I apologize for this post...

[M113k7262]

What is the most useful/most powerful magic element? I'm trying to decide which one (Fire, Cold, etc.) I should switch my alchemist to. Poison doen't seem to work that well.
Thanks!
Take Care, be wll and stay safe!

[Buddha5440]

No need to apologize, it's a good question and you will likely get many answers and explanations.

I don't often play casters (my main is an elf AA regardless of class and has never used a melee weapon or cast much except heal/buff spells) but I always go with cold/force for my imbues.

If you haven't yet, check out the Monster DR and weaknesses page on the wiki (it's a bit outdated but still quite useful).

[ShifterThePirate]

I think fire and cold resist/immunity on monsters are the most common... Especially on lower level quests. So probably the other options.

[HungarianRhapsody]

What is the most useful/most powerful magic element? I'm trying to decide which one (Fire, Cold, etc.) I should switch my alchemist to. Poison doen't seem to work that well.
Thanks!
Take Care, be wll and stay safe!

The most powerful element is wonderflonium.

[Tsutti]

What is the most useful/most powerful magic element? I'm trying to decide which one (Fire, Cold, etc.) I should switch my alchemist to. Poison doen't seem to work that well.
Thanks!
Take Care, be wll and stay safe!

People pretty much do fire everything, if you're at cap it really doesn't matter except that it's about what you can most easily get spellpower for--all (except poison I think?) can essentially give you sorc capstone and druid lvl 9 spell (lvl 13 druid might be affected by it when swapping to ele form tho) at lvl 12 with bombardier T5 that lets you make everything you touch with your chosen element vulnerable to dmg from it. Not vulnerability increased dmg, just lets you hurt it. For poison immunity debuff I think you'd have to go grab a couple things in vile chemist but that's not terrible to have to do, and going main poison isn't bad at cap because then you can use silverthread belt if you want more spellpower, which also gives you better heals.

If you're playing heroic alch, I'd guess either elec or acid would be best at low levels because undead are immune to poison and sometimes cold, gray oozes are immune to fire, some sort of ooze (forget which, probably also gray oozes because they're annoying like that) is immune to cold. Between elec and acid I'd opt acid for sure to deal with trolls super easily. If you're tiefling go fire since fire gets bonus dmg against a lot of things and is probably better later than acid, just have to get scorch SLA and improved scorch asap from tiefling and you should be good to go. As tiefling fire is also best early because once you get improved scorch it has the least things that are immune (ie literally nothing is immune, pretty sure even the pillars in the vault of night are made vulnerable to elements with element immunity stripping but I may be wrong about that one).

[HungarianRhapsody]

If you do raids, also consider that whatever element you pick will remove that elemental immunity from the raid boss.

If you pick an element that many other melee players are using and no one else in the raid is removing that elemental immunity, then you are going to give a significant boost to the whole party because you're doing your damage AND you're adding all of that elemental damage from the party back in to the DPS.

If you don't do raids, that doesn't matter much. If you do raids, that's potentially a point in Poison's favor if there are raid bosses immune to poison. Are there bosses immune to poison? The rules for poison are so complicated that I really don't know.

[SirValentine]

There's multiple reasons to pick one element over another.

If you take Scion of Earth Legendary Feat (for the +4 Conjuration DCs) you also get extra Acid spell power. If you have Deep Gnome Past Life Feats, those also can give you extra Acid spell power.

Certain races may have benefits to particular elements. (E.g., Tiefling+Fire.)

If you one of the damage+CC spells extensively, it may be useful to pick the matching element to maximize your benefit. E.g., Vein Freeze + Cold.

If you already have gear for one element, just using that may be more efficient than trying to farm up new gear.

But for the most part, any element will work fine after you get the T5 immunity-stripping at level 12.

[Enoach]

I personally like Acid - but that may be because of the innate bonuses I've already achieved with past lives

Fire is very popular, for the first 10 levels most things are not immune (there are exceptions such as fire elementals etc.). Mid to higher you do run into more creatures that are immune or very resistant. But we do have access to abilities that allow the ability to bypass some of this.

Cold is usually chosen more for its CC abilities then damage, at low levels and then again later it can be a good powerhouse.

Keep in mind that there are undead creatures that are immune to cold such as Skeletons which are common undead in low level quests

Lightning damage is under utilized in my opinion, but it can be rather powerful.

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I would say the best element is the one you can gear the best for - Both Spell Power, Critical and even DCs.

[cdbd3rd]

I have a preference for Lightning - but that's likely the Artificer in my head speaking.

__________________________

When I clicked on the thread, I was totally expecting to see this:

[Buddha5440]

I have a preference for Lightning - but that's likely the Artificer in my head speaking.

__________________________

When I clicked on the thread, I was totally expecting to see this:

That's not a post... THAT'S a post Ok, yes it's a caber but I couldn't resist.

[cdbd3rd]

That's not a post... THAT'S a post Ok, yes it's a caber but I couldn't resist.

Good on ya.