Penetrates vs Lose

The penetration skill gems say "penetrate".
Curses that reduce resist say "lose".

Are "penetrate" and "lose" the same mechanic?

I heard from someone "lose" means you cannot reduce below zero. I think they're wrong? But then I thought, what if he meant penetrate - penetrate implies you cannot go below zero. Though, I think this is wrong too, but I'm not sure.

This may be nit-picky, but I think ONE of these words should be chosen. If we use two different verbs to describe the same mechanic, confusion can arise. Penetrate or lose should be chosen and used across the board to represent the loss of resist (which can go into the negative).

There is differentiation to be made. Curses reduce the resistances for all attacks at the cursed, while penetrates is only for the supported skill.

Both "penetrate" and "lose" can push the effective resistances below 0%.

Penetrate = Does not make the target lose resistance. It acts as if the target had lower resistance for that element for the linked skills only.

Lose = Target loses resistance for all incoming damage from you and your party for that element.

The distinction is needed. Using only one of them would make it confusing, not the other way around. Although the word "penetrate" itself might be confusing (which some people take to imply it doesn't go below 0%, while it does).

Mark made a clarification about how this works in a recent thread on this feedback forum. It was a thread specifically about why penetration is too powerful a mechanic.

I don't remember the exact words mark used, but the result is that penetration subtracts AFTER resist capping and weakness curses subtract BEFORE capping. That is:

A monster has 90% fire resist, capped to 75%.
A 40% flammability curse would lower the target's resist to 90% - 40% = 50%.
A 40% penetration gem would lower the target's resist to 75% - 40% (since penetration applies last in the calculation, even after the cap is implemented)
With both the curse and the gem you'd be at 50% - 40% = 10%.

Both the curse and the gem can push resists below zero. Neither is limited in any way by zero resist. Except that, the lower a target's resist is, the less significant a (relative) benefit it becomes to lower the resist farther.

if you play around with google I'm sure you can find mark's explanation.

i don't think you got right the last part...
Here's how i see it:
with 40% penetration 75-40 = 35% max resist, but still 90% resist.
so now with flammability 90-40 is still 50, but the max resist is 35% anyway, so the curse actually does nothing.
that's how it felt when i played and that's what i think it is.

Curses are debuff to enemies stats, so they will act first in the calculation.

A monster with 90% resist and a -40% resist curse will have 50% resist.
Then you hit the monster with you penetrating skill. At this moment the resist is penetrated by 40% and will go to 10%.

As said by Zakaluka.

it just doesn't feel like that. i was playing a frost pulse shadow in beta, i had frost penetration and frostbite curse, when i was farming fellshrine i found a golem with resist aura and regen. So i decided i will play around with him to see how much damage i can deal to him.
My freeze pulse was tupported by cold penetration. First i hit him with freeze pulse, then i cursed him with with frostbite and hit him with freeze pulse again... i didn't feel the difference, it felt like curse did nothing.

hm, that's probably it.

If that's how Penetrate works, I think it's to powerful. So if a Target has 89% max fire resist, and has 170 resistance to fire on their gear, a fire penetration still lowers resistances to 49%, ignoring all that extra resistance?


I have a problem with that.