What is the purpose of +N% Bonus to Max Resistance?

General Discussion
1

Hey guys

What is the purpose of +N% Bonus to Max Resistance ?

lets say 75% is max fire resistance but i have a bonus that adds +10% to Fire resistance making it 85% … but i was wondering what is the point of that if the game mechanics allows for excess resistance to be retained when cursed. for example

Max Resistance 75%
Current Resistance 150%
Cursed -100% to resistance
Net Resistance 50%

Max Resistance 85% (with 10% Bonus)
Current Resistance 150%
Cursed -100% to resistance
Net Resistance is STILL 50%

so i don’t get it … hope you guys can help me to understand.
my fire resistance has this bonus and is maxed at 85%

thank you

2

+Maxresist isn’t worth anything without the same bonus to resistance.

Honestly, I don’t understand your question.

Given the fact, that most of the time, you are NOT cursed by LR, your higher resistance improves your survivability by A LOT!

Just a small calculation:

85% resistance reduces incoming damage by 40% compared to 75% resistance. This is massive!

95% (the absolute maximum, the hardest hardcap) is a reduction of 80%!

1 Like
3

Yea, I don’t understand the question either… If you want to maintain 85% fire resist while being cursed by lower resist, then you need to stack enough resistances to counter the negative to maintain 85%. There is no secret or behind the scenes interactions happening.

I’m assuming you haven’t done uber tristram? You will most likely want to be overstacking your resistances when entering that fight, primarily lightning.

1 Like
4

Certain Items(typically coming from Uniques like Guardian Angel Armor but also certain runes, including runewords) yield a bonus to Max Resistance. All that does is increase the cap from 75 to at most 95. Having it does nothing if you don’t have the surplus Resistance to take advantage of it but if you can, your survivability goes up a lot. The best of both worlds is the Paladin’s Resist Auras: Resist Fire, Resist Cold and Resist Lightning. Not only do you get a boost to your Resistance cap for that respective Element, but also a fat boost to that Resistance as well. Flickering Flame is, alas, the only runeword that yields a Resist Aura(Resist Fire). I’ve proposed Resist Cold and Resist Lightning counterparts but I don’t think they’ll be coming any time soon.

As for getting Cursed, you simply stack Resistance to the point where even getting Cursed with Lower Resist does nothing to your Resistances OR you roll with Mercenary that has Cure or Plague for Cleansing Aura. Cleansing is so underrated that it should be among the strongest Defensive Auras in the game. Cleansing is especially useful when you get Cursed with Amplify Damage or Decrepify as Physical Resistance is MUCH HARDER to come by.

5

To clarify about my confusion. im asking what is the purpose of the 75% default max cap or any increase to this bonus max cap up to 95%.

what is the purpose of it if in fact you can simply increase your resistance pass that cap.

in other words, why is there a 75% cap at all when you can make your resistance go pass that cap.

What does it even matter if i get a bonus of 10% to my max cap of 75% ?
with or without this bonus cap i can still simply exceed my resistance to e.g. 200% anyway.

6

I’m not sure how to be clear about the difference between all that.

Max res is a cap above which additional resistance has no effect. This means that you can’t reduce elemental by more than 75% through resistances without increasing max res. Of course, if your resistance is below that cap, then there is no point in increasing max res.

Having more resistances than the max res cap is only useful when you have some effect that reduces your resistances (either the penalty for playing Nightmare or Hell, or a temporary debuff from a Lower Resist curse or a Conviction aura).

Max res itself is capped at 95, so even resistances with increased cap can’t make you immune to an element.

1 Like
7

Pushing Resistance beyond 75% has two purposes. 1) Conviction + Lower Resist Curse. Having “stacked”(aka surplus) Resistance means that you’re better able to whether the storm when under either(or both) of their effects. 2) PvP via -Enemy Resistance(ex: Cold Mastery). When dueling other players, the most pivotal means of dealing damage to other players is piercing their Resistance. Stacking Resistance can help mitigate their piercing effect, allowing you to survive longer than you otherwise would.

What raising the Resistance cap does is that when you are not dueling(since having 85+ Resistance is frowned upon in GM dueling) and not under the effects of Lower Resist Curse, every +5 Resistance cap you have reduces incoming Elemental Damage by an additional 20%(5/25 = 20%). Meaning if you have 100 Elemental Damage coming in, you’d normally take 25 Damage but with 80 Resistance, it drops to 20, a net increase of 20% Damage mitigation.

Then when combined with Absorption, a high Resistance can make you all but impervious to Elemental Damage.

1 Like
8

Because there wouldn’t be items and skills that increase the cap if the cap was higher by default

Because difficulties and auras etc can affect the amount of resistances you effectively have

1 Like
9

Ok so the reason you still went to -75 even with 150 and 85% res, is because your actual resistance from gear/charms didnt change.

In order to maintain the 85% you would need 235% in order to keep the 85% at -100 resist from Lower resist (or other sources like conviction.)

If you do not have conviciton or lower resist affecting you (in pvm) you will maintain the 85% resist.

In PVP there are also items, and jewels that can lower resistance in addition to conviction and the lower resist curse.

Basically the stat (increase resistance by X%) is simply that. It raises the cap from 75, to whatever the cap is raised to.

Things like Water Walks boots, Thundergods Belt, Guardian Angel Templar armor, Hot Spurs boots, Nokozan Amulet, Snowclash, are among a few that can raise the cap.
Even a paladin with points into a resist defensive aura, like Resist lightning/Fire/Cold, can increase the resistance without these items with enough points invested in them.

Facets raise your %skill damage, as well as lower enemy resist %
Things like Infinity, Crescent moon, Flickering Flame, Doom, Plague, can lower enemy resistance.

This is where characters might use skills like salvation (from paladin), natural resist (barb), Fade (assassin).

Or they may seek out extra resist in charms or jewels, or runes and gems.
Even things like 4 perfect topaz, in a paladin shield, can net tons of extra lightning resist, to deal with conviction, from things like uber mephisto.

To get extra saucy for a paladin, with a pretty rare/expensive item, one could use a jewelers sacred targe of deflecting that has the 45 resist auto mod, with 4 perfect topaz in it. You could get 205% resist to lightning.

It’s not really needed, but can be done.

Edit: The math is probably wrong, but I’m not checking it. You get the idea.

2 Likes
10

imo the eaiest way to get max 95% in all resists is on a paladin with a guled guardian angel, exile, and thundergods.

exile also pretty much makes you unhittable by melee attacks because of the defense boost as well.

so you’re pretty much invincible, especially because exile comes with a life tap proc.

but yeah max resist doesnt add to your resists, it just raises the max cap

1 Like
11

Thanks guys. reading through all your comments im starting to get it now.

i kept thinking of the Resistance as a whole as one linear thing.
like i have 200% effective resistance if the cap is at 75%

i get it now that the effective resistance is up to the cap only (75%)

the only use i have with the excess resistance is that they will replace the lost resistance when cursed.

increasing my resistance cap to 85% means i have 85% effective resistance out of my 200%
instead of just 75% effective resistance.

in short, out of the 200% resistance i have, 85% is used in calculations, the excess 115% is handy when i get cursed as they replace the reduction.

i keep looking at the 200% as my resistance as a whole.

1 Like
12

You factoring in Difficulty penalties? Nightmare and Hell Difficulty apply a 40 Resistance and 100 Resistance penalty respectively. Meaning if you have 200 Resistance, it’s only 100 Resistance on Hell, leaving yo with 25 surplus Resistance. If you want to ensure you have enough to over come Lower Resist, Conviction or both, you’ll need to get more. However, Cleansing Aura does wonders against Lower Resist by removing it relatively quickly. Conviction is a bit harder since there’s only two ways to avoid it. First way is generating a Conviction Aura of your own that overpowers it. Uber Mephisto has a level 20 Conviction Aura, but if you face him with a Level 21 or greater Conviction, then his Aura will not affect you since yours overpowers his. The alternative is to kill the source or stay out of range until the source dies, which isn’t as easy. Since a level 21+ Conviction can only be generated by a Paladin, you’re out of luck as a Sorceress when facing Ubers. Normal Unique Monsters though typically don’t have that high of a Conviction since it caps at level 12(Monster Level / 8). If you self-wield Infinity, then only Aura Enchanted Unique Monsters of level 96 or higher will affect you.

2 Likes
13

dang i was planning on doing the torch mission thing as a sorceress.
maybe i can make a paladin to face the ubers then transfer the rewards to my sorc ?

1 Like
14

Either one is possible. Here are some Über-capable builds:

Getting all needed equipment might be non-trivial though. It will likely require trading or some generous donations.
GL.

1 Like
15

You still could do Ubers as a Sorceress but I wouldn’t advise it. Static can only get them down to 50% and the Sorceress from a melee perspective stinks and may not deal enough Spell damage to overcome their HP regeneration since Prevent Monster Heal does not work on them. Only way to prevent their regeneration is Open Wounds and/or Poison Damage which have to be applied by a Physical attack(melee or range).

You also don’t need Conviction Aura to take them down. You just need to separate Mephisto from his two brothers and solo him 1v1 with enough Cold and Lightning Resistance to where his Conviction will be mitigated. Mosaic Assassin is probably the #1 Uber killer now given she has Cobra Strike for sustain(Drac’s too if you can acquire one for Open Wounds + Tap), insane Elemental Damage via Phoenix Strike and other Elemental Claw skills and the means to always hit thanks to Finishing Moves with MA Charges. Tack on Crushing Blow via Gores + Guillaume’s Helm and she is just a Boss slayer. I’ve thought about trying Mosaic with Natalya set(Ber on Claw for CB) but since the chance to not consume charges drops to 50% along with having lower Deadly Strike, Open Wounds and Crushing Blow, it seems like a big loss in Offense for marginal gains Defensively.

16

Cap is there so nobody runs with 95% all resis being almost immune to everything. Thats why you can raise it only with items and some skills so its limited.

1 Like
17

That makes sense. thanks

1 Like
18

The affix does exactly what it says. It raises your max resistance. Without accompanying bonus to resistance to fill the new max, it does nothing. If you suddenly gave your car a tank with 10 more gallons max capacity, but didn’t fill the extra space with 10 more gallons, then you haven’t gained any range on your vehicle.

19

to have more resistance overall every char is capped at 75% but the cap is even higher with items
making you have resistance like a sundered immune monster
and stack equal amount of added resistance and always stack resistance for pvp people use -enemy res items so you have to account for that aswell
but i dont raise my res cap
i just stack stupid amount of resistance with gear swaps and charms
people will call bm for raised res cap and sorb so i dont raise my res cap and rarely use sorb maybe a wisp
but thats just for the oak and wolverine spirits

20

Increasing res cap is very strong. You take 5 times less damage at 95% res than you do at 75% res, so it’s a very good deal to get the extra res. The closer you are to 95%, the more efficient every single percent becomes.
Though it’s a matter of trade-off. If you can get extra max res without sacrificing something significant, it’s very good. If you have to sacrifice something significant, then it’s less of a good idea.