There are a lot of factors to consider when creating a build in Diablo 4, and understanding how the different moving parts work can often be confusing for new players. Not only does Diablo 4 require players to consider their chosen skills and passives, but the raw stats of their gear as well. However, without understanding how these stats affect the game's combat, players can easily fall into a trap that can be hard to climb out of without a major build rework.
With Diablo 4 Season 10 adding Chaos Armor and effectively changing how players approach builds now that certain Uniques can appear on different types of gear, it's more crucial than ever to understand how the player's stats affect combat. While it may seem like choosing the piece of gear with the bigger number is a safe bet, knowing which stats to increase and which to ignore can be the difference between an optimized build and one that struggles to make it to Diablo 4's endgame. Attack Power and Armor can be two sticking points for new players, as the game has some hidden mechanics surrounding these stats that can be counterintuitive if players aren't aware of them.
Some of Diablo 4's Stats Can Be Strangely Deceptive
How Diablo 4's Attack Power and Armor Stats Work
- Attack Power: Only accounts for raw damage done when attacking without consideration of elemental damage types or conditional damage.
- Armor: Caps at 1,000, so any points invested beyond that are useless.
While it may seem like common knowledge that a higher attack power stat equals more damage output, this is not necessarily the case in Diablo 4. Attack Power only represents the raw damage players do without consideration for any conditional damage or modifiers affecting enemies. This means that for builds that utilize Overpower or Crit Damage as the primary damage source, or focus on Crowd Controlling or inflicting Vulnerable on enemies, Attack Power doesn't necessarily matter that much, and gear investments are better spent elsewhere.
Armor is another stat that cuts against the grain of conventional wisdom, where too much of it is not necessarily a good thing. The cap for Diablo 4's Armor stat is 1,000 at the highest difficulty tier, Torment 4, meaning that any added Armor above that cap will be essentially useless. Rather than trying to reduce damage by pumping up the player's Armor stat, it's better to invest in abilities that Fortify or heal the player's Life when certain conditions are met.
Resistances are another way to mitigate incoming damage, so players who find themselves dying too often may want to consider socketing Diamonds into their jewelry to increase Resistances, or look at Resistance-increasing nodes on their Paragon Board.
Diablo 4 Players Can Undermine Their Builds By Focusing Too Much on the Wrong Stats
Like most RPGs, Diablo 4 builds are all about trade-offs; investing in one area often means sacrificing stats in another. For players looking to optimize their build, it's important to make sure the trade-offs they are making support the build's playstyle. For example, it doesn't make much sense for a Shadowblight Necromancer Build to worry about its Attack Power since most of the damage it does comes from the pools of Blight that cause Shadow Damage over time, which aren't reflected by the number next to the Attack Power stat.
With this in mind, there is still plenty of reason for players to invest in these stats when leveling their Diablo 4 build. Getting a character's Armor stat up to 1,000 by the time the player hits Torment 4 is a must to ensure they can keep up with the armor reduction penalties that come with Diablo 4's higher difficulty tiers. Depending on their specific class and build, players may want to keep their Attack Power somewhat high until they have obtained the necessary Uniques and Paragon nodes to optimize their build's preferred damage type. The trick is to find the balance between what the stats show in terms of numbers and the actual effect it has on combat to find the build's sweet spot.
Diablo 4
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 88 /100 Critics Rec: 93%
WHERE TO PLAY
- Engine
- Proprietary Engine
- Genre(s)
- Action RPG, Hack and Slash
