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Well, my builds take only a few points in Con and Will at the early levels, then focus everything into Strength for physical hitters/Arcane for casters and Agility. I end at around 20 Con, 40 Str/Arcane and however much Agility I can get along the way (second most important stat to me). I do bolster those stats by taking Traits rather than skills, after a few key skills, Traits give a lot of points later in the game, Toughness and Willpower make Con and Will redundant, Defender can make up for not putting points into Skill. Also, I never put on equiment that would lower my speed more than a point or two, and preferably it should increase instead.

So yeah, I have no use for Skill on Normal difficulty or lower, and only a little Con and Will in the beginning, depending on how expensive the character's skills are. Speed and damage is what kills, killing is what we want to do so we can move on.

With that formula (or something close to it), I can avoid most of the battles in the game, only buy new gear once in a blue moon, not use cheat leveling at the start of a new Act, and win every forced fight in the game.

Now, playing on Hard or Nightmare is a different beast entirely - every stat choice matters here, and I wouldn't say there are useless stats - but just getting through the game on Normal/Easy, damage is the most important thing to consider.

Yes exactly, I couldn't explain it better myself

RangerTwin, Agility/Con/Skill build. Equip with shield, go for Tank skills.

GREAT front-line damage soaker.

I've got to hand it to you, jack, playing on Hard difficulty is just plain hard; many games either overdo it or don't make it tough enough, but you've nailed it. Some of the bigger battles feel almost impossible at first, but I'm in Act 3 and so far haven't changed the difficulty, so the fights are definitely winnable. This game forces you to switch tactics and plan ahead a bit, but it's never unfair. Good work.

And for reference, most of my characters have a 20 on most of their stats, since I do notice significant improvement in combat from that, and after the 20 mark I boost the three more relevant stats for each character (based on my skill selection).

Cool, pleased to read it, after spending so much time balancing the game!!