So I’m currently sitting in an airport waiting for a delayed flight home and have been doing some scouring of the Grim Dawn forums. I’m looking to experiment with my own builds and I was reading that people consider aether and cold damage to be “the weakest”. I was just wondering how true this may be and what people would rank the other damage types like chaos and vit etc.
Feel free to share you opinion as much as you like. I won’t be home any time soon…
Depends entirely on when you consider something more powerful. 100 aether damage deals as much damage as 100 chaos damage.
There are a range of things which could be relevant though:
Physical damage is very common, and there are many skills which deal it. As such it is ‘easy’, which you might interpret as ‘good’ or ‘better’ if you are so inclined. However, afaik, it is also a common resist on monsters.
I really do not think there is an useful answer to your question, other than becoming more familiar with the type of things I mentioned above.
You’re reply was very useful 
i was just curious as it was the first time I read something saying that a particular damage type was “weak”. I’m not knowlage able enough about particular items and skills to really judge how easy it is to reduce the the resistance of each type however. Will something I will pick up as I go im sure.
Ranking damage types is a fairly complex endeavor, but… I would rank them as following.
Tie for 2. Pierce. Again, pretty strong throughout the game, not usually resisted in great amounts by most enemies AFAIK. Fair amount of skills that deal it or augment it, though these skills are mostly only found in 3 masteries (A little in Demo, a little in Soldier and a lot in Nightblade) at the moment. Decent resist-shred options, though not quite as many as physical/IT. Decent support from itemization, though I personally think it could use a little more. Relies heavily on conversion as no weapon in the game actually deals straight-up pierce damage to my knowledge, but conversion from phys to pierce is generally very plentiful via armor piercing on weapons and a certain constellation (though the Internal Trauma tied to Phys will NOT convert to anything Pierce-related).
Tie for 2. Bleed. Strong throughout the game EXCEPT when dealing with Undead-archetype mobs. Good selection of skills that deal it from multiple masteries. Good resist-shred options, arguably Bleed is nearly as well off as Phys/IT on this front. Okay support from itemization, could probably use more. Does not use conversion at all, as there are no ways to convert to Bleed. (I personally think Crate should condense Pierce and Bleed to share the same base damage type, one being the “standard” damage and the other being the “DoT” damage. Certain skills and devotions would need a slight rework, but I think this is entirely doable and even recommendable for Crate to consider for the future)
Acid/Poison. Strong throughout the game with the exception of very particular mobs. Good resist-shred options. Decent selection of skills that deal it or boost it, though these skills are concentrated within only 2 of the 6 current masteries. Good support from itemization. Good-to-outright-fantastic support from devotions. Conversion doesn’t seem to be quite as plentiful for Acid/Poison as it is for some other damage types, but it’s still there in decent amounts.
Lightning/Electrocute. Pretty strong throughout the game (the only enemies I know of that resist Lightning in great amounts are Mogdrogen, Valdaran and I believe the Gazer/Overseer enemies - Gazers are pushovers anyway). Decent resist-shred options. Skill support is… ok, as Shaman, to a lesser extent Demo and to an even lesser extent Arcanist all offer options for this damage type. Good devotion support, albeit not amazing. Fairly decent but not fantastic support from itemization (more is certainly welcome). Conversion is reasonably plentiful for Lightning/Electrocute.
Fire/Burn. Pretty strong in most places, runs into mild-to-severe resist issues with certain mobs (it’s a pretty safe bet that if they look like they’re on fire, if they have “fiery” words in their name somewhere, or if they’re certain Chthonic mobs, they will resist fire at least somewhat). Decent resist-shred options, not quite as strong as Lightning but close for RR. Skill support is decent, probably slightly better than Lightning but not much. Great devotion support. Very good itemization support. Conversion is very plentiful.
Tie for 6. Vitality/Vitality Decay. Strong throughout MOST of the game, though it runs into issues with certain Chthonics who are outright immune to it without a resist shred. Okay resist shred options, but not great (chiefly because there are no devotion skill resist shreds that target Vitality resist in particular at the moment, meaning if you go Vit damage you had better have Shaman, Occultist or both in your class combo). Itemization support is a little lacking. Skill support is… ok. Devotion support is again, just ok (and not great). Conversion is not very plentiful.
Tie for 6. Chaos. Strong throughout most of the early to mid-game, though getting it at those points in time is not the easiest thing to do. Runs into a lot of enemies that resist it to varying degrees in later game (Chthonics and Bloodsworn). Very so-so for resist shred options. Skill support is somewhat limited, more so than Vitality. Devotion support actually seems better than Vitality. Itemization support seems better than it is for Vitality. Conversion is seemingly slightly more plentiful (could be wrong about this) than it is for Vitality, with one caveat: Chaos has no DoT component, so if you’re converting Physical to Chaos, any Internal Trauma damage you do will remain unconverted.
Cold/Frostburn. Runs into resist issues throughout the game, save for perhaps the final act. Has alright-but-not-great resist shred options, and is notably inferior to the other 2 Elemental damage types here. Skill support is decent. Devotion support is fairly poor. Itemization support is alright. Conversion support is reasonably plentiful.
Aether. Will encounter mild-to-moderate resist issues throughout the game (anywhere there are substantial amounts of Aetherials/Aether Corruptions), but is rarely resisted in any substantial amount outside of those enemy types. Has precious few resist shred options. Skill support is very limited, found pretty much only within the Arcanist mastery, but decent within that mastery. Devotion support is middling. Itemization support is so-so. Conversion support is somewhat limited and it runs into the same issue that Chaos does, as Aether also lacks a DoT component to convert to.
There are certain other “damage types” that I didn’t include in this list: Life Leech and Life Reduction, namely. I had no idea where to put them.
EDIT: I will say that life reduction is utterly useless against bosses. Life leech is, I believe, highly resisted by boss enemies, but they aren’t completely immune to it like they are with life reduction.
-Mostly correct just need to correct you on the devotion part, devotion support is actually very good, skill support is decent but is limited compared to its counterparts (both for melee and casters) and itemization support is like you said alright, honestly we need more cold items though i’m getting tired of having to use Frostdread chestguard
-Agreed on your points regarding aether and chaos, even amongst those aether is the worst one.
-Not really experienced with Vitality so no comments
-As for Bleeding, those Obsidian things in the rifts also resist it
From 1.0.0.6
1.0.0.7 wouldn’t have changed it too much, although Aether is maybe better than Lightning now.
Just got off the plane that FINALLY ARRIVED. You guys have given some good points and arguments. Thank you very much.
If life reduction and life leech don’t work on bosses, are skills which do that not really worth investing in?
it does make me a little sad to see Chaos that low on the list. I was thinking of doing a chaos build next, and I still will. I wont let this list win! Still I thought it would be closer to the top than the bottom. I guess at the end of the game all of the enemies have high chaos resist.
In regards to life reduction: The skills I can think of off the top of my head that deal in Life Reduction also do other useful things. Execution does a lot of damage besides the life reduction, War Cry debuffs incoming damage a goodly amount, and Bloody Pox is… honestly it would probably be complete crap if it weren’t for the Wasting modifier (and arguably the Fevered Rage transmuter, though that’s kind of playing with fire in light of the recent OA tweak).
Chaos is still viable (it works well for Crucible), it’s just that you really need to invest in appropriate resist reduction for it and anticipate having a harder time with Chthonics and Bloodsworn. (Either that, or hybridize with another damage type.)
and just to add, Ceno’s reply for my query regarding ranged play (1.0.0.6) is:
- Vitality
- Pierce
- Physical
- Aether
- Chaos
- Acid
- Bleed
- Fire
- Lightning
- Elemental
- Cold
- Life Leech
The trouble with Chaos is that it is very difficult to effectively hybridize the damage type with others. There’s so much very high Conversion into or out of Chaos that if you build it up, it’s likely to be the sole damage type you deal, and if you try not to focus on it…well, it won’t be a noticeable part of your build. So when you do solely focus on it, and you run into any of the myriad of enemies with high Chaos resist, it becomes really shitty to play with.
It doesn’t help that there’s not a whole lot of -Chaos Resist in the game.
I’ve been able to make it hybridize (somewhat) with Fire, but usually the Fire damage ends up being the primary source of damage and Chaos ends up playing second fiddle. Still runs into trouble with Chthonics, as does a Chaos/Vit hybridization.
sorry for bumping this old thread, but I was curious if this information is still overall accurate since the release of the expansion? Thanks
I’m not going to make a list since most of what was true before still is today. But a few notable things AoM did:
pierce support in inquisitor hasn’t hurt the potential of pierce builds, to say the least
similar effect on elemental
necromancer has boosted vitality and acid a bit, though those didn’t really need much help
chaos and to a lesser extent aether are still weak
How about bleed?
Bleed is really good for builds with Shaman, I have a bleed Warder and have noticed many new items that support him, not least of which is the new lvl 90 shaman relic.
I would like to mention that aether is in a much better spot today than it was pre-aom, necromancer has good support for it and the new krieg’s set is pretty nice (and very easy to farm). In fact, I had abandoned my battlemage at 82 but decided to level him up now, and I’m having a lot more fun on him than I expected.
For caster a good choice is spellbinder, and for melee you want death knight or battlemage.
I’ve tried really pushing hard on pierce in a couple of inquisitor builds, and every time it ends up being much stronger in elemental. As in like double the elemental % typically, though with the infiltrator I think that will even out a bit when/if I finish out my deathmarked build.
Yeah, but i was wondering if anything changes with AoM. Im thinking about resistant mobs and stuff.
Undead are still 100% resistant. Not sure about the wendigos and cannibals but I imagine they have at least some resistance, maybe a lot. Have never made a bleed build, can’t say.
You should always have RR anyway. A build without RR is just asking to get stonewalled by the wrong kind of mob. Bleed still feels pretty strong so far on my new warder, but I’ve yet to get into AoM content.
With enough RR, everything bleeds. 