Stats

[Roland]

Depending on how the armor and resistance reductions interact, it's very possible that a barbarian will get significantly more defense from +INT than from the same amount of STR or Armor. Why wouldn't someone also look at DEX as a potential alternative?

One thing to note is that in Nightmare your resistances are halved. If you look on the Character Screen, under Details, if you have 20% resistances when you hover your mouse over them it will state 10%. I imagine it is further halved in Hell, and perhaps again in Inferno? Not 100% sure at this point (I'm only in NNM Act III). So, in that sense +STR and +Armor seem to be the best options by far for non-caster classes. Armor reduces damage flat out from all sources, and does not suffer penalties in at least Nightmare.

Essentially, all stats are useful in some sense, just more than others. As a Demon Hunter I've prioritized Vitality over all else, with Dexterity coming in second. I sit around 30% damage reduction from Armor and about 28% Dodge chance (can't remember my Int / Resistances offhand). I'm still "squishy" in that I take fairly large amounts of damage (for perspective, NM Belial dealt between 2k and 3k with his arm attacks, and over 7k with his bomb attacks; I have over 12k life at present), but between my high life pool and my decent armor and dodge percentages I consider myself fairly survivable.

Maybe now I can test out when Vitality changes. At least I'll know if it's based upon difficulty level or Vitality level. I can't go back in levels, so I won't know when it changes if it's based on character level, but I can certainly say it does change.