Resistance is the weakening of the effect of a magical attack due to natural or aided elemental resistance. When a magical attack occurs, the game makes a random check of the Magic Accuracy of the attack against the target's resistance to determine how much the attack is resisted.
- Resisting magic damage causes the target to take 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, or 1/16 of normal damage. If "p" is the percentage of non resisted spells (for example, if 41% of the spells are not resisted, p=0.41), then the distribution of resists is : 1/2 : p*(1-p), 1/4: p*(1-p)^2, 1/8:(1-p)^3. As a result, the percentage of 1/2 resists never exceeds 25%, and the percentage of 1/4 resists never exceeds 14.8% (4/27).
- Resisting Status Effects reduces the duration of the effect, possibly negating it entirely.
- If a spell is resisted completely, you get the message "<Target> resists the spell."
- Or if it is a player who is the target of the spell, "<Player> resists the effects of the spell!"
- You will also see the resist message preceded by "Resist!" as in "Resist! <Player> resists the effects of the spell!" This happens when the resist is due to a specific trait activating, such as Resist Poison from Ranger innate trait or from wearing Flawless Ribbon or Orochi Nodowa.
Resistance rate
Resistance is affected by many things:
- The target's elemental resistance stat.
- Most monsters have different resistance to different elements, so mages should try to use spells of elements that the monsters are relatively weak to.
- Players have base elemental resistance stats equal in value to the cap for C-ranked skills. These are the same stats shown in the Equipment screen. However, the Equipment screen only shows by how much your base resistance has been increased or decreased, not the base value of your resistance stats. For instance, a level 75 character would have hidden scores of approximately 225 (the cap for a C rated skill at 75) in his resistance stats, but the Equipment screen will still list them all as 0 unless they have been modified in some way (whether positively or negatively)
- It is, so far, impossible to determine whether the value for this stat is specifically C-, C, or C+. However, if one were to draw a parallel between the melee stats and magic stats, it is likely that it's C.
- Elemental resistance from equipment, Bar Elemental spells, and Threnody songs are added (or subtracted) directly to this stat.
- Elemental Ninjutsu and Ancient Magic lower elemental resistance by 30 points for 15 seconds.
- Threnody lowers elemental resistance by 50 points, plus 5 for each +1 on the instrument.
- MND increases resistance to White Magic spells as well as reducing their base damage.
- Some people believe that MND increases resistance to all spells, not just White Magic, but this is false.
- INT increases resistance to Black Magic spells and Ninjutsu, as well as reducing their base damage.
- Resistance to Status Effects from Job Traits, equipment, or spells that provide the Bar Status Effect (such as Barsleepra) and songs such as Fowl Aubade.
- The elemental day and weather strengthen spells of the matching element and weaken spells of the element it is strong to.
- Many Notorious Monsters have higher resistance, or even immunity, to certain Status Effects.
- The Magic Shield effect causes the affected monster to completely resist all spells, but it does not affect non-spell magic damage (e.g. from Skillchains or Astral Flow).
- Dia, Bio, Tier 2 Enspells, Tier 2 Ancient Magic, and elemental Ninjutsu combine both direct damage and a debuff effect. With these spells, the direct damage can be resisted, but the debuff effect is never resisted (unless the target has Magic Shield on).