Nearby Enemies cannot deal Critical Strikes vs Hits against you are always Critical Strikes

I have a animated guardian with Garb of the Ephemeral, so I got "Nearby Enemies cannot deal Critical Strikes" buff.

But I alos got Ursine Procession "Hits against you are always Critical Strikes."

So I'll always or never get Critical Strikes?

Should be a difficult question (for me, at least, because i have rarely seen such combination). I guess the following logic could be correct:
"Never deal critical strike" modifier means, that enemy will fail its critical strike roll and only launch non-critical hits (that will be caught by a proper target)

"Hits against you are always critical strikes" means, that every caught non-critical strike will become critical.

As a result every hit your character receives will be critical, even if an enemy cannot deal critical strikes.
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I believe there can be a variable "Cannot be critical strike" attached to a hit from enemy with "Never deal critical strike", but i don't know for sure.

Not sure but i think always getting crit takes priority and any effect that can negate it will apply afterwards.

But to be sure you can double check it with items that proc when crit and make sure there are only nearby enemies:
https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Inextricable_Fate

From the wiki:

"Effects which prevent critical strikes (ex. Resolute Technique) will take priority over effects that causes you to always deal critical strikes (ex. Diamond Shrine). "


Whether that can be extended to effects that don't act on the same source, i can't be sure. But it would make sense that negating crits would take precedence, as that reduces the roll to zero rather than overriding the roll. The "simpler" operation is going to be negating crit, and you can't "override" a zero roll because of divide-by-zero.

I would think that maybe the debuff causes you to always take crits even if the enemies are not critting. So I think you are going to be crit by the hits, but i'm only guessing. Hopefully a Dev can weigh in on how it is coded. It may have something to do with the order of the damage calculation.

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Belegur85#5784 wrote:

I would think that maybe the debuff causes you to always take crits even if the enemies are not critting.

I would doubt this interaction would exist simply because its a debuff: there are many other cases where debuffs are overwritten by other absolutes.

Ex: Loreweave mod overrides all sources of reduced or increased maximum resistances. Both buffs and debuffs. While not exactly the same situation, it does cast doubt on any preference of a debuff over a buff.

I think the only "order" we need to know about is whether monster effects take precedent over player effects. If there are conflicting mods on the same source, then reason dictates it would follow the typical "gear" trigger order, as that is how the game reads the gear and gem code in order to "decide" what inevitably happens.


I do believe though, without definitive proof, that the switch which turns off monster crits gets pulled FIRST, as that would stop the roll from ever happening which determines a crit. If it worked the other way, both switches would be flipped no matter what, causing completely opposing code to collide. It would essentially be a code equivalent of 0 divided by 0, which yields an endless loop.

If we look at this "order of operations" for damage:

https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Receiving_damage

Critical strike is rolled when the MONSTER uses a skill, before any damage is calculated from that hit. Damage calculation on the player, including critical damage, occurs later in the process.

In fact, we see this in the expedition mod "cannot deal critical strikes". Instead of being spelled as "monsters take no extra damage from critical strikes" or "hits against monsters cannot be critical strikes", it is written in such a way that stops the critical from ever occurring in the first place.

Whether this is because the code HAS to work that way to function properly, or whether the mod was meant to specifically negate completely builds that rely entirely on crit (cast on critical strike)...who knows for sure. But I tend to think completely shutting down cast on crit builds was simply an unavoidable byproduct (and why that particular mod is not in yellow like the other immunities).


This is all speculation ofc without being able to prove it

Yep that all makes logical sense, it could be that the order in the calculation where crit is rolled determines which one takes precedence.

I just read it logically that any hit against you will be a crit, regardless if the enemy has or can crit. As you say, it may be that the order of the calculation prevents that from being possible if the enemy can not crit, and it is just speculation.

Unless someone has done some testing, has the code, or has confirmation of the way it works from the Devs or an order it follows, we may not know.

There has been increasing more of these complex interactions being added, that appear to have some conflict, but may have a rule that governs them working together.

Lucky/unlucky rolls is another one, which I think in that case they cancel each other.

It's funny there is basically no documentation on this because this seems like a pretty obvious exploitative relationship for meme builders....


BTW: I verified in PoB that "nearby enemies cannot deal critical strikes" DOES cancel out "Hits against you are always critical strikes".

Used a build without crit immunity: added the always take critical strikes line to an item. EHP significantly declined. Added the nearby enemy line, and it completely erases the reduction in ehp from the always take crit line.

Interesting.

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added the always take critical strikes line to an item

Is this the same wording as "Hits against you are always critical strikes"? If so, and if POB is correct about it, it sounds like you may have found the answer.