% resistance is working way too well right now

Feedback and Suggestions
1

Health and % health just does not compete with something that scales in percentages.

I can have 410 health, 67 health (from gear of same tier) will not save me from a 500 hit, however 20% resistance will. Even with % health, you will need more than 2000 flat health to start compete with % resistances, which is just very hard to build. You even get those dual % resistance thats also multiplied by number of gears you get, which makes building up this layer of defense very simple yet effective.

health and % health give abit more value, but its rarer and cannot compete with a simple resistance stat that give 40% or more damage reduction.

Armor is great all rounder protection but scales poorly past certain point, and cannot work against dots. This is made worse by the fact monolith some times roll armor shreds that also offer good rarity modifier. If you build armor on your gear you will miss out on this because it stacks up fast.

Right now its very weird that you can easily build up % resistance of all damage types on your gear, which due to maths just makes it the best defensive option aside from Ward builds. There are also not that many forms of stacking resistance shred unlike armor.

Other ARPGs solve this problem by making players capping baseline resistance, and physical resistance difficult to come by so players will need layers of defense. But here since you need 150% resistance to cap out at level 100 maps, it will always offer the best protection up until that point. For a single slot in gear, this defense stat is winning hugely over armor or health, you just get more bang for your buck, and then you can either focus on dps or Dodge stat to make this even better.

In summary, % resistance stats are incredibly powerful right now and offer best EHP aside from dodge. Im hoping that dev will buff up health and armor abit to make them more valuable, or at least consider the penitration mechanic.

2

You donā€™t need 150% resist to be capped at lvl 100. 75% resist will cap you but leave you vulnerable to shred, at most you would need 115% resist to not need to worry about shred though IMO itā€™s not worth it since shred falls off reasonably quickly (this counts for armour shred too). The area-level resist penetration is applied after the resist cap.

The flat + % health affix is a hybrid affix which is often less effective than ā€œpureā€ affixes like flat health or % health.

Also, the set resists are prefixes so they donā€™t interfere with taking both resists (prefixes) & health (suffixes).

Personally Iā€™m not bothered by taking the armour shred monolith options since the stacks fall off between packs.

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3

Maps have level based penetration though. And thats up to 75%.

So if you have 75% youā€™d be capped on character sheet but actually have 0 resistance in level 100 maps.

This ment that as long as you are building resistance itā€™d still be valuable up to a total of 150% if consider no other source of shred/penetration.

This mechanic is why +max resistance cap in POE and GD is a major deal in gear because it scales by %

4

  1. having 150% resistance on a level 100 map doesnt mean that you will have 75% cap after nobs 75% penetration. You will have 0% whether you have 75% or 200% this is how they have it setup. As llama stated over capping up to 115% only helps with shreds that cap at 40%.

  2. getting more than 2k health and capped resistance is easy on endgame level chars. I have a necro with over 5k life and a werebear that broke 7k HP. Remeber each point of vitality gives 10 flat health and there are idols that give % and flat hp gains on the same idol. Passives can give lots. 2k HP on level 80+ chars doesmt take much investment.

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5

Dont you have to sacrifice dps for doing that? At least on my summoner necro I unfortuately dont have many slots to consider. So resistance worked out the best for me.

In any case that makes armor seems the weakest by comparison: high investment, poor scaling, cant deal with dots, monoith shred modifer.

6

I may be mistaken here, but isnt this the point of an ARPG and build building? You have to determine and decide what you want to do. MORE defense OR more offense? I mean i guess we could just complain untill we can have it all.

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7

Actually resistances are fairly weak in LE compared to POE!

In PoE getting from 50% to 75% resist (after penalties) reduces damage taken by 50%.
100 hit * 50% reduce = 50 damage taken
100 hit * 75% reduce = 25 damage taken

In LE getting from 50% to 75% resist (after penalties) reduces damage taken by only 20%.
100 hit * 1,25 (-75% resist on level 75 map with 50% res) = 125 damage taken
100 hit * 1,00 (-75% resist on level 75 map with 75% res) = 100 damage taken

POE offers you ā€œtake only a quater of the damageā€ (25,0%) comparing 0 and max res - RES are absolutly mandatory
LE offers you ā€œtake only about half of the damageā€ (57,5%) comparing 0 and max res - RES are less mandatory.

(POE is even worse because you can have negativ res too ā€¦ so its even more mandatory!)

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8

Oh i see, sorry i misunderstood before and didnā€™t know penetration cant go below 0. In that case yeah Health becomes better.

9

Penetration can bring you below 0 resistances. (-75% resistances is maximum negative resistance)

It only applies after capping out.

10

I wish people would stop with this misleading talking point. The first line is comparing against the base damage. Your point about going from 50% to 75% is another 50% reduction is comparing the final damage against an already mitigated number.

Penetration can take you to below 0 if you have less resist than the incoming penetration. Resistance is capped before penetration is calculated. So at area level 75 and up, you can never have more than 0 resistance, after penetration is calculated.

You also seem to be falling into the same argument that others do by comparing Resistance to Health as if they are both a single entity, when in reality, Resistance is 7 and Health is 1. Resists are relatively easy to cap currently, but the return isnā€™t as good as you think it is.

11

I donā€™t think thatā€™s an entirely unreasonable way of looking at it though, to compare 1 mitigated number against another with higher mitigation, when the question is whether the mitigation is underpowered or overpowered.
In LE, for every 1% point of resistance you have above the area level, you take 1% less damage (compared to being at the area level), likewise, for every 1% lower than the area level your resist is you take 1% more damage compared to being at cap, which was the entire point of the area-level penetration:

Again, I think it depends how you look at it. 1 point of resistance will protect you from 1% of damage, whereas 1 point of health will ā€œprotectā€ you from 1 point of damageā€¦ At higher levels that 1% of damage is more than 1 point of damage.

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12

In LE, for every 1% point of resistance you have above the area level, you take 1% less damage (compared to being at the area level)

A small clarification: this holds true for the resulting number after capping resists. Overcapping your resistances does nothing for area penetration, and area penetration caps at 75% pen.

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13

The 1% resist protects you from 1% of damage OF THAT TYPE. You need 7 resistance types. There is also % increased health. Health with no other mitigation is hot garbage. Health, and maybe health regen moreso, on top of other forms is pretty good. Stacking armor and reduced dot damage with health and health regen is really effective.

Considering no help from class trees, Resists are the easiest form of mitigation to get and probably the best all-around. When taking skill trees into consideration though, it changes the importance of resists. In the end, the context matters.

This is the correct way of looking at it. I donā€™t think you disagreed with me. People keep saying that in other games, every point of resist is more effective than the last, which isnā€™t true. Given 100 base damage, every point of resist up to cap, regardless of the amount of resist you already have, will mitigate exactly 1 damage.

The flaw people are falling into is that they compare the 50 damage taken (from 50% resist) to the 25 damage taken (from 75% resist) and conclude that it is 50% more effective. The perspective that should be used is damage mitigated. 50 of 100 damage mitigated compared to 75 of 100 damage mitigated. The reason this is a pet peeve of mine is that this is the false premise that lead to the ā€œfeels badā€ penetration system we have now in LE.

Mechanically, it isnā€™t really any different than other games. At the heart of it, resist prevents damage. Itā€™s just that other games you feel like you are gaining something, whereas in LE it just feels like you are preventing from losing something. Other games, you gain mitigation. LE you prevent monster bonus damage. :man_shrugging:

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14

It kinda is (more effective) though. If you take PoE/GD/etc for example, if youā€™re able to increase the resist cap from 75% to 80% then the damage you take decreases by 20% (from 25 to 20), with LEā€™s area-level penetration system the damage only decreases by 5% (from 100 to 95). Which is odd and the thing that the devs wanted to change. With LEā€™s system, if youā€™re 1% under-capped, you take 1% more damage & thatā€™s a lot easier for most people to understand without the need to break out Excel (even though I would argue that they should already have had Excel out & ready, just like me).

But I accept that Iā€™m being pedantic & nit-picky.

15

So you are doing what most do, but donā€™t know that they are doing it. You are looking at the negative resists (via penetration) in the correct way. Then instead of inverting that for positive resists, you just move the scale over. That causes the point of reference to be on the wrong side of the bar graph. It is a little unintuitive. I can try to make visuals. Consider base 100 damage.

  Resist--------->                   <-------Penetration   
    |--------------------------------------------------|
    100                damage                          0

Above shows the interaction of resist/damage taken. As you move up on the resist/penetration side of the graph, the damage side of the graph shrinks towards 0 damage. The numbers on the bottom represent the damage being dealt. People making the misleading argument are reading the graph from the right side.

Resist--------->                 <-------Penetration   
|--------------------------------------------------|
200                     damage                   100

The above shows the other side of the graph. This one is what happens when you start to go negative on the resist. Damage increases towards 200. This side is already read accurately because it is read from the right side of the graph.

Putting the graphs together is where you see the error.

                          <--(Resist-Pen)-->
-100                               0                                 100
 |---------------------------------|-----------------------------------|
 200                              100                                  0

The numbers on the bottom represent damage taken. The (Resist - Pen) moves back and forth around the 0 (top numbers represent resist - pen). This is why the reading side of the first graph is typically wrong. Reading the graphs should be from the resist/pen point of 0 and/or the base damage 100 point (the center of the graph).

Basically, when people compare the systems, they are not comparing like terms. When considering penetration, they read the chart properly from the center. When considering resist, they read the chart wrongly from the right side (should still be from the center).

Just to prove it, the exact same jiggering of the 75% compared to 50% being 50% more effective can be done from the opposite end of the graph. (Considering 100% penetration 50% penetration is 50% less increased damage than 75% penetration.)

I understand that when comparing damage taken at 50% resist and 75% resist, it is 50% different. My point is that that is irrelevant to the actual context of the argument. It is manipulation of math to mislead. Not intentionally, as most donā€™t know they are doing it. People reading statistics do the same thing, intentional or not.

It is fine if people want to view resist as being more effective the higher amount you have, it starts to be a problem when it impacts game design.

16

Itā€™s Relative vs. Absolute.
You are arguing that people should refer to it as Absolute Values. I took 50 damage, now I take 25 damage. Thatā€™s a difference of 25.
Everyone else is arguing that itā€™s Relative Values. I took 50 damage, now I take 25. Thatā€™s 50% difference.

Guess what: Both are right, from a certain point of view.

However, from most games perspective, we usually look at Relative Values. If something can make me take 25% less damage, by increasing my resists by 25, or 50% less damage by increasing my resists by 50, then the relative value of each point is worth more.
If there were NO CAP, and I could go from 99% resists, and add 1 point, and end up at 100% resists, is that 1 point, going from Taking Damage to NOT Taking Damage, worth the SAME as going from 0 resists to 1?
No. Itā€™s not. It might have the same absolute value, but the relative value is literally infinite.

What LEā€™s Area Penetration does, is make things go from Relative back to Absolute. Other games are 100% correct when they say that each point is worth more, because they donā€™t have a corrective system like LE, which makes each point Absolute.

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17

You contradicted yourself.
Yes it is relative vs absolute.
Relative is irrelevant to the functions of the game.
Every percentage point of resist resists the exact same amount of damage.
You donā€™t have to ā€œcorrectā€ for people viewing resists in relative numbers. People just need to stop doing it, because itā€™s misleading.

That is EXACTLY why the relative view is wrong. Going from 99 to 100 is not infinite value in any real sense. At base 100 damage, it is still just 1 damage prevented.

The only thing LE ā€œcorrectedā€ was people that canā€™t understand why a relative view of resists is misleading and wrong.

As I said above, LEā€™s system doesnā€™t actually change anything. It just has a ā€œfeels badā€ feeling to it.

18

Going from 98% to 99% and 99% to 100%.
You take 2 damage, then 1 damage then 0.
2 ā†’ 1 : 50% less damage taken.
1 ā†’ 0: NULL Cannot Divide by 0

Itā€™s still absolute vs. relative. In absolute terms, each point is reducing the amount you take by 1. In relative terms, going from 98 to 99 is 50% less damage taken. Going from 99 to 100 is infinite, because you canā€™t divide by zero.

If your going to argue that this is wrong again, please tell me the RELATIVE VALUE from going from 99% to 100%. Donā€™t tell me itā€™s just 1 damage prevented. Thatā€™s the ABSOLUTE VALUE.

19

I am not saying it is wrong mathematically. Viewing these numbers in relative numbers is irrelevant given the context of a video game. Because it is IRRELEVANT, that VIEWPOINT is wrong. Just as I said.

20

But thatā€™s the playerā€™s view of it. ā€œIf I have 50% resist & I take it up to 75%, then I take 1/2 the damage, therefore that 50-75 resist is twice as effective as the first 50% (in other games, obviously)ā€.

Both viewpoints are correct from their own point of view. Itā€™s like wave/particle duality in quantum mechanics. Is it a wave? Is it a particle? Yes!