effectively using resistance potions?

[van the man]

I'm having trouble in general with using the temporary buff potions because I don't quite have the dexterity to get much out of a 30 second damage buff, I'll spend 5 of those seconds just messing with the quick slot bar or whatever

And my problem is almost always dying in a blink anyway, never because of lack of damage dealt (it probably doesn't help that I select armor strictly based on how much it contributes to my damage pool and ignore defensive properties it may have).

I'm doing the resurrection ritual the necromancer's guild and dying pretty hard and fast. I'm level 48. "Resistence potions might help" comes to mind but there's this crucial problem I have with them: I'm either already dead to the thing I wanted to resist by the time I even think of a potion, or I have no idea what type of damage to expect.
What are these skeletons and ghosts even doing to me anyway? I think I see pink chaos flames flying about, and I think the skeletons are just packing a wallop with physical. Looked like they had swords, so pierce I guess.

It's easy to know when I should resist aether because the entire game turns green whenever I need to get those potions out. Everything else though, is either small instances. like suddenly encountering a monster hero that's wielding a damage type unique from the rest, or not knowing what's being thrown at me. What's vitality damage even look like? Bleed?

[Finnvbot]

The only instances I'd use a buff potion are when:

1. I'm in one of the rogue-like dungeons (Steps of Torment, Bastion of Chaos, Port Valbury) and I want a bigger margin of error, if you will. Usually, I'd pop an HP pool and regeneration pots for that.
2. I'm fighting a Nemesis and I want to make the fight less tedious. HP pool and regen and/or reduced freeze duration in this case.
3. My damage output is lacking: it happened exactly once, against Van Aldritch (screw that mofo, lol).

Resistances and Defensive Ability ae super important in this game, you can't neglect them especially if you're using melee. Glass cannon should also have plenty of Attack Damage Converted to Health to stay alive. As for Undead they deal all damage types except for aether and poison. What I tend to do is carry several accessories (rings, amulets, medals) with different resists on them and swap them depending on the area I'm in.

[Raviel]

vitality is purple, most abilityes that do chaos damage also do vitality. in short don't stand in pool spells.

bleed and poison is damage over time, you see them as debuffs on right bottom of the screen. there are bleed pools as well.

ranged enemyes are supposed to do pierce damage. melee ones mostly do phisical.
for particular unit damage types you can always look it up in the wiki.

personally i never use ressistance potions becose i find it redundant you should have ressistances on your items, most of the time maxing them out in ultimate shouldn't be a problem, before that you can manage with ~50% in elite and ~30% in veteran. (elemental and poison ressistances are good to keep as close to 80% as possible, even in veteran)

if you get oneshot you probably have too little hp and maybe armor. phisical damage is most common after all. you do need as much defences as possible. damage means nothing if you run around not attacking or just die.
around lvl 50 you should have around 4k-8k hp depending on your classes and items. you need healing options either way(preferably multiple). if you play something like shaman wendigo totem can keep you alive for quite a while and getting 6k hp should be quite easy due to the aura shaman gets.

[van the man]

Yeah, I use gems/augments to try and get resistances that I lack. I don't understand the 450 second duration potions, seems like a completely pointless game element, since they aren't reliably obtainable, and require preemptive use...you could bind them to the second row quickbar and memorize what key is what element of resistance but who the hell would do that?

[Finnvbot]

The potions are reminescent of shrines in other ARPG titles. While I personally have never bound any of the consumables to a quickbar, I've seen many people who do that. Also, they are easily obtainable since you can craft them, provided you have the recipe. They are perfectly fine and working as intended: to push your character over the top, not to rely on them like a crutch. For the record, I pretty much never use them while doing story and side quests, you don't need them if your build is sound.

[Sardaukar]

I use potions, mostly on my poison build for extra damage, resists and defence when I fight nemesis/bosses