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CharacterStats

A Barbarian's starting Attributes in Diablo II

The Character Attributes (a.k.a. Core Stats) are a set of values that determine a variety of different statistics that make each character in the Diablo Series.

Every time your character gains a level in the first two games, you receive five points to spend on your Character Attributes. In Diablo you can also boost your attributes by drinking Elixirs. In Diablo II you are rewarded with 5 attribute points by completing the quest Lam Esen's Tome. In later games, base attribute increases happen automatically, and the vast majority of the contribution to attributes comes from items or other external bonuses rather than base stats from leveling.

In each game, the set of attributes has been redesigned somewhat, particularly between the second and third games. However, most games have included Strength, Dexterity, Vitality, and a magic-oriented attribute as core stats.

Diablo[]

D1 attributes

Character attributes in Diablo I

In the original Diablo, the attributes were:

  • Strength: Increases the damage you deal with your regular attack. Also allows you to wear heavier armor and weapons.
  • Dexterity: Increases your chance to hit the enemy, your AC (Armor Class)and chance to block with a shield. Rogues and in the Hellfire expansion Monks and Bards gain additional damage from Dexterity. Some weapons require a certain amount of dexterity to wield.
  • Vitality: Increases your amount of life. For the Barbarian in the Hellfire expansion, it also increases your damage.
  • Magic: Increases the amount of damage done by your magic spells, increases your mana pool, and allows you to learn more advanced spells.

The damage increase from attributes (also called character damage) is determined by your class and level. It is not affected by the damage on your weapon or by having +% damage modifiers on your weapon. The +50% damage bonus vs. specific monster types depending on your weapon, and the +200% damage to demons bonus on Civerb's Cudgel do apply to it.

Diablo II[]

In Diablo II, the most notable change was the revamping of the Skill system that led to the replacement of the earlier Magic attribute with the more general Energy attribute.

  • Strength: Determines how much damage you deal with your equipped weapon(s), as well as determining the type of armor you are able to equip. Each point of strength increases your damage by 1% of your weapon's damage.
  • Dexterity: Determines how likely you are to hit your targeted enemy and how likely your targeted enemy is to hit you. Dexterity also determines your ability to equip certain weapons, mostly ranged weapons and the chance to block an enemy attack if equipped with a shield.
  • Vitality: Determines the amount of life and stamina your character has.
  • Energy: Determines the amount of mana your character has.

Regardless of class, Vitality is often the character's most invested stat; Strength and Dexterity are mostly invested just to reach equipment requirements. Vitality is arguably the most useful stat due to the low base health that characters have, as well as the fact that health is much more effective than armor in terms of staying alive.

Diablo III[]

In Diablo III, each class has a primary stat, one of Strength, Dexterity, or Intelligence, where increases to that attribute directly increase damage done by the character. Each of those stats also has a secondary effect, some form of damage mitigation, which applies to all classes. The fourth core stat is Vitality, which simply increases life and is not a primary stat for any class.

  • Strength: Increases all Barbarian and Crusader damage by 1% per point, and armor for all classes by 1 per point.
  • Dexterity: Increases all Demon Hunter and Monk damage by 1% per point, and armor for all classes by 1 per point. Before patch 2.1, this increased dodge chance rather than armor.
  • Intelligence: Increases all Wizard, Witch Doctor, and Necromancer damage by 1% per point, and all resistances at the rate of 10 Intelligence per 'whole' point of resist.
  • Vitality: Initially increases life by 10 hit points. After a character reaches level 36, the life gains from Vitality begin to go up by only 1 per point, up to level 60, where each point is +35 life (barring the +X% life bonuses).
    • Once a hero reaches level 61-65 in Reaper of Souls, the Life gains go up by +4, rather than +1. This caps out at +55 Life at level 65. Gaining a level within the range of 66-70 increases the gains by +5, up to +80 Life at level 70.

Most items provide bonuses to one primary stat as well as Vitality; as a result most characters have a high primary stat and Vitality, while the other two core stats - which are primary stats for other classes but not their own - remain near their starting values. The maximum core stat bonus from an item is 500 for most types of armor; however, one-handed weapons, amulets, gloves, off-hand items (including shields) and helms can roll up to 750 of each stat. Two-Handed weapons may roll up to 1125. Ancient Items increase these limits further.

The Smart Loot system causes most items that provide a primary stat bonus at all to use the stat of the character it dropped for, rather than other classes' primary stats. "Off-class" items still drop, but at much lower frequency. Crafting items, Enchanting them, or re-randomizing them in Kanai's Cube never results in an off-class stat. Primary stat bonuses as standard item attributes are mutually exclusive: no item improves two different primary stats, and Enchanting can only improve the current primary stat by replacing the existing primary stat bonus (if it was off-class, it changes to the on-class one), or if the original item had no primary stat bonus at all.

Aside from items, Paragon Points and some Passive skills can be used to increase core attributes, and some Active skills do so temporarily. Gems and Augmentation of items can grant even more core stat bonuses.

Diablo III characters also have numerous secondary attributes, divided into "Offensive", "Defensive", "Resources", and "Adventuring" categories. Standard item bonuses modify some of these values directly, while many skills and Legendary and Set item powers interact with them too.

Trivia[]

The original version of Spectrum had a bonus to "all core stats" in addition to the standard primary stat bonus. This made it the only non-Ancient one-handed weapon that could grant as much as 923 to a core stat. It has since been updated to have the standard selection of stat bonuses only.

Diablo Immortal[]

DIStats

Character attributes for a Monk player

Diablo Immortal continues the primary stat concept of Diablo III, where each character class gains damage from a specific stat. This time classes are grouped into only two categories, physical and magical, corresponding to Strength and Intelligence. For the first time in the franchise, Dexterity is not a stat, and there are two new stats, Fortitude and Willpower.

All core attributes are summed for a single total Combat Rating, which is compared to an opponent's rating to determine damage scaling. The non-primary stats grant secondary benefits to all classes. Typically the primary stat that does not match a character's class will be 0, since it grants no benefits over any other stat, and will not appear frequently on items dropped for that character.

Diablo IV[]

For the first time in the series, Diablo IV did not use Vitality as a stat, instead using Character Level to determine base health, with many bonuses to total Life available. It made Willpower a primary stat in addition to the other three from previous generations. All core stats are now primary stats for at least one class, increasing skill damage done by that class. Each of them also increases resource generation for a different set of classes, so that every class has a primary and a secondary core stat to focus on. Finally, they all increase various secondary attributes for all characters regardless of class.

Trivia[]

The three non-Vitality attributes of the first three games (primary stats of the third game) correspond to classic RPG archetypes: Fighter (Strength), Rogue/Archer (Dexterity), and Magic User (Magic/Energy/Intelligence). Until Diablo IV, the franchise did not have a stat matching the final classic archetype, a Cleric or religious magic user. Instead, religious or spiritual characters were divided among the other three types, based on the form of fighting they employed most rather than defining them by their source of power - for example, Paladins tend to use Strength, Monks Dexterity, and Witch Doctors Intelligence.

Diablo Immortal condensed the attribute correspondence down to two archetypes, physical (Strength) and magical (Intelligence). Diablo IV then expanded to finally include a form of the fourth archetypal stat, Willpower, the primary stat for Druids.

Character Attributes
Diablo I Diablo II Diablo III Diablo Immortal

StrengthDamage
DexterityAttack RatingArmor ClassBlock
VitalityLife
MagicMana
Resistances

StrengthDamage
DexterityAttack RatingDefenseBlock
VitalityLifeStamina
EnergyManaMana Regeneration
Resistances

StrengthDamageArmor
DexterityDamageArmor
IntelligenceDamageResistances
VitalityLife

StrengthDamageCombat Rating
IntelligenceDamageCombat Rating
Fortitude ArmorArmor PenetrationCombat Rating
VitalityLifeCombat Rating
WillpowerPotencyResistanceCombat Rating

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