elemental weakness

[The Tempted Man]

As you know, from 5, we now have 3 elements to choose from:

Fire
Ice
Lightning

Fire works best on everything with fure and majroity of enemies from what I can see, Ice is good for saurians and the like but what Lightning is effective against?

For testing I made a kindhearted mage pawn with 3 boons, to check this, but Lightning boon was almost never used. Which is curious, because it's effect of making enemies lose consciousness sounds interesting.

[Edstyles]

If we are talking pokemon here. My guess is lightning is good vs birds aka harpies . Lightning also reaches from the sky so doesnt mater if they are flying , maybe good for gryphons too.

Should also be good vs water pokemon so water slimes.

Seems like pokemon dont apply here always.

here is a bestiary

https://www.windowscentral.com/gaming/dragons-dogma-2-monster-guide-and-bestiary-elemental-weaknesses-locations-tips-and-tricks-to-defeat-them

Seems most are weak to fire, but dragons and also once you get to Bakbahtal monsters there seem to be more weak to frost. Very few seem to be weak to lightning but im guessing its more of a neutral magic that works decent enough agaisnt most and the advantage of hitting from the air on flying foes.

[Windfire]

aoe dmg & stuns, its very good when you have to kill packs of mobs, like wolves or harpies.
Seems to be better against armored mobs too.

[BoopDaSnoot]

In my experiences from both games, all animals and birds and humanoids are weak to fire. Reptiles are weak to ice. Faster enemies/ flying high enemies can be knock down with lighting like Levin. Metal is weak to lighting? I guess?

In previous game, Cyclop, chimera and garm are weak to lighting.

I just spam levin to knock down pack of harpies or fast wolves. Can work on Cyclop too, hitting the head can add more stagger - so I guess Levin is for anything that's out of normal reach. Dunno about how good is lighting infusion melee attack, but i think it helps rip out cyclop armor plates faster.

Anything flesh/leather are weak to slash. Armored, stone or bone are weak to blunt. Undeads resist most damage (flesh corpse still fear fire, bloated corpse explode when burned) but very weak against holy.

Tar greatly increase Burn dmg and duration from fire (griffins hate this trick, just tar and burn them and they're grounded fried chicken). Drenched enemies are weaker to lighting + ice, both stun/freeze them faster - Saurians are drenched most of the time.

[AirSniffer]

Fire if you cannot yet manage to kill a griffin before it flies away - otherwise ignore
Lightning is trash. It's good against some trash enemies like harpies OR cyclopses but you don't need an elemental amp for them in the first place.
Ice is by far the best element once you start mid-endgame. Not only does it increased damage against drakes and lesser dragons but the freeze debilitations counts as a stagger check and will interrupt any action the enemy is currently doing and even count as a stagger while airborne, so enemies will fall down and go into the staggered state.

There is also poison and holy - Holy is great against exactly 2 enemy types and one of them being on of the hardest in the game.

MA has a sleep arrow as well. It's broken. You can put almost any enemy in the game to sleep in fight - even against drakes/lesser dragons while airborne.

[D. Flame]

I think lightning is the jack of all trades element. Nothing seems particularly weak to it, but nothing seems strong against it either.

Like Fire is best in the first area and against Griffins.
Ice is best in the second area and against Drakes.
Lightning just sort of works on everything and is for lazy people who don't want to switch elements up based on what they are hunting.

[No' Name]

Ice basically trumps everything in this game.

Fire is really only good for stopping a Griffon from flying, but that's about all fire is used for.

End Game, everything, "almost" everything is resistant to fire, so outside of the Griffon, and maybe the off beaten Path Ogre here, and there, it's really not needed.

Lightning skills/Ice Skills pretty much dominate everything int his game. Lightning is super helpful against flying enemies, and knocking them down, but that's only if you don't have an archer, or thief in your party, who can easily snag/peg them down from the sky.

And as far as I know, all types of elements still exist. Holy is mainly thrown on weapons now though, outside of the one Light skill mages get.

Can't say i've come across the Dark Elemental type yet, but it's still shown as an element in the game.

[miki]

Fire:
Good against undead, griffins, cyclops, wargs, etc. Bad against Drakes and Saurians. Fire seems to be the superior element early in the game.

Ice:
Good against Saurians, Drakes and Dragons. Bad against undead.

Lightning:
Seems to spread on nearby enemies. This is why I have found it useful against packs of humans. I think I've heard pawns saying that it's good against harpies, and High Levin seems to one shot harpies so it seems to be the case.

[cernodan]

Originally posted by miki:

I think I've heard pawns saying that it's good against harpies, and High Levin seems to one shot harpies so it seems to be the case.

When it comes to harpies, pawns will tell you that fire works against them, because it grounds them.
High Levin works against early game harpies simply because they have low health and you more or less one shot them. Try it against the advanced variants and you'll see it's rather lackluster.

Anyway, related to OP's question, besides cyclops, I noticed that lighting works rather well against Phantoms and their variants. Also, when using a Thief and lighting daggers, if I get on top of a large enemy's head and start walloping, they tend to be stunned for quite a while.

[VeraelHasta]

Lightning is good for stunning enemies faster, not sure if any monsters are resistant to it though.

[D. Flame]

Medusa is also weak to Lightning, IIRC.

[Pine Rune]

I have heard pawns mention that lightning is strong against orc/goblin foes while fighting them. With that in mind, I think lightning is strongest against demi-human types, such as goblins and cyclops.

[BoopDaSnoot]

IMO, best element base on their effectiveness agains wide range of enemies: Lighting (very few resist lighting), Ice, Fire (falls off later in the game with most enemies are harder to burn), Holy (only good for undead).

It doesn't matter if you're using Lighting yourself, what important is have a Mage/Sorcerer in your party with High Levin. It has fast casting speed, instant effect, hit everything and ignore height - from Cyclop head to flying Drakes.

Early game, fire is king. You will encounter mostly normal monster, only Saurian and Skelly undead are fire resistant, and Skelly Undead are rarer than zombie in early game.

Mid to late game (from Battah onward), Ice and Lighting start to raise up in effectiveness. Armored enemies show up more regularly - Gob and Hob all wear armor, Bandit has more fast as fk Thieves, more type of Saurian show up. Undead are now all skelly, with Undead Bosses show up more - Flying Lich (all bone no flesh to burn), Skelly Lord and Dullahan both wear heavy armor. Beast type are getting rarer, and most of the time they're Harpies - which Levin easily take care of.

Yes, Lighting work really well against armor.

Post game (True ending Unmoored World), Holy has much stronger impact. Undead everywhere. EVERYWHERE. There're bandits and saurians and drakes, but if you travel by foot (which naturally cuz Oxcarts were gone) you will face mostly undead. Also Holy is neutral to all non-undead, no one resist holy. Ice and Lighting still has their uses and will carry you.

So if you have a Support Focus Mage on your team, give them High Levin and 3 buff skill - an Affinity, High Halidom, etc... Swap out Affinity depend on where you are. Generally, you won't need Lighting Affinity because your Mage has High Levin and if it's their only dmg skill they will always use it to attack - more effective than just put Lighting Affinity on melee characters. High Levin work against everything.

OR, if you are me and do not have the patient to wait for Affinity buffs, just play as Warfare - Thief. All thief skill, and Rearm to different elemental knives. Bolt From Blue for most enemies, Frosted Edges for Saurian, and Heaven Key for undead.