I know the elemental attributes and whatnot are important. I also know the wiki has some information on them. However, I’ve spent many hours looking at the wiki articles on the damage types, and honestly, the way it’s written is just confusing as hell to me.
So, I was wondering if people could give me general ideas as to the damage types (not necessarily elemental combos needed to get a specific type, that’s easy enough) and what they do, so that I can know what I ought to go for against different foes.
Physical Elements
- Slash – great against Infested, great against Grineer once armor is removed, decent against Corpus
- PROC – DOT that ignores shields, armor, and other damage resistances, making it ‘true damage; one of the best procs in the game
- Impact – good against shields…that’s it. Otherwise just okay, but mitigated by armor
- PROC – short stagger effect. Meh
- Puncture – good against Grineer armor, weak against Corpus shields, okay against Infested. Better than Impact
- PROC – reduce enemy damage by 30%. Meh. If they’re gonna one shot you already, they’ll probably STILL one shot you
Basic elements
- Heat – usually added to a build with a combined element; good against Grineer enemies beneath their armor, decent against Corpus, great against Infested
- PROC – CC effect and light damage
- Cold – usually added to a build with a combined element; good against Corpus shields and Grineer Alloy armor (Bombard units, mainly)
- PROC – slows target’s animations (including rate of fire)
- Toxin – often used to form a strong combined element; can use it alone or combined with Magnetic to wreck Corpus (Toxin ignores shields)
- PROC – DOT, nothing special
- Electric – pretty much never used along, always as a combined element
- PROC – small chain DOT and CC effect
Combined Elements
- Corrosive (Toxin + Electricity) – good against most Grineer armor, strong against Ancient Infested
- PROC – removes 25% of target’s current armor (this is a HUGE benefit as it removes some of the enemy’s damage reduction)
- Viral (Toxin + Cold) – VERY strong against Corpus and Grineer fleshy units (though shields and armor can lessen its strength); weak damage type against Infested
- PROC – cut health to 50%, making this good against all enemies
- Gas (Toxin + Heat) – Gas damage itself is pretty bad: it’s very weak against Grineer/Corpus units, but it’s strong against Infested light units
- PROC – radial DOT toxin damage around the target, making this very strong against Corpus, decent against Grineer if you have enough Gas procs. If your weapon has AOE or punch through (Ogris explosion is a great AOE status applier), all the gas procs triggering on each enemy will intensify the damage on their allies (bigger group = more damage). Because the Infested are very strong against Status (Ancient Healers protect from the effects AND reduce the damage) and because Toxic Ancients nullify Toxic damage, Gas damage is a poor choice against Infested (despite having bonus raw damage against light Infested)
- Radiation (Electricity + Heat) – strong against heavy Corpus units (Bombards, Elite lancers), good against Corpus Robotics but weak against elite unit’s shields; VERY weak against Infested (Radiation deals one-seventh as much damage as Corrosive versus Fossilized ancients/boilers/broodmothers/MOAs)
- PROC – confusion effect, strong against all factions for the crowd control AND removing team-buffs enemies provide each other. This makes the proc GREAT versus Infested, removing their aura buffs AND keeping them clumped up on each other rather than clumped up clobbering you
- Magnetic (Electricity + Cold) – good against Corpus shields, trash at everything else. You can ignore shields with Toxin, so Magnetic isn’t usually worth building unless you have no other good options for your mod slots
- PROC – cuts down shields; again, not that great
- Blast (Cold + Heat) – good damage type against Infested, terrible damage type against Grineer, fine against Corpus)
- PROC – smalle AOE knockdown, quite useful
In short
- Impact sucks
- Puncture is okay against armor, but the right element is better (Corrosive or Radiation)
- Slash procs are awesome
- Gas is good against groups of Corpus
- Viral procs are amazeballs
- Heat/Cold are good splash elements added on to Corrosive or Radiation builds (where possible)
- Don’t use Radiation damage against infested, but the proc is very useful
- Magnetic is kinda pointless
- Blast is a good CC effect, bad damage type; only use as Corrosive + Blast to have a good damage type available
- Electricity exists
Original Link – Continuation of discussion