M19 Stats

Players, companions, and monsters, have stats. Primary stats (or ratings), work as a couple of offensive vs defensive stat.

• Defense can reduce damage taken by up to 50%, and is countered by Armor Penetration.
• Deflect can reduce the damage of up to 50% of the hits by a percentage given by Deflect Severity (usually 50%), and is countered by Accuracy.
• Critical Strike can make up to 50% of your hits critical, which damage is improved by a percentage given by Critical Severity (+30% for monsters, base +75% for players), and is countered by Critical Avoidance.
• Combat Advantage can improve the damage you deal to targets you surround (blue marks on the feet of the target, red on yourself) by up to 100% (double the damage), and is countered by Awareness (or positionning properly!).
• Power simply improves the base damage or healing of your powers by 1% for each 1k point. 150k points in Power improve your base damage/healing by 150%. If you add in 1k points, your total Power will improve your base damage/healing by 151%. But your total damage/healing will only increase by 251/250 = 0.4%. Points in Power always add as much damage/healing as previous points, but the relative increase becomes lower and lower as your Power gets bigger. It doesn't have a cap, just like HP.

Most of the items give combined ratings. These actually boost all of your primary stats, except Power and HP.

Secondary stats, like Movement Speed, Critical Severity, Outgoing Healing, Incoming Healing, etc., have no caps. But the ways to get them are limited.

How many stat points ?

Every 1k points in any stat above enemy ratings improve its efficiency by 1%, to a cap of 50% (50k points above enemy ratings). The only exception is Combat Advantage which caps at 100% (100k points above enemy ratings). Also, as everyone, including monsters, starts with 5k more Critical Strike, we need 5k more Critical Avoidance.

And so, the caps are, for most stats / critical avoidance / combat advantage :

• 57k / 62k / 107k in most of the random dungeons (but your stats are scaled down there)
• 60k / 65k / 110k in the Undermountain campaign area and Stronghold
• 68k / 73k / 118k in the Lair of the Mad Mage dungeon (LoMM)
• 80k / 85k / 130k in the Tower of the Mad Mage trial (ToMM)
• 85k / 90k / 135k in the mod 18 area (Vallenhas) and dungeon (The Infernal Citadel)
• 90k / 95k / 140k in the mod 19 area (Avernus Wastes) and trial (Zariel's Challenge)

Note that Paladins and Clerics need up to 10k more points in Critical Avoidance to be capped all the time, because they have a general feature that improves their Critical Avoidance by 10k, but this bonus disapears as their divinity goes down.

Also note that Clerics need up to 10k more points in Accuracy to be capped all the time, as they have a general feature that improves their Accuracy by 10k, but this bonus disapears as their Stamina goes down. In reality, 3-5k are enough, because you will rarely totally deplete your stamina, and it replenishes pretty fast.

Critical Healing

Critical Strike has a different formula for healing. It is not countered by Critical Avoidance. The formula is :

• Critical chance = Critical Strike / ( 2.5 x Power )

It sill caps at 50%, so there is no reason to have more points than 1.25 x Power. But it also means that gaining more Power above 0.8 x Critical Strike will yield lower returns (it still improves your average healing, but less than before), because it reduces your critical chances. But it does improve your minimum heal, and that makes your healing more reliable, especially for Heal over Time skills which will fully crit or never crit for the whole duration.

Note that Critical Severity is halved for healing. And that makes Power more important that Critical Strike in any situation. There are places where you cannot put Power (rings, companion gear), and that's where you should put Critical Strike, to maximize your healing. Always choose Power over Critical Strike, whenever you can, whatever your ratio is.

Which stats to focus on ?

As a Tank :

A Tank basically needs all of their stats capped, with the exception of Awareness. The most important ones are Defense and Armor Penetration. Then, Deflect and Critical Avoidance make a big difference, just like HP. Accuracy is important to make sure your skills are not deflected (which would result in less aggro building). Incoming Healing is primordial to make sure your healer can keep you alive. Then Critical Strike can significantly improve your damage. Eventually, Combat Advantage is usually better than Power (because you're supposed to give Combat Advantage to everyone in the group), so it's good to focus on it if you have stat points left and above 100k Power. If you position properly, you shouldn't need Awareness at all, but it's not bad to have some in the earlier dungeons to learn the ropes.

As a Healer :

A Healer needs their Defense capped. They also need their Critical Avoidance capped for ToMM (not necessary in other dungeons, but good to have). Then, it's all about Outgoing Healing, Power, Critical Strike, and Critical Severity. Always favor Power against Critical Strike or Critical Severity. Having plenty of HP, and Incoming Healing also helps a lot.

As a Damage Dealer :

A Damage Dealer needs all of their offensive stats, and Defense, capped. And as much Power and Critical Severity as possible (1% of Critical Severity is roughtly equal to 700-1000 Power, depending on your Power and Critical Severity). The other stats do not matter, though HP is important to be able to sustain big hits.