Compare Equipment Without Losing Your Defences

Keep your old item while you check a replacement. A rare drop can improve one stat while removing the resistance or attribute that keeps your character working. Compare one item at a time, then inspect the character after equipping it.

Read requirements before rarity

Open the candidate item’s details and check its level and attribute requirements. For a weapon, also check whether its type works with your main skill. If small text makes comparison awkward, increase popup size in Options under UI. GGG popup accessibility

Read the base defences and the modifiers. Strength-oriented armour bases provide Armour, Dexterity bases provide Evasion and Intelligence bases provide Energy Shield; hybrid bases combine defences. Rings can help with resistances as well as other stats. The rarity colour alone cannot tell you which item suits your character.

Write down the reason for the swap in plain terms: more Life, a missing resistance, or a useful improvement to your main skill. Then look for what you would give up to get it.

Compare effective resistance

Fire, Cold, Lightning and Chaos resistances reduce damage of their matching types. Each has a default cap of 75%. Your Character panel shows the effective value and an uncapped total in brackets. The larger bracketed number is not the percentage currently reducing damage.

Check those values before and after equipping the item. Extra resistance and increased maximum resistance do different jobs: raising a cap does not supply the resistance needed to reach it. During the campaign, work on gaps instead of assuming a new item is better because one resistance rises.

Suppose a new ring improves Cold resistance but removes much of your Fire resistance. Keep the old ring until you decide how to cover that loss. Compare the whole set you are wearing, rather than treating the new ring’s strongest line as the result of the swap.

Keep more than one defence working

Armour helps mitigate physical hits. Energy Shield adds a resource that protects Life. Evasion helps avoid eligible hits, but it does not make every attack harmless; some boss skills cannot be evaded.

Look at your Life, Energy Shield and other defences alongside resistances. If the new piece removes a large part of a defence you use, keep comparing alternatives. More damage does not automatically make that loss comfortable.

Equip, inspect, then keep or revert

After the swap, open your main skill details and check that the skill and its supports are available. Losing an attribute can disable a support even when the skill still works. The skill gem guide explains that check.

Try the item in a familiar encounter, with the old piece kept safely for comparison. Pay attention to the problem you wanted to fix. If survival still feels worse, put the old piece back and look for an upgrade with fewer costs. If the same telegraphed hit keeps catching you with either item, practise the dodge and recovery routine as well.