Hi guys,
A weapon with % elemental damage (heat, plaque, cold, etc.) what is better to use? a gem of the same elemental damage or use a spike gem to boost the physical damage of the weapon?
Thanks in advance.
If a stone of fire damage and others is inserted into a staff, then it will be more important than inserting a physical damage stone into it, accordingly, it is better to insert a physical damage stone into a weapon such as an oven, a knife, and others into a staff 
@Diman I cannot really follow here… would you be so kind and rephrase that?
The man asked that if he uses a staff with ice, lightning or, for example, fire, then which stones are better to insert, those that cause additional damage, the same elements, such as the thorn stone, which causes additional damage from 4-15% in addition to physical damage, or a stone that causes, for example, additional 4-15% damage from pestilence
Thanks.
But I still am not sure if I got it.
Are you saying if you have native elemental components on a weapon, or an enchantment that does this. It is better to give that weapon the same elemental stone to boost that further?
If yes, why?
Are different elemental components canceled out? I know for the visual effect that only one is active, i.e. if you give a sword with fire dmg (red glow) a cold stone, the visual effect is for cold dmg afterwards (blueish). But is the dmg not added?
e.g. for a
Staff 50 dmg with 2 fire dmg + 10% cold gem →
= 50 dmg + 2 fire dmg + 5 cold dmg
or is it instead
= 50 dmg + 5 cold dmg
And why would that be better than a spike gem with 10% normal dmg instead of 10% cold dmg?
To me the description of the gems sounds pretty identical, unless that the dmg type is different.
I would expect that the only difference between normal, fire, cold,… is the status effects that you impose, i.e. stun, burning, freeze,…
As I understood it
If the damage of the weapon is more physical, then it would probably be wiser to strengthen the physical attack, since it can be lubricated with the same lubricant of fire, ice, pestilence or electricity, if there are already some charms in the properties of the weapon, then additional reinforcement with crystals with the same charms may enhance, but the question is from what kind of damage % gain. In fact, you can put a spike in the staff, and it will hit harder, but since the staff is still more magic, it will probably be wiser to strengthen it again with those charms that are already embedded in it, since two types of charms will not work at the same time, as I noticed, and you they emphasized it correctly.
Note again, if the weapon is enchanted, for example, with additional fire damage, then this same percentage of damage is taken from the total physical damage, or from the attack damage as a whole, but if you insert the same stone to enhance the same fire, then these same +10% is not entirely clear from what damage they are taken, from that enhanced first or from the same damage as the first gain is taken, the math is too complicated here, in fact, you can turn on the damage by fifras in the game and test, see what damage will be in certain gain builds, it seems to me that this is the only way to check, I just didn’t bother with it. 
Ok i did some research:
I bought a claymore with 10 base dmg (strength bonus is 19 → total dmg 29) The enemies are different.
This got enchanted with +21% lightning
physic.: 21,22,25,27,29,25,23,22,24,27,25,19,20,22,19,21,22,19
lightn. : 6 , 6 , 6 , 6 , 7 , 6 , 6 , 6 , 6 , 6 , 6 , 6, 6 , 7 , 6 , 6 , 7 , 6
note that the “7” only came with the 3rd (swing) attack, always.
Then I gemmed it with a spike with 6% physical dmg → it now displays 11 as “basis” and a strength bonus of 19 and “other” of 2
(total dmg 31)
physic.: 29,31,26,19,24,27,23
lightn. : 7 , 7 , 6 , 6 , 6 , 7 , 6
Things I noted:
- the elemental component is always the same for the same hit type. For the claymore, the 3rd attack (swing) does 7 elemental, the others 6.
- it also appears that if multiple enemies are hit by the same hit, the dmg roll is identical. (unless different enemy types … maybe by armor) (see picture)
- the elemental component appears to not be bound to the “inflicted” damage, but the base damage apparently.
- some enemies have higher elemental resistance. That is the fireball wraths for example (see picture)
To sum up… i dont think that the spike had an effect on the lightning dmg.
21% * 29 = 6.09 → round 6, while 21% * 31 = 6.51 → round 7. Also the “more” damage from the spike was counted as “other” in the character overview, so i think this is separate.
Addon:
I also enchanted a second claymore (again base 10) and it got 11% shock dmg. Then I gemmed it with a fire gem (12%) and that apparently overwrote the 11% lightning entirely.
And I enchanted a third claymore (again base 10) and it got 15% fire dmg. Then I gemmed it with a fire gem (7%), so the fire would be 22% total and that increased the fire dmg from 4-5 (before) to 6-7 (after).
So this works.
→ If you have elemental damage on your weapon, put only a gem of the same element to it!!!
2 Likes
It depends on what you want to do with the weapon/runes.
In all cases +damage will work and stack with everything.
If a weapon already has an elemental enchantment, then it only stacks with the same element gem. This bonus elemental damage will be also added to rune attacks, but only if the run deals physical damage. So a Frost Dash rune will not benefit from any elemental boni, even cold; while Spin rune will.
In general, enemies tend to take more damage from elemental attacks than from physical.
The rest is up to you to decide.
So based on the experiment, this is not the case!!!
There is only one element type! Mixing does not work!
Link to related bug report: Enchantments and gems
1 Like
In your test you work with too small numbers to notice the damage boost.
Did a test as well with this weapom:
I used charged attacks to further increase the possible damage. The cold portion went from 20 to 21 after I infused the gem.
Thanks all for your answers. I also made this Question to a Youtube channel that makes builds for the game and this is his answer.
My Question:
Let’s say my daggers have + 20% lightning damage what is the best gem to add on it? Add a lightning gem or add the spike gem to boost the physical damage of the weapon. My playstyle is a mix of normal attacks and focus attacks.
His answer:
The spike will increase your basic attack damage as well as your rune damage. If you use a lightning gem it will only give damage to your basic attack NOT the rune skills. So my recommendation is to go with the damage increase gem, the spike one.
Science is strong here apparently
Did someone specifically test out if elemental gems and enchantmenst not affect rune dmg? Can we take that for granted?
You can verify it for yourself; buy a sword from the smith, put a gem in it, perform a rune attack on an enemy.
Jep, thats the point… did someone do it?
Yes, I did it, thus I write that gems do increase rune attack damage.
1 Like
Ok, now as a summary:
Spike Gem:
- increases base damage by % of (weapon base+attribute bonus)
- thereby increases standard attacks
- thereby increases physical rune attacks
- thereby increases elemental standard attacks indirectly (only minor improvement, but still)
- thereby increases elemental rune attacks indirectly (only minor improvement, but still)
Sources: What weapon gem to use - #11 by _Hattori & What weapon gem to use - #8 by ShortCat
Elemental Gem:
- can not be mixed with other elements
- increases elemental damage by % of base damage, not “dealt” dmg, so enemy armour is irrelevant for elemental dmg
- stacks with other identical elemental damage (e.g. enchantments)
- increases physical rune attacks
- not increases elemental rune attacks
Sources: Enchantments and gems & What weapon gem to use - #8 by ShortCat & What weapon gem to use - #7 by anonymous87 & What weapon gem to use - #10 by ShortCat
→ While the spike gem affects basically everything and also stronger and the elemental gems not, the elemental gems still can create more dmg in some situations since they circumvent enemy armour.
Other info:
- damage roll is done per attack and not per hit, if one attack hits multiple enemies, the attack roll is the same for all of those
- elemental dmg is generally less affected by enemy armour/resistance
Sources: What weapon gem to use - #7 by anonymous87 & What weapon gem to use - #8 by ShortCat