Compare all items with charm stats.
Your inventory is the baseline from which you modify your character. Your jewels follow, then your amulet and circlet.
If you do not get enough resist from the rares, you make up for it from charms.
For this reason, the stat values of level 30 caster items are as follows:
3 max damage/20 ar = 12 mana = 5% all resist
15 life = 3 frw = 5% faster hit recovery
frw is worth slightly more if it is from charms or str bugged gear.
With rare jewels, 15 mana = 10% all resist but with magic jewels, 20 mana = 15% all resist and any of the stats = 8 life
For this reason, your ideal caster jewels are not magic but rare.
9 dex/12 mana/10% all resist is, converted to charm stats, identical to a 9dex/15 all resist magic jewel because you can substitute a 15 life/12 mana sc for a 15 life/5 all resist sc.
However, the rare jewel is better because it gives the 5% res from your inventory, meaning you have that resist even when you swap weapons. That means you only need 10% resist from the swap as well to maintain the same resist.
Your ideal rare jewel, then, would be either a 9 dex/15 mana/10 all resist/40 cold resist or a 9 dex/8 life/10 all resist/40 cold resist or a 9dex/8 life/15 mana/10 all resist depending on how much value you personally place on life vs mana and whether you prefer 150 res at all times.
Under this same logic, a 15% all resist/15 max damage jewel is almost the same as an 18 max/10 all resist jewel, except with the magic jewel you receive an extra 20 ar from the extra fine charm.
Resistances can only be measured in multiples of 5
As an example, let's say you have a jewel with 9 dex, 8 mana, 9% all resist.
This is exactly the same as a 9 dex/8 mana/5% all resist jewel because the last 4% all resist does nothing for a finished character.
All important resistance modifiers besides the lower resist curse and rare amulets have their perfect variables as multiples of 5.
Cold mastery is -75 cold resist. Conviction is -75% fire/light/cold resist. Jewels are 10% or 15% all resist. Vmagi is 35% all resist. Boots are 40% single resist. Rings are 30% single resist.
The max resist is, again, a multiple of 5 and continues to be a multiple of 5 when you increase your max resist through hotspurs, hawkmail, infernostrides or darkglow.
For this reason, there is no significant difference between a pair of 35% tri resist boots and 39% tri resist boots. There is no significant difference between a 10% all resist jewel and a 14% all resist jewel.
Keep this in mind when choosing rare items and socket choices.
Build around your item swaps.
If your swap is a shield, make sure you have max block.
Do not use slow shields like tower shield on your swap, because any time you need to wsg is a time when you need to move your fastest.
Make sure you always hit max resist on both swaps.
Socket your tele staffs with resist jewels, and make sure you still have 150% cold resist with the staff.
If you rely on % damage to mana from your shield, make sure your swap has % damage to mana as well.
Reduce all stats to life, mana, damage value.
Another way to say this is "string of ears is always better"
Going by caster setups, let's take a 100% perfect rare belt. 24 fhr/60 life/5 rep life/20 mana/30 light resist/30 cold resist.
Vs a 15/15 string of ears.
24 fhr = 5 fhr scs = 65 life
5 rep = replace a pskull with a perf ruby
30% dual res = replacing 4x single res charms with 4x single res charms in stash (or 6x all res scs)
That brings the value of a 100% perfect rare belt to 171 life/68 mana. It lets you hit 150 cold res vs blizz or 150 lr vs foh but not both at once.
However, you lose 19% mana regen from taking off the pskull.
String of ears adds 15% dr and 15 mdr. If you have 1200 life the 15% dr alone makes it better than the rare belt, only getting better in longer duels as rep increases your effective life pool.
The mdr can also end up adding hundreds more life per duel than the rare belt.
Build around your hardest winnable matchups, not your easy or losing matchups.
Trap loses to bow. Druid loses to firewall. Riox loses to people 12 levels lower than him.
A bowa does not need to keep gear in stash to counter trapper because he will already win more than half of his duels either way
A trap does not need to keep gear in stash to counter bowa because he will still lose more than half of his duels either way
Riox does not need to keep gear in stash because he will still get omnislashed by an 18
How much can be worth shield with chance of parade?
Help
Rep life is worth more if you have mitigation
Energy shield, dr, mdr, dr% make each point of life worth more. Rep is more effective on characters with mitigation because each point of life healed blocks more damage than it would on a character without mitigation.
This post was edited by Worrywart on Apr 5 2017 12:24am