Infinity not breaking immunities when on merc?

Hey all! It’s been about a week since I made my first Infinity ssf, I tried firstly putting on my javazon’s merc, then decided to make one of those immortal

Nova sorcs.

It’s been fun and the merc gets some good kills on it, but I started to notice the

Conviction aura wasn’t quite working as “advertised”. Anyone with a breakable immunity wouldn’t display the lightning immune text under their name, but my sorc still couldn’t put a dent in them with either

Static Field or

Nova...

I thought initially it was just because my damage wasn’t high enough or because they still had like 99% lightning immunity, I was like “bummer, that was like 20 hours of rune farming so I could just chug mana pots”. I leveled up more, I made a Crescent Moon, tried eschutas... still nothing.

Then I tried putting the Infinity on my sorc and giving my merc his Insight back... wow so that’s what everyone is talking about! What a difference! Lightning immunes really do go down just as fast.

But this still begs the question: has anyone else noticed this? Maybe something from the 2.5 updates?

It's because when you hold the Infinity, the -% to enemy lightning resistance stacks with the

Conviction but when your merc has it, only the

Conviction aura applies. Mercs can't apply -% res to your attacks.

dont have Infinity yet so i cant test this myself but try using Crescent Moon on the sorc. it maybe be that you are running into lightning immunes that are also lighting enchanted which makes then unbreakable to just barely broken like you said. but if you are using sunder charm they should get set to 95 then 1/5

Conviction then your facets/griffons/Crescent Moon

Yea sorry initially I put Memory, but I meant Crescent Moon - updated!

Also I’m offline, so no sunder charms for me

It’s weird, I still though

Static Field would have the same effect regardless as long as the monster wasn’t immune... maybe I just need to restart my system

Nate wrote: 2 years ago

It’s weird, I still though

Static Field would have the same effect regardless as long as the monster wasn’t immune... maybe I just need to restart my system

Static Field is Lightning damage so It can be resisted through Lightning Resistance as other Lightning skills.

also a note.

Conviction only works at 1/5 against immunes even without a sunder charm so you still need -light res to help against them

does -% for light res gets a penalty too after

Conviction breaks the immune? or does it apply to them as regular mobs

rikus wrote: 2 years ago

does -% for light res gets a penalty too after

Conviction breaks the immune? or does it apply to them as regular mobs

-light res from gear always works in full effect. No 1/5th penalty for that.

Time to add lightning facets on your gear

I will not go deeply into math because its really complicated.

The reason why enemies remain immunes is because they have high resists.

If enemy is immune then 1/5 of ur Infinity

Conviction aura = -85% is used.

After

Conviction is used then all -lighting from faucets or that -45 - 55% from Infinity is used. But those extra -xx% light resists cannot break immunity (I hope I am right here).

So if enemy has lets say 150% lighting resistance, then 1/5 of 85%

Conviction wont break immunity. So your other -xx% light res wont apply and monster will be still immune (ofc when u lower his light res to 99% he will be immune, but will take 1% of ur dmg).

Same goes for uber memphisto. His

Conviction aura is -125% light res. To counter it you either have to use higher

Conviction on ur pala, or to have 300+% light resists. 300 - 100 (=hell penalty) - 125 (

Mephisto aura) = 75% light res which u will still have so you would be immune and you will take little dmg.

Sundercharms changed that a bit. Sundercharm removal is used 1st. It breaks any immunity (even if monster has 500% light res) and then

Conviction will be used (I think they changed it and only 1/5 is applied) and then all your other -XX% light res will be used.

So if enemy has 200light res.

1) With sundercharm:
- you can take it down to 0 (or even lower - it depends on your gear).
2) Without sundercharm:
only 1/5 of 85% (Infinity

Conviction) will be applied and that monster will remain light immune with 183% light resists

TL:DR Infinity breaks immunity from all normal mobs and some low bosses. But big bosses like Cow King will remain light immune

also another example is cold sorc. Her

Cold Mastery is -xxx% to enemy cold resists. But this skill cannot break immunities.

What it does if you fight enemy which isnt cold immunes you break their cold resists into negative numbers, but monsters with cold immunity will remain immune. With sunder charm all monsters without cold immunity will has same negative cold resists like without sundercharm. And those with cold immunity they will be brought to negative resists as well.

So because of

Cold Mastery, you dont need Infinity on your merc, just sunder charm and every monster u see will not be immune to cold dmg.

Lets say you play against 2 monsters (as cold sorc) which have:
1) monster
Fire res 100
Cold res 50
Light res 100
Poison res 100
Magic res 100
cold sunder charm wont do nothing to them only ur

Cold Mastery is applied (lets say its at -180%)
So you would bring this monster to -100% cold res (I am not sure if -100% is maximum or not, if not just imagine I wrote different number)

2) monster
Fire res 50
Cold res 100
Light res 50
Poison res 50
Magic res 50
2.1: Infinity only: cold resists will be reduced by 1/5 of 85% to 83 and monster will still be immune then your

Cold Mastery wiont be applied so in the end this monster will remain immune.
2.2: sunder charm only: cold immune will be broken which means enemy will have 75 resists and lost its immunity. Then your

Cold Mastery will be applied so in the end this monster will have -100% cold res
2.3: sundercharm with Infinity: it will be same as without Infinity, because there is limit of negative resists

there might be different numbers instead of minimum -100% and 75% after sundercharm

There are a few lightning immune normal mobs whose immunity won't be broken by Infinity. For example the Horror Mages (Skeletons) in WSK. There's a couple more.

Well, you're mostly correct. The player part is a bit off or at least in the wording you chose. No matter what you do against meph (or in any other situation) players cannot technically be immune because player max effective resistance has a hard

Cap and cannot reach 100 or higher, ever. Though you can still be effectively immortal by combining your res/reduction with enough absorb.



Either way, the mechanics behind breaking immunities aren't really all that complicated, just convoluted:

1) Any mob that has a resistance of 100 or higher to a particular element/dmg type becomes immune to that element/dmg type. Unlike players, mobs can not only hit 100 effective resistance to turn immune but even more so, they can have well above 100 resistance to a particular element, making the immunity harder to break without sunders.

2) If you have a sunder charm for that element, it will reduce the target mob's resistances to 95%, no matter what it was at initially. 100, 200, doesn't matter. Though certain exceptions (traps/catapults) have been reported to apply. This resistance reduction works for you, your pets and your summons only, not for the rest of your party or generally even your merc. Other players need to bring their own sunder charm.

3) Regardless of whether or not you have a sunder charm equipped,

Conviction and lower res will apply their respective resistance reductions at only 1/5th of their normal strength against monsters that started out immune (so Infinity's

Conviction for example effectively changes from -85 to -17). If you do have a sunder, that's simply reduced starting from the 95% post-sunder. If you do not have a sunder, it reduces their starting resistance. In the latter case, if the resulting resistance is still at 100 or higher (say 120 - 17 = 103) then the target will simply remain immune, if it drops below 100 though (say 110 - 17 = 93) then the mob again loses its immunity. Similarly, for physical dmg, amp and decrep also only work at 1/5th rate against immunities without a sunder (with a sunder, these two supposedly do hit at full effect still but I for one haven't had a chance to confirm that yet). Aside from a sunder, the skills noted here (

Conviction, lower res, amp and decrep) are the ONLY ways to break a monster's immunities. Unlike sunders, these 4 skills apply to everyone and everything hitting the affected target. You, your merc, other players, ... so on and so forth.

4) After all of the above, IF the monster is no longer immune, any %resistance reduction from the rest of your gear and skills (facets,

Cold Mastery, ...) is considered and is deducted from the monster's remaining resistance up to a minimum

Cap of -100. No matter what you do, you cannot drop a mob's resistance below that value. This -res from gear always hits for full effect, regardless of whether or not the monster was immune initially or whether or not you are using a sunder charm vs. other means of breaking through the immunity. This resistance reduction from gear and skills generally only applies to the "unit" that owns it. So the -light res on an Infinity for example will work for you (and only you) if you wield it yourself, if you have your merc wield it however, it works only for the merc and not for you. As with anything D2 though, certain exceptions apply (hydras for example inherit the sorcs -fire res). If after step 3, the monster remained immune, none of the res reduction noted here will apply or do anything against it.

For more details and a reference to starting resistance values for base mobs, see https://diablo-archive.fandom.com/wiki/ ... Diablo_II)



And after that wall of text, the only thing to add I guess is that most of that doesn't apply here..
The OP already noted that the immunity was successfully broken (as evidenced by the immune tag disappearing) so after that, it is solely a matter of adding other resistance reductions on top to further drop the remaining resistances and to actually start doing noticeable damage.

Excellent explanations! Thanks!

I have one outstanding question though, probably an easy one to answer:

So until a monster is immune and -res are only 1/5th, so what happens when a monster’s immunity is just to much to be broken by Infinity or

Lower Resist, etc. But you still have other -res gear that could still break the immunity...would they?

Example: say a monster has 118 lightning immunity, my Infinity brings it down to 101, but I have rainbow facets. Would a single -5 facet break the immunity and then other smaller -res facets apply at their normal rate? Or does it not matter, as only regular -res gear cannot break an immunity?

Thanks again for everyone’s knowledge on this

Nate wrote: 2 years ago

Excellent explanations! Thanks!

I have one outstanding question though, probably an easy one to answer:

So until a monster is immune and -res are only 1/5th, so what happens when a monster’s immunity is just to much to be broken by Infinity or

Lower Resist, etc. But you still have other -res gear that could still break the immunity...would they?

Example: say a monster has 118 lightning immunity, my Infinity brings it down to 101, but I have rainbow facets. Would a single -5 facet break the immunity and then other smaller -res facets apply at their normal rate? Or does it not matter, as only regular -res gear cannot break an immunity?

Thanks again for everyone’s knowledge on this

Answer 2: apart from the 4 skills listed by Schnorki + sunder charms, other sources of -res cannot break immunities and your attacks will just miserably fail. They apply only against naturally non immunes or after-sunders-and-immunity-breaking-skills non immunes, but when they do, they do it at full potential.

rikus wrote: 2 years ago

does -% for light res gets a penalty too after

Conviction breaks the immune? or does it apply to them as regular mobs

No, it applies in full.

Necrarch wrote: 2 years ago

Nate wrote: 2 years ago

Excellent explanations! Thanks!

I have one outstanding question though, probably an easy one to answer:

So until a monster is immune and -res are only 1/5th, so what happens when a monster’s immunity is just to much to be broken by Infinity or

Lower Resist, etc. But you still have other -res gear that could still break the immunity...would they?

Example: say a monster has 118 lightning immunity, my Infinity brings it down to 101, but I have rainbow facets. Would a single -5 facet break the immunity and then other smaller -res facets apply at their normal rate? Or does it not matter, as only regular -res gear cannot break an immunity?

Thanks again for everyone’s knowledge on this

Answer 2: apart from the 4 skills listed by Schnorki + sunder charms, other sources of -res cannot break immunities and your attacks will just miserably fail. They apply only against naturally non immunes or after-sunders-and-immunity-breaking-skills non immunes, but when they do, they do it at full potential.

This.

If your Infinity's

Conviction takes the mob down to 101, the mob will stay immune and none of your -res gear or

Cold Mastery or whatever will do anything. You can however combine

Conviction and

Lower Resist on the same mob. So if you hit that mob with 101 res left with even a lvl 1

Lower Resist (-31 res at 1/5th = -6) it will drop to below 100 and your gear -res will then apply in full. But yeah, without lower res added (or a higher lvl

Conviction instead), your facets won't help you and will not break the immunity.

Best low budget Infinity Build is:

Tal Set (with -5/x 3 RBF Socketed)
You have out of the box -15% Lightres from the Tals Set, and -15% Lightres from the facets. Overall -30% Lightres + Infinity.

The damage is awesome.
Could swap

Helm for Griffons, and still would have the -15% Light bonus from the set on the weapon.

Seismoforg wrote: 2 years ago

Best low budget Infinity Build is:

Tal Set (with -5/x 3 RBF Socketed)
You have out of the box -15% Lightres from the Tals Set, and -15% Lightres from the facets. Overall -30% Lightres + Infinity.

The damage is awesome.
Could swap

Helm for Griffons, and still would have the -15% Light bonus from the set on the weapon.

Running in this setup with

Nova sorc (don't' have Griffons yet) and is very satisfied. Infinity on merc and -30 light res from full

Tal Rasha set + 3 cheap 5/3 rainbow facets.
My most quick MF char on p1 now. 105 FCR, 230% MF, level 39

Nova with skillers

I have bought the -5/x jools for a very high price because it was beginning of the ladder. But, still. 1 Minute 20 Seconds Diablo Runs, with complete Chaos clear is awesome