Hey there

I've recently looked over weapon damage types and creature resistance/weakness and the whole chart is massively imbalanced. The following chart has been put together by counting the instances of resistances, weaknesses and immunities of damage types with data from the wiki. W = Weakness (scoring of *1), R = Resistance (scoring = *-1), I = Immunity (scoring = *-2) and S = Scoring (Sum of Instances multiplied by scoring modifier):

Type_ W R I S
Fire_ 17 7 4 2
Lightning 2 0 0 2
Blunt 6 6 0 0
Slash 0 8 0 -8
Frost 5 3 6 -10
Pierce 1 12 0 -11
Poison 2 9 16 -39
Spirit 3 0 21 -39

We can see that fire damage outclasses all other damage types. Now let's ask ourselves: How do we deal fire damage? In short, we don't. There are torches and fire arrows. Fire arrows do a maximum of 22 fire damage. Make that 44 for enemies weak against it. Arrows and bows do pierce damage otherwise, which is very frequently resisted. So fire damage really only offsets the downside of using pierce damage. Then there's torches. Torches burn out and can't be upgraded. They do also deal blunt damage, which fares pretty well, but again, the combined damage is so low that they don't even bridge the normal damage range despite bonuses.

Then we have lightning. How do we deal lightning damage? Ah right, we don't.

Next on the list is blunt. Blunt damage has options in the 1h and 2h department, though 2h is arguably edge case, since the hammers also deal pierce (or elemental) damage. However, it seems blunt 1h weapons seem to be one of the best to use. 6 weaknesses counter 6 resistances and no immunity against it either. Can be paired nicely with a shield and it makes a good all-round weapon.

Following, we have slash, which is dealt by swords, axes and partially by knives. With no weaknesses and some resistances, using any of those weapons just asks for handicapping yourself. The wide variety of weapons is nice to have, but what point is there if you could just go for clubs at no trade-off whatsoever?

Then we have frost damage. Frost damage has, yet again, only two sources: A unique club and frost arrows. Frost arrows have the same issue as fire arrows, only they don't have such big bonuses as fire does. The club is neat and does deal blunt damage, but aside from that, it's again very edge case. Definitely not worth going for frost damage.

After frost comes my personal favourite: pierce. I love halberds and spears okay? But like with slash damage, choosing to go for either of those options (and bows and partially knives) is generally also just asking for trouble. They are only good at fighting trolls. Now while trolls are formidable enemies and getting additional damage against them is nice, overall pierce damage is simply not worth going for. *cries in atgeir 360*

Poison damage would be interesting, if it weren't so god-aweful. With plenty of resistances and even more immunities to poison, it's not even worth making ooze bombs, poison arrows or draugr fangs. As interesting as the concept of ooze bombs is, there's simply no application for them.

Finally we have spirit damage. Three weaknesses and 21 immunities. Yeah. I don't think i need to elaborate.


In conclusion, only blunt seems to be worth going for, since every other damage type is simply a handicap. Now, blunt weapons don't currently have a blackmetal version and thus are stuck at iron levels. At that level, they dominate. In blackmetal stages, swords and atgeirs have the edge. I think the devs need to balance the weapons so that going for certain weapon types you have trade-offs. blunt shouldn't be the all-round best weapon. Make the attacks slower. Also, give us the ability to deal more meaningful damage. Elemental damage is severely underrepresented. Why not firebombs? They would fit the category of being very useful but cumbersome since they are a consumable. Contrary, poison needs to have the resistances/immunities reduced for enemies and/or the weaknesses to it increased for other creatures (why not everything that's living and is not a plant). Frost and Spirit are probably a bit harder, since the devs seem to want to stick to more conventional means of dealing damage (e.g. no mage wands that deal frost damage). But I could also see consumables like bombs a potential for frost damage. The right chemicals thrown together will reduce temperature and thus count as frost damage. As for spirit i don't know. To me this seems like a damage type they may remove altogether. Lightning i could imagine in the form of a channelling weapon to attract and redirect lightning bolts to enemies. Situational to storms, but deadly to all when it happens.