In Act IV Hell difficulty, I found a pack of champion Vampiric (something else) (something else) Corrupted Angels. My attacks were only hitting them for 1500-2000 when normally my hits are in the 5000-6000 range. I was using a physical-only weapon.
After several tries I realized that I could not kill them, no matter what I tried. The vampiric healing was more than enough to outdo my wimpy hits.
I started paying attention and noticed that the normal Corrupted Angels were only taking about one third of the normal damage as well. I don't think it was a debuff, since I alternated hits against an Angel and then a different mob and could clearly see the difference: 2000, 6000, 2000, 6000, etc.
In a later run I didn't see this behavior at all. I noticed I had changed to a fire-based weapon.
Is there some sort of hidden physical damage resistance that corrupted angels have?
Best Answer
I finally noticed a pattern with the corrupted angels that explains the damage reduction I was seeing.
When a corrupted angel first takes damage, it gains a shield that reduces all damage of that type by ~66%
In the screenshot below, you can see one angel has a reddish shield. The shield was not there until I attacked it with a fire-based attack. The other is a little harder to see but it has a shield tinged with blue. I hit that angel with a lightning attack.
My additional fire attacks on the red-shielded angel did about one third of normal damage, but the lightning hit for a normal amount. However, the blue-shielded angel took roughly one third of the lightning damage, but took the full force from the fire attack.
So if you are progressing through Act 4 and having a tough time on these creatures (especially champions), the answer is to hit them once with a secondary attack that deals a different element than your primary damage dealing attack. They'll shield against it, and your normal attacks will deal full damage.