This post is dedicated purely to the various ways to Reduce a Target’s Resistances.
B27 H0
Terms Used:[ul][li]Absolute = Can be reduced lower than 0%, it is additive.[/li]
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Ways to Reduce a Target’s Resistance:
There are three ways to reduce a target’s resistance:[ul][li]n Reduced Target’s Resistance is absolute and cannot be stacked with other unique n Reduced Target’s Resistance debuff sources.* Examples include: War Cry, Plaguebearer’s prefix.[/li]
[li]n% Reduced Target’s Resistance is percentage based and cannot be stacked with other n% Reduced Target’s Resistance debuffs. Although this is percentage based, it can reduce an enemies already negative resistance, further negative. Examples include: Eternal Band, of the Abyss suffix.[/li]
[li]-n% Resistance is absolute. This one is special in that it is part of a debuff as opposed to being a debuff itself. That means that when the general debuff wears out, so does this effect. This can stack with itself. Examples include: Night’s Chill, Curse of Frailty, Olexra’s Flash Freeze.[/li]
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*Mark of Dreeg is unique in that if you put a Mark of Dreeg in your 1h weapon, and in your shield or focus, it applies both Mark of Dreeg’s n Reduced Target’s Resistance together.
So, n Reduced Target’s Resistance and -n% Resistance is most effective against any enemies that have a low resistance, as it can bring an enemy’s resistance below 0 meaning that they take multiplicatively more damage.
n% Reduced Target’s Resistance is most effective against any enemy that has a really high resistance, as it will lower the enemy’s resistance the most.
Please note that in ALL CASES for Grim Dawn, flat reductions apply before %reduction, so in our case, the order the resistances would be applied in is thus:[ol][li]n Reduced Target’s Resistance[/li]
[li]n% Reduced Target’s Resistance[/li]
[li]-n% Resistance[/ol][/li]
Note about Reduce All Resist
When a resistance reduces all resists, it reduces Physical, Pierce, Bleeding, Lightning, Cold, Fire, Vitality, Poison&Acid, Chaos, and Aether. It does not reduce CC resistances, like Entrapment, Stun, or Slow.
Reduce all Resist does not stack with Reduce X Resist, only the strongest will apply. For example, if you had 15 reduced resistance and 30 reduced physical resistance, the 15 will apply to all the other resistances while the 30 will apply to the physical.
Example 1:
So, let’s give a complex example:
Let us say we are fighting an enemy with 80% Fire Resistance, and we have: [ul][li]Plague Bearer’s Prefix (lvl 41): “18 Reduced Target’s Resistance for 5 Seconds”[/li]
[li]Olexra’s Flash Freeze (lvl 9): “-46% Fire Resistance”[/li]
[li]of the Abyss Suffix (lvl 46): “30% Reduced Target’s Resistance for 3 Seconds”[/ul][/li]Either the Plague Bearer’s Prefix or Olexra’s Flash Freeze would be applied first, so:
80%-18-46%=16%
Then the “of the Abyss” Suffix would be applied:
16%*(1-30%)=11.2%.
So after all the debuffs, the enemy would have 11.2% Fire Resistance.
Example 2:
Using the same gear and stats from before, let’s do the same example but instead give the enemy 10% Fire Resistance.
10%-18-46%=-54%
Then the “of the Abyss” Suffix would be applied:
-54%*(130%)=-70.2%¹
So after all the debuffs, the enemy would have -70.2% Fire Resistance.
¹The formula for doing n% Reduced Target’s Resistance to an enemy with negative resistances is slightly different than the one where enemies have positive resistances:
Postive: (Enemy Resist)(1-n% Reduced Target’s Resistance).
Negative: (Enemy Resist)(1+n% Reduced Target’s Resistance).
A Special Note: Debuffs given through Weapon Damage % will be effected by it, up to 100%. So if you use Phantasmal Blades (30% Weapon Damage) with the “18 Reduced Target’s Resistance for 5 Seconds” from PlagueBearer’s prefix, it will only do 30%*18=6 Reduced Target’s Resistances for 5 Seconds. However, if you do it with, say, Shadow Strike (which gives 330% Weapon Damage at 16/16), it will only do 18 Reduced Target’s Resistance, not of 59.4.
Conclusion:
I took a conversation that Ninetrix was having in a Twitch Chat awhile ago to write this. I kept forgetting this information, and that’s why I wrote it. It also happens to help out the various people that come into the forums asking for just this information.
But I seriously wish to attribute all the information here to Ninetrix, without him I wouldn’t know anything about this.
Another thanks to Ninetrix for being so damn knowledgable about the game.
As always, feel free to correct misinformation, suggest additions, or ask questions!