Affinity

Affinity is your weapon's critical hit chance. Base affinity stats typically range from -20% to 20%.

Weapons within the same tree often share the same base affinity. For example, all G. Doshaguma Tree Greatswords have -20% affinity, while Gore Magala Tree Greatswords have 20% affinity.

Positive affinity means your weapon has a chance to land a critical hit, dealing 125% of normal damage.

Negative affinity means your weapon has a chance to deal only 75% of normal damage.

A weapon with 0% affinity will always deal 100% normal damage.

Early in the game, affinity differences may not be very noticeable. For instance, Pink Maracas I (168 Attack, 5% affinity) versus Dosha Fastflayers I (196 Attack, -5% affinity) likely won't show a significant difference.

At high-tier, weapons with 15-20% affinity can yield a pronounced damage bonus from critical hits.

When combined with specific skills, an affinity build can become a powerful strategy.

On its own, a 20% affinity boost only increases average damage output by 5%, but this can be significantly improved with skills.

A key skill for affinity builds is “Weakness Exploit,” which grants bonus affinity when hitting weak points, and more when hitting wounds.

At Weakness Exploit Lv1, you get a +5% / +8% boost. At Lv5, this increases to a +30% / +50% boost.

With a weapon that has 20% base affinity, hitting weak points at Weakness Exploit Lv5 results in a 50% critical hit rate (12.5% damage increase).

Attacking wounds with the same setup yields a 70% critical hit rate (17.5% extra damage).

Consider skills like Flayer (easier to inflict wounds), Partbreaker (more damage when destroying wounds with a focus strike), and Critical Eye (flat affinity boost) to enhance your damage.

Flavor your build with Critical Element, Critical Status, or Critical Draw depending on your weapon type and playstyle.