In terms of Critical, we have SKI at 0.5 Crit, and LUC at 1 Crit. Then we have FAI at 1 Crit Evade, then LUC at 1 Crit Evade.





Purely looking at it in terms of Critical, it looks like Crit Evade has the upper hand here. But for overall balance, you cannot only view these stats for Critical. SKI only grants 0.5 Crit since it also grants 2 Hit and 2% Status Infliction, whereas FAI provides 1% Status Resist and 3 FP...and can be entirely removed via Dark Water should they not be a Theno or lack Sanctifying Soles.





Unless you're purposefully building around cheesing Evade, nearly everyone wants to build SKI. The only stat taxes Critical builds face afterwards are LUC and potentially GUI if they want to get as much damage out of it as possible.





Comparing that to its doubly-effective in this match up counterpart, FAI. FAI is primarily used by Summoners that actually want to stack slots or Curates that for some reason aren't luminarying their Light ATK/actually want to cast Malmelo effectively. It is a niche stat that is one of the only ones left in the game now that has a mechanic where you can lose said stat entirely bar being a certain race or sacrificing your Shoes slot (to halve the effect).

There is a whole lot more to go over here, though one thing to note is that the number of Critical buffs vastly outweighs Critical Evade buffs. With that said, I'll be listing out every single class skill and or passive that affects Critical and or Critical Evade as of the most recent patch. I am ONLY looking at how much Critical or Critical Evade these skills provide, some skills have multiple other effects such as boosting Hit that I am not going to mention when analyzing these skills. Staring with....



ARCHER:



Keyshot (P) - +5/10/15 Critical (Bows Only)

Guerilla Tactics (P) - +5/10/15 Critical (When in a Nest)

RANGER:

Agile Protection (P) - +5/10/15 Critical Evade (When wearing Light Armor)



Guerilla Tactics was added very recently, doubling the amount of potential Critical you can get from Archer, provided you aren't opposed to sitting in a Nest all the time. Otherwise that's everything Archer gets between itself and all its promos for Criticals. Thankfully for it, bows can reach absurd levels of Critical passively due to their weapon parts. (+30 total with all crit-focused parts, but I'll get into those later.)



BARD:



Dawr of Defense - +2/4/6/8/10 Critical Evade (3 rounds)

Samba of Strength - +2/4/6/8/10 Critical (3 rounds)



DARK BARD:



Second Set (250 Darkness Hype) - +5 Critical (5 rounds)



PERFORMER:



Striking Samba (Addition to Samba of Strength) - +3/6/9/12/15 Critical (2 hits/3 rounds)



Bard only recently got changed to provide derivative stat(Crit/Crit Evade) buffs as opposed to buffing the stats (SKI/LUC) themselves. In terms of the Crit/Crit Evade dynamic it's seemingly net-neutral aside from Performer being able to double-dip on Critical for a few hits, and odds are you're never going to see a Dark Bard cast Second Set with that many stacks unless something's gone horribly wrong, but still worth considering.



CURATE:



Purity Edge (P) - +3/6/9/12/15 Critical (If weapon is unenchanted).



The only thing in Curate or its promos that technically deals in straight Critical. 5 over Vorpal or 10 over Reaper if you only care about raising your Critical.



Pray gets an honorable mention for how massive its LUC buff can be, being FAI/2, allowing curates to heavily amp their personal Critical/Critical Evade at the cost of 6m to do so if they have not already invested themselves heavily into LUC.



DUELIST (AKA the first class that Critical is core to):



Sharpen - 1/2/3/4/5 Critical (5 Rounds at r5 (why would you use this below r5??????????) )



Poise - 3/6/9/12/15 Critical (1 attack, values doubled if an attack is evaded OR Perfect Poise is forced via Attrait, and attack limit is removed with Perfect Poise active)



GHOST:



Rising Game gets an honorable mention here considering the passive boost to SKI/LUC it gives for losing %HP (1 of each per 15% missing) which gives a few piddly points of Critical over the course of a fight by itself. Otherwise Ghost does not in fact have anything that amps its Critical or Critical Evade directly.



KENSEI:



Absolute Fear (Toggle) - +10 Critical (While Stance is active, 15 FP per round upkeep)



Sakki (P) - -10 Crit Evade to enemies hit with Kagekiri OR Hirazuki

Wazabane - +4/7/10 Critical basic attack, doubled if airborne.



For being heavily reliant on Critical to function Duelist doesn't have an absurd amount of Critical buffs to its name, but enough to shift iffy odds into guarantees if it can manage to hold onto Perfect Poise for its +30 Critical. It's also worth mentioning that the recent class skill updates gave Kensei Absolute Fear in a form that gave it another passive +10 Critical on top of an answer to frontal parries.



MAGE:



Has no actual Critical or Critical Evade buffs, but has two LUC buffs (Static Air for +5, Redgull for +4) that warrant an honorable mention.



EVOKER:



Highwrath (P) - +5/10/15/20/25 Critical (Only for Lightning Critical)



HEXER:



Bloody Karma (P) - +5/10/15/20/25 Critical per Curse on target.



Very circumstantially, Mage pulls out the best possible Critical support in the game, trivializing nearly any amount of Crit Evade if you're so dedicated as to stack every single curse on something, or we get Adon Graxis into Korvara and Dev finally kills this passive over it. Realistically you maybe throw one or two curses on someone and you're already at 100% Critical. Its downfall being teamfights where it's very easy to have curses land on anyone but who you want them on, so until Eternal Servitude is available this skill isn't problematic. Highwrath is just sorta there. Not really relevant for most Critical builds.



MARTIAL ARTIST:



Empty Palm - +3/6/9/12/15 Critical (For Bare Fists)



Crack Joints - +3/4/5 Critical Evade (5 Rounds)



BOXER:



Scharfe - +4/5/6 * Schartz Sturm Critical (3 Rounds) (6-40 Critical)



MONK:



Serpent Strikes (P) +Ki Critical (1-30 Critical for Fist Weapons)



Verglas provides a meaty +30% crit damage for having max Bear stacks but provides no Crit/Crit Evade buffs. Boxer and Monk both have extremely potent Critical modifiers, Serpent Strikes providing Monk passively as much as Perfect Poise would a Duelist. Scharfe requires frequent upkeep to give Boxer even more Critical (and equal hit to boot) should they maintain maximum stacks. Crack Joints was one of the newer skills added, a slight counter-balance to the numerous new avenues of Critical bonuses, though most Martial Artists aren't going to be investing heavily enough into Critical Evade to see substantial gains from it.



ROGUE (Evade's Flex-Tape, until Dev Murders It):



Northern Wind - +4/6/8/10/12 Critical (Doubled if on the Northern side of the map) (3 Rounds/6 Rounds with 3/3 Wind Dancer Passive)



Eastern Wind gets an honorable mention for being able to go up to +9 SKI, which would give at least a Critical or two.



ENGINEER:



Upgrade (Electro Shield) +5/10/15 Critical (7 Rounds)



VOID ASSASSIN:



Veil Off - +Void Energy Critical (3 Rounds) (1-60 Critical)



Backstab (P) - +2/4/6/8/10 Critical to Daggers whilst directly behind target.



You're almost never going to see anyone cast Veil Off unless they're super desperate. Otherwise the bulk of Rogue's crit is coming from Northern Wind. If cast with the bonus it's +24 Critical, almost on par with other classes big Critical buffs.



SOLDIER:



Doesn't actually have anything in its base class for Critical or Critical evade. Most people immediately think of...



BLACK KNIGHT:



Sudden Death (P) - -15 Critical Evade to enemies feared by you, versus you.



Negation (P) - +6/12/18 Critical Evade when wearing Heavy Armor, negated by Tome attacks.



TACTICIAN:



Volley Formation - +25 Critical per unit in formation to units in formation (up to +75 Critical for Ranged Weapons)



Black Knight is run to death for good reason. It does a lot for you, even outside giving you both effective Critical and Critical Evade passively. Negation has been historically hammered twice already, down from +40 to +24, then finally down to +18 where it stands today. +40 was insane, of course. Otherwise you have Volley Formation which effectively negates the Critical Evade of nearly anything bar the person on the formation having no LUC or SKI.



SUMMONER:



Install - Grants the following potential Youkai skills that impact Critical/Critical Evade or a notable boost to relevant stats.



Seiyruu (Dragonscale) - +10 Critical Evade



Carbuncle (777) - +3 bonus to all stats if contracts are equal to 7.



BONDER:



Fight as One: +4/7/10 Critical Evade and Critical when all Bonded Youkai are summoned and in 2 range of you, doubled if only one Youkai is Bonded. (+20 Crit/Crit Evade, activated on Install with Two Souls Beyond's passive.)



SHAPESHIFTER:



Grow Appendage: Grants the following statuses based on Youkai race when used that pertain to Critical/Critical Evade



Beast Claws (Beast) - +16 Critical (5 Rounds)



Shift Strike - +5/10/15/20/25 Critical (Attacks with Youkai specific weapon).



Dragon Strength (Can only be used when considered a Dragon) - +15 Critical (2 Rounds)



Summoner's repertoire of buffs are all fairly long and about on par with the buffs other classes give, making them ideal to slap on as an accessory (main-classed unless you're Innovatoring it up).

Perhaps the second most important thing to your ability to Crit, is the weapon you choose to do so with. There are so many weapons in the game that I will not even attempt to list all of them to analyze. Most weapons have a base Critical of 0, though some have 5 or 10, and in some fringe cases....12, 15, or -5. 5 or 10 are the most common values, giving a bit more of an edge for those wanting to land Criticals on top of fighting no equivalent defense on Critical Evade's end. There is no 'Critical Evade' upgrade for armors to fight against here, every bit of Critical you get on your weapon is free real estate.

This brings us to one of the most impactful things about weapons aside from material: parts.

I'll only be focusing on parts that positively impact Critical. Most weapons only have one set of parts for a Critical positive build, though some may modify a part or two to focus on Hit instead of Critical.

SWORDS/DAGGERS:

Razor Blade - +10 Critical -5 Durability.

Empty Guard(Sword Only) - +5 Critical -5 Hit (Often swapped out for Sturdy Guard - +3 Hit, +1 Weight).

Onigan Hilt - +5 Critical -5 Hit (Often swapped out for Firm Hilt - +3 Hit, -2 Durability).

For those who focus on Critical these are about the only parts you'll ever see aside from maybe Locking Guard for those who want the -10 hit to enemies in 1 range. Razor Blade is almost always a no-brainer as the Durability loss is negligible compared to paying 10 hit for 10 Critical with your other two parts. This puts you at a +10-20 advantage over Critical Evade.

SPEARS/AXES:

Cutting Axehead - +10 Critical -5 Hit -1 Power (May be replaced by Spiked Axehead - +2 Power -5 Durability +10% Crit Damage)

Barbed Spearhead - +5 Critical +1 Power +2 Weight

Curved Pole - +5 Critical -1 Power (May be replaced by Extended Pole - +5 Hit -1 Power)

Axes may not focus on their Critical parts over hit parts due to the absurd levels of Critical support they get from items/talents. Otherwise Axes/Spears sit at about an equal amount of bonus Critical as Swords/Daggers, +15 Critical if they fully invest their parts into it.


FISTS:

Elongated Knuckles - +8 Critical +4 Weight

Weighted Wrist - +10 Critical +8 Weight -5 Hit +5% Critical Damage

Crit built fists are about on par, having +18 Critical if fully built into Critical parts.

BOWS:

Compact Body - -1 Range -4 Weight +15 Critical

Tight String - +5 Critical -5 Hit

Sharp Arrows - +10 Critical -5 Hit

If fully built for Critical bows get a whopping +30 Critical before any other modifiers, and if Hit is a concern Silk String can replace Tight String for no negative Critical trade-off.

GUNS:

Wide Barrel - +5 Critical +5 Durability -5 Hit OR Sniper Barrel (If Rifle) - +15 Critical +8 Weight

Revolver Grip - +5 Critical -2 Power (Or most often replaced by: Custom Grip - +3 Critical +3 Hit +3 Durability)

Hellhound Bullets - +5 Critical -5 Hit Damage type becomes Fire.

Gun parts are weird. Actively building a gun for Critical you'll likely only use the Barrel and Grip parts and do Scatter or Piercing bullets instead unless you don't mind being forced to deal Fire damage. You're left with a lower than average Critical opting out of the bullets, +8-10 depending on if you decided to sacrifice Hit and Power for the extra +2 Critical of Revolver Grip (almost no one does).

Let's look at armor first. Until we get level 55+ Delvers, we do not actually have any armors that grant Critical Evade universally---and the one armor that did got nerfed to only grant it at all to hits from the back rather than a reduced amount at other angles. Instead we just have...

Wyvern Rider's Plate - +10 Critical Evade vs Bow Weapons

The great equalizer for Bows getting about 10 more crit than any other weapon from parts. The price? You have to slot this armor to put them in line. Great.

Crit wise we have

Berserker Shell - +1 Critical for Axe weapons per 2% HP missing. (I might have the numbers slightly off but point being, it provides so much Critical for Axes that they hardly need any other support to crit.)

Embroidered Boltstruck Gi/Elementalist's Gi - +25 Critical for 3 rounds after using a Nature spell.

Two very significant Critical buffs if applicable though hard to fit into all types of Critical builds.

Let's move onto gloves.

Metal Gauntlet Plus - +10 Critical Evade versus Melee range enemies not directly behind you.

Crownbleeder Plus - +5 Critical.

Sayakensa - +10 Critical

Hero's Shield - +25 Critical Evade (Vs Monster Weapons)

That's it for glove/hand slot items. Hero's Shield is only applicable to PvE, otherwise Critical Evade is either at parity or up 5% over Critical if both sides are min-maxing this slot, but the Critical Evade has a caveat that some classes can feasibly get around (Kensei, Rogue).

Now on to shoes.

Metal Greaves Plus - +10 Critical Evade versus non-Airborne enemies in melee range.

Sanctified Shoes - Halves the FAI reduction from Dark Water (from 100% to 50%).

No shoes boost your Critical. Yet. Crit Evade centric builds decide whether they want to go tankier or try to mitigate dark water if they aren't a Theno. Usually this slot is a resist otherwise.

On to accessories....

Ring of Thorns Plus - +10 Critical -10 Critical Evade -10% Max HP +10 Power to all weapons

Nothing else deals directly in Critical, the closest things being Cat Mask (+2 LUC) or Lucky Amulets/Jars of Dirt (+3 LUC). RoT+ is a staple for Critical reliant builds that comes at a heavy price. If you're fiending for more Critical to make your damage more consistent this is what you go for.

I'm only going to mention Dark Water Vial in terms of battle items. Magic Stones require their own thread at a later date.

Dark Water Vial - Creates a Dark Water tile for 3 rounds (possibly affected by the talent for another 5 rounds worth).

For those willing to drop a battle item slot on it, Dark Water Vials instantly spawn Dark Water and can be used as much as you have the item to do so, much like Bombs. In the war against Critical Evade this can be integral if your opponent isn't sitting on top of a sanctuary.

I figured I'd just lump in Racial abilities since they'd also be included for Racial specific Traits. Some Races get absurd amounts of support here (Redtails) or make this entire thread pointless (Lich, but they're banned for now in Korvara).

Let's start with Talents.

Axe Expertise (Deadliness) SR * 1.5 Critical to Axes (7.5 at max SR)

Fulgurmancy (Lowrath) SR *2 Critical to Lightning Criticals (10 at max SR)

That's it. That's every Talent that impacts Critical or Critical Evade. So Axes get to be on par with Bows combined with their parts since they get to enjoy the only Talent in the game that raises Critical.

Now moving right on to Traits (including Racial exclusive traits)

Sentimentality (Weapon) - +2 Critical at 100 battles.

Desperado Striker - Auto-crit if durability is at 1. (This is just here on a technicality, worth mentioning in this case since Critical hits get a trait that just lets you crit something, numbers be damned.)

Ancient Fervor (Heron) - Ancient Song provides LV*5 Hit/Critical for 1 round (LV=Momentum spent on Ancient Song, 35 at 7m spent).

Charismatic - Grants Motivate (Charisma) which boosts all allies Critical by Scaled WIL-10 until your next turn. (3 round cooldown)

Cornered Rat (Muridae) - When triggering Muridae Instinct's On Attacked effect, gain +10 Critical for 2 rounds.

Eyes of Elimination (Human) - Grants a dagger only skill that deals increased critical damage with an increased Critical chance. (50 Critical with Divine Ease or perfect mini-game.)

Fleeing Rat (Muridae) - When triggering Muridae Instinct's On Attacked effect, gain +10 Critical Evade for 2 rounds.

Hidden Snake (Naga) - Changes Wrap. Wrap costs 5 FP more, but either puts you behind the target before attacking or spins them to face the same direction as you. Can negate Metal Gauntlet Plus' Critical Evade this way.

That's the extent of traits as far as I'm aware that could impact Crit/Crit Evade. Eyes of Elimination stands out as being an absolutely absurd Critical modifier especially since Divine Ease guaranteed the full bonus it can provide of +50 Critical. It's only balancing factor is the cost to buy it (5% HP total) and its 2 round cooldown. Otherwise most traits barely touch upon Critical or Critical Evade, but provides nearly every character who can consign themselves to Sentimentality a very minor leg up in the Critical arms race.

Now we look at Racial abilities.

Red/Yellow Dice (Redtail) - Grants 1-5x (Scaled SAN/10 max 5) your Fortune Level (2-6) Critical (Red) or Critical Evade (Yellow). -10 if Fortune Level is 1. (2-30 Critical or Critical Evade)

Lost Sea (Theno) - Immunity to Dark Water if SAN is less than 15.

And that's pretty much it in terms of things that strictly impact Critical or Critical Evade. Redtail is a massive outlier with how much they can cheat these stats if they put some investment into Sanctity. Theno just gets to enjoy not losing their FAI if they build it for whatever reason.

There's really just a few enchantments that deal specifically in Critical and Critical Evade. Here, it's more about opportunity cost than anything else.

Boneheart (Torso) - +25 Critical Evade.

Reaper/Divine (Weapon) - +5 Critical

Vorpal (Weapon) - +10 Critical

Critical Evade gets a big win here if opted in to over a Torso enchant that boosts HP like Leviathan or Gigantic. It's enough to negate most of if not the entire bonus weapon parts give at the price of 60-110~ HP. Not too much else to say here. Other than that Purity Edge, since it technically competes in this category, would be another +5 over Vorpal, for Critical builds that actually use Curate.

In a vacuum of a 1v1 between your average Critical build vs the Critical Evade Enjoyer Redtail/Theno Bonder/Black Knight wearing as much Critical Evade Gear that God allows him, without Dark Water Vials against the Redtail you probably aren't going to crit. For posterity's sake let's break it down to the numbers.

A Ghost/BK Imperialist with a 10 base crit weapon vs a Redtail Bonder/BK stacking as much Crit Evade as they reasonably can.

With about 57 Scaled SKI and 50 Scaled LUC, using a crit-focused weapon build we're looked at 129 Critical before any other buffs.

Versus a whopping 60 Scaled LUC and 50 Scaled FAI, combined with all the passive crit-evade they can muster outside gambling we're looking at 203 Critical Evade if the Ghost/BK can't get around either Metal X Plus item. Just don't ask him where his other stats are.

Utilizing Perfect Poise and Sudden Death, the 129 goes up to 174 Critical effectively. Sadly, still -29% against God's gift to Critical Evade even before Redtail Dice come into play. But our Ghost/BK isn't out of options! If they read the start of this hypothetical, they'll have Dark Water Vials to save them (but against the Theno version this is futile, but at least they wouldn't be contending with dice in that scenario). Removing all of their FAI for an attack makes their Critical skyrocket to 21%! Still terrible but considering what they're up against being positive is an accomplishment.

Now what if we swapped away Ghost for Kensei? You lose Claret Call and the utility of Ghost but in the Critical match up you get some much needed breathing room. You can not only apply -10 Crit Evade with Kagekiri and Hirazuki, but you can give yourself another +10 Critical with Absolute Fear, which also ensure your Black Knight passives are applying, on top of getting around Metal Gauntlets Plus. So in total if you're chucking Dark Water at Crit Evade Jesus and wacking their behind AND manage to get yourself Airborne before your Wazabane, your critical soars. Like you did prior to critting them, hopefully. You get around 20 of their Crit Evade from items for being behind them and being airborne, and get around their Crit Evade from FAI by using Dark Water for an effective +70 Critical, on top of the +20 Critical Wazabane gives for attacking whilst airborne.

After all those gymnastics your final effective Critical is 264 (129 base + 30 from Perfect Poise + 15 from Sudden Death + 50 from Dark Water + 20 from negating Metal x Plusx2 + 20 from Airborne Wazabane) so before Yellow Dice come into play you're looking at a 61% chance to crit someone who has done literally everything they can do to stop you bar slapping on a Tetraite and giving the system the finger.

It's important to note I didn't include this Ghost now Kensei/BK using their Hand or Accessory slot for Crit. If they used a RoT+ and a Sayakensa this 61% becomes 81%, nearly guaranteeing a Critical hit on someone who has done nearly everything to stop you, all while you haven't even used the best tools Critical has (Bloody Karma, Volley Formation, Veil Off).