So I'm a squire and I just crafted a "Hot Edge" (I love the fire effect on it!), and I saw that it inflicted both normal and "elemental" damage. I went over to the wiki and saw that elemental damage was another damage type. I also saw that every damage type except for normal damage had some enemy types that they were effective, neutral, and weak against. But I didn't understand something. My hot edge had both normal and elemental damage. So I want to know if I will actually deal more damage to enemies that take more damage from elemental damage and if I will also deal less damage to enemies that take less damage from elemental damage. I'm thinking if the normal damage either overwrites the elemental damage, or the elemental damage overwrites the normal damage. Also, in case it's important, the normal damage on the Hot Edge is equal to the elemental damage on it.
Effect of Multi-Damage Type Weapons on Enemies
The relevant wiki articles are Damage and Defense.
Basic Ideas
There are four damage types. Your weapon inflicts a certain mix of damage types. In the case of Hot Edge, it's some normal and some elemental, with zero piercing and shadow. The specific numerical amounts depend on your heat level, damage bonus, Clockworks depth, etc.
Every monster has various protections against each of the four types. For example, a slime has
- very strong protection against piercing damage: Incoming piercing damage is reduced by roughly 84%. For example, if your weapon inflicts 200 points of piercing damage, then the slime loses only 32 points of health from it.
- moderate protection against normal and elemental damage: The amount depends on the Clockworks depth. At depth 24 it's 131 points. Notice that this is a flat amount, not a percentage. For example, if your weapon inflicts 200 points of elemental damage, then the slime loses only 69 points of health from it.
- weak protection against shadow damage: This is half of "moderate" --- 65.5 at depth 24. For example, if your weapon inflicts 200 points of shadow damage, then the slime loses 134.5 points of health from it.
(There are some other details when the inflicted damage gets close to the protected damage. And there is also a fourth level of damage protection on certain monsters --- none. But don't worry about it right now.)
Blazecat-Percival's Remarks
The difference between moderate and weak protection is a flat amount, such as 65.5 at depth 24. Therefore, using the best damage type gives you 65.5 points of extra damage, compared to normal damage.
Blazecat-Percival is citing a rule of thumb that applies to 5-star swords. 65.5 points is roughly 20% of their damage output. This is a fine way to think of 5-star swords.
Blazecat-Percival is wrong about the 50% extra damage using a pure elemental weapon. A pure elemental weapon does the same extra damage against weak enemies as a mixed normal+elemental weapon does: 65.5 at depth 24.
Your Hot Edge
So, compared to an equivalent pure-normal weapon, your Hot Edge does more damage against undead and constructs, the same damage against fiends and slimes, and less damage against beasts and gremlins.
Compared to an equivalent pure-elemental weapon, your Hot Edge does the same damage against undead and constructs, the same damage against fiends and slimes, and more damage against beasts and gremlins.
Does all of that make sense?
Ok, so my Hot Edge sort of balances out the damage, like it deals less damage against gremlins and beasts compared to a pure-normal weapon, and more damage against gremlins and beasts compared to a pure-elemental weapon. That means that it does half damage against beasts and gremlins. So my Hot Edge does half elemental damage and half normal damage. Now I get it! Thanks!
By the way, I had no idea that lower floor enemies had more defense against different damage types, I thought they just had more health and attack. That's really complicated!
Yes, the offense-defense calculations took a while to work out. This is all figured out through experimentation and...some other methods. We still don't really understand exactly what happens for low-damage attacks, that are near the defense threshold (65.5 at depth 24).
If you want to know how to use these damage insights to plan your equipment, you might consult my detailed sword guide. For starters, it advises you to carry two non-normal weapons.
Have fun with the game.
"It deals less damage against gremlins and beasts , more damage against gremlins and beasts , and half damage against beasts and gremlins ."
Wut?
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Fixed:
It deals less damage against beasts and gremlins, more damage against constructs and undead, and neutral damage against slimes and fiends.
...it deals less damage against gremlins and beasts compared to a pure-normal weapon, and more damage against gremlins and beasts compared to a pure-elemental weapon.
Vanaduke-Destroyer, this statement of Sagitunction's was correct. What's your problem with it?
The "half damage against gremlins and beasts" I didn't understand either, but it didn't seem worth arguing about.
As a fun little fact is there are no weapons that deal Pierce and Normal damage at the same time.
^though it's worth mentioning that ionized salt bomb used to deal piercing and normal. Not many people care for it because it's a shard bomb, but it REALLY got the buff it deserved from that update.
For the "That means that it does half damage against beasts and gremlins" I meant that since it did more damage vs gremlins and beasts compared to pure-normal weapons, but less compared to pure-elemental weapons, I just thought that it would be in the middle and that it would do half normal damage and half elemental damage. It might be a bit less than half or a bit more than half, but I just guessed that because it has an equal amount of normal and elemental damage. Do you get that now?
And yes, I will surely have fun!
Fehzor, what do you mean by a shard bomb? Does it blow up into some kind of shrapnel?
...
Semi Useful Explanation.
A N/E sword would do +20%-ish damage against the appropriate Enemies.
An E sword would do +50%-ish damage against the appropriate Enemies.
And Vice Versa for those two.
These values are used for demonstration purposes and are probably not the real deal.
I think the only pure Elemental sword is the warmaster rocket hammer and its line. Though you can only obtain it with cash or energy.
Piercing weapons do pure piercing damage. It murders Beasts and prods Slimes.
Sound good enough?