Critless[]
Critless is an offensive sub-category of play style in Skullgirls that focuses on minimizing the chances of a Variant landing a CRITICAL HIT on any attack.
Critless is usually a strategy used for the game mode, Rift Battles, since the use of Critless can reduce the damage taken by Painwheel's TAINTED BLOOD Marquee Ability, or slow down Black Dahlia's NO TIME TO DIE Marquee Ability.
As a role, Critless is done by primarily 1 of 2 ways. The fighter may not complete the skill tree, losing 15% Crit Rate, 16% Attack, and 15% Crit Damage from the skill tree, or be a Character Type who can attack with just Grab Attacks like Beowulf via his use of WULFSHOOT, or Cerebella with her use of MERRY-GO-RILLA and Diamond Drop.
- While written in its name, the base Stats of any fighter will always have a 5% Crit Rate minimum, causing a 1 in 20 chance for any attack to land a CRITICAL HIT. However, With a normal Skill Tree, a character's normal Crit Rate is 20%, causing a 1 in 5 chance for any attack to land a CRITICAL HIT.
Critless Skill Tree
Normal Skill Tree
Who Uses Critless Primarily[]
- Critless is not a mandatory play style but is often used at higher levels of gameplay - commonly in RIft Battles - due to the defenders that many opponents may build like Painwheel or Black Dahlia. Critless is typically used for Variants who provide themselves abundant amounts of self-healing without relying on their Marquee Abilities, Variants who do not care for necessarily high damage multipliers, or Variants who in general have poor offensive Marquee Abilitiess.
- While Critless does get mentioned often at higher levels of gameplay, it is NOT something to stress over if you do not have a Critless Variant, as many high ranking players have reached top levels in Rift or Prize Fights without requiring a Critless built Character or Variant.
- Some variants, while critless are considerable, should be prioritised with a marquee or Crit-based version first
Some examples of Variants who may be built Critless are:[]
| or or or or or or or |
| Bloody Valentine / Noble Mogul / Inner Pieces / Diva Intervention / Bloodbath / Don Passione / Stand Out / Mummy Dearest |
|---|
| or or or or |
| Hell's Belle / Feathered Edges / Phantom Threads / Apex Complex / Shadow Puppet |
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| or or or or or |
| Biohazard / Lethal Weapon / Red Rider / Corrosive Agent / Unfazed / Unholy Host |
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| or or or or |
| Candy Crusher / Tidal Traveler / Psykid / Death Wish / Angel Maker |
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| or or or |
| Indomitable / Iron Matron / Princess Pride / Bombshell |
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| or or |
| Gust Buster / Grin Reaper / Spell-Bent |
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| or or or |
| Beat Box / Rhythm Rider / One Up / Brass Bandit |
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| or or |
| Bio-Exorcist / Nail Biter / Grave Danger |
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| or or |
| Miss Mercury / Wave Warrior / Soulbound |
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| or |
| Wrestler X / Weekend Warrior |
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| or or |
| Big Top / Blitz & Glamour / Scare Giver |
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| or |
| Terror Byte / Proton Pulse |
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| or |
| Ultraviolent / Untouchable |
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| or |
| Magicurl / Curl Scout |
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| or |
| Neuromancer / Serpent Sin |
|---|
How each Variant performs Critless[]
The reasoning behind many options as "Critless" typically vary, with some being easily generalizable, while others can be regarded as niche or enemy specific.
Eliza is known for having an incredible moveset, however, she is also known for having one of the worst Marquee Abilities. Her moves, low base Attack, easy combos capabilities, whilst having the worst Marquee pairs result in any Eliza being a prime candidate for a critless variant. While all Elizas can be critless, there are some exceptions.
| Variant Name | Reasoning why she SHOULDN'T be critless |
|---|---|
| Scarlet Viper |
Can receive a high quantity of enrage, helping her base damage be drastically high compared to other Elizas, and considers a crit based Eliza to maximise her damage output. |
| Bloodbath |
Is still not recommended to max her skill tree, but may consider increasing her Crit Rate but not her Crit Damage. While confusing on paper, this is an option as a counter to Dreadlocks where Bloodbath would receive 5 stacks of REGEN quickly, while not suffering too much Reflect Damage consequently. |
| Noble Mogul |
Is a similar scenario to Scarlet Viper where her high damage from barrier stacks could consider a plausible Crit alternative for her, which would benefit higher with the support of Starlight Rose for added REGEN and ENRAGE, as well as bonus BARRIER accessibility. |
| Dark Lord |
Relies on critical hits and gains 50% crit rate and damage after the first enemy death. While keeping her critless to work versus a painwheel + tanky duo is a respected option, it is very niche and one would benefit more from just getting the extra crit rate unlocked. These are some Elizas that players may consider the unexpected Crit version instead, however all Elizas may still be used for Critless as usually expected. |
Fukua is another character known for having poor Marquee Abilities, yet she (compared to Eliza) trades a lot of the various utility that Eliza has for an abundance of high healing and meter gain. Most of the Gold Fukuas have sustain based Signature Abilities, but some like Shadow Puppet follow a niche role where in Rift Battles, she can reliably counter both Immoral Fiber and any opposing Painwheel or Black Dahlia (most commonly Neuromancer and Unholy Host respectively) with her guaranteed fatal survive and her moves to provide very quickly healing afterward.
| Variant Name | Reasoning |
|---|---|
| Shadow Puppet |
Will still do more than enough damage, critless or not. With all the possible synergies, nothing really stops a critless Shadow Puppet from clearing the field. |
Has command grabs, low damage hits, a good health stat and a marquee that is not too crucial for the average game-plan.
| Variant Name | Reasoning |
|---|---|
| Spell-Bent |
Is a textbook Critless type variant with high sustain in both REGEN and BARRIER, while also having BLOCKBUSTER drain and HEALTH removal for every SKELETAL SUMMON attack, such as Hop To It, which attacks 7 times. When paired with Maid of Honor, Spell-Bent will receive more consistent healing, while now also only require BARRIER to chip at the enemy's HEALTH. |
| Grin Reaper |
falls under a niche situation in the common defensive setup of Neuromancer, Unholy Host and Death Wish. While she inherently counters Unholy Host by having access to both debuff transfer and INVERSE POLARITY, whilst her Signature Ability provides immediate Mortuary Charges for Grin to Burn knocked out opponents, disabling Death Wish's ability to revive teammates, without being Critless, she struggles to consequently counter Neuromancer, and would otherwise need a second teammate to lower Neuromancer's health safely. By providing her a Critless Skill Tree, Grin Reaper can reliably counter the trio alone and have 2 supports on her team, rather than another damage dealer for TAG-INs. |
| Gust Buster |
Her signature Ability directly opposes her Marquee since she wants to hold onto her Mortuary Charge permanently to cleanse her debuffs and change her effects to BARRIER, ENRAGE, and MIASMA, with MIASMA being a strong self healing tool used while being Critless. |
While her Offensive Marquee Ability, METAL BREAKDOWN, is useful, it is usually not an outcome altering marquee to have. With her base kit utility and high combo count, together with multiple command grab (BB1s), she has some tools to her disposal to combat reflect, which the critless route only builds on top on.
| Variant Name | Reasoning |
|---|---|
| Unholy Host |
It is of no surprise that Unholy Host can do anything you want her to do. With a critless build, you make it near certain she always stays fairly healthy against painwheels even with the occasional reflect due to her steady healing. Still does more than enough damage when missing out on the armor break. |
| Biohazard |
Was built around the idea of critless with easy buff removal, short yet high damage combos via BUCKSHOTS. Furthermore, if she does land a CRITICAL HIT on the opponent, she can instantly full-heal herself and reset a neutral fight again. However, do be aware playing critless loses access to her Marquee METAL BREAKDOWN which provides an extra 30% damage bonus to her bullets and ARMOUR BREAK. |
| Red Rider |
Specifically was built around critless setups against teams combining Painwheel and Black Dahlia together with her use of HEAL BLOCK and 50% Life steal. |
| Corrosive Agent |
Forms a highly niche option because of her 5 stacks of Barrier as well as easy infliction of SLIME can be useful against setups involving high reflect teams and lots of buffs, such as Immoral Fiber and Biting Cold combined. |
Umbrella has an awkward choice of Marquees, so considering a Critless alternative is not unheard of, with Candy Crusher and Death Wish being the most common, as Candy has very high self sustain and simple utility of fast Meter Gain via HASTE, while Death Wish is completed in quality of life scenarios by having added utility of easily dealing with Painwheels on top of her ability to steal opposing buffs and inflict HEX collectively. A similar case can be regarded for both Tidal Traveler and Psykid where it adds stronger ease of use against the likes of Painwheels while their Signature Abilities counter their original matchups.
| Variant Name | Reasoning |
|---|---|
| Death Wish |
Has buff control and hex along her inert healing abilities. painwheel reflect is one of the only ways to accidentally mess up with her, so limiting that chance is all the better. |
| Candy Crusher |
Has even more healing, if you really want to be sure you'll survive. |
Parasoul follows an ironic trait where some of her variants can be Critless, despite her Marquees benefitting based on CRITICAL HITS, as well as her moves Silent Scope and Egret Call being very direct Crit beneficial tools. However, other respective parts of her moveset give reason to be used Critless, such as Canopy Bounce with it's buff removal + final 2 hits being a Grab, Napalm Shot inflicting BLEED to chip the opponent's HEALTH and remove the REGEN or HEAVY REGEN status, Bâillement being one of the fastest taunts as well as providing easy IMMUNITY and Napalm Trigger now being a beneficial combo tool since Parasoul would no longer lose a Crit Rate or Crit DMG buff from her Marquee which usually resulted in a damage loss, primarily with CRITICAL MASS. While many Parasouls still typically focus on high crit potential like Sheltered or Locked In, others can find it negligible, especially in Rift.
| Variant Name | Reasoning |
|---|---|
| Indomitable |
Is a popular Critless option due to her high base utility in having HEAL BLOCK, DEADEYE, MIASMA, and Buff Transfer, which consequently provides her enough safety and sustain to counter a majority of opponents except for Painwheel. By including Critless, she can counter a large variety of opponents and team setups, while not worsening her counters amongst her original cast despite a noticeable damage loss due to her access to MIASMA and HEALBLOCK resulting in it to be difficult for Defenders to easily self heal or tank long enough. |
| Iron Matron |
Is a high damaging Parasoul with ENRAGE, supplementing any damage she would lose being Critless. Besides that however, her easy MIASMA gain is the reason she is often used as a Critless option, helping her sustain any reflect damage as she easily maintains 3 or more stacks of it. Moreover, her access to Unblockable Dash attacks aids Iron Matron to gain more MIASMA easily, though she can already get it even without having ENRAGE on her. |
| Princess Pride |
Has incredibly high self sustain and can easily heal chunks of her health with moves like Napalm Shower and Napalm Trigger. Furthermore, her use of Bâillement would also mean she has repeatable and access IMMUNITY, working practically like her own Surgeon General but faster and with more healing. While regarded typically as a Critless option, she may still use Egret Call for PRECISION to counter a specific opponent in a team setup such as Immoral Fiber + Painwheel. This will vary based on the setup and what you intend to use her for especially however, and you may consider multiple moveset variations for these situations. Bombshell provides similar effects to Princess Pride in having REGEN after dropping a tear, but may also have alternate self sustain via BARRIER or instead increase her damage with ENRAGE. While overall sustain is less reliable, Bombshell is still a considerable Critless Variant due to the general utility she gains, while also having unblockable combo loops with the use of Napalm Trigger. |
Big Band's offensive Marquee is relatively okay since it relies on him taking some damage to access his healing, which is conflicting to Critless's main strength being the high survivability. However, his moves provide high value in an abundance of Buff Removal, while also having access to HEAVY BLEED and possible REGEN, though it relies on his Tier 3 BLOCKBUSTER, STRIKE UP THE BAND.
| Variant Name | Reasoning |
|---|---|
| Beatbox |
Is not noticeably an immediate Critless variant, but it's due to him being a strong hard counter to the Catalyst, Into Thin Air, yet many Buzzkills and Fly Traps are used on ITA setups. As such, some build him Critless specifically to counter either Air Painwheel nodes paired with the Into Thin Air Catalyst. |
| One Up |
One Up has a few tools in his ability that make him effective as a critless variant. His easy to access barrier throughout the combo is great when against any form of reflect damage. His blockbuster meter gain allows him to comfortably use blockbusters against the likes of nodes using the Into Thin Air Catalyst, and reducing the opponents CURRENT HEALTH is valuable in giving him more damage output without CRITICAL HITS. |
| Brass Bandit |
Has practically every tool you could need for a Critless option since he has Health Drain, Buff Removal, ENRAGE, and Buff Timer Resetting. This benefits him as a general Painwheel and Black Dahlia counter while also defeating other variants with his abundance of Buff Removal.
|
Beowulf's moveset allows him to still run his Marquee while being Critless at the same time due to his moveset being primarily grab focused with the use of Wulfshoot and Lupine Pummel, while his other blockbusters either do low, multihit damage, or high instances of damage where some attacks cannot land a CRITICAL HIT. In addition to his moves being naturally Critless, his grabs are typically unbreakable, with his normal grabs being unbreakable as well during HYPE MODE, and he has access to HASTE via his Taunt, AROO READY?. Thanks to the ability for Beowulf to use his Marquee despite being Critless, he is able to use the Challenger Marquee for additional passive healing if Beowulf is lower than the opponent's health too, plausible if the enemy has thorns or has constant reflect damage like Treble Maker or Dread Locks.
| Variant Name | Reasoning |
|---|---|
| Wrestler X |
Is considered for Critless due to him being the only Beowulf with BLEED, while having constant self sustain thanks to having 3 stacks of Permanent REGEN that at all times which can help counter Catalyst such as Don't Poke The Buer and generally minor damage loss. |
| Weekend Warrior |
Is commonly used in Rift Battles due to his easy access to IMMUNITY, HEAVY REGEN, and FINAL STAND alongside HASTE if he drops below 50% HP or uses his Taunt. When played well, he has almost 100% uptime on all his buffs to keep him at full health when countering teams that often use Unholy Host as a defender, alongside Painwheels to guarantee he never receives any reflected damage. |
Cerebella is similar to Beowulf in which many of her moves do not Crit such as MERRY GO-RILLA, PUMMEL HORSE, and DIAMOND DROP. Compared to Beowulf though, Cerebella still has single hit moves that may Crit such as BATTLE BUTT and DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER, so some may still consider to not provide her a Marquee in risk of taking high reflect damage from Painwheels if she lands a CRITICAL HIT.
| Variant Name | Reasoning |
|---|---|
| Big Top |
Is a cheap Critless option who has both Debuff cleanse and gains HEAVY REGEN when knocking the opponent down. While niche, it has some benefits when dealing with opponents like Reimaged while also countering typical Painwheels and Black Dahlias. She's a simple early game option as well due to also having an in built revive if mistakes are made. |
| Blitz & Glamour |
Has a similar niche to Grin Reaper in being a strong counter to Unholy Host via IMMUNITY, DEBUFF Cleanse, REGEN, and INVERSE POLARITY, however, she is typically used in nodes where Neuromancer and Unholy Host are teamed together and where the third defender is not Death Wish since she cannot reliably counter the team revive. She may otherwise be used in nodes with Corrosive Agent, Unholy Host and Megalomaniac (or typically nodes with multiple water defenders and Unholy Host) and Frost Armor as a given Catalyst due to Blitz having access to IMMUNITY, REGEN, and ARMOR BREAK all together. Blitz may also remain Critless for general survivability since many players like to pair Blitz with Inner Pieces to transfer the Timeless IMMUNITY to a primary Damage dealer in their expected composition. |
Both of Squigly's Marquees rely on her being dead, which easily results in her as an immediate consideration for Critless, however, Squigly's utility is at times questionable since she's a high combo character who lacks self-healing, which can result in her taking lots of reflect damage against Painwheel, while her move set has WITHER, HEAL BLOCK, CURSE, Buff Removal, and Buff Transfer, which already makes her a suitable base counter to NO TIME TO DIE.
| Variant Name | Reasoning |
|---|---|
| Bio-Exorcist |
Is a simple health draining variant, which considers her possiblity as a Critless Variant. |
| Nail Biter |
Can effectively control the game with her high uptime on BARRIER and MIASMA, effectively dealing a lot of damage while never being hurt thanks to any reflect damage being healed or blocked by her extra temporary health. Furthermore, she has an in-built safety net with her dashes so she can continue playing aggressive and be rewarded with a flow of random debuffs on the opponent. |
| Grave Danger |
Is a plausible Critless option due to her high quantity of utility in the form of debuff cleanse, Meter Gain, HEAVY REGEN, DEADEYE and QUIETUS. She may be used during Dark Week of Rift Battles since she can consistently cleanse debuffs, and could also be used in setups involving Plot Twisted, Unholy Host, Biting Cold and Rose Tinted. |
While the offensive Marquee, PING, is a strong tool, it focuses on long-ranged based Robo-fortunes, which all typically focus on high burst damage with Critical hits. This does however lead some more close-combat Robo-Fortunes to consider a Critless setup due to DDOS being a more defensive Marquee Ability.
| Variant Name | Reasoning |
|---|---|
| Terror Byte's |
Mechanic is that she heals the enemy and herself while the enemy is debuffed, while she easily applies INVERSE POLARITY. Due to how she heals everyone based on any debuff, she actively avoids using DDOS to maximize her own signature ability. Through this, she has easy healing while draining the enemy's health quickly, and any bonus effects that could heal the enemy such as Black Dahlia's Marquee or Assassin's Greed Signature Ability will ultimately backfire on them quickly. |
| Proton Pulse |
Is loaded with reasons to consider Critless, due to already applying POWER SURGE often and consistently, as well as being an easy Robo-Fortune with REGENERATION and EVASION for safety, alongside ENRAGE to continue boosting her damage. While the DDOS Marquee Ability does apply POWER SURGE often too, her already high odds do not need further POWER SURGES in play. |
Most Peacocks generally struggle as a Critless option, with no in-built healing, high general damage and high combos which increase the odds of her critting. Despite this, some variants have naturally high sustainability from their abilities.
| Variant Name | Reasoning |
|---|---|
| Ultraviolent |
Is a niche Critless option since she has BARRIER, DEADEYE, and HASTE, but she lacks proper self-healing tools, and is a high combo based character with one of her strongest special moves, Bang Bang Bang!, having an increased CRITICAL HIT chance. If you intend to try Ultraviolent as a Critless variant, it is recommended she is paired with either Starlight Rose or Maid of Honor for safe sustain. |
| Untouchable |
Is a specific option when considering Critless. Her access to Invincibility and heals on hit enable some usage as a Critless variant thanks to her high sustainability. However, do acknowledge her damage is quite poor even with the damage boost she gains while benefitting from Invincibility or Unflinching because of her naturally defensive stats as well as Peacock's moveset having underperformed in recent times. |
FIlia has one of the best Marquees, with LEECH providing 15-35% life steal on every attack. To be used Critless, the mentioned Filias not only have reasonable or high healing, but other utilities in the forms of Debuff cleanse for examples. With Filia's moveset, she is able to quickly damage enemies with her high BLEED counts, which can work around the lowered attack stats from Critless and even use DRILL TEMPERED for a reliable full-buff cleanse on the enemy to dodge FINAL STAND or REGEN.
| Variant Name | Reasoning |
|---|---|
| Magicurl |
Works as both an offensive and supportive Filia. Using a high-combo moveset, Magicurl is able to self-heal a lot of damage she could suffer from the Debuffs. With her priority IMMUNITY, she is able to safely fight against the likes of Unholy Host especially while not giving her Regeneration from the NTTD Marquee. |
| Curl Scout |
Is an effective option for a Critless fighter due to her easy-to-access Debuff cleanse when reaching the specified combo count, aswell as the Blockbuster Meter and regeneration she receives when obtaining Armour from her Signature Ability 1. The healing in Curl Scout’s Signature Ability 2 replaces the need for the LEECH marquee therefore she performs viably with a Critless skill tree. |
While Annie has a very useful offensive ability to deal absurd amounts of damage, and one of the best specials in the game that synergises well with building crit rate, she still can be considered as a critless option. This is mainly due to Sagan Beam being a bb1 with an astounding 50% leech (at max level), allowing high sustain paired with many low damage combo hits. While the lack of crit rate makes the move effect of destruction pillar near unusable, due to the combo potential and meter gain it grants it is still the most sought after special move. Just pray it doesn't accidentally crits as Annie lacks the health to absorb that much reflect at once. Meter Gain is recommended when going for the critless Annie route, together with the previously named Sagan Beam and Slingshot equipped.
| Variant Name | Reasoning |
|---|---|
| Miss Mercury |
Has on demand buff control and CURSE, which is something most Annie's lack. Due to a generalist stat spread and not being able to increase her damage output with star power mode, she'd need a very built set to work well. QUIETUS also helps with ignoring FINAL STAND while keeping her star meter activation reserved for more pesky buffs. |
| Wave Warrior |
Especially paired with Rose Tinted, is near unkillable by reflect if the single reflect instances aren't extreme. Because Wave Warrior also increases her attack with buff control to boot, not dealing enough damage despite not having redshift or access to destruction pillar's bonus damage is not something to worry about. Does great versus painwheels or any reflect ability/catalyst alike. |
| Soulbound |
Has access to a considerable amount of BARRIERS and DEADEYE, hallmark features of good critless options. While she struggles with the lack of buff control, the bleed-like effect on ALL opponents more than makes up for the damage she misses out on by going the critless route. Due to the self sacrifice, one would have to be more thoughtful on how to use her second ability however. |
Miscellaneous[]
- Neuromancer follows practically the same role as Beatbox, but may be riskier since she typically builds meter using Gae Bolga Stinger, which has an increased CRITICAL HIT chance.
- Serpent Sin is an interesting Double who can take advantage of Critless with her insanely high self-healing, while abusing the move CILIA SLIDE which can combo into itself. When playing with 3-5 CILIA SLIDES on her, she can stack a high quantity of MIASMA to kill, while never dying with all the healing she gains
Gallery[]
