an elemental guide! how elements work!

here I will talk about the 4 elements slag, fire, corrosion and shock, and their effects onn different enemies to clear up any confusion that people may have with them (I know I had)

introduction

in this guide, I will talk about the 4 main elements and their effects on certain enemies and situations! I will not list all the bosses and what they resist or are weak against, but I will mention what happens when you try and use fire on a hyperion robot, for example!

resistance!

firstly, I want to talk about resistance! a lot of people seem to not understand this concept, so I'll go over it.

resistance has 2 meanings in this game. the first one is that you or enemies take reduced damage from a certain type of elemental damage or attack in general. you can obtain this with a resistance relic, some vault hunters have damage reduction skills, and a seraph shield from tiny tinas DLC named the blockade grants a damage resistance while it's up. finally, you can use adaptive shields that grant a percentage resistance to the last element you were hit with.

all of the above REDUCES damage for YOU!

then you have resistant shields! these shields reduce damage taken by this element, AND makes you imune to the DOT of that element. a fire resistant shiled will make you unable to light on fire, and this follows for shock and corrosive resistant shields too!

now for the enemies!
many things will resist elemental damage for enemies! someone with shields up takes reduced damage from corrosive and incendiary damage while the shield is up! fleshed enemies take reduced damage from from corrosive attacks, and armored enemies take reduced damage from fire attacks. finally, there are the elementaly charged enemies! these guys take significantly reduced damage from the element they are charged with! a hellborn psycho will take a LOT less damage from fire weapons than any other type of element!

when you attack an enemy with the wrong elements, the word "resist" will pop up! if you see this, change the element and you will (most likely) deal more damage!

THINGS THAT STRAY AWAY FROM THESE RULES (MORE OR LESS)
these are some enemies that stray away from these resistance rules. I do not have exact numbers nor do I know every little weakness and resistance of every enemy, but I'll try my best!

firstly, hyperion personel in general like engineers, snipers and ghosts are resistant to fire and weak to corrosive, even though they have red health bars instead of yellow. it sort of makes sense as they have some armor on them, but it worth mentioning.

also, most if not all the raid bosses AKA invincibles are nearly fully resistant to slag. or rather, they only have it on them for about 1 or 2 seconds instead of the normal 8-16. some enemies that go in different phases like bloodwing or terramorphous change resistances too. while terramorphous is generally weak to fire, while he himself is on fire he resists it, aswell as all general damage.

finally, even though the warrior is part slag and even his tail lazer attack is a slag beam, he takes normal damage from slag. if the slag bonus damage effect is applied to him is hard to say.

finally, enemies of a higher or lower level than your character take more or less damage from your attacks. if they are higher, they take less. if they are lower, they take more. this makes going through an area while underleveled extreamly difficult, not only because you take so much damage from enemies, but your damage is nerfed too!

fire element!

the fire element is the first available element you can find! fire deals damage over time and is most effective VS flesh enemies like psychos, maurauders, goliaths etc.

however, fire deals low damage, both the shots and the DOT to enemies with shields up, enemies that are armored (enemies with yellow health bars) and fire charged enemies (like hellborn psychos and pyro nomads)! if you attack an enemy with an element and you see the word "resist" pop up, it means this enemy is taking reduced damage! if this happens, you want to switch weapons to something that works better.

different difficulties change the numbers of elemental weapons AKA, how effective they are. also, this counts for grenade mods, skills and shields with fire element to it!

DAMAGE TWEAKS WITH FIRE ON DIFFICULTIES:
fire deals 50% (150% tota damagel) increased damage to flesh enemies without shields active, both on the bullet and the DOT in normal mode. however, a shielded target or armored target takes 25% (75% instead of 100% total damage) REDUCED damage from the bullet and the DOT. these stats count for normal mode!

as far as I can tell, these bonuses will stack with critical hit damage bonuses too!

in true and ultimate vault hunter mode, fire VS flesh deals an extra 75% (175% total damage) damage to the DOT and bullet. however, it deals 60% (60% out of 100% total damage) reduced damage against shielded and armored enemies! so basicly, try not to do that!
if you're going for a fire build, taking a shock weapon will be a good idea to deal with shielded enemies. if you find armored enemies where you didn't expect them (like armored maniacs in TVHM and UVHM), allways keep corrosive weapons with you!

krieg is the main vault hunter to focus on fire. though maya can do OK with fire, the only bonus would come from a relic and a slayer of terramorphous class mod since she lacks any skills that increase elemental damage.

basicly: fire is good VS: most animal and bandit enemies with few exceptions!
fire is bad VS: armored enemies (yellow health bars), enemies with shields up and enemies that are fire charged (like a hellborn psycho)!

vault hunters that can do well with fire: krieg, the psychopath!

shock element!

shock is the most versatile of the 3 DOT elements! shock has NO damage reduction to flesh or armored enemies, which is nice!

SHOCK IN DIFFICULTY TWEAKS!
shock also gets a damage boost like the other elements! in normal mode, shock damage is increased by 100% (200% total damage) against an enemy with their shield up! this counts for the bullets and the DOT, aswell as shields, skills and grenades!

in true and ultimate vault hunter mode, shock deals 150% more damage (250% total damage) VS shields!

shock has no damage penalty against enemies without shields up! however, the damage bonus only works against the enemy's shields. when they go down, they take normal damage. not much more about shock...

oh wait, there are the charged enemies! a shock charged enemy (like shock nomads and badass shock skags) take reduced damage from all shock damage. that's about it...

gaige, the mechromancer works VERY well with shock damage!

basicly, shock is good overall, though it does not gain increased damage VS non shielded enemies, but no damage reductions outside of shock resistant enemies!

corrosive element!

corrosive is highly effective VS armor AKA yellow health bar enemies. it deals less damage to enemies with flesh and/or shields up!

CORROSIVE DAMAGE TWEAKS WITH DIFFICULTY!
like the other elements, corrosive damage is tweaked with difficulties, but more complex-ish than fire!

corrosive deals 10% (90% out of 100% total damage) less damage to flesh enemies and 25% (75% out of 100% total damage) less damage to shielded targets!
however, it deals 50% (150% total damage) more damage to armored enemies without shields!

in true and ultimate vault hunter mode, corrosive deals 40% (60% out of 100% total damage) less damage to flesh enemies and 60% (40% out of 100% total damage) less damage to shielded targets (including armored enemies). however, it deals 75% (175% total damage) MORE damage to armored enemies!

armored shielded enemies are only ARR loaders, shield surveyors and loaders shielded by surveyors! this makes corrosive weapons very useful since armor takes a base 20% (80% out of 100% damage from regular bullets) damage reduction from non elemental attacks!

none of the vault hunters have any skills that improve corrosive damage. however, maya, the siren has a class mod type that increases corrosive damage and chance to apply corrosive effects. though this is not particularily strong, it's worth mentioning.

basicly, corrosive is good VS armor, but not good VS flesh and shields. the shield damage reduction only applies while the shield is up. once that is down, it deals regular damage (higher or lower damage depends on enemy). you can recognise armored enemies by the yellow health bar.

slag element!

slag is new to borderlands 2. it does not have any DOT, but has no certain enemy type except slag charged enemies that resist it!

slag, when applied to an enemy or a vault hunter, will increase ALL damage they take! like the other elements, it has tweaks to the damage based on playthroughs!

SLAG TWEAKS ON DIFFICULTY!
in normal and true vault hunter mode, a slagged enemy (not slag charged enemies, but coated in slag from a hostile source or barrels), will take double damage (200% total damage) damage from all non slag sources! this lasts for 8 seconds. however, bosses will lose the slag effect quickly!

in ultimate vault hunter mode, slag coated enemies take 3 times (300% total damage) damage from all non slag damage sources! additionally, slag on slag coated enemies does 50% (150% total damage) more damage. the slag duration is increased drasticly!

finally, these effects also apply to the players if they get slagged too!

slag is a must have tool (more or less) for UVHM!

maya the siren is very good with slag, having 2 skills that have more or less a 100% chance of slagging multiple enemies with 1 use!

slag is effective on nearly all enemies! some larger bosses like the warrior, terramorphous, the invincibles, saturn etc. have a resistance to slag and will lose the effect very quickly, or be impossible to add in the first place. this goes also for slag charged enemies. still, slag is extreamely good, and UVHM is nearly impossible (or at least really hard) to comeplete without ever using it!

finally, the bonus damage in slagged enemies seems to be reduced the more players are playing. though this is a small reduction, it is still worth mentioning. not entirely sure why they decided to go with this rule, but it is there...

elemental chance!

this will talk about the elemental chance and how skills, class mods, relics and badass ranks affect this stat!

increased elemental effect chance does not meen a flat base. if you have a skill that gives you 30% chance of applying slag, and use a slag weapon with 50% chance to slag, it will be increased to 65%, and not 80%!

basicly, the percentages are percentages of the percentages (yo dawg, I heard you like these!), starting at the base chance of the weapon, and then the highest elemental chance based on that. it then continues this way until you have no more bonuses!

if I have a 100% elemental chance increase in a single skill, and then use a class mod giving 25% fire apply chance, and have 10% badass rank elemental chance applications AND use a pistol with 25% chance to ignite, this is how it will go!

25% gun chance
+ 100% from skill
= 50%
+ 20% class mod = +10% with 60% total!
+ 10% badass rank = +6% with now 66% total chance of igniting per shot hit!

this does not mean this stat is pointless to upgrade, but you should know so you don't think you have guarantied chance of applying effects every shot with these

final note!

I took this info from the borderlands wiki! however, I have a feeling that the numbers are off, as I used a maliwan sniper rifle with 90 damage and dealt 300 on body shots to fleshed enemies! in true and ultimate vault hunter mode I'd say elemental matching is much more important as the numbers are way higher, but it's worth mentioning! it's also a similar thing with torgue weapons, the damage you deal is way higher than what the weapon cards say!

[USAID]

Thank you! Like and favorite

[bazokajoe2]

@Illius Technically you can get any elemenatal weapon as world drop can drop one with a radom elemt , heled friend lvl with my main UVHM commando hit first rock get Conference call , so you can get any really but as you said Corrosive from Knuckle drager, I also got as world drop but 1 from faring him and one from chest in Wild life perserve, but Fire is the most likly as you said.

[Illius]

If you want to be technical, Corrosive is the first element you CAN find (Hornet from Knuckledragger) even though you are most likely going to find Fire. :P

Also, you should mention that some robot enemies (Such as SPIDER tanks/equivalents in OP's are resistant to explosive damage. On that, I would recommend adding Explosive as it is technically an elemental damage type.

Also, I personally found this hard to read simply on how it was typed out. Mostly the capitalization. It felt... lazy and I couldn't bring myself to read past fire.

[Elusive]

Also, in not entirely sure, but I think that armoured enemies with exsposed flesh (ironclad psychos, buzzards and maybe even wilhelm) counts as flesh health type when shot in the unarmourd location.
Basically if your shooting armourd psychos in the face, despite being classed as armoured they will recive less damage from corrosive and more from fire.
But I could be wrong.

[Count Smashula]

to elusive ~the stallion, I do not count explosive as an element, and as far as I know, enemies lower or higher level of yours take less or more damage from your weapons and attacks, one of the reasons why OP 8 can be so difficult. I also did not know about the slag reduced effective per player thing, so thanks for sharing!

to batmez, yes, hyperion engineers and personel do in fact count in the weak-to-acid group. I'll be sure to add this newfound info!

[Elusive]

Some things worth noteing: exsplosive elemental damage and even non-elemental damage also has damage multiplyers.
ALL weapons that say "deals bonus elemental damage" deal 50% more damage then listed (the extra 50% cant deal crits, so its not that great on sniper rifles, but awesome on every other weapon).
Last of all, the damage boost from Slag gets lower the more players in the game.

[Batmez]

Very good! I was looking to see if you had comments on Hyperion personelle, mostly the Engineers. They are resistant to fire, though are flesh, and aren't armored exactly but shielded. I find that unless you switch weapons a lot corrosive works well on them in contrast to most humanoids. Is this right or am I imagining its effectiveness?

[roors99]

Maliwan sniper rifles have splash damage, which effectively adds an extra 50% fire damage before elemental calculations.

[Stonehengst]

thanks a lot man