Lightning damage

Hi,

Sorry in advance if this is a silly question, but I couldn't seem to find the info I needed.

I upgraded a falchion to lightning damage, but it did less damage than when I had it at +15. I understand the base damage will be less since it scales on dex with +15, but shouldn't the lightning damage add?

Maybe I am just confused, but I hope you guys can help.

Thanks in advance!

Did you actually test it on enemies.
Also, have you upgraded it to +5 ?

Not to +5. I did test it on enemies. The darkwraiths and ones at undead burg. Is it a big step to +5?

Upgrading it further to +5 will result it much more damage yes.

However, I'd like to know your stats as far as strength and dexterity are concerned. If I recall correctly, the Falchion requires 10 str and 13 dex right ?
When upgrading a weapon to an elemental path it takes away scaling, meaning it's a waste to pump more points into str and dex than the minimal requirement.

Sounds to me that you've put a little more points into dex, seeing as how the Falchion scales nicely with it....am I right ?

Alara78 wrote:Upgrading it further to +5 will result it much more damage yes.

However, I'd like to know your stats as far as strength and dexterity are concerned. If I recall correctly, the Falchion requires 10 str and 13 dex right ?
When upgrading a weapon to an elemental path it takes away scaling, meaning it's a waste to pump more points into str and dex than the minimal requirement.

Sounds to me that you've put a little more points into dex, seeing as how the Falchion scales nicely with it....am I right ?

I think you are, I just thought with the lightning damage would surpass that, but I guess you are right. I have 21 str and 26 dex .
So when will lightning actually be effective then? When you have a weapon that doesn't scale, I guess?
Thanks for your answer, by the way.

Another point to note, which will further confuse the issue is that the +15 will deal pure physical damage while the Lightning path with deal split damage. Depending on the target's resistances the lightning weapon may still end up dealing more damage.

Right now elemental weapons are effective really only for low level first play throughs and certain PVP builds (once again the lower the level the more likely this will work) that run with minimum dex/str although even then you may get better mileage using a +15 or raw with a buff. There's no hard and fast rule there because there are too many variables; weapon, buff, stats, targets resistances, level of upgrade, and the harder to measure factor of the buff being active. By that I mean are you getting enough done while your weapons are buffed? Would you be better served with the (possibly?) lower damage but more consistent elemental weapon?

Terjef wrote:

Alara78 wrote:Upgrading it further to +5 will result it much more damage yes.

However, I'd like to know your stats as far as strength and dexterity are concerned. If I recall correctly, the Falchion requires 10 str and 13 dex right ?
When upgrading a weapon to an elemental path it takes away scaling, meaning it's a waste to pump more points into str and dex than the minimal requirement.

Sounds to me that you've put a little more points into dex, seeing as how the Falchion scales nicely with it....am I right ?

I think you are, I just thought with the lightning damage would surpass that, but I guess you are right. I have 21 str and 26 dex .
So when will lightning actually be effective then? When you have a weapon that doesn't scale, I guess?
Thanks for your answer, by the way.

When using a normal upgrade path to +15 those weapons scale with the parameter stats. In this case the Falchion scales mostly with Dex.
Elemental weapons don't scale but have a flat damage output, no matter how much strength or dexterity you have, as long as you have the minimal stats.
Elemental weapons are good for low levels, or people that pump all their points into Vitality and Endurance.
In your case it would've been better to just keep it at +15 and buf it with a gold pine or charcoal resin.

Alara78 wrote:

Terjef wrote:

Alara78 wrote:Upgrading it further to +5 will result it much more damage yes.

However, I'd like to know your stats as far as strength and dexterity are concerned. If I recall correctly, the Falchion requires 10 str and 13 dex right ?
When upgrading a weapon to an elemental path it takes away scaling, meaning it's a waste to pump more points into str and dex than the minimal requirement.

Sounds to me that you've put a little more points into dex, seeing as how the Falchion scales nicely with it....am I right ?

I think you are, I just thought with the lightning damage would surpass that, but I guess you are right. I have 21 str and 26 dex .
So when will lightning actually be effective then? When you have a weapon that doesn't scale, I guess?
Thanks for your answer, by the way.

When using a normal upgrade path to +15 those weapons scale with the parameter stats. In this case the Falchion scales mostly with Dex.
Elemental weapons don't scale but have a flat damage output, no matter how much strength or dexterity you have, as long as you have the minimal stats.
Elemental weapons are good for low levels, or people that pump all their points into Vitality and Endurance.
In your case it would've been better to just keep it at +15 and buf it with a gold pine or charcoal resin.

Thanks for your answers, it makes sense now.

Another important distinction that it doesn't look like anyone pointed out yet:

When you "upgraded" your Falchion +15 to a lightning Falchion + 0, you lost the bonuses that you gained from +11 through +15. The lighting upgrade path first becomes available at +10, but you can create a lightning +0 from anything normal +10 and above. A normal +15 weapon will form the same lightning +0 weapon as a normal +10.

Unfortunately, it looks like you wasted 5 upgrade levels (and, most tragically, a rare titanite slab!) to get the exact same weapon you could have gotten straight from your Falchion +10. If you compared a Falchion +10 to a lightning +0, I bet you would have seen an attack rating increase, but since you started with a +15, the added lightning damage is counterbalanced by the loss of 5 levels of physical damage upgrades along with the stat scaling.

You may still be happy in the long-term when you get it up to lightning +5, but when creating elemental or otherwise magical weapons, you are better off not using materials and souls to upgrade your normal weapons past the minimum to convert them.

I wouldn't have turned it Lightning at 26 DEX.