Enemies do half normal damage even in T3?
While wearing Deadshot set, which actually has more Normal defense than Shadow, a ghost bite will hit me for 2 Shadow bars and 2 Normal bars. A zombie hit me for 3 Shadow 2 Normal.
If all hits do ~50% normal damage regardless of other type, and some enemies (Gremlins, Lumbers, Trojans, certain jellies) do ONLY normal damage, how is Normal not the best Defense type in the game?
Normal absolutely is the best defensive type in the game. But you're forgetting that a few projectiles will do pure elemental damage, so a bit of that def type helps too.
Well most people I hear talk about this say that in T3 only a small amount of the damage from Pierce/Shadow/Elemental attacks is Normal.
As it is now though, the defense types are pretty unbalanced, and certain pieces of gear that have no Normal defense suffer for it.
Consider that armor types with more specific resists for damage types also have status resists. I wouldn't do a shock stratum without shock resist regardless of which damage types I had resists for. Even fire and poison are pretty srs bsnss.
how is Normal not the best Defense type in the game?
Who said it wasn't?