Hi all
I’ll try to explain via example here. I have a barb with 2 resist stats capped at 70% and 3 resist stats at ~ 62%
I want to upgrade my chest armor, which has challenging shout, rallying cry, cold resist and lightning resist.
I am currently over capped on both cold and lightning resist, but losing them from the chest piece will drop their resist levels to about 50%.
My question now is, would getting 2 damage reduction stats, instead of those 2 resists on the chest piece (as I want total armor and challenging shout as my 2 other stats) help in any way in reducing the amount of elemental damage?
This whole balancing act of the elemental affixes and the other affixes is kinda cool, but also annoying and frustrating at the same time.
I think the priority is to cap 70% resistance first then go for damage reduction. For some odd reason, damage redution doesn’t do jack sh!t against elemental attacks.
Damage reduction isnt as important on gear anymore. Try to get it from paragons and aspects over affixes. It also depends on your class and whether you want to run disobedience or not in which you may want more DR if not completely armor capped for +80 nm tiers (if you even care to go that high).
Hitting res cap + armor cap will generally make you more tanky than just DR now. You can always go for caps first and then tune your DR based on your build and tastes (how much risk you’re willing to accept).
I see, thanks for clarifying guys. I will get to stacking those resistances then.
Is there any use of going above the 70% res caps?
I know there is a dungeon affix that reduces resistances. Aside from that, are there any other monsters, bosses or effects that would cause us to benefit from stacking above 70%?
Also, I replaced the skulls in my jewelry because my Armor is maxed at the 85% cap without the skulls, so am I correct that the skulls were going to waste?
Unless you have something that increases the Soft Cap past 70%, no. Any point past the Soft Cap provides absolutely zero benefit, which is a flaw and blessing. In many titles, you have to overcap because certain enemies or Bosses have a debuff (like Grim Dawn).
IMO, Elemental Resists should start having a portion of the Elemental Damage be Absorbed once you get over the Soft Cap of 70%. Some games, Absorbed means you Heal for a portion of the damage. For D4, I think it should instead contribute a portion to Barrier, Fortify Generation, or Resource Generation instead. This would provide a unique path for players, builds, or classes that can invest in Elemental Resists and it provide tertiary benefits for stacking the stat while not breaking the game.
This same mechanic could be added to a lot of different things like say, Barrier which provides zero benefit from Barrier Generation past your Maximum HP.
Armor could be treated similarly to provide a portion towards Elemental Resists which has a reverse curve. This means when you approach the Soft Cap, the contribution towards Elemental Resists increases. Armor past the say 13Kish soft cap for 150+ enemies does not go to waste. At the same time, you are not going to really stack or be able to stack it much past it. Maybe it kicks in at 9K Armor at max level (scaled down per level) reaching maximum benefit past 13k. You might gain 25% All Resists lets say 1K over soft cap.
Blizzard should get on this.