You return to lane with 25% critical-strike chance, land three ordinary attacks, and step forward for the fourth. That next hit is not owed to you. Four attacks can finish without a crit, and an enemy’s ready crowd control does not become safer because your last few hits were unlucky.
A critical strike in LoL usually makes a basic attack deal 200% of its normal damage before defenses. Critical-strike chance determines how often the attack can receive that damage bonus; critical-strike damage determines the bonus’s size. The current baseline for most champions is 200%, not the old 175%, following Riot’s 2026 changes. Some champions and abilities have different rules.
The critical-strike rules and items below concern ordinary PC Summoner’s Rift.
What 25% critical-strike chance buys you
Crit chance from ordinary sources adds together: 25% plus 25% gives 50%. The normal cap is 100%, at which ordinary eligible attacks critically strike. Above that cap, more chance does not create a second critical strike on the same attack. A champion needs an explicit rule to convert excess chance into something useful.
League also does not use a simple independent coin flip for every attack. The current specialist critical-strike reference describes a system that adjusts the rolls to moderate streaks. That does not establish a repeating sequence such as ordinary, ordinary, ordinary, crit. Do not turn missed crits on minions into a promise about your next hit on a champion.
Suppose the enemy support misses a hook and you have room for two attacks before their ADC can answer. You land two ordinary hits. Chasing for the crit you wanted means entering a different trade, potentially past your own support and into the enemy minions. Judge that extra step by who can hit you, not by how many non-crits you remember.
Calculate an average, not the next attack
For a standard basic attack, use this planning model:
Expected raw attack damage = AD × [1 + crit chance × (crit multiplier – 1)].
AD means your total attack damage. Enter chance as a decimal: 25% is 0.25. A normal 200% crit multiplier is 2.0, meaning the attack deals its normal damage plus another 100%, not an extra 200%. At 200 AD and 25% chance, the weighted average is 200 × [1 + 0.25 × (2 - 1)] = 250 raw damage per attack.
An individual attack in that example deals 200 or 400 before defenses, not 250. The average is useful for comparing sustained attacking under the same conditions; it does not predict a particular four-hit exchange or simulate League’s roll history. This model excludes special champion rules, extra damage effects and resistance.
At the baseline multiplier, adding another 25 percentage points raises that average from 250 to 300, a 20% relative increase. Going from 75% to 100% instead raises it from 350 to 400, a 14.29% increase. Each step adds the same 50 raw expected damage at fixed 200 AD, but the relative gain is smaller when you already have more damage. That is different from saying later crit chance stops working.
Infinity Edge changes the hit as well as the chance
Current Infinity Edge costs 3,500 gold and supplies 75 AD, 25% critical-strike chance and 30% critical-strike damage. For a standard attack, its damage stat takes the multiplier from 200% to 230%. It does not multiply 200% by 1.30 to produce 260%.
You get the damage bonus when you finish the item. There is no additional 40% or 60% crit-chance threshold to activate it. Old Infinity Edge guides can describe a different item.
The following comparison fixes total AD at 200 and changes only the chance and multiplier. The Infinity Edge column isolates its damage multiplier; it does not pretend the item’s 75 AD and purchase cost are absent from a real build.
| Total crit chance | Average at 200% crit damage | Average at 230% crit damage |
|---|---|---|
| 25% | 250 | 265 |
| 50% | 300 | 330 |
| 75% | 350 | 395 |
| 100% | 400 | 460 |
At the same 200 AD and 50% chance, the multiplier alone takes the average from 300 to 330, a 10% increase. That is not 30% more total attack damage. With a real Infinity Edge purchase, recalculate both your AD and crit chance too.
An Infinity Edge build path is not the same purchase as a finished Infinity Edge. If your next recall can finish another useful item but only buy part of IE, compare those actual inventories for the approaching fight. Current Cloak of Agility costs 600 gold for 15% crit chance. Do not assign a cloak the 25% chance of a completed item, or count AD it does not provide.
Guaranteed crits can have a different multiplier
Fiendhunter Bolts is a useful counterexample to the idea that all crits equal double damage. Its Opening Barrage activates after you cast your ultimate. The next three basic attacks within eight seconds gain 50% attack speed and are guaranteed to critically strike for 80% of your normal critical-strike damage. The effect has a 45-second cooldown. Riot’s 26.2 update and the current normal item record establish these current values.
With the ordinary 200% multiplier, the guaranteed branch is 2.0 × 0.80 = 1.60, or 160% of the normal attack’s damage, before defenses. It is not 280%. If an attack would already crit, the current English tooltip instead gives it normal critical-strike damage and an additional 15% bonus true damage. Do not replace that branch with the reduced guaranteed multiplier.
There is a timing cost here. An ultimate that starts a fight with targets in attack range can leave room to use the three attacks. An ultimate used to disengage may not. Do not walk back into danger merely to consume the item effect before it expires. Check the item’s cooldown before treating an ultimate as the start of that window. The guarantee applies to the specified attack window; it does not permanently set your crit chance to 100%.
Check the champion before using the standard formula
Ashe benefits without a random damage spike
Ashe’s critical attacks deal no extra damage from the crit itself. They apply an empowered slow instead. Her passive’s attack damage still scales with critical-strike chance and critical-strike damage bonus, as the current normal passive and its extended tooltip specify.
Crit items still improve Ashe’s damage through that scaling, but the ordinary 200-or-400 example does not describe her attacks. Her stronger slow can also help her keep someone in range. Decide whether a chase is working from the damage and control she has, rather than waiting for a lucky doubled hit.
Yasuo reaches the cap differently
Yasuo doubles the crit chance he receives. Two sources providing 25% each therefore give him 100% chance, rather than the 50% an ordinary champion would receive. His current passive also converts each percentage point above 100% into 0.5 bonus AD.
His critical damage is reduced to 95% of the ordinary multiplier after patch 26.17 reduced his penalty. For an ordinary basic attack, that means 200% × 0.95 = 190%; with Infinity Edge, 230% × 0.95 = 218.5%. Do not substitute the old 180% value, or apply the general table without his modifier.
This is an exception, not evidence that every champion should buy beyond the chance cap. A champion already at 100% without an excess-chance conversion gets no additional crit frequency from another 15% cloak. A further purchase needs value from its other stats or effects.
Crit chance does not make every damage number crit
An ability can critically strike, scale smoothly with crit chance, or do neither. Those are different mechanics. Applying on-hit effects does not, by itself, establish that a spell uses the ordinary critical-strike formula. Likewise, a separate bonus damage effect attached to an attack does not automatically double because the attack crits. The critical-strike reference distinguishes these categories. Use the spell or item’s stated interaction before multiplying the whole damage packet.
Riot’s 2026 critical-strike adjustments give a reason to be careful: many abilities were assigned their own portion of bonus critical-strike damage rather than inheriting the full basic-attack multiplier. Copying a standard attack equation onto every button can substantially overstate a combo.
Rune amplification is another separate calculation. Current Press the Attack requires three consecutive basic attacks against an enemy champion before its damage-amplification effect. The listed 8% damage increase is not eight percentage points of crit chance or critical-strike damage. An already-active amplification effect can improve a qualifying hit without changing whether it crits. When starting a fresh trade without the buff, do not give your first two attacks that amplification.
A quick damage check
You have 200 AD, 100% crit chance and Infinity Edge. For an ordinary basic attack with no other modifiers, is the raw damage 460 or 520?
It is 460: 200 × 2.30. Infinity Edge adds 30 percentage points to the standard 200% multiplier; multiplying the standard crit by 1.30 would incorrectly produce 520. Resistance can still reduce the resulting damage.
Armor still matters, and Randuin’s adds a specific defense
A critical strike from an ordinary physical attack is still physical damage. It does not bypass armor or become true damage. The larger raw number goes through the relevant defenses, which is why a crit against an armored frontliner can remove less health than an ordinary hit against a much less protected target.
Current Randuin’s Omen provides 350 health and 75 armor for 2,700 gold. Its Resilience passive reduces incoming critical-strike damage by 30%. That reduction is separate from the item’s armor; it does not remove 30 percentage points from the attacker’s crit chance.
To isolate the passive, suppose an ordinary physical crit would otherwise deal 200 damage after the target’s defenses. Resilience reduces that applicable damage to 200 × 0.70 = 140. This is a fixed-defense comparison, not a claim that buying the complete item changes nothing except the passive. The extra armor and health also matter in a real purchase.
For the defender, check how much of the enemy threat comes from applicable critical damage rather than buying Randuin’s solely because one opponent owns a cloak. For the attacker, more crit chance does not cancel this reduction. An armor-penetration purchase, more attack uptime or a different target may be the more relevant next decision, depending on the full build and fight.
Before the next fight, ask how many attacks you will have room to land. A frontline you can hit repeatedly makes the sustained comparison useful. A carry who will disappear behind a wall after one hit demands a different plan. Compare your purchases for that short opening instead of budgeting damage you will never have time to deliver.