Resistances in D3

[FireIceTalon]

How do they work exactly? I mean, what is an optimal number (I've heard 800 is the max possible beneficial resists but have no idea if this is myth or truth) to have for them when you are on the higher difficulties so you can survive better?

Further, what exactly is the best way to get them? Are resist all items better, or does stacking intelligence (which I've heard boots resists to some degree) the way to go? both? And I assume most item slots will have to have something dedicated to resists in some way to get them high enough?

Im just trying to get an idea of how to optimize here. Like Diablo 1 for example, Warrior typically used a shield and jewel slot for resists, or maybe 2 jewels if he wanted super high ac (or on armor/shield if playing LAW). For rogue it was bow, jewel or armor/helm if low ac build, etc.

[Roland]

How do they work exactly? I mean, what is an optimal number (I've heard 800 is the max possible beneficial resists but have no idea if this is myth or truth) to have for them when you are on the higher difficulties so you can survive better?

Further, what exactly is the best way to get them? Are resist all items better, or does stacking intelligence (which I've heard boots resists to some degree) the way to go? both? And I assume most item slots will have to have something dedicated to resists in some way to get them high enough?

Im just trying to get an idea of how to optimize here. Like Diablo 1 for example, Warrior typically used a shield and jewel slot for resists, or maybe 2 jewels if he wanted super high ac (or on armor/shield if playing LAW). For rogue it was bow, jewel or armor/helm if low ac build, etc.

(Thanks go entirely to Concillian for this)
% Reduction = X / (X + 5 * Clvl)
Where X = resistance(s) and Clvl = Character level
So 800 Resists would grant you ~72.72% damage reduction from a level 60 mob (of which there are none in Inferno - they start at 61 and go up from there).

As for the best way to get resistances, +Resist All is the best way with Intelligence coming in a distant second. 1 point of Resist All is equal to 10 points of Intelligence, and I've seen up to +68 Resist All on a single item, so prioritize Resist All over Intelligence when possible, and consider a high Intelligence a bonus.

Remember that Armor also reduces damage in a similar fashion (which is boosted directly by Strength). However, I'm not entire sure how the reductions stack. I would imagine they are multiplicative rather than additive, but you'd have to ask a numbers guy.

[FireIceTalon]

Good to know, thanks for this bit. Looks like a substantial number of slots will have to have a resist all stat with decent numbers of some sort, assuming that having the highest possible resistances is as important in this game as it was in prior Diablo games.

[MongoJerry]

Bolty just posted something about this on the Lurker Lounge front page. The poster discusses armor, vitality, and resistances. It's quite excellent.

Armor, Vitality, and Diminishing Returns make for a superb discussion thread over on the Battle.Net forums by TBD.

[Bolty]

Also, +resist all gear doesn't drop that much until you get to Inferno difficulty. You see it a lot in gear there, though. It seems to follow the stat priority changes that come about in Inferno mode.

[Frag]

From what I've seeing, I really don't have a choice but to stack resist all, along with vitality and armor, correct? More or less due to absurd scaling damage on the monsters and diminishing returns on armor?

Thanks.

[Bolty]

From what I've seeing, I really don't have a choice but to stack resist all, along with vitality and armor, correct? More or less due to absurd scaling damage on the monsters and diminishing returns on armor?

Armor doesn't technically have diminishing returns. It's just that at a certain point, the +resist all gear gives you a far better effective health than tacking on more armor.

In short, you never want to go full throttle on vit, armor, or +resist exclusively. You need to balance them. The fun begins when you get two items in the same slot with varying levels of these three stats, and you have to figure out which is the strongest. This is what people have been creating calculators for, because Blizzard did not see fit to do this math for you in the interface. And it's not simple math, either.

[Concillian]

From what I've seeing, I really don't have a choice but to stack resist all, along with vitality and armor, correct? More or less due to absurd scaling damage on the monsters and diminishing returns on armor?

Thanks.

You are absolutely correct that there really is no other choice about what to stack to get defensive benefit from. I don't really like calling it a result of diminishing returns, but I suppose that's a part of why.

A really big part of why is that "resist all" has 10x the resist value of a point of INT, and can show up on modifiers at a rate of about 1/3 INT on a piece of gear (INT can max around +200 and resist all seems to max around +70ish). So resist all per "budget" gives you at least 3x the value of INT.

The other part is diminishing returns because damage reduction from armor and INT multiply together and the melee characters will typically have very high armor and little to no resist when finishing hell. This will usually give INT at least 2x the defensive value of armor per point.

Those two combined mean resist all is 5-10x more powerful per "item budget" point than STR (barb) / DEX (monk) / armor.

Also, the way the armor and resists interact mean that the classes with INT as a primary attack gain less defense from resist all than classes not based on INT. Even if there was no ~30% melee damage reduction, a wiz or witch doctor will take on the order of 20% more damage in gear that's the same (but with INT as the primary stat instead of the melee class's primary stat) due to having naturally high INT for their offense pushing resists to a higher part of the diminishing returns curve.

As Bolty mentioned, the way both of these interact with Vitality is not obvious, and not easy to calculate. Both resist and armor offer EH upgrades and how much EH they offer is a percentage of total health.

[Frag]

You two are right and I shouldn't have said diminishing returns in that context. The EH effect is linear. The diminishing returns part of what I was talking about was the amount showing up on armor level by level seems to decrease compared to the previous amount. The overall amount is higher, just not as much as it previously was.

I've tried doing some effective base % taken numbers on my Barb, and they're definitely not easy to test. Arena should provide an opportunity to resolve that to everyone's satisfaction, but up until then...

[Chesspiece_face]

A really big part of why is that "resist all" has 10x the resist value of a point of INT, and can show up on modifiers at a rate of about 1/3 INT on a piece of gear (INT can max around +200 and resist all seems to max around +70ish). So resist all per "budget" gives you at least 3x the value of INT.

It's also been my experience that once you hit level 10 on your blacksmith the level 60 crafted gear (and the found patters) have a very high chance of offering massive Armor and Resist All. Of the 6 pieces I have crafted so far 3 of them have been cookie cutter 70 (primary stat), 70 Vit, +Armor, +70 Resist All. I haven't been able to craft a large enough pool of items to see if this sort of pattern continues, but I wouldn't be suprised if there was some sort of bias towards those stats on the crafted armors.

[Concillian]

I wouldn't be surprised either. The prices of mats and gold for the inferno recipes are so high that they'd need to offer some narrowing of the modifier pool to leave out some of the completely useless inferno modifiers (1 million health attacker takes damage of 50 per hit, for example). Crafting the random rares is so expensive that it's not working as a gold sink, as nobody wants to flush gold down the drain when they could potentially buy an item on the AH with gold. So if crafting the high level set items were the same, that would leave crafting at nearly completely useless.

[MongoJerry]

I think LucityAxel at the Amazon Basin says it succinctly:

Damage reduction from Armor and DR from Resistances are calculated independently, so the most efficient way to maximize DR from gear is to have an equal contribution from both:

10 Armor (or 10 Strength) = 1 Resist All (or 10 Intelligence)

This means you ideally want to keep your Resistances at roughly 10% of your Armor (aka a 10:1 ratio). You will get more bang for your buck by increasing whichever of the two is lowest.

[Concillian]

Yes, ideally for maximum defense, but vitality directly enters the equation as well, as does offense.

Also you can't make gear drop with perfect allocations. You select the pieces that are the best combination that you have available. You might have to select a piece that has 100 armor, 90 VIT, 120 STR or one that has 110 armor 120 VIT and 80 INT.... which is better?

You don't necessarily know without leaving the game and using a calculator.

The INT / STR / resist all relationship is easy. Throwing VIT into the mix and choosing between actual items throws a big monkey wrench into selecting an item.