- Keep fire, cold, and lightning as close to the cap as the current patch allows (usually 75% unless a notable says otherwise).
- Chaos is easy to ignore and then a DoT kills you in a rare pack. Put on a ring.
- Map mods and Atlas penalties will be confirmed on 1.0. If the sheet goes red, you are not “tanky”.
Read the sheet, not the chat
Open the character panel and look at fire / cold / lightning / chaos. Gear with +res on a suffix is doing more for you in Act 2 than a 2% extra damage notable you found on a random tree guide.
Life is the pool. Resistance is the multiplier on incoming elemental hits. Both have to exist.
Campaign sources
Quest rewards, ruby/sapphire/topaz style flasks or charms (names may shift in 1.0), and rare jewellery. If a zone suddenly hurts, you probably took off a resistance ring for “more damage”. Put it back.
When maps start
Endgame applies extra penalties. Treat any map that lists extra elemental damage or less resistance as a hard no until you are capped. Full Atlas advice lives on the endgame stub and will be filled after 1.0 tree screenshots.
Pre-map check
- Elemental resistances at cap.
- Chaos not sitting at large negatives if you can help it.
- A life flask that actually heals.
- One movement or dodge option bound.
FAQ
What should my PoE 2 resistances and chaos res be?
Cap fire, cold, and lightning first (usually 75% unless a notable says otherwise). Chaos res is easy to ignore — do not leave it at a large negative if a ring can fix it. Exact map penalties wait for 1.0.
Armor vs evasion vs energy shield?
Pick the layer your class already uses. Do not hybridise three pools in campaign. Resistances still sit on top of all three.
Exact map penalty numbers?
Not listed here on purpose. EA and 1.0 will disagree. Check in-game after launch and we will patch this section in place.