Fire, poison or water

[Bloodfire]

Trying to decide which element to rock with.
Love me some damage over time but don't really understand the difference between fire and poison, except fire does less damage.
Is that because fire builds up faster than poison?

And then there's water which all the cool kids seem to like.

[Shoebsy]

Poison is a build-up, It doesn't deal direct damage like fire does.
(Hitting 100 damage with a fire weapon, adds more damage, Poison will not)
But poison lasts longer and deals more damage as a status effect

I generally don't roll with elemental damage until I roll equiptment that increases it (or the status effect) and with that, all of them are good effects. Earth is great with Odachi, and Fire is great with quicker weapons in my opinion.

[Zamus]

Water, wind or lightning.

Poison is just a DoT, does more damage than fire, however Yokai bosses are resistant to it, imo it's only good if you have extra damage on poisoned enemies.

Fire does does less DoT, however Yokai get afflicted by elements very fast so long as they aren't inmune to them, that said of all elements this is very lack luster, it will get you kill every now and then but you are better with others.

Water, watter affliction reduces the enemy physical defense, so it's always good.

Wind, greatly reduces the enemy damage, nice to provide support on co-op isnce host will be less likely to die, this is a great secondary element because the gale shoot shoots like 5-6 wind bolts that quickly inflict this on large enemies.

Lightning, slows enemies down, kinda like a lesser sloth, extremelly good.

Earth, this just makes enemies take more ki damage, imo it's not worth it, I specced especifically to inflict this on WotN and even with the added ki damage I still kill regular enemies and bosses way before I drain their ki bars.

[KuBr0]

Each type of is better against certain enemies and @omnyo, I invested into lightning and water talismans. The guys above described their effects pretty well, but you just gotta figure out on your own which type works best against which enemy. For example, you know the umi-bozu types of enemies? Fire works best against them. You know those stone statues which come to life when you get near them? Water damage ABSOLUTELY destroys them (the skeleton ones with the axes too). And just like this, each enemy / boss has a weakness against one or some of the elements. Feel free to experiment with this and look what is working best for you. Remember, book of reincarnation lets you respec any time, so theres never a "wrong" way of spending your points into skills.