Elemental VS Non-Elemental

[RexEviL]

In case anyone is wondering the exact comparison
I just made test
Evil One +30 3.5k dividing edge.
Icespark Shroud Ex +0 3.3k dividng edge.
Spark weakness.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1668118290

[playtechAqua]

Sky cleave plus damage on weak element tho, so it's kind of unfair to raw if you use the same art.

[Violatus]

Originally posted by playtechAqua:

Sky cleave plus damage on weak element tho, so it's kind of unfair to raw if you use the same art.

True. If you use Sky Cleaver BA which deal increased damage with weak elements then your tests are somewhat irrelevant.

[RexEviL]

I saw some people using sky cleaver on raw weapons. It was supposed to help them understand but nvm I removed it.

[Violatus]

Sky Cleaver, elemental weapons or not, is still a good air BA for buster, pair with the AIR 20mm control unit you can deal quite a hefty chunk of damage. But of course elementals do benefit more, so I can see why you bring up that.

And the elementals vs. raw thing... well raw are basically jack-of-all-trades here with higher damage output and not rely on Aragami elemental weakness. Elementals on the other hand, relies heavily on elemental weakness to deal damage because of their lower base damage compared to raw weaponry. It's just personal reference, some ppl like the raw damage while some other prefer elemental weaponry.

[The Autumn Magician]

I try to collect a whole bunch of weapons, elemental and raw, but only use a +30 evil one buster + Final Judgment sniper because it's much less hassle trying to balance skills.

[IrisMachina]

for ice buster blade. dromi's buster is the best ice one atm. and sparkshroud EX is the slightly better thunder. if the target happens to have weakness to both ice and thunder, only one of the elemental multiplier is applied. not both. in missions that contains multiple targets that has both ice and thunder weaknesses , icespark shroud EX does work quite well. however the best elemental weapons are always the ashborne ones with two circles on the respective elements with a few exceptions, gaiwain's short blade, caligula's fire spear, etc....

[Null_User]

If you don't mind using items on a mission, you can also use elemental amplifiers. Now, since I don't really use them myself, I don't know if they would stack with the elemental a weapon comes with. But if they do, the damage buff would be rather crazy.

[♡Pure♡]

all item buff dont last that long, their a waste.

[Null_User]

Originally posted by Puré:

all item buff dont last that long, their a waste.

They should last at least as much as your reserve of custom bullets for a single high damage stream. This game's enemies are weak enough in comparison with older games, so even a small pouring of true min max damage would be enough to severely hurt or right out kill even the stronger foes.

[astranabeat]

Element is better but I don't want to change weapon every mission. Also +30 on 1 weapon is enough. I don't want to make 4 weapon with +30. Well raw it is. I mean 4 or 5 more BA attack to kill if I use raw weapon then so be it. I think element will be need when time attack or +99 mission come. Right now +30 raw already wreak everything easily.

[Null_User]

My own personal preference is non elemental gear while using regular and custom bullets to make up as elemental damage. Switching custom bullets in and out may be a bit bothersome, but on the plus side, I don't feel the need to give plusses to more than one or two weapons/shields.

[Cauldraborn]

I stick to non-elemental myself and as Hanuke said I switch out my bullets as well, however what I also do is switch my engagements for elemental bonuses if I feel the need otherwise just sticking to weak points does the trick.

[Ræin]

My opinion first: I prefer to run a raw weapon with the elemental engage effects and bring the element boosters for situations where I don't have an engage up and I have a good damage opening (rare, I run synchro 100% of the time). I do this because I don't want to deal with 4 +30s with good installs on the 5 weapon classes I use and the damage is roughly equal anyway.

Now some non-opinion based math:
Tldr is that they vary between +/- 13% depending on setups. not a massive difference. In best cases raw does win by 12%.
Here are the exact elemental numbers for reference.
Melee:
O = +25%
OO = +45%
Guns:
Element bullet + raw gun = 13%
Element bullet + O gun = 25%
Element bullet + OO gun = 45%

Weapons with 2 elements: the weakness will override the resistance. So if a weapon is OO fire OO ice, and enemy is weak to fire but resistant to ice you still get +45%. If enemy is weak to both it is also still 45% (sadly)

What it means:
Raw melee weapons have 4 slots and 5%~10% (going to use 7% for math) more base damage. OO elemental weapons have 2 slots at the most. That makes OO elemental weapons deal 35% more damage on average. 2 slots in the best case can gain you 20% more damage. In that case, the difference is more like 13% more damage on OO elemental.

That said, elemental engage effects and boosters are a thing. The elemental engage effects are 3 times stronger than any other engage effect in terms of damage. While that is not full uptime, much like warlord it doesn't matter. Most of your damage is dealt during small windows of burst instead of gradually over time. That means that if using elemental engage effects AND taking full advantage of the two extra slots you are looking at ~12% increased damage with raw in absolute best case scenarios.

Worth noting:
-That 12% more on raw requires you to run both 11th hour and mettle to be active.
-Element boosters last 15 seconds (So they are good to pop before hitting downed Aragami but nothing else)
-Raw + engage effect is much easier to work with.