Destiny 2: Damage Resistance Explained

Delving into Destiny 2's endgame can be daunting if you're new. Running your first Grandmaster Nightfall or Master raid can be frustrating with one-tapping snipers and high-damage enemies. That's why most of your builds should have some form of damage resistance.

Reducing the damage you take in endgame content is vital to success, and damage resistance can even be used in PvP to lengthen the TTK of most meta weapons. In this guide, we'll go over what damage resistance is, how stacking resist works, and we'll cover every source of damage resistance currently available in Destiny 2.

Updated March 31, 2025, by Charles Burgar: We've updated this guide to include some useful sources of damage resistance that were added or reworked in The Final Shape and subsequent episodes. This includes Prismatic mechanics like Transcendence, new Fragments, and the Frost Armor keyword added to Stasis.

What Is Damage Resistance?

Damage resistance (otherwise known as "DR") is a mechanic that reduces incoming damage from certain sources. The more damage resistance you have, the less damage you'll take and the more likely you'll survive a gunfight. This mechanic is more prevalent in PvE activities than in the Crucible, but it's possible to get damage resistance against opposing Guardians.

Endgame Destiny 2 content is tuned around players having at least some form of damage resistance. Snipers one-shot players in Grandmaster Nightfalls, and most enemies deal absurd damage in Master-tier content. All it takes is a few armor mods to prevent yourself from getting one-shot by certain endgame foes. If you want to tackle Destiny's hardest PvE activities, you'll want some damage resistance in your build.

The Resist Buff Explained

Whisper of Chains , Emergency Reinforcement, and The Stag Exotic for Warlocks.

Each Resist stack roughly equates to the following damage resistance values:

Resist	PvE	PvP
Resist x1	10%	2.5%
Resist x2	25%	5%
Resist x3	40%	7.5%
Resist x4	50%	10%

Resist x1 is currently only achievable by using the Emergency Reinforcement mod, granting 10% DR. Whisper of Chains also states it gives "Resist," yet that buff is far stronger in PvE.

Resist x2 appears on Renewal Grasps and The Stag, granting 25% DR.

Resist x3 is shown while Whisper of Chains is paired with either Renewal Grasps or The Stag in PvE content. This is supposed to represent a 40% DR buff, but some sources of "Resist x3" actually give 50% DR, hence why this buff name is unreliable.

Resist x4 notably appears while using Omnioculus , a Hunter Exotic that grants 50% damage resistance in PvE while invisible.

Stacking Damage Resistance

In general, most sources of damage resistance grant anywhere from 10-50% damage resistance, some outliers notwithstanding. However, unlike most damage buffs, you can stack damage resistance. Multiple sources of damage resistance stack together multiplicatively, not additively. In simpler terms, you get diminishing returns from stacking multiple damage resistance sources.

A great example is the damage resistance category of mods on your chest armor. Each mod gives 15% damage resistance against a given damage type. Should you use two of the same mod (such as Concussive Dampener), you don't get 30%; you actually get 25% damage resistance. This is for two reasons:

1. Both mods are stacking multiplicatively.
2. Stacking the same mod twice will give diminishing returns.

So you're getting hit with diminishing returns twice in this case. However, if you stacked two different 15% DR sources, you'd get 27.5% damage resistance—slightly higher than stacking two of the same mod.

Damage Resistance Versus Reducing Enemy Damage

There are a few mods and weapon traits that reduce the damage output of certain enemies. Most players assume this is another form of damage resistance, but that's not quite accurate. Reducing an enemy's damage output is a separate modifier that is far stronger than stacking more damage resistance.

The best example of this behavior is The Stag Exotic for Warlocks. While equipped, Rifts grant 25% DR to allies. Paired with five stacks of Frost Armor, you'd have 48% damage reduction and take 50% less damage from that enemy.

Now let's say that you also have a 50% debuff on a target. If that were standard damage resistance, you'd have close to 74% DR. In-game, your effective damage resistance is higher at 76% because the enemy is dealing half as much damage, regardless of your DR.

If you have 50% DR, the 50% reduced damage from the enemy gives you an effective 75% DR. If you have 80% DR, halving an enemy's damage output would bump it up to 90%. That's why reducing enemy damage is so powerful and why sources of this effect are scarce. For the rest of this guide, we'll be separating the two sources to reflect their in-game effects as closely as possible.

All Damage Resistance Sources

Since there's a wide array of damage resistance sources, we'll be splitting this section into multiple subsections, listing certain DR sources in unique tables. DR sources range from 10-50% on average, although certain Exotics, weapons, and subclass nodes can push this even further.

There are also a few more sources of DR we'd like to mention:

• Supers: Each Super in Destiny 2 (except Golden Gun in PvP) gives some amount of damage resistance—even one-and-done Supers.
• Finishers: While hard to test, Finishers seem to give around 60-65% damage resistance while in a finisher animation.
• Power Level: Being overleveled for an activity reduces the damage you take from enemies up to 25%, provided the activity doesn't limit your Power maximum.
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Resilience

Season of the Haunted has reworked the Resilience stat to grant damage resistance in PvE only; the damage resistance bonus does not affect the Crucible in any way. At 100 Resilience, you'll gain an additional 30% damage resistance. All DR values for each Resilience tier are listed below.

Resilience Damage Resistance

Resilience Tier

Resistance (PvE)

Tier 0

0%

Tier 1

2%

Tier 2

3%

Tier 3

5%

Tier 4

9%

Tier 5

14%

Tier 6

17%

Tier 7

20%

Tier 8

24%

Tier 9

27%

Tier 10

30%

Damage Resistance Mods

General Damage Resistance Mods

Name

Source

Resistance (PvE)

Resistance (PvP)

Emergency Reinforcement

Chest Armor

10%

N/A

Elemental DR Mods

Chest Armor

15% against that element

N/A

Concussive Dampener

Chest Armor

15% against AoE attacks

N/A

Melee Dampener

Chest Armor

15% against enemies within 4m of you

N/A

Sniper Resistance

Chest Armor

15% against enemies over 30m from you

N/A

Activity-Specific Damage Resistance Mods
	Name	Source	Resistance (PvE)	Resistance (PvP)
	Riven's Curse	Dreaming City Armor	-3% per stack (Dreaming City only)	N/A
	Taken Barrier	Last Wish Armor	20% for 10s after receiving damage from a Taken enemy (Last Wish only, doesn't stack)	N/A
	Dreambane Mod	Moon Armor	5% per stack against Nightmare bosses	N/A
	Resistant Tether	Garden of Salvation Armor	5% per stack while tethered (GoS only)	N/A
	Enhanced Resistant Tether	Garden of Salvation Armor	10% per stack while tethered (GoS only)	N/A
	Enhanced Suppressor Augment	Deep Stone Crypt Armor	10% per stack against powerful foes while you have the Suppressor Augment (DSC only)	N/A
	Old God's Boon	King's Fall Armor	10% per stack while carrying a relic (King's Fall only)	N/A
	Stoic When Panicked	Crota's End Armor	10% per stack while near a totem, plate, or carrying a Sword (Crota's End only)	N/A

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