Patch 26.1 put base critical strike damage back to 200%, and that changed how every crit build in the game works. Here's the math, plus why 50% crit is worth more than you think and why the last few percent are worth the most.
League of Legends Guide
How Crit Actually Works
The Math Behind 100% CritCritical strike is the most misunderstood stat in the game, and Patch 26.1 made that worse by changing the number everything else depends on. Base critical strike damage went from 175% back to 200% (a bigger buff to marksmen than any item change in years), and it happened without most players noticing what it did to their build.
The formula comes first, then what each chunk of crit chance buys you and when a crit item isn't the right purchase.
Then the three rules almost nobody knows. Your crit rolls aren't as random as they look, you can't crit a building at all, and roughly twenty champions are scaling their abilities off crit chance without ever showing you a yellow number.
The Formula
Crit is a chance at a damage bonus, so the way to think about it is average damage over many attacks.
At 200% base crit damage the arithmetic is unusually friendly. A crit doubles your attack, so the bonus is a full 100% of the original hit. That means every 1% of crit chance is worth exactly 1% more auto-attack damage, right the way up the curve.
50% crit chance means half your attacks double (an average of 1.5 times your normal damage). 100% crit chance means every attack doubles, and that's 2 times. There's no diminishing return anywhere in that line.
What Each Step Actually Buys
| Crit chance | Average damage multiplier | Gain over zero crit |
|---|---|---|
| 0% | 1.00x | Baseline |
| 25% | 1.25x | +25% |
| 50% | 1.50x | +50% |
| 60% | 1.60x | +60% |
| 75% | 1.75x | +75% |
| 100% | 2.00x | +100% |
That's the answer to the question players ask most often about crit: how does 50% compare to 75%? On average damage, 75% crit is exactly 1.75 divided by 1.5, so about 17% more damage than 50%. It's a steady linear climb.
What Patch 26.1 Changed, and Why It Matters
For several years base crit damage sat at 175%. A crit dealt 1.75 times a normal hit, so the bonus part was only 75% (every 1% of crit chance bought you 0.75% more damage). Full crit was a 1.75x multiplier.
Patch 26.1 restored 200%. Full crit is now a 2.0x multiplier instead (a straight 14% damage increase on a fully-built crit marksman without a single item changing).
That's why so many marksmen got nerfed in the same patch. Riot didn't nerf them because they were overperforming; they nerfed them to pay for the crit change. If you looked at a champion's ability ratios going down in 26.1 and concluded they were gutted, check their auto-attack damage at three items before believing it. A lot of those champions came out ahead.
The practical consequence: crit items are worth more relative to everything else than they were before the patch, and it's worth re-examining builds that hedged toward on-hit or lethality on a traditional crit carry.
Why the Last 25% Is Worth the Most
The average-damage line is perfectly straight, so on paper the last 25% of crit is worth the same as the first 25%. In an actual game it isn't, because damage you can't rely on is worth less than damage you can.
At 60% crit, whether you win a duel depends partly on the dice. You might land four crits in a row and delete someone, or land none and die with them at 20% health. At 100%, that variance disappears completely. Every trade and every last hit does exactly what you expect.
That predictability is worth real money. It's the difference between a burst pattern you can plan around and one you can only hope for.
Overcapping is wasted
Crit chance is hard capped at 100%. Anything above that doesn't do anything for most champions, so buying a fourth crit item when three already got you there is throwing away a full item slot.
Check before your last item
The common mistake is buying a crit item out of habit at five items when you were already at 100%. Look at your stat sheet before that purchase and buy damage, penetration or survivability instead.
Crit damage stacks separately
Some items add crit damage rather than crit chance (raising the multiplier above 200% rather than the odds). Those keep scaling after you hit 100% chance, so they belong late in a build. They don't belong early.
Attack speed multiplies with it
Crit raises damage per attack, attack speed raises attacks per second. They multiply rather than add, so the two together are worth more than either looks alone. The standard marksman build buys both for that reason.
The Dice Are Loaded in Your Favor
Crit isn't a fresh coin flip on every attack. The game watches how your recent attacks went and adjusts the real probability behind the scenes. Go a stretch without critting and your actual odds climb above the number on your stat sheet. Land three in a row and they drop below it.
Almost nobody knows this, and it changes how you should react in a fight. A dry run corrects itself, so the answer to four straight white numbers is to keep attacking rather than to disengage and wait for the luck to turn. A hot run is the reverse, and it's the worst possible moment to commit to a duel on the assumption the streak holds.
It also means the number on your stat sheet is a long-run average rather than the odds on the next swing. The variance is real, but it's bounded instead of open-ended, and the system works hardest to end exactly the streaks that were about to lose you the fight.
Consistency Against Average
Two builds with identical average damage can feel completely different (and crit is the biggest reason why).
A 50% crit build and a hypothetical build with 50% more flat damage average out the same, but the crit one wins some fights it shouldn't and loses some it should. Over a hundred games those even out. Over one teamfight they absolutely don't.
This matters most in short exchanges. In a long fight against a tank you'll take enough attacks for the average to hold. In a two-second burst on a squishy, the variance decides the outcome. That's why assassins and burst mages don't build crit and marksmen who plan to auto-attack for ten seconds straight do.
You Cannot Crit a Building
Basic attacks can't critically strike structures. Turrets, inhibitors and the Nexus take the flat number no matter how much crit chance you bought, so a six-item crit marksman shoves a tower at the same rate they did with zero crit.
Three champions are written around the rule rather than into it. The enhanced attacks from Fiora's Bladework [E], Jhin's Whisper [Passive] and Master Yi's Double Strike [Passive] all crit structures normally.
Remember it at the 40 minute mark, when a game has stalled and nobody can close it. The build that deletes people isn't automatically the build that ends the game, and the yellow numbers aren't coming to help you take the inhibitor.
The Exceptions Worth Knowing
Jhin
Deals reduced critical strike damage compared to everyone else, and converts crit chance into attack damage instead. His crit items are bought for the attack damage conversion rather than the crits (which is why his build looks strange next to other marksmen).
Yasuo and Yone
Their passive doubles crit chance from items, so they reach the cap at roughly half the investment (with reduced crit damage to compensate). Their real crit chance is half of what the shop tells you.
Senna
One of the few champions who benefits from crit chance past 100%, since her kit converts the excess rather than discarding it. She's the exception that proves the overcapping rule.
Abilities that always crit
Several champions have abilities that guarantee a critical strike, or that can crit when a normal ability can't. Those interact with crit damage items rather than crit chance, so read the tooltip before assuming a crit item helps.
Crit Chance Without Critting
Around twenty champions carry something that reads your crit chance and scales off it directly. The ability doesn't roll a crit or show a yellow number, and it never appears in any of the math above. It just pays more the more crit chance you own.
Ashe, Caitlyn, Sivir, Tristana, Xayah, Zeri, Quinn, Corki, Lucian, Jhin, Senna, Nilah, Smolder, Akshan, Kindred, Twisted Fate, Viego, Xin Zhao, Yasuo, Yone and Yuumi all have at least one effect that works this way.
On any of them, a crit item is buying two things with one slot, and the standard marksman build path is doing a second job the combat log never shows you. It's also why an early crit component on those champions is worth more than the raw chance suggests (the ability half of it pays out immediately, whether or not the coin ever lands).
What Players Argue About
The "always rush 100%" camp
The most common advice is to get to the cap as fast as possible for the consistency. It's usually right for traditional marksmen, and usually wrong for champions whose damage is front-loaded into abilities.
The variance skeptics
Others argue the consistency argument is overstated (across a full game the averages hold, and the real decision is just gold efficiency). There's something to it, though it undersells how many games are decided by one fight.
The overcap confessions
Every discussion of crit surfaces players admitting they finished games at 110% crit chance without noticing. It's the single most common wasted item slot in the game.
The post-26.1 rethink
Since base crit damage moved back to 200%, a lot of the conversation has been about which non-crit builds stopped making sense. That re-evaluation isn't finished.
Perspectives paraphrased from various Reddit discussions of marksman itemization.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much damage does a critical strike do in League of Legends?
200% of a normal attack, so exactly double. Patch 26.1 increased base critical strike damage to 200% from the 175% it had been sitting at, which raised the ceiling on every crit build in the game.
How does 50% crit compare to 75% crit?
50% crit averages 1.5 times your normal damage and 75% averages 1.75 times, so 75% is about 17% more damage than 50%. The relationship is perfectly linear, so there's no threshold where crit suddenly becomes better value.
Is crit chance capped in League of Legends?
Yes, at 100%. Anything beyond that is wasted for almost every champion, so if three items already put you at the cap, a fourth crit item is a thrown-away slot. Senna is the notable exception (her kit uses the excess).
Why is 100% crit better than 80% if the math is linear?
Consistency, rather than average damage. At 80% you sometimes lose a duel to bad luck; at 100% every attack does exactly what you expect. The averages are linear, but a fight you can plan is worth more than a fight you have to hope about.
Why did marksmen get nerfed in Patch 26.1?
To pay for the crit change. Raising base critical strike damage from 175% to 200% is roughly a 14% damage increase on a fully built crit champion, so Riot reduced ability ratios and crit scalings to keep overall power in line. Many of those champions still came out ahead.
Do Yasuo and Yone really get double crit chance?
Yes. Their passive doubles the crit chance they get from items, so they hit the 100% cap at around half the usual investment, with reduced crit damage as the trade-off. Halve whatever the shop shows you to work out their real crit chance.
Is crit chance actually random in League of Legends?
Not purely. The game adjusts your real odds based on how your recent attacks went, so a run without a crit raises the chance of the next one and a run of crits lowers it. The number on your stat sheet is the long-run average rather than the odds on the next swing.
Can you critically strike turrets?
No. Basic attacks can't crit structures, so turrets, inhibitors and the Nexus take the flat number no matter how much crit chance you have. The only exceptions are the enhanced attacks from Fiora's Bladework [E], Jhin's Whisper [Passive] and Master Yi's Double Strike [Passive].
Which champions scale off crit chance without critting?
About twenty, Ashe, Caitlyn, Sivir, Tristana, Xayah, Zeri, Jhin, Senna, Nilah and Smolder among them. Their abilities read your crit chance and deal more damage the more of it you own, without ever rolling a critical strike, so crit items on those champions buy ability damage alongside auto-attack damage.
Should every marksman build crit?
No. Crit rewards champions who expect to auto-attack repeatedly in a fight. Champions whose damage is front-loaded into abilities, or who build on-hit effects, often get more from attack speed and penetration. Jhin is a special case: he buys crit for the attack damage his passive converts it into.
The rest of what Patch 26.1 changed is written up too: every Summoner's Rift objective and what taking it gets you, and the Role Quests that replaced Feats of Strength. If you want the other stat whose printed number isn't what it does, Ability Haste Explained runs the same arithmetic on cooldowns.
Be honest: how many games have you finished at 110% crit chance? Confess in the comments.
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