Damage Types

Damage Types

All damage is either Physical or Magical. Both Physical and Magical are then broken into several types, including Neutral if it has no type.

Physical Types

All Physical damage is one of the following types, otherwise it is Neutral damage.
To see what damage type a physical ability deals, check the description in the class page. Most descriptions do not yet contain this information, as currently Physical types have no use.

Slash

Horizontal or Vertical swiping attacks are typically Slash, like Arming Sword's 1st and 2nd attack.

Pierce

Thrust attacks are typically Pierce, like Arming Sword's 3rd attack.

Blunt

Attacks dealt by non-sharpened weapons tend to be Blunt, like all 3 of Flanged Mace's attacks.

It is a common misconception that Cleric's Blunt Weapon Mastery applies to Blunt damage, when in reality it only applies to Maces.

Magical Elements

All Magical damage is one or more of the following types, otherwise it is Neutral damage.

Following are some iconic examples of each, the list is not meant to be exhaustive. To see what damage type a magical ability deals, check the description in the respective class page.

Note that a Spell can be of one element, but the damage it applies can be another. For example, Wizard's Zap Spell is Light, but it applies Light damage on the direct hit and Fire damage on the damage over time burn.

See below for many examples of what damaging elements several spells do; these lists are not meant to be exhaustive.

Fire

Ice

Lightning

Earth

Arcane

Light

Dark

Evil

but not Power of Sacrifice.

Curse

Divine

Air

No current sources deal Air damage

Spirit

Neutral

Any damage that is not of one of the abovementioned types is considered to be either Physical or Magical Neutral Damage.

While affected by the respective general Physical/Magical Damage Reduction, it is not affected by type-specific resistances.

Examples

• Magical Neutral: Crystal Sword and Staff Mastery's Magical portion, Poisoned Weapon as well as certain Artifacts' effects.
• Physical Neutral: Achilles Strike and Rupture, but not weapon hits which deal Slash/Pierce/Blunt.
• The Antimagic perk gives 25% Magical Damage Reduction against all types except Divine, Curse and Neutral. Therefore, Poisoned Weapon is not affected by it, and neither are Cleric's Divine spells or Warlock's Power of Sacrifice.

Projectile

Damage dealt by projectiles is considered Projectile Damage, and is therefore affected by Projectile Damage Reduction.

Damage can be both Projectile Damage and a specific Magic Element at the same time, such as Fireball's direct hit being both Magical Fire and Projectile damage.

Projectiles are affected by Hit Location bonuses such as headshots.

Examples

• All Arrows and Bolts shot from ranged weapons, as well as throwables.
• Fireball is a Projectile; the direct hit deals Projectile damage, but the AoE and burn do not. Therefore, the direct hit benefits from Hit Location Bonus, but the AoE and burn do not.
• Warlock's Hellfire may seem like a projectile, but is in fact a moving AoE zone. It is not a projectile and therefore, it does not benefit from Hit Location Bonus.

Hybrid

An instance of damage that has multiple types at once is considered Hybrid damage. An example of this is Warlock's Curse of Pain, which is both Curse and Evil type.

In the case of the target having resistance against one type, but not the other, of a Hybrid damage instance, the damage will still be reduced.
An example of this is Warlock's Antimagic perk reducing Curse of Pain damage despite lacking Curse resistance.

What happens in the case of a target having resistance to all the types of such a damage instance is currently unknown due to not being testable at time of writing.