after reading some guides/wiki etc i couldnt get an answer for my question:
Why should i choose a specific damage type?
Whats the difference between Cold and Fire, or Aether and Chaos? In most ARPGs these have special effects like Cold will freeze on crit etc. But in Grim Dawn i couldnt find such an interaction. So i would like to know what are the advantages and disadvantages of the different dmg types
To think this further, would it make sense to convert a Fire skill e.g. into Cold damage? If only Cold can freeze under some special conditions i would say yes. But if such a mechanic doesnt exist in Grim Dawn i would ask myself why i ever should convert dmg types?
You can take any damage type you want, but obviously your masteries should support it well (damage bonuses and resistance reduction skills)
so would it be usefull to convert a 50%fire/50%lightning+burn dmg skill with 100% ele to cold? would this result in 100%cold dmg+frostburn?
and another thing in my mind is if it makes sense to convert a aether/chaos skill with 100%aether to chaos into a pure chaos spell? if different monsters have different resistances would this result in overall more dmg against all monsters including some with aether resistances except some with chaos res ?
and to stay at resistances, is there a specific dmg type wich is strong against most monsters? like in PoE only very few monster have chaos res wich makes chaos dmg very effective against most monsters. is there something simillar in Grim Dawn?
it should convert it, whether this is useful will definitely depend on your skills and gear however
and another thing in my mind is if it makes sense to convert a aether/chaos skill with 100%aether to chaos into a pure chaos spell? if different monsters have different resistances would this result in overall more dmg against all monsters including some with aether resistances except some with chaos res ?
I don’t think anyone went through the effort of figuring out which resistance monsters / bosses have the least of. Convert the skill to match what your char already boosts, not because some mobs may or may not have less resistance on average
and to stay at resistances, is there a specific dmg type wich is strong against most monsters? like in PoE only very few monster have chaos res wich makes chaos dmg very effective against most monsters. is there something simillar in Grim Dawn?
see above, I don’t think anyone really has gone through that effort, personally I believe they are pretty evenly balanced from a resistance perspective, the decision imo should be based on your char, not the enemies
If you want to take a closer look at enemy stats, I recommend this
Like Mamba explained, it should be based on your character.
Damage types don’t have special effects, so the only reason to choose one over another is synergy. Synergy is highly important in this game, because you have a ton of stats working together (base damage, +% damage, resist reduction, conversion).
As for “a specific dmg type which is strong against most monsters”, there actually is one. Every damage type is reduced by the opponent’s resistance to that type. But physical damage also has armor added into the equation. Physical resistance is lower than other resistances to compensate for the extra protection from armor. You can take advantage of this by building an Internal Trauma build, which bypasses armor because it’s a DoT.
One caveat though - every optimized DoT build will still have a good portion of its damage coming from the related flat damage (poison -> acid, frostburn -> cold, etc.), so there’s really no such thing as a “pure DoT build”. The only exception to this is Bleeding damage, since it has no flat damage counterpart.
Also I think pierce resist might be lower across the board, but that’s more because pierce is not intented by the devs to be a solitary damage source. Just take a look at any pierce gear and you’ll see that the pierce bonus is always less than the other type’s bonus.
Beware of internal trauma. It sounds broken when you hear about it’s mechanics but it’s balanced by the fact that its item support is shit. There’s Octavius but that’s just one endgame set so you won’t be using it until you farmed the whole thing. Also as good as Octavius is, trauma forcewave still isn’t as great as it sounds cause forcewave is a shit trauma skill by default that is just elevated to good status by the set. I’m not saying Octavius is bad, just that it’s not as good as it might seem on the first look (I really though trauma is broken when I learned about the armor bypass thing).
In short, you should pick a damage type because being focused is far better and easier to choose gear and such for than being spread out.
For example, let’s say you have two characters, each with 3 attacks and gear that can give 60 resist reduction and +2100% to damage. Character 1 has 3 fire attacks, character 2 has 1 fire attack, 1 aether attack, and 1 chaos attack. Who do you think is going to have an easier time of things?
You aren’t going to get +2100% damage and 60 RR for all three damage types and if you try to support 3+ types evenly, you’re going to reduce each type’s support accordingly; that was the point of picking those types. You can pick any two of them and probably be pretty okay, but once you add in that third you’re either doing barely anything with it or weakening your other types to boost it (which weakens your build).
