What you think you know about Dexterity is wrong

[zakaluka]

At the highest levels, the level component of the armor formula becomes apparent, and +Armor items become a much lower priority than getting to 1000 Dexterity.

Okay, this I believe.

I did my "tier" baseline in item level 61 with optimal affix pools and perfect rolls, against monster level 62. In that context, each additional dex affix (above the 1k breakpoint) is worth about 80% of each armor affix.

Your approach is more flexible in looking at all the possibilities, while I'm looking at specific points on the progression curve (some are realistic some aren't).

[Anduryondon]

I wonder a little why does no one here include the fact that you can't dodge pool effects like molten, desecration and plagued? Sure, the calculation still makes sense, but you should at least note somewhere, that armor and resist (even block) reduce every damage, while dodge does not work on these boss abilities.

[viljarast]

I wonder a little why does no one here include the fact that you can't dodge pool effects like molten, desecration and plagued? Sure, the calculation still makes sense, but you should at least note somewhere, that armor and resist (even block) reduce every damage, while dodge does not work on these boss abilities.

You actually can dodge pool effects. I believe I even dodged the (spoiler) Big D's grab-you-by-the-throat-move one time. But that was after 10+ hrs of play so don't count on that...

[The Rockman]

I am sure I seen one of my character dodge in a DOT pool once without anything else damaging me (the mob was in between attack animations), the thing is it's only one tick of damage that you avoid and when you being hit multiple times it easy to miss it.

As for what best it depends on what you already got of each. BTW past 1K dex each extra 1K gives 10% more dodge so theres no way it's got6 diminishing returns.

As for what best it depends on what you already got and the max stat budget for each.
Based on info in thread VIT is the best then all resist (assuming you already got a bit, with no resist all resist wins kind of), then the all the rest fight it out for the next spot depending on how much you already got of them.
In game you want enough armour & resist to live through at lest 2 hit with out dying so you want high armour, resists & VIT for this then you want the left overs to go into DEX for the best effect.

Basically you want enough armour resist and life to live though x number of hits by the big bad guy then the rest going into DEX. Going from 2.3 hits to 2.9 hits to die has no effect you die in 3 hits in base cases so you better of get some extra dodge so you might dodge an attack or two.

[zakaluka]

I wonder a little why does no one here include the fact that you can't dodge pool effects like molten, desecration and plagued? Sure, the calculation still makes sense, but you should at least note somewhere, that armor and resist (even block) reduce every damage, while dodge does not work on these boss abilities.

Now where would you get such an idea?

Go back to your previous act and find a pool effect to stand in. I guarantee you're dodging.

As for what best it depends on what you already got of each. BTW past 1K dex each extra 1K gives 10% more dodge so theres no way it's got6 diminishing returns.

Weeeeellll, in one sense you're right: dex doesn't stop being good once you pass 1k, it just falls to rank #3 in the stat priority. There's a marked difference in its value below 1k and its value above 1k.

Personally, though, I'm getting the feeling that gearing for breakpoints is pretty hard in this game. So I go with a more nebulous concept of "how do dex and armor compare most of the time, regardless of breakpoints?" From that point of view you kind of just want as much of both as you can find without sacrificing resist or primary stat.

[Dethklok]

OK, major update. Didn't feel like doing /code for everything, so I just put it here on Google Docs. My formula now allows for arbitrarily-sized comparison amounts; for example, you can compare the effects of +1 Dex vs +1 Str or compare +120 Dex vs +120 Str. There are also five different sheets showing the Dex vs a) Str b) Int c) + armor d) res all. +armor is done twice, for amulets and for torso armor.

Some things to keep in mind while reading the spreadsheet:

• A set of archon armor with no affixes at all, minimum strength, and a shield will net you about 4k armor by itself, plus or minus 275, at level 60.
• The first column of the chart is set to "min," meaning Dex = 7 + level; it's not set to zero. This causes it to behave a little differently sometimes.
• I looked up monster levels and found they don't advance past 63, so I cut the sheet off there.

This proves that the proper item evaluation scheme from a pure defense perspective, excluding vitality, is pretty much what we expected:
res all > armor > +dex/x > the rest
This means that dex/x is in theory a worse defensive mod than Armor. In practice, dex/x competes with vit/x as a aggressive/defensive combo mod (or pure defensive, in some cases, with dex/vit), and the general opinion will be to get it around 1000 then stop, except with monks and demon hunters who will go into it further past 1000. On items where the dex opportunities are stronger (amulets) or armor opportunities weaker (gloves), expect more competition from dex/x; torso armor will remain a bastion of +armor.

An ideal rare for a defensive-minded character (particularly hardcore) would have both anyway.

I think this pretty clearly demonstrates my point that the Dex-based classes win.

[Dethklok]

Personally, though, I'm getting the feeling that gearing for breakpoints is pretty hard in this game. So I go with a more nebulous concept of "how do dex and armor compare most of the time, regardless of breakpoints?" From that point of view you kind of just want as much of both as you can find without sacrificing resist or primary stat.

Whether it's hard or not is irrelevant. Like it or not, the Dex/dodge system uses breakpoints, in a hard, piece-wise function format. We just have to work with what Blizzard gave us. For what it's worth, I'm trying to make it easier. I'm not perfect in that regard and I've made so many errors since beginning this thread that it makes my head spin (although I think I've done reasonably well trying to correct them all).

For what it's worth, I actually think dexterity is sometimes more important than primary stat; although I outlined the defensive sub-breakdown above, the overall PvM breakdown is
health regeneration > defense > max life (hardcore) > damage > luxuries > max life (softcore)
where "luxuries" are things like extra experience, magic find, etc. Mana/spirit/etc. regeneration is hard to evaluate, usually contributing mostly to damage and sometimes to defense.

This seems a little backwards, since the whole point of the game is essentially getting awesome loot (luxuries help here) by killing things as quickly as possible (damage). However, if you're continually running away from your "prey" like a scared little girl*, your DPS is suffering tremendously; ideally, you tank perfectly by having your rate of self-heal meet or exceed opposing damage per second, otherwise you at least come close to that goal and get some significant face-time DPS before having to run/regroup/return and then DPS some more. So your real-life DPS is very closely tied to your tanking ability, and in all areas where you can tank perfectly you can pretty much DPS perfectly too.

* Advocates of this "strategy" call it kiting. We all have done this from time to time when sticking our neck out further than it should be, but it's truly messed up that running like a chicken and taking potshots as you retreat is a "strategy." I have less quarrel with cowards than I do with coward apologists.

[HamletEJ]

I think this pretty clearly demonstrates my point that the Dex-based classes win.

If all you mean by this is that the Dex-based classes get the most "free" defensive benefit from their DPS stat, then sure, but it's not a very important result.


First of all; it's easy to see it's true without any elaborate computation--the first 1000 Dex gives 30% dodge that multiplies will all other defensive bonuses. The first 1000 Int/Str give 33% (vs. L60) mitigation that's additive with whatever armor or resist you already have. Beyond that, Int/Str will slowly catch up since Dex starts giving only 0.01% per point, but it will take a long time.


Why does this comparison matter though? For one, one of the Dex classes gets free 30% mitigation straight off the top compared to both of the Int classes; so there's never even any comparison regardless of the stats issue. These varying amounts of damage taken are just part of the class design, and an expected part at that.


The "victory" is illusory; it's the psychological benefit of having your DPS stat get you to Dex breakpoint easily. It doesn't scale though, because once everyone has 1000 of their main stat, the Dex wearers aren't getting anything better than the other classes. Just think of the free 30% dodge as a class feature; it doesn't intearact with gear choice in much of any way.

[Dethklok]

Just think of the free 30% dodge as a class feature

How does this not equal a victory?

it doesn't intearact with gear choice in much of any way.

Disagree. I think the end result of this "class feature" is to essentially free up a bunch of affixes for, well, whatever. As a demonstration, try imagining gear for an Inferno-capable, full-Magic Find Barbarian vs a Monk with the same task. It's a LOT easier for the Monk to squeeze the "dead" mods onto his gear.