What Element is Best?

[Darizuka]

What Element would you prefer to use and find it the most useful element to use in almost every situation?

[Carnage2K4]

I think Gas is the best 'all-round' element to my understanding, but then each faction has a specific element they are susceptible to.

[Bouldershoulder]

Slash

[saltygr33n]

I really like using Corrosive all-round, but I think radiation is very useful in every situation.

[Duavey]

Corrosive. Armor strip, decent against most factions.

Corrosive + Cold combo is good for just about everything.

[PeachyPurpleNova]

There is no definitive best as that would defeat the purpose of having varied damage types, but corrosive tends be a popular one.

You can view this wikia page for comprehensive information on elemental types. If you scroll down there is a nice overview table to easily see the pros and cons of each element.

[FierceRadiance]

The element of surprise.

(C'mon, the line was just sitting there. Somebody had to say it...!)

[RealisticName]

Platinum 

[kaliazane]

Wind

[Carnage2K4]

1 minute ago, ViS4GE said:

Wind

Water!

[Cranial_Enigma]

Until armor is changed corrosive is the best, unless you are running 4 CPs in your squad, then slash becomes the best.

But as others have said each faction has weaknesses and strengths against elements. Corrosive/Blast covers 90% of the enemies in the game last time I checked, slash is the best when there is no armor, and then Gas is freaking broken on stealth melee builds. So check out the wiki, look at the armor table and see what you can make work.

Personally I like corrosive/blast the best due to armor shredding and the ability to soft CC enemies with a decent status chance.

 

[AerinSol]

8 minutes ago, Carnage2K4 said:

Water!

Earth.

Hydroid to one button strip all armor over a wide area. So gas or toxin. Mostly the same. Just I like toxin more.

[Music4Therapy]

Here is a summary:

First off, how status is applied:

Let's say a weapon has a 20% status chance and 75 Electric damage and 25 Blast damage. 20% of the time you will proc a status effect, and 75% of the time you will proc Electric and 25% you will proc Blast. This results in a 5% chance to proc blast on hit, essentially.

I/P/S is 4x more likely to proc. FE: If a weapon has 200 slash damage and 200 viral damage, that 200 slash is calculated as 800 slash, resulting in an 80% chance to proc slash and a 20% to proc viral.

 

That said, here is a short guide:

Damage-

Gas and Slash are the go to damage statuses due to the fact they are stackable and scale with crit. If you are using a Slash weapon, it is best paired with Viral to double the effectiveness of your attacks and slash procs or Cold/LastingSting because slowing effects raise the duration of status effects proportionally. If you are using a non-slash weapon, gas is a must for dealing damage. Slash is typically preferred due to the fact bleeds ignore armor as they deal finisher damage.

Utility- a TL;DR version

Radiation- Turns enemies against each other. This is great when applied against enemies with auras. FE: Ancients will no longer provide damage resistance to allies.

Fire/Electric - Basically stuns.

Blast- AoE knockdown.

Corrosive- Armor stripping. A weapon that can quickly apply many of these procs is very useful. I wouldn't place corrosive on a melee due to the fact it'd take way too many hits to actually strip a target of armor, you'd be better off with building for gas or slash/viral due to the amazing crit scaling melees have.

Cold- Slows enemies, raises duration of other status effects.

Magnetic- Why use magnetic when Gas and Slash procs, your primary source of status damage, ignores shielding all together?

Edited April 25, 2017 by Music4Therapy

[FierceRadiance]

9 minutes ago, ViS4GE said:

Wind

"You -SHALL NOT- PAAAASS!!!!"

(Again, the line was there, I was there, we were there together...)

[AerinSol]

1 minute ago, FierceRadiance said:

"You -SHALL NOT- PAAAASS!!!!"

(Again, the line was there, I was there, we were there together...)

^_fire

[Carnage2K4]

4 minutes ago, AerinSol said:

^_fire

[Baterial]

Viral coz cutting half of enemy's hp is very usefull

[Dwolfknight]

For the status proc itself

Corrosive for rapid fire weapons.
Radiation/Blast for slow fire weapons.
Gas for high crit/high damage weapons.
Viral can have a place in all types of weapons.
Magnetic is sh*t(unless it's for PVP then it's great).

Cold Electricity Fire and Toxin can go in almost all weapons.

Edited April 25, 2017 by Dwolfknight
profanity filter makes it look worse than it is

[Xekrin]

44 minutes ago, Cranial_Enigma said:

slash is the best when there is no armor

I think you mean slash is best regardless of armor since it bypasses it completely.  Though technically slash isn't an element, its physical.

Gas is best when there is no armor as it will quickly eat away any enemy's health if their armor isn't an issue.  But then I'm completely biased as I use Saryn 90% of the time.  Well, its really toxin that does the work, gas just spreads it about better.

Corrosive Torid is best of both worlds (innate toxin proc)

[(XBOX)Graysmog]

It really depends on the situation, yet I really only find myself using Gas, Viral, Radiation, Blast and Corrosive most of the time. Out of all of them, Corrosive is by far the most useful in general play, yet the others are quite powerful depending on the enemy you're fighting. Gas is great for Stealth Warframes, Viral murders enemies without protections, Radiation is essentially extra damage with CC, the list goes on.

I guess the only useless Element I've ever used is Magnetic. Especially since Toxin and Gas do it's job, but far better.

Edited April 25, 2017 by (XB1)Graysmog

[(XBOX)Graysmog]

9 minutes ago, Xekrin said:

I think you mean slash is best regardless of armor since it bypasses it completely.  Though technically slash isn't an element, its physical.

Gas is best when there is no armor as it will quickly eat away any enemy's health if their armor isn't an issue.  But then I'm completely biased as I use Saryn 90% of the time.  Well, its really toxin that does the work, gas just spreads it about better.

Corrosive Torid is best of both worlds (innate toxin proc)

The only problem with Gas is that it somewhat relies on unaware enemies a lot of the time to truly get the most out of it. That's typically why I prefer Viral myself, but I can't deny both are insanely effective when enemies have no shields or armor.

[SilvaDreams]

Technically speaking Gas is the best as when it procs it makes a gas cloud that can hit multiple enemies, but while in that cloud of gas the enemies are taking constant Toxin procs which can stacks (unlike Slash which just refreshes the timer for the dot) and directly hits HP depending on the original gas clouds damage.

This is why as Gas/Electric Lanka is one of the highest damage per shot guns in the game

[Slaviar]

There is no 'best' elemental as their usability differs against factions and build (status/damage).

Gas is great status vs Corpus but is one of the worst against Infested because toxic ancients make other units resistant to it.

Corrosive is almost useless vs Corpus but is best proc vs Grineer and best dmg type against Infested.

Viral is best dmg against Grineer with no armor and is good vs shieldless Corpus but suck against Infested.

Same with radiation, it's just better against robots than humanoids. Would be best status vs Infested if it was not for dmg penalty.

Blast is in my opinion rather weak. Sure, it deals extra dmg to fossilized infested and has CC but deals less dmg to ferrite armor and infested are resistant to status builds thanks to ancient healers.

Magnetic is probably the worst elemental. Why would you damage shields when you can bypass them?

Toxin ignores shields and deals extra dmg to flesh so it's best vs Corpus. But is worst dmg against Infested.

Cold is... ok, I guess. I usually use it on status build vs Grineer to deal extra dmg to alloy armor.

Electricity is good versus shieldless robots and has some AoE dmg and CC so I often use it on status buils vs Corpus.

Heat is best dmg against light Infested and second beat against unarmored Grineer.

[Mover-NeRo]

I usually go with combination of COROSIVE + HEAT. 

Might be weaker against Corpus but its ok since they don't have much HP and armor.(except few units)

[(PSN)Radehx]

I love the corrosive, gas, toxic and viral combo...and Saryn allows me to have all of that at once for a long period. I get corrosive/gas through my weapon, and the toxic/viral combo through Saryn's abilities. Strips armor and steals 50% of health from enemies. 

On top of that, the Atterax tops it off by providing amazing slash damage.

In short, covered against most enemies. :)