Newbie to Cruel/Merciless Questions

I'm pretty new to PoE, and have noticed a couple of things that make me wonder since getting access to Cruel and Merciless on Standard.

1. When in town, my main and secondary toon's resistance to cold/fire/lightening looks like it should, based on my equipped gear. But when I enter a zone in Cruel and Merciless, all those resistances go into minus ( - ) digits.

Is this normal, and if how do I counter it with newbie gear?

2. I just got one of my toons into Cruel, and while in the Mud Flats, Unique (orange) mobs kept appearing out of nowhere and killed me super quick, repeatedly. Both of them were Hasted to the nth degree. Gah! Already gone ALL the way through Cruel already with another toon and NEVER saw this.

Was this some random quirk in the game, or did I miss something?

1. When you're in normal area you got no resists or penalties, in cruel you get -20% res all, and in merciless the penalty is 60%. That also goes for towns, but not your hideout.

2. You probably met a rogue exile, they get large bonuses to move speed in cruel and merciless.

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raics wrote:

1. When you're in normal area you got no resists or penalties, in cruel you get -20% res all, and in merciless the penalty is 60%. That also goes for towns, but not your hideout.

2. You probably met a rogue exile, they get large bonuses to move speed in cruel and merciless.

I just read the -20 and -60 resistance losses for Cruel and Merciless, but my question on how to counter that remains with newbie gear. The toon I have in Merciless can handle general mobs ok, but most mini boss's and act bosses kill me before I can launch an attack, likely because of my extreme lack of resistance. I've got as much I can muster with the lame gear I have, between rare restiance rings, and my general equipment.

I can't just drop the gear I have, because it's been minor crafted to handle the skill gem's required for the build.

As for those rogue exiles, 2 in one zone? I mean that's either weird, or it's weird I never once saw this while doing Cruel with my other toon.

Maxing resists should be your absolute priority in act 3 cruel and act 2 merciless and onward, everything else comes after that. If you got decent resists on jewelry and at least one per other gear slots you should be good to go.

Temporary solutions include purity auras which can help you a lot with elemental-heavy bosses, and getting some resists on passive tree you can always spec out of once you cover it with better gear.

Maybe you opened a strongbox, there can be an exile inside. What did they look like? Can you recall their license plates?

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raics wrote:

Maxing resists should be your absolute priority in act 3 cruel and act 2 merciless and onward, everything else comes after that. If you got decent resists on jewelry and at least one per other gear slots you should be good to go.

Temporary solutions include purity auras which can help you a lot with elemental-heavy bosses, and getting some resists on passive tree you can always spec out of once you cover it with better gear.

Maybe you opened a strongbox, there can be an exile inside. What did they look like? Can you recall their license plates?

Thanks for the tips about resists!

And in regards to those rogue exiles I found in Mud Flats, no strongboxes involved. I had cleared the zone earlier (no boxes), and then gone to the Fetid Fields. The first rogue exile attacked me the second I came back into Mud Flats from the Fetid Fields. The other I ran into while I was making my way back to the Waygate after getting killed by the first rogue exile and dying 3 times before wasting her. The 2nd one I just ran from, but it killed me before I made it to the Waygate. I used the Waygate right after that, rather then tackling the 2nd rogue exile. (The hour was late, I was dying to go to bed).

That's why I thought it was weird. I ID all Strongboxes these days, and know if there is a rogue exile involved. Running into these 2 in the Mud Flats, so randomly, was weird. I don't recall their names. The first one was female and had a ranged attack with animated blades and summoned skellies. The second was male, pure melee and hit very hard.

Supposedly only one exile can naturally spawn per instance, so it might be a rare bug. I've never ran into more than one personally but I 'think' I once got two of them from a strongbox or another one joined afterwards, I always clear the area first but might have missed him.