There are two groups of damage types in Spiral Knights. The first group is the 4 primary types of damage that both weapons and monsters can cause: 1) normal, 2) pierce, 3) elemental, and 4) shadow. Weapons, monsters, and the environment can inflict and additional 6 forms of status effect: 1) fire, 2) freeze, 3) shock, 4) poison, 5) stun), and 6) curse. (http://wiki.spiralknights.com/Status_effect)
