On Critical Hits in Conquest

[starburst]

I have always felt that Odin and Ophelia land considerably more critical hits than the rest of the party, probably more than all others combined. During my last campaign, I decided to take notes of all crits and compare real numbers.

To make the comparison more interesting, I used vanilla versions of Sorcerer Odin and Sorcerer Ophelia, and included in the party units whose class and skills would increase their chance of landing critical hits (Berserker Effie and Sniper Mozu.)

As usual, this campaign was Conquest Hard Classic, deploying ten units maximum per map, with no pre-promotes, no backpacks, no Experience or Gold DLC maps, no path bonuses and no Internet.

The party:
· Nohr Noble Corrinette +Mag -Def
· Sorcerer Odin
· Sorcerer Ophelia

· Strategist Elise
· Popstar Azura
· Hero Silas; Cavalier until Ch 9, then Mercenary.
· Master Ninja Kaze, with three level-ups (23-25) as Great Knight to learn Elbow Room and Luna.
· Berserker Effie; Knight until Ch 10, then Fighter, with three level-ups (23-25) as Sniper to learn Quick Draw and Certain Blow.

· Sniper Mozu; Archer since L1, with three level-ups (23-25) as Fighter-Hero to learn Gamble and Sol.
· Wolfssenger Velouria

After Ch 15, the Before Awakening DLC map was played to build supports between Mozu and Keaton and recruit Velouria, so that the party would be complete before Ch 16.

It is possible to imagine that critical hits can be overrepresented by equipping a Killer weapon on the unit dealing the last hit, even when any hit would have sufficed. To counter this, I divided crits into two categories:

· Decisive Crit: a critical hit whose damage (including Attack Stance) was a necessary condition to kill the enemy on that encounter.
· Secondary Crit: a critical hit whose damage (including Attack Stance) was either insufficient or redundant to kill the enemy on that encounter. Blocked critical hits were also considered here.

Note that Secondary Crits may still be key in battle. Leaving aside those rare instances where a crit is blocked, every critical hit is still a successful hit. If there is surplus damage, the enemy still dies; and if the damage is insufficient, the enemy will most likely die in the following encounter, and it is left vulnerable to more party members.

In the table, the number of critical hits that each unit landed on a chapter is expressed as a pair: Decisive Crits (blue) to the left, followed by Secondary Crits to the right.
Chapters where no critical hits had been landed were omitted.
Azura was excluded because she had E-rank in lances by Endgame and always wielded a bronze weapon.

Edited November 30, 2018 by starburst
Formatting

[starburst]

Some observations about the information in the table.

As expected, Odin and Ophelia landed more critical hits than all other units combined early-game (10 vs 9.)

During mid-game, things got more interesting and the number of critical hits tripled (from 19 to 63.) This is explained by the availability of Killer weapons, the considerably higher number of encounters per map, the promotion of units, and the reaching of decent Skill (around 20) by most units.

By Chapter 18, Berserker Effie and Sniper Mozu had both learned Gamble and Certain Blow, and usually wielded Killer weapons. This, in conjunction with their class bonuses, increased their critical hits exponentially. Yet, during the mid-game Sorcerer Ophelia and Sorcerer Odin still landed 30 % of all critical hits (21/63).

The trend continued in the the last third of the game, where the mad mages landed 43 critical hits, Mozu and Effie landed 52, and the rest of the team, another 37.

Ophelia was the Crit Machine of the campaign with 44 critical hits. And the number is even more interesting if one considers that she only faced 128 Encounters and had 99 Victories. On average, she landed a critical hit in one third of her encounters and in half of her victories. In comparison, Mozu landed 42 crits in 277 Encounters, while Effie landed 35 crits in 261 Encounters.

All in all, and always keeping in mind that every campaign is unique, the critical hit numbers of Sorcerer Odin, Sorcerer Ophelia, Sniper Mozu and Berserker Effie were coherent with other runs, while those of Kung Fu Kaze and Wolfssenfer Velouria were relatively low compared to previous campaigns.

In the end, 145 of the 214 critical hits landed in this campaign were Decisive Crits. This means that about 70 % of all critical hits granted kills that would not have been possible otherwise, saving healing resources and turn counts for the whole party, and granting more flexibility to the following moves in that turn.

In particular, being able to land numerous critical hits is one of the reasons I like using Odin and Ophelia, who do it constantly during the game and across all campaigns. (And even if all of their tens of crits were blocked, who would not love to watch these two shouting hammy phrases and performing special moves on every map?!)

Edited November 30, 2018 by starburst
Formatting

[Shadow Mir]

Ehhh, personally, I find that it's the other way around - critical hits favour the enemy way more often than not. I find it hard to count the number of times where a critical hit actually helped, as opposed to being gratuitous overkill. On the other hand, they're much more effective as a tool for the enemy to cheese the player out of a unit. Doesn't help that killer weapons are lackluster this time around...

Edited October 30, 2018 by Shadow Mir

[TheWildestCat]

It doesn't matter who can crit when the enemies always get the 1 % crits.

[starburst]

Back with some results from my latest campaign.
For a fair comparison, Odin and Ophelia were once again 'vanilla' Sorcerers.

The party:
· Nohr Noble Corrinette   +Mag -Def, with one level-up on a Pegasus for the +5 Speed skill and two level-ups as Dark Knight for the skills.
· Sorcerer Odin with one level-up on a Pegasus for the +5 Speed skill.
· Sorcerer Ophelia with Dragon Fang and the +5 Speed skill

· Hero Silas, re-classed into Mercenary after Ch 13.
· Great Knight Effie, class-changed into Cavalier right after marriage, before Ch 12.
· Paladin Sophie, was a Great Knight until Ch 20 (to learn Luna.)

· Sniper Mozu, Archer since L1.
· Adventurer Nina with Aptitude.

· Strategist Elise
· The Voice Azura

In the table, the number of critical hits that each unit landed on a chapter is expressed as a pair: Decisive Crits (blue) to the left, followed by Secondary Crits to the right.
Chapters where no critical hits had been landed were omitted.
Azura was excluded because she had E-rank in lances by Endgame and always wielded a bronze weapon.

Edited November 30, 2018 by starburst
Formatting

[starburst]

Now some observations about the second table.

Early in the game, the party landed 27 critical hits, a couple more than in the last campaign but across more maps. Odin and Ophelia landed eleven out of those crits.

During mid-game (Ch 14-20), there were considerably less critical hits than in the last campaign (44 vs 63.) The Sorcerers landed around 45 % of the crits (20/44), and Mozu finally joined the crit frenzy with ten crits.

In the last third of the game, the number of critical hits doubled (from 44 to 103), thanks to the contribution of more party members. In particular, Adventurer Nina was a great surprise, with ten crits late-game.

Mozu and her daughter landed 52 critical hits in total, thanks to a high Skill, Aptitude and Killer Bows. Adventurer Nina with Aptitude is a monster, capping Str by L20/7 and Skl, Spd, Res way before Endgame; with equally powerful physical and magical attacks.

The mad mages were at the top with 69 critical hits in total (29 for Odin and 40 for Ophelia.) It is worth mentioning that Ophelia landed 40 crits in only 121 encounters; that is a critical hit every three fights!

In the end, around 45 % (79/174) of the critical hits landed during this campaign were Decisive Crits, granting kills that would have not been possible otherwise.

Edited November 30, 2018 by starburst
Formatting

[starburst]

And here are the results of a third campaign that I was playing concurrently with the one mentioned right above.
Again, for a fair comparison, Odin and Ophelia were Sorcerers.

The party:
· Nohr Noble Corrinette   +Mag -Def
· Sorcerer Odin with one level-up as Sky Knight for the +5 Spd skill.
· Sorcerer Ophelia with Dragon Fang and the +5 Spd skill.

· Hero Silas: Cavalier until L18, then two level-ups as Ninja, and finally Hero.
· Great Knight Effie
· Berserker Sophie: Great Knight until L5 for Luna, then Berserker.

· Sniper Mozu: Archer at L1, with three level-ups as Hero for Gamble and Sol, and finally Sniper.
· Berserker Velouria with Aptitude. Fighter right upon recruitment, then Beserker.

· Strategist Elise
· Superstar Azura

In the table, the number of critical hits that each unit landed on a chapter is expressed as a pair: Decisive Crits (blue) to the left, followed by Secondary Crits to the right.
Chapters where no critical hits had been landed were omitted.
Azura was excluded because she had E-rank in lances by Endgame and always wielded a bronze weapon.

[Shadow Mir]

Not to be rude, but what's the point of this thread???

[starburst]

And some observations about the third table.

Early in the game there were almost twice as many critical hits than in the first campaign (33 vs 19.) Odin and Ophelia landed 18 of those crits.

During mid-game, 51 critical hits were landed, and the biggest contributor was the just-recruited Velouria. Being Mozu's daughter, she inherited great Skill and Aptitude, learned Gamble and almost immediately became a Berserker. She landed 35 crits in total, but only participated in 108 Encounters. That is a crit every three battles!

In the final section of the game, 130 crits were landed, which is a great increase over mid-game (130 vs 51.) Sophie was also a Berserker by then, the maps were longer, and the party as a whole had more Skill and access to better bonuses. It is worth mentioning that only two killer weapons were used during the entire game (one Mjölnir and one Killer Bow.)

Mozu led the frenzy with 43 crits, closely followed by Ophelia (36), Odin and Velouria (35 each.) Those numbers are expected by those four, but this time Silas and Sophie joined the party and contributed with 49 crits.

Perhaps the greatest difference between this campaign and the previous two was that here only 35 % of the critical hits were Decisive ones (74/214.)
The reason for this lower ratio is that Odin and Ophelia doubled basically everything from the very beginning (both learned the +5 Spd skill before Ch 12), which made the great majority of their crits superfluous (the second hit would have killed the enemy anyway.) In addition, Sophie and Velouria were extremely powerful and doubled every enemy, what made most of their crits overkill (and Sophie also triggered Luna often.)

All in all, it was nice to see how Odin and Ophelia performed consistently across these campaigns, landing over 70 critical hits in every one of them; which accounted for a great portion of the total crits from the entire party. I always had the idea that they delivered crits like crazy and, well, they do.

Edited November 30, 2018 by starburst
Formatting