Dexterity: How to rehaul it to become compelling

Disclaimer: I already know that the core systems and attributes won't change, and that I'm wasting my time by talking about it. GGG hasn't pointed to Dexterity and its related stats as being a problem, and the community also seems fine with it. I may as well be talking to myself, and I'm fine with that.

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MAIN PROBLEMS WITH DEXTERITY:

1. It's passive. Actively managing a resource is fun. Passively knowing that your hits will land and your character might dodge an attack, is boring. Unlike Strength (which grants Life) and Intelligence (which grants Mana and Energy Shield) there is no "resource" to manage related directly to Dexterity.

2. The math is fuzzy. I'm not saying the math is flawed. I'm saying that it's so obscure and boring that it may as well not be in the game. Who cares whether you have a 70% chance to hit, versus an 80% chance to hit, versus a 90% chance to hit? Sure it might be "important" mathematically, but most people don't know how Accuracy is matched against enemies with very low or high Evasion. Again, there is definitely a logical answer to that question, but nobody cares.

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HOW DEXTERITY CAN BECOME COMPELLING:

1. Give it a resource. Let's call this resource "Focus". Let's say that it's visually represented on the screen by a subtle green ring that circles the player character on the ground. When you have Focus (which is optional, like Energy Shield) you can choose to become "Focused" by holding in the Ctrl key. While "Focused", your chances of dodging and hitting gets much better! At full Focus, you have an almost guaranteed chance to Dodge or Hit. But each Dodge or Hit spends your Focus, causing the green ring to shrink. The smaller the ring, the less bonus you get to your Dodging and Accuracy. (Increasing your maximum Focus would make the ring wider, allowing you to Dodge and Hit more often before the ring becomes small, obviously.)

Everybody would want to have Focus. Because suddenly, Dodging and Hitting would become tactical, which would kick ass. People would want to have Flasks that regain your Focus, increase their Focus Regeneration Rate, wear items that boost their Max Focus, and obsess over it just like they do the other resources. You'd be scared of people that have tons of Focus, and respect careful management of it. Even if you didn't have a lot of Life, Mana, or Energy Shield, you would feel cool having lots of Dexterity and Focus.

This is just one example, but it illustrates how plausible it is to make Dexterity a compelling and tactical attribute, instead of a bland number in the background.


2. Remove Dodging and Accuracy altogether. Is it blasphemy? Nah, most people would hardly notice. That's because Accuracy can never be low enough in Path of Exile that players feel screwed over, because otherwise the game would be unplayable; which means that it's always going to be tolerable. Certain unique enemies will have a crazy high Evasion rating and you'll find yourself missing against them, but it feels annoying, not cool. With desync being as bad as it is, it's hard to even know whether the game is calculating "Accuracy vs. Evasion", or if lag is to blame. People use Grace Aura to supplement their "real" defensive stats, mostly, and there are better alternatives for what Dexterity could provide.

Instead of getting Accuracy and Evasion from your Dexterity points, you could instead get... Attack Speed and Movement Speed, or Block and Stun Recovery, or Critical Hit Chance, etc. Pick any of them, and people would be more excited. Wouldn't you be more hyped if 200 Dexterity would equal +12% Increased Attack Speed, and +10% Movement Speed? I find it funny to think how quickly the conversation would change in the community. Even something as "lame" as Block and Stun Recovery could become an interesting Dex attribute bonus if GGG made it more prominent as the game progressed, incentivizing people to buff their Dexterity the same way that you feel like getting higher Intelligence when you keep running out of mana.


3. A hybrid of the two options. The "Focus" resource could be the only way for you to Dodge (or to reliably hit somebody who is "Focused", and thus trying to Dodge you). Everybody could have a little bit of Focus to start with, which means everybody can choose to tactically dodge an enemy attack or two (which would be awesome), but yet they would quickly feel compelled to get more Focus so they can do this more often. There's no reason why this would slow the game down compared to the current setup, or complicate it any more. In fact it would make 1/3 of the big three attributes much more clear and compelling.

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SIMPLE DECLARATIONS IN FAVOR OF REHAULING DEXTERITY:

1. Dexterity should be something to fear and respect. Right now it's just kind of... there. Some people try to make builds that revolve around it, but compared to a Witch or a Marauder, it's just not fun.


2. Bows and Quivers should not be the compensation for a lousy Dexterity stat. I don't know how GGG feels about it, but to me this is an elephant in the room. Bows are an incredibly potent option in the game (as evidenced by the special Bow Master in the new expansion!) but it feels like they really don't have any ideas for how to make anything Dexterity related that "cool".


3. Red and Blue need a Green. Simply put, it sucks that Strength (Red) and Intelligence (Blue) get to take up the corners of the screen and attract everyone's attention, and meanwhile Dexterity (Green) is nowhere to be seen. It's not symmetrical, and it's a subliminal sign that Strength and Intelligence are the real exciting parts of the game.


4. The game mechanics don't emphasize traditional Dexterity skills. The traditional Dexterity character (in terms of Dungeons and Dragons) revolves around things like sneaking, jumping, climbing, pickpocketing, and a myriad of other abilities that simply don't happen in Path of Exile. Should they exist in POE? Probably not, because I can already hear the tidal wave of complaints from "purists" and those who hate new things. But it still begs the question of what Dexterity really "connects" to, in terms of mechanics and features.


5. The raging war over game balance proves that Dexterity is for losers. The new expansion and Passive Skill Tree redesign have sparked massive concern among the community, and it all revolves around Energy Shield, Life, Mana, etc. Nobody is concerned about Evasion and Accuracy Rating. Doesn't that tell you something? Again, the same level of passion can be seen in discussions of Legacy Unique items. Why? Because the old Kaom's Heart gives you tons of Life! Dexterity is just tagging along for the ride, to the point where it isn't relevant to a discussion. I swear, you could pick up an item with +3000 Accuracy Rating and not even smile. Evasion Rating is more powerful, yes, but it still doesn't compare to Life, Mana, or Energy Shield for most players.


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Thank you for reading. I hope maybe you'll agree with me, and I hope GGG sees this.

Dexterity? Is that the annoying number you need to spend a skillpoint or two on in order to use Wrath and LMP/GMP?

Hi

1+
This DEX issue has been going on since OB. I was first introduced to the DEX issue with IRON REFLEXES, which should be removed and replaced with something more themed for DEX users( I suggested a major 2 part node called parry and riposte), GGG has done nothing but let DEX take the shaft every time.

In the TENTATIVE skill tree acc and crit's seem combined, has GGG perhaps introduced a new mechanic which should have always been: accuracy affects criticals, makes sense. POE has always had a continual discourse in the background concerning why INT should be criticals and not DEX?

If DEX users should be stuck with passives from stacking DEX unlike INT and STR then they deserve more passive benefits from DEX(that would be what makes DEX special: lots of passives); specifically I would suggest more dodge for both attacks and spells, dodge is dodge to me and when you gotta get the heck out of dodge, YOU GET THE HECK OUT OF DODGE. A person should be able to leap out of the way of a spell as easily as a attack, blocking is different matter.

I would even go further to suggest a new lvl of interaction between INT,STR and DEX. EX: Player stacks DEX and STR, game does some math and player gets some added mvmt speed from combination of two. Player combines DEX and INT player gets more critical multiplier. DEX, unlike the other two(INT,STR) would best be used in combination with the rest and would reward such hybridization; unlike at the present moment where players seem to be penalized for making solid DEX characters.

cheers

x

I like it but its mostly something for another expansion.

It'd be nice to have a public test realm to try and see how this mechanic works. I like the idea of it, would make dexterity sought after moreso, not to mention add more fun to the game.

I've always been disappointed by dexteritys state in the game, I'm not sure these suggestions are the right solution but there definitely should be a change. Accuracy is useless to spell users and anyone taking RT, evasion useless to anyone not using evasion gear which in itself requires dex.

The most damaging and commonly used skills and supports are str/int based, dex has only chain/gmp/lmp going for it. If you're not using a bow, dex is crappy, even if you are using a bow, pure dex is mediocre - you'll need str for things like WED, int to use auras (the only dex based one is % based, more useful for high phys str characters), int for radius, str for added fire/burning... There's a very low number of damage increasing dex supports.


Simple fact is there are only 3 real stats in this game. EHP, skill cost/s and DPS.
Strs life is necessary EHP for majority of builds in the game, also used to pay skill costs for most builds, the phys damage important enough to have iron will and iron grip exist. Ints mana very useful to any build not using blood magic, the ES incredibly strong to CI/lowlife/hybrid builds.

Dex gives crappy DPS that is literally useless to most builds. Evasions % bonus equal to ES, when passives give on average 50-100% more per node than ES, which is a much more important EHP stat equal to life for some builds. There does need to be an important resource given by dex, in addition to more skills and supports for dex that are actually useful for non-projectile builds.


We don't need to abolish evasion, but the evasion % bonus at the very least it should be base evasion, which would make it useful to more builds. Accuracy per dex needs to be dropped, replaced with something useful to everyone. If you look at the dex side of the tree there's a ton of flavoursome stats: attack speed, movement speed, flask effectiveness, resistances, block and stun recovery, chance to avoid stun...

How about this:
Dex grants 2 evasion per 1 point, 1% increased flask effect per 5 points.

It would fit the survivalist theme of dexterity in PoE, the most flask nodes can be found in the dex area of the tree and it is useful to everyone. Very, very few builds in the game do not use flasks to recover their resources. This would require less of a complete rework by GGG than adding a new mechanic. It wouldn't fix everything, there still needs to be better gems for dex, but it would help a lot. We have more chance of a change being made the easier it is for GGG to make that change.

Here's hoping something happens at least some day!

To be quite honest, I think people underestimate the accuracy Dexterity quietly endows. Sure, if you're a caster or going RT it's no big deal, but for any sort of crit attacker, accuracy rating can make a huge difference. I can definitely tell when I've dropped below 90% chance to hit, and when it hits 80% things are looking dire. On top of that, accuracy is what is used to calculate critical hits against enemy evasion, which is why those deceptively weak 'increased chance to hit' rares can beat the shit out of an evader, who is typically all but immune to crits thanks to the re-roll.

I actively take accuracy% nodes now.

I also used to feel that dexterity needed something more potent, in light of what Strength and Intelligence provide, being life+damage and es+mana respectively. Dexterity's evasion+accuracy seems terribly weak compared to those, but as someone who basically lives in the Far East of the Skilldrasil, I've come to appreciate both offerings.

"

Charan wrote:

To be quite honest, I think people underestimate the accuracy Dexterity quietly endows. Sure, if you're a caster or going RT it's no big deal, but for any sort of crit attacker, accuracy rating can make a huge difference. I can definitely tell when I've dropped below 90% chance to hit, and when it hits 80% things are looking dire. On top of that, accuracy is what is used to calculate critical hits against enemy evasion, which is why those deceptively weak 'increased chance to hit' rares can beat the shit out of an evader, who is typically all but immune to crits thanks to the re-roll.

I actively take accuracy% nodes now.

I also used to feel that dexterity needed something more potent, in light of what Strength and Intelligence provide, being life+damage and es+mana respectively. Dexterity's evasion+accuracy seems terribly weak compared to those, but as someone who basically lives in the Far East of the Skilldrasil, I've come to appreciate both offerings.

But as the OP stated, there is a mathematical benefit to Dex which nobody denies.
This does not make it interesting or exciting in any way.
Having to manage a resource is infinitely better than a bland passive benefit.

Eh, I overlooked all that because it'd never, ever happen. It's a cool idea but it's not for PoE. I'm defending Dexterity as it stands and claim that although it may be granting passive benefits, they're no more passive than Strength or Intelligence for someone who is likely to consider themselves 'dexterous'. It's really not GGG's fault if the player underestimates Dexterity simply because it's not blatantly affecting their blue or red globes.

The OP repeatedly dismisses accuracy. I was addressing that and that alone.

I could have more thoroughly addressed their post, but most of it was hyperbole.

Technically this should be in the Suggestions board, but eh. Whatevers.