No, crit chance does not affect minions. Minions are inherently unable to perform critical hits in Terraria, rendering any critical strike bonuses from equipment or buffs completely ineffective for increasing their damage output.
Understanding Minion Mechanics and Critical Strikes
While a player character can significantly benefit from high critical strike chance, this stat does not apply to summoned minions. Minions' damage calculations operate on a separate system that primarily scales with dedicated summon damage bonuses.
Why Crit Chance is Irrelevant for Minions
The core reason crit chance has no impact on minions is their inability to crit. This means:
- No Critical Hits: Minions will never deal extra damage based on a critical strike roll. Their attacks are always considered standard hits.
- Wasted Stats: Any gear, accessories, or buffs that provide "critical strike chance" or "melee critical strike chance," for example, will not translate into any benefit for your summoned allies. For summoners, these specific stats are effectively useless if the goal is to empower minions.
What Stats Do Affect Minions?
Instead of critical strike chance, summoners should focus on stats that directly boost their minions' effectiveness. These include:
- Summon Damage: This is the primary stat for increasing minion damage. Most summoner-specific armor sets, accessories, and weapons provide significant boosts to summon damage.
- Whip Damage: Whips, while used by the player, often apply buffs or debuffs that enhance minion damage or attack speed against struck enemies. Their damage also scales with summon damage bonuses.
- Minion Slots: Increasing the number of minions you can summon directly boosts your total damage output.
- Attack Speed: While not directly controllable for most minions, some buffs or specific minion types might have inherent attack speed benefits. Whips also often increase minion attack speed against marked enemies.
Player vs. Minion Critical Strike Comparison
To illustrate the distinction, consider the following:
| Feature | Player Character | Summoned Minions |
|---|---|---|
| Can Crit? | Yes | No |
| Crit Chance Stat Impact | Increases the likelihood of dealing higher damage | Has no effect; minion damage is never critical |
| Primary Damage Scaling | Melee, Ranged, Magic, or Summon Damage, Crit Chance | Summon Damage, Minion Slots |
Focusing on summon-specific enhancements ensures your minion army is as powerful as possible, leaving critical strike chance as a statistic relevant only to your player character's direct attacks.
