How can I NOT be one-shot killed? And how do I know what killed me?

[500KG]

For example, Elias and the blood queen thing in helltides kill me in one shot.

I found out through google that Elias is fire damage (why can i not find this out in game?) but what is the blood queen damage type and how do you know? (I'm refering to the three egg boss in helltides)

[ImpactHound]

They both look like they do fire attacks, so I assume they're both fire damage. Blood Queen's slow, expanding point blank AOE that looks like a ring of fire is definitely her alpha move, if it hits even if you have 70% fire resist expect it to hurt ALOT even if it doesn't outright kill you still. The other attacks aren't as bad imo, but when in doubt, make sure besides resists that you have +200 life(or whatever number is appropriate for your level range) on as many pieces of gear as possible to make your life total larger so you can soak bigger hits.

[yuzhonglu]

Play HC and learn. Max resistances and armor, and stack health, and damage reduction, and always use the invincibility bubble aspect.

[IchigoMait]

after todays patch, all helltide enemies do extra fire damage

[500KG]

I have high armour, i'm a barb. I usually tear through most dungeons solo but then out of nowhere, I will randomly be killed by 1 hit from a random creature i've fought before. I can't figure out how to tell them apart or how they are killing me so easily.

[crzyfsh123]

Originally posted by IchigoMait:

after todays patch, all helltide enemies do extra fire damage

Ahh no wonder I seemed to take more damage.

[Neithan]

Originally posted by 500KG:

I have high armour, i'm a barb. I usually tear through most dungeons solo but then out of nowhere, I will randomly be killed by 1 hit from a random creature i've fought before. I can't figure out how to tell them apart or how they are killing me so easily.

First of all, defense comes not only from armor, and not only from elemental resistance, but also is boosted by all the different damage-reduction mods from skills, gear and paragon. Also, as pointed out already, Life is important, point is, all of it (Life/Armor/Resistance/DR) has to be taken into account, you cannot focus on just armor and resistance, if you got low life and dr.

Regarding what killed you, part of the game is to learn enemy types and bosses, some enemy type can have nasty abilities or general mechanics, like spiders and their venom + those exploding "carriers", skeleton corpse bows, or the plenty of "telegraphed" attacks by all the "big" guys of enemy types, like preparing a charge or overhead attack.
And those attacks can hurt alot depending on your def, even outright kill you.

Regarding the Blood Maiden, what you should avoid obv. is the expanding fire ring, and also not standing where she "throws down" those elite adds when she jumps up in the sky, or where she lands afterwards.
But then, there is those thin red rings that can occur around individual players during the fight, and those will drop a red circle the same size every couple of seconds or so. I assume it's also fire damage they deal, regarding the visual, the point is, if players stay in place and stack those circles, then the ground at that place becomes burning hell. Every player for himself has to watch out that he doesn't stack those rings/keeps out of stacked areas. The rings will disappear after a short time.

So while you obviously have to learn the attack patterns and telegraphs of the bosses like the Blood Maiden, the trash she summons can also hurt alot and you have to watch out for those, too, especially if there is several players and they spawn in attacks due to their individual Helltide threat level (Hellborne at worst). Usually the (combined) crowd control and AoE damage of several players deals with the trash easily while focusing on the boss, a group of those kamikaze exploders unchecked, or some champion splitting your skull with his overhead heavy attack, can still ruin your day.