Stats

[Lissa]

[quote='Lissa' pid='196281' dateline='1337479998']
Not really when you think about how the classes are played and what kind of skills they have. Due to Seize the Initiative, a Monk is going to keep stacking Dex because with StI, your Dex effectively becomes Str for armor purposes.

Well, like I said, I needed to look up monk mechanics. This indeed shows that monks will gain EH just like a barbarian at the cost of a passive slot.

However since it looks like Roland is wrong about the resist halving in nightmare, INT will be a very viable defensive stat for either class, it's looking to offer more than double the effective health defensive benefit per point when compared to their primary stat because they'll be so "lopsided" stacking armor *and* their primary stat.

[quote]Likewise, Wizards, WDs, and DHs are going to get out of melee as quickly as possible as they all have movement skills. So, only really for a Barbarian is Str going to be an optimal stat to choose after Vit for survival.

You have a "softcore minded" approach, I get that. I'm trying to approach the interaction of these stats from a more general approach. I can see where a hardcore DH, Wiz, or WD might want to explore the option of a non-traditional stat to provide additional damage reduction. You can't always get items with the best possible stat allocation (especially in hardcore). It may not be the optimal configuration, but that doesn't mean someone won't be curious about the comparison.

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. Those kinds of stats are far and away going to be more useful that stepping into situations where you grab a stat this is absolutely useless for your class. Simply, you're limiting your scope on survival and looking at (suboptimal) base stats instead of looking at the larger picture of other stats that can increase survivability.

You also seem to forget one of the tenets of Diablo as well for survivability, a good offense is sometimes the best defense. Stats that also increase your damage output means there is less time for mobs to be attacking you and then brings into the effect of +Z health per kill.

Right now, IMO, you're thinking in a very constrained box and looking at just aspects of stats while not looking at other aspects for survivability. You need to break out of that box first and start looking at the more general picture involving all stats that we're seeing in the game instead of just base stats.