What Are Resistances
Resistances are a major defence mechanic every class needs to have capped, there are a total of 4 resistances.
- Fire Resistance
- Cold Resistance
- Lightning Resistance
- Chaos Resistance
The base maximum resistance cap is 75% for each resistance, this can be increased through certain in-game items and skills up to a maximum of 90%.
Capping Resistances
Initially, in Path of Exile you start with 0% resistances, this changes to -30% after defeating Kitava and completing Act 5 and then -60% after you kill Kitava and complete Act 10, once you get to act 6 you are going to want to try and improve your elemental resistances if you are in Hardcore you should aim for 75%. The easiest way to get resistances is usually on your ring slots, picking up Two-Stone rings with at least 90% Total Elemental Resistance and 55+ Maximum Life will suffice for most builds until the endgame. Chaos resistance is tricky to max out alongside your elemental resistances, you shouldn’t worry about it too much to start with, but you should try to hit at least 0% when you’re mapping.
How Does Resistance Mitigate Damage?
Let’s take a look at how the mitigation works, lets take
Sirus, Awakener of Worlds multi-clone “Die” beam.
The beam deals 1708 – 2562 lightning damage, the worst-case scenario would be 2562 damage received, lets say our lightning resistance is 75% this is how it works out:
2562 * (1 – 0.75) = 641 alternatively you could do 2562 * 0.25 which equals the same.
If we had 76% resistance it’d be 2562 * 0.24 = 615 – as you can see its quite a big difference in damage taken and makes Sirus’s lightning damage feel like a small static shock
