New Diamond Skin Cluster

So, I've been having a hard time deciding if it's worth taking the new Diamond Skin Cluster.

At end game, you primarily want it for the +Max Res. I took the nodes when I had just entered Merciless since it was a very convenient way to put off gearing for resists, but now that I am gearing up for maps and trading for stuff it's not all that difficult to get capped resists off of gear. I'm debating whether I should just respect out of it.

While +2 max res all is nice, it costs 5 points for me to do that. For my build, I could say take those 5 points and put them directly into the Splitting Strikes cluster for 72% increased physical damage and 2% attack speed. Or take 5 life or life/armor nodes for a total of 40% life and 12% armor.

In general, if you're not coming out of the Marauder starting area, do you think it's worth spending so many points to get that +max res?

Depends on build and stacking efficiency imo.

Let me put it like this, if your gonna aim for 85/90% all resis (so aura's + EA + skin cluster etc) then yes worth it imo.

If your goal is to get 75 resis, then nope. More hp will most likely give you more EHP because of more leech ability and plain old surviving hits.


Every +max resist past 75% gets exponentially harder to attain, so this is reflected in the cost atm imo. You need the right balance between resis and hp designed for your build imo.

In theory you could run around with 500hp with CI/100% all resist and perma immortal cry.

And for a build designed to do this, 500 hp would be enough compared to damage reduction.

So think about it, is your hp sufficient for the amount of reduction you have?

depends on the build i guess,

If your resistances are at 81% (75 + saffels + ele adaptation) then the extra 2% resists will reduce the elemental damage you take by 10.5%

if your resistances are at 75% then it's only worth 8% ele damage reduction

but, if your resistances are at 90% (75 + saffels + ele adaptation + max auras) then it will reduce the ele damage you take by 20%


So it can be "meh" or it can be amazing, all depends on your build

Demivion makes it a lot clearer :o) he has the numbers to back it up i assume :).

thx demi.

I've been considering the same things lately, and At least for the individual max res nodes, I think that as long as you can gain 2% more life from a single node, it is more worthwhile than the 4% more effective HP all the other nodes give in total.

OK - so here's the math from my build.

I currently have 166% increased max life. Just to make the math easy let's say I have 1000 base life.

If I take the +Max Res, that means I have 2660 life, and against elemental damage where I have 77% resists, I would have 11,565 effective life.

If I spec into the life nodes, I go up to 206% increased max life. In this case I would have 3060 life, and with 75% resists I would have 12,240 effective life.



So yeah - seems it's correct to spec out of that cluster at least for now. Maybe when later when I run out of easy-to-reach life nodes I'll spec back into it. Thanks!

Get it if you're a Marauder/if your build is literally right next to that area.

Otherwise, don't spend many points just reaching the area solely for that cluster.