Question about elemental damage

Anyone know exactly how elemental damage works?

The game mechanics guide here:

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/content...nics-id674.php

... is very informative but only hints at elemental damage.

My conclusion from reading around is it works the same as physical damage unless there are special mods on the armor.

So if you hit with an axe that does fire damage against someone with regular AL60 armor, it does the exact same damage as if you used a regular axe. The only time a fire axe is "better" is if the target is vulnerable to fire, or has extra armor against physical. You don't see that too often.

I know there are complications for rangers using various skills, but from a warrior's standpoint, elemental damage doesn't seem very useful, unless it's cold damage which I believe interrupts casters. I don't think you can get a cold haft or string though or everyone would have one (?).

So what about staff and wand damage? Since they have to fly out and hit a target like arrows do, I assume they are applied against armor in the same way. But since they are really spells on a stick, I assume chaos and shadow damage goes through armor in the same way as the spell does. That should make them more effective than fire/air/earth. I haven't seen a difference myself, though.

Thoughts / clarification?

Elemental dmg works exactly the same as physical dmg. Some people have more protection against it than others, for example, ranger armor protects better against elemental than physical and warriors are the other way around. Cold dmg will not inherently interrupt a caster, but if you cast spinal shivers on them (necro spell) and then hit them with cold dmg, that will cause an interrupt. Certain spells that effect and/or are triggered by certain types of dmg will have a greater or reduced effect. For example, OotV and OoP both trigger on physical dmg, elemental will cause both those spells to be useless. Staff/Wand dmg are the type listed on the weapon. Chaos/Shadow/Holy/Light dmg ignore armor bonuses vs specific dmg types as they aren't classified as elemental or physical and go with the base armor level. So in actual fact you have 3 type of dmg

Physical (pierce,slash,blunt), Elemental (fiery,icy,shocking,ebon) and Other (holy,chaos,shadow,light). Just because a spell says it ignores armor, doesn't mean that a weapon that does the same type of dmg also ignores armor. Weapons cannot be upgraded to the Other category, they simply are or aren't. Mods such as Vampiric, Furious, Sundering, Zealous, Barbed, etc also count as physical dmg of the type that the weapon does, piercing for a bow and certain axes, slash for most axes and swords, and Blunt for hammers.

Very interesting... so:

- according to the damage mechanics thingie I posted above, all damage is 100% when attacking AL=60, higher against AL < 60, and lower against AL > 60
- for Elemental damage, armor bonus vs. Physical or any other type of elemental damage is irrelevant (i.e. you are only going through the base armor)
- damage considered as Other (holy, chaos, shadow, light) ignores all armor and does the listed damage always
- weapons that do Other damage still have to go through armor (assumed to be base armor?) -- but I haven't seen any bonuses against them so that's one advantage
- any necros using Order of the Vampire and Order of Pain need to tell their warriors to pull out physical damage weapons, and unfortunately wands/staves will never make use of these spells
- for Elemental damage, cold damage is more desirable for the possibility of interrupts (use a death or water staff/wand)

I assume flying spells like flare and ice spikes have to go through armor so damage is increased for AL > 60 and increased for AL < 60. That makes DD spells from necros, monks, and mesmers better for targets with AL > 60 and worse for targets with AL < 60.

Have any eles noticed higher damage from flares against lower level targets? I don't have a high enough ele to tell. Compared to Other damage, Physical and Elemental damage would better for farming low levels but worse for against high level targets.

How about Elemental DoTs (firestorms and volcanoes etc.)? Do they have to go through armor? I assume so... which makes DoTs like phantasm and life siphon more attractive against well armored targets.

-There are no shadow damage weapon.
-shadow damage from necromancer spell go through armor.
-Holy damage does not go through armor by default, only skills from smiting line does. ex: judge's insight does not make you armor ignoring.
-chaos dmg from wand have to through armor.
-no one know if mesemer damage are really chaos (it does not say so), however it ignore armor.
-to interrupt with cold damage, you must use either mael storm or spinal shiver.
-you can use winter to turn all elemental dmg to cold.

This is probably not new but: necro interrupter build -- spinal shivers plus cold damage staff. Just sit there plunking away at the monk for endless interrupts.

It doesn't matter if target has tons of armor and absorption, even if you do no damage you still apply cold effect, right?

Yes As Far As I Know