Can someone explain critical hits?

I've always thought critical hit to be some sort of damage enhancing attack. But in guildwars, it apparently gives you mana instead. I'm still leaning to a critical hit doing max damage or maybe double max damage automatically.

My guildmate disagrees. Can anyone sort this out?

And also what are monastery credits used for?

Criticial Hits is not the customary critical hit from the past, it does indeed gives mana and not excessive damage.
Although a "Backstab" skill that depends on points invested in Critical Hits for extra damage might be nice.

critical hits only give energy for assassins through the critical hits attribute. every character has a certain chance to score a critical hit. assassins can increase that chance through certain skills and through the critical hit attribute. when you land such a hit you do more damage than normal.

and the monastery credits are used to buy stuff from monastery quartermasters. on the mainland you will get imperial commendations which are used in pretty much the same way.

The chance of scoring a critical hit increases per attribute level.
amount of energy gained per critical hit increases with attribute
amount of damage during critical hits does not increase with attribute
critical hits more or less double your base damage for an attack. Note: it does not increase attack skill damage, just the base attack.

If i remember correctly, critical strike makes about 1.41...(squareroot 2) times more damage than normal.

I stand corrected, sorry for the mislead.

Critical hit damage: Max dmg but counting it like you had +4 in your weapon mastery.

Wrong, a critical is a hit striking someone as if they had 20% less armor.

from what I have read...

Critical Hits in GW only makes the weapon to MAX dmg as if you are 4 points higher than min req...

for example normal hit with max daggers can be anyone from 7-17 dmg

a critical hit will do 17dmg garanteed (without the req modifiers, dmg done is relative to chracter lvl and min req for weapon against armor of oponent)

from guildwikis.org

"Whenever a critical hit occurs, the damage done is equal to the maximum damage of the weapon multiplied by approximately √2, the equivalent of striking for maximum damage with a weapon attribute 4 higher than actually possessed. Non-critical hits are a random value chosen between the minimum and maximum damage values of the weapon.

According to empirical research done by game players, it appears that each weapon attribute point increases the chance to critical hit by ~1.44%. The recorded critical hit rates with a 12 and a 16 weapon mastery were 15% and 23% respectively, while the best linear fit suggests approximately 17.5% and 23.5% (R^2=0.953). "

more research into dmg and such shows that lvl 20 you are capable of doing 100% of the weapons dmg value if you reach the min req on the weapon... so even if u have min req met and you are lvl 15 for ecample you will do less dmg than a lvl 20 character with min req met...

the point is according to guildwikis a critical hit does max dmg of the weapons base value as if you had approximately 4 point higher than min req of the weapon...

it all depends on target though and their armor and their level...

just realize that all normal hits are a random value between the weapons min dmg and max dmg and a critical hit does max dmg

Judging from what I have done so far with my Assassin, I have worked out that there is a slight increased chance for a critical hit when casting Critical Eye. I use a build of Assassin/Ranger combined with Marksmanship skills and Critical Strike skills. My character also uses a Sundering bow that also increases the critical strike rate, combined with sharpened daggers = sharpened arrows that causes bleeding with a critcal strike. You are looking at a rather strong build there, and yes it does work.