They fucked it up from the get-go, in my view. Dexterity really ought to affect ranged weapon damage and actually allow you to dodge attacks most of the time, if you get it high enough—not only so that you don't have to split your stats between Strength and Dex, but also because your character will qualify for the stat requirements of Dexterity-based armor and weapons much sooner. If you choose to put more points into Strength than Dexterity as you go along, the problem is further exacerbated. On top of this, Runic appear to have added "reduced fumble chance" to Dexterity since I last played. That doesn't add a benefit, it's just a fuck-you they added to punish you for not buying up a marginal stat. Negative reinforcement at its finest.
What they really needed was a fifth stat for all the additional shit they tacked onto "traditional" stats. If Strength affected melee damage and crit multiplier, Dexterity affected ranged damage and crit multiplier, Focus affected magic damage and crit multiplier, Vitality affected health, armor and block as unusual, and then some other stat ("Expertise?") affected execute chance, dodge chance, and crit rate (which actually makes a fuckton of sense), I think the game would be a lot better. Instead, Focus is king even for Outlanders (dual wands/execute/etc.), everyone needs/wants some amount of Vitality as per usual, Strength is good but not quite as good as Focus (doesn't add mana, for one thing, which is used for nearly every skill) and even ranged attackers need quite a bit of it, and finally Dexterity is the smelly turd in the room that you want 100-ish of by level 100, because it really never does a lot for you except fuck you over on item reqs.
I mean sure, dual-pistol Outlanders are fun to use, but then any old thing is fine on lower difficulties. Crank it up, and the weaknesses of melee and ranged weapon (and tanking) classes become apparent.
At some point, I'll post a video of my Ice Embermage powernuking the entire screen on Elite NG+ whilst never getting hit or running out of mana. You'll see what I mean, it's like a lawnmower the size of the base of the Statue of Liberty.
