It says:
Smelter’s Wrath is guaranteed to critically strike when fully charged.
I found that it crits at a very high chance even if it is not fully charged.
Is Smelter’s Wrath’s base crit chance increased gradually (linear?) when it’s being charged? Or is it just a bug?
Should be easy enough to test; go to a training dummy and do 20 hits each with a .5 second charge, a 1 second charge, and a 1.5 second charge. See if there is a difference in crit rate, and regardless what the crit percentage looks like in comparison to your base melee crit percentage.
You can’t “prove” anything with those sample sizes but if it’s increasing the crit rate by 25% every .5 seconds that should be readily apparent even after just a few tests.
I did test dozens of times on enemies but not a dummy.
I would say it is not linear. I am just not very sure. Once Smelter’s Wrath is being charged, the crit chance is increased to a certain percentage regardless of how long you charge unless it is fully charged.