Types of Damage

What is the best form of damage for your weapon to use? Does it depend on what you're fighting or are some forms of damage just superior. eg Is Lightning better than earth, is cold better than dark, etc. etc.

There's probably a chart of this somewhere but I've been unable to find it.

TIA

Hell if I know

Some monsters are weak against certain types of damage, yes. I think shadow damage is quite unnavoidable, as it is armor-ignoring. Life stealing can bypass nearly everything though, even skills that reduce damage wont reduce life stealing (apart from lich aura, but i'm not sure, i've never tested this).

The strongest type of damage is life stealing if you look at it in that context. Of course, you can acheive craploads more of damage with a sword than with a life stealing spell. So I guess it balances out.

i would say holy damage is best. no proffessions have armor against it and some necromancers are even weaker against it. plus undead take 2X dmg from it.

I think the OP is asking about weapon dmg. I don't think there are any weapon mods that do holy dmg. Although I agree that holy dmg is pretty nice.

As far as weapon mods go, I've read in this forum that earth dmg (ebon) does the most dmg.

Damage types do not inherently affect the amount of damage you do.

It's the same thing with Shadow and Holy damage. I'm not sure if there are any holy damage weapons, but with shadow at least (I think shadow weaps exist), the damage from the weapon does not ignore armor. It's just that the SKILLS that deal this type of damage ignore armor.

The only difference in damage you would see is if the enemy has different levels of AL against different types of damage. For instance, the most common Warrior armor has +20 AL to physical, so Earth damage would deal more than Blunt in that situation. Rangers have +30 to Elemental, so Blunt would deal more than Earth in that situation.

It's all situational.

For weapons it's Dark/Light damage, for skills it's Shadow/Holy (gawd get some marbles).

In PvP, elemental damage is best against warriors, I would strongly suggest using it against them in spikes in a HA or GvG. For other professions your spiking against, if your not entirely sure what armor their wearing, simply go with a Life Stealing mod.

(Never use elemental damage weapons against Rangers)

Someone posted something almost exactly like this a few days ago. Heres what I contributed.

Fiery: Pros - Good for prophecies (i think), look cool (FDS, i mean, you can't tell for other weapons), Elementalist spells like Mark Of Rodgort own with fire weps.
Cons - Most Elementalists + some Rangers have pyromancer/the ranger one (drakeskale?) so the damage is reduced.

Icy: Pros - 15k can get you a nice perfect, cool looking IDS, Spinal Shivers Necromancers will allow you to interrupt really fast, Not many Elementalists/Rangers have Hydromancers armor/the Ranger equivalent (frostbound/fur-lined?).
Cons - Um... ... ... Ah! They're not as useful in the Southern Shiverpeaks.

Ebon: Pros - No one likes (or really apprieciates) Ebon weapons, because Fire is so much more 'leet', and this makes them slightly cheaper, less Elementalists have Geomancers armor, and I don't think there is a Ranger armor specific to preventing earth damage (Although they still have a large boost to elemental damage in general)
Cons - Not many things are weak against it.

Shocking: Pros - Glimmering mark/thunderclap is good with shocking weapons, avicara (they're a big pain in the ---) are weak against it.
Cons - Many Elementalists have aeromancers armor, and Rangers have the eqivalent (studded leather?)