If you’ve taken a break from Diablo IV prior to Vessel of Hatred, you might notice that your old toon - previously hardy and durable - is now somewhat squishy. Or perhaps you’re a new player wondering why you keep dying on higher difficulties? Either way, the answer is the same - Armor and Resistances have been reworked in Diablo IV, and while both are much clearer in how they function and what their breakpoints are, they’re also nowhere near as secondary as they used to be. If you want to have a realistic shot of survival past Normal difficulty, you’ll need to max out your Armor and Resistances, a task that grows harder as the difficulties increase. This page will explain how Armor and Resistance work in Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred, what their breakpoints are, and how to get more of both stats!

Page Breakdown¶

Armor and Resistance Breakpoints¶

Much has changed in recent seasons, and while Vessel of Hatred added its own new features and made more changes, it also served to unify and polish some of the refinements made previously. Now you don’t level to Lv100, getting Paragon Points periodically as you fill the XP bar - once you hit Lv60 and you stop leveling normally and start gaining Paragon Levels. Stats are lower across the board, and Armor has changed from a vague rating measured in the thousands that scaled with your level, providing an obtuse amount of damage reduction that could only be intuited by looking at a detailed stat breakdown in your inventory to having a magic number: 1000.

1000 Armor at Lv60+ and your physical damage reduction will be at maximum: 85%. Resistances are even more straightforward: get 70% to an element to max it out. You will want both maxed to survive on higher difficulties, along with a significant amount of Life. Most of the game’s more powerful attacks are some sort of elemental effect possessed by elite enemies, especially damage spikes that are most likely to one-shot you. If you ever find yourself chugging potions or otherwise suspect your durability might not be up to snuff, open your inventory and check your Armor and Resistances. Remember: 1000 for Armor, 70% for Resistances.

Torment Difficulty Penalties¶

Getting to 1000 Armor and 70% Resistances isn’t that difficult past Lv60, and hence, things would get kind of stagnant if the bar was that low. Once you hit the Torment difficulties, however, your Armor and Resistances will both be lowered by -250 and -25%, respectively. If you want to keep your survivability up, you’ll need to boost both of these past the former breakpoints.

Armor and Resistance Penalties on Torment Difficulty¶

Each tier of Torment difficulty imposes the aforementioned penalties to Armor and Resistance, up to a maximum of -1000 Armor and -100% Resistances at Torment IV. Fortunately it’ll become easier to hit these thresholds as you level up, but once Item Power caps out at 750 at Lv60 and later at Item Power 800 (for Ancestral gear) you’ll need to turn to other means to keep your Armor and Resistance up to snuff.

Maxing Armor¶

All pieces of armor - helms, chest armor, gloves, pants and boots - have a base Armor value, which increases with Item Power., and collectively it’ll account for 600 Armor at Item Power 750 (640 Armor at Item Power 800). This will get you to around half of the Armor you need for Torment I difficulty, after which you’ll need to start looking for supplemental sources of armor. These include:

• Strength boosts Armor, Strength-based classes like the Barbarian will have an easier time maxing out Armor (5 Strength = 1 Armor)
• Gear affixes that boost Armor (you can get 100+ Armor on each piece of gear)
• You can add the “Total Armor +%” affix onto helms, chest armor and pants via Tempering (this will give +10.5% - 15.0% Armor at legendary rarity)
• Amulets can roll with a +Armor% affix (this can increase your Armor by 60% or higher - the largest single source of Armor in the game!)
• Skulls socketed in Rings and Amulets give between 40 and 240 Armor each
• Legendary Aspects like the Aspect of Disobedience can provide substantial Armor boosts
• Magic and rare Paragon Nodes can give Armor bonuses (usually +15 and +30 each - expect +60 Armor total per cluster)
• Raheir’s Guard ability will give you +15% Armor
• Elixirs can temporarily boost Armor

If you can roll the Total Armor +% affix on an Ancestral amulet, get some Armor boosting nodes on the Paragon Boards and maybe toss a Grand Skull on one of your rings of amulets, that should carry you to at least Torment III difficulty.

Armor Values by Item Power¶

Maxing Resistances¶

Resistances can be a bit trickier to max out, as there are five different resistances to worry about, instead of a single unified stat like Armor: Fire, Lightning, Cold, Poison and Shadow. You will get a bonus to all your resistances from both amulets and rings, with the former yielding +30% at Ancestral quality and the latter +12.5%. Rings, in addition, have a bonus resistance to one element equal to their bonus to all resistances. Most pieces of armor can also roll with an affix boosting one resistance substantially, and many unique armor types seem to spawn with resistances. With just rings and amulets, you’ll have around 50% resistance to all elements, which, like Armor, gets you halfway to your goal. Other sources of Resistances include:

• Intelligence boosts Resistances, Intelligence-based classes like the Sorceress will have an easier time maxing out Resistances (5 Intelligence = 1 Resistance to All Elements)
• Gear affixes that boost a Resistance or Resistance to All Elements (single element resistances tend to offer 40-50% resistance)
• You can add various elemental resistances onto helms, chest armor and pants via Tempering (this will give +36.5% - 50.0% to a single resistance at legendary rarity)
• Diamonds socketed in Rings and Amulets give between 2.0% and 12.0% Resistance to All Elements each
• Magic and rare Paragon Nodes can give Resistance bonuses (usually +1.5% and +3.0% each - expect +7.5% Resistance to All Elements per cluster)
• While rarer, some nodes also boost a single elements Resistance (usually +5.0% for magic nodes and +10.0% for rare nodes - expect +20.0% Resistance to a single element in a cluster)
• Raheir’s Aegis ability will give you +15% Resistance to All Elements
• Elixirs can temporarily boost a single element’s Resistance

Maxing these out will likely take more work than Armor, especially for non-casters. Seek out Resistances boosts on your Paragon Boards, socket Grand Diamonds into your jewelry, and roll any lagging Resistances onto your armor via Tempering.