There are quite a few stats on items that are “dead stats”; essentially useless stats. I’ll list a few of them here, and if anyone disagrees, I’d be curious to know your reasoning as well.
light radius: The screen is bright enough without the light radius. If light radius additively affected OA it would be a much more interesting and would be a logical change. Enemies like gloomweaver which reduce light radius would also reduce the player’s OA, and light radius buffs could increase OA.
Constitution: This stat is useless outside of normal/veteran. Perhaps current constitution could affect health or health regen? It should have some secondary function to encourage players to conserve it and benefit from + constitution items
Increased experience: No one has trouble reaching max level in Grim Dawn. If I want experience I’ll do bounties or sidequests
vitality decay: only 6 items in the game provide the player with flat vitality decay, and only 1 constellation provides vitality decay damage. I don’t think any mastery skills provide vitality decay damage either. This stat can safely be ignored because most players will not acquire any meaningful amounts of vitality decay damage. One of my vitality characters has over 1000% vitality damage but cannot inflict any, so it’s all a waste. It seems like an ancient relic from titan quest that is present on a few epic items but has largely been forgotten. Vitality decay should be placed on considerably more items and abilities to make this stat useful.
energy burn: it hurts more than it helps. Quite a few enemies have damage reflect and most bosses are highly immune. The occasional hero can have its energy burnt, but I usually treat this stat as a drawback rather than an advantage. It’s only use is annoying the player when an enemy spawns with an energy burn weapon.
reduced petrify duration/sleep resistance: I don’t think I’ve ever experienced either of these status effects, although I might be mistaken.
I agree with all of them apart from vitality decay, all damage helps.
The constitution one bugs me though. My main uses lots of tanky gear and I have 170% constitution and it does nothing. After you have finished normal/elite it doesn’t help you at all.
I agree that all damage helps, but there is almost no damage to speak of. That’s why I’m not recommending the stat to be removed, I’m recommending there be more sources of vitality decay added to the game so that it is no longer a useless stat
Disagree. On builds without dedicated heal skills (i.e., any non-Nightblade/Occultist) or Attack Damage Converted to Health, Constitution becomes the primary means of sustained survival, and +% Constitution has a very noticeable impact.
LR is VERY pleasant to have, but it’s VERY rare. Some items just need to have it as an extra bonus. I’m against making LR a combat bonus.
Same as with LR. I think of Constitution as a crutch that allows one to crawl through the game until PB/BoD/Giant’s Blood/%ADCtH/high regen is available. Not everything has to be useful on ultimate.
Same as Constitution. I like bonus exp, that’s why I level up my twinks with Hermit’s Leggings + Explorer’s Cover + 8% exp medal. I actually want more exp boosting items for 30-50 level range. Heck, scratch this, I just want more blue items in 40-50 level range.
Mostly agree.
Discussed to death when Solael’s Witchfire had it, resulting in rework. Yes, it’s a controversal stat with drawback. A typical counter-argument is that you shoudn’t be damaging mobs when reflect is up anyway.
Mostly agree.
Overall, you want all stats to be equal and worth gearing for. I disagree with this. The way these games are, combat stats will always be a priority, moreover combat stats that give more advantage will be in favor over those that give less (e.g. downfall of OA/DA during beta)
P.S. separation of stats on primary and secondary was one of the things made right in D3.
I’ve always found constitution to be useless even for builds without a heal. Still have no clue why it is in the game. They should have just removed the out of combat heal instead of adding constitution.
I definitely never look for the stat on gear for any build. And because it is in game every character ends up with way to many health pots by time I finish the content on Ultimate.
I wouldn’t call these stats “useless”, but more like small side bonuses that aid your characters in the long run, but is barely noticeable by you… think on them as the side dish that comes with your meal.
Just wait till Fabius spawns with an assassins calling and your character has low DA. You will be petrified for 3/4ths of the fight if you survive the stuns
I think these exceptions people point out only help the OP’s case. Why do we have a stat that is only kind of useful against a single boss and a single type of mob?
I agree completely with the OP’s list and to the poster saying the OP wants all stats to be equal…no he doesn’t and he didn’t say any such thing. All stats should at least be viable to one type of gameplay or build and the ones he’s pointing out are not useful to any and should be changed/added to/removed.
To the list, I would also add Energy Absorb and Resistance to Life Reduction and +1 to Devouring Swarm. I only include the last one because it appears on 6 different Legendaries and the skill is largely unused by the playerbase yet I can’t find a decent 2H physical weapon past level 50.
All “+x% (DOT) Damage” and “+x% (specific damage type) Retaliation” are redundant/need-to-die stats, adding an obnoxious amount of stat bloat to an already diverse stat pool. i.e. “+x% Pierce Damage” should cover Piercing, Bleeding, and Piercing Retaliation in the same way that Elemental covers Fire, Cold, and Lightning to greatly reduce stat bloat.
I said “largely” unused, it appears on SIX legendaries by itself not including it getting caught up in +1 shaman stats or relic bonuses. You’d think half the game was built on this skill.
Energy absorption isn’t the best for casters, but it’s not half bad for melee characters. It’s unreliable because you can’t absorb energy from every enemy, but it helps quite a bit against those enemies that use spells. It’s not a great stat by any means, but imo it’s a step above the ones I listed in the original post.
I don’t agree that pierce damage should boost pierce retaliation as well, otherwise melee tanks would deal obscene amounts of damage both offensively and defensively by just stacking pierce.
I do think that types of retaliation damage should be pared down, but I’m not sure this is the way to do it. Perhaps retaliation damage should just be boosted by %all retaliation damage instead of specific types of damage.
Its not only unreliable but its strictly worse than flat regen or regen %. I could be mistaken but I’ve never seen a single build that recommended it as a source of energy especially in Ultimate where damage avoidance is the name of the game. The only time I’ve noticed any bit of energy from that stat is at lower levels and I’m standing in a poison pool and even in that perfect scenario it was paltry. The % of enemies that actually cast spells is quite small and even then they’re usually the ones you take down first (like the healer goblins or priest skeletons) before they get too many spells off. It’s a badly designed stat and could be a % of all damage taken so that retaliation tanks could get some use out of it.
