Physical Resistence = Actual Resistence ?

Diablo 1 HD, codename Belzebub - General forum.
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Fastynator
Posts: 18
Joined: 09 Jul, 2019 16:07

Physical Resistence = Actual Resistence ?

Post by Fastynator »

If someone with more experience knows: Does an increased physical resistence lead to actual damage reduction like the elemental resistences do or is it only a base value for a monster's hit chance calculation? I am confused here because physical resistence is increased by 'Armor Class', the value that is used against a monster's 'To Hit %' for determining if they land a hit altogether.

It became important at this point because my Lvl 34 Barbarian and Lvl 33 Warrior, on Nightmare difficulty in the Cave and Hell stages, receive an enormous amount of physical damage that lead to deaths every few minutes. Physical resistence is 11% for Warrior and 8% for Barbarian. The question is: Is this the main problem here? Several rare body armors in my inventory have very good attributes, but have in common that they only have AC ranging from 15 to 40. Should I consider Armor Class a priority over magical attributes of my rares for now and look for something like a magical Full Plate Mail with enhanced AC attribute (The blacksmith shop might sell this with enough luck) or even a non magical Full Plate Mail instead?

It might take a while until a Rare high AC body armor with good attributes will appear. High Tier body armor so far only dropped as non magical items. Until then, Would be having a non-rare high AC good for the start until the lucky day comes where a rare high AC body armor with good attributes is found?
D1sfigur3d
Posts: 68
Joined: 24 Jun, 2020 22:43

Re: Physical Resistence = Actual Resistence ?

Post by D1sfigur3d »

Phys res is an amount of phys damage reduction when u get hit while ur overall armor class is an amount which is considered when monsters chance to hit u is calculated. In other words, the higher ur armor class the less is probability of getting hit and the higher ur phys res (max 75%) the less damage u suffer. Another variable reducing damage is DFE (damage from enemies), u might find items with such affix.
What I see from ur text is that u have quite poor gear, don’t know if it’s possible to go on with it. Better start off a sorc and farm gear for ur other characters, share it through the stash and then get back to playing them
Fastynator
Posts: 18
Joined: 09 Jul, 2019 16:07

Re: Physical Resistence = Actual Resistence ?

Post by Fastynator »

Thanks for clarification. So if I understood correctly, a damage reduction does exist and 'Armor Class' is responsible for both reducing damage taken and a monster's hit chance.

In the meantime, I was going through my body armors in the private stash and found a 'Demonspike Coat' (AC = 168 for Lvl.34 characters) (Don't remember when I found this and why I didn't consider it important back then). It increased physical resistence of my Barbarian to 35% and of my Warrior to 45% (that can be increased even higher with 'Shield Wall' and 'Valiant Strike'). And it actually made a big difference. Both can now take hits and survive without being reliant on keeping stun-locks by getting the first strike. Warrior even does not need potions and can rely just on the 'Dark Pact'-'Healing' cycle outside of Champion and Boss battles. Both were able to defeat Fleshdoom and can continue the Fleshdoom quest.

I am going to complete all quests with each character on 'Nightmare' difficulty first, simply for delaying to enter Terror's Domain until the unavoidable trial and error phase of getting the six characters to 'Hell' difficulty comes. Definitely not looking forward to see Gam'ar, Bloodlord, and Diablo again.
D1sfigur3d
Posts: 68
Joined: 24 Jun, 2020 22:43

Re: Physical Resistence = Actual Resistence ?

Post by D1sfigur3d »

Fastynator wrote: 13 Oct, 2020 16:45 Thanks for clarification. So if I understood correctly, a damage reduction does exist and 'Armor Class' is responsible for both reducing damage taken and a monster's hit chance
Not exactly. Phys res and -DFE are the only parameters to reduce damage taken while AC is only responsible for chance to get hit. But yes, before u reach 75% ur AC will determine ur phys res. For melee characters it’s important to have phys res capped at 75% to survive in the mess. For the same reason, as for the AC, the higher the number the better. Even if u have ur phys res already capped ur AC still determines monsters chance to hit u.
Remember that different types of chest pieces (light medium and heavy) have different phys res caps.
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