Elemental damage

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Elemental damage is a modifier that exists on certain attacks and weapons. Elemental damage is one of the manifestations of Light, and can be used to a player's advantage to make their attacks more effective. It comes into play for both Guardians and enemies.

Elemental Types

There are four types damage types:

• Kinetic Damage - White - The default damage type on most weapons. Will do base damage on any enemy.
• Solar Light - Red - Causes thermal damage
• Arc Light - Blue - Causes shock damage
• Void Light - Purple - Causes void damage

Weapons

Weapons can be infused with elemental damage; by default, most weapons only do kinetic damage, but some may come with modifiers. The modifier is indicated not only on the weapon's stats, but also in the weapon menu on the HUD. At the common level, only Fusion Rifles do elemental damage, but at higher levels nearly all special and heavy weapons do elemental damage. Only a handful of primary weapons do elemental damage.

Guardians

Guardian subclasses typically focus on one type of elemental damage. This extends to melee attacks, grenades, and supers.

Class	Solar	Arc	Void
Hunter	Gunslinger	Bladedancer	x
Titan	x	Striker	Defender
Warlock	Sunsinger	x	Voidwalker

Enemies

Elemental damage will do bonus damage against certain types of enemies. The most obvious way to tell if an enemy is weak to a certain damage type is to see what color shield they have; for example, Fallen Captains with blue Absorption shields are weak to Arc attacks. Every race has at least one type of enemy shielded by default, but will also have another type of enemy that's shielded whenever the Epic modifier is active (or during certain public events.

Race	Thermal Shield	Arc Shield	Void Shield
Fallen	Noble Shank	Captain	x
Hive	Wizard	Anointed Knight	x
Vex	x	Harpy Zealot	Minotaur
Cabal	Centurion, Psion Flayer	Psion Flayer	Psion Operant, Psion Flayer

Enemy weapons and abilities typically have their own elemental damage types as well. Normally this doesn't come into play, unless players are playing a mission with damage modifiers on. For example, a Nightfall mission with a 300% boost to arc damage applies to both Guardians and enemies, so enemies that do arc damage are especially dangerous.

Race	Thermal weapon	Arc weapon	Void weapon
Fallen	Shrapnel Launcher, Fallen Walker's main cannon	Shock Pistol, Shock Rifle, Wire Rifle, Shock Grenade, Shock Dagger, Shock Sword, Pike, Skiff, Fallen Walker's secondary armaments	Servitor
Hive	x	Boomer, Thrall's melee attack, Cursed Thrall explosion, Wizard's darkness blast	Shredder, Ogre's eye beam attack, Shrieker, Tombship
Vex	Slap Rifle, Line Rifle, Hobgoblin's Shield	x	Torch Hammer, Slap Grenade, Goblin's melee attack, Hydra, Cyclops
Cabal	Slug Rifle, Projection Rifle, Heavy Slug Thrower, Harvester, Interceptor, Goliath Tank	Psion Psychic attack	x