This isn't a question of "Rethink a current playthrough." This is a question of "Much of what my character has done up to this point has been invalidated." I spent significant amounts of gold, ability points, materials, and talents getting my resistances high. My primary tactics are no longer useful- the majority of my Pyromancer skills (on a chracter with max pyromancer) are no longer useful because I am now taking damage from them. I can no longer use Phoenix Dive to get /into/ combat because my partner is no longer immune to the burning patch. And she can no longer throw down area spells without harming me. I was min-maxed for 200% fire resistance at the expense of other things so that we could use Pyromancy spells to heal the tank. Much of my gear was chosen for "Whatever gives the most fire resistance" instead of Strength, Intelligence, or other useful abilities. And I'm level 20, so it's too late to change now without /significant/ investment and losing all my skills with no guarantee of being able to get them all back. Also, note that getting the non-armor-wearing wizard to absorb fire took a /lot/ of effort and equipment management.
Now, I'm not going to claim that getting high resistances on melee types isn't too easy- In the process of getting 200% fire resistance, I /accidentally/ got my water resistance so high that, even with the Demon talent, I was immune to water. But with the game built as it is, the cap of 80 is completely ludicrous.
There IS a balance to be struck, and you're not wrong that the current balance is too heavily in favor of the players- but the 80% cap just doesn't work in a game where full armor just gives you 25 all, you can take a talent for another 25 all, and master craftsmen can stick rubies in their gear. And seriously, if 80's a hard cap, why do Elemental Essences even exist? Give me diminishing returns, give me smaller bonuses on each of my items, weaken what needs to be weakened, but a cap is only reasonable in a game that makes reaching that cap a goal, not in a game where you just sort of crash into it and get frustrated at a seemingly arbitrary wall.
