What elements work best against which enemies?

[BustedHipGaming]

I can't seem to find a good guide to which element to use when fighting each enemy, but I have heard that each kind of enemy is weak against certain kinds of damage. Anyone have the details?

[>//The_FALCON]

shoot red enemies with red gun, blue enemies with blue gun and purple enemies with purple gun

shoot red bars with white ammo, orange bars with green ammo and yellow bars with purple ammo

it's literally that easy, there's 0 math or mechanics involved

[Mez Koo]

No enemies are weak to elements but different enemies have different elemental shields but most of the time its trivial and only matters in higher tier content.

[EckyThump]

The element type only matters for breaking enemy shields, when talking about element type vs a specific type of enemy.

For example, Hard Light, an Exotic Auto Rifle that can switch elements, against any one specific non-shielded enemy, does exactly the same amount of damage, regardless of which element it uses.

As Mez Koo says, matching the shield type is generally not needed in easy content, you can drop an enemy shield quickly with just primary ammo, and many special weapons will outright kill certain shielded enemies, through mismatched element types.

Hitting enemies with the right element type will cause an explosion of damage that staggers the shielded enemy and damages targets around it. So that can often be useful, and in harder content, often the 'Match Game' modifier is in effect, which makes shields incredibly resistant to kinetic or incorrect element damage.

Also in general,

Fallen - mostly arc shields on captains, Shanks can sometimes have solar, Servitors sometimes have void.
Cabal - Commanders have solar shields, Incendior elites have void.
Hive - Wizards have solar shields, Acolytes can have void, Knight elites have arc.
Vex - Minotaurs have void shields, Harpies can have arc.
Taken - Taken Wizards have void, Taken Centurions have arc, Taken Captains have solar.
Scorn - Scorn captains can have any shield type.

There are some rarer additions - the Fallen elite captains in Deep Stone Crypt have void shields for example.

Lastly of course, the element matters a lot for builds, certain mods give special effects that trigger from elemental kills, you can pick elements and pick mods that work with those.

[Emurinus]

The color of the shield is all you need to worry about. No shield? Element doesn't matter.

Generally, expect enemies to have these types of shields:

Arc

Fallen Captains

Hive Knights (higher end content)

Vex Harpies (higher end content)

Cabal Colossi (I think, I actually can't remember; only in higher end content if they indeed have shields)

Taken Centurions

Scorn Chieftains

Solar

Fallen Shanks/Heavy Shanks (higher end content and/or Hot Knife modifier)

Hive Wizards

Cabal Centurions

Taken Captains

Scorn Chieftans

Void

Fallen Servitors (higher end content)

Vex Minotaurs

Cabal Incendiors (higher end content)

Taken Wizards

Taken Acolytes (higher end content)

Scorn Chieftans

Stasis

Eramis's lieutenants (Beyond Light Campaign only)



Please note that white shields will 9/10 times be immune to normal damage, often requiring a mechanic/relic to break or going to the next phase in a fight sequence.

[La Criatura Espada]

Energy (and Power) weapon Elements are only important element-wise for synergies with perks like Elemental Capacitor or some Exotic effects, and in the event you go into a hard enough PvE mode where matching shield Elements are basically REQUIRED in order to break them (without significant dedication with the incorrect ammo)

Most gamemodes should tell you on the little difficulty modifiers, but the dude above me made a very in depth guide to it.

[omega]

best element Pb 82 use this on every thing works fine ;)

[Maxine]

point and click

[fwwm]

Originally posted by Mez Koo:

No enemies are weak to elements

whilst this is technically true, lots of activities have 'burns' where the enemies are weaker to a given element

[R A Z E R]

Not to be rude or anything but you have 239 hours on record, how have you not figured out by now which elemental works against which elemental shield..

[Electroshock]

Matching the shield's element create an explosion when you break it. Some harder activities have a modifier where you barely do damage unless you match it.

[BustedHipGaming]

Originally posted by R A Z E R:

Not to be rude or anything but you have 239 hours on record, how have you not figured out by now which elemental works against which elemental shield..

Because I am super casual and not that aware of the minute details like that. :)

[R A Z E R]

Originally posted by BustedHipGaming:

Originally posted by R A Z E R:

Not to be rude or anything but you have 239 hours on record, how have you not figured out by now which elemental works against which elemental shield..

Because I am super casual and not that aware of the minute details like that. :)

It's pretty much a basic 'mechanic' though.

[BustedHipGaming]

Originally posted by R A Z E R:

Originally posted by BustedHipGaming:

Because I am super casual and not that aware of the minute details like that. :)

It's pretty much a basic 'mechanic' though.

I'm sorry I don't measure up to your idea of how well someone should understand game mechanics, sheesh. Insult me some more if you think that will make you feel better.

[R A Z E R]

Originally posted by BustedHipGaming:

Originally posted by R A Z E R:

It's pretty much a basic 'mechanic' though.

I'm sorry I don't measure up to your idea of how well someone should understand game mechanics, sheesh. Insult me some more if you think that will make you feel better.

It's not insulting, it's just that i'm confused.. Hence why i asked, nothing else mate. No hard feelings.

[BustedHipGaming]

Originally posted by R A Z E R:

Originally posted by BustedHipGaming:

I'm sorry I don't measure up to your idea of how well someone should understand game mechanics, sheesh. Insult me some more if you think that will make you feel better.

It's not insulting, it's just that i'm confused.. Hence why i asked, nothing else mate. No hard feelings.

OK