I'm considering adding fire, lightning and/or magic damage runes to Eldanien's tahto. I don't care which is 'the most effective' combination, I just don't want to find myself in a situation where I'd be better off without the damage mod runes against a given target. Are there combinations of race and guild skills which result in higher DMPs against these damage sources than that race/guild combination would have for physical damage? For example, is there a guild which, combined with furrikin racial resistance to magic damage, would result in such a high magic resistance compared to its physical damage resistance that I'd wind up doing less damage due to the damage runes?

Looking through the racial descriptions and skill lists, I don't see it happening. But I thought I should ask around before plopping the credits down

I'd imagine Moondancer furrikin would be more magic-tanky than physical. And maybe dracnari Pyros vs fire. Don't think you'd be worse off - physical DMP from armour and whatnot is pretty high?

Magic is the wrong choice 100% of the time.

Everything else depends on what you fight.

Lightning + (choice)

It's a tahto. He's not going to be falcon punching merians.

Psymet monks have some decent elemental DMP against frost, fire, and electricity. Only moderate DMP against psychic and magic. Stealth adds nothing... not sure what harmony has to offer.

Is there any real advantage to elemental runing a kata weapon? Do you have bleeding runes yet?

I don't really see how elemental damage can help monks much in any way. The rune doesn't appear to convert that large of an amount, and monk damage isn't so much elemental based. I can see bleeding being helpful, especially for specs that take advantage of it, like the Nekotai. I don't know how much bleeding the Tahtetso can do though.

Elemental runes are awesome, and for the most part, I received a noticeable damage increase.

I haven't runed my tahto at all yet. I'm about to start, but the cautious and OCD part of me wants to secondguess and secondopinion everything before I start blowing the cash.

Tahto do not cause bleeding inherently. Tahtetso can build up a rather impressive amount of bleeding using the Twist modifier. It's definitely something I want to play up, in a good faith attempt to get a solo Harmony Deathtouch to work. Failing that, the extra bleeding becomes gravy on a Tahtetso/Telepath duo.

Figure that with the slow but inevitable changes that take place in politics, Celest's only 'reliable' enemy is Magnagora. Especially now that there are two new cities, I don't think we're likely to see further events that pair Celest and Magnagora together. Who knows, though. I'd rather avoid focusing my weapon's potency against any one org at the expense of potency against others, unless it's Magnagora. And incidentally, Viscanti have no elemental weaknesses.

Not that I've been much of a combatant.

So anyways, magic is recommended against. Is it due to the least gain, or would it actually weaken my attacks against certain race/guild combinations?

DMP vs. Magic is really easy to get and really easy to get alot of. If your attack is doing magic damage, it is almost certainly going to be doing less damage than a similar attack that did some other sort of damage.

Because everyone can learn the Highmagic/Lowmagic for extra magic resistance, and after physical dmp, magic is the type that has the most skills that can contribute towards defending against it. The races weak against magic are typically rare, too, save Lobos.

If you don't want to invest all in one type, fire/lightning seems to be the favoured combo. Lots of stuff out there has a fire weakness, and it won't be a big deal unless you hit a dracnari with fireproof up... in which case, the lightning will counterbalance.

Though on the side, I put poison runes on my nekai for the argh-pee, and haven't noticed it being much of a detriment (though that might just be my general lack of PK involvement!).

Yeah, if I were going for max benefit, I'd choose lightning + poison. But for the argh-pee, magic/fire/lightning seem the most appropriate.

I'm a little disappointed at the magic damage rune at this point. I wonder if the Magic Enhancement Runes would affect that damage, or if there's a separation of source versus type involved.

Magic source only.

Magic damage rune has always been a bad plan. Even a level 3 magic weakness is completely offset by trans magic, plus a bit extra...not even mentioning that magic DMP is very common.

Does resilience add a % resist to poison-based afflictions only, or does it also add DMP to poision elemental type damage as well? What about racial bonus to poison... Is that aff resist or DMP?

What? DMP only. Good lord, aff resistance would be stupid.

From a strictly meta-point of view, fire/lightning would likely still be better. There are more races with some poison resistance, there is only once race with a poison weakness, and all totem users get a nice 25 DMP to poison if they Trans their spec, courtesy of snake bond.

Resilience is mostly poison aff shrugging, though it does grant a small flavour amount of DMP to poison. It's really minor, though hard to determine with all of Glomdoring's sources of poison resistance competing. I'd estimate it to be about 5 at trans, if anything.