Sharpshooter: The most overratted passive skill

[Sanctum]

This is worded weird, do you mean to say that the more crit chance you have, the less it will take for sharpshooter to get your crit up to 100%?

The wording is 100% clear

lol at some people

When your crit% gets higher sharpshooter gets used faster because you will crit more often than before.

For even duller people:

with 20% crit say you can get sharpshooter to 32% before you crit

with 30% crit say you can only get sharpshooter to 36% before you crit

12% increase vs 6% increase (i'm making up numbers here but it's basically how it goes)

[Hadrial]

I don't understand why you say that. No matter what your crit chance is, it will increase by the same percentage for the same amount of time, no matter if you have 50% crit or 5%. (until you hit 100% obviously)

1s- 3%
2s- 6%
and so on.

With 20% crit, 4s would get you to 32% crit.
With 30% crit, 4s would get you to 42% crit.

If you're trying to say that with higher crit chance you will get less of an increase before you crit, then yes i'd agree but still that just means you're taking advantage of the passive more as it will keep your crit at that percent for that second.

[lucidlore]

I don't understand why you say that. No matter what your crit chance is, it will increase by the same percentage for the same amount of time, no matter if you have 50% crit or 5%. (until you hit 100% obviously)

1s- 3%
2s- 6%
and so on.

With 20% crit, 4s would get you to 32% crit.
With 30% crit, 4s would get you to 42% crit.

He says it because he has some weird (and incorrect) understanding of how the skill works.

I don't understand this "sharpshooter being used" comment. Sharpshooter is never actively "used". Its a passive -- it stays in the background and just fudges the numbers, in this case your crit percentage -- over time, based on certain conditions built into the passive. Having more or less crit percentage does not in anyway increase the benefits provided by sharpshooter itself. if you have 10% base crit, over 5 seconds sharpshooter will put you at 25%. If you have 50% base crit, over 5 seconds sharpshooter will put you at 65%. In either case, the net benefit of sharpshooter is 15%, or 3%/second, as described by the skill.

The ONLY thing that your basic crit percentage does in a sharpshooter build is that it lets you get to 100% crit a few seconds faster and benefits you in a long drawn out fight where sharpshooter doesn't have a chance to charge up -- that's it. When your sharpshooter puts you at 100%, your extra crit is worthless because you would have been there anyways without the extra native crit. Items have a stat budget. If you're running a sharpshooter build, investing in native crit percentage when it becomes absolutely worthless when your build reaches full potential isn't the best use of your resources.

[Hadrial]

I think he's trying to say that with a higher crit chance sharpshooter will reset more often than with a lower crit chance, causing the benefits to be less overall crit % added by the time you crit and the 1s effect takes place then resets. With more crit chance you will be resetting the bonuses more often.

BUT THE ENTIRE POINT OF THE PASSIVE IS TO CRIT MORE.

So yeah, go on.

[Emphrygian]

You are wrong. There is nothing in the game code that prevents these modifiers from spawning on the same items. The gloves I'm wearing has both.

Oh, I didn't know that. I was quite sure +crit chance couldn't spawn on some weapons for example, while +crit damage can. It doesn't really matter though, I would still choose +crit damage over +crit chance when using Sharpshooter, but if you can get both (without sacrificing one for the other), then why not? =)

[Matuse]

Having more or less crit percentage does not in anyway increase the benefits provided by sharpshooter itself.

More or less crit percentage does not change the way that Sharpshooter provides its benefits, but it most definitely has an effect on the benefit that Sharpshooter provides. A subtle distinction, perhaps, but a crucial one.

The higher your base crit chance, the more often Sharpshooter will kick in. Sharpshooter kicking in is a good thing, since it sends your damage through the roof while it runs. This remains true up until you get your base crit chance probably into the 85% range (ie: impossible), since you'll be critting naturally so often that the Sharpshooter crits will barely be noticed, and you'll get much more benefit out of a different passive.

However, you will see a lot more damage from Sharpshooter if you have 20% crit chance vs 5% crit chance.

[lucidlore]

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. Your explanation is kind of confusing to me because it shows your understand of the skill is different than my understanding. So let us try to clear up any confusion there may be.

You state that sharpshooter will "kick in" more often based on your crit chance. This is incorrect for a few reasons. 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". Like Ron Popeil says, you set it and forget it. Nothing you do, EVEN IF YOU LAND A CRIT, will stop sharpshooter from having at least SOME effect. Case in point, once you select sharpshooer, you are GUARANTEED a 3% crit bonus, at the very least. Go test it out for yourself. For example, if you have 5% native crit, let sharpshooter bring you up to 100%. Then go out and crit a quill beast, and your crit chance on your paperdoll will reset down to 8%, not 5%. So what's my point? Simply this: Sharpshooter is a passive skill that is always active once you set it. 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.

This is why it is confusing to me when you say that a higher crit chance will help sharpshooter "kick in" more often. How? If you have it selected, it is permanently on. What i THINK you're trying to say is that a higher crit chance will allow sharpshooter to boost your crit to its full potential (meaning 100% crit chance) more quickly -- which is true. However, once you reach 100% crit chance, all that native crit you've invested in essentially becomes a waste. Sure, you've shaved off a few seconds to reach full potential, but as i've previously stated, resources (gold) are finite and shaving off a few seconds to a full crit stack doesn't seem like the best use of resources.

To lay out my own argument against buying native crit in a sharpshooter build, imagine a scenario. A friend tells you he will buy you a concert ticket costing 100$, but you can contribute to the cost if you want to. Now, if you were smart, you would contribute as little as possible, because you know regardless of how much you contribute, your friend will cover the entire remaining cost. If you pay nothing, your friend shoulders the 100$ himself. If you pay 80$, your friend will chip in 20$. Sharpshooter is your good friend, and it is willing to take you to 100% crit regardless of how much crit% you want to buy yourself ! Why on earth will you divert precious gold into gearing for crit%, if sharpshooter will take you to the top for you? The only thing investing in crit saves you is a few seconds in time, but if you're doing a spike traps build, you have plenty of time anyways because setting up spike traps usually require a lot of time and preparation.

[TwiiK]

Funny how there is a thread here about this skill being overrated when I came here to post that it is surely overpowered or at least broken.

Sharpshooter increases your crit chance steadily towards 100% and stays there forever until you crit.

There are 3 skills for the demon hunter that does not trigger the passive, but still benefits from the increased DPS of your 100% crit. They are companion, sentry and jagged caltrops.

So by just stacking movement speed and crit damage you can run around enemies while these 3 skills kill everything with massively inflated DPS numbers because of the passive. I've had my caltrops deal 25k each per second and I'm not even in that good gear. 60-70k per caltrop, i.e 300-350k per second aoe damage should be reachable with this build, not counting the extra damage from your turret and companion.

And because caltrops slow 60% this is also a very safe build.

Edit: The runes that cause damage on vault and smoke screen doesn't trigger it either. I went on the auction house and bought a few cheap crit damage items and now I have 110k damage and since I'm not using any hatred skills I can pick up the passive that gives 15% movement speed and max out my movement speed as well.

Edit2: Just killed Magda using this. I wasn't able to progress past the initial canyon before. I killed every enemy on the way as well by just running in circles while my "hardware" killed the monsters.

[swayzesghost]

Clearly broken then, Twiik...So much for really beta testing the game, they would've caught this easily.

I removed sharpshooter from my crit chance shooting stars build and it immediately became half as effective. The 1 second of 100% crits is extremely important, I realize now that's why the build works so well.

[Hadrial]

Super long post lucidlore. I understand your point, but chances are you will not have 100% crit every encounter, so having a higher base is still worth it.