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ESO Critical Damage - List of all Crit Damage Modifiers

Welcome to the ESO Critical Damage Guide. In this guide we are going to take a look at all the critical damage modifiers in the game. A lot of players confuse critical damage and critical chance (weapon and spell critical). Critical chance gives your abilities the possibility to crit. Critical damage is the modifier.

Critical Damage is a 50% boost to damage done at its base level when an ability crits. That means if a normal hit deals 1000 damage, a critical hit deals 1500 damage. However, you can increase the amount of critical damage via modifiers from sets, skills, champion points and passives. You can find a full list of all the possible modifiers below.

Update 32 Deadlands DLC introduced a critical damage hard cap of 125%. That means you won't be able to get above the 125%. This was done to reduce damage on very optimized raid groups. This hard cap won't affect many players except the top groups that managed to stack most of these buffs.

Critical Damage

Table of contents

1. ESO Critical Damage Modifiers List
2. Critical Damage Raid Example
3. FAQ Critical Damage

ESO Critical Damage Modifiers List

Below you can find two lists that showcase all the known critical damage modifiers. Of course you won't be able to get all of these at once, because some of the critical damage modifiers are class or race specific or require a very special set. Some buffs like Major Force won't have a 100% uptime, these are all things that you need to keep in mind.

Name	% Gains
Base	50%
Minor Force	10%
Major Force	20%
Minor Brittle	10%
Major Brittle*	20%
The Shadow Mundus Stone	18%
Backstabber Perk	15%
Fighting Finesse Perk	10%
Elemental Catalyst Set	15%
Harpooner's Wading Kilt Set	10%
Sul-Xan's Torment Set	12%
Dexterity Medium Armor Passive	14%
Twin Blade and Blunt Dual Wield Passive	16%
Heavy Weapons Two Handed Passive	16%
Feline Ambush Khajiit Passive	12%
Hemorrhage Nightblade Pass	10%
Piercing Spear Templar Passive	10%
Glacial Presence Warden Passive	10%
Malacath's Band of Brutality Set**	-50%

*Major Brittle is currently not available from any source.
**Malacath reduces your critical damage

Critical Damage Raid Example

To reach the 125% critical damage hard cap you could stack the following buffs. Lets take a look at a magicka based raid group example.

Name	% Gains
Base	50%
Minor Force	10%
Major Force	20%
Minor Brittle	10%
Backstabber Perk	15%
Fighting Finesse Perk	10%
Elemental Catalyst Set	15%
Total	130%

Please remember if you bring classes or races with you into a raid that already have critical damage modifiers (, , and ) you will have to adjust the critical damage modifiers. If you are already at the hard cap of 125% then these passives will be useless.

You also have to keep in mind that certain buffs might not have a 100% uptime, for example it is very hard to keep up all the time.

That also means that while you play in a 4 player dungeon group you don't really have to worry about the critical damage hard cap in ESO. The hard cap is mostly important for very optimized raid groups.

FAQ Critical Damage

Lets take a look at a few common questions about critical damage in ESO.

What is Critical Damage in ESO?

Critical Damage is a 50% boost to damage done at its base level when an ability crits. That means if a normal hit deals 1000 damage, a critical hit deals 1500 damage. However, you can increase the amount of critical damage via modifiers from sets, skills, champion points and passives.

How do you get high Crit Damage in ESO?

To get high crit damage in ESO you need to combine different modifers, please visit the ESO Critical Damage Guide to see a full list of all the modifiers.

How much damage does a Critical Hit do in ESO?

A critical hit deals 50% more damage than a normal hit. That means if a normal hit deals 1000 damage, a critical hit deals 1500 damage. However, you can increase the amount of critical damage via modifiers from sets, skills, champion points and passives.

Is Crit Chance better than Critical Damage in ESO?

Both critical chance and critical damage are important. Increasing critical chance is better in most cases because you can increase that number without much help from anyone else. Critical damage is usually also increased by buffs and debuffs from support characters.

Conclusion Critical Damage in ESO

Now you know pretty much anything there is to know about ESO Critical Damage. If you have any more questions you can always visit our community partner discord.