Lucky Hit Chance, also known as LHC. I’m sure you’ve read a lot of articles about Diablo 4’s Lucky Hit Chance. But all of them, including some of the biggest Diablo sources, are repeating the same basic details without really answering the harder questions.

Without further ado, let’s take a thorough analysis into how Diablo 4’s Lucky Hit Chance works. First, let’s start with the basics. You can actually see the not-quite-right Lucky Hit Chance tooltip in-game by going to Options, Gameplay, and then turning on Advanced Tooltips.

Basics Of LHC

This will make Lucky Hit Chance show up on your skill UI. While this is sometimes technically misleading, it gives you a rough indicator of Lucky Hit Chance for most skills, so it’s still useful.

Now, I’m going to use an analogy to help you understand Lucky Hit. You can think of LHC as Critical hits rate and Lucky Hit effect as Critical hits damage. Critical hits and Lucky Hit are definitely different, especially Lucky Hit effect and Critical hits damage, but in essence, they both increase your combat power at a certain trigger rate. Except Lucky Hit is a step more complicated than that.

Let’s look at the standard formula for LHC. There are two conditions to guarantee Lucky Hit Chance, the first of which has a chance condition, and the second is an effect, not one condition like Critical hits rate. This makes Lucky Hit event less likely.

Also Read: Why Diablo 4 Might Not Be Right For You? - Four Reasons

Let’s say you have a 50% critical hit rate, and you do 100% extra damage to critical hits. An attack that deals 100 damage without Critical hits. Deals 200 damage on Critical hits. This means you do 50% damage on average.

But after you have to go through the first condition of Lucky Hit, there is always a second condition that you have to pass to get the result. That’s why I said Lucky Hit effect is harder to trigger than yours. But whether there is a Lucky Hit Chance or not, it also depends on the skills and equipment you use. So I still suggest that you can use Diablo 4 Gold to get some suitable equipment.

Lucky Hit Chance Formula

Therefore, the chance of a Lucky Hit event is the ability’s Lucky Hit Chance multiplied by (1 + the sum of all Lucky Hit rewards) multiplied by Lucky Hit effect’s trigger chance.

Some people think that if your skills have 5% LHC base and your gear gives you 50% Lucky Hit Chance, then the ultimate Lucky Hit Chance is 55%. This is absolutely not true. In fact, Lucky Hit Chance will become 7.5%. It’s because LHC bonuses you get from talent trees and gear actually add up and multiply with your LHC skills.

Now, let’s answer your questions about LHC and DoT. Yes, Lucky Hit does work on each individual DoT. The easiest proof is Poison Imbuement, a pure DoT skill, 33% LHC. Cold Imbuement, on the other hand, does no harm and has no LHC.

LHC Applications

Now that you know how Lucky Hit Chance is actually calculated, how do you apply it to your build?

Assuming this unique Lightning Storm armor, it has a unique effect. Basically, it facilitates Lucky Hit builds by summoning Lightning AoE every time it triggered a Lucky Hit event. This piece of gear does very high damage and you want to build around this armor.

So, you find another piece of gear. Let’s say you have a 30% chance of getting a 50% damage buff for 3 seconds after a Lucky Hit. But the duration is not long, so you want to get as many Lucky Hits as possible to keep the buff.

If you’re playing a Rogue, you’ll need to choose between the penetrating shot core skill and the rapid fire core skill. Rapid Fire is actually 20% LHC per shot, not 20% total. And the penetrator is 50% LHC.

This means that not only is Rapid Fire superior in terms of damage and resource drain against a single target in a single cast, but it also has a higher chance of procing Lucky Hit. This is clearly better than the 20% chance suggested by the tooltip.

However, let’s say the armor doesn’t summon Lightning AoE or there is another similar item. Instead of AoE, it summons a single target Lightning Strike with higher damage. And you still keep Lucky Hit damage buff from other sources. Now, regardless of other sources of investment, piercing shots are better in AoE scenarios when you’re clearing out lots of mobs. Whereas Rapid Fire is better at dealing damage to a single target.

Since the armor now deals damage to single targets, you’re already pretty good against bosses. But if you’re still running Rapid Fire, you’ll have a hard time dealing with hordes of monsters.

When clearing monsters in AoE, it’s fairly easy if the piercing shot only hits 3 targets, it now has a better chance of triggering Lucky Hit to keep your damage buff. Penetrating Shot will also better balance your builds around clearing group mobs and bosses.

All in all, the above is my comprehensive analysis of the basic concept, formula and practical application of Lucky Hit. Trust that understanding Lucky Hit in its entirety will help you make better choices for your build.