How do I interpret the "stat changes if equipped" information when comparing weapons?

Question

When comparing items, you get to see how Life, Damage and Protection will change if you equip that item. What is included in these three values?

Life: Does this properly account for life changes from both vitality and from +x% max life items?

Damage: Does this take into account +crit chance, +crit damage, increased attack speed etc?

Protection: I have the feeling that this includes damage reduction from armor and dodge from dexterity. But it does not seem to include +all resistances. Is this correct, and if so, why is not +all resistances included? What about chance to block and block amount from shields? Will those have any impact?

Is there any comprehensive list somewhere about everything that affects the life, damage and protection comparisons?

Answer 1

Life: Yes, yes it does. This is easy to test, just toss an Amethyst into a socketed helm with no Vitality on it. Since there are no other stats or affixes on items that affect HP beyond those two, there's no need to go into more detail on the formulae here I hope.

Damage: See here for all the details, but in short: Yes, it accounts for everything that matters. The only damage boosting stats it does not take into account are bonuses to the damage of an individual skill, or increases to resource capacity or regeneration.

Protection: It includes Armor, Dodge, and Resistance, but this is new. As of patch 1.03, "Resist values will now be taken into effect when calculating the Protection comparison stat (the Protection value is an average protection estimate of all your resists)".

Answer 2

Chance to block was never incorporated into the protection stat.

If you compare near identical shields only one with 10% block, and another with 20% - you'll see they both still have the same protection stat.