Fire, Ice, Lightning or Poison

[GD4Ever]

Between those types of damage, I think Fire is the worse to clear the game on Ultimate. Just because it seems that there are more uniques and bosses resistant to fire and if you run into one...can be an exercise in frustration. Started a pure caster Demolitionist and I can see rough waters up ahead!

[gNuff!~©~gNom3™]

on "avg" i'd agree
but it's not purely down to more resistant enemies but also RR available and sources, and depends on your chosen skill(s)
some endgame acid memes are really... not good, to pull off, Acid Trozan Sky Shards is an easy example
Meanwhile ex Fire Forcewave is totally fine, heck you can even level with it
for whatever reason fire gets slightly less RR in devotion than acid, and the only increased compensation is if you pick demolitionist where you get 30? instead of the usual 25 elemental RR from class - but imo that's already offset by mines being clunky to play with as RR source
"in general" humanoid enemies should be able to spawn equally with high poison res items, (or ofc mono lightning/cold), but lots default to elemental res and ofc there is a fair bit mono fire res affixes to select from tehy can spawn with too - tho that is still RNG so could impact different dmg types on different playthroughs too

i think for levelling it comes mainly down to mastery skills and item/MI support, even if technically you can make a fire grenado "nuke"fire skill for levelling, it still pales in comparison to something like cold SS levelling or TSS levelling etc
likewise melee and ranged savagery is gonna feel better than melee fire firestrike where ranged benefits most

[Fendelphi]

You can stack so much -% fire resistance though.

[gNuff!~©~gNom3™]

Originally posted by Fendelphi:

You can stack so much -% fire resistance though.

you can stack more -lightning/cold res or acid res combined i think/iirc*
but either way it requires specific items/setups to accomplish, most of which you don't have during levelling
*not counting mageslayer/OFF since that doesnt' apply to most targets

[Bludbonez]

I think there are quite a number of items/skills that allow conversions of one damage type to another. I believe the limitations on a build is defined by that player. Making that build as a player thinks it should be. What I enjoy about Grim Dawn is the fact you can break the rules!

[gNuff!~©~gNom3™]

i don't think that's the main point trying to be made here
so you can convert XYZ skills into 1-2-3-4-5+++ dmg types to make a different build/class go with that skill
but the build/skill will "suffer" more (potentially) depending on which dmg type you selected
again with my Acid Trozan Sky Shard example, personally i feel i'm pretty tolerant in terms of "build performance criteria"/dps and survival requirements compared to ex meta or "regular" builds
but i've not tried a single Acid Trozan Sky Shard version that wasn't just awful, even compared to other mega memes with low/poor performance
meanwhile ex Fire Forcewave is good, despite being fire dmg, because the specific combo has so much support it gets elevated to being incredibly useful.
Fire dmg Ring of Steel however, not so much, it suffers from lack of items which means the chosen dmg type of Fire is gonna impact it much more, because being fire already means it faces more obstacles than ex pierce for RoS "even if pierce items were likewise limited in support"

[GD4Ever]

Was using Greater Fireblast, mortar, and mine combo and it was going ok. Decided to create the Conflagration relic to get the fire ray/beam skill and it's going not too bad. I'll probably be good til mid 70s. Relic skill is quite mana intensive and I've adjusted some gear to accomodate it in quick short blasts to clear things. Mortar lures them into the mines and the ray does the rest. Flash bang in case some mobs get through. Mines will decrease mob elemental resistance too and I'm hoping it will apply to boss fights.

[gNuff!~©~gNom3™]

Originally posted by GD4Ever:

Mines will decrease mob elemental resistance too and I'm hoping it will apply to boss fights.

it will, no worries
main struggle you will have with item granted skill like Conflagration is you can't get modifiers to it, if ex you had levelled with AAR (same type beam skill) it could get a lifesteal modifier applied via item(s) so you could heal from the dmg the spell did
Conflagration being an item skill, with 0%weapon dmg too, means you can't lifesteal nor get lifesteal mods onto it to provide you healing, so you need to find healing sources/methods elsewhere
dmgwise it will/should be fine/playable, it's like a slightly less invested AAR, but with more DoT(tho that's not super helpful the way true DoTs work), so as long as the expectation isn't super dps or even AAR dps, it's going to be fine, several players have used it at endgame too iirc, just because it was there/available

[valium]

Of those types, lightning and acid are probably the easiest to build around with a budget build. Lightning skills have a ridiculous amount of easily farmed greens that will boost effectiveness. Since you already went demo, you can then go shaman for storm totem/wind devil, which are amazingly good for trash mobs on even ultimate, then go with stun jacks for that focused damage.

[Wintermute]

My vote goes for Ice, due to sheer misery I had making a cold apostate build. Kuba and Muusalake in particular can go and ♥♥♥♥ themselves.

[valium]

Cold is fun, my favorite build I have done was with Crown of the Winter King + Nemesis + Deathgrips. Felt like I was the main White Walker.

[gNuff!~©~gNom3™]

Originally posted by Wintermute:

cold apostate

ngl, that does sound kinda cursed :sweat_smile:
cold bone harvest, or cold drain essence?

[Wintermute]

Originally posted by gNuff!~©~gNom3™:

Originally posted by Wintermute:

cold apostate

ngl, that does sound kinda cursed :sweat_smile:
cold bone harvest, or cold drain essence? :claugh:

DE. It works now, but barely.

[Gilver Redgrave]

My vote goes to Ice no contest.

Not only are Ice build somehow vastly inferior compared to other builds but their skills are also not that great. Ice is being shafted so hard it doensnt even have Cold Retaliation in the game. All in all Ice is very limited compared to the others.

[gNuff!~©~gNom3™]

Originally posted by Gilver Redgrave:

Ice is being shafted so hard it doensnt even have Cold Retaliation in the game.

that's not a detractor, just shows how limited retal is, aside from the fact you can easily convert fire to cold retal ofc
cold skills are really strong, Trozan, Shadow strike, Rune of Hag, heck if you wanna do a Soldier Cadence meme cold cadence is one of the better options
has stellar devotion options, high dot potential, high flat potential, faces few high resistant enemies, and the ones it does face aren't super bothersome, with the exception of Kuba being a dps check
cold is so good there is probably more cold necro builds than there are acid, which probably goes for general single class RR x dmg type-> cold conversion memes

[Gilver Redgrave]

Originally posted by gNuff!~©~gNom3™:

cold skills are really strong, Trozan, Shadow strike, Rune of Hag, heck if you wanna do a

Torzan hits mostly at random if i am not wrong. Rune of Hag should be called Rune of the worst playstyle.

As i said before Ice is very limiting. I mean go ahead and try an actual Ice Mage and clear Ultimate without a death. Good luck. Youre gonna need it.