Elemental
Elemental, in Diablo III terms, refers to a damage or resistance type. An element itself refers to forces of nature (and sometimes supernatural phenomenon), namely fire, ice/cold, and lightning. There are other damage types, such as arcane, but those are not elemental.
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Elemental Damage and Secondary Effects
Elemental damage can come from a variety of sources. Some classes have elemental damage built into their skills or spells, such as the Wizard with skills such as Meteor (fire damage), or Electrocute (cold damage). Some skills and spells may increase the utility or overall potency of a specific elemental type through runes. There are also procs or sources of indirect damage that can grant elemental properties, such as the Wizard's Storm Armor that sends out spikes of electricity to attackers.
Every class can gain elemental damage through items, most likely through weapons, and also through enchanting their gear. If an item has a socket, then the player can also socket a weapon with a gem that may grant or increase a specific elemental type of damage.
Finally, there may be buffs such as shrines that grant temporary elemental damage to attacks for the player.
Monster Elemental Damage
The player is not the only one who may use elemental damage. Many monsters can as well, particularly Champion monsters that are imbued with a boss modifier that grants and increases the damage done of a certain elemental type. As an example, a champion may be granted the modifier Frozen which inflicts cold damage, and also slows attackers who are affected. Some monsters may even have a specific type of element as their default source of damage, similar to the Vampire monster type in Diablo II that dealt fire damage with a variety of spells.
Secondary Effects
Intrinsic secondary effects for elemental damage exist in much the same way as in Diablo II where, for instance, a cold attack will also slow movement speed or even freeze an opponent. The same holds true in Diablo III with the caveat that elemental damage critical hits also have another effect. When a cold damage crits, as an example, it will also freeze the enemy for a short amount of time, and a lightning crit will stun them.
It is expected that such secondary effects like stun will have a reduced duration for the arena PVP battles.
Elemental Resistance
Elemental resistance is a stat in Diablo III that allows the player to mitigate the damage of a specific element. Resistance has changed a bit from what was seen in Diablo II, chiefly the damage from an elemental type will be reduced by a certain amount according to a rating system (like Attack Rating), instead of dealing in flat percentages.
Similar to elemental damage, resistances can also be gained through items, but normally through armor and not weapons, and perhaps some gems as well. Also similar to damage, resistance can be gained through buffs or skills such as the Monk's Resist Aura.
Lowering Enemy Resistance
Immunity played a large role in the end game of Diablo II, and players had to find ways to lower monster resistance in order to damage it with a specific elemental (or physical) type. While immunities are not expected to appear in Diablo III, there will be enemies who have high resistances against certain types of damage. In these cases, skills such as the Enchantress follower's skill "Lower Resist" would be invaluable. It is possible as well that some traits may assist the player in lowering resistance.
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