Does anyone actually bother with elemental matching?

[Hexerin]

In my experience, elemental matching is super tedious with its micromanagement, but yields negligible results (or is actively worse in some cases). I find that running corrosive/heat, or viral/heat+slash, is generally just the way to go for pretty much everything. Speaking from a standpoint of Steel Path, to be clear.

[Merkranire]

Not really in SP since it’s nonsense, but elsewhere I do because I like building my gear for roles (whether that’s to take advantage of damage types or status effects), and trying to overpower damage resistances can end up more costly in terms of free slots and capacity compared to spreading damage types across the loadout

[Aruquae]

1 minute ago, Merkranire said:

Not really in SP since it’s nonsense, but elsewhere I do because I like building my gear for roles (whether that’s to take advantage of damage types or status effects), and trying to overpower damage resistances can end up more costly in terms of free slots and capacity compared to spreading damage types across the loadout

Pretty much this, yea

If something has a heavy resistance, I'm just going to cave in and use their weakness (such as a very specific elemental combo). Most of the time I'm just too lazy to swap.

[Aldain]

I don't play the Steel Path out of spite for the number bloat, but honestly no I don't even bother with damage matching.

Magnetic is terrible because Toxin does its job better, Gas does basically nothing, Blast does basically nothing...half of the damage combinations are terrible or worse than a single element that makes them up.

[trst]

The only time it matters is when lacking access to upgrades like Galvanized mods, weapon Arcanes, better weapons, and generally lacking frame options. If someone in that state wanted to push into harder content without going through those farms then they'd benefit from modding for that faction since they'd need to squeeze out what damage they can.

[ShogunGunshow]

There's little reason to bother matching. DE really f***ed up the element system with its rework and now, it seems, they've fully ceded any plans to do another rework in the future, and have settled on just trying to make players use other elements via force of arcane procs and other incentives.

[Berzerkules]

It's kind of rough to try and match damage types across all enemies types in a mission. Like if you run a grineer mission are you building for corrosive because most grineer have ferrite armor and take +75% from that or are you taking radiation for the alloy armor bombards? Or do you take 2 different weapons to deal with each type? 

The easier solution is is to take what works against almost everything, viral/slash. Or you could armor strip everything and use whatever. Gas/electric is a potent combo when enemies have no defenses.

I pretty much only play SP and come from mmo/arpg games. I take that type caster and hack and slash type of playstyle to WF. Make every frame a caster with some sort of decent cc, mass apply status with utility primer and melee. If it ain't broke.

[Aldain]

Just now, Berzerkules said:

It's kind of rough to try and match damage types across all enemies types in a mission. Like if you run a grineer mission are you building for corrosive because most grineer have ferrite armor and take +75% from that or are you taking radiation for the alloy armor bombards? Or do you take 2 different weapons to deal with each type? 

The new Radiation mods make it so you don't have to pick between the two these days if your build can accommodate for one.

[Berzerkules]

1 minute ago, Aldain said:

The new Radiation mods make it so you don't have to pick between the two these days if your build can accommodate for one.

I really like the addition of combined element mods, I wish there were more. I use those new rad ones on utility primers, more status types for CO type mods.

[Hexerin]

3 minutes ago, Aldain said:

The new Radiation mods make it so you don't have to pick between the two these days if your build can accommodate for one.

Those secondary element mods were probably one of the biggest highlights of WitW, to be honest. I hope DE takes it further, and starts adding other secondary element mods.

[Aldain]

12 minutes ago, Berzerkules said:

I really like the addition of combined element mods, I wish there were more. I use those new rad ones on utility primers, more status types for CO type mods.

I've gotten a comical amount of mileage out of them myself, doesn't hurt that Radiation is like the 3rd best combo element (not saying much when the other half are Mag Blast and Gas...) and a soft CC, my Quellor in particular loves it because it can self-prime with Galvanized Aptitude and 6 status effects (IPS+3 others).

13 minutes ago, Hexerin said:

Those secondary element mods were probably one of the biggest highlights of WitW, to be honest. I hope DE takes it further, and starts adding other secondary element mods.

The biggest issue is that I don't see anyone purposely slotting in Blast, Magnetic or Gas unless the secondary effect is better than the damage boost, unless those elements become worth using I don't foresee those elements being as effective as the Radiation ones.

[0_The_F00l]

31 minutes ago, trst said:

The only time it matters is when lacking access to upgrades like Galvanized mods, weapon Arcanes, better weapons, and generally lacking frame options. If someone in that state wanted to push into harder content without going through those farms then they'd benefit from modding for that faction since they'd need to squeeze out what damage they can.

This is pretty much my view as well.

If you are at the point where you are just starting out steel path and don't have the tools to scale your damage then matching elements and factions would make sense.

I still remember when steel path came out and clearing it the first time required me to have at least two builds , one for grinner (viral or corrosive) and another for corpus (mostly toxin).

But after you have reached the end of that progression then a single brute force build can work.

[(PSN)Madurai-Prime]

Yes, but swapping a few mods isn't a big deal. Maybe adjust your cursor speed or learn to use the mod search function.

I simply decide of I'm fighting Corpus or Corrupted and go from there. 

With Melee Vortex I've added some magnetic to builds. 

[Xzorn]

I used to fine tune every damage/status type outside Magnetic.

Now with Enemy Defense Scaling and Status changes. It's either not worth it or there actually isn't much choice. Long ago DE also started putting armor on factions that shouldn't have it which was the beginning of the end when it came to proper faction and level based elemental loadouts.

Corpus are a good example of varied damage/status types that works before Vs Now.

Before:

• Toxic Crit - Good up to around level 350-400 depending on Crit multiplier.
• Viral Crit or Viral + Electric - Good past level 400 as enemies were 50% or more HP.
• Gas Status - Good at any level but highly dependent on status rate as to how high.
• Viral + Slash - Good until around level 500. Required at least 70% base Slash weight.
• Pure Slash + Status Duration - Good beyond level 500. Required at least 70% Slash weight and slightly different play style.

Now:

• Toxic Crit - All levels.
• Viral Slash All levels
• Electric - Cool if you can fit it.

[ominumi]

Elemental weakness hasn't been a thing for a long time. Considering how everything has some sort of defense to reduce player damage. Then there's Eidolon hunting. As well as Profit Taker. But those are special case.

[0bsi]

I'm far too lazy to switch up elements before jumping into a mission, and while I could use the loadout slots for different elements, I prefer to use them for fashionframe :P

[Tiltskillet]

Very often,  not always   I'm quite likely to customize damage  except with the most powerful loadouts.  Still do it sometimes with those.

[Raikh]

Usually what the status effects provide is much more impactful than matching resistances. Only exception are specific Boss Fights.

Some elements are just bad as they get neither good match-ups nor good statuses, some have both, some just have good statuses.

And as long as Armor scales with level something like Slash will always be dominant. It just shouldnt be a thing. Enemy Armor should be capped at reasonable levels and they should simply have more health. That alone would go a long way helping a number of elements w/o requiring Armor stripping as if it was a core game mechanic.

And I do find building elements for their effects much more fun than building around enemy resistances, so thats definitely the way to go in my book. The game just needs to level the playing field that elements become more of a playsytel choice than some being generally better than others and some being practically useless altogether.

[(PSN)Lollybomb]

I think the only time I do any kind of elemental matching is with things like eidolons or lephantis.  Basically activities where you really only care about doing damage to a single target.  Everything else is so inconsistent it's easier to just brute force the matter.

[Pakaku]

It’s not that difficult, I just flip the cold mod for a Bane mod, which results in Viral or pure Toxin.

[Xzorn]

58 minutes ago, Raikh said:

And as long as Armor scales with level something like Slash will always be dominant. It just shouldnt be a thing. Enemy Armor should be capped at reasonable levels and they should simply have more health. That alone would go a long way helping a number of elements w/o requiring Armor stripping as if it was a core game mechanic.

 

Against Armor in the new status system, Slash is only dominant because of how powerful Viral status is. In the old status system it simply wasn't.

Melting Armor and doing Base Damage + Elemental had always been superior. Players often just didn't hit enemies with high enough raw HP to see this.
Now Viral + Corrosive + Heat is often going to outscale Viral + Slash thanks to Tau +3 Emerald. This is esp true against Ferrite.

This does support your proposal that enemies should have higher scaling HP though Viral being able to amp damage intake by 325% is simply stupid.
Players used to say Viral was too strong in the old system when it was at best 90-100%. No idea what DE was thinking.

The previous status/damage system was better in literally every way.

[Slayer-.]

It's fairly simple for me I just use these, sometimes I get myself in deep but one of my guns normally does the job.

Grineer   SP = viral slash heat or corrosive heat
Corpus    SP = Straight toxin on primary with a secondary with corrosive.
Infested  SP = Gas-electric or if I'm lazy I'll leave it on corrosive heat or radiation for the ancients.
Corrupted SP = corrosive heat or whatever the gun is set to I'm lazy.

The only time I really mess around with certain configs is if I'm fighting a big Boss to help it along most of them are laughable.

_{I do use a strange setup on my Nova Prime it's a blast faction damage config with my felarx with a ranged Nova for laughs I jump into the middle of a group of SP enemies though before I land drop the molecular prime as I get close to landing I shoot one in the face and watch the whole room or corridor delete themselves with the chain reaction.}

_{I've added the new rad mod to my Tenet Plinx and that thing rocks with its secondary fire with multiple elements on it viral, magnetic, radiation and huge heat numbers along with 95.7 CC and 6.3 CM.}

[taiiat]

i'd consider Damage Types with some care if my 'main' playstyle was something else.
however, since it's already "literally rainbow Guns", i don't have to. what is the Enemy weak to? well, it's weak to some of this, here eat all of this at once and it'll get the job done.

if my main playstyle wasn't rainbow Guns or i was another Player, Et Cetera - then some amount of optimization would make sense. but not forgoing the obvious Status Effects or w/e in addition.

[Chewarette]

3 hours ago, Hexerin said:

Those secondary element mods were probably one of the biggest highlights of WitW, to be honest. I hope DE takes it further, and starts adding other secondary element mods.

I still hold the hope that one day we'll have single-element mods that don't stack with others. Like you could build your weapon for Fire+Electricity without it becoming Radiation.

It would open up other combinations that we can't even think of today

[Skoomaseller]

as long as viral remains as broken as it is there's no point in modding for anything else, unless whatever you're facing has reduced vulnerability to viral procs, have an immunity to viral procs, or is completely immune to viral as a whole. 

you can mod for other elements, sure. certain snipers/bows are kinda funny with Gas setups that exploit multiple damage modifiers (Deadhead, Target Acquired, etc) is one example, but imo outside of these interactions/weapons, it feels more like modding for flavour than effectiveness. 

Edited February 18 by Skoomaseller