Weapon affinity

[Pyotr]

I know this is stupid to ask cuz i have nearly 500 h in game but I really need help 😅
I want to learn about weapons affinities
I started a new game with a samurai class and I would like it to be lighting themed but I don't know anything about lithing affinity 😅 ... I just learned that occult affinity is best for weapons which already have bleeding on it and good for arcane scale ... yeah 😂
So pls help me understand it better thank you 😊 🙏

[Old Captain Yon]

It is easy. Each build archetype (except Int/Fth sadly, unlike Ds3) has it's own corresponding Affinity.

Str is Heavy and Fire
Dex is Keen and Lightning
Str/Dex is Quality
Str/Int is Frost
Int is Magic
Fth is Flame Art or Sacred
Arc is Blood, Poison or Occult (the former two adding extra buildup and the latter being higher damage and Arc scaling)

However, you are better off trying different affinities in-game and looking at numbers. Even the letters can be quite misleading, as say weapon with high base dmg but C scaling will be stronger than weapon with low base dmg but B scaling.

Lightning is a good infusion for pure Dex or even Quality build. Unless you have like 60+ levels in Dex, it is better than Keen and can be amplified further by using Lightning slash AoW that adds flat lightning damage on top.

[Artek [General]]

Heavy: physical damage scales with STR alone. Benefits two-handing builds as two-handing grants +50% STR bonus.

Keen: physical damage scales primarily with DEX.

Quality: physical damage scales with both STR and DEX but both must be 30+ to start seeing genuine benefit.

Lighting: adds lighting damage that scales with DEX for some reason.

Occult: physical damage scales with ARC, but also if special effect like Bleed are present - they are also still improved by ARC too allowing the weapon to both deal high damage and proc special effects more often, unlike dedicated Bleed / Poison / etc infusions which double down on the special effect at the price of damage dealt on hit.

[LuckyCheshire]

Yon covered the basics pretty well. One more thing to keep in mind though, is that split damage is weaker than single-source damage. In plainer terms, if you have two (or more) damage types on your weapon, like for example Blunt and Fire, those two types of damage are calculated independently, basically like you inflicted two weak hits instead of one strong one. This means that your damage has to fight past armor and defenses twice instead of just once. Split damage can still be quite effective, but the numbers you read are in essence inflated compared to a single damage type.

If you want to dive just a little deeper into damage calculations, one of the reasons that Lightning builds are so good is that Lightning deals a little extra damage whenever its target is wet. That means that whenever you hit an enemy that's standing in a puddle, or when it's raining, you deal a little bonus damage. Conversely, water actually reduces Fire damage a little bit though.

[Pyotr]

Thank you 😇 I'm gonna screenshot this need to study thank you all again 😇

[Old Captain Yon]

Originally posted by LuckyCheshire:

Yon covered the basics pretty well. One more thing to keep in mind though, is that split damage is weaker than single-source damage. In plainer terms, if you have two (or more) damage types on your weapon, like for example Blunt and Fire, those two types of damage are calculated independently, basically like you inflicted two weak hits instead of one strong one. This means that your damage has to fight past armor and defenses twice instead of just once. Split damage can still be quite effective, but the numbers you read are in essence inflated compared to a single damage type.

If you want to dive just a little deeper into damage calculations, one of the reasons that Lightning builds are so good is that Lightning deals a little extra damage whenever its target is wet. That means that whenever you hit an enemy that's standing in a puddle, or when it's raining, you deal a little bonus damage. Conversely, water actually reduces Fire damage a little bit though.

The "split damage is worse" is not true anymore for ER, it is a superstition that was left from earlier games where damage mitigation worked differently. In ER negation is percentage-based. Enemy resistance is the only thing that matters.

Let's say you do 200 phys damage, and 100/100 split phys/lightning damage. If your enemy has same resistance to phys and lightning, say 20%, you will deal SAME damage with both attacks (200 mul 0.8 is 160, 100 mul 0.8 + 100 mul 0.8 is same 160 damage). If however your enemy has 20% phys and 0% lightning resistance, then split lightning damage would actually deal MORE damage.

It is easy to test on enemies who have high resistance to one damage type but low to other, like miners. Your not-split but resisted element would deal MUCH less than split non-resisted element.

And very few enemies are strong against lightning damage, so most of the time Lightning is the superior of the two Dex infusions

[Sc0rpiTr0n]

Originally posted by Old Captain Yon:

It is easy. Each build archetype (except Int/Fth sadly, unlike Ds3) has it's own corresponding Affinity.


Str/Int is Frost
Arc is Blood, Poison or Occult (the former two adding extra buildup and the latter being higher damage and Arc scaling)

In my opinion:

Frost is for Int/Dex/Str, if you invested in any of these there are great weapons for Frost
Blood is for Dex/Arc/Str, same thing as above.

With high Strength and minimal Arcane I love Blood Pickaxe,
dual Beastman's Curved Swords or Golem's Halberd for example.

[Señor Brown]

Originally posted by Old Captain Yon:

Originally posted by LuckyCheshire:

Yon covered the basics pretty well. One more thing to keep in mind though, is that split damage is weaker than single-source damage. In plainer terms, if you have two (or more) damage types on your weapon, like for example Blunt and Fire, those two types of damage are calculated independently, basically like you inflicted two weak hits instead of one strong one. This means that your damage has to fight past armor and defenses twice instead of just once. Split damage can still be quite effective, but the numbers you read are in essence inflated compared to a single damage type.

If you want to dive just a little deeper into damage calculations, one of the reasons that Lightning builds are so good is that Lightning deals a little extra damage whenever its target is wet. That means that whenever you hit an enemy that's standing in a puddle, or when it's raining, you deal a little bonus damage. Conversely, water actually reduces Fire damage a little bit though.

The "split damage is worse" is not true anymore for ER, it is a superstition that was left from earlier games where damage mitigation worked differently. In ER negation is percentage-based. Enemy resistance is the only thing that matters.

Let's say you do 200 phys damage, and 100/100 split phys/lightning damage. If your enemy has same resistance to phys and lightning, say 20%, you will deal SAME damage with both attacks (200 mul 0.8 is 160, 100 mul 0.8 + 100 mul 0.8 is same 160 damage). If however your enemy has 20% phys and 0% lightning resistance, then split lightning damage would actually deal MORE damage.

It is easy to test on enemies who have high resistance to one damage type but low to other, like miners. Your not-split but resisted element would deal MUCH less than split non-resisted element.

And very few enemies are strong against lightning damage, so most of the time Lightning is the superior of the two Dex infusions

IIRC, it's not just damage negation, but also defenses that are factored in as well. And unlike negation, defenses use equations that cause it to reduce more damage as the amount of damage decreases.

[Artek [General]]

Originally posted by Señor Brown:

Originally posted by Old Captain Yon:

The "split damage is worse" is not true anymore for ER, it is a superstition that was left from earlier games where damage mitigation worked differently. In ER negation is percentage-based. Enemy resistance is the only thing that matters.

Let's say you do 200 phys damage, and 100/100 split phys/lightning damage. If your enemy has same resistance to phys and lightning, say 20%, you will deal SAME damage with both attacks (200 mul 0.8 is 160, 100 mul 0.8 + 100 mul 0.8 is same 160 damage). If however your enemy has 20% phys and 0% lightning resistance, then split lightning damage would actually deal MORE damage.

It is easy to test on enemies who have high resistance to one damage type but low to other, like miners. Your not-split but resisted element would deal MUCH less than split non-resisted element.

And very few enemies are strong against lightning damage, so most of the time Lightning is the superior of the two Dex infusions

IIRC, it's not just damage negation, but also defenses that are factored in as well. And unlike negation, defenses use equations that cause it to reduce more damage as the amount of damage decreases.

Definetely the case for players, don't know about mobs. Should be easy enough to test.