Earth Magic could use a real resistance passive

Earth magic is the only school of magic where as you cannot negate that said damage. The only way to negate it is with item enchants and no other school/magic tree is hindered as such. I believe earth magic is nerfed and then buffed so often because of the lack of a true resistance passive skill. There is an entire guild promoted to earth magic due to this fact.

 

I believe Earth spells do physical damage, so they're resisted by armor.

 

Hardly if anything. I could go in full obsidian armor with damage resist, doesn't even matter. With range magic, light armor has no way to negate this spell damage making it a nearly abnormal system compared to other magic trees.

 

For what it's worth, light armor can actually dodge magic. In my opinion, this is actually far better than the more or less zero damage reduction from armor.

That's not to say I disagree with you. I simply want all the information out there.

 

That is true but that is dodging all magic and it doesn't negate earth magic when you miss that dodge chance and have to deal with mitigation. I've tested tested this in near perfect dodge gear.

 

Earth magic is quite uber. I have a hard time viewing it as hindered or lacking in any way. I think adding a passive defense vs Earth to its
tree could even push Earth into the overpowered area.

I agree. I always use dodge and evade vs mages, and its quite effective. I also have high Acrobatics, combined with Sympathy of Stone and Bulwark of Earth to make for a nice passive defensive shield vs everything.

Evade is your resist vs Earth magic. You get an additional skill, Dodge, to completely nullify an Earth magic attack. Parrying helps too.

My stone fists might be powerful, but if I cast 4 glyphs in a row, and you dodge 3 of them, and block one with your shield, youre resisting my spells pretty effectively.

 

This has been an issue forever. I guess we have to wait until combat resitances and dmg types get reworked again.