Protection and/or Resists

[Kordan]

Some people say Protection of Elements is useless if you have resists.
Some people say Protection + Resists is the way to go.

It seems to me that protection is just like stoneskin for elements, it offers a shield of HPs. Once that shield is down, you start taking dmg.

Resists allows you to resist dmg for an amount of time but if you don't resists then you'll take dmg.

If you have both, if one fails, the other should save you.

If you resist, does the protection still take a hit?

Thanks in advance.

[Rheebus]

It is my understanding that protection is active until it is depleted, then your resist take over.

For instance, if you have fire resist (10) and fire protection (70), your protection will prevent the first 70 fire damage that is dealt to you. After you take 70 fire damage, the resist will reduce further fire damage by 10 points until your resist buff times out.

You can keep casting protection every time you run out, and never take fire damage if you have enough spell points. They have different purposes, and can be used effectively together or separate.

If you have a single big fight that doesn't last long (Necromancer at the end of Delera's), and you just want to prevent 70 damage of a certain type, use the protection. You will take no damage as long as the total doesn't exceed your protection.

If you are buffing at the beginning of a quest where you fight fire creatures throughout (fire caves), use the resist, because each of their fire attacks do relatively low amounts of damage and the resist will prevent most of it throughout the quest.

[Ingo]

Resist is usually a better choice when facing a gang that does a large number of low damage elemental attacks.

Acid Resist (10) is a better choice against Melf's Acid Arrow, especially from multiple casters, since it subtracts from both the initial hit and each DoT hit, whereas Acid Protection (70) would be gone after 70 points of cumulative acid damage.

Appropriate resist is also good when you might get hit by a gang of elemental damage mobs that hit often for low-ish damage, like fire mephit or hellhound packs in Searing Heights.