Skyrim talk:Resist Magic

What is resisted?

What exactly is resisted by Resist Magic? Fire, Frost, and Shock? Is everything that isn't physical magic? --Evil4Zerggin 17:29, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

I would like to know this for sure as well. In Oblivion that is roughly how it worked, 100% Resist Magic made you immune to fire, frost, and shock. --SteviL 20:58, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Just thought up a possible source of damage that is (probably) neither physical or magic: poison. Anything else? --Evil4Zerggin 04:30, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Also, is there a cap to the resistance? --Evil4Zerggin 04:52, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm currently working on getting enchantment up to 100 to test resist magic at 100%, should have an update for tomorrow. SteviL 08:04, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Resist Magic caps at 85%. 81.233.217.129 09:07, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

I would say that Resits Magic caps at a 100% because you can only resist (logically) what magic comes towards you. Resist Magic makes you immune to any type of spell, so no Healing spells from others effect you. Im fairly sure your own spells still get you however. Resist Poison is it's own effect, and works in much the same way as this, but just on Poisons. --Kiz ^{·•· Talk ·•· Contribs ·•· Mail ·•·} 09:15, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

It caps at 85%. That is the hard cap that was coded in. — Unsigned comment by 134.173.61.75 (talk) at 03:39 on 30 November 2011

(←) You might want to use the console--that's how I was able to derive the armor formula. Not sure where one would find a reliable hostile magic experiment though. --Evil4Zerggin 16:08, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Weakness to Magicka

How does Resist Magic affect Weakness to Magicka ? If you use the Standing stone that gives +100% mana regen an 100% weakness magicka and you are a Breton - does that mean you have 75% weakness or only 50% weakness? --147.251.215.82 15:14, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

I would guess 75% weakness--most of Beth's %-based actor values have had additive, rather than multiplicative effects. Though I'm curious how Resist Magic combines with, say, Resist Fire. --Evil4Zerggin 16:10, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Or you could try resist each one of the magic trees, fire, frost, and shock. You can enchant an item with 50%+ fire resist(+ is for that u can go even higher on one item). So enchanting 2 items grants you 100% resist to fire. With the final enchanting perk you can put 2 enchants on one item , for ex 50% resist fire and 50% resist frost. Do that on two items and u get 100% resist fire and frost. However, you can enchant resist [element] on 4 pieces. So enchanting resist 50% shock on 2 more items results in 100% resistance in all of the 3 elements. Hope this helps

PS: For this to work you need 100 enchanting skill , with perks in Enchanter(5), Fire Enchanter, Frost Enchanter, Storm Enchanter, Insightfull Enchanter, Extra Effect and alchemy at 40 skill with 3 perks in Alchemist so you can create potions of increased enchanting by 15%(to go up from 46% to 50% resist). And you need of course 4 items enchanted with 25% increase alchemy each to create the potion of increase enchanting by 15% or get your alchemy skill up to about 70 or 80, and u wont need the increase alchemy enchantments. I did so because alchemy is very hard to level.

So, if you have >100% magic resist, it caps it at 85, right? But how does it work along with weakness exactly? Would a resist higher than the cap work to counter weakness to magic effects, essentially keeping it at the cap, or is there truly no reason to go above 85? 70.253.71.36 06:24, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

So the question is: Is 85% elemental resists (because Resist Magic is capped at 85% I won't use 100% in this example) the exact equivalent of 85% Resist Magic? Are there things that Resist Magic affects, but the Elemental Resists don't? --LakeSolon 01:53, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

I assume Elemental Resist only resists magic from the Destruction School whilst Resist Magic works on all the schools. 82.23.158.97 07:22, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

From what I can tell, the difference is that Resist Magic applies to all negative spells and effects, whilst the Elemental Resist only applies to those vehicles of magic damage. For example, a firebolt spell will be effected by RM and RF, but an absorb health spell will only be effected by RM. That's why RM is better, and also why it's capped at 85%. I don't know if the Elementals are capped or not. As to the combination of effects, I believe they're additive within types, but multiplicative between them. Two resist fire enchants at 40 each give 80 total, and then adding a total of 50 resist magic would make you take 10% from fire magic. This is all largely moot at the moment: The recent patch apparently has broken all resistances, so my 85% RM and 56% for each element became absolutely useless. It was specifically mentioned on Bethesda's blog as something to be fixed in the next patch, though. Also, once this gets back working, there are a few things that may be effected by Elemental but not Magic, mostly fire. Burning oil is the biggest one. --Waladil 04:43, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

(←) I'm interested in how this actually works. Specifically, are Weakness to Magic and Resist Magic calculated together, or separately? For example, let's say I'm a Breton using the Apprentice stone. This gives me 100% Weakness to Magic, and 25% Resist Magic. Now, let's say I get hit with a spell that does 100 damage. If the effects are calculated together, I end up with 75% Weakness, so I take 175 damage. However, if they're calculated separately, then the numbers change. The 100 damage would get doubled to 200 from the Weakness to Magic, then I'd take 75% of that thanks to my Resist Magic, so I'd only take 150 damage. Even if the order is reversed (100 damage reduced to 75 for the Resist, then multiplied by 2 for the Weakness), we still end up with 150 damage. Of course, the numbers get a little wonky the more Resist Magic you have. If we increase the Resist Magic to 85%, then calculating them together results in 115 damage. Calculating them separately, however, results in 130 damage. Still, I'm interested in how it's calculated. Swk3000 11:55, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Resist Magic and ward.

Now that we know Resist magic is capped at 85% I am curious as to how it will stack with ward. My guess is that ward will block any damage that comes first, and magic resistance would be applied to any remaining damage. It would be more beneficial if it worked the other way, of course. That is if magic resistance was applied first and then ward would block any remaining damage. Heres to hoping that one of you PC Console wizards can run some tests as I only have the X360 version. Probably easiest to test with Spellbreaker. SteviL 18:13, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

magic resist is applied first then the remaining damage is soaked up by the word. pretty handy eh? — Unsigned comment by 148.75.96.35 (talk) at 16:33 on 4 December 2018 (UTC)

Resist Magic and Elemental Resistances

If I have my magic resistance capped at 85%, would enchanting my jewelry or armor with fire, frost, and/or shock resistance enchantments reduce the damage from those specific spells further or will the damage from the spells be the same? 98.248.134.143 04:34, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

It will reduce further and can get to maximum magic damage reduction of 97.75%, according to this forum: [1] It says "Elemental Resist caps at 85%, and is applied after Magic Resist". (ZekunD 10:00, 16 December 2011 (UTC))

Maximum value

I found that the maximum resist magic value for a single enchantment using 37% enchanting potion is 23% and 29% resist magic (regular version and shield of solitude version). So using 29% version, one way to hit cap is using only 2 equipments with resist magic (58%), agent of mara (15) and magic resistance perk from alteration (10) which results in 83% resist magic, only 2% less than cap. The other equipments can be enchanted with resist elements to reduce magic damage further. (ZekunD 10:00, 16 December 2011 (UTC))

Protection to dragons?

For example: I have a ring that does 50% resist magic. Will it protect me against frost (or any other kind of) dragons? Or will it only protect from mages? RobertoO 14:14, 26 December 2011 (UTC)RobertoO - 15:00 26-12-11

I believe it protects against dragon breath too. During patch 1.2 which breaks magic resistance, 1 breath from ancient dragon (master difficulty) can take more than 90% of my hp bar while wearing 83% magic resist equipments (+44% fire/frost/shock resist). After patch 1.3 which restores magic resistance, I still have almost full hp bar left after 1 breath from ancient dragons (same difficulty, same equipment, my char's level might be a bit higher). (ZekunD 08:15, 5 January 2012 (UTC))

Reisist Magic and Elemental question

If you are hit by fire, frost or electric attack which comes from a non magic source (ie traps and possibly dragons) will resist magic protect you? also do any magic using enemies have none elemental attacks such as absorb HP?

these questions will determine the differnece betwener esist element and resit magic — Unsigned comment by 82.10.108.234 (talk) at 00:41 on 27 December 2011

Resist Magic v. Absorb Magic

Just wondering about the ease of which to obtain these, which one is best to aim for? In terms of minimising perks and optimising end game armour?

My understanding is that it is best to use armour to reduce 2 spell schools to 0 magicka cost. But a poster above specified the most efficient way of resisting magic was Mara's gift (15%), 1 Alteration perk (10%) and 2x Armour enchantments (29%). Assuming i dont use a shield, then i would be unable to negate the cost of those 2 spell schools?

The other way would be via the Alteration Atronach perk (30% Magic Absorb) and the Alteration stone (50% Magic Absorb, at the expense of stunted Magicka regen). Is that the best/only way of acheiving Absorb Magicka?

Which is better? Any other solutions or something i am obviously missing?92.28.230.197 21:44, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

If you don't mind using Falmer head glitch (sacrificing your appearance too). Fortify magic schools on circlet, falmer head, body armor. Fortify schools and magic resist on ring and necklace. + Mara + 1 Alteration perk. I can't think of legit way at the moment. — Unsigned comment by ZekunD (talk • contribs) at 10:17 on 3 January 2012

Spell absorption is the percentage chance of absorbing/negating magical damage. Spell Absorption is calculated before Magic Resistance. So if you have 80% absorb but no magic resist, you will absorb the incoming spell 80% of the time. But 20% of the time, you can still get hit with full damage. So I like resist magic better since it is constant protection. My character has atronach stone (50% of the times, spells will be absorbed), 83% magic resist which will reduce the spells damage that pass the absorption check, 44% each of shock/frost/fire resist which people claimed further reduces the remaining damage. On the other hand, I can reduce only 1 school to 0 magicka cost since I don't want to rely on lord stone or use Falmer/circlet. The second school has 87% fortification so it is almost free.(ZekunD 08:15, 5 January 2012 (UTC))

Actually, the easiest (and best-looking) solution is to use the Fortify Restoration Potion glitch. You do NOT need a PC for this. Equip your best Fortify Alchemy gear. Just go create the best Fortify Restoration Potion you can. Drink it. Re-equip your Alchemy gear and it will now be more powerful. Create another Fortify Restoration Potion, it will be stronger too. Now drink it. Re-equip your Alchemy gear. Create new Resto Potion. Continue as long as you wish. Now drink the last Potion and re-equip your Alchemy gear. Create the Fortify Enchanting Potions which will be brutally powerful. Now go to the Enchanting Table and drink the Fortify Enchanting Potion. You can create single items with several hundreds of % Fortify Destruction/Conjuration/Alteration etc. With the Enchanting perk you can enchant a single item (like a Ring) with two Fortify Magic School above 100%. So you can actually wear the clothes or equipment you like, you do not need to wear the ugly Falmer Helmet and so on. Just enchant one ring, or one robe, or one head item and have 0 mana cost in up to two magic schools. This also means that you only need 3 pieces of clothing to absolutely forget about mana costs in any magic school. It might seem like it breaks the game, but in reality this is the only way to not ruin the game with ugly and not adequate equipment. Naturally, it is more appropriate to use only one Fortify Magic School effect to make the game more fun. Aran Mafre 12:22, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Resist Magic Percent vs. Points

I am confused how the different Resist Magic effects are applied. Looking at my Active Effects I have 2 instances of Resist Magic: one from Breton - 25% and one from Agent of Mara - 15 points. Are Resist Magic points on a 1-to-1 ratio to the Resist Magic percent (1 point = 1%)? If so, why do they even have points when they are the same as percent?

I think internally the system describes all effects in terms of points, which leads to some inconsistency in descriptions. I'm this case, a point of resistance means a percent of resistance. --75.206.167.172 19:04, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

85% Cap?

How are you able to test this 85% cap on the console (xbox)? It seems that >85% is legitimately attainable via Breton (+25), Lord Stone (+25), Agent of Mara (+15), and the Alteration perks (+20?), and any amount of enchanted gear. I've used the Restoration potion exploit to produce a Resist Magic amulet with 118% Resist Magic and it seems to prevent damage entirely. I can walk into the wind wall at Throat of the World and just stand there, no problem. I keep staggering, but my health remains unaffected. Standing in forges doesn't seem to have any effect either. 70.26.143.254 21:13, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

I seem to still be taking damage from dragon breath attacks, but so little it takes quite a while to register on my health bar. I only have ~380 health (not boosted via restoration exploit). Still can't get anything showing up on my health bar from other sources I've tried. 70.26.143.254 23:46, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Forges don't do any dmg and the wind wall never did much dmg but did it did it very quickly

if I remember correctly it could be that beacause of your 85% resist it was rounded down to 0 dmg so you didn't notice it. you could test the 85% cap if you're hit with a spell and know how much dmg it should do and compare it to the dmg it does to you resistence= dmg to you / dmg it should do — Unsigned comment by 83.81.246.145 (talk) at 01:19 on 21 January 2012

Yeah I think you do have 100% magic resist. Cuz of ur amulet with 118% magic resist. Read on elderscrolls wiki that 85% is the cap if u hav any enchants that are lower than 85% and are adding to the cap. e.g. U hav four 25% resist magic enchants but capped at 85%. Whereas if you had one 100% magic resist u bypass the cap. Something about it being not additive. Just check it out on Resist Magic(Skyrim) under trivia on the elderscrolls wiki — Unsigned comment by 101.98.162.192 (talk) at 07:22 on 24 August 2012

I can confirm in my game that custom resist magic enchantments you make yourself where one enchantment adds several hundred (or several thousand) points of magic resist does seem to provide functional immunity to magic. This is not consistent, however - sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, and some effects (such as paralysis) still seem to at least knock you down for a moment. Multiple enchantments that in total exceed 85%, however, are always limited to 85%, regardless of what they actually total up to. This includes Breton racial bonuses on top of a single, huge enchantment or several smaller ones - in fact, choosing Breton in my game was the quickest way to insure this exploit would NOT work. I think what might be happening is the "cap" is only called when the game must sum up the total effect - including any bonuses or penalties. If there is only one effect and nothing else adding or subtracting to it, the game-code just applies that number and moves on. 174.28.17.160 21:57, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Vampire Resist Frost 100%

Resist Magic and Element is capped at 85%. What does that mean for vampires then? The description for vampire says you are 100% resistant to frost. Do vampires get a special Resist Frost that allows 100% or is it actually only 85%? If it is capped at 85% then you would never want to go to stage 4 because 100% weakness to fire outways 85% resist frost. — Unsigned comment by 140.239.200.2 (talk) at 16:17 on 26 January 2012

Well as a stage 4 vampire I still take damage from frost dragons. — Unsigned comment by 71.172.58.90 (talk) at 18:30 on 28 January 2012

100% increase in resist frost could still be useful to mitigate a Weakness to frost effect, but you probably don't want to be a Stage 4 vampire anyway.--75.206.167.172 19:02, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

My question is, as a stage 3 vampire, Can you achieve 85% fire resist with gear? — Unsigned comment by 99.157.192.96 (talk) at 09:47 on 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Resist Magic vs Resist Fire

Does all fire damage in skyrim count as magic damage? I'm trying to decide between the "resist fire" and "resist magic" enchantments as a vampire mage with lots of magic and little health. — Unsigned comment by 71.172.58.90 (talk) at 18:30 on 28 January 2012

All fire is magic, but not all magic is fire. Tea ache sea (talk) 01:02, 12 May 2014 (GMT)

resist magic

i enchanted 25% resist magic to boots, gloves, armor, and helm and recieve no damage from necromances and mages but dragons do do little damage. i know that i receive no damage from spells because i let a expert necromancer cast spells on me then check my health. i was a breton also which im sure helps — Unsigned comment by 74.84.111.194 (talk) on 20 April 2012

-based on my understanding, the equipment you list above can't all recieve the resist magic enchantment. Nice try though!— Unsigned comment by ‎ 63.118.63.3 (talk) at 19:44 on 17 December 2012

100% magic resist?

Read on elderscrolls wiki that you can't get 100% magic resist with multiple items enchanted but need to just have one enchant that is 100%< magic resist via the restoration potion exploit. Is this true? And would this apply to elemental resists? — Unsigned comment by 101.98.162.192 (talk) at 03:00 on 24 August 2012

85% resist magic cap, without enchantments

Here's some help to who haven't figured it out. First, you must be a Breton, cause of their natural 25% resistance to magic. Next, go to the lord stone, for the 25% resistance to magic it can offer (Now at 50%) Then go to Riften and do the "Book of love" quest from the temple of Mara, where on completion, gives you the 'Agent of Mara' blessing, giving you another 15% magic resistance (Meaning 65%) Lastly, you need to spear 4 skill points, and have your alteration high enough to get the second level of the magic resistance perk, offering 20% magic resistance, bring us to 85%!!! Sweet I know.

And now for a question: with only getting the second level of magic resistance from the alteration tree, there is still the possibility of getting another 10%, taking you to 95%, and I was wondering, because there's no enchantments going on, can you exceed the cap with these sneaky tactics of magic resistance? Any confirmation or declination would be greatly appreciated :) — Unsigned comment by Illuminated1 (talk • contribs) at 11:04 on 4 January 2013‎

-No, look at the above comment. In order to glitch to 100% resist of all schools, you have to have over 100% from one thing. Since all those add up, you would be stuck at 85%. To get 100% (which is probably more like 99.9999% because people still report taking some damage from dragons) you have to use the potion exploit to enchant something with over 100% resist, like a ring with 118% resist magicka, for example.--71.236.60.130 22:29, 10 January 2013 (GMT)

?Why not take the third perk of Resist Magic? — Unsigned comment by 89.182.44.247 (talk) at 11:06 on 1 April 2013

Because it will have no effect, magic resist caps at 85%--~The wind, forsaken~ (talk) 14:25, 1 April 2013 (GMT)

Xbox reports wrong value for necromage vampire-agent of Mara and perks

I have a necromage/vampire build on the Xbox.

I know necromage/vampire works on Xbox, I can see correct values for steed stone, for example. But active effects reports unchanged value for agent of Mara, is it the same for you guys?

I see 25% magic resist in active effects do you guys see that after getting agent of Mara? As a necromage vampire.

85% Resist Magic and Elemental Protection

If I have the the 85% resist magic and the elemental protection perk from block, does that reduce a spells damage by 85% and then an additional 50%? I.E. a spell does 50 damage, reduced by 85% will make it 8 damage, then reduced 50% will make it 4 damage. Or does it just stop at 85% period? — Unsigned comment by Flinjager123 (talk • contribs) at 15:38 on 29 July 2013

From what I've read, it works like it does with physical damage, in that your raised shield initially reduces the incoming damage by 50%, and then the remainder is applied against your magic resistance. It sounds like you can really be almost invulnerable with Elemental Protection on top of a high Magic Resistance and high <element> Resistance. That's three "layers" of defense versus elemental damage. 76.182.212.136 05:53, 7 September 2013 (GMT)

No, there are only two layers, resist magic and resist elemental. Resistance that Elementals Protection gives is identical to Resist fire, frost, and shock effect (so if you are a nord, raising a shield with elemental protection, you have 85% resist frost).117.4.10.142 06:49, 7 September 2013 (GMT)

Technically you can have 3 layers if you add wards/Spellbreaker. And since they reduce flat damage after the resist is calculated their power becomes magnified the higher your resist. But you are correct that "Elemental protection" and "Elemental resist" should be the same thing. Also whether or not you need that last line of defense with Resist magic/elemental maxed out could be questionable though, depends on health and playstyle. 76.191.219.168 16:11, 13 September 2013 (GMT)

Resist magic and Spell Absorbtion

I have removed the following sub-bullet point from the notes section due to its ambiguity:

• This does not limit you from fulfilling the remaining 15% using Spell Absorption to near completely eliminate Magic Damage. (Notes on Spell Absorption page indicate that these effects "do not stack in any way")

It was directly after the note stating that there is an 85% magic resistance hard cap. Feel free to discuss it or delete it completely. — Unsigned comment by 95.149.119.156 (talk) at 12:17 on 7 August 2013

Diminished Effects of Frost Damage

Speaking from common sense, it should be easy to figure out that magic resistance will directly affect the damage done by Frost Damage and thus the respective amount of Stamina Damage. However, there is the tertiary effect of "Slow" which is applied from Frost Damage. All in all, this is a strange effect. When using Frost spells on enemies, they seem to be slowed a little bit, maybe 10-20%, but when frost damage is used on the player it is absolutely debilitating and brings you to a near stop, so clearly there is some discrepancy between the amount of Slow applied to different characters.

Anyway, without rambling, I just want to know if anyone has noticed a diminished amount of slowness when using Resist Magic and/or Resist Frost. I have an Orc warrior and gobbled up all the Resist Magic apparel I could find since magic is about my only weakness. The slow effect does seem to have subsided. HOWEVER, it seems that when hit with powerful spells such as Frost Storm, the Slow is still very powerful and I am reduced to an overencumbered crawl. Anybody have any insights to this? Tea ache sea (talk) 01:09, 12 May 2014 (GMT)

Slow effects are multiplicative, so if you're hit by more than one, it can be really disabling. Yes, magic and frost resistance factor into it, but even then, it can be a significant nuisance. If you're hit by two frost effects that slow you 75% each, you're down to 1/16 speed. Even if you've got 75% MR (for easy math), you're still down to 9/16 speed, or just over half your original. NPCs, on the other hand, are rarely affected significantly (if at all) because of a bug. Apparently, their speed isn't recalculated when they get hit. I suspect it would be if you altered their inventory in some fashion, such as stealing from them or disarming them. You can read more about it in the blurb for the workaround mod. – Robin Hood  ^(talk) 02:34, 12 May 2014 (GMT)

Follower resist magic/element

Do followers still have the 85% caps for resist magic and resist element(s) that you do? I think that the regular resist magic cap exists for all characters in the game, but I'm pretty sure nord vapmire NPCS, frost atronachs, and ghosts are immune to frost, so there clearly is no elemental cap for NPCs and enemies. Can you make a enchantments for your follower that resists 100% of fire, frost, and/or shock? — Unsigned comment by 216.229.90.251 (talk) at 08:56 on 27 August 2015‎

Yes you can have followers resist magic and elemental damage 100%.

70.70.244.204 03:03, 22 August 2018 (UTC)