Is elemental damage viable in end game

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azraelb wrote:

Difference is:

with phys dmg you more or less only need a good phys dmg weapon, rest comes from passives and gems.

with ele dmg you only need a very fast weapon with a bit ele dmg, but insanely good and rare gear (rings, amulets, some uniques).
=> you need more stats on gear besides your weapon because your gear has to give you flat ele dmg AND %increased ele dmg.
Ele dmg passives are just insanely bad, so your gear has to cover this up IN ADDITION to all those defensive stats and crit stats you'll need on your gear...

This sums it up pretty good.
I played an Elemental Cleaver back when it was still playable, but the nerfs to:
1. Elemental dmg nodes
2. Cleave
3. Auras
made it pretty much unplayable in end-game.

Recently i picked up PoE again and decided to make my Char playable again. I didn't went mainstream and go Spectral Throw, but took Reave instead. With some changes in the tree i was able to get back to like 80% of the dps i had before. Still not close to as powerful as physical dmg builds are nowadays, but atleast i can clear high maps again.

TLDR: GGG has overdone it with the nerfs related to the classic Ele-Cleaver build.

If you grab the passive EE, you can confidently bypass penetration gems and curses due to the massive debuff. It opens up gems slots and gives you some flexibility.

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Biscuit57 wrote:

If you grab the passive EE, you can confidently bypass penetration gems and curses due to the massive debuff. It opens up gems slots and gives you some flexibility.

Many maps have +resist x element mod and many rares have "resist elemental aura" mods etc...Basically their resist is over 150+, doesn't matter what you cut it with it won't do anything, the only way to combat that is with penetration gems...and not very well either as you are still only doing 50% of the damage.

As a physical, at least half the damage you do will be "true" damage regardless what you are hitting, so you don't care about resist.


To answer the op question ... yes elemental damage is viable end game if you are rich. If you are not it is so-so to down right bad. Currently physical > elemental in every way, if you want the bang of the buck deal, always run physical. Elemental builds are for those who run it because they can, not because they are effective.

Mathil's scion is a better example of a viable elemental damage build without requiring over the top gear http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/690708

But with the current state of things we can definitely see some patterns.
Cleave got fucked, Spectral Throw is FotM, slower weapons are useless, 2-handed non-bow ele weapons are (arguably) useless despite the buff to ele mods, minor weapon ele dmg nodes can be skipped in favor of attack speed.