied by critical multipliers (see discussion above) is 8x (800%) or more of the enemy's defense number, then the enemy's defense effectiveness is reduced to 10% of what it would normally be.Lower ratios will cause smaller reductions.

How to Increase Critical Damage in Elden Ring

Critical Damage can be increased by equipping the following:

Critical Damage dealt to the player can be reduced by equipping the following:

Elden Ring Critical Damage Notes & Tips

  • Ripostes do a lot more damage than backstabs.

The following talismans add effects to critical attacks:

The Weapon Skill of the Greatsword of Damnation, Golden Crux, counts as a critical hit against other players and npcs, and can also trigger these crit-related talismans. Unlike many games, critical hits are deliberately performed actions rather than a random bonus that may occur for a given attack. Some descriptions within the game may refer to dealing 'critical hits' instead of specifying critical damage. The above mentioned three talismans are some examples.

Damage Types
Creatures and Enemies Critical Damage Fire Damage Holy Damage Incant Scaling Lightning Damage Magic Damage Passive Effects Pierce Damage Slash Damage Special Weaknesses Standard Damage Strike Damage
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