Someone Explain Affinity To Me

[Sparky862]

According to Wiki, having positive affinity means that WHEN you crit, there is a CHANCE you will do whatever your affinity is more or less.

Some users say that having 10% 20% 30% ect means that 10% 20% or 30% of your shots WILL BE a critical??

So what is it now? From what I understand is, according to wiki, that just because you landed a critical, does not mean that it took your affinity into account when landing the damaged critical.

Sometimes attacks when you crit will take your affinity into account, other times it wont and you just do a normal crit?

I always thought affinity boosts chances of landing a crit. So higher affinity means more crits.... Appearantly it does not work that way. Affinity just boosts your crit damage WHEN INFACT YOU DO LAND A CRITICAL.

So what determines your crit chance then??

[Pocahawtness]

Affinity is the chance of a crit, so if your affinity is 100% you will crit every time. If you are -100% you will do a crit every time but the damage will be reduced rather than increased.

[NikemanBOOM]

Affinity is crit chance. Anything above 0% Affinity is your chance to hit for bonus damage, or "crit". Anything below 0% Affinity is your chance to deal less damage than normal, or , as I like to say, "nega-crit".

The crit's damage is, I believe, 1.25x of a normal attack on that area, and a nega-crit's damage is .75x . If that's wrong, please correct me.

https://monsterhunterworld.wiki.fextralife.com/Affinity

[DoT]

Affinity = Crit chance

However, their is a skill called Crit Boost that gives you 5% Extra crit damage per level Up to level 3, Meaning at max instead of doing 25% extra damage, you will do 45% when you land a crit.

However it does not boost your crit chance in any way making it useless with 0% Affinity/CritChance.

That's probably where the confusion happened between the crit skills and then misinformation got spread.

[Greb]

Also worth covering are damage numbers, assuming you have them turned on.

A grey / white damage number indicates you are hitting the monster in a non effective spot, I.E hitting Anjanath in the legs. This does less damage and also reduces your weapons sharpness twice as fast.

Orange numbers indicate an effective hit location - I.E using a hammer on any monsters head. Your full damage is going through and you're hitting a monsters weak point for your type of damage. Sharpness loss is normal, in this case.

Orange numbers with a blue outline indicates a negative critical hit, I.E hitting a monster anywhere on the body while having negative Affinity can result in you hitting 25% less damage than you normally would.

Lastly, when you see a diamond / star below the damage numbers - both grey or orange - it indicates you've just made a critical hit, your attacks will do bonus damage, +25% by default or up to +40% with Critical Boost 3. It's also very obvious compared to other damage types, as there will be a pink flash and a sound effect along with it.

[Shang Tsung]

What if you have weakness exploit lvl 3 and a -20% affinity weapon ?
Are you doing positive crit if you hit weakpoints of the monster ?

[Seamus]

Originally posted by Shang Tsung:

What if you have weakness exploit lvl 3 and a -20% affinity weapon ?
Are you doing positive crit if you hit weakpoints of the monster ? :lunar2019piginablanket:

Then you have a 30% chance to crit on weak points and a -20% chance on any non-weak point.

Affinity is literally just crit chance. it's not complicated.

[Greb]

Depends on your level of Weakness Exploit. Let's assume the maximum level, 3, which provides +50% Affinity when striking monster weak parts (any location you see orange damage numbers)

Your -20% Affinity weapon would be subtracted from the +50% Affinity from Weakness Exploit 3, levelling out at +30% Affinity when you hit a monster in the weak part.

It's additive, Affinity bonuses stack together, and there's also no current benefit from going above +100% Affinity on a weapon. You won't do a double crit or anything like that.

Affinity can be gained from a variety of sources:

Critical Eye skill
Maximum Might skill
Weakness Exploit skill
Attack Boost 4 skill
Agitator skill
Latent Power skill
Affinity Sliding skill
Affinity Augments
Affinity Booster tool

etc, etc. There's a lot of options to play with.

Usually, weapons with high natural Affinity such as those found in the Kulu Ya-Ku and Odogaron tree, often come with lower raw damage potential, whereas weapons with some of the highest raw values often are bundled with negative affinity - with lots of weapons in between that offer 0% or small amounts of natural affinity, etc.

You might find yourself struggling to overcome negative affinity early in the game before you have a good range of armour, charms and decorations, but as you progress into the game mitigating the negative affinity penalty found on some weapons will become easier to manage. Also, shooting for 100% affinity is fun but not the only way to play the game, so if you want to use a nice luxury build that includes skills such as Earplugs or Health Boost, no one will hold it against you!

[Tregrenos]

Affinity is your choice between controller or keyboard and whether or not you have the good taste to main Gunlance or Hunting Horn over the other peasant weapons.

[Sparky862]

Directly from wiki

A negative Affinity value denotes the chance for an attack to apply a damage penalty of 25%, while a positive value denotes the chance to apply a bonus of 25%, which can be increased by Skills.

Nowhere does it state it DOES proc... It states it HAS A CHANCE to APPLY your affinity to an attack.

Meaning its not a 100% proc... But a chance of proc-ing when you land a critical

[Sparky862]

Basically everywhere in the Wiki it states IT HAS A CHANCE for x ammount affinity addef when proc-ing a crit..... Nowhere does it ever state IT DOES ADD x ammount of affinity everytime you proc a crit

[Shichiya]

Originally posted by Sparky862:

Directly from wiki

A negative Affinity value denotes the chance for an attack to apply a damage penalty of 25%, while a positive value denotes the chance to apply a bonus of 25%, which can be increased by Skills.

Nowhere does it state it DOES proc... It states it HAS A CHANCE to APPLY your affinity to an attack.

Meaning its not a 100% proc... But a chance of proc-ing when you land a critical

You are taking what it says too literally. If you do have to focus on that sentence, it should be "a positive value denotes the chance to apply a bonus DAMAGE of 25%, which can be increased by Skills.", which means if you crit, you deal 25% more damage, and the crit damage can be increased by using certain skill

edit: Basically affinity means critical hit chance, and the critical hit deals 25% more damage on that hit.

[Sparky862]

Okay ... Lets compare Nergigante Bow with DevilJo

Nergigante
Raw = 240
Dragon = 150
Affinity = 0%

DevilJo
Raw276
Dragon 210
Affinity = -25%

On my skills I have
Weaknes Exploit lvl 2 (Going for 3) = 30% Crit vs Weakspots
Attack lvl 5 = 5% Affinity

So calculating that, Nergigante bow will have a flat 35% Affinity whereas DevilJo will have 10% Affinity vs weakspots and -20% Affinity anywhere else that is not a weakspot.

So how come the DevilJo Bow is considered the better of the two?

[Fat Pigeon]

Originally posted by Sparky862:

Okay ... Lets compare Nergigante Bow with DevilJo

Nergigante
Raw = 240
Dragon = 150
Affinity = 0%

DevilJo
Raw276
Dragon 210
Affinity = -25%

On my skills I have
Weaknes Exploit lvl 2 (Going for 3) = 30% Crit vs Weakspots
Attack lvl 5 = 5% Affinity

So calculating that, Nergigante bow will have a flat 35% Affinity whereas DevilJo will have 10% Affinity vs weakspots and -20% Affinity anywhere else that is not a weakspot.

So how come the DevilJo Bow is considered the better of the two?

Cause the higher Raw + Elemental value, also in lategame you augment bows for affinity (in case of affinity augmention +10 affinity first , +5 second, +5 third if the weapon support enough augment slots)
+Critical Eye skill

Bow is a weapon where elemental damage shine
Also if you build in dragon element+ deco's you should think about that there is a cap at 1.30x from the base Element value.

Despite this, for dragon element weak monster, you should build yourself a dragonbone bow

[glythe]

Not to make everything more complicated.... but if you really want to 100% understand then you need to look up videos from the mhw math guys.

One of the things they will for example explain is that getting orange numbers does not always mean you are hitting a critical area. Sometimes you have to break the part and then hit the monster in that hitzone to actually get the full benefits of crit damage from affinity.

[♋Phenex]

Affinity is literally just critical chance. Weakness exploit basically adds crit chance so if you had WE3 and fought a monster that was all weak points, it would be as if you had a 50% increase of crit chance at all times while if a monster had no weak points, you would have no crit chance increase from weakness exploit.

Even if a weapon has less affinity than another, it can still be stronger because it has a higher attack value or higher elemental value.

TLDR Affinity = critical chance
Critical boost = increase in critical damage
More affinity = more critical hits
Higher critical boost level = higher critical hit damage