Query on Armour and Resistances!

[jokewood]

To me it seems that you'll want just about anything over a non-primary stat (aka int/dex for barb, str/int for dh/monk or str/dex for wizard/wd). Even if dex is the only way to get dodge, since dex is so powerful just for the damage increase it gives the dh/monk, it can't give *that* much dodge, and thus will likely be near-useless for barb/wizard/wd. For str/int it gets even worse because there are simply better alternative affixes.

IMO they could just ditch the whole secondary defensive bonus for the primary attributes, or for all I care even change them all back to "attack", as that defensive portion is not really working out as anything even remotely interesting.

Having the attributes be non-optimal rather than worthless will make choosing gear a more interesting proposition, and make drops less frustrating at low levels since any stat has at least some merit. What would anyone gain by having strength be literally useless for 4/5 classes?

[machinus]

100 Strength will provide exactly the same amount of damage reduction or effective HP as 100 Intelligence.

Intelligence provides "resistance" to physical damage?

[HardRock]

Strangely enough yes, it does.

[galzohar]

What would anyone gain by having strength be literally useless for 4/5 classes?

It's already near-useless. If they wanted sub-optimal items, they could have increased the range on armor/resistance affixes so that you have a better chance to roll low. No need for extra defensive stats on the str/dex/int for that. Overall, though, I agree the system is bad either way - removing the defensive aspect alone will still leave us with a system just as stupid if not more stupid than the old one.

There are ways for them to re-design the system, but as said it would be a true re-design, not just a small change or 2. With how bad the current system is, I don't think it would be that hard to come up with something better.

[HardRock]

Out of curiousity, what would you propose?

[galzohar]

Even something like the old system, except making precision also add some damage, nerfing attack and removing defense (armor and resistances already cover it) would be better. If they want to then make stuff class-specific there are many ways to do it. Simple ones being simply splitting up the attack stat (which would look stupid but still better than current system). More complex ones would require more thought but are not impossible, with the core idea behind it being that you make some stats a bit more useful than others for certain classes.

And of course, avoid double-effects whenever possible, such as the int/resist/armor/str fiasco that we have right now. If you insist on having stats that do more than 1 thing, at least make them not suck and actually do more than 1 thing for all classes.

Check out for example how agility has different effects for each class in WoW (not that I like the stat system in WoW very much, but agility there is a good example of what can be done). If you want to be creative and actually balance the stats, with enough effort it's do-able (and be done better than how it is in WoW, of course).

If your primary stat gave your class something it actually needs more than other classes, it would have been reasonable. However, they just ended up with all stats giving the exact same (or sort of the same) thing for everyone, since everyone really just need the same stuff since the classes are already balanced without the stats. Especially after monks/barbs got 30% damage reduction, no class needs more defense than another, no class needs more crit than another, etc... When that happens, it's very hard to give meaningful class-specific benefits that will not mess up the system, which is why the system we have now (that insists on class-specific benefits) is just messed up.

I don't feel like putting a lot of effort into a complex system that may or may not work (though it'll likely be better than the current one), but even the most simple system I described would be way better and make a lot more sense than what we have now.

[HardRock]

Thing is, the current system has some of the features you described, but you have to look past the attributes themselves to see why. For example, I believe the Barb and Wizard has many skills that benefit from crit, more than the other classes. I could be wrong though as I didn't do exact comparisons in this regard, but that's my general impression after looking at the calculator for an amount of time that many would consider unhealthy. Similarly, passive skills can adjust the value and even the purpose of the attributes.

I think the system is complex enough, that our ideas about how it may work could be fundamentally flawed. That's why I said, that I want to play all the classes at level 60 for a few weeks to get a feel for how the system works in practice, see what is the actual endgame value of the different attributes for all the character builds and generally what tendencies emerge. Theorycrafting is nice, but experience is better.

[machinus]

Strangely enough yes, it does.

So...this means physical damage is treated like any other "type" and given a resistance statistic?

Explain to me the difference between "resist all" and %DR from armor?

[machinus]

Strangely enough yes, it does.

I found this in the d3 wiki, is it wrong then?

Diablo III's eight types of damage are: Fire, Cold, Lightning, Arcane, Poison, Disease, Physical, and Holy. The first five of those are resisted by character resistances of the same name. Disease is also resisted by a character's Poison resistance. Physical cannot be resisted, nor can Holy, though other forms of damage mitigation are available.

[Sooru]

Both Wikis about the game are horribly outdated. Don't trust anything about them, topics like this is where the good info is at!