[3.3.2] Advice on resistances please?

[Cold_Heart]

I need some advice on what resistances should be the highest priority. From what I understand, fire, frost, acid, lightning, poison and free action are pretty much necessary at all times, but what about others? Say, what's more important, light, dark, chaos, or nether? And are there any resistances one could just omit and get by without risking too much?

[buzzkill]

Originally Posted by Cold_Heart

I need some advice on what resistances should be the highest priority. From what I understand, fire, frost, acid, lightning, poison and free action are pretty much necessary at all times, but what about others? Say, what's more important, light, dark, chaos, or nether? And are there any resistances one could just omit and get by without risking too much?

Nether is helpful, chaos less so. I often overlook light and dark once I have an independent source of resist blindness.

Resist confusion and blindness are the two big ones that didn't make your list. In my (non-winning) book, just about everything else is nice to have but not necessary. I optimize for damage and stealth over non-critical resists.

[Magnate]

Originally Posted by buzzkill

Nether is helpful, chaos less so. I often overlook light and dark once I have an independent source of resist blindness.

Resist confusion and blindness are the two big ones that didn't make your list. In my (non-winning) book, just about everything else is nice to have but not necessary. I optimize for damage and stealth over non-critical resists.

I agree with your second para but not your first - chaos >> nether. One merely drains xp, which is irritating but rarely dangerous (only if it causes you to forget a crucial spell). Hallucination is extremely dangerous. And darkness eventually becomes one of the more dangerous attack elements in the late game.

[buzzkill]

Originally Posted by Magnate

I agree with your second para but not your first - chaos >> nether. One merely drains xp, which is irritating but rarely dangerous (only if it causes you to forget a crucial spell). Hallucination is extremely dangerous. And darkness eventually becomes one of the more dangerous attack elements in the late game.

I forgot the rChaos = rHalluc. I was thinking that there were at least a few big nether breathers.

In any case, having a strong monster memory is the key to running around with resistance holes. One mistake will kill you.

[Derakon]

Light and darkness will simply blind you; if you have blindness resistance (or even just telepathy) then that's usually not a big deal. Their damage caps are also fairly low and there aren't many big breathers.

Shards will cut you, but again not a big deal and there aren't many big shards damage sources.

Sound will stun you; this can be a big deal mostly due to plasma hounds (IIRC having sound resistance will prevent plasma stunning). Otherwise, again not a big deal.

Nexus will scramble your stats and teleport you; this is definitely something to watch out for, and nexus hounds/vortices are distressingly common. If you can find a source of nexus resistance without compromising your other gear it's generally worthwhile. Otherwise you need to keep an eye out to avoid breathers.

Nether is basically just a relatively big damage source; the cap's 550. Unfortunately the damage reduction from resistance is semi-random, so even with resistance you can be taking upwards of 471 damage (on average you'll take about half damage though). It can be useful for increasing your combat endurance against nether users.

Chaos is extremely irritating but also rare. Confusion + hallucination + (pointless) experience drain. Just be glad it doesn't cause amnesia too! The confusion and experience drain aspects can be resisted individually without having chaos resistance, leaving you with just hallucination, which you can usually handle if you're careful.

Bottom line is, the only protections and resistances I consider absolutely essential are free action and fire/cold/elec/acid. Poison is the most important after that but it's rare enough that you can usually avoid the big breathers if you're careful (just drolems, swamp wyrms, and a few uniques). After that I'd prioritize confusion and then blindness, but they show up so rarely in my games that I've gotten used to going without. Everything else is niche.

[Cold_Heart]

Originally Posted by Derakon

Light and darkness will simply blind you; if you have blindness resistance (or even just telepathy) then that's usually not a big deal. Their damage caps are also fairly low and there aren't many big breathers.

Shards will cut you, but again not a big deal and there aren't many big shards damage sources.

Sound will stun you; this can be a big deal mostly due to plasma hounds (IIRC having sound resistance will prevent plasma stunning). Otherwise, again not a big deal.

Nexus will scramble your stats and teleport you; this is definitely something to watch out for, and nexus hounds/vortices are distressingly common. If you can find a source of nexus resistance without compromising your other gear it's generally worthwhile. Otherwise you need to keep an eye out to avoid breathers.

Nether is basically just a relatively big damage source; the cap's 550. Unfortunately the damage reduction from resistance is semi-random, so even with resistance you can be taking upwards of 471 damage (on average you'll take about half damage though). It can be useful for increasing your combat endurance against nether users.

Chaos is extremely irritating but also rare. Confusion + hallucination + (pointless) experience drain. Just be glad it doesn't cause amnesia too! The confusion and experience drain aspects can be resisted individually without having chaos resistance, leaving you with just hallucination, which you can usually handle if you're careful.

Bottom line is, the only protections and resistances I consider absolutely essential are free action and fire/cold/elec/acid. Poison is the most important after that but it's rare enough that you can usually avoid the big breathers if you're careful (just drolems, swamp wyrms, and a few uniques). After that I'd prioritize confusion and then blindness, but they show up so rarely in my games that I've gotten used to going without. Everything else is niche.

Thank you very much.

[Magnate]

Originally Posted by Derakon

Sound will stun you; this can be a big deal mostly due to plasma hounds (IIRC having sound resistance will prevent plasma stunning).

Not since 3.3 - you need pStun for that. rSound will only protect against stuns from sound attacks.

[Derakon]

Originally Posted by Magnate

Not since 3.3 - you need pStun for that. rSound will only protect against stuns from sound attacks.

Ah. Well, then sound resistance is a pure luxury item now. There are...16 sound breathers in the game (not counting the baby law/balance drakes in v4), and almost all of them have lots of other breaths they are statistically more likely to use instead of sound. Vibration hounds are the only foe where I'd really be valuing sound resistance now, and they're slow and fragile enough that I can take them on without it if I'm careful (unlike plasma hounds, who are fast and tough).

In fact, thinking about it I think that the only reason I valued rSound back in the day was for protection from stunning. Losing that has greatly devalued that resistance. Might we make it an unresistable element and thereby eliminate some junk items? Ditto for shards resistance, frankly.

[fizzix]

Originally Posted by Derakon

Might we make it an unresistable element and thereby eliminate some junk items? Ditto for shards resistance, frankly.

I agree with this. Everything that had rsound or rshards should get pstun instead. both shards and sound are then unresistable for damage. (might need to lower max damage from 500 to 350 or 400 or so, still more than max for other unresistables besides mana storm, (time, plasma, force.)

[Magnate]

Originally Posted by fizzix

I agree with this. Everything that had rsound or rshards should get pstun instead. both shards and sound are then unresistable for damage. (might need to lower max damage from 500 to 350 or 400 or so, still more than max for other unresistables besides mana storm, (time, plasma, force.)

I think that would be a shame. You might as well just most of the high resistances and just have rbase, poison and nexus along with pblind/conf/stun. Everything else is merely ... flavour.

I rather fancy adding a couple of semi-nasty monster spells (not breaths) that do sound damage instead.

My understand is that we are in a post-TMJ world, so shrinking the dimensions of the game to remove more junk isn't the way we want to go, surely?