Does Amp Damage "break immunity"?

[onomastikon]

Does Amp Damage "break immunity"?

I have heard conflicting info on this.
So far, my barb has not had much of a problem with PIs due to beserk, but I am wondering what to do when my necro meets PIs. Will Amp Damage do the trick, or do I have to suddenly invest in Mages?
The question is also a bit broader in scope; in general, I wouldnt mind knowing what events can "break" an immunity. Perhaps there is a link to a list of things that "break" respective immunities. Unless I am mistaken, I think

- conviction aura: breaks fire, light, cold immunity (right?)

But what else? I am hoping Amplified Damage breaks physical immunity...

 

[Soepgroente]

It will, but you're still gonna be better off with some sort of elemental damage + lower resist because monsters end up having at least 80% of their physical resist even after amp, and some immunities will not be broken at all...

I reckon you've got a skeletonmancer? Corpse explosion helps (50% fire damage) and any bone/poison spell will do the trick. And mages of course. My personal preference for a mass army mancer :smiley:

 

[onomastikon]

Hey thanks much for that quick reply.

It will, but you're still gonna be better off with some sort of elemental damage + lower resist because monsters end up having at least 80% of their physical resist even after amp, and some immunities will not be broken at all...

Can you be more specific?
First, what do you mean with "some immunities will not be broken at all..."? Do you mean some PIs wont get their PI broken with AmpDam? Why?
Secondly, why "at least 80%" after Amp -- I thought it lowered by 50%?

Let's say: a Ghost. If I Amp a ghost in Hell, will it still be 80% P-immune, or more, or less, and what does that depend on then?
thanks tons

 

[Radamer]

Amplify Damage will break immunities for PI monsters, provided it is not above 119% percent. Usually, most non-unique, non-champion monsters have no more than 100% resistance to Physical Damage. Stone Skin adds 80% onto a monster's existing resistance, so a naturally PI monster that has this mod as a unique will be unbreakable with Amplify Damage.

When breaking immunities, the rule is that anything that reduces resistance is only 20% effective. So for Amplify Damage, it will only take away 20% of a monster's resistance if it is immune to physical damage.

Decrepify is another physical resistance reduction curse, but only 50% of their resistance to physical damage is removed on non-PIs, and 10% for all PIs.

Keep in mind also that Possessed champions cannot be cursed at all. So a Possessed PI monster will be unbreakable as well.

For the most part, though, you will not encounter very many unbreakable PIs in Hell mode, which is why the skeleton-based summoner (referred to as the fishymancer) is one of the most effective builds.

 

[NumtyDoo]

I would go with mages. I didn't want to at 1st, but they really are pretty useful.

Poison ones stop boss regeneration for a long time, allowing you to leave and remake an army if you need to, say against ubers.

Cold mages slow bosses, add that to decrep/clay golem, and they do ok damage, I think mine are doing around 350 if I remember correctly.

Fire/Lightning mages do the most damage, I believe mine are doing close to 700 now.

This doesn't seem like much, but 700x15= 10,500 max like 5,000 min tri-elemental damage, double that with infinity merc. This is enough to easily kill any unbreakable PI's. There is no left over necro skill after RS/SM/CE that are going to give you this much damage return for 20 points.

Not to mention, 15 more meat sheilds will help you retreat when your whole front line instantly dies from iron maiden.

 

[NumtyDoo]

My bad, rechecked my skellie numbers and looks like this:

cold mage -250
fire mage - 475
light mage - 625

still comes out to 9k max ad like 4k min, still gets doubled by infinity merc.