Maximum Resistance and Resistance

Hey guys, hoping someone can clarify something for me. I now understand there is a maximum 75% resistance cap, this can be increased by passives that increase maximum resistance. Two questions from this.

1. Does "x% to maximum X resistance" add the resistance or only increase the cap?

2. The resistances are decreased as level increases -20% per level. Having the regular cap of 75%, does the first difficulty -20% meaning my cap is now 55% and i must gain "20% to maximum X resistance" to maintain 75% or will i always have 75% maximum + any passives i may have?

1. the latter

2. your caps are not affected at all when you move between difficulties, only the amount of resistances that you have, so the latter

1. Correct, "x% to maximum y resistance" only increases the cap.

2. Also correct, you receive a -20% resistance penalty per difficulty (-20% at cruel, -40% at ruthless, and a total of -60% at merciless). The max resistance still stays the same (unless you've increased it! :D)

There's also a unique that increases all maximum resistances by 5% (Saffell's Frame, a shield), and another unique that only increases maximum cold resistance by 5% (Kaltenhalt, another shield).

Thanks alot guys!

I know this is an ancient thread, but instead of creating a new one..might as well just post it right here as I'm sure a helpful person will take notice of this.

I only got one question...

Does the penalty for merciless stay even after you have finished it? Or will the penalty be permanent like its carried over to the end game?

I hope someone could enlighten me on this.

The penalty applies to whatever difficulty you're in at the time. Your base resistances will always be -60% in merciless. But if you go back to normal, your base will be 0% while you're there.

It will follow you forever..


And you can reaise res cap btw

Purity Aura also raises your max resistances.

http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Purity

Also note that Maps can lower both your resistances (Elemental Weakness suffix) and your max resistances (Exposure suffix).

http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Maps

Do i understand this correctly?


1) At a cap of 75%, 25% of the elemental/chaos damage still would go through.

2) When the max res is increased to say 81, only 19% of the whole dmg would go through.

3) The increase to the max res cap can come from passive nodess, Purity Auras for certain Elemetnal damage types and/or Uniques.

4) The following malus will be substracted from our "current" existing one.
Standard 0/-20%/-40%
HC -20%/-40%/-60%

That can lead to -res % if we wont increase them.

5) Elemental Weakness, Flamability, Conductivity and Frostbite reduce our resistances and because of that it can make sense in some area to overcap with upto +49%.


So in the end if you want to be on the safe side, if doable or not :) , but at least in theory you would need to to aim for "your current cap" + overcap, in the example of 2) we would be therefor at 130% resistance, wherby only 81% at all times would take effect, keeping the max Elemental damage at 19%.

Am i correct sofar?


Now, Negative Resistances, if for example we don't have Chaos Res at all and we are in Merciless. Do i then calculate the recieved elemental damage which would be substracted from my life like?
damage = damage*1.6
or is there an exponential function or well how does the calculation go?


Am i still missing something?

"

4) The following malus will be substracted from our "current" existing one.
Standard 0/-20%/-40%
HC -20%/-40%/-60%

Standard and HC have the same penalty and it is:
0 / -20% / -60%

Chaos damage is a non elemental damage, associated with poison in this game mostly. Having no chaos res on gear or passive will make you have -60% chaos res in merciless which means chaos attack will deal 1.6x damage more.
Only chaos damage will pierce ES, normal elemental damage won't.