Lower Resist

Curses an enemy to take more damage from all magical attacks. Lowers resistances of monsters; lowers maximum resistances of hostile players.

Lower Resist is the Necromancer's level 30 curse (Curses tree, requires Life Tap and Decrepify). Every monster in its radius loses the same amount of fire, cold, lightning and poison resistance: −31% at level 1, −62% at level 20, climbing ever more slowly toward a cap of −70%. It is the curse every elemental attacker wants cast for them, and at a flat 22 mana the most expensive the Necromancer has.

The numbers

• Resistance is the aura stat on each of the four elements set to −dm56: a diminishing curve from Param5 25 ("Resistance % reduction Min") toward Param6 70 ("Max"). The Basin writes the same curve as 25 + 45 × (110 × level ÷ (level + 6)) ÷ 100, capped at 70: −31 at level 1, −47 at level 5, −55 at level 10, −62 at level 20, −65 at level 30. Each level past 20 adds less than one point, and the −70 cap is only reached at level 60 in the Basin's tables.
• Duration is Param3 500 frames plus Param4 50 a level, at 25 frames a second: 20 seconds at level 1, +2 a level, 58 at level 20.
• Radius is Param1 7 plus Param2 1 a level, ×2 ÷ 3 for yards: 4.67 yards at level 1, 17.33 at level 20.

All three read the full skill level (dm56, ln34, ln12), so +skills count toward them.

How it works

Lower Resist is a cast curse: no attack roll, no damage of its own. It puts the lowerresist state on every monster in the radius around the targeted point, and the state lowers the four elemental resistances by the same number, read in the defender's chain described at Resistances and Immunities and Dealing Elemental Damage. Magic and physical resistance are not touched.

Against an immune monster (100% or more in that element) the reduction is cut to a fifth, rounded down: level 20's −62 becomes −12, which the Basin's tables print. The fifth applies even when Conviction or a sunder charm has already brought the resistance below 100, so the curse does not stack to full on a sundered immune. It is fully effective against a hostile player's immune pets.

The Basin adds a poison rule: a curse of level 10 or higher breaks every poison immunity that can be broken (a monster at 100 to 109% drops below 100 under the −11 a level 10 curse delivers at a fifth), and it only needs to be on the monster when the poison is applied; it can be overwritten afterwards without changing the poison's rate. As a curse it takes the monster's single slot, so Amplify Damage cast afterwards replaces it, and the reverse.

Synergies and +skills

No synergies: Lower Resist has no synergy lines in skilldesc.txt and feeds none. All three lines read lvl, so a +1 from items is worth exactly one hard point, and the diminishing curve means the points are worth most early: levels 1 to 5 add 16 points of resistance reduction, levels 15 to 20 add 2, and levels 20 to 30 add 3 in total.

Against players

A player's hit on another player is cut to 17% of its value (difficultylevels.txt PlayerDamagePercentVSPlayer) before anything else. The game's own text says the curse behaves differently on a hostile player: it lowers their maximum resistances rather than their current ones. The Basin's page records no number for that beyond the rule above that the curse is fully effective against a hostile player's immune pets. See Player versus Player.

Build notes

• Level 20 is −62% for 58 seconds over 17.33 yards at 22 mana. Past 20 the curve flattens: +skills are worth about 0.3 points of resistance a level, but still +2 seconds and +0.67 yards each.
• Against an immune it is a fifth: −12 at level 20. That breaks immunities of 100 to 111% only, and poison immunities from level 10 (−11) up; a sunder charm on your attacker is what turns the curse back into its full value on a sundered target.
• A caster's partner curse: it does nothing for physical damage, which is Amplify Damage's job, and the two cannot be on a monster at once.