Elemental vs. Divine?

I was just wondering, which would be better, Lightning/Fire, or Divine? I was contemplating on making my weapon(s) of choice either elemental or divine on my new character, with the following stats:

30 Faith
14 Strength
20 Dexterity
(going to make a build that stops at somewhere between SL 45 and 50)

as for the weapon(s)I was thinking side sword, rapier, and Iaito. I already got in my mind, that in order to maximize damage for each weapon, the side sword should be divine, and the other two elemental, as the side sword has scaling in all 3 stats, with B in Faith, and the other two are both only D and C (Dexterity and Faith respectively).

However, I have no idea how strong divine/occult/magical/enchanted are when compared to elemental weapons, at low SL, as I have lost track so long ago! Perhaps I'm wrong, and at that low of faith/dex, elemental would be better damage for all three weapons? Or perhaps, even with 30 faith, and only C scaling (B for SS), all three weapons would deal slightly higher damage as divine, as opposed to elemental? I honestly don't know :S

Any help would be appreciated, thanks!

P.S. If there is some post already explaining how to determine this answer, then go ahead and bite my head off for not searching forums thoroughly, but at least send the link with your lambasting @_@

Elemental wins if you don't have 50 Faith. Very sad.

Welcome to the forum!
As Wyrm said it takes a lot of faith for it to beat elemental weapons. For an easier time next time use mugenmonkey. It will give you the right attack ratings.

Elemental wins regardless. Avoid divine like the plague unless you need it for the 'combs. Occult is good if you do lots of coop on O&S though. Go with Chaos or Fire +10 for bossing, as very few bosses are resistant to fire, and keep a Lightning on hand for reg Smough and demons.

As to weapon choices: I love all 3, you have good taste. However, unless you're pvping I'd suggest an Estoc for the increased range and damage, or taking all of your faith and throwing it into INT for Velka's, which has great range, damage, and moveset.

Wow, thanks for the great replies! Also, thanks for saving me a white titanite/normal titanite slab too!

Also, one more question:

I have done... too much homework on this, and am STILL hearing controversial answers, so I must ask this for myself:

If I were to make a bow lightning, would it's arrows (assuming I'm using my previous mentioned build, with darkmoon arrows) do more damage, than if I were to use the same bow, but +15 normal instead?
I've heard for some people, that making the bow lightning actually does make them do more damage with each shot, and I've also heard others say that making a bow lightning/fire/whatever, does absolutely nothing to the damage of the shots, and that +15 normal is the ONLY way to go. Which is it? Or is the answer more complex?

The way I understand it is that if you are using an elemental bow if you use arrows that dont share an element they will not do that elemental damage. So a lightning bow using fire arrows will deal the normal bow damage, the lightning bow damage and the normal arrow damage. Not fire damage from the arrows is used. I think this i spart of the confusion. I cant really tell you which one is worth it, just be careful when buying arrows.

Quarik wrote:Elemental wins regardless. Avoid divine like the plague unless you need it for the 'combs. Occult is good if you do lots of coop on O&S though. Go with Chaos or Fire +10 for bossing, as very few bosses are resistant to fire, and keep a Lightning on hand for reg Smough and demons.

As to weapon choices: I love all 3, you have good taste. However, unless you're pvping I'd suggest an Estoc for the increased range and damage, or taking all of your faith and throwing it into INT for Velka's, which has great range, damage, and moveset.

Wrong, at 50 fait and 30 str or dex several occult or divine weapons have a higher ar. Wether or not they do more damage is dependant on the opponents gear.

Yes, but with 50 faith and 30 dex you can't have a char which is level 45 or 50. That's what the OP is going to make. On a level 45 char elemental wins ALWAYS. If you make a char above level 120 elemental damage diminishes.

Forum Pirate wrote:

Quarik wrote:Elemental wins regardless. Avoid divine like the plague unless you need it for the 'combs. Occult is good if you do lots of coop on O&S though. Go with Chaos or Fire +10 for bossing, as very few bosses are resistant to fire, and keep a Lightning on hand for reg Smough and demons.

As to weapon choices: I love all 3, you have good taste. However, unless you're pvping I'd suggest an Estoc for the increased range and damage, or taking all of your faith and throwing it into INT for Velka's, which has great range, damage, and moveset.

Wrong, at 50 fait and 30 str or dex several occult or divine weapons have a higher ar. Wether or not they do more damage is dependant on the opponents gear.

That may be true, I was just assuming that normal and elemental have a similar AR without buffs. I don't use elementals much. Anyway, +15 with good scaling deals much MUCH more damage than +10 divine (I have 45 dex, 32 str, and 50 fth).

If you want range, use crossbows. If you want to aim the thing, use binoculars.

Quarik wrote:

Forum Pirate wrote:

Quarik wrote:Elemental wins regardless. Avoid divine like the plague unless you need it for the 'combs. Occult is good if you do lots of coop on O&S though. Go with Chaos or Fire +10 for bossing, as very few bosses are resistant to fire, and keep a Lightning on hand for reg Smough and demons.

As to weapon choices: I love all 3, you have good taste. However, unless you're pvping I'd suggest an Estoc for the increased range and damage, or taking all of your faith and throwing it into INT for Velka's, which has great range, damage, and moveset.

Wrong, at 50 fait and 30 str or dex several occult or divine weapons have a higher ar. Wether or not they do more damage is dependant on the opponents gear.

That may be true, I was just assuming that normal and elemental have a similar AR without buffs. I don't use elementals much. Anyway, +15 with good scaling deals much MUCH more damage than +10 divine (I have 45 dex, 32 str, and 50 fth).

of course it does. But at say 25-30 dex and 50 faith, an occult uchi should outdamage elemental or regular. You don't build for occult weapons, you use them as backup for when the buff runs out with faith casters.

making a bow lightning isnt pointless, but there are far better options. the thing with elemental weapons is the dmg is divided between physical and either lightning,fire, or magic. if you make a bow elemental instead of +15 make a chaos +5 bow and use fire arrows, that way the fire dmg is high enough so that it is worth having and can break through defenses. now if we are talking crossbows then lightning is the way to go, cause you can use lightning bolts which again add more lightning dmg making it easier to break through defenses.

edit: if you had to chose between a lightning +5 bow or a +15 bow i guess it might depend on your stats, but +15 is by far more effective if your character has stats that scale with the bow. if you dont have the stats go chaos or fire and use fire arrows.