Elemental and Combined Damage | Damage 2.0 System | Warframe Warframe Guide & Walkthrough
Last update: 24 May 2018
In this short chapter, you will learn various facts about elemental damage in Warframe. This section also contains information on when such damage is useful.
- Types of Primary and Secondary Elemental Damage
- Effectiveness against various armour types
- An example of Combined Damage
Types of Primary and Secondary Elemental Damage
In addition to the 3 types of physical damage that you can inflict, there are 4 basic types of Primary Elemental Damage and 6 types of Secondary Elemental Damage. The basic types of damage are heat, cold, electricity, and toxin. You can gain these damage types by installing the relevant weapon mods. At any given time, you can only have one primary element applied to a weapon. When you add two primary elements to a weapon, it will begin dealing combined damage.
Types of primary elemental damage
Element | Icon | Status Effect |
Heat |  | Ignites enemies, deals damage over time and causes enemies to panic. |
Cold |  | Freezes enemies, reduces their movement and attack speed by 50% for 6 seconds. |
Electricity | Causes a Tesla Chain, which shocks enemies within a 3-meter radius and inflicts a 3-second stun. | |
Toxin |  | Inflicts Poison, which deals damage over 8 seconds. |
Types of combined elemental damage
Required Primary Elements | The Combined Element | Icon | Status Effect |
Heat + Cold | Blast |  | Knockdown, inflicts a stun with a small area of effect. |
Electricity + Toxin | Corrosive |  | Corrosion, reduces the enemy's current armour by 25%. |
Heat + Toxin | Gas |  | Toxin Cloud, creates a cloud of gas that poisons enemies. |
Cold + Electricity | Magnetic |  | Disrupt, reduces the target's maximum and current shields (by 75% for 4 seconds). |
Heat + Electricity | Radiation |  | Confusion, reduces weapon accuracy and causes the target to attack the closest units (including allies) for 12 seconds. |
Cold + Toxin | Viral |  | Virus, reduces the target's maximum health points (by 50% for 6 seconds). |
Effectiveness against various armour types
Damage | Flesh | Cloned | Fossil | Infested | I.Flesh | Sinew | Machine | Robotic | Shield |
Cold | - | - | -25% | - | -50% | +25% | - | - | +50% |
Electricity | - | - | - | - | - | - | +50% | +50% | - |
Heat | - | 25% | - | +25% | +50% | - | - | - | - |
Toxin | +50% | - | -50% | - | - | - | -25% | -25% | Bypassed |
Blast | - | - | +50% | - | - | -50% | +75% | - | - |
Corrosive | - | - | +75% | - | - | - | - | - | - |
Gas | -25% | -50% | - | +75% | +50% | - | - | - | - |
Magnetic | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | +75% |
Radiation | - | - | -75% | -50% | - | +50% | - | +25% | -25% |
Viral | +50% | +75% | - | -50% | - | - | -25% | - | - |
Damage | Proto | Ferrite | Alloy |
Cold | - | - | +25% |
Electricity | - | - | -50% |
Heat | -50% | - | - |
Toxin | Bypassed | +25% | - |
Blast | - | -25% | - |
Corrosive | -50% | +75% | - |
Gas | - | - | - |
Magnetic | +75% | - | -50% |
Radiation | - | - | +75% |
Viral | - | - | - |
An example of Combined Damage
Everything depends on the order of placing the mods that add elements to a weapon. There is a so-called Mod Order in Warframe, which deals with the hierarchy in which the mods are arranged.
You can push for a change in this hierarchy when your weapon has a source of elemental damage by default (e.g. the Dual Toxycyst pistols deal toxin damage, placing an electricity mod in the first slot will ensure that it is the first in the hierarchy). The same rules apply when using different mods which have the same elements, the first position in the hierarchy will be defined when they are combined.
Another example: if you have a weapon that deals electrical damage, e.g. the Lecta, and you put mods on it that add Cold, Toxin and Fire damage in slots 1, 2, and 3, you will get the following results: Viral damage (i.e. Cold + Toxin Damage) and Radiation (i.e. Fire + Electricity).