Forum:Elemental Damage Rework

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Elemental damage, as it stands right now, is insignificant in Destiny 2. The only advantage to using energy weapons is that they do extra damage to enemy shields, but their damage types don't have any special effects. What can you tell between Arc, Solar, or Void? Exactly: nothing. Even if matching elemental damage causes the shield to detonate, there must be other things happening to make elemental damage worthwhile, because that small detonation on its own isn't enough. So I figured, "I should make elemental damage more exciting." Let's turn up the heat.

Kinetic Weapons vs. Energy Shields

You probably shouldn't be using your kinetic weapon against elemental shields; that goes without saying. However, in all honesty, you really shouldn't, because in this rework, energy shields now greatly resist kinetic damage to the point where they're almost immune, but to compensate, their damage output against non-shielded combatants compared to energy weapons will be increased by 50%, thereby giving kinetic weapons the priority of clearing out red-health enemies.

Energy Weapons vs. Energy Shields

As it stands, all energy weapons do 300% of their normal damage against energy shields, even if you match elements. All you get out of using the matching elemental damage type is a small detonation around the enemy, briefly staggering them, and that means next to nothing. Meanwhile, in Destiny 1, you actually had a reason to match elemental damage types, because that would do twice the damage over everything that didn't match. For this change, all non-matching elemental damage remains unchanged, but matching energy weapons now do 500% of their normal damage against shields, and the shield's detonation radius will be twice as large, causing the enemy to stagger harder and deal extra damage to surrounding combatants.

Elemental Damage Effects

The three damage types that energy weapons use don't have any special effects, but they should. However, this would require you to break their shields; these do not bypass them. First, an Arc damage proc has a chance to blind its target for 6 seconds. When an enemy in PVE is blinded, you will see that their vision completely obscured and is unable to fight back. On its own, this is a very powerful ability, and so this is all it would do. Next, a Solar damage proc has a chance to inflict a fire DoT effect while also inflicting a Melting Point debuff that increases damage towards that enemy by 50% for about 8 seconds. This allows Guardians to increase their overall damage for a short time. Lastly, a Void damage proc will slow its target and suppress their abilities for 7 seconds at a time. Enemies will be largely unable to fight back, and will struggle if they do. On the other end, enemies with these elemental shields activated will be able to apply these effects on you as well, and when their shield breaks, they turn more aggressive and gain increased movement speed.

What Do You Think?

Of course these changes are not perfect, but I do believe they would help to make elemental damage more interesting than it currently is. If you have any suggestions, please feel free to leave them in the discussion section. I appreciate you taking the time to read this, and I hope you have a great remainder of your day. Dismissed.