Might be too early to speculate, but I thought I'd bring it up anyway.
Strength: +x Armor, +x Barbarian Damage
Vitality: +x Life
Armor decreases all incoming damage, making +armor interchangeable with +life. I'm curious what you guys think about these two stats, and whether or not one will out class the other.
Armor Skills:
Nerves of Steel - Armor is increased by 100% of your vitality
Tough as Nails - 50% more armor
War Cry - 40% more armor (or +20% armor, +10% life, life regen)
Leap - 300% armor for 4 seconds
%Damage as Life Skills:
Rend: Gain 9% damage done as life
Ancient Spear: Gain 60% damage done as life
Ignore Pain: Gain 20% damage done as life
Bloodthirst: Gain 3% damage done as life
%Max Life Skills
Overpower: 10% max life per hit
WW: 1% max life per crit
Frenzy: 8% maximum life per enemy killed
Revenge: 10% max life per enemy hit
Furious Charge: 8% max life per hit
Inspiring Presence: 1% life per second
Juggernaut: 15% max life on status change
It seems as though skills that grant "+x% damage done as life" clearly favor the Strength attribute. More strength means more damage, and more armor means that the life you recover goes further. However, skills that grant "+x% maximum life" obviously favor vitality.
Both are gonna be very important. High life is worthless if you don't have armor to protect it and armor is worthless if you don't have the life to back it up.
One key aspect to remember:
Armor suffers from diminishing returns (the damage reduction per extra armor will grow slower the more you get to prevent people from obtaining 100% dmg reduction)
Life does not
Since added life increases linearily and armor increases exponantially, there will be a breakpoint where it is more efficient to add additional life instead of armor. I'm sure some theorycrafter will figure that number out for a level 60 char.
So in the end we will need both. Armor will be more important to a certain point and then life will take over.
Also remember that armor won't do you any good if a monster has an ability that does high dmg which ignores armor and hence one-shots you if your life is too low due to high armor.
Probably a balance of both. Potentially more vitality if only because that'll probably be the go-to hit point stat whereas damage will probably have a range of secondaries to increase it. I could see some appeal to an all-out defense build though with stacked vitality, Nerves of Steel and Tough as Nails, particularly in hardcore.
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...and if you disagree with me, you're probably <insert random ad hominem attack here>.
source of abilities that ignore armor ? i dont think there will be such ability
Don't kid yourself. There will definitly be armor ignoring or at the very least armor penetrating abilities in the game.
While i cannot give you an source it's just so intuitively true and as far as i remember they did mention something about it as a sidenote for some question at some panel/interview.
And if you think about it, that makes perfect sense too. It makes people wanna use both atributes instead of just the one, something blizzard always strives to achieve. The inclusion and importance of all things.
Don't kid yourself. There will definitly be armor ignoring or at the very least armor penetrating abilities in the game.
While i cannot give you a source...
I'd like to hope that blizzard has put enough thought into armor pen at this point to realize not to rely on it. Especially since from what I've noticed, before taking class skills into account everyone gets the same armor from gear. Rather then adding armor pen to enemy attacks they could simply increase the damage but make it an attack thats more likly to hit melee classes (the ones that do get armor skills).
Being more on topic, the build I have in mind focuses more on crit/killing enemys for health return so I'm in favor of strength. Hopefully vitality will only be a side thought to decide if I can kill fast enough vs incoming damage but at higher gear levels I would prefer str and vit on my gear.
The thing about armor vs. health is a topic of much debate in WoW's tanking community, and I think the argument is applicable to this situation.
What's the point of having 100,000 (arbitrary number) health if a pack of mobs never takes you below 50,000? That defines your effective health. You might as well have 51,000 health for that pack of mobs, since they'll only take you to 1,000 health before they all die. The extra 49,000 health is 100% wasted, and would be better suited as armor if you're going for max survivability.
The point where you want to start adding armor instead of vitality is the point where you're "wasting" health. That's the balance you need to strike. Have just enough health to get by with a potion here and there, and self-healing.
What that point is, though, varies greatly from person to person and fight to fight.
I'm fairly certain that armor will not protect or will only partially protect from elemental or spell damage. This is the type of armor ignoring attack that was mentioned earlier (which seemed to be sadly laughed at). This is why you need to get vitality and elemental resistances. If you have high armor and low life then casters are going to kill you, fast.
The old attribute of "Defense" used to decrease ALL incoming damage, both magical and physical. "Armor" then took over the job that "Defense" used to have. Here is the info I have that supports this; From the Diablo Wiki:
1. Defense:http://www.diablowiki.net/Defense - "Defense was one of the core attributes for characters in Diablo III. It goverened the amount of damage the character took from all attacks, physical and magical"
I'm fairly certain that armor will not protect or will only partially protect from elemental or spell damage. This is the type of armor ignoring attack that was mentioned earlier (which seemed to be sadly laughed at). This is why you need to get vitality and elemental resistances. If you have high armor and low life then casters are going to kill you, fast.
I've seen nothing that suggests armor will have a diminished effect on magical attacks. Most skill runes seem to make the player choose between a small amount of armor, or a large amount of magical resist. Since magic is a very specific type if damage, it makes sense that the player is offered more resistance to it compared to the more broad "Resist All" effect of armor.
Example: War Cry - Choose between +20% armor or +50% resistance.
I do remember seeing rares and blues in diablo II that have an "Ignore targets defence" attribute to them.
And once again barbarians are the straight up IN YOUR FACE ALL THE TIME melee chars,thus they absolutely need to have such rewarding stats. My strategy will be to have two sets of gear: a set that boosts strength,and a set that boosts vitality. That way I'm covered if one set isn't working well enough. I may possibly have a third set that is an equal combination of the two.
The old attribute of "Defense" used to decrease ALL incoming damage, both magical and physical. "Armor" then took over the job that "Defense" used to have. Here is the info I have that supports this; From the Diablo Wiki:
1. Defense:http://www.diablowiki.net/Defense - "Defense was one of the core attributes for characters in Diablo III. It goverened the amount of damage the character took from all attacks, physical and magical"
I'm fairly certain that armor will not protect or will only partially protect from elemental or spell damage. This is the type of armor ignoring attack that was mentioned earlier (which seemed to be sadly laughed at). This is why you need to get vitality and elemental resistances. If you have high armor and low life then casters are going to kill you, fast.
I've seen nothing that suggests armor will have a diminished effect on magical attacks. Most skill runes seem to make the player choose between a small amount of armor, or a large amount of magical resist. Since magic is a very specific type if damage, it makes sense that the player is offered more resistance to it compared to the more broad "Resist All" effect of armor.
Example: War Cry - Choose between +20% armor or +50% resistance.
I should rephrase my post a little I suppose, my earlier comment was not saying that no attack skips armor but rather was mearly saying that the idea of "armor pen" itself was unlikly. At any rate I noticed a few things that were a little different than I thought I understood.
I'm not sure how I missed this the first time but it was there when I rechecked, damage reduction on the character tab is increased by armor and makes no refrence to type. Leaving the assumption that its a flat % on all damage. Also Physical Resistance intrigues me to no end. I would think that finding gear with this stat would become primary to a melee character on higher difficulties.
Crowd Control Reduction
Missle Reduction
Melee Damage Reduction
So many little questions just from this, which don't really require answers I'm just typing thoughts;
does the barb shout that gives 50% res add to Physical Resistance?
does the monk skill that makes all res equal to your highest res work for physical also? (kinda op imo)
i've seen posts about armor losing value as it increases, if its a flat reduction then that makes a TON more sense now
is D3 going to use the -restance at higher difficulties like D2?
Crowd Control Reduction
Missle Reduction
Melee Damage Reduction
So many little questions just from this, which don't really require answers I'm just typing thoughts;
does the barb shout that gives 50% res add to Physical Resistance?
does the monk skill that makes all res equal to your highest res work for physical also? (kinda op imo)
i've seen posts about armor losing value as it increases, if its a flat reduction then that makes a TON more sense now
is D3 going to use the -restance at higher difficulties like D2?
I'm betting armor has severe diminishing returns while the resistances have milder diminishing returns. Barb shout probably does, but i don't know that physical resistance will be a common stat. I also expect a lot of non-physical damage in inferno. That monk passive is definitely OP. Can't wait to abuse it on my monk.
I believe the damage reduction from armor/resists is partially level based. For example, 100 armor at level 10 gives more damage reduction than 100 armor at level 60.
With life leech on ablities and items I'm going for enough HP that I'm safe from some huge hitting bosses. You are hitting the monsters all the time so you will also heal yourself with leech. That means you don't need very huge HP pool. Of course in HC which I think i'm planning to play it is better to take it safe and pump a bit more HP.
Strength gives you killing power and survivability.
Vitality gives you survivability.
Which one is better?
Do I get half credit for answering "both"?
Premium gear will have both, so this isn't really a very useful thing to discuss until we actually know the formula for armor's damage reduction. Once we know that we can calculate how much armor at what starting point gives how much "effective HP".
Also I wouldn't compare WoW to D3 when it comes to the armor vs health thing. Tanks in WoW prefer large health pools because at many points in time the mana pools of healers were irrelevant. They never seemed to run out of mana so it made little sense to be efficient with your damage reduction. In WoW as a tank if you have large amounts of block, dodge, and parry, but low health, most of the time you are taking no damage at all, and then suddenly you get unlucky and take a few hits in a row for a massive percentage of your health pool. If you instead have tons of health, you're taking a large amount of overall damage, but it's extremely predictable and easy to heal. There's not much healing from a character source in D3, and there doesn't seem to be any damage avoidance, just damage reduction, so it will all come down to "effective HP". What gives you the most bang for the buck where you're at now.
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Strength: +x Armor, +x Barbarian Damage
Vitality: +x Life
Armor decreases all incoming damage, making +armor interchangeable with +life. I'm curious what you guys think about these two stats, and whether or not one will out class the other.
Armor Skills:
Nerves of Steel - Armor is increased by 100% of your vitality
Tough as Nails - 50% more armor
War Cry - 40% more armor (or +20% armor, +10% life, life regen)
Leap - 300% armor for 4 seconds
%Damage as Life Skills:
Rend: Gain 9% damage done as life
Ancient Spear: Gain 60% damage done as life
Ignore Pain: Gain 20% damage done as life
Bloodthirst: Gain 3% damage done as life
%Max Life Skills
Overpower: 10% max life per hit
WW: 1% max life per crit
Frenzy: 8% maximum life per enemy killed
Revenge: 10% max life per enemy hit
Furious Charge: 8% max life per hit
Inspiring Presence: 1% life per second
Juggernaut: 15% max life on status change
It seems as though skills that grant "+x% damage done as life" clearly favor the Strength attribute. More strength means more damage, and more armor means that the life you recover goes further. However, skills that grant "+x% maximum life" obviously favor vitality.
What do you guys think? Too early to tell?
vitality is just a bonus for me (but i will preffer it before dex or int)
One key aspect to remember:
Armor suffers from diminishing returns (the damage reduction per extra armor will grow slower the more you get to prevent people from obtaining 100% dmg reduction)
Life does not
Since added life increases linearily and armor increases exponantially, there will be a breakpoint where it is more efficient to add additional life instead of armor. I'm sure some theorycrafter will figure that number out for a level 60 char.
So in the end we will need both. Armor will be more important to a certain point and then life will take over.
Also remember that armor won't do you any good if a monster has an ability that does high dmg which ignores armor and hence one-shots you if your life is too low due to high armor.
Right, that would be OP
While i cannot give you an source it's just so intuitively true and as far as i remember they did mention something about it as a sidenote for some question at some panel/interview.
And if you think about it, that makes perfect sense too. It makes people wanna use both atributes instead of just the one, something blizzard always strives to achieve. The inclusion and importance of all things.
uh huh
The "adapt" argument...Ok, noted. Now please refrain from turning this into a flame thread.
Being more on topic, the build I have in mind focuses more on crit/killing enemys for health return so I'm in favor of strength. Hopefully vitality will only be a side thought to decide if I can kill fast enough vs incoming damage but at higher gear levels I would prefer str and vit on my gear.
What's the point of having 100,000 (arbitrary number) health if a pack of mobs never takes you below 50,000? That defines your effective health. You might as well have 51,000 health for that pack of mobs, since they'll only take you to 1,000 health before they all die. The extra 49,000 health is 100% wasted, and would be better suited as armor if you're going for max survivability.
The point where you want to start adding armor instead of vitality is the point where you're "wasting" health. That's the balance you need to strike. Have just enough health to get by with a potion here and there, and self-healing.
What that point is, though, varies greatly from person to person and fight to fight.
on that note does anyone know what armor value do I need to get the maximum damage reduction?
EDIT: Does armor defend against elemental damage?
The old attribute of "Defense" used to decrease ALL incoming damage, both magical and physical. "Armor" then took over the job that "Defense" used to have. Here is the info I have that supports this; From the Diablo Wiki:
1. Defense: http://www.diablowiki.net/Defense - "Defense was one of the core attributes for characters in Diablo III. It goverened the amount of damage the character took from all attacks, physical and magical"
2. Attribute Changes in 2012: http://www.diablowiki.net/Attributes - "+Armor and +Physical Resist is taking over for Defense"
So yes, AFAIK Armor does mitigate magical damage as well as physical damage.
I've seen nothing that suggests armor will have a diminished effect on magical attacks. Most skill runes seem to make the player choose between a small amount of armor, or a large amount of magical resist. Since magic is a very specific type if damage, it makes sense that the player is offered more resistance to it compared to the more broad "Resist All" effect of armor.
Example: War Cry - Choose between +20% armor or +50% resistance.
And once again barbarians are the straight up IN YOUR FACE ALL THE TIME melee chars,thus they absolutely need to have such rewarding stats. My strategy will be to have two sets of gear: a set that boosts strength,and a set that boosts vitality. That way I'm covered if one set isn't working well enough. I may possibly have a third set that is an equal combination of the two.
Based from the link you gave http://www.diablowiki.net/Defense
it says def, armor and resist are different.
But it also says this "Armor is taking over for what Defense used to provide" that means the damage protection for all type?
But then does that mean resistances became useless since I can just pump all into armor?
Then I assume enemies have that too. I think weapons that ignores armor just become very valuable.
I'm not sure how I missed this the first time but it was there when I rechecked, damage reduction on the character tab is increased by armor and makes no refrence to type. Leaving the assumption that its a flat % on all damage. Also Physical Resistance intrigues me to no end. I would think that finding gear with this stat would become primary to a melee character on higher difficulties.
Damage Reduction
Physical Resistance
Cold Resistance
Fire Resistance
Lightning Resistance
Poison Resistance
Arcane/Holy Resistance
Crowd Control Reduction
Missle Reduction
Melee Damage Reduction
So many little questions just from this, which don't really require answers I'm just typing thoughts;
does the barb shout that gives 50% res add to Physical Resistance?
does the monk skill that makes all res equal to your highest res work for physical also? (kinda op imo)
i've seen posts about armor losing value as it increases, if its a flat reduction then that makes a TON more sense now
is D3 going to use the -restance at higher difficulties like D2?
Vitality gives you survivability.
Which one is better?
I'm betting armor has severe diminishing returns while the resistances have milder diminishing returns. Barb shout probably does, but i don't know that physical resistance will be a common stat. I also expect a lot of non-physical damage in inferno. That monk passive is definitely OP. Can't wait to abuse it on my monk.
I believe the damage reduction from armor/resists is partially level based. For example, 100 armor at level 10 gives more damage reduction than 100 armor at level 60.
RIP: Demon Hunter: lvl 50 | Barb: lvl 60 (plvl 5) | Monk: lvl12 & lvl70 (plvl 200)
Do I get half credit for answering "both"?
Premium gear will have both, so this isn't really a very useful thing to discuss until we actually know the formula for armor's damage reduction. Once we know that we can calculate how much armor at what starting point gives how much "effective HP".
Also I wouldn't compare WoW to D3 when it comes to the armor vs health thing. Tanks in WoW prefer large health pools because at many points in time the mana pools of healers were irrelevant. They never seemed to run out of mana so it made little sense to be efficient with your damage reduction. In WoW as a tank if you have large amounts of block, dodge, and parry, but low health, most of the time you are taking no damage at all, and then suddenly you get unlucky and take a few hits in a row for a massive percentage of your health pool. If you instead have tons of health, you're taking a large amount of overall damage, but it's extremely predictable and easy to heal. There's not much healing from a character source in D3, and there doesn't seem to be any damage avoidance, just damage reduction, so it will all come down to "effective HP". What gives you the most bang for the buck where you're at now.