Damage types and resistances

Seven damage types. Physical, fire, cold, lightning, earth, holy and death. Fire, cold, lightning and earth together are the elements. Holy and death are separate: they have their own resistances but do not count as elemental.

Resistance. A resistance is a percentage of that damage type you ignore. Fire resistance 40% means you take 40% less fire damage.

• The normal cap is 75%. Extra resistance above it does nothing. A Resistance line on an item reads like "+30% to Fire Resistance".
• Resistances can go negative, down to -100%, which makes you take extra damage.
• Physical is handled by armour and "physical damage reduction", not by a resistance (Armour and block). Physical damage reduction has a cap of 90%.
• Effects can raise the cap for elements: the Warding flask gives +5 to the maximum, up to a ceiling of 90% (Flask types and tiers).

Where resistance comes from. Rings, amulets and armour affixes; implicit modifiers on bases (for example on shields and rings); runes, such as Ral for fire or Thul for cold; the passive tree; flasks and some ascendancies (Affixes, Runes, The passive tree).

Where it applies. Resistances act before energy shield and before your mana pays any share (Energy shield, Mana before life). The order of defence on an incoming hit is: block, then evasion, then armour or resistance, then energy shield, then the mana share, then life.

Poison, burning and bleeding are damage over time. They use the fire, earth or physical rules as appropriate. Poison ticks skip energy shield and go directly to life, though evasion can prevent them in the first place (Evasion).

The tutorial lesson. In the hull nest of the Wrackline you meet poison and pick up your first resistance ring (The Wrackline and Gullrest Camp).

Monsters have resistances too. Warded monsters add to theirs, and elemental overload ignores them (Monster modifiers, Keystones).

Tip. Before you enter the atlas, aim for every elemental resistance near the cap. A single weak one is how bosses kill you.

Related: The three defences, Affixes.