Damage Type Ranking by Boss Resistance

Grim Dawn Gameplay Discussion
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Hey! I keep hearing different accusations thrown around about one damage type or another being underpowered, so I went ahead and compiled the resistances of every notable* boss (from Grimtools database) to see which damage type is actually most effective come end-game. The results may (or not) surprise you! I will go in order from worst to best.
NOTE - This list excludes physical as I don’t care to create arbitrary resistance numbers from armor values.

Rank C-: Vitality (23.14)
Vitality definitely gets the shit-end of the stick. Not only is it heavily resisted by many bosses (and resisted above average by many more), it has the dubious honor of not having a single enemy with less than 25% resistance to it. It is also for some reason resisted by superbosses (138%!) more than other damage types (103% for others). I would go as far as to say you would need like -150 RR to be comparable to -100 RR of some other damage types.

Rank C: Fire (21.95)
While not as bad as Vitality, it is still heavily resisted by several bosses (Iron Maiden, pretty much every Ch’thonian boss except Benn’Jarr) and above average resisted by many others.

Rank B: Aether, Lightning, Cold (19.97, 19.94, 19.5)
These damage types are more well-rounded than the previous tiers. Decent amounts of little resistance, some above-average resisters, with a few notable heavily resistant (90+%) individuals each.

Rank A: Pierce, Poison, Chaos (16.72, 16.46, 16.39)
These damage types are strong compared to previous tiers. The majority of bosses have no notable resistance to them and only several resist them above-average. Aside from superbosses, Pierce is only heavily resisted by Kaisan, Poison only by Aleksander, and Chaos only by Benn’Jar and Reaper. Chaos is particularly interesting in that every other Ch’thonian boss resists Chaos only by 43% (and Grava’Thul only 18%!).

Rank S: Bleeding (14.22)
With the exception of Alkamos (118% resist) and superbosses, pretty much every other notable* end-game threat has only 18% bleed resistance. That includes creatures you may not expect like Benn’Jar, Moosilauke, and Zantarin. In fact, here’s the list of bosses that don’t have 18%…

  • Ishtal Form 2: 43%
  • Kra’vall: 58%
  • Log: 43%
  • Marcell: 53%
  • Korvaak: 53%
  • Kaisan: 63%
    …and that’s it.

Spreadsheet with numbers is HERE (Spoiler warning due to secret bosses listed).

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Interesting compilation. I’d just move pierce too SS rank. Most enemies in the game have 10%.

Also, physical is not on the list. Considering armor, I’d put it between acid and elemental. But it’s debatable.

In addition, maybe the list could be modified by how easy it is to stack rr. Then chaos would go to rank Z-. :stuck_out_tongue:

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Nice summary.

Physical should be included for completeness. I think you could equate armor to a small-% physical resist bonus, for simplicity of comparison. For example ~20k per attack +2K armor ~~10%. 10/2 = 5% because IT is not impacted. Or some estimation like that.

In addition, maybe the list could be modified by how easy it is to stack rr. Then chaos would go to rank Z-

Elemental and particularly lightning (totems, inquis RR, OK RR, Occ RR, Demo mines, NB cold) would move up, as well.

Overstacking RR is possibly the biggest flaw in the GD game design.

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and then you have random skeletal archer in normal difficulty that has 100% bleed resist XDDDD

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Chaos as one of the least resisted, really? Some people I know keep calling it a shit damage type because of how scarce RR is. Some other people stack Sanctified Bones on their chaos builds to offset that. :rolleyes:

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Chaos? Did we get a new damage type in the recent hotfix or is it the stat I usually have negative until I meet Grava?

Funny story, I once finished the whole game, did literally everything (before FG) and then I met Grava, who oneshotted me. I found out I played with -2% chaos resist all the time and only Grava could tell me that.

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chaos RR is on Solael component IIRC. Sanctified bone is to round out chaos resist in chest.

Physical is A+ to S for Oathkeepers, given the massive RR from celestial presence and physical retaliation.

Vitality has some crazy RR from Shaman and Oathkeeper, decent RR from necromancer and occultist, and sadly none from nightblade.

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Couple of things…

  • Yes Pierce is resisted only 10% by many, but there are quite a few bosses that resist it in the 40-60% range, enough to knock it down to Poison/Chaos levels.

  • I’m only judging effectiveness of damage types here by comparing what resistances are listed on strong bosses in grimtools database. My assessment does not take into account ease of RR acquirement. I’m not interested in doing extra work to compile every source of RR for each damage type to make an arbitrary comparison between sources of RR and boss resistances for ranking purposes.

  • TBH I’m similarly not really interested in doing extra work to create physical resistance numbers that will ultimately be arbitrary, but if someone else would like to I would certainly update it.

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The problem with physical is that you have to take into account armor rating.Also elemental have the best flat RR and also two sources of x% RR.Pierce is in interesting state,I have to admit.

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Doesn’t chaos get battered as well for the fact that Reaper of the Lost heavily resists it, so in crucible x2 Reaper is a nightmare.

Anyway. Nice stats. Maybe buff fire RR on eldritch fire then? :stuck_out_tongue:

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One thing I want to mention is that while bleed is S tier, there are enemies in the game that are bleed immune and there is nothing you can do to make them not immune to bleed. This is because they have extremely high bleed duration reduction.

Moosilauke, while having 18 bleed res, has crystals that have 1000% bleed duration reduction, resulting in them taking 0 bleed damage ever. Very frustrating on a bleed centric pet build that has it’s pets getting chain frozen. Same goes for poison btw.

I’d gladly trade being able to kill those crystals with bleeds for moosi having 94 bleed res.

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This is an excellent thread, shouldn’t it be in the guides section for easy reference?

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Oh wow, didn’t even think about that as a possibility. Thank you for letting me know. I’ll go through the list checking those and update accordingly. I think I’ll treat 1000% reduction of damage as like 500% resist.

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and then you have random skeletal archer in normal difficulty that has 100% bleed resist XDDDD

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Theres a Cthonic boss with 118% chaos resist btw. Cthonic bloodletter also have 118% chaos resist. I’d downgrade that damage type to C purely because how poor the RR is.

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Sorry for necroing an old thread

Has this changed in any meaningful way in the last … (looks at date)… 2 years ?

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I’m actually curious about that as well. I was late to the GD train.

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While I’m not sure, I expect they were altered when RR was rebalanced a while back

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