Since the release of the Forsaken expansion, it has been possible in Destiny 2 to build resistance against elemental damage on armor pieces. Bungie has now explained for the first time how exactly this works.
Guardians have been speculating since the launch of Forsaken about how damage resistances work on armor. Numerous experiments have been conducted and shared on Reddit, but fans had not had absolute certainty until now. In the current “This Week at Bungie” blog, Sandbox Tester Ryan Hammond from Bungie has shed some light on the matter.
The elemental damage resistance on armor pieces – What you should know
How exactly does damage resistance behave in the Crucible? Can it generally stack, and if so, how far? And what about the Super? These are all questions that Guardians have been pondering for some time. And here’s how it works:
What is elemental damage resistance? It is a kind of perk on legendary armor pieces from Year 2 that increases your Guardian’s resistance to one of the three elemental damage types. There are three different resistance perks: Against Arc, Solar, and Void.
The perk that determines the respective element is randomly rolled on armor pieces and cannot be changed. Exotic armor pieces do not have this perk. You can use a different resistance type on each armor piece or focus on a specific damage type.
How is damage resistance increased? The elemental resistance is increased by making this perk (not the armor piece itself) a masterpiece. Each of the three perks has five levels. At the last level, it then becomes a masterpiece. The perk on a freshly looted armor piece can indeed be higher than level 1.
The costs for the first upgrade require 2,500 Glimmer and a legendary shard, and increase with each level, also requiring more upgrade cores (formerly known as masterwork cores).
What exactly does elemental damage resistance do? Each perk has five levels. If you wear a corresponding armor piece including an elemental perk in each equipment slot (up to 5), you can build up to 25 cumulative resistance levels for each type of damage when you focus on a specific element.
Each level has the following effect:
- +1 percent damage resistance against each enemy attack of the corresponding damage type (does not apply to attacks from other players)
- +1 percent damage resistance against each attack while your Guardian’s Super is active.
The Super damage resistance is stacked independently of the respective elemental resistance. Specifically, this means: If your Guardian’s elemental resistance is at level 12 Arc and level 3 Void, then they have a total of 15 additional percent damage resistance during their Super – even in the Crucible.
However, beyond that, they are still protected with an additional 12 percent damage resistance against Arc damage and 3 percent against Void damage from AI enemies. In PvP, these elemental resistances provide no benefit.
The Super damage resistance from the perk is multiplicatively stacked with the already generally increased damage resistance during a Super. However, even with this additional Super damage resistance, you will never be 100 percent invulnerable.
