Why do some Support Barbarian builds use the Gem of Ease if the Barbarian does not kill anything?

The Gem of Ease grants experience based on monster kills, and yet I saw some people in Season Ten using this gem in the weapon of a zero DPS support barbarian (which does not kill any monsters).

What sense does it make to use the Gem of Ease in a support barbarian, if the barbarian does not kill anything?

I know that if the wearer of the gem kills a monster, every party member gets the experience bonus of the gem (I tried this already several times while levelling additional characters to level 70 in a party).

So the only reason I can imagine people equip this gem, is that it also triggers on party member kills. Does this work? Will the whole party get an experience bonus from the gem if another party member kills a monster?

In other words, does this gem work in the same way as the Oculus ring?

Solution 1:

All experience boosts are divided among all party members. So in a 4-person party:

• 1 person has +4% exp = each person gets +1%.
• 1 person has a gem of ease with +2400 exp on kill = each person gets +600 exp on kill.

I can't find a reference, but I distinctly remember the patch where they made the change. Before that people would play support builds with tons of +exp % and level faster than people doing the actual damage, so they modified it so the benefits go to everyone in the party to make zero-dps builds less attractive.

Edit: Thanks to Orc JMR for the source - patch 2.3:

Experience gained, including all sources of Bonus Experience, is now averaged across all players in a party that are eligible to receive experience

Solution 2:

In a DPS build, there is only one gem that really ever gets used: Emeralds. Emeralds increase the critical damage percentage, so that's why it's used.

In a supporting role, there is no need for the emerald, so a gem of ease is used instead. The gem of ease is NOT granted to the entire party, but only to the user wearing it. You still get EXP for being in the same dungeon as the person who killed an enemy, so anything that increases exp is helpful even if you're not killing anything.

At a certain point in the season and paragon level, increasing any other stat is useless compared to the increase you get in paragon level stats. So the only thing that really matters at that point is exp and paragon level, so the gem of ease is used.