Re: Confused about resistance in Hell
In dueling, stacking resistances isn't pointless, and sometimes there's not a better use for excess skills.
The percentage value is only used with respect to final damage, which means it's used during damage calculation. Addition and subtraction of resistances is straight because it changes the actual values used in the calculation, having a much greater impact.
How should lowering a target's resistance by 100% affect them? If you say increasing the damage by 100%, then it really doesn't matter whether it's the end damage or the beginning damage, but that's still increasing the damage and why not just say that? Increasing 1000 toward 75% would amount to 2000, then 500, whereas lowering resistances subtracts 100% from 75%, giving you -25% effective, which turns that 1000 into 1250. This is why there's a difference between them and why, in most cases, it's more valuable because of its rarity and difficulty in stacking, making the first point above even that much more relevant.
I agree, there's probably a more competent way to do it, but adding more concepts to the original Diablo and then Diablo2 after it was released prematurely has consequences. You'll get used to the idea, it shouldn't take long and will seem like second nature if you're good at math.
