What's your go-to damage type for different enemy factions?

[--EC--Adrenaline]

I've always kinda just slapped viral on anything since damage types "rework" and never changed it regardless of mission or level (except when clearing SP and going arbitration)

So for example what do you use for Lua disruption? since there's a mix of corpus and armored carriers

Or kuva survival (Tavenui) where you deal with ferrite and alloy armor at the same time

I don't wanna sound like that "efficiency is everything" guy but I've got nothing better to do atm lol

[RazerXPrime]

Viral/slash, viral/heat? There's simply nothing better than those two. You can use corrosive now vs grineer since armor strip isn't 100% anymore so at 10 stacks you can deal maximum damage. It's pretty good. I like using corrosive/heat vs grineer.

 

I like using Baruuk for disruptions though. Or use Protea with her turrets.

[TheSixOfDiamonds]

Generel Purpose: Viral + ??? (Proboscis Cernos has Corrosive +Viral on explosion, Pulmonars have Viral +Toxin, just because it's fun imo)

Grineer: Either Corrosive +Cold or Corrosive +Heat

Corpus: Magnetic +Toxin, only exception being Index where I run pure Radiation or Radiation +???

Infested: Blast or Gas, sometimes just Heat.

These are pairings I've used since I realised building for just Alloy wasn't enough, back when Ash Prime was new. I do some mix and match if there's a cool synergy with innate elements, like Radiation +Corrosive.

[(PSN)The_Verethragna]

If you're looking for an element for all factions, you can't do better than Radiation:

It does neutral damage to all Grineer types except Alloy Armor which it's effective against.

Corpus shields resist it, but it does bonus damage to Robotics, which is 90% of the Corpus faction to begin with.

Infested and Fossilized resist it, but its status proc can remove Ancient Disruptor and Ancient Healer auras.

[DealerOfAbsolutes]

16 minutes ago, RazerXPrime said:

Viral/slash, viral/heat? There's simply nothing better than those two. You can use corrosive now vs grineer since armor strip isn't 100% anymore so at 10 stacks you can deal maximum damage. It's pretty good. I like using corrosive/heat vs grineer.

 

I like using Baruuk for disruptions though. Or use Protea with her turrets.

Corrosive is lackluster without the 100 percent strip. Sortie level enemies with 6000 armor have 95 percent DR which is a 20x ehp multiplier. 20 percent of 6000 armor is still 1200 armor which is still 80 percent damage reduction. Even when against Ferrite, the Corrosive damage modifier only brings up your damage multiplier to 17.5x at 10 stacks while a full strip would give you a better 20x multiplier. Against Alloy, 10 stacks of Corrosive gives you a 4x multiplier inferior to pure Viral's 4.25x before taking into account Viral's flesh bonus. Viral doesn't even need Slash to be better than Corrosive.

[RazerXPrime]

2 minutes ago, DealerOfAbsolutes said:

Corrosive is lackluster without the 100 percent strip. Sortie level enemies with 6000 armor have 95 percent DR which is a 20x who multiplier. 20 percent of 6000 armor is still 1200 armor which is still 80 percent damage reduction. Even when against Ferrite, the Corrosive damage modifier only brings up your damage multiplier to 17.5x at 10 stacks while a full strip would give you a better 20x multiplier. Against Alloy, 10 stacks of Corrosive gives you a 4x multiplier inferior to pure Viral's 4.25x before taking into account Viral's flesh bonus. Viral doesn't even need Slash to be better than Corrosive.

Well that's more an issue with the scaling in this game rather than the change to corrosive.

[--EC--Adrenaline]

15 minutes ago, (PSN)The_Verethragna said:

If you're looking for an element for all factions, you can't do better than Radiation:

It does neutral damage to all Grineer types except Alloy Armor which it's effective against.

Corpus shields resist it, but it does bonus damage to Robotics, which is 90% of the Corpus faction to begin with.

Infested and Fossilized resist it, but its status proc can remove Ancient Disruptor and Ancient Healer auras.

Never thought about using it as a general thing, outside of specific missions, will try

 

22 minutes ago, TheSixOfDiamonds said:

Generel Purpose: Viral + ??? (Proboscis Cernos has Corrosive +Viral on explosion, Pulmonars have Viral +Toxin, just because it's fun imo)

Grineer: Either Corrosive +Cold or Corrosive +Heat

Corpus: Magnetic +Toxin, only exception being Index where I run pure Radiation or Radiation +???

Infested: Blast or Gas, sometimes just Heat.

These are pairings I've used since I realised building for just Alloy wasn't enough, back when Ash Prime was new. I do some mix and match if there's a cool synergy with innate elements, like Radiation +Corrosive.

Isn't going for multiple elements detrimental to dps? Since you'd have to replace something like multishot or critical chance/dmg

[nslay]

Viral+Electric on Proboscis Cernos since it pulls enemies close together... so that they all shock each other to death. Really really fun on large groups.

[DealerOfAbsolutes]

16 minutes ago, RazerXPrime said:

Well that's more an issue with the scaling in this game rather than the change to corrosive.

Almost everything in the game's imbalance is armor scaling on the enemy side and damage multipliers on our end. 

Old Corrosive could compete with Bleed in that they both were ways to ultimately treat armor as 0 regardless of enemy level.

Armor shouldn't scale.

Critical damage and Viral procs should all just be additive with Serration. That would narrow the gap between hybrids, pure crit, pure status and pure damage weapons.

[DealerOfAbsolutes]

1 minute ago, nslay said:

Viral+Electric on Proboscis Cernos since it pulls enemies close together... so that they all shock each other to death. Really really fun on large groups.

I use Gas+Electric with Nyx on the Proboscis Cernos. Psychic bolts is suddenly a damage ability that kills on contact.

[Redfeather75]

Viral/Slash/Heat for everything that doesn't have shields. Gas really is not effective anymore despite what some people seem to think.

[RazerXPrime]

2 minutes ago, DealerOfAbsolutes said:

Almost everything in the game's imbalance is armor scaling on the enemy side and damage multipliers on our end. 

Old Corrosive could compete with Bleed in that they both were ways to ultimately treat armor as 0 regardless of enemy level.

Armor shouldn't scale.

Critical damage and Viral procs should all just be additive with Serration. That would narrow the gap between hybrids, pure crit, pure status and pure damage weapons.

I feel that corrosive should be able to remove armor, perhaps only in the locations you shoot/hit and create weak spots there and also deal bonus damage to health and apply a DoT on it as well when you break armor. Before viral was always better because when you'd 100% strip the armor with corrosive you'd lose the 75% damage bonus. Since slash procs ignores armor alltogether and viral amplifies that there's almost nothing stronger. Slash needs a hard nerf in my opinion. Corrosive, electric and magnetic need a buff. viral should be situational and be ineffective against robotic and infested.

We need a complete damage overhaul that forces us to make a choice on what to bring to a mission.

Also, if you play Nyx then all you need is viral/heat or viral/electric

[sixmille]

It depends on a lot of factors such as AoE or not, rate of fire, built-in procs, base element and so on. I'll build an all-purpose Baza with viral + hunter munitions, however my kuva chakkur is built for corrosive with internal bleeding.

[RazerXPrime]

1 minute ago, Redfeather75 said:

Viral/Slash/Heat for everything that doesn't have shields. Gas really is not effective anymore despite what some people seem to think.

Gas has it's uses if you can stack the clouds. They can also proc other things if I recall correctly. Works with Mag for instance to stack damage in the bubble.

[CephalonCarnage]

Heat, or Radiation.

Its not about damage - its about making them shoot each other or stand around dancing. You should be able to kill them in various ways without relying on status procs, if you can, its a lot easier when they stop shooting back.

[nslay]

8 minutes ago, DealerOfAbsolutes said:

I use Gas+Electric with Nyx on the Proboscis Cernos. Psychic bolts is suddenly a damage ability that kills on contact.

What players seem to overlook on the Proboscis Cernos is that Electric indirectly grants ridiculous multiplicative bonuses on enemy proximity.

If there are 10 enemies are nearby? Electric grants 10x bonus DoT damage to all 10 in the group.... of course, the game doesn't really make these numbers obvious (or even doesn't show them to you). And we all know that players are yellow/orange/red damage number color-oriented... if not heat/slash-oriented (even though I consider heat absolute junk owing to how sloooooowwwww it is at DoT).

Do overlapping Gas clouds around distinct enemies tic damage independently on surrounding enemies? Sounds like it could work out as nicely as Electricity (obscene implicit multiplicative damage bonuses). Though I'd rather just increase Electricity's damage with more Electricity mods.

[Redfeather75]

13 minutes ago, RazerXPrime said:

Gas can also proc other things if I recall correctly.

😯 That's interesting! I need to know more about that!

[Alpheus]

21 minutes ago, --EC--Adrenaline said:

Isn't going for multiple elements detrimental to dps? Since you'd have to replace something like multishot or critical chance/dmg

If you're using a weapon with high status and low crit, you can just ignore the crit and build more status to get more type coverage, and build up on those sweet sweet CO stacks.

[SneakyErvin]

Since I currently run Silva & Aegis Prime I mod for viral, so in that case I rely on Viral+Heat+Slash, then Kuva Nukor is modded with Corrosive+Heat+innate Magnetic. There just isnt much reason to mod specifically depending on faction. Just bring something that naturally wrecks the non-armored factions like infested and corpus through shear damage and mod it with elements to fit grineer, then grofit.

[KnossosTNC]

Grineer: Puncture or Slash + Viral + Heat hybrid

Corpus (normal): any + Viral + Electric status

Corpus (Steel Path & enhanced shields): any + Toxin status

Infested: Slash + Corrosive + Heat crit

Corrupted: Slash + Viral + Heat hybrid

Sentients: Corrosive crit

[TheSixOfDiamonds]

3 hours ago, --EC--Adrenaline said:

Isn't going for multiple elements detrimental to dps? Since you'd have to replace something like multishot or critical chance/dmg

This is all in addition to stuff like that. I'm not an "optimal" player. I make sure my standard loadout is something like this:
Serration, Split Chamber, Primed Shred, Vigilante Armaments, Vigilante Supplies (Exilus)

I then fiddle with elements and mods until I'm happy. The way a lot of newer things go, I only get one combi element, not including Rivens. But things that have innate elements (like Kitguns, Bubonico, etc) I see what all I can squeeze on to complement the innate. For some things, like my Kuva Ayanaga, I manage to squeeze a triple-combi on.

[Berzerkules]

My go to loadout for pretty much everything in SP. Utility primes and slash melee. 

Probobsic cernos - viral/corrosive/heat

Kuva Nukor - mag/viral/rad/heat

Epitaph - Viral/rad/cold

Nami Skyla/Venka Prime - Since they are slash heavy weapons most of the time I just go toxic melee or pure crit builds always with a faction mod. Slash bypass armor and tox bypass shields. I spend a lot of the time in Void survivals where there are armored and shielded enemies so it works out well. If I run vs grineer or lua disruption I just swap out faction mod. 

 

[Animalon29]

I just use corrosive/heat with a hellstrum/panzer fox to deal viral or viral/radiation and facction mods 

stell path made easy 

[(PSN)robotwars7]

Viral/Slash does the job on just about anything honestly, there are only a few specific enemies like Corpus Treasurers where you might need to change your builds up and that's mainly on Steel Path. pretty much anything can be rinsed with a Condition Overload melee. 

[Joezone619]

Viral + heat for all factions.

Elements 2.0 really did more harm then good. Couple questions, why does magnetic increase damage to shields, and void damage magnetic bullet attraction?