Since elemental dmg sucks, which are the best raw weapons?

[Alby]

I don't wanna use those space ships arse looking weapons.
It seems that arkvelt tree is the best one for raw, although it has dragon.
Do you agree?

[Iggi]

Artian weapons will always be the best hands down in 99% of all weapons. Now if you want a weapon that looks better, you’ll be doing less damage.
Sorry, I’m wrong on this one, it depends on the weapon type as to whether or not an Artian weapon is the better choice or not.

Also elemental damage is great, the issue is you have to build around it, and no one wants to make 15 different sets with specific weapons to do so. The math is out there elemental does more than raw by about 5-10% depending on the weapon.

It’s just so much easier to make a raw damage build that can kill everything, rather than have to constantly switch out gear sets for each individual monster you fight.

At this point in the games life it also isn’t typically worth it unless you’re doing speedruns. If you’re a typical player you won’t notice that much of a difference.

[StormhawkV]

It's not that elemental damage sucks, it's just that not many weapons can utilize it well. Elemental damage isn't a modifier but a set value added to every strike so if your weapon is slow with high motion value attacks having an element won't help you much. It has always been like that.

[SpidersInABirthdayCake]

Paralysis would like a word

[Mrrshan68]

Depends on the weapon.
Gunlances for example the guardian arkveld weapon is better than artian one.

[Clarimonde]

Paralysis is a status and not element isn't it?

[Foe]

Originally posted by Clarimonde:

Paralysis is a status and not element isn't it?

For artian it counts as element.

[MarcoPants]

If you're looking to ignore elemental damage, just look a the weapon's physical damage and completely disregard whatever the elemental damage stat says. Even though Arkveld weps have dragon element, they have some of the highest raw in the game currently

[Alby]

Originally posted by MarcoPants:

If you're looking to ignore elemental damage, just look a the weapon's physical damage and completely disregard whatever the elemental damage stat says. Even though Arkveld weps have dragon element, they have some of the highest raw in the game currently

But how do I understand which one does more raw damage?
Let's make an example:
Which weapon has more raw damage?
One that has 200 and no elements
Or one that has 220 and 150 elemental?
Are the 150 elemental damage in the 220, so it's like 70 raw damage and 150 elemental?
Or its 220 raw damage + 150 elemental damage?

[Foe]

Originally posted by Alby:

Originally posted by MarcoPants:

If you're looking to ignore elemental damage, just look a the weapon's physical damage and completely disregard whatever the elemental damage stat says. Even though Arkveld weps have dragon element, they have some of the highest raw in the game currently

But how do I understand which one does more raw damage?
Let's make an example:
Which weapon has more raw damage?
One that has 200 and no elements
Or one that has 220 and 150 elemental?
Are the 150 elemental damage in the 220, so it's like 70 raw damage and 150 elemental?
Or its 220 raw damage + 150 elemental damage?

1st u need to disable bloated values in the settings
2nd a weapon with 200 elemental damage has really only 20 damage.
3rd 200 raw damage is still 200 damage

A weapon with 220 raw and 150 Element has then 235 damage but the 15 extra element damage doesn’t benefit from a lot of skills like raw does and gets further reduced by elemental resistance of the monster.

[SpidersInABirthdayCake]

Originally posted by Clarimonde:

Paralysis is a status and not element isn't it?

The opportunities it gives you to unleash uninterrupted attacks is free moments of damage (especially in a group hunt). Normal hunts in under 8 minutes I can reliably get two paralysis effects in unless it's like Balahara who is actually weak to para and will get f'd even harder.

[Qua2ar]

Originally posted by StormhawkV:

It's not that elemental damage sucks, it's just that not many weapons can utilize it well. Elemental damage isn't a modifier but a set value added to every strike so if your weapon is slow with high motion value attacks having an element won't help you much. It has always been like that.

Wrong, element sucks because the element hitzones on endgame monsters, Arkveld and Gore suck. The weaker monsters don't count.

[nicken chugger]

If you can build 100% affinity from just armor, arkveld weapons are often ideal.
Ajarakan and rathian weapons come with some affinity while maintaining good raw stats, plus some damaging status.
Gore magala weapons come with the most affinity and better sharpness comfort, but the skill is always critical element.
I like certain nerscylla weapons too since they come with a ton of sharpness, decent affinity, sometimes come with good skills (e.g. for greatsword and charge blade), and let you sleepbomb like a MH boomer, but they have low attack.
Barina/paralysis tree weapons also exist if you really want paralysis status without using an artian weapon. They have similar stats to nerscylla weapons but come with useless weapon skills. The paralysis hammer specifically is really good though since it has high attack.

Some weapon classes should avoid the conventional weapon tree choices. For example, the arkveld and rathian switch axes come with element phials, so you might use an xu wu weapon instead. Gunlance would pick from guardian arkveld, gravios, or quematrice for their stronger shelling.

[Alby]

Originally posted by nicken chugger:

If you can build 100% affinity from just armor, arkveld weapons are often ideal.
Ajarakan and rathian weapons come with some affinity while maintaining good raw stats, plus some damaging status.
Gore magala weapons come with the most affinity and better sharpness comfort, but the skill is always critical element.
I like certain nerscylla weapons too since they come with a ton of sharpness, decent affinity, sometimes come with good skills (e.g. for greatsword and charge blade), and let you sleepbomb like a MH boomer, but they have low attack.
Barina/paralysis tree weapons also exist if you really want paralysis status without using an artian weapon. They have similar stats to nerscylla weapons but come with useless weapon skills. The paralysis hammer specifically is really good though since it has high attack.

Some weapon classes should avoid the conventional weapon tree choices. For example, the arkveld and rathian switch axes come with element phials, so you might use an xu wu weapon instead. Gunlance would pick from guardian arkveld, gravios, or quematrice for their stronger shelling.

About the switch axe, at the moment beside artian ones, the doshaguma, nu udra and xu wu seems the best.
The first one comes with 230 raw, power prolonger 3, blue sharpness and -5% affinity.
The sencond one comes with 220 raw, rapid morph 3 white sharpness and -15% affinity.
And the third one comes with 210 raw, power prolonger 3 white sharpness and 0% affinity but low raw dmg overall.
All of these comes with power phial.
These are the best raw dmg non artian switch axe at the moment it seems.
Do you still suggest the xu wu?

[Sweetrollthief]

bone weapons have very high base damage

[The Debauchery]

Originally posted by Iggi:

Artian weapons will always be the best hands down in 99% of all weapons. Now if you want a weapon that looks better, you’ll be doing less damage.

They're definitely not for Bow. And they didn't seem to confer any advantage for LBG either. HBG was a bit of a niche case and I don't expect they'd work the same way for most ammo types. Those are all the weapons I've tried with them. In any case though, that 99% figure is a gross exaggeration. So far I'd estimate it around 33%.