Stats

[Lissa]

It doesn't have to be optimal. You're commentary shows you are complete throwing to the wind other stats that are out there that would better increase survivability then grabbing stats that won't be that helpful. You've forgotten things like +XX health from health globes, +Y Life per hit, and +Z health per kill.

You're right. In a thread about VIT, STR, DEX, and INT stats I'm only talking about VIT, STR, DEX, and INT.

And you're completely missing the whole picture if you just limit yourself to just looking at the base stats. There is far more to this game than base stats. As I noted, there are other stats on items that are going to make a much more interesting perspective to look at from a survivability aspect than simply looking at base stats. Stop looking at the tree and instead look at the forest.

[Roland]

So at level 45 your Life per point of Vitality is 20, and every character level thereafter increases the Life per Vitality by one point, i.e. at 48 you gain 23 Life per Vitality. I am not sure at what point this starts (if it's a flat jump to 20 at 45, of if it's a 1 point per clvl from 36 onward), nor at what point it ends (seems ridiculous if it gets to 35 @ 60...) Perhaps someone at max level can chime in?

[Mavfin]

I am not sure at what point this starts (if it's a flat jump to 20 at 45, of if it's a 1 point per clvl from 36 onward), nor at what point it ends (seems ridiculous if it gets to 35 @ 60...) Perhaps someone at max level can chime in?

I just checked using my 39 DH: She's at 14 health per vit, so you hit it on the head. It's 10 per vit to 35, and (10+(level-35)) per vit above that, at least to 45. Can someone check that at 60, to see if it holds? If that holds, it would be 35 per vit at 60.

[Treesh]

It doesn't have to be optimal. You're commentary shows you are complete throwing to the wind other stats that are out there that would better increase survivability then grabbing stats that won't be that helpful. You've forgotten things like +XX health from health globes, +Y Life per hit, and +Z health per kill.

You're right. In a thread about VIT, STR, DEX, and INT stats I'm only talking about VIT, STR, DEX, and INT.

And you're completely missing the whole picture if you just limit yourself to just looking at the base stats. There is far more to this game than base stats. As I noted, there are other stats on items that are going to make a much more interesting perspective to look at from a survivability aspect than simply looking at base stats. Stop looking at the tree and instead look at the forest.

He's not saying that this is the only thing in the game and the only part of survivability. He chose to focus on base stats to help explain that one part better for folks. That's the point of the thread. That's why it's named "stats" and NOT "survivability".

[Ruvanal]

It doesn't have to be optimal. You're commentary shows you are complete throwing to the wind other stats that are out there that would better increase survivability then grabbing stats that won't be that helpful. You've forgotten things like +XX health from health globes, +Y Life per hit, and +Z health per kill.

You're right. In a thread about VIT, STR, DEX, and INT stats I'm only talking about VIT, STR, DEX, and INT.

And you're completely missing the whole picture if you just limit yourself to just looking at the base stats. There is far more to this game than base stats. As I noted, there are other stats on items that are going to make a much more interesting perspective to look at from a survivability aspect than simply looking at base stats. Stop looking at the tree and instead look at the forest.

He's not saying that this is the only thing in the game and the only part of survivability. He chose to focus on base stats to help explain that one part better for folks. That's the point of the thread. That's why it's named "stats" and NOT "survivability".

And Lissa, while I agree that there are a lot of other attributes that can affect your survivability, there are points where knowing what the value of the stats in comparison to each other can be the more important thing to have down. Currently for most gear slots, a gem is only going to give those 4 stats when inserted into a socket on the gear.

[Nystul]

Let me ask you this, how much of Diablo and Diablo 2, especially hard core, did you play? In both games, Vit was the major survival stat. Blizzard likely continued down that same path with Diablo 3 where Vit was the major surviability stat. Blizzard, likely, wasn't looking to reinvent the wheel when it came to Diablo 3 with respect to how the stats function.

A bit off topic, but I wouldn't consider Vitality the major survival stat in the original Diablo. It was probably the weakest overall stat for a variety of reasons. It did not raise life very much compared to +life items. A little bit of dexterity for a shield wearer could provide a huge blocking advantage. Armor and resistance often provided bigger returns in terms of gear choices than trying for a massive globe of life. Spell casters were bound to use mana shield anyway making magic a better survival stat than vitality. Basically you need enough life or mana to survive three hits, but beyond that you needed to be focused on things that would avoid getting hit or at least avoid getting stunned. Or you could use offense to limit your exposure to enemies, but I guess that is beyond the scope of what you mean by survival stat.

[Spangles]

According to this thread my lvl 50 monk will have to stack INT as well as DEX and VIT, as per the following:

v = Level of the monster you're facing
A = Armor
D = Damage reduced due to armor (all types of damage)
R = Resistance to a certain element (remember without resistance gear, and with just intelligence, all resistances are the same)
d = damage reduced due to R, from that specific element.
...
D = A /(50v + A)
d = R /(5v + R)

...while resistance grows damage reduction at ten times the rate of armor, 1 strength = 1 armor, and 1 int. = 0.1 all resistances. Thus, assuming no armor and no resistances, intelligence and strength will grow your damage reduction at the exact same rate. In order for you to decide which one is better to invest in for damage reduction, just look at your armor and 10x your resistances, and see which one you have more of, and which one you have less of. For example, if you have 2000 armor and 200 fire resist, your damage reduced from fire will benefit exactly the same from 1 point in strength, or one point in intelligence. If you have less than 200 fire resist, you would prefer int. against fire. If you have more than 200 res, you would prefer armor.

The OP says his equations were empirically determined.

Since the mantra <One with Everything> makes all resists equal to the highest I'm hoping to gain some leverage with INT, which I have been selecting against until now.

I will try this, but I can only make small changes and the effect may be hard to evaluate.

[Bostic]

There is also the fact that having 25% more health is not as good as taking 20% less damage, although both would be the same number of attacks to kill. The seconds would benefit 25% more per point any health gained from healing sources.

[Roland]

There is also the fact that having 25% more health is not as good as taking 20% less damage, although both would be the same number of attacks to kill. The seconds would benefit 25% more per point any health gained from healing sources.

I'm curious as to how effective % life steal is versus life on hit, especially how it interacts with certain skills. I know that life steal does not seem to be triggered by a Demon Hunter's sentry (and, I would imagine it's the same for the Wizard's Hydra). I wonder if AoE DoTs are excluded as well, such as Caltrops or Insect Swarm (or whatever it's called); I suspect that they are, although I haven't done enough testing to prove it.

Currently I've been shying away from trying to increase my Vitality much more than it currently is. I'm sitting on a roughly 33k - 34k life pool, and as it is most things in Inferno Act I can either 2- or 3-shot me, so short of dropping another 10k life (requiring 285+ more Vitality) I'm focusing on increasing my Armor, Strength, Intelligence, and where I can Resist All (which seems to be a VERY powerful ability; 10 points in Resist All is equal to 100 points in Vitality, and I've seen as high as 68 Resist All on a single item). I'm also trying to increase my Dexterity, as my current DPS (12k) is a bit shy for Inferno Act I to be comfortable. I need a much better base weapon, but all the problems with the AH have currently negated any chance of finding one.

It's interesting to discuss the merits of various other stats than just the base ones, although certainly they are the most crucial. There comes a point where simply adding more Vitality not only has diminishing returns (it takes more and more additional Life to gain any semblance of survival), but also becomes more difficult. The highest single gain to stats I've seen is ~230ish, so I'd imagine it caps out somewhere around 250 - 300. At that point you start to hit a wall in terms of increasing your life pool, so the other stats become more and more important. As I said, right now my life pool is comfortable enough that I'm focusing on increasing my other defensive stats, simply because it's easier for me to gain 200 - 300 Str / Int (and 500 - 600 armor) than it is to gain as much Vitality, especially without sacrificing the rest of my stats. Perhaps I'm being short-sighted in this, but for the moment it seems the best way to go.

[Concillian]

Okay, I updated the VIT formula and updated my example to be more usable for an inferno example with larger hits and larger health pools, VIT scaled down in importance and DEX scaled up to the point that Armor, resist and DEX are actually reasonably close to each other unless you have a significant deficiency in one or the other.

VIT is still best unless, as others mentioned, you have a significant source of healing.

[Brista]

Okay, I updated the VIT formula and updated my example to be more usable for an inferno example with larger hits and larger health pools, VIT scaled down in importance and DEX scaled up to the point that Armor, resist and DEX are actually reasonably close to each other unless you have a significant deficiency in one or the other.

VIT is still best unless, as others mentioned, you have a significant source of healing.

Not just a significant source of healing but enough healing to make a difference in the time frame it takes to kill you. I don't get one-shot in A1 Inferno but I do get killed sometimes in 2-4 hits in short succession. As I'm reasonably alert and good at not getting myself trapped (and have Spirit Walk if I do), I'm unlikely to die from a sequence of hits over more than about 0.5 - 0.75 second. So in order for healing to be more useful to me than raw soak it would have to heal the difference during a very short time frame. (Eg I'd need about 3000 health per second to make it worth giving up 2k life).

In other builds, especially without a smokescreen/spirit walk/serenity mechanic, health per second might be worth more relative to vitality.

[Trevan]

I realize that this post is mainly about stats, but I feel that this site is relevant to this as well considering your post is about behindthescenes mechanics.

http://www.clicktoloot.com/p/combat.html

Of course, most of that stuff is derived from the beta, but I found it highly useful in answering a some of my questions.

I never kept up with diablo 3 before it was released (didn't want to be spoiled), so I apologize if everyone already knows about it though.