Which weapon?

[Hanabira]

Excruciate:
- Works for 1 spell.
- The closer the countdown is to 0, the higher % the spell will crit.

You can pop Excruciate before you start your Thunder Combo. It will most likely Crit on Thundaga at that point

is that true? ive always read it as .. increases your crit rate, for every spell that dosent crit, increases crit rate. i dont think ive ever seen it last for more than 2 spells.

[Perin]

is that true? ive always read it as .. increases your crit rate, for every spell that dosent crit, increases crit rate. i dont think ive ever seen it last for more than 2 spells.

That's always been my interpretation as well. I've never seen any player testing or clarification from a dev one way or the other though.

I use the AF body, so I'll normally pop excruciate right before thundara. Most of the time it procs on thundaga, but occasionally it will cause a Thundara crit (which I'm ok with since I always pair parsimony with thundaga anyway). Very rarely I've had it still active after thundaga and proc on the following thunder (which sucks).

When I'm not wearing AF body, it's a lot more random. I'll usually use it before Thunder in that case. As long as it doesn't crit on Thunder, I feel it hasn't been wasted. Once or twice I've actually had excruciate time out without forcing a crit at all. That was more than a little annoying.

[Nix80]

is that true? ive always read it as .. increases your crit rate, for every spell that dosent crit, increases crit rate. i dont think ive ever seen it last for more than 2 spells.

No It has nothing to do with how many spells you have casted.
While doing AV I always pop Excruciate when entering one of the poison rooms, by the time we get to the spot and I cast Flare the timer is at < 10 sec and is always a crit