i have a lvl 45 plate with 130ee and you prolly already know where im going with this

caster rock me hard

so what I want to know is

does adding int to a melee barb/sammy/pally really help reduce caster damage enough to be worth putting points into it?


Thanks for answers and opinions in advance.

Yes, Int increases magical def, but its almost worthless if your wearing a plate unless you soloing and going a hybrid tank/heal

Paul had a update not too long ago that smartened the AI mobs to where if they see you wearing a plate they will cast with priority I think.

Thus getting rocked by casters =P

If you're solo, I've found it to be better to just add vit and use stat gear. I go about 85 vit with straight stat gear and do fine playing solo.
Sad to say, but I feel like EE armors of any kind don't really pull their weight for solo play.

If you're in a group, EE is needed though with a good healer or two you can pretty much do anything.

I used leathers and scales to solo on SC and it deflected a lot of the damage from both caster and physical. Going about 35-45int depending on character and 50-60 vit.

On HC I used chains and plates and chains seem to work fine but plates get raped hard. Currently lvl 3x with 40int and 60vit (stating more into both as I go along.) It seems plates have really lost their effectiveness with the recent patches. Seems the mobs cast a lot when I use plates.

Didnt you reset a season once?

Eh, this wording is pretty misleading.
All I really wanted to say is that for the most optimal solo builds I think you can level faster and safely without using EE armors. It is still safer to use EE obviously.

Even on the highest EE plates possible adding INT wont be worth it at all.

Looking at a T14 280EE plate with 10 INT you are blocking 0-55 magic damage.
If you added 40 stats into INT you are still only blocking 0-77 magic damage. Thats 40 stats for an average of 11 magic damage blocked per attack.

Lets look at your plate armor tho, because it wont be nearly as good as that +11 magic damage reduction.
T12 plate with 130EE and 10 INT is 0-28 magic damage reduction.
Add 40 int to bring you to 50 total. Now you block 0-40 magic damage. This added a whopping 6 magic damage reduction on average per hit for 40 stats.

Whether by intention or poor design, INT is a fucking joke for magic defense on plates. I think it needs to be rebalanced.