What DPS is relevant for a Demonhunter?
Solution 1:
Currently, there are two school of thoughts on the demon hunter build:
- Sustained DPS
- Crit hit damage (This is the build I use)
Sustained DPS
- Uses a bow with high attack speed
- Prefers gear with IAS, Dex, Crit chance, Crit damage (in that order).
- Stands their ground more (i.e. less reliance on smoke screen, more on shadow power and damage reduction).
- uses base dps as comparison value
- More suited to group play with a tank.
Crit Hit Damage
- Prefers a crossbow (socketed one with high quality emerald if possible)
- Uses Sharpshooter
- Uses gear with Crit damage, Dex, IAS, Crit chance (in that order).
- Play style is more of a hit and run and caltrops spamming build.
- uses 100% crit dps as comparison value
- More suited to solo play.
These two playstyles are rather different, and that's why their preferred DPS comparison methods are different. For instance, my demon hunter has 150k dps with 100% sharpshooter, but only 50k dps without sharpshooter, so in a straight up constant shooting scenario (assuming there's a tank who's got all the aggro), I'll lose out to a sustained DPS DH with similar quality gear, but in hit and run situations (i.e. solo play) I'll out damage them by a lot.
Solution 2:
I would personally go with the DPS value before sharpshooter as a guarenteed minimum of your output. Your DPS output will vary between your unbuffed DPS value and about +5% crit from sharpshooter on average, based on minimal movement or moving out of the way with vault. The more you move, the more value that sharpshooter has as it is able to regenerate its stacks between shots.
Your actual DPS will not be something you can reliably calculate whilst using sharpshooter, as it varies based on how frequently you're attacking, whether you're kiting a lot (ie: not attacking).