Question about resist all/phys and LoH modifiers

[lanceuppercut]

1) Quite simply how much is +resist all worth at lower/mid levels? I have a level 40 barb with a heart of iron which is fairly basic except for it has +resist all and wondering how much I'm giving up in primary stats by using that?

Clearly I'm not high enough to get the proper +resist stuff yet. Should I ditch that and get something with a higher armour rating and primary stats as I'm feeling quite fragile on NM.

Conversly, how much is physical resist worth, in the same vein of what is an acceptable hit at the point its useful over not having primary stats?

2) I understand LoH attacks have modifiers so area effect attacks don't give insane amounts of life back etc. I've had a look at the wiki and does anyone know if impale:overpenetration treats each monster hit as a new "hit" to get life back?

If so, anyone know the % I get back per monster hit?

3) Staying on LoH, what is an acceptable dps hit when looking for LoH weapons? With a DH above 1k seems to be the number to aim for when looking for good gear, I've picked up a lvl60 830dps bow with approx 750 LoH but no socket (grr!) for 400k, did i make a bad buy considering I am after LoH buit looking at similar ones with good dps and LoH, they go for millions which I can't afford..

As when looking at similar lvl60 daggers with LoH (daggers for the speed), I'm seeing weapons with LoH top out at just 600 or thereabouts??

[jawron]

1) I haven't bothered with +all resist at all before 60 lvl and act 4 hell, and first time I felt fragile was @ act 3 hell. Just go with armor till then. With proper weapon you can just go Jump/Iron impact into ground slam and cleave/rupture before they can even hit back. At least I did like that.

Conversly, how much is physical resist worth, in the same vein of what is an acceptable hit at the point its useful over not having primary stats?

Can't understand that

[lanceuppercut]

Hehe what I meant that, as all resist items are high level and pricey for decent bits, I thought maybe drop down to physical resist as a cheaper alternative, but what sort of level of either armour or vit stats make physical resist not worth it?

Probably sdtill doesn't make much sense does it?

[Karth]

Hehe what I meant that, as all resist items are high level and pricey for decent bits, I thought maybe drop down to physical resist as a cheaper alternative, but what sort of level of either armour or vit stats make physical resist not worth it?

Probably sdtill doesn't make much sense does it?

It doesn't really work that way. The more armor and the more vitality you have, the more resistances are worth to your character. You can get enough effective hit points to not need all that much resistance, but it is still worth a bunch to improve it. That said, I think I did okay with 25-30k hp, 4.5k armor, and ~80 all res (more physical) by the end of Hell. So maybe 110-130k ehp.

[zakaluka]

In a nutshell:

If you had very high armor, adding 10% to your armor rating would add 10% EHP.
In the same way, if you had very high resist, adding 10% to your resist rating would add 10% EHP.
This isn't very true at low level, but even at low level you should get at least half that.

Point for point, there is no dimishing returns: as you stack armor, the next point of armor is always worth the same amount of EH as your previous point.
In the same way, the next point of armor is always worth the same amount of EH as your previous point of armor.

HOWEVER: if you raise your armor score, your next point of resist is worth more.
If you raise your resist score, your next point of armor is worth more.

All that said, resist is generally the strongest defensive stat, for everyone, regardless of gearpoint (there are very few situations where this is not true -- and at the very late endgame a %DR against elites undoubtedly becomes stronger).
However, nothing stops you from stacking ALL the stats together (armor, and resist, and dex, all 3, along with life return), so it doesn't matter much that resist is strongest - you still gain quite a bit of EH by adding the armor in.
If you want more info, consult your local EH calculator.