Critical hits

“

Dere ain't enough crits in the world ta kill me! Click to listen — The Scout

”

Critical hits, also known as "Crits", are attacks that do extra damage and have distinctive sounds both when fired and when hitting a target. Players on the receiving end of the attack will have the words "Critical hit!!!" appear over their head in green letters, accompanied by a loud ding.

Critical hits can be easily distinguished from normal hits. Melee weapons have a unique swinging animation. Explosives projectiles, such as rockets or Stickybombs, have a team-colored glow and sparkle effects. Bullets have team-colored trails.

Self-inflicted critical hits will not deal critical self-damage but will still play the sound effect.

Critical hits deal 300% of the base damage of the weapon, and ignore both the distance modification and the random damage modification normal shots are susceptible to, though explosive weapon crits still suffer from splash damage fall-off.

When a player is killed by a critical hit, the class will let out a loud scream that differs from ordinary deaths, unless the class was killed by a critical explosive, in addition to this the kill icon becomes surrounded by a red glow.

Critical hit chance

See also: Damage

Critical hit chance based on damage.

Standard weapons have a 2% base chance to crit, while melee weapons have a 15% chance. An additional bonus percentage is added based on the total damage done by the player in the last 20 seconds, which scales from 0% at 0 damage to 10% at 800 damage. For example: dealing 200 damage in the past 20 seconds, the additional bonus percentage is 2.5%.

Among those weapons that trigger randomly, critical hit chance is rolled differently based on the type of weapon. Single-shot weapons, which, for example, include Shotguns, the Revolver, and the Rocket Launcher, roll the chance to crit with every shot. Thus, every shot of the Shotgun will have a 2% chance to launch a flurry of critical pellets, assuming no previous damage done. Rapid-fire weapons, however, which include the Minigun, Syringe Gun, and Flamethrower, check for critical hits once a second. With weapons like these, a successful crit roll results in all shots for the next two seconds being critical.

Special cases

An Engineer wielding the Frontier Justice with revenge crits.

• The default Knife, Your Eternal Reward and Conniver's Kunai only critical hit on a Backstab and during crit boost (humiliation, captured intelligence, Kritzkrieg).
• Backstabs instantly kill the enemy by dealing damage equal to 6x their current health. When forced to crit, the Knife does the backstab animation, while dealing only 120 damage. Although this has not been proven, tests strongly suggest that a backstab inflicts damage equal to 2x the enemy's health and score an automatic crit, with the crit increasing the damage to 6x and producing the backstab animation. This is supported by the fact that when the Spy's knife scores crits during a crit boost, the attack is a backstabbing motion (even when attacking from the front), but the 6x health kill only works from behind (even during crit boost).
• The Sniper Rifle, Ambassador and Huntsman do not roll for crits, but rather automatically score critical hits on successful headshots. The Sniper Rifle can only perform headshot crits while scoped and the Ambassador only when at full accuracy; both will crit under the effect of Kritzkrieg.
• The Axtinguisher will score a critical hit if the victim is on fire, and does half damage otherwise. It may still randomly perform a crit animation, but will not inflict crit damage unless the enemy is burning. When forced to crit, it plays the crit animation and does deal extra damage.
• The Backburner is guaranteed to crit from behind, but also randomly crits.
• The K.G.B. will roll for critical hits like a standard melee weapon. However, upon killing a target, they grant 5 seconds of crit boost to all of the Heavy's weapons.
• The Eyelander, Claidheamh Mòr, Horseless Headless Horsemann's Headtaker and Ullapool Caber do not roll for random critical hits, but will score critical hits when under the effects of the Kritzkrieg, used by the winning team in humiliation, or when using a full charge of the Chargin' Targe. The Chargin' Targe can also be used to get a critical hit for the Bottle, Pain Train, Scotsman's Skullcutter or the Frying Pan.
• Jarate and Mad Milk may appear to crit, though this has only a cosmetic effect.
• Some items do not work as conventional weapons and so do not crit under any circumstance. These include Bonk! Atomic Punch, Crit-a-Cola, Mad Milk, the Rocket Jumper, the Buff Banner, the Gunboats, the Battalion's Backup, the Concheror, the Sticky Jumper, the Chargin' Targe, the Sandvich, the Dalokohs Bar, the Buffalo Steak Sandvich, the Wrangler, the Medi Gun, the Kritzkrieg, the Razorback, Darwin's Danger Shield, Jarate, the Electro Sapper, the Disguise Kit, the Invisibility Watch, the Cloak and Dagger, the Dead Ringer, the Enthusiast's Timepiece and the PDAs.
• At medium range or further, the Flare Gun will score a critical if it hits a player who is already on fire.
• The Frontier Justice does not roll for random crits. Instead, when the Engineer's Sentry Gun is destroyed, it accrues Revenge Crits, 2 for every kill and 1 for every assist the Sentry made.
• The Gunslinger crits upon the third consecutive hit on an enemy but does not randomly crit otherwise.
• Taunt attacks do not crit, but using one while boosted by a Buff Banner or Crit-a-Cola, or when the opponent is under the effects of Jarate or Crit-a-Cola will result in a mini-crit Taunt Kill. [1]
• The Powerjack, Sydney Sleeper and the Southern Hospitality do not roll for random crits.
• The Bushwacka will crit at any time it would normally mini-crit, such as: against an enemy Scout under the effects of Crit-a-Cola, an Heavy under the effect of the Buffalo Steak Sandvich, an enemy soaked by Jarate or if the Sniper is under the effects of an allied Soldier's Buff Banner. It also rolls for crits normally.
• The Bleeding mechanic does not randomly crit, but will mini-crit players covered in Jarate or using Crit-a-Cola.
• Sentry Guns will never inflict random critical hits. However, it will mini-crit enemies covered in Jarate, Scouts under the effect of Crit-a-Cola, Heavies under the effect of Buffalo Steak Sandvich, and will also mini-crit all enemies if the building Engineer is being buffed by a friendly Soldier's Buff Banner.

Crit boost

Crit boost is a state in which a player's weapons are guaranteed to cause critical hits. Crit boost is displayed as weapons taking on a team-colored glow with accompanying sparks of electricity.

• During Humiliation, every shot fired by the winning side is a critical hit, including body shots with the Sniper Rifle and Huntsman.

• All shots are critical while ÜberCharged with the Kritzkrieg. This affects the Huntsman and the Sniper Rifle.

• Capturing the flag in a Capture the Flag game mode gives the entire capturing team 10 seconds of crit boost (this value can be tweaked or disabled in the host's console via a command).

• A crit boost is the only way the Knife can critically hit without a Backstab. When it does so, it deals 120 damage (three times base damage, but less than a normal crit). The Axtinguisher plays crit animations when crit boosted and will deal critical damage after the 50% damage modifier if the victim is not on fire. The Southern Hospitality, Powerjack, and most Demoman weapons crit normally, but do not crit without a crit boost.

• In the event version of Harvest and Mann Manor during Halloween, killed players randomly drop candy-filled Halloween pumpkins. When picked up, the player is awarded around 3–4 seconds of crit boost.

First Blood

In Arena mode, a First Blood buff is granted to a player who achieves the first kill of a round. It consists of a five-second crit boost.

• If players switch weapons during the buff, the electricity around their weapon will disappear, but critical hits will still be delivered.

• Triggering a feign death gives the attacker the First Blood buff.

• The First Blood buff counts as an ÜberCharge towards the Heavy achievement "Supreme Soviet".

Mini-Crits

Mini-Crits add an extra 35% damage to a weapon's base-damage — more accurately, they ensure that a weapon does at least 135% its base damage. Like normal critical hits, they ignore damage variance and fall off, but unlike critical hits, they are still given ramp-up at close range. Full crits override mini-crits. Like full crits, mini-crits will have a glowing red outline in their kill icons.

Currently there are twelve ways to achieve a mini-crit:

• Hitting Jarate coated enemies.
• Melee hits midway through a Chargin' Targe charge.
• Hitting a burning enemy with a flare at mid-range or closer.
• Attacking an enemy while under the effects of a friendly Soldier's Buff Banner.
• Hitting an airborne enemy who was propelled by an explosion with the Direct Hit.
• Attacking an enemy as a Scout while under the effects of Crit-a-Cola.
• Attacking an enemy Scout who is under the effects of Crit-a-Cola.
• Attacking an enemy as a Heavy while under the effects of Buffalo Steak Sandvich.
• Attacking an enemy Heavy who is under the effects of Buffalo Steak Sandvich.
• Additionally, the Pyro's compression blast 'upgrades' projectiles it reflects, other than Stickybombs, to mini-crits.
• Attacking a burning enemy as a Scout with the Sun-on-a-Stick.
• Attacking an enemy marked by the Fan O'War.

Former ways to achieve a mini-crit:

• Formerly mini-crits could be delivered by headshotting enemies with the Ambassador. It currently deals full crits.
• The Pyro's compression blast was formerly able to turn enemy Stickybombs into Mini-crits by reflecting them. It now gives no mini-crit boost on reflecting Stickybombs.
• The Direct Hit formerly dealt mini-crits to any airborne target. The weapon now inflicts mini-crit damage to airborne targets who have been launched into the air by an explosion.

Mini-Crit boost

A mini-crit boost is the state of having all damage being dealt modified in to mini-crit damage. Currently this is achievable while under the effects of Crit-a-Cola, an active Buff Banner, or a Buffalo Steak Sandvich. While being mini-crit boosted, the player's active weapon glows a faint yellow on RED, or a faint blue-green on BLU, and has the same color effect of particles swirling around their feet.

All damage sources, including Afterburn and Sentry Guns, only deal mini-crit damage when the player dealing the damage is being boosted. i.e. If the player leaves the boost (for whatever reason) after firing a projectile and while the projectile is in mid-flight, it will lose its status as mini-critical. Conversely, after a Pyro sets fire to several players, returning to a mini-crit boost will immediately transform any Afterburn damage to mini-crit status. Sentry Guns will only mini-crit while the Engineer is being mini-crit boosted.

Related Achievements

 Scout

First Blood Get the first kill in an Arena or Competitive match.

First Blood, Part 2 Kill 5 enemies with the First Blood crit buff in an Arena match.

 Soldier

Crockets Are Such B.S. Shoot two non-boosted crit rockets in a row.

Tri-Splatteral Damage Kill 3 enemies with a single critical rocket.

 Pyro

Hotshot Kill a Soldier with a reflected critical rocket.

 Demoman

Beat Me Up, Scotty Use a critical swing with the Eyelander to kill 5 enemy players.

 Heavy

Communist Mani-Fisto Kill an enemy with a critical punch.

Crock Block Survive a direct hit from a critical rocket.

 Engineer

Revengineering Use a revenge crit to kill the enemy player that destroyed your sentry gun.

Unforgiven Kill 3 enemies with revenge crits without dying.

 Medic

Triage Deploy an ÜberCharge on a teammate less than a second before they're hit by a critical explosive.

Update history

December 20, 2007 Patch

• Fixed critical bullet tracers not being visible to players other than the firer

February 14, 2008 Patch

• Added a small delay (200 ms) before a zoomed Sniper shot can get a critical hit

March 6, 2008 Patch

• Fixed critical modifier for explosive weapons (rockets, pipe bombs) increasing critical chance more than intended

September 30, 2010 Patch (Mann-Conomy Update)

• [Undocumented] The Frontier Justice now works correctly with critical boosts.

February 22, 2011 Patch

• [Undocumented] Several particle effects, including critical rockets, pipes, and stickies, were altered to appear brighter. These changes do not apply to ATi graphics card users and some others.

March 11, 2011 Patch

• Fixed the revenge crit label not being localized correctly.

Trivia

• Mini-Crits do not stack to make a crit. For example, a Scout under the effects of Crit-a-Cola while covered in Jarate will only receive an additional 35% damage.
• Multiple crit Effects do not stack, as well. For example, if an Engineer ÜberCharged by a Kritzkrieg Medic uses his Revenge Crits from the Frontier Justice, he will only deal normal critical damage.