What constitues physical/elemental damage and what's best to protect from it?

[Eccentric Gentleman]

I'm trying to decide what kind of outfit and weaves to go with.

Attacks by humans are clearly either ranged or melee and are countered by those armor stats. But if I'm hit with a fireball from a bellowback or lightning from a stormbird, is that considered ranged, elemental or equal parts of both?

I ask because in the past I went with a anti-melee armor with ranged damage weaves. I figured such stats would give me an all-round build against human and machine enemies since technically all damage is either ranged or melee. But I'm doing a new play through and I'm wondering if an all round build might be better done with one of those anti-elemental outfits with ranged and melee weaves.

[SniperGirl]

Look at the machines and see what icons they have for their weapons and match your outfits with the same icons.

[Bird_Dog]

I recommend to focus on one damage type per outfit.
Often machines have 2 types of damage (sometimes more) determine wich one is harder to avoid and armour up against that one. Dodge the other.

For example, against a Fire Bellowback, I recommend you put on fire resistance and dodge the mele attacks.
Against a Thuinderjaw, you might want to protect against mele and dodge the ranged attacks (at least I found the ranged attacks easier to avoid).

You can also armour against ranged or mele and use resistance poitions against elemental damage. That works too, but switching between potions mid-battle is a bit fiddly.

[Eccentric Gentleman]

Originally posted by Bird_Dog:

I recommend to focus on one damage type per outfit.
Often machines have 2 types of damage (sometimes more) determine wich one is harder to avoid and armour up against that one. Dodge the other.

For example, against a Fire Bellowback, I recommend you put on fire resistance and dodge the mele attacks.
Against a Thuinderjaw, you might want to protect against mele and dodge the ranged attacks (at least I found the ranged attacks easier to avoid).

You can also armour against ranged or mele and use resistance poitions against elemental damage. That works too, but switching between potions mid-battle is a bit fiddly.

But is something like a fireball from a bellow back, ranged elemental or both?

[Eccentric Gentleman]

Originally posted by SniperGirl:

Look at the machines and see what icons they have for their weapons and match your outfits with the same icons.

Ok but is something like a fireball from a bellow back, ranged elemental or both?

[Bird_Dog]

Originally posted by Eccentric Gentleman:

But is something like a fireball from a bellow back, ranged elemental or both?

Pure Fire. both acording to my own experience and the inofficial fan wiki.

[Black Hole]

Fire and explosive damage is all I ever end up doing personally.

[Death Approaches]

ahh, I get it. no, ranged just means arrows without effect. let's say you're firing corruption arrows, then it's the target's resistance to ranged is one calc, and it's resistance to corruption is another calc. How it got applied doesn't matter; a shocky mine, tripwire, arrow, sling... it's your attacks strength value minus their defense to it.

just look at any weapon... if there's 0 damage in the "bow" icon bar, or "sword" icon bar, then no melee or ranged is going to be calculated, it's solely elemental.

its quite intuitive, you're overthinking it. You're trying to figure out, can I make one set of be-all end-all armor and not have to constantly switch, the answer is a solid "no". You either leave on something inappropriate and endure, or you switch.

This is the game you're playing.