Lethal Strike
Character	Mordecai
Type	Passive
Tier	Second
Maximum Points	5
Skill Tree	Gunslinger
Minimum Level	11
Effect	Increases melee damage (10% per rank). Also, every melee attack has a 35% chance to be a Lethal Strike and deal extremely high damage (100% per rank).

Lethal Strike is a Tier 2 skill in Mordecai's Gunslinger skill tree. Increases melee damage. Also, every melee attack has a 35% chance to be a Lethal Strike and deal extremely high damage.

Description

Each rank of this skill grants a bonus to melee damage, cumulative with other bonuses from Truxican Wrestler, Skirmisher, or Warmonger classmods. Furthermore, each melee attack has a 35% chance to be a Lethal Strike, receiving an additional, much greater damage bonus, and making a characteristic sound reminiscent of a steel blade scraping roughly against a target.

When a Lethal Strike takes place against a critical hit zone of a target, there is a chance for the lethal strike damage bonus to be doubled, tripled, or even quadrupled; such a strike, however, will not be a critical hit proper, will not be announced with "Critical!", and will not receive any further critical damage bonus. Otherwise, a regular critical hit will occur, amplifying the regular lethal-strike-enhanced damage by the appropriate amount for the critical made.

Skill Progression

Contrary to the in-game skill description, each rank of this skill grants a 150% damage increase to lethal strikes.

Additional levels may be acquired through the use of an Assassin or Truxican Wrestler Class Mod.

Note that the lethal strike damage bonus may be two to four times the listed value, when the strike takes place against a critical hit zone. Every lethal strike, critical or not, also receives the standard melee damage bonus.

Notes

Boosts Mordecai's melee attacks into an effective secondary form of attack. While the constant percentage boost to melee damage is not that significant, a lethal strike (per the skill's name) from Lethal Strike is extremely damaging, especially when slicing through an enemy's critical hit location with a bladed weapon such as a Razor.

This skill well complements a Hunter who specializes in the use of close-range weapons such as pistols or shotguns. If a melee attack is triggered during a reload, but after the weapon's magazine ammo counter is updated to full, the melee attack will cut the animation short but the reload will still have completed.

Against the tentacles of The Destroyer, Lethal Strike triggers with every melee attack.