Rebalance the Stats -- Make Dexterity Worth Something

Comparing evasion against armour in preventing physical damage is a losing battle, armour wins hands down... as it very well should, because if physical damage mitigation is the only thing you do, you damn well should do it better than everyone else. So that means evasion's niche should be in preventing elemental and chaos damage, mostly elemental. However, most elemental damage comes from spells, so...

1. Make evasion work on spells too.

Having evasion be effective against its bread and butter only when it's delivered through an uncommon means is kind of silly design, and this change fixes that. After all, in RPGs since Gygax first invented them, evasion has been the traditional mundane defense against damage-dealing spells. Not to say I'd limit it to damage-dealing, I think slippery characters should, with a little luck, get to avoid curses as well.

"But wait," you say, "spells don't have accuracy rating. How will that work?" Glad you asked. The rest of the suggestions here are pretty much consequences of the "evasion on spells" change. Let's follow the white rabbit...

2.
a) Make each point of Intelligence add +2 accuracy rating for spells and Mystic weapons; each point of Strength add +2 accuracy rating for Martial weapons; each point of Dexterity add +2 accuracy rating for Finesse weapons.
b) Staves, scepters, wands, and daggers gain the Mystic tag; staves, scepters, maces (1h+2h), axes (1h+2h), and bladed swords (1h+2h) gain the Martial tag; bladed swords (1h+2h), thrusting swords, claws, daggers, and bows gain the Finesse tag.
c) Spell damage (and maybe curse effects) would need to be increased across the board to compensate for chance to evade.

Another thing about this game that has made little sense is how non-Dex classes have had to resort to methods that avoid accuracy altogether in order to make their builds work. Melee templar are all but forced into traveling down to Resolute Technique to get their attacks to hit. Making accuracy no longer a Dex-only thing not only allows evasion to be effective against spells, it allows builds of all classes to be effective without resorting to gimmicks.

Now Strength and Intelligence both do three things: a flat bonus, a percent bonus, and an "in-class weapons" accuracy bonus. Dexterity only has two though; we need a new flat bonus for Dexterity. The key to a good flat bonus is that it's something everyone wants. Who wants more life? Everyone who doesn't take a particular keystone. Who wants more mana? Same answer (different keystone). So what's something everyone wants that's, well, dexterous?

3.
a) Each point of Dexterity would add 3 flat evasion rating; the 0.2% evasion rating increase is removed.
b) Early game monster accuracy ratings would need to be changed to accommodate higher starting evasion values (due to starting with at least 14 dex with zero investment); endgame monster values shouldn't need adjustment.

This is the something dexterous that everyone wants. It also ensures that accuracy is something every character cares about in PvP, because every character has some evasion, some just have much more than others. This number was carefully picked so that late-game pure-evasion characters (with matching builds that pick up evasion passives) wouldn't have a noticeable change in chance to evade; the main evasion buff was in point #1. This is also interesting because it makes Dexterity and Intelligence mirror each other less, they no longer both have a 0.2% increase in their chosen defense.

The bad news: For those who understand how suggestions work, 3b is a major downside because re-evaluating monster values is a tremendous chore for devs. I believe this is a case where the effort is worth the payoff, but since it would be so tedious to implement it's very unlikely that GGG would find the time to enact these changes.

Assuming that this suggestion is still live, that leaves us with one unused scaling bonus. Strength has 0.2% melee physical, Intelligence has 0.2% energy shield, and Dexterity can have...

4. Each point of Dexterity made to add 0.1% increased attack speed.

Now there's a cool scaling bonus. However, it's really kind of arbitrary. Virtually any scaling bonus could be put here, perhaps increased critical chance or increased critical multiplier. I just did this, and did it at 0.1% because a lot of passive nodes grant 4% attack speed for a specific weapon, and a lot of passive nodes grant 8% increased physical damage for a specific weapon, so it seems like attack speed is worth double per % versus increased physical, so this mirrors Strength while being better with elemental damage such as Elemental Hit.

Plus, it sets us up for...

5. New Support Gem: Sleight of Hand -- Dexterity's attack speed bonus applies to cast speed as well for supported skills.

So we end things with a nice Dexterity equivalent of Iron Will for those caster shadows out there, as a little consolation gift for giving them accuracy issues.

Version history
03.15.2200 Flat evasion bonus from 2 to 3.

No. With this argumentation you would ask for "let armour work for spells too". For sepll damage there is resistance. Neither armour nor evasion users should avoid damage through other stats besides resistances. And it's quite easy to get high enough resistance.

Furthermore rangers/duelists have access to plenty of life nodes. Evasion+Resistances+Life nodes are more then enough to survive everything. Additionaly rangers can go for nodes that lets them dodge 30% of all attacks and 20% of all spells (fixed percentage). That is more then enough.

If you want to avoid spell damage so badly, you have to go for shield with spell block. But I don't think it's necessary because it's easy to get 75% resistances (except chaos).

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3.
a) Each point of Dexterity would add 2 flat evasion rating; the 0.2% evasion rating increase is removed.

Please no. This would totally screw up my characters evasion.
I prefer 100% increased evasion rating rather than an added flat amount of 1k.

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4. Each point of Dexterity made to add 0.1% increased attack speed.

And this would make it utterly overpowered.


I'd rater like to see a Keystone that uses dexterity instead of strength to modify damage. This would improve the use of stacking much dexterity, without overpowering it.

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AceNightfire wrote:

No. With this argumentation you would ask for "let armour work for spells too".

But armour does work for spells, doesn't it? There just aren't many spells that deal physical damage. What you're talking about is elemental damage (or just non-physical damage, since there's Chaos too), not spell damage.

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Delirii wrote:

Please no. This would totally screw up my characters evasion.

Well every kind of balance adjustment is going to affect somebody's character. That's not really an argument to never change anything about the game.

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GusTheCrocodile wrote:

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AceNightfire wrote:

No. With this argumentation you would ask for "let armour work for spells too".

But armour does work for spells, doesn't it? There just aren't many spells that deal physical damage. What you're talking about is elemental damage (or just non-physical damage, since there's Chaos too), not spell damage.

Where's your point now? Evasion does work for elemental damage that is done by weapons too, unlike armour... I therefore quote someone else from the forum:

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taekvideo wrote:

Armor:
Doesn't work against chaos damage
Doesn't work against elemental spells
Doesn't work against elemental attacks
Doesn't work against strong physical attacks (reduced to irrelevancy by the formula)

... works against any weak attack/spell dealing physical damage

Evasion:
Doesn't work against any spells (regardless of type)

... works against any attack

Energy Shield:
Doesn't work against chaos damage
... works against anything else

As you can see every defensive stat has it's own advantages and disadvantages. I don't think evasion needs a buff. There are good nodes that give a fixed precantage dodge chance for spells (and attacks) and a keynode that doubles evasion chance against projectiles. If you don't go for them then it's your own fault for getting hit quite often.

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AceNightfire wrote:

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GusTheCrocodile wrote:

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AceNightfire wrote:

No. With this argumentation you would ask for "let armour work for spells too".

But armour does work for spells, doesn't it? There just aren't many spells that deal physical damage. What you're talking about is elemental damage (or just non-physical damage, since there's Chaos too), not spell damage.

Where's your point now? Evasion does work for elemental damage that is done by weapons too, unlike armour...

Uh, you seemed to imply that armour doesn't work for spells, and my point was that it does (I think). That was the entirety of my point. I make no judgement on evasion either way.

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GusTheCrocodile wrote:

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AceNightfire wrote:

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GusTheCrocodile wrote:

But armour does work for spells, doesn't it? There just aren't many spells that deal physical damage. What you're talking about is elemental damage (or just non-physical damage, since there's Chaos too), not spell damage.

Where's your point now? Evasion does work for elemental damage that is done by weapons too, unlike armour...

Uh, you seemed to imply that armour doesn't work for spells, and my point was that it does (I think). That was the entirety of my point. I make no judgement on evasion either way.

Well, it does only work against spells with some phys damage (like Power Siphon), but not against elemental spell damage nor elemental attacks. If you look at the advantages/disadvantages of all defensive stats, armour needs as much a buff as evasion.

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Delirii wrote:

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3.
a) Each point of Dexterity would add 2 flat evasion rating; the 0.2% evasion rating increase is removed.

Please no. This would totally screw up my characters evasion.
I prefer 100% increased evasion rating rather than an added flat amount of 1k.

One of the reasons why Dexterity is so undervalued currently is that the only people who want the Dexterity flat bonus are pure Dexterity builds, and even then all that Dex-stacking is merely equivalent to taking Resolute Technique or deciding to use spells. If we're going to make Dexterity splashes popular for anything other than requirement satisfaction, we're going to have to give it a flat bonus that has broad appeal. Evasion rating is really the only thing that can go there that is in flavor with Dexterity; a previous suggestion, +life, may strictly speaking be functional, but it's lame to the point of being silly. If you can think of something else that's both flavorful and functional, please let me know.

I decided to do some mock-ups of endgame characters both before and after the changes I suggest. All character were using pure evasion armour of the highest possible level.
* No shield, zero evasion passives, zero evasion affixes on his gear: 2.71 flat evasion per point gives same ending evasion rating, regardless of how much Dexterity he has.
* No shield, every single evasion passive (even the hybrid nodes), every possible evasion affix on his gear with a perfect roll: 2.72 flat evasion per point gives same ending evasion rating, regardless of how much Dexterity he has.
* I didn't run the numbers for shields, but common sense says it would increase the evasion rating from gear by about 20 or 25% for both minimal and maximal mockups, thus increasing the matching flat evasion per point about 20 or 25% to about 3.3, give or take a few.

In light of this, I've edited the suggestion to grant 3 flat evasion per point. This would help non-shield builds about 10% more than it does currently, and help shield-based builds about 10% less than it does currently, but both would be within 10%.

Note the assumption that affix commitment has a positive correlation with passive commitment (by which I mean actual evasion nodes, not just Dex-stacking). This reflects a belief on how I think things should be, not the way things are now. Builds that currently have a high affix commitment with little or no passive commitment would be nerfed by this suggestion; builds that have more passive commitment than affix commitment would receive a buff. I think it would only be fair to give out a passive respec with this so that evasion-centric builds could re-align their priorities (valuing evasion nodes higher).

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Delirii wrote:

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4. Each point of Dexterity made to add 0.1% increased attack speed.

And this would make it utterly overpowered.

I really don't think so. Just to make it clear, let's lay out each post-suggestion stats per point:
* Strength: +0.5 life, +0.2% melee physical damage, +2 accuracy to Martial
* Intelligence: +0.5 mana, +0.2% energy shield, +2 accuracy to spells and Mystic
* Dexterity: +3 evasion, +0.1% attack speed, +2 accuracy to Finesse

It would still be really hard to make the argument that Dexterity would be straight-up better than Strength. Both increase survivability per point with a flat bonus, although in different ways; both increase damage per point with a scaling bonus, although in different ways.

The increased attack speed is a little more universal in terms of what it buffs; it helps elemental attacks as much as it helps physical. However, as I pointed out before, assuming 8% physical melee damage is balanced against 4% attack speed, the more universal Dexterity bonus would be balanced with the more specific Strength bonus. You might think that Dexterity has a much wider base of interested users, but that's not necessarily true; anyone with mana-management issues is going to benefit little from increased attack speed if there is already trouble spamming skills, and increased physical damage naturally helps against heavy Armour, while increased attack speed keeps the same mitigation percent.

Might i add the evasion works on "large" hits where as armor does not? giving it at leased 1 advantage over armor? or would i be wrong in saying that?