And what I’m saying is you have to make that assumption from the player’s point of view. Numbers don’t lie whether you base the game at 20% resist or 75% resist. Every point of resistance gives you 4% reduction in damage no matter what the assumption is.
I guess it is a kind of glass half empty/full situation then in that it depends on how you view it.
If you do nothing you will take 75% more damage in a lvl 75% zone due to you not having resists. If you do take resists, then you don’t take that extra damage.
In PoE, if you’re just starting maps & (for some reason) you didn’t have any resists, you’d be taking the 300% more damage that TalkinKorean mentioned, compared to having your resists capped.
From my point of view, I am rewarded for capping my resists because I’m then not taking the 75% extra damage that I would otherwise be taking. But, the benefit of the current system is that if a mob inflicts a stack of shred (2% reduced resists) on me, I’m then going to take 2% more damage which is nice & logical. Without the penetration, that 2% reduced resist would mean I take 8% more damage.
That’s why the devs have the penetration, so any stacks of shred give a logical amount of increased damage taken to the player. If penetration wasn’t a implemented as it has been, the full 20 stacks of shred (-40% resist) would mean you take 160% more damage.
Is that logical?
TLDR: You are rewarded for capping your resists, you’re just not punished as much for getting stacks of shred as you would otherwise be.
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I get the sense that the “feeling” that the penetration system invokes is greater than the math behind it. @talkinkorean has actually done a standout job of explaining the current LE resistance system in comparison to other ARPG resistance systems. The math clearly shows that LE’s resistance system is actually far less punishing in comparison to PoE (at 75% resist caps) and especially Grim Dawn (at 80% resist caps).
The significantly less punishing nature of LE’s system may also be part of what’s driving the narrative around gear not being impactful enough. Example; Having 50% resists in each of these games will result in a player taking 100% more damage in PoE, 150% more damage in GD, but only 25% more damage in LE. Clearly it is easy to see why having capped resists are so important in PoE & GD, but in LE the discrepancy in damage received is miniscule (by comparison). The difference between capped and uncapped resistances in those games will be felt by the player far greater than in LE which may be one of the driving factors of players being able to successfully run echoes with naked characters. That said, there is certainly still some balancing of enemy damage to be done in these areas of the game (especially empowered Monolith areas).
If LE did change their resistance system to mimic PoE or GD then resistances will actually become more important than they are now. Currently, any LE character can take at worst 75% more damage at 0% resistances in an area level of 75+ (disregarding others player defenses as well as enemy shred & Marked for Death). Again, we’ll compare this with PoE and GD whose characters will take 300% & 400% more damage at 0% resistances, respectfully.
So, from best I can tell, the complaint is that resists are too easy to acquire in LE and people “feel” it mandatory to cap them. While it is true that resistances offer greater damage reduction in comparison to other defenses in LE, we have seen that they are less required when compared to other ARPG’s. They “feel” mandatory because they are the best source of damage reduction in LE, are easy to cap (especially in comparison to other DR sources), and are one of the only sources of DoT mitigation in the game. Do they “feel” as or more mandatory than the resistances of other ARPG’s? I would argue no, based on the math. Now are resistances a great source of damage reduction in LE? Yes, the best actually.
The “feeling” that the penetration system is punishing you for capping resists may be hard to get past, but once you do you can see that resistances are actually less necessary in LE when compared to the resistance systems of other ARPG’s. This may be both a bad and good thing as;
- the damage received isn’t punishing enough for some players to warrant using gear with resistances (which may actually be hiding another fault unrelated to resistances, that too much of a players damage comes from sources outside of gear)
- the damage reduction resistances offer are generally more impactful than any other defensive mechanic while being easier to obtain (but this argument is generally ubiquitous of all ARPG’s)
Resistances in LE are likely always going to feel mandatory to people (just by their very nature) but we could try;
- introducing other sources of DoT mitigation that can compete with resistances
- make the scaling of other DR sources less punishing to have them “feel” more obtainable
- somehow make the penetration system “feel” less punishing to the player (which seems to be more of a seeded issue with how we, as humans, interpret the system rather than the math behind it) - which is likely an impossible task
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Technically, it happens the same in LE. A character with max resists in a level 1 zone will take more damage as soon as they go to a level 2 zone, and so on. So it isn’t like that doesn’t exist in this game.
I Think I saw a post on here about someone near capping resists by level 15 or so. (Though it was more about how easy they are to cap).
As you would in any other game because the mobs are dealing more damage. So the effect in LE of moving up a zone (till you hit area lvl 75) is the same as in any other arpg.
@AndrewTilley said it very eloquently. You know that the mobs gain penetration per level so you feel punished, even if mathematically you are being punished less in LE for not being capped in a high lvl zone (either through gearing, shred or marked for death). And now that you know it, you can’t un-know it…
No matter how much we tell you the maths that you’re punished less in LE, you’re going to be thinking “but the game stole my resists!”
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Current Resistance System
Currently there are a few attributes that reduce incoming damage:
- Resistances (against certain damage types): Mitigated by penetration, which scales with area level
- Armor/Dodge (against hits): Diminished by area level
That kind of feels like you just try to keep up with the area progression without actually gaining anything.
I understand why it is like that (I think):
- Resistances: Do not make the last few percent more effective than the first (which is a problem that comes from additive resistances)
- Armor/Dodge: Make the smaller numbers somewhat useful/noticeable in the low-level range without reaching too high levels in the late game
Then there are caps on the damage reduction you can get from any of these sources. These probably make balancing enemy damage simpler. But they also feel like a goal: I need to reach this resistance cap, then I can think about anything else. This is where it may feel like an affix tax, you need your gear to be a specific way in order to play the highest level content (even if it may not be true).
Idea: Multiplicative Resistances
To be honest: I’m not a big fan of additive resistances and caps. In another post I already explained some nice properties of a multiplicative system, which I will repeat here (skip over that if you read it before).
Multiplicative means that if you add a piece of gear with 20% fire resistance, then you will get exactly 20% less fire damage, regardless of how much fire resistance you had before. So the new fire resistance is calculated based on the damage that you would have gotten without that new item. The overall fire resistance is determined like this:
FR = 1.0 - (1.0 - FR1) * (1.0 - FR2) * (1.0 - FR3)
We calculate the damage that comes through, therefore we need to subtract the resistances from 1.0 (which represents 100%). With a system like that, you can never reach 100% resistance, and would not necessarily need a resistance cap. This will then take away the perceived goal of reaching 75% resistances across the board and may feel less like a gear tax.
The max roles of single a resistance per tier could look like this:
1: 10%
2: 19%
3: 27%
4: 34%
5: 41%
6: 47%
7: 52%
They diminish in a way that makes two tier ones equal to one tier two etc., so having one very high resistance tier will not trump having two or more lower ones. With two level 7s you would get 77% resistance, with three level 5s you would get around 79%.
Let’s consider an extreme case: 4 level 7s of a single resistance type, which would net around 95% damage reduction against one damage type. Could something like this still be handled? Would balancing be an issue? I don’t think it necessarily would, as you need to sacrifice other stats for that. You could also increase your effective health by going for armour or hitpoints instead. But because there is no cap, you would not be forced to take several different damage mitigation types - so it might not matter whether you go full-on resistances or instead spent some of your affixes on armor for example. And I think this is a big plus: You can use the defense mechanism that you think fits your character the most and are not forced to take different stats just because you hit some kind of artificial cap.
Old Protection System
The old protection system had the same advantage by the way.
Diablo 3 introduced item comparisons based on effective hit points (EHP) at some point (in addition to damage per second). An item might have more health, but less resistances - by calculating the EHP for the player, you could quickly find out whether the item was an upgrade or not mitigation-wise.
The old LE protections did just that for you, as every point of fire protection was one effective hit point against fire. Getting 100 fire protection but losing 50 hitpoints would mean that you gain 50 EHP against fire, but lose 50 EHP against everything else. Pretty simple (well, I’m ignoring dodge etc. to make it appear that simple). However, many people tripped over the reduced resistances when adding hitpoints, leading them to believe their overall EHP and survivability would go down if they added more hitpoints, which wasn’t the case.
Conclusion
I think the old protection system was fine (not talking about Crushing Blow) and I think the current system is also fine. How defenses work in this game won’t make or break it for me. Thanks for reading this far 
2 Likes
Thank god Tilley is a community tester. But if he goes by that horrific name “Drew” then he can just go break a leg or something. 
Will dots now get a rework. Hmm…?
Well, then you’ll be pleased to know this is not the case. My friends call me Tilley (it stuck from an early age), and everyone else just uses Andrew.
“Tilley” is like a gazillion times better than “drew.” heh
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I would love to see a system were Paladin is tankier because of its nature. This would give Paladin a clearer identy. So what i would do is making sure that paladin is able to get 75% cap and mage is not able to get 75% cap.
A returning problem (which POE also has) is that mage type classes deal tons of damage well still benefitting from every or almost every defensive layer that the warrior/paladin/druid got. The problem with this is that range classes already have the benefit of their range. Because of this they can offscreen mobs or jumping to safe spaces. People might not see it as a defence but it actually is. It is a mobility defence.
Iam playing melee paladin and i dont have a blink like mage has.
Yes iam able to get lunge but that skill has to target enemys instead. If i want a fast movement skill i need to play shield so iam able to shield rush (keep in mind that iam melee). Iam playing a two hander because i like it. Now i only have one option, Lunge.
If i dont see enemys i have to run alllll the way until i see an enemy. Then finally i can click the enemy and skip some meters. I was running so far already so i dont really care about the last few meters. I dont use Lunge because it is a waste of my skill spot. It is inefficient compared to all the other movements skills in the game.
Now to my point.
-
Mage has a great movement skill with the option to not target an enemy. So you move faster in echoes (nice) and even better you can decide were you blink.
So if you are in trouble you blink away. -
Mages have all the defensive possibilities that Melee characters got.
Dodge, Same cap ranges, Armor, Ward. Yes in some degree in the passives it is harder for mages to boost armor but with skills and gear it is still rather easy.
Overall: Mages does a lot of damage has great options in single target and area skills and great mobility and defensive options. Being able to choose to move away easily from the enemy is a great defensive tool.
Melee classes.
You cant get away that easily as mages.
To do damage you need to get personal or you wont do damge. Yes Smelter is able to do range damage but you still need to channel so mobs can get close.
With a two hander you can only get lunge as a mobility skill. You can also get smite and the passive that you blink to the target.
Both of these skills require an enemy target.
When you are close to enemies they will hit you more often as you might understand…
See what point iam trying to make? Melee has less mobility options and the same defensive layers as Mages while needing to face enemies up close.
Melee is worse in this regard because you just punish yourself.
The reason why Spin to win builds are good is that so far in both POE and this game you are able to move really fast and do a lot of damage while doing it.
Mobility and speed is great because you can get into safety when needed and get faster from point A to B aswell. Melee got double punished with worse mobility skills and needing to get close to the enemy if you get what i mean comparing to mage.
What would i love to see as a change:
- Make melee great again.
How: Nerf Mages by not giving all the options that Melee got.
For example like i said reduce the cap that they got in Physical damage and Armor.
Back in the day Mage had the identy of Cloth wielding people with magic. Because of the cloth you had less armor and phys reduction. They did really while however in getting away with blinks and deal high damage and have great AOE options.
Something like this would give mage Identy. Something that not every class has.
Warriors/Tankie dudes.
Heavy armor… I think you know the story about warriors. Less mobility but higher Armor and phys reduction to make up for that. Identy more tankie.
So go back to this old system?
No. But something like this would be good.
What i hate of that system is that there was not a lot of freedom for multiclasses.
I used to love Guildwars 1 because you cold be a Warrior/Monk (a mix).
So what would i like?
I would like a system were you need to give up something so you excel in something else.
If mage had less cap for example he needs to get Dodge aswell as an extra defensive layer if he doesnt want to get melted by Physical damage (Just an Example).
Mages and Paladin are the only ones to get Ward. They know magic so thats why they get it.
However the Ward of mages Resist elemental damage only were Paladins Resist a certain amount of Physical damage and Void.
Rogue and Necromancer/acolyte need to use other defensive layers to be able to defense themselfes.
Point 2: Class identy
Making changes in the way you excel with defensing would give a class Identy.
However don’t do this to hard so we still get some freedom in how we want to build our defenses.
Give a unique weapon or tool to every class that no other class has.
Paladin will get a Blunt slinger weapon for example. This weapon is better in boosting bleed damage and knocks back enemies at crits (back in the day blunt slinger weapons knocked people really hard so it makes sence).
With auto knocking back, Melee would have an extra option to be a bit more safe. This is just a rough idea btw…
Then Mages:
They have intellinge right. They get a Unique Class weapon or skill aswell.
Unique skill will be unlocked when all skills are level 20. You will cast a mirror of yourself.
With a cooldown or something. When the mirror is killed you get a amount of ward.
Unique Class weapon of Mage:
The magic Orb. Mages have orbs in movies and in a lot of games.
This orb can be used beside the idols gear and weapons as an extra weapon.
It stores a little bit of mana and power every 5 seconds in the orb when you are not casting.
When you are out of mana you will use the mana of the Orb and gain the extra power of the orb. (again just a raw idea). Or make it so that with an extra button you can decide when you use this orb.
Long story short
Make sure you give every class a downside and a unique tool to boost the identy of the classes. There are many ways to make sure that classes feel different.
You could make it so that mobs get more armor penetration againast Mage and Acolyte for example then druid and Paladin. As a buff to make up for it. Mages deal a bit more damage with elemental skills then Druid and Paladin. Druid and paladin are still good with it but Mages should excel in it.
Acolytes should have something like that aswell but then with Minions and Poison.
In this way everybody is still able to be very good at other things beside what they do best but if you want to be really Really good in elemental damage you need to make a choice to drop some defensive options. This is were the min maxing would be really cool. You are not able to get anything if you want to excel in elemental damage and resist unless you commit more into it with gear slots and/or passive points.
Also the gear numbers should be different aswell for every class. Mage know everything about the elements so it is easier for them to get elemental resist. Other classes CAN do it aswell but less easy.
I got way more ideas by the way about this but iam not sure if people are interesed in this. And iam afraid that its going to be to long and/or you will probably missing the point since my post is kinda messy already.
Sorry about that. I hope you understand what i mean.
Shield rush has a node that lets you use it without a shield.
Your right i forgot about that one.
But still the blink that mages are getting + everything and better then melee gets is a problem in POE and LE.
The downside of the shield rush is still that you are heading one way. It is a good skill still (dont get me wrong). The thing is with blinking you can decide exactly were you blink which is way more powerfull then some people might realize. This + being range already makes the competition unfair if you dont give melee other benefits and/or nerfing Range classes on other aspects.
Beside that to stay on point of the defense system and class identity. If you give all these same defences and caps to every classes they are not going to be much different. Just look what is the most efficient and cap that first. Then boost HP etc.
You are not going to feel different or special if you all got the same defensive tools and the same powers within it. Beside that it isnt balanced.
The defensive system should be more like. If you want to be more tanky it is Oké but then we lower a bit of your damage or mobility.
Every Class beside that should be ahead on one or two of these points, again to prevent that every class can achieve the same thing on paper in the defensive department.
If i go mage i choose Cap every resist to 75%.
If i play Druid i choose Cap every resist to 75%.
If i play Acolyte i choose Cap every resist to 75%.
If i play Acolyte i choose Cap every resist to 75%.
After that you look at every class do i want to do Dodge, Block beside that?
And beside that boost HP.
You see the pattern?
You scale them all the same with the same defensive tags and numbers.
Even at the gear i think there is no difference in the tiers and numbers. Iam not sure about that but i think that Mage should be able to get the same numbers in Armor and Phys res as easy as Druid and Paladin for example.
If only that aspect changed. It would change what i would choose as a startin point about how i would but my defenses. To bad that Resist is so important to be capped but thats a different area.
It would be really cool aswell if Paladin could not get tier 6 / 7 in Fire damage but only mage.
Or keep it this way but introduce a new tag at some point to scale damage.
Holy damage for Paladins for example. No other class can do holy damage. Making something special about holy damage that other classes cant do. For example:
Holy damage can only be scaled with healing effectiveness and phys damage but always shred’s armor phys armor. Holy damage cannot crit and cost more mana but lights up the sky around you and heals you overtime.
Or when you do holy damage you have 20% chance to summon an Angel who helps you out for 10 seconds and has a …% chance to cast a holy banner around you that reflects a percentage of damage.
I think you’re preaching to the choir. Most of us agree on what you said about defensive stats. There’s no identity when everyone can max resists and work on armor/dodge then scale as much as possible with HP if defense is the only thing you’re looking at.
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Yes, they do that, but no other game gives them innate penetration on top of it. They are double dipping a damage increase.
If a player has a 75% fire resist at level 1 and takes 100 fire damage hit, they will only take 26 damage. At level 2 a fire hit of 100 will deal 27 because of the penetration. That is almost 4% more damage. That doesn’t even count the monsters normal level scaling. (note I am trying to explain it by your own point of view)
So like I said, it happens in this game too, it is just better hidden.
Maybe people feel better about it because it is happening to everyone and not just those that aren’t capping resists.
I understand that it “fixes” each additional point of resist being better than the last (only by percentage base, not by real numbers. As always, people will read statistics to suit their narrative).
I still think it makes resists effectively worse than they were in .7.9. Even then, people were complaining that every other defensive stat was better. With the exception of niche OP stuff. The only reason people even gear resists now is because it is so easy and the “cap” makes people feel it is necessary.
Sorry for the late reply, busy at work ova ere. PoE’s fix for on kill effects is perfectly fine solution for the on kill problem and would support any change made in that regard. On kill effects for me are avoid at all costs unless they are overpowered. I prefer consistency and reliability over anything else.
Percentages matter at bigger numbers. Meaning mid to late game. Early on a 4% increase is not gonna punch holes and people won’t notice. Needless nitpicking.
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In standard systems, monsters aren’t dealing more damage. You are preventing less.
Something deals 10,000 damage.
75% resist, you take 2,500
74% resist, you take 2,600
73% resist, you take 2,700
…
Each percentage point is worth 100 damage no matter what your resist percentage is at.
Monsters don’t deal “4% more damage”. You are preventing 1% less damage. The reason your percentage view of “4%” is wrong, is because you are comparing it to the wrong number.
You’re not making any sense. Each percent is worth 100 damage because the base (10,000 damage) is constant.
And I don’t think I said anything about monsters dealing 4% more damage. I said 4% at earlier levels aren’t as impactful as 4% at later levels (because the base number is higher.) There’s nothing to be “wrong” when I didn’t make that statement. Monsters don’t ever deal more damage in relation to your resists. A monster dealing 1000 damage will always deal 1000 damage. What resistances do is reduce the incoming damage by a percentage. 1% of 1000 is 10 no matter what. The 4% I’m talking about is the difference in the damage applied to your HP as your resist goes up or down by 1%. If I have 1000 hp and I take 250 damage at 75% resist and take 260 damage at 74%, the damage taken increased by 10. The difference between 250 and 260 is 4%.
Incoming damage: 1000
75% resist: 250 damage taken
74% resist: 260 damage taken
Increase of incoming damage because of the difference in resist values: 10
10/1000 = 1%
(|250 - 260|)/250 = 10/250 = .04 = 4%
I’m ok with debating opinions, but it’s frustrating when people don’t understand basic math and argue their points based on what they don’t understand. It’s doubly frustrating when you put words in my mouth and proceed to tell me I’m wrong.
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I do understand the math of it. You are being disingenuous with your arguments though. It is purposefully meant to deceive. Every percentage point of resist was worth the same as any other percentage point of resist. To claim that the difference between 74% and 75% is somehow greater than the difference between 25% and 24% is just wrong.
Your EXACT arguments about the standard resist systems in games is that being 1% below cap is a 4% increase in damage. That is false framing. The monsters aren’t dealing any more damage than they otherwise would. What is changing is the amount mitigated. You mitigate 1% less.
The entire point of my arguing against your position is in defense of the standard percentage based resistance systems. Which I believe to be better than the current LE system with built in penetration.
In this LE system, if you aren’t res capped, you actual DO take increased damage as the penetration system puts your resists into negative.
So while resistances in this game are not as impactful in LE as they are in other games when it comes to mitigating damage, the fact that the game innately has penetration makes resistances feel mandatory just to not be put into negatives and take increased damage. The LE system has achieved almost a paradoxical effect of being less useful but still “mandatory”. Some of that is blamed on the ease of reaching the cap though.