Understanding elemental damage

Trying to understand the mechanics behind elemental damage. I know the wording can make a world of difference in these situations, which is why I'm asking here and hoping someone who really knows how the mechanics of elemental damage can explain it to me.

First off, in the passive skill tree, there are two types of elemental damage which I have seen.

"increased elemental damage with weapons"
and...
"increased elemental damage"

I'm pretty sure there is a difference between the two. I've done a little bit of researching here on the forums and I want to take a shot at this and see if I'm right.

"increased elemental damage with weapons"
This means that it increases the damage of the different elements which you may have on the weapon itself.



an example of this is the cold and lightning damage above. It would increase the damage of the 2 types of elemental damage on the weapon. From what I understand as well, it also increases the elemental damage of auras as well as skills that say they are "attack" type skills in their description.

"increased elemental damage"
I am assuming that this means it's for spell damage only. Essentially made for casters and for skills that say that they are "spells" in the description of the skill gem.

I'm essentially trying to figure out which type of elemental damage I need for my elemental ranger. It seems that going for a bow with elemental damage is best and that physical damage isn't as important. I'm also trying to figure out why and where all of the damage comes from. I'm assuming it's because of crit multiplier and "increased elemental damage with weapons" you're getting.

My other side question is, what does global crit chance/multiplier entail? Is that for all types of damage? As in attacks and spells? Just wasn't sure what they meant by "global".

I appreciate anyone taking the time reading this and answering any of my questions!

Bro

the wording is exactly what it intends to say

if it doesn't specify "spell" or "weapons" then it is global

increased elemental damage affects all elemental damage

"

DaleWinters wrote:

Bro

the wording is exactly what it intends to say

if it doesn't specify "spell" or "weapons" then it is global

increased elemental damage affects all elemental damage

so would you say "increased elemental damage" would be the best globally? I don't think I've seen any wording that says that it specifically increases elemental spell damage. Maybe I have, but I see such similar wording all the time it gets a bit confusing.

I think you misunderstand what elemental damage is supposed to be. Maybe this thread on game mechanics FAQ would help you:

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/11707

"

Tassdrummer wrote:

I think you misunderstand what elemental damage is supposed to be. Maybe this thread on game mechanics FAQ would help you:

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/11707

Taking a look at it now. Looks decently comprehensive!

Briefly scanned the mechanics thread and used the ctrl + F function to search the thread and didn't really see anything specific to what I was asking besides this.

"

Skill Types
Skills currently come in two main varieties: spells, and attack skills.
Any skill that uses your weapon damage counts as an attack skill, and everything else counts as a spell.

Attack skills
Attack skills are dependent on your weapon, and so are affected by attack speed, accuracy, etc.. Bonus damage from rings and other gear is applied when using an attack skill.

Spells
Spells do not draw their damage from your weapon in any way. They are affected by % cast speed, %fire/cold/lightning damage, %spell damage, and critical strikes. Integer damage bonuses on gear are not added to spells.

While it does explain that any skill that uses your weapon damage are considered attack skills and everything else are spells, it doesn't explain how the different types of elemental damage come into play. Nor does it explain how auras and such work. I guess I was looking for a more concrete and detailed explanation.

From the same thread with Ctrl+F using "elemental" yields a few hits, among those this:

"

Damage Types
There are currently 5 main types of damage, they are Physical, Fire, Cold, Lightning, and Chaos.
Fire, Cold, and Lightning are collectively known as Elemental Damage.

Also I didn't see any mention that you wanted to check auras in your OP. You can learn a few things from the wiki:

http://en.pathofexilewiki.com/wiki/Auras

I'm not 100% savvy of mechanics myself, but from the little I've seen, there's more to the thread than you've read.

Read carefully.

There is NOTHING complicated about what those passive say. It is straight forward. Increase elemental dmg increases ALL elemental dmg on ANYTHING. Increase elemental dmg with weapons increases all elemental dmg that "USES YOUR WEAPON" including basic attack, for example, lightning arror, heavy strike, lightning strike, burning arrow. all these skills uses your weapon to perform the attack. Even skills that have no elemental dmg like heavy strike, if you add elemental dmg to it for example from your weapon or skills like wrath, it will increase that element.

As mentioned already every skill gem has tags about what type of skill it is. If the skill has an "Attack" tag then it is affected by your Weapon damage and therefore also affected by Weapon Elemental damage mods.

"Spells" are not affected by weapon physical or elemental damage. So the Adds X-X Elemental damage mod will not apply to spells at all. However, if our weapon/armor has a blue mod like "X% Increased Spell Damage" it will apply to the spell. If the spell is of a particular elemental affinity Elemental damage mods relating o hat affinity will affect it unless the mod specifically states Weapon Elemental Damage.

Auras
Anger- does not affect Spells. Does affect attacks and is modified by Weapon Elemental Damage mods.

Wrath- does not affect Spells. Does affect attacks and is modified by Weapon Elemental Damage mods.

Hatred- only affects spells that do physical damage (such as Ethereal knives and Detonate Dead). Does affect attacks as long as the attack does some measure of physical damage. Is modified by Weapon Elemental damage iff the damage was done with an attack and not a spell.

Gems
Added Lightning damage- Affects both spells and attacks. Is affected by Weapon Elemental damage iff the damage was done with an attack not a spell.

Added Chaos Damage- Same as above

Added Cold Damage- Same as above

Added Fire Damage- only affects spells that do physical damage (such as Ethereal knives and Detonate Dead). Does affect attacks as long as he attack does some measure of physical damage. Is modified by Weapon Elemental damage iff the damage was done with an attack and not a spell.

"

Tassdrummer wrote:

From the same thread with Ctrl+F using "elemental" yields a few hits, among those this:

"

Damage Types
There are currently 5 main types of damage, they are Physical, Fire, Cold, Lightning, and Chaos.
Fire, Cold, and Lightning are collectively known as Elemental Damage.

Also I didn't see any mention that you wanted to check auras in your OP. You can learn a few things from the wiki:

http://en.pathofexilewiki.com/wiki/Auras

I'm not 100% savvy of mechanics myself, but from the little I've seen, there's more to the thread than you've read.

apologies. I'm at work right now and I get interrupted a lot and didn't get all of my thoughts down. I wanted to originally mention auras, but I guess I forgot to.