Sharpshooter: The most overratted passive skill

[Matuse]

If you have 20% crit chance instead of 5% crit chance, you will indeed do more damage -- but the reason is because you have 15% more native crit, not because of anything sharpshooter does.

Incorrect.

Your explanation is kind of confusing to me because it shows your understand of the skill is different than my understanding.

Yes, it is. Your understanding is wrong. That's the problem we are encountering here.

So let us try to clear up any confusion there may be.

Sounds good.

You state that sharpshooter will "kick in" more often based on your crit chance.

Yes.

This is incorrect for a few reasons.

It is 100% correct, as I will disclose.

First, the benefit that sharpshooter provides "kicks in" when you select the skill as one of your passive skills. That's it, that's all you have to do for it to "kick in".

Here's your first problem. The assumption that a passive skill simply exists and provides a benefit. This is a grave misestimation of what passive skills are. Numbing Traps is a passive. But if you never use Caltrops, then it will never actually function...which is to say: kick in. Some passives have activation requirements (Numbing Traps), some do not (Blur for Wizards), and some have both (Sharpshooter).

Nothing you do, EVEN IF YOU LAND A CRIT, will stop sharpshooter from having at least SOME effect.

But when you land a crit, Sharpshooter KICKS IN. This has two immediate effects:

#1 Your crit chance goes down to your base crit chance from wherever Sharpshooter had boosted it.

See below for #2

Stating that it kicks in implies that there is some active component to it, when all it does is move your crit chance up and down, depending on whether you've crit recently or not, that's all.

No, that's not all.

Let's put in 2 scenarios:

You have a well geared hand crossbow character with piles of IAS, sufficient that in one second of time, you can fire off 5 nether tentacle elemental arrow orbs. We have a 20% innate crit ability. In our example, you fire all 5 orbs off at a pile of monsters who are all more or less lined up, so that each of the 5 orbs will hit 10 monsters. For simplicity's sake, each orb does 5000 damage to each monster, no crit boosting gear is in place (so crits are 10k) and each monster has 50,000 hitpoints.

Scenario 1, this character does not have Sharpshooter:
All 10 monsters are hit for 25,000 damage (5 orbs, 5k damage each). That's 50 total hits, and statistically, you would expect 10 of those hits to be critical, so that's another 50,000 damage and a total damage infliction of 300,000 damage, and odds are that all of the monsters are still alive. Maybe 1 of them dies, but that would be a major statistical fluke as it would require that 1 monster eats half of all of the expected crits.

Scenario 2, this character does have Sharpshooter, and either from sitting around so a 100% crit chance is achieved, or a lower crit chance rolls a crit, the first orb hitting the first monster goes critical:
All 10 monsters are hit for 50,000 damage (5 orbs, all critting each monster for 10k each). That's 50 total hits, with a 100% crit rate, for a total of 500,000 damage, and every single monster dies on the spot. To put it another way, Sharpshooter is providing a 66% increase in total damage inflicted.

Thus illustrating the second effect of a critical hit with Sharpshooter running:
#2 ALL OF YOUR ATTACKS FOR THE NEXT SECOND ARE AUTOMATICALLY CRITS.

This is what is known as "kicking in".

This is also why Sharpshooter benefits from high base crit. Unless you have UBER high base crit (85%+), or you are willing to wait for Sharpshooter to spool up to high crit chance numbers between every attack sequence, then having a higher base crit means you are more likely to get huge piles of critical damage coming in massive chunks. A high base crit or a low base crit will feel the same effect when Sharpshooter kicks in, but the high base crit build will get that effect a lot more often, and overall be inflicting a pile more damage.

[lucidlore]

Here's your first problem. The assumption that a passive skill simply exists and provides a benefit. This is a grave misestimation of what passive skills are. Numbing Traps is a passive. But if you never use Caltrops, then it will never actually function...which is to say: kick in. Some passives have activation requirements (Numbing Traps), some do not (Blur for Wizards), and some have both (Sharpshooter).

We are not talking about numbing traps. We are talking about sharpshooter, and the moment you select it, your crit chance starts to rise. It works instantly. There is no need to bring in another passive to obfuscate the point. I'm not analyzing sharpshooter just as a passive skill, im analyzing sharpshooter as a passive skill that is always working. Saying sharpshooter "kicks in" is like saying archery "kicks in". There is no kicking in -- its always doing something in the background.

But when you land a crit, Sharpshooter KICKS IN. This has two immediate effects:

#1 Your crit chance goes down to your base crit chance from wherever Sharpshooter had boosted it.

See below for #2

This is wrong as I've already demonstrated and you can easily go test for yourself. Sharpshooter doesn't reset your crit to your base crit%, it resets your crit to your base+3%, which is proof that it is always working, and never "kicking in". Again, i repeat myself, It never stops working, and thus it never "kicks in". It has gradations of effectiveness, but it doesn't turn on/off like you imply. The least it will ever provide is an extra 3%. The most it will ever provide is whatever is required to take you to 100%. In either case, it's always working.

This is also why Sharpshooter benefits from high base crit. Unless you have UBER high base crit (85%+), or you are willing to wait for Sharpshooter to spool up to high crit chance numbers between every attack sequence, then having a higher base crit means you are more likely to get huge piles of critical damage coming in massive chunks. A high base crit or a low base crit will feel the same effect when Sharpshooter kicks in, but the high base crit build will get that effect a lot more often, and overall be inflicting a pile more damage.

Alright then, this is the core of the argument. The whole "kicking in" discussion may be semantics, but this is the bread and butter. The problem is that we agree on the same facts but draw absolutely the opposite conclusions from them. YES more base crit will allow you more strings of crits, but this simply a result of you having more base crit, not because of some magical synergistic combination of base crit and sharpshooter that makes the combination better than the sum of its parts. More crit is useful in EVERY BUILD. I never argued that base crit is always bad in sharpshooter. What I'm saying is that base crit, although useful in between fights when you are not actively trying to charge up your crit%, is LESS useful in a sharpshooter build. The whole point of sharpshooter is to charge up to 100% and frontload all your damage. Whats the point of using resources on a stat that does nothing to help the core strategy of your build? In other words, YES base crit has some use, but because of the way sharpshooter functions, it has LESS use than other stats, such as crit damage and attack speed, and it would be unwise to invest your resources into a stat that provides less benefit when stuff like crit damage and attack speed is ALWAYS beneficial, and doesn't disappear when sharpshooter reaches its peak.

The rest of your post is unnecessary, since I'm sure you and I Both agree that all else equals, a DH with the same gear and the same build will deal more damage overall with sharpshooter than without. From what i can tell, for you, "kicking in" means landing hits when your sharpshooter maxes out and you land a string of guaranteed crits. But I'm not sure why you've set such a definition, because sharpshooter doesn't just provide a benefit at 100% crit, it provides the benefit instantly when you select it, EVEN IF YOU CRIT (because you are always guaranteed at least a 3% crit boost regardless of how much you crit)

[Matuse]

I officially give up. If you haven't understood by now, you never will.

[lucidlore]

/shrug. If you've got a simpler explanation for why sharpshooter "kicks in" when it provides 100% crit but not when it provides 3% crit, I'm all ears Until then we can just agree to disagree ~

[thefranklin]

Sharpshooter does not give one second of guaranteed crits when it kicks in. I have no idea why you would think that, but it is wrong. Your crit % stays at an elevated level for one second (which is only 100 after a long period of inactivity) and drops back to base plus three. If you have a high base crit, the only time sharpshooter is useful is on long one on one fights when you are not hitting multiple times a second.

[sakaslan]

Sharpshooter does not give one second of guaranteed crits when it kicks in. I have no idea why you would think that, but it is wrong. Your crit % stays at an elevated level for one second (which is only 100 after a long period of inactivity) and drops back to base plus three. If you have a high base crit, the only time sharpshooter is useful is on long one on one fights when you are not hitting multiple times a second.

Curious about this myself. Nowhere does it indicate that during the 1 second you're guaranteed crits, only that your crit rate stays at whatever percent it was at when you landed the crit, like franklin says. If it did actually guarantee crits, that would be an enormous benefit over the tooltip's description.

[Hadrial]

No it does not guarantee crits, but it guarantees that it will stay at whatever your crit chance was at when you crit. Even if it is not 100% anything is better than base.

[sakaslan]

Sure it's better, but that's a far cry from how Matuse was describing his #2 benefit.

[Hadrial]

I guess he's assuming every encounter will start at 100% crit, but when you play the game that normally isn't possible, unless you like playing very slowly.

[The Rockman]

this is interesting, it a good skill yes, the problem is more that the other passives are weak.