Resistance

Resistances affect the amount of damage taken of specific damage types when all avoidance forms have failed. Enemies can also have resistances, which are indicated beneath their life bar.

Each damage type except physical has its own resistance value which is viewable on the Defence tab in the Character panel (default hotkey C ). Physical damage is mitigated by armour.

Chaos damage is not elemental, thus "+% to all Elemental Resistances" does not affect chaos, but "+% to all maximum Resistances" does. Chaos resistance can be modified by items and passive skills. The Keystone passive skill Chaos Inoculation grants total immunity to Chaos damage.

Maximum resistances are hard capped at 90%.

Damage mitigation
Resistances mitigates the incoming damage according to

$\begin{align} \text{dmg}_{\text{red} } & = (1 - \text{Resistance}) * \text{dmg} \end{align}$

where  is  the damage after reduction,   is the character's resistance and   is the initial damage.

The damage ratio between a character with -60% resistance and a character with 75% resistance that are hit with same amount of damage is

$\begin{align} {{1 -(-0.6)}\over{1 - 0.75}} & = 6.4 \end{align}$

Resistance penetration
Penetration is applied as damage is dealt, after other resistance calculations. This means that Penetration will affect damage dealt even if the target's raw resistance value is far above its resistance cap.

Both reduction (as from curses), and penetration (as from Penetration gems), can reduce a target's resistance below 0%. There is no minimum resistance floor.

Ignore resistances
Some effects ignore resistances altogether, effectively acting as if the enemy's resistance is at 0%. Consequently, this effect will reduce your damage if the enemy's resistance dips into the negatives without this effect.

Sources of ignore resistance

 * Inevitable Judgement

Resistance penalties
A penalty to all resistances is applied to player characters depending on their progression in the story.
 * Completion of Part one: -30% to all resistances
 * Completion of Part two: -30% to all resistances (-60% total)

Uncapped resistances
Total resistances a character has are uncapped resistances. This total is affected by the difficulty penalties. Only resistances up to a player's maximum will provide damage mitigation, but a player may have their uncapped resistances lowered by curses, potentially reducing them below their maximum.

Maximum resistances
Each resistance has the following cap:

There are various ways to alter the maximum resistances:
 * Auras:, ,
 * Passive skills: Barbarism, Survivalist, Unnatural Calm, Chaos Inoculation, Soul of Steel
 * Incursion rooms:


 * Maps: ,
 * vaal side areas:
 * Item modifiers:


 * Unique items:

Maximum resistances
Each resistance has the following cap:

Cluster jewel passives
The following cluster jewel-only passives are related to resistance:

Shrines

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Version history

 * Added a Maximum Resistances Maximum. You can no longer have your Maximum Resistances (and therefore your Resistances) raised above 90% from any source.


 * The Cruel and Merciless resistance penalties have been moved to the completion of Act 5 and the completion of Act 10 respectively. Once either act has been completed, these penalties affect your character in all game areas.
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