I've seen it mentioned in several posts of late about how good the Life % affix is. I'm trying to reconcile in my head between the value of this and plain old Vitality. I had swapped between items a few weeks ago where one had +7% Life and the other had ~50 more Vitality. The item with an additional 50 Vitality produced a fair amount more hitpoints than the 7% Life piece did.
Can someone please help me to understand the mechanics involved with +Life%? Is there a certain point in your health pool where +Life% becomes more valuable than +Vitality? Do you need to balance adding Vitality and Life% in order to get the best outcome? I'm guessing that +Life% is adding that percentage of life that is based on the health pool that your Vitality is giving you, correct? So If you had very little Vitality then the +Life% would be giving you a smaller benefit than if you had a larger health pool.
The simple logic is that that affix is the more beneficial the more Vitality you have in the first place. So I reckon the ideal composition is to have 1-2 pieces of gear with Life % and the rest with Vitality.
Thanks for the replies everyone. Just got my Monk to 60 and spent last night AH-ing in an effort to completely upgrade all her gear. My Monk was the first class I played at launch but sadly was my 3rd to get to 60. I have a renewed enthusiasm for the class. I'm just hopeful that after I sink about 20M in upgrades that I still feel the same way. Picked up two new pieces so far - both with Vitality (among other things) - and one with 8% Life on it as well. Will try to get one or two more as I fill other slots.
On a related side note... does the +Damage% I see on weapons work the same way. Is this value applied to both weapon's hits in a dual wield situation? I'm guessing it's also reflected in the DPS number of the weapon the affix is on but does it apply to anything else? I guess I'd like to understand the differentiation between this affix and when you just see the +225-500 Damage affix. Thanks.
Can someone please help me to understand the mechanics involved with +Life%? Is there a certain point in your health pool where +Life% becomes more valuable than +Vitality? Do you need to balance adding Vitality and Life% in order to get the best outcome? I'm guessing that +Life% is adding that percentage of life that is based on the health pool that your Vitality is giving you, correct? So If you had very little Vitality then the +Life% would be giving you a smaller benefit than if you had a larger health pool.
Any insight or clarification is appreciated.
It's based on the current HP value. 40k life with 10% life puts you at 44k HP. The more HP you have, the more powerful +Life becomes.
The more % life you have the more powerful + vitality becomes Which also increases the value of armor and resists.
On a related side note... does the +Damage% I see on weapons work the same way. Is this value applied to both weapon's hits in a dual wield situation? I'm guessing it's also reflected in the DPS number of the weapon the affix is on but does it apply to anything else? I guess I'd like to understand the differentiation between this affix and when you just see the +225-500 Damage affix. Thanks.
For sure... when I can find a piece like that with all the other affixes I want and within my budget