I'm playing around with some ammo with extra fire damage (not ignite spell) and I am using a normal melee weapon with the ignite spell on it.

So how do you know when these effects take actually effect?

I have yet to see any kind of messages about a burning attack or anything that leads me to see/imagine fire damage is being inflicted.

Am I just missing something?

Could someone with more understanding please enlighten me? or post some examples of actually elemental damage from weapons/ammo?

Yeah, if a weapon or ammo has elemental damage in the appraise, it is always counted in every hit. However the CMS randomly selects for messaging from all damage types delivered.


Flares work by adding a very large amount of elemental (or other types of damage when those flares launch) to that specific hit. And because it is so large, it often convinces the CMS to message the elemental damage text as well.

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"I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories instead of theories to suit facts."
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes

> What about the appraise that says 'fair fire damage with affinity for random attacks'? I though that meant the damage was only applied, well, randomly? I.e., were basically a flare?

No, that's applied every attack.

All elemental damage has a physical affinity to determine how it interacts with attack verbs. So if you have a weapon that's electrical damage with an affinity for slicing attacks, it will do more damage on commands like chop and slice than on thrust or bash. Affinity for random attacks means that on every attack, its affinity is randomly set to one of piercing, slicing or impact.