Resistance Not Adding Up

New Player Help
1

Hi seasoned D3 veterans,

I am perplexed – My level 70 monk is fighting Belial on Torment 4. Since I am level 70, I assume Belial is also level 70. So far so good.

I loaded up on lightning resistance. The mouse-over text is that I have around 80+% lightning resistance. I then add the Sixth Sense passive which gives me a flat reduction of 25% to all non-physical damage. The mouse-over text changes to “Reduces Lightning damage from level 70 enemies by 80.XX% + 25.00%”, which I interpret to give me 105% lightning resist = lightning immunity.

However, I am still getting badly hurt by Belial’s meteor storm.

Anyone can enlighten me about the mechanics here, please?

Yiren.

2

That’s not how it works, it’s cumulative.

Imagine that the boss was going to do 1,000,000 damage to you.

The 80.xx% resistance means you ignore 800,000 of the 1,000,000 damage, with 200,000 getting through.

You then have a 25% reduction, which means you ignore 50,000 of the 200,000 damage, with 150,000 getting through.

So, from the 1,000,000 incoming damage, you take 150,000, i.e. it’s 85% mitigation, not 105%.

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3

There are several misconceptions.

  1. The %s are damage reductions (DR). 80% is the equivalent DR given by resistance. The 25% comes from other DR. The “+” sign should be read as “and” rather than “plus”.
    DRs are applied one by one, so they are not additive, but multiplicative.
    Use this formula to calculate the resultant DR:
    Total_DR = 1 - PRODUCT( 1 - DRi )
    In your example:
    Total_DR = 1 - ( (1-80%) * (1-25%) )
    = 1 - (0.2 * 0.75)
    = 1 - 0.15
    = 0.85 = 85% (not 105%)

  2. Belial’s attack is in green. First impression is Poison (why you think lightning?). However, he lies. His attack is actually Physical (heard from others on the forum).

  3. Monster’s HP and damage scale exponentially. You can refer to this table: Diablo 3 Difficulty Overview

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