Dexterity - Is it underpowered as a stat?

Taken from the mechanics thread:

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Malice wrote:

Strength grants +0.5 life and +0.2% melee physical damage per point
Dexterity grants +2 accuracy and +0.2% evasion per point
Intelligence grants +0.5 mana and +0.2% energy shield per point

Therefore the +10 attribute passive skills effectively grant:
+10 Strength: +5 life, +2% melee physical damage
+10 Dexterity: +20 accuracy, +2% evasion
+10 Intelligence: +5 mana, +2% energy shield

I get the impression that Dexterity is very limited in its usefulness, despite the passive skill tree being covered in +10 nodes.

My thought process is that accuracy is only useful to physical damage as spells cannot miss. It therefore only applies an offensive bonus to non-spell casters. It must also have a diminishing value based on standard evasion levels of enemies you fight, but I have no information on this.

Its defensive value is based on RNG and is mostly valued by melee fighters who cannot rely on keeping their distance. However, most of the +Dexterity nodes on the skill tree exist in proximity to the Ranger circle and all passives related to bows and ranged attacks.

On the contrary, Strength provides static amounts of life and an offensive boost that is more widely used. Health is always useful with exception to those with a point in Chaos Inoculation. Therefore, it's very situational for Strength to not be useful.

Intelligence provides static amounts of mana and an increase to energy shield which is a direct extension of the health pool. Mana is used by everyone with the exception of Blood Magic users. Again, very situational for Int to go wasted.

I definitely feel like I'm missing something. How does having 300+ dex help a ranged class? What about it giving an increase to movement speed or attack/cast speed so it's widely useful? In what way is a Strength or Int build weakened by not having Dexterity?

Might I point you to this thread for more on this topic?

dex should give crit chance/damage imo.

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lolRage wrote:

dex should give crit chance/damage imo.

I agree with this.
The accuracy bonus is fine but the second bonus should be a damage modifier.

I feel the same way about the second intelligence modifier. Elemental damage perhaps.

I think people need to appreciate that the energy shield from intelligence is only good for a pure intelligence character. It is a % increase which does not mean much unless you wear pure intellect armour.

To be honest, dexterity is not the problem. Strength is the problem because it grants a flat increase to life so it works well no matter armour type you use.

Chek Dex

Strength is the least situational because it always has SOME use, even for chaos inoculation.

That said, they're all very situational, and I wouldn't say int is much better than dex, because energy shield is a less popular defense than evasion I'd say (aside from builds that use it because it's the only option).

mana is maybe a bit more useful than accuracy, but probably not much at all. Accuracy is useful for all non-casters, and mana is useful for all non-blood-magic users, so it's pretty close I'd say.

The one useful thing about evasion I'd say is that it's the requirement for evasion gear, which I personally think is the best defense after seeing how utterly terrible armor is in chaos right now.
Technically evasion could be just as bad due to monsters having high accuracy, but I don't think that's the case, since I played with a high evasion character in chaos without much problem.

One needs to realize that if dex was buffed a bit, then int would be the crappiest stat. Strength may still be the best though, depending on the tweak. Considering how crappy armor seems to me at end-game, str isn't even in much of an advantage at all, since the effects is useful, but as a requirement stat for defense, I'd say it's kind crappy.

Personally I just don't like the current mechanics of accuracy (the existence of accuracy) in this game or other games which are similar, but that's a separate issue.

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Shadowstorm wrote:

Might I point you to this thread for more on this topic?

Very insightful thread. Thank you! It's helped clarify a lot of my issues and change my opinion on others. But I'm disappointed that the main subject was on Evasion but Accuracy remained mostly untouched.

I suppose that my focus has resettled on Dexterity itself and its role as the 3rd primary stat. The more I reconsider, the more I keep coming back to the stats as their fundamental idea. The way they are set up you can tell that GGG has designed the stats around their fundamental ideas.

With Strength you have the basic idea of physical prowess. This is well represented in PoE. You gain in health and in physical damage.

With Intellect you have the idea of magic. This is also well represented. You are reliant on your mana pool and elemental damage.

With Dexterity you have the basic idea of speed/agility. This isn't represented well, at least not by accuracy, which I consider to be a secondary stat. "Being able to hit things" is not a fundamental idea unique to Dexterity and it's not a very "fun" idea to tie to a class. "Hitting things quickly" is a better fundamental idea but this stat (attack speed) has been reduced to a secondary skill.