Critical hit and damage bonus for special attacks
 

I have seen that rage critical and spell critical chance have been implemented in the game which is a very good move.

But are the special attacks of units influenced by a critical hit and the more important question, are items damage bonus affecting the special attacks (like +1 poison damage or +1 fire damage)?

IN Legend and AP some special attacks have been affected by the items bonus, for some reason - most were not. None of them could score a critical.
I used a mod that turned on the critical for special attacks because most of them were less than 50% more powerful than the base attack and with a high critical chance at the end of the game, with Gaudi giving double critical vs undead and demons, it was just stupid to use most of the special attacks.

One way of implementing items damage bonus could be to increase only the attacks from the same damage group, i.e. +1 poison damage is added only to base poison attacks, +1 fire damage only to base fire attacks etc. AND depending of the item type the bonus goes either to melee or ranged base attacks - a bow should not give a melee bonus.

So far, I have yet to see a Rage skill critical. Icy Rage is buggy. The freezing effect only works for Olaf's non-Valkyrie skills and I've NEVER seen a Rage skill crit.

Some special attacks DO crit now, mostly the ones that are more powerful versions of basic attacks. I can't comment on the second question, as I frequently run without those, since I mostly use high-level units, who benefit less from them.

Special attacks from units CAN critical hit now. It makes things like 'lunge' for snakes, and similar much better. You no longer do less average damage with them when you have a high crit chance!

Yep. But you need the fixes until they patch it or you won't see it happen.

No no, we aren't talking Rage or Spells here. Just normal special attacks of units. Like a marauders hit, or a snakes lunge. These could not crit before, and so would deal less Average damage than basic attacks.

This is great news, another reason to buy the game close to my days-off. I am really tempted to do it now, but real life work demands the opposite :)

What about damage from items added to special attacks?

Based on testing, no, they do not. I only tested the red dragon flame breath. Attacks more similar to normal attacks might work.

Pre-patch I have seen the Soothsayer's ice storm crit and all of the alchemist's potions crit at one time or another. I was using the unofficial fix to enable rage/spell crit, though.

Haven't played post-patch, I am afraid. :shock:

Just to be clear, all unit special skills DO crit, pre and post patch.

However, special unit skills do not benefit from items that increase damage by a flat amount, like poison dagger or astral bow.