Also, I seem to recall 415 having messaging that also mentioned the type of elemental damage done, but I haven't seen that for a while. Has this changed recently, or am I having a "senior moment"?

The reason why I chose the elemental attunements that I did for the two characters used here was specifically because of the effects on the flares from 405, 415 and 435. Some critters are immune to fire, for example, nor did I want to have fire or lightning flares in the Bowels. The elemental flares do depend on attunement, according to the spell description (see below).

Also, as with most CS based attack spells, the severity of the damage done is dependent on the warding failure margin. Since both of the characters used here for illustration have pumped up their MnE spell ranks, this also helps with the death crits, and this fact also helps explain the resistance of the Knights to CS based spells. (My mage will eventually have a MnE CS of around 530 by the time I get her spell ranks fully maxxed out; THAT should cause some serious damage.)

>>The target character or creature that fails a warding check is subjected to damage from the initial strike, and if the target is not slain outright from this strike injury, they are subjected to a powerful elemental flare for additional damage. The severity of the flare is based on the degree of the warding failure, and is more powerful than Elemental Blast. The sheer force of this spell will typically knock a target to the ground.

The ATTUNE command allows a character to select a particular element to which he is naturally attuned.<<



"So, what does that green line on the graph represent?"
"Oh, that's the projection of a hypothetical offspring from a union between Sauron and Cruella de Ville; we use that as a baseline for determining character alignment."