most games have physical damage and then a handful of elements on top Warframe however uh three physical damage types impact puncture slash four base elements e cold electricity toxin six combined elements gas corrosive radiation blast magnetic and viral and as if that's not enough there are two special ones called void and to on top of that so yeah in this Warframe guide I'm not only going to explain to you every single one of these damage types but also which enemies are weak against which elements so you know exactly what you need to use in which Situation Big shout out to all generous channel members who help me keep the lights on and now let's jump right into it now before we go over all the elements themselves I first want to talk about one topic that can be a bit confusing to newer players I think and that is the difference between Elemental damage itself and the corresponding status effects see every damage type in Warframe has a corresponding status effect like for example the status effect of cold damage is freezing the enemy the chance for every hit of your weapon dealing the corresponding status effects is displayed right here in the weapon statistics now one thing here that is very important to mention is no matter if you inflict a status effect with your hit or not the weapon will always deal its Elemental damage and by the way in case the weapon has not just one damage type but multiple damage Types on it then the chance of of each and every one of them triggering their respective status effects is also displayed when you hover with your mouse over the status chance portion if you want one specific damage type to have a higher chance of triggering its status effect then you can do that by putting more of that specific element onto the weapon via mods now so much for the difference of the damage type itself and the corresponding status effects next let's go over all the elements and what their respective status effects do and as always if you could drop a quick like for the video that would be super duper helpful with the YouTube algorithm so cheers so much for your support and now let's go on starting out with the three physical damage types impact puncture and slash also commonly referred to as IPS damage first off impact is very straightforward if you hit an enemy with impact they're going to stagger for a moment and that's pretty much it not really useful also the more impact procs you apply to an enemy the less of their health you'll have to shoot down in order to be able to go for a finisher kill if you're going for a build like that it could be useful but all in all Impact damage is one of the most useless damage types in the game so let's go on to puncture with puncture you can deal a maximum of five procs per enemy the first of these effects per enemy will make that the enemy deals 40% less damage to you with every subsequent one reducing the damage output by another 10% also for each puncture effect on an enemy you will get a 5% crit chance bonus against that enemy and this crit chance is final crit chance so even if your weapon has 0% crit chance on it you would still have a 25% crit chance against them all in all on paper that sounds pretty nice but in reality nobody really goes for it and only very very specialized builds could theoretically make good use of this however even though puncture and impact were not that great slash though is one of the best status effects in the the entire game what it does is pretty straightforward it deals bleed damage over time for 6 seconds to the affected enemy now this sounds nice but what makes it even better and what is so special to slash is these bleed damage effects ignore enemy armor so even if the enemy is thickly armored and has tons and tons of damage reduction if you deal bleed to them all that thick armor won't protect them and their health will go down really quickly great status effect use it against armored enemies especially if you don't have any means to reduce their armor so much for the three physical damage types let's now go on with the four base elements those being cold toxin electricity and heat which are present on some weapons initially but can also be applied to all other weapons by using the corresponding Elemental mod first off cold on a status effect slows down the enemy it can deal a maximum of 10 cold status effects per enemy and the more cold stateus effects to deal the slower the enemy gets until they're completely Frozen once you reach 10 procs once they are completely Frozen they will stay frozen for 3 seconds and then that free Status will melt again and they will instantly go down from 10 to three cold status effects that is all in all great already because you know an enemy that can't move can't attack you so it's a great way to keep yourself alive but on top of that you get an additional crit damage bonus the more coal stus effects you inflict on the Enemy at the maximum of 10 procs adding plus one to your crit damage multiply next would be toxin similar to slash when you deal a toxin status effect you will also deal a damage overtime effect however this one doesn't deal bleed damage but toxin damage over time toxin However unfortunately doesn't ignore enemy armor but what it does do is it completely ignores Shields and not just on the damage over time even the initial toxin damage without any status effects already completely ignores any type of shields so whenever you go up against heavily shielded units with only a bit of Health if you go for toxin their Shields won't help them at all electricity status effects also deal damage over time they bravely stun the affected enemies and other enemies in a 3M area of effect where it deals those electric zaps to them if you ask me not bad but the use cases are relatively Niche heat on the other hand is a really great status effect because not only does it too deal a heat damage over time effect but also enemies that are burning have their armor reduced to half for the entire duration of them burning now when it comes to the heat damage over time effect if you burn the enemy there is one special thing that sets heat apart from all the other damage overtime effects that we talked about so far and that is that unlike other dos where they all have a 6-second duration and then the proc will disappear for heat when you deal another heat status effect to an enemy the duration of all other previous heat effects will be refreshed so in theory as long as you manage to deal at least one heat stateus effect every 6 seconds you can stack infinite heat procs per enemy this is really great and it leads to some crazy Shenanigans called heat inherit which I also explained in more detail in my Advanced damage guide but at the end of the day heat is really useful for reducing armor and dealing a lot of damage over time as well so much for the base elements now let's talk about the combined elements which also some weapons initially have but if not not then you can combine them by putting two of the base elements onto the same weapon and they then will combine to the respective combined element and the first one here that I want to talk about would be corrosive which you get if you put electricity and toxin onto the same weapon on a status effect corrosive reduces enemy armor the first corrosive effect will reduce enemy armor by 26% with every subsequent one reducing that by another 6% for a maximum of 80% armor reduction at the maximum of 10 rocks just to give you some perspective the highest armor enemies in the game have an armor value of 2,700 which translates into 90% damage reduction and with 10 corrosive effects on them so with the Maximum Armor reduction from corrosive they would only have 540 armor which translates into 40% damage reduction making them much more vulnerable to your damage also there are archon shards that allow you to stack even more than 10 corrosive effects on an enemy and here it is very straightforward if if you can use one green tow Forge Shard that increases the maximum to 13 this will then translate into 98% armor reduction but don't go for two normal ones because while it allows you to fully armor strip the enemy that isn't really necessary because there's barely any noticeable difference between 98% reduction and 100 so better save up the second archon Shard slot for something else up next we have magnetic and magnetic recently got a big rework so let's go over what the new mag IC does right now if you apply magnetic status effects to an enemy they take increased damage against their Shields or overguard up to a maximum of plus 325 damage at the maximum of 10 magnetic effects also affected enemies have their Shield regeneration reduced but I don't think that's really important however what is important is when you break a shield or you break overgard on an enemy then in the Moment The Shield or overguard breaks the enemy receives a additional damage as high as 3% of their maximum Shield or overguard per magnetic prog present on them at this moment so for example if you deal 10 magnetic effects to an enemy and then you break their shield with Magnetic they will take damage as high as 30% of their maximum shield now when it comes to Magnetic this does sound quite complicated and you're totally right if you think like that but all in all I think even though it was massively buffed magnetic is still pretty Niche and I would only really use it to burn away masses of overguard on Elite type enemies up next we have blast and blast also recently got a big buff right now if you inflict a blast status effect to an enemy the enemy will take one additional damage tick as high as 30% of the damage that you inflicted with the shot that dealt the blast however if you kill an enemy with a blast a dis effect they will explode with a 5 m AOE explosion dealing 300% of your blast shot in damage to all the enemies around them as I just said this happens if you kill an enemy with a blast proc but also once you reach the maximum of 10 blastus effects on an enemy no matter if they're still alive or not then you will also trigger this effect so if you have a weapon with a high status chance and high fire rate that can deal a lot of blasts really quickly then you can create a crazy chain reaction of explosions like that this is really fun and we're going to talk about this a little bit later here up next we have radiation which confuses the enemies so that they start attacking themselves this is really great to protect yourself you know less incoming fire is less health Lost on your side and the more radiation you'll deal to the enemy the more damage they will start dealing to themselves just note here this damage increase is really only against other enemies and not against you or your allies so there is no risk with being generous when it comes to radiation application and now let's talk about probably the best status effect in the entire game and that would be viral similar to how magnetic makes Shields more vulnerable to your damage viral makes enemy Health more vulnerable to your damage if you deal one viral effect to an enemy they will take twice as much damage to their health from all sources and if you ramp that up to the maximum of 10 viral status effects damage taken by all sources will be plus 325 so no matter if you actually want to deal viral damage or not just having a way to apply a lot of viral status effects is incredibly useful especially against strong later game enemies and finally we have gas which is also pretty interesting because on a status effect it will spawn a 3M AE gas cloud at the position of the enemy that will remain there for 6 second and deal gas damage over time to all enemies in that area if you apply even more gas procs then the radius of that gas cloud increases to a maximum of 6 M and all in all this is especially great if you manage to group up a lot of enemies in a small area because then the gas clouds will overlap and deal even more damage now before we go on to when to use which element against which enemy let's also talk about the very special damage types void Tow and true damage and don't worry there is not so much to say here first of all void damage deals plus 50% damage against all types of overguard so that can be useful against those Elite type enemies however the problem is no weapons have this damage type on them and it can also not be modded onto weapons the only way to deal void damage yourself is with your operator amp by using zaku or by infusing zaku skill Zas whisper via the helmet system on any other frame because that is the only way to infuse void damage onto other weapons on a void status effect you will create a 2.5 M radius bubble around the enemy in which which bullets are attracted towards that enemy so no matter if they try to shoot you or you try to shoot them all these bullets will be caught within the bubble and redirected towards the enemy itself as for tow damage I just wanted to mention that it exists but for us as a player it's not really relevant because we cannot even deal it it's exclusive to a specific enemy type so let's not talk too much about it here and true damage as the name says is true damage without any Buffs or weak weakness is applied super duper Niche only being dealt by specific Warframe abilities that are also not so mainstream so all you need to keep in mind about it is it exists but it's not really important now I get that this was a lot of input and don't worry you can come back to this video whenever you want and rewatch if you forgot about any of this however now let's take all that knowledge and condense it into simple instructions on when to use which damage type against which enemies so that you can craft the best builds possible first off one thing I want to say is regardless of what enemies are strong and weak against there are specific damage types that are pretty much universally great in specific situations and that I would recommend using even if the elemental weakness of your enemy faction doesn't align with it one such damage type would for example be viral because of the fact that it makes enemies so much more vulnerable to your damage having a secondary weapon that condition out a ton of viral procs AKA a viral primer or a companion that can do that for you is always a great and valuable addition to any load out out there and I would strongly advise going for this my personal recommendation here would be going for a paval Pila as a companion because this one is a crazy viral AOE dealer then also even only few enemies in the game are specifically weak against slash it is still great against all types of thickly armored units because of the damage over time effect as I initially said ignoring enemy armor entirely cold is another great element that you can always use even if the enemy is not weak against it simply because of the slow for better survivability on your side plus the additional crit damage bonus that you deal against Frozen enemies because that way your damage numbers will be even higher similar situation with corrosive which you can also always use against enemies that are not weak against corrosive simply because of the status effect that reduces their armor but then again if you go up against armored units that are not weak against corrosive at the same time I would recommend just going for slash because why reduce the armor if you could ignore it right away anyway similar thing with radiation even if your enemy faction is not weak against radiation just bringing it anyway doesn't hurt because of all the Carnage and confusion that it causes among the enemy ranks and finally as an element that always works great no matter if the enemy is weak against it or not is blast in those scenarios where you have a Warframe ability or some type of setup where you can manage to group up a lot of enemies in a small area because no matter if they're weak or strong against blast the chain reaction of explosions that this causes will be absolutely insane but all right so much for the damage types that are pretty much universally great and always have their applications in specific scenarios regardless of whether the enem is actually strong or weak against them but now let's actually talk about which damage types I personally would recommend against which type of enemy against any type of grineer you can always go for corrosive damage because not only does it reduce their armor but it also gets a 50% damage bonus against grineer and as I also initially said if you don't want to reduce enemy armor then you could also always go for slash because it ignores enemy armor even though grineer are not specifically weak against it next against any kind of Corpus I personally would recommend going for toxin even though they're not specifically weak to it but because of the fact that Corpus have big shields and toxin completely ignores that and attacks their health directly it doesn't really need an additional damage bonus to be great against them however with the massively buffed magnetic if you don't want to go for a toxin magnetic is now also viable against Corpus units as for the corrupted or Orin as the game now calls them it's a bit delicate because this faction is comprised of units from the group near the Corpus and the infested at the same time but all of them are specifically weak against viral damage which is not only great because the status effect makes them even weaker to your damage so I would definitely recommend building big time into viral against them but don't forget there are also some heavily armored grineer in there so you might want to bring a secondary weapon with corrosive on it just to be able to take care of the armor as for infested generally infested units are pretty papier-mâché because they're not protect protected by Shields or armor at all for the most part normal star chart infested are weak against heat or slash where I personally would recommend slash because if there is the occasional armored unit slash can take care of that as for specifically the infested units in the deo's open world that cani in drift they have weakness against blast or gas so my recommendation would be go for something that can group up the enemies and then it doesn't really matter if you go for gas or blast both of them are incredible against tons of grouped up enemies for the newer and more endgame faction of the murmur there are two options what you can do either you bring some sort of armor stripping ability and then combine it with radiation or electricity to get the most damage bonus out of it or you ignore the armor strip and also again go for slash that bypasses the armor and even though they are resistant against viral damage I would still bring a companion like the pun of vola to deal viral anyway because the status effect that makes the more vulnerable to your damage still applies and is very helpful and finally there are also some smaller more irrelevant factions like the normer sentient or the specific zeran Elite enemies about which I don't want to talk all that much because they're really n and if you wanted to have an in detail explanation of them you could always go into the Warframe Wiki and read it up but what it boils down to here is pretty much the same as any universal damage type Prime them with viral remove their armor and then use whatever you like and before we wrap up the video for today I want want to talk about a very specific set of mods that was recently added with the last update because those in my opinion are underrated and actually super strong what I'm talking about here of course would be the status damage mods there are four of them in total for rifle shotgun melee and pistols called rifle Millie shotgun or pistol Elementalist what they do is they add damage dealt from status effects to your weapon that of course then applies to status effects that can actually deal damage like SL toxin heat electricity blast and gas and the great thing about this is that they are multiplicative in the damage calculation meaning if you run a setup that doesn't Focus so much on to dealing direct damage with the initial hit but that completely focuses on dealing the most damage over time possible then in my opinion slapping these mods onto your weapon is an absolute must because they massively increase the damage output of your damage over time ties if you haven't already definitely give them a go and if you now want to know all secret tricks some of which the game doesn't even tell you about that you can use to easily deal 10 times the damage you're doing now then don't miss my in-depth damage guide right here another big shout out to Neil V demon lordel demon Emperor Emperor Prime NOS Linux gaming lyan Shepherd turttle Pier Peppa wolf onano 2 stream jet 21 signup King 5000 gribly pixie mihawk H yagis and all other generous channel members for your continuous support we see each other hopefully in the next one and until then as always good loot