Help with Red/Orange Crits (Not a Modding Question, I don't think...)

[Kingseesar]

Hello fellow Tenno!

I've dug through the forums and didn't find an answer to my exact questions, so I apologize if I missed something, am repeating something, or am asking a stupid question. 

I think I finally got the hang of modding for critical damage, looking or the stats that can be buffed, and setting up a load out that consistently gives me decent damage numbers (at least to me). However, I have been playing Warframe now for almost five years and I have yet to see a single red crit and I barely get orange ones. I feel like I must still be doing something wrong...

There's more: I am getting very steady streams of yellow crits. Some not so high, on occasion, but mostly low to mid 1000s, like 12K-25K primarily, with the somewhat common fairly high ones around 45K-70K, and the random insane numbers around 90K-125K. All yellow, though, No red or orange. When I do finally get an orange number, it's super low, like in the 100s, and they are never as high as the yellow crits.

This is mostly on an Ignus Wriath formaed three times, modded for base damage, not crits; a Guando Prime modded for crits with a high status chance (one build has a 96% crit chance, too, if I recall correctly, and I do get a ton of crits), an Atomos modded for crit damage with a highish status chance; but it also happens a ton with other weapons, and I'm only seeing orange crits on weapons like the Bubonica and Cedo if I use the secondary fire, or the Xoris in the Garanum Void, again with the secondary exploding heavy attack. I also have a lot of melee weapons that crank out good crits, like one of my zaws, one of my ninkanis, some of the infested weapons, et cetera. All yellow crits, though, through "normal" play. 

So, again, this is not a complaint or modding suggestion request, as I'm pretty darn satisfied with the numbers I'm getting, at least compared to before, when I totally didn't understand modding, but I feel I'm still missing a trick, or worse, maybe I just don't understand how crit, crit multipliers, or crit chances work. This is more confusion about how crits are generated, I guess. With these sorts of yellow crit numbers, should I see reds or orange crits, or they are not really connected like that and I do need to learn to mod more effectively, despite feeling good about my modding skills on a basic level?

Again, sorry if this has been covered somewhere else and I just missed it. If someone can either point me to an explanation of how crits work or offer an explanation as to why I only see yellow crits, that would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you, everyone!

[(PSN)Deeceem]

Edit: further below in this thread someone pointed out a fauxpax of mine. The general gist about the mechanic stays the same the multipliers would however change in my example numbers..

I'm pretty sure this is partly a modding question after all to be honest.

A good chunk of guns pretty much have very few options to reach orange not to mention red crits -consistently, by themselves, only through basic mods on them-. Melee weapons have the mod Blood Rush which lets pretty much any crit melee reach at the very least almost permanent orange crits up to permanent red crits.

Regarding how crit chances work: if you have 50% crit chance you have a 50% chance on every single direct hit/damage number to turn yellow. If that happens your crit multiplier (called crit damage on mods) comes into effect. Say your non-crit does 100 damage, then you crit with a critical multiplier of x2 then your white 100 gets turned into a yellow 200.

Now, if you have 150% crit chance you have a 100% chance that your hits are yellow aka you consistently deal damage multiplied by your critical multiplier. What happens to the other 50%? Basically the same thing as before. Your hits are guaranteed yellow and the 50% give you a chance to orange crit. What happens if you orange crit? Very simple, you increase the crit tier and increase your crit multiplier by another 100%. So, if your crit multiplier was x2 it becomes x4. Meaning if you orange crit your 100 damage become 400. The same happens at 250% crit chance. Always orange hits, 50% chance to red crit. Another crit tier that gives you another 100% of your multiplier. X2 becomes x6. 100 damage becomes 600. And the same once you reach 300% crit chance (guaranteed x6 multiplier) and 400% (x8) and 500% (x10) and...

These numbers can escalate pretty drastically if more factors get added to actual stats some weapons have at base and if mods come into play as you can imagine.

That's the basic gist at least. There are of course some other intricacies like Vigilante mods giving you a chance to increase your crit tier, stealth multipliers, warframe abilities, multishot influencing crit chance on beam weapons (if I'm not mistaken) or the Smeeta crit "buff" nerfing your crit chance and therefor your crit tier/multiplier if you have over 200% by setting and locking your crit chance at 200% for its duration. Just to name a few things that can influence your crit or general damage numbers.

I'd suggest consulting the Wiki for super indepth details if interested.

Cheers.

[Kingseesar]

Thanks Kryshok! I really need to better understand the mathematics behind a lot of my frame's abilities. Banshee is definitely on that list. I used her this week for a few missions and realized I had not used her to her fullest potential by far, so yeah... You're spot on with that one...

I should also thank Tyranq again, now that I can see the image posted above (got my sneaky means of communicating with the World turned on. Bad for gaming, good for almost everything else...) It seems that this single image recaps exactly what (PSN)Deeceem explained. Nice one! Extremely helpful!

I can report that I tested this (for myself) with a crit build of the Guandao and I was getting loads of orange crits at 134% crit chance and 5.4 multipliper.

I still have the one part of my original set of questions unsolved in my head, though: why are the orange crits often lower than the yellow crits? Shouldn't they always be higher? I'm still getting some orange crits in the 200-300 range. I have to admit, too, though, that I got a few insane numbers. Mostly the orange crits were around 28K-35K, but saw a few 160K and one 200+K flassh by! I was shocked! Still no red, but it sounds like that won't happen without a crit chance of 200%+, so I wasn't expecting any. I'll get them eventually. My mod collection possibly just isn't up to snuff, yet. Working on it...

Thank you again, everyone Extremely helpful and polite responses! Cheers! Back to slashing and burning... WHOOOO!

[Kingseesar]

Here I was thinking my degrees in Physics and Ethnomusicology were challenging! Forget that! There should be a Ph.D. for understanding Warframe calculations!

Thanks again everyone! That makes sense and I see the difference. (Nice fodder for not being able to sleep and needing some reading material, too... Thanks again!)

[(PSN)Deeceem]

vor 46 Minuten schrieb hyzmarca:

That's not quite accurate.  A x2 crit multiplier is actually +100% damage on crit.   Orange crits apply it twice,  for a +200%,  or x3.   Red crits would be x4.  

Thanks for pointing it out. It happens every single time. My bad. BUT thankfully at least the general gist remains correct and seemingly helped out which seemed to be more the issue here. Basically substract/split off x1 for the base damage before calculating. Again, my apologies.

Not fixed, but edited to direct to my brainfart being pointed out further below.

[rapt0rman]

4 minutes ago, hyzmarca said:

That's not quite accurate.  A x2 crit multiplier is actually +100% damage on crit.   Orange crits apply it twice,  for a +200%,  or x3.   Red crits would be x4.  

Oof yeah, I fell into this trap again too. As taken from the wiki:

An orange critting weapon with an umodded 2x crit damage would be:

1+2*(2.0−1)=3

Easiest way to think about it is that 1x out of your crit damage is actually just your base damage, which does not get multiplied when you stack crit tiers.

[hyzmarca]

On 2021-01-29 at 6:45 AM, (PSN)Deeceem said:

I'm pretty sure this is partly a modding question after all to be honest.

A good chunk of guns pretty much have very few options to reach orange not to mention red crits -consistently, by themselves, only through basic mods on them-. Melee weapons have the mod Blood Rush which lets pretty much any crit melee reach at the very least almost permanent orange crits up to permanent red crits.

Regarding how crit chances work: if you have 50% crit chance you have a 50% chance on every single direct hit/damage number to turn yellow. If that happens your crit multiplier (called crit damage on mods) comes into effect. Say your non-crit does 100 damage, then you crit with a critical multiplier of x2 then your white 100 gets turned into a yellow 200.

Now, if you have 150% crit chance you have a 100% chance that your hits are yellow aka you consistently deal damage multiplied by your critical multiplier. What happens to the other 50%? Basically the same thing as before. Your hits are guaranteed yellow and the 50% give you a chance to orange crit. What happens if you orange crit? Very simple, you increase the crit tier and increase your crit multiplier by another 100%. So, if your crit multiplier was x2 it becomes x4. Meaning if you orange crit your 100 damage become 400. The same happens at 250% crit chance. Always orange hits, 50% chance to red crit. Another crit tier that gives you another 100% of your multiplier. X2 becomes x6. 100 damage becomes 600. And the same once you reach 300% crit chance (guaranteed x6 multiplier) and 400% (x8) and 500% (x10) and...

These numbers can escalate pretty drastically if more factors get added to actual stats some weapons have at base and if mods come into play as you can imagine.

That's the basic gist at least. There are of course some other intricacies like Vigilante mods giving you a chance to increase your crit tier, stealth multipliers, warframe abilities, multishot influencing crit chance on beam weapons (if I'm not mistaken) or the Smeeta crit "buff" nerfing your crit chance and therefor your crit tier/multiplier if you have over 200% by setting and locking your crit chance at 200% for its duration. Just to name a few things that can influence your crit or general damage numbers.

I'd suggest consulting the Wiki for super indepth details if interested.

Cheers.

That's not quite accurate.  A x2 crit multiplier is actually +100% damage on crit.   Orange crits apply it twice,  for a +200%,  or x3.   Red crits would be x4.  

[Kingseesar]

Awesome! Thanks rapt0rman! Cheers! Again, this is making sense, finally. I knew about the headshot crit multiplier, but I didn't realize it stacked with crit color multipliers. I suspect that's why I just got a few shockingly high orange crits on a Dark Sector run on Amarna. I'm pretty sure I saw an orange 628K flash by in the green gas cloud and flaming ancients flailing about... The crit build is working well, too. I got bored at 40mins in with life support still at 100% and I was at full health, and 145K focus. Nice farming, though! All your advice and explanations have helped tremendously! Thank you all again!

[rapt0rman]

On the topic of Banshee's Sonar, it's an extremely powerful damage multiplier, but just to clear up some potential confusion, mechanically it's unrelated to critical hits.

As for discrepancies between the damage of crits, armor does sound like the main culprit. Void Fissures have mixed units from the Grineer (with armor) and the Corpus and Infested (without), whereas the recent Gifts of the Lotus are just the Corpus.

The other variable is headshots, which deal 4x damage when critical, as opposed to the 2x from non-critical headshots. Which results in a yellow crit headshot (4x your critical damage) dealing more damage then an orange crit bodyshot (3x crit damage), of course an orange crit headshot will deal even more (8x crit damage).

Note that this only applies to designated "heads" and not things like Banshee's Sonar. But a critical hit, on a sonar spot, on the head will stack :P

[Kingseesar]

4 hours ago, (PSN)Deeceem said:

When you are getting these extremely low crit numbers: does that occur in general gameplay or the Simulacrum? Because all I can think of is that these low numbers sound like simply hitting something with higher defenses like a Grineer Nox for example.

Regular gameplay... Void fissure missions, survival missions, capture missions, nothing out of the ordinary at all. I usually spend a good bit of time testing before I plunge into harder stuff. I did, however, just finish the Gifts from the Lotus that were on PC this weekend, and I got mad, crazy, super high orange crits consistently, no notable low ones. They came right back when I went to farm some relics, though. You're probably exactly correct - must be specific enemies and my choice of elemental damage or something along those lines. I'm still doing way (read as WAAAAAAAAY) better than previously, and now that I know how the math works, I can adjust and plan. As long as the bad guys go away in a flaming bleed out with a nicely colored umber over their dissolving body, I'm good to go! :) 

[(PSN)Deeceem]

vor 6 Stunden schrieb Kingseesar:

Thanks Kryshok! I really need to better understand the mathematics behind a lot of my frame's abilities. Banshee is definitely on that list. I used her this week for a few missions and realized I had not used her to her fullest potential by far, so yeah... You're spot on with that one...

I should also thank Tyranq again, now that I can see the image posted above (got my sneaky means of communicating with the World turned on. Bad for gaming, good for almost everything else...) It seems that this single image recaps exactly what (PSN)Deeceem explained. Nice one! Extremely helpful!

I can report that I tested this (for myself) with a crit build of the Guandao and I was getting loads of orange crits at 134% crit chance and 5.4 multipliper.

I still have the one part of my original set of questions unsolved in my head, though: why are the orange crits often lower than the yellow crits? Shouldn't they always be higher? I'm still getting some orange crits in the 200-300 range. I have to admit, too, though, that I got a few insane numbers. Mostly the orange crits were around 28K-35K, but saw a few 160K and one 200+K flassh by! I was shocked! Still no red, but it sounds like that won't happen without a crit chance of 200%+, so I wasn't expecting any. I'll get them eventually. My mod collection possibly just isn't up to snuff, yet. Working on it...

Thank you again, everyone Extremely helpful and polite responses! Cheers! Back to slashing and burning... WHOOOO!

When you are getting these extremely low crit numbers: does that occur in general gameplay or the Simulacrum? Because all I can think of is that these low numbers sound like simply hitting something with higher defenses like a Grineer Nox for example.

[Kryshok]

Other side of this is certain frames can cause the red/orange crits as well. Banshee's Sonar can give large crit multipliers. Seen one as high as 25k-250k

 

I main Banshee saw those numbers first hand but my weapon was built for crit damage.

[Kingseesar]

Thanks again, (PSN)DeeCeem! I'm definitely one of those players that starts off with a heat/slash build, then tries a viral, then thinks about other stuff. As I mentioned, my yellow crit build kicks some backside, but what I didn't mention is that it's decisively a heat and slash build, which is probably why it's more effective, even against Corpus, although it goes through Grineer and Infested like butter. I do have a corrosive/radiation dual build and a viral/corrosive dual build that I use for other things, mostly Fissure missions, but I pick and choose per mission (probably more than I should, actually - I spend a good amount of time on it before heading out of the orbiter...)

Anyway, the point is: great tip, yet again! I'm still learning the ropes on all of this, but I suspect I will be for a long time, and that's part of the fun! Thanks again! Cheers!

[(PSN)Claudija]

13 minutes ago, (PSN)Deeceem said:

Glad to help.

Just to add a few sentences. While your question was specifically about crit mechanics I still want to make sure to mention that "the secret" to dealing damage isn't necessarily based on crits. Especially beefier enemies such as Steel Path enemies often are dealt with easily more because of utilizing status effects such as viral, heat and slash which is currently pretty much what people tend to gravitate towards to incorporate in their builds in some way or another.

I just wanted to mention that incase you or anyone else stumbling over this got the impression that solely focusing on crit will result in high damage increases against tougher enemies. That usually is done by trying to get different damage multipliers from different sources and/or removing, disabling and or circumventing enemies defenses.

A weapon that orange crits but consistently ignores enemy armor (slash status effect) or consistently removes 50% armor (heat status effect) or deals up to 325% more damage (viral status effect) will perform better than a weapon that red crits but does nothing of the other things. In the case of melee weapons there's also Condition Overload that benefits greatly from status effects.

I think that's important to mention in this context.

So that explains my Daikyu. Whilst she's only got a 34% crit chance, a base crit multiplier of 4.2x- the numbers against lv100 Lich enemies are silly. I red crit them but reading your first advice that really made no sense until this follow up.

I have- Acri-sitox Riven, Daikyu Amalgam, Serration, Hunter Munitions, Vigilante Supplies, Vigilante Armaments, Rime Rounds, Malignant Force and Split Chamber all max in the loadout. So I checked my mods and Vigilante enhances the crit- is it both damage and multiplier? The Riven adds 107.6% Critical damage which I guess is the multiplier?

I use her with Ivara who I set for Prowl focus and a Panzer Vulpaphyla. Headshots are key but even bodyshots can sometimes kill in a single arrow due to Stealth bonuses I think that's right?

[(PSN)Deeceem]

vor 58 Minuten schrieb Kingseesar:

Thank you so much (PSN) Deeceem! That was the information I was lacking! 

I did consult the wiki, but this made a lot more sense! I see the "problem," now, too. (It's not really a problem, since I do fairly well with my yellow numbers, but that doesn't mean a lot on higher level nodes, et cetera...) It's that I don't think I have anything above 100% crit chance. Sounds like I have to get above that to see consistent orange (and therefore red) crit numbers. Mystery solved! Combine that with what Tyranq mentioned, and I have some experimenting to do, but some informed guesses now, rather than stabbing in the dark at how to increase my damage. 

Cheers! That was a great broken-down explanation for an old man that is great with numbers, but bad at figuring out what's actually going on around him... Nice one! Thank you so much!

Glad to help.

Just to add a few sentences. While your question was specifically about crit mechanics I still want to make sure to mention that "the secret" to dealing damage isn't necessarily based on crits. Especially beefier enemies such as Steel Path enemies often are dealt with easily more because of utilizing status effects such as viral, heat and slash which is currently pretty much what people tend to gravitate towards to incorporate in their builds in some way or another.

I just wanted to mention that incase you or anyone else stumbling over this got the impression that solely focusing on crit will result in high damage increases against tougher enemies. That usually is done by trying to get different damage multipliers from different sources, utilizing status effects and/or removing, disabling and or circumventing enemies defenses.

A weapon that orange crits but consistently ignores enemy armor (slash status effect) or consistently removes 50% armor (heat status effect) or deals up to 325% more damage (viral status effect) will perform better than a weapon that red crits but does nothing else. In the case of melee weapons there's also Condition Overload that benefits greatly from status effects.

I think that's important to mention in this context.

[Kingseesar]

Thank you so much (PSN) Deeceem! That was the information I was lacking! 

I did consult the wiki, but this made a lot more sense! I see the "problem," now, too. (It's not really a problem, since I do fairly well with my yellow numbers, but that doesn't mean a lot on higher level nodes, et cetera...) It's that I don't think I have anything above 100% crit chance. Sounds like I have to get above that to see consistent orange (and therefore red) crit numbers. Mystery solved! Combine that with what Tyranq mentioned, and I have some experimenting to do, but some informed guesses now, rather than stabbing in the dark at how to increase my damage. 

Cheers! That was a great broken-down explanation for an old man that is great with numbers, but bad at figuring out what's actually going on around him... Nice one! Thank you so much!

[Kingseesar]

Thanks Tyranq! Cheers!

I have Blood Rush on a few things. I'm trying to farm another one so I can have multiple drain levels (it won't fit on some builds at full drain), but I am trying to mod with a balance of chance and multipliers, so maybe that's my issue. More multipliers over chance... I'll try that! Thank you! 

(I'll take a look at the image as soon as I can. I have to use a VPN to see it. I live in China... I'll check it out later tonight!)

Thanks again!

[Cefalon_Tyranq]

Hello,

First of all. Aim for Critical Multiplier over Critical Chance, you will be better of that.

Of course mod like Blood Rush exists for melee, I recommend using this for more value, because you can get this Mod and invest the rest into Crit Multiplier (or Combo Duration if you want),

I know it's not much of an answer but it is what it is. I'm gonna leave you with this little table if you want to take a peak!

Hope it was helpfull. Good luck and have fun, Tenno! 🐉