| Element | Effect |
|---|---|
 Kinectic | Normal Damage/ No Special Effect |
 Arc | Small Area of Effect / Strong Against Blue Shields |
 Solar | Chance to Ignite / Burning Effect / Strong Against Orange Shields |
 Void | Strong Against Purple Shields |
Elemental damage or Energy damage changes the type of damage a weapon does. During the Destiny 2 beta, it would seem that the Energy Damage of any Energy Weapon may be swapped out or changed as the option for energy damage was placed under the same node as weapon skins and weapon skin shader/colors. Some enemy shields may be weak against certain elements. The shields are color coded in association to the element they are weak against.
In the higher levels nearing the end game content, enemies will start to have resistances to certain elements. When an enemy is very resistant to an element, two things may happen, either the damage will be reduced significantly or the damage will be ignored completely and a 'Resisted!' notification will pop up instead of the usual damage count.
Kinetic damage is the default damage type on most weapons. Will cause basic damage on any enemy. Kinetic damage can be considered as 'physical' damage or 'normal' damage and has no special effect on enemies.
Arc Damage deals electric-like damage to enemies. Some enemies' shields are weak against Arc damage. As a general rule, blue shields are weak against Arc damage. Weapons with Arc damage have a small area of effect when dealing damage.
Solar damage is closely associated with 'fire' damage and has a chance to ignite enemies. Ignited enemies will take damage over time the until the burning effect ends. Some weapons with Solar damage will make enemies explode if killed by Solar damage causing nearby enemies to receive damage from the explosion. Orange shields are typically weak against Solar damage.
Void damage is related to gravity and dark energy. The Vex are weakest against Void damage and Purple shields are weak against Void damage.
In Destiny 2, the weapon system has undergone some major changes such as the weapon category. The new weapon categories are Kinetic weapons, Energy weapons and Power weapons. Weapons under the Energy Weapon category and Power Weapons category are now the only weapons capable of having Elemental damage.
Sub classes can be tied to the elements that they use. In Destiny 1, all three sub classes were tied to a single element.
In Destiny 2, during the beta test, only 2 sub classes per class were available. Whether we'll be seeing more of the previous sub classes remains to be unconfirmed. The 3 new sub classes however have all been linked to an element. So far this is the element associated with the sub classes in Destiny 2.
