Elemental GS/LS

[Chronos]

Is there literally any point to greatswords and longswords with elemental damage on them? If all you care about is highest raw, doesn't that render 95% of the weapons pointless in these categories?

It seems like a weird balance issue if you only care about max raw, and all elemental versions are pointless. Why even have all those weapons in the game?

[Angel]

on a greatsword? why bother

you could use it on a longsword I guess, it attacks fast enough

[Ottomic]

This has been the case since forever, yes. A large amount of weapons are just not suited for elemental builds unless you are doing it for fun. Been like this since I can remember, also applies to other weapons like CB, GL and Lance as well.

[StormhawkV]

They're meant as a trap. Well, not really but they kinda are. Elements aren't doing well in Wilds. Maybe even worse than in World directly after release. You need the right weapon and the right target for elements to make a difference.

Edit:
Lance is actually a viable elemental weapon, we're just lacking targets.

[imp]

elemental damage is the same regardless of the motion value of an attack, and since GS and LS attack a bit slower than other weapons (LS crimson slash notwithstanding) they have significantly higher element to compensate. yes, raw is the goal, but many elemental weapons have high raw and high element. GS also works well to combo uncharged slashes into charged true slash, which would benefit from having element on those hits. plus, GS and LS don't have a high skill tax like other weapons, so fitting in some elemental attack up gems is pretty easy.

is all this optimal?? not usually, but it's always been like this, and having options is healthy for a game. it's pretty common for speedrun builds to be elemental

[Chronos]

These explanations make sense, thank you. It still begs the question though, why have them in the game at all? If they're just worse, and all you really care about is max raw, it makes the vast majority of weapons pointless.

Seems like a really weird way to balance a game, and it seems to *take away* options when 90% of the options are just worse, and you only want the highest attack.

[Ottomic]

They're there for flavor, and they can be legitimately useful, but they are so niche that building them doesn't really matter.

I see it as: every weapon tree has high raw, high crit, elemental, etc options. There will only be one "meta" upgrade path on each, but that doesn't mean the rest of options are useless and it's part of the fun to figure out which one you like the best or works better for that particular weapon. It might be sub-optimal, but that doesn't mean you can't run a crit build on a CB or an elemental GS if you feel like it.