Elemental Damage

Elemental damage isn't affected by physical damage modifiers (Critical Strike, dexterity, Guided Arrow, Strafe, Might, Concentration, Fanaticism, Heart of the Wolverine, Amplify Damage), so most of the time, elemental bows aren't important to the amazon. A bow with 723 poison damage is a bow with 723 poison damage, not 723 physical damage, so no matter how much dexterity you have, the bow will always carry the same range of damage. Thus, a high damage elemental bow with low requirements (like a short bow, for example) would be just as good as a high damage elemental bow with high requirements (like a hydra bow).

Elemental damage takes priority over physical damage during two phases of the game. The first is the very beginning, when your bowazon doesn't have enough levels to handle the higher enhanced damage affixes: because she doesn't cause enough damage to leech back significant amounts of life or mana, elemental damage is just as good, if not better, than physical damage. As soon as she's able to handle bows with 70 or more maximum damage, physical damage takes the fore. The other place where elemental damage carries priority over physical damage is at the very end of the game in Hell difficulty with its numerous physical resistant and immune monsters. A bow with 3-800 lightning can do more damage against a physical immune monster than a normal bow. The different sorts of elemental damage are as follows:

Cold Damage

Cold has the least damage of all the elements. Its primary importance is slowing down monsters who are vulnerable to it. Cold damage is of particular interest to bowazons because of interchangeable and cumulative chill-freeze times: all cold damage items come with a chill duration of 1~10 seconds, and with enough cold damage items, it's possible to come up with a total chill duration of, say, 20-22 seconds. This chill duration is nice for physical attacks like Strafe, but its true power is revealed when it's stacked with Freezing Arrows's 2 second or Ice Arrow's 2-5.8 freeze duration, resulting in 22-24 seconds of freeze with Freezing Arrow or 22-27.8 seconds with Ice Arrow. This particular game mechanic works with all of the bowazon's cold arrow skills: you simply add up your total chill time and put that on top of your freeze time.

The most cold damage a rare bow can have is 1-4; a magical hibernal bow of the icicle can have as much as 46-144; a magical jewel of the glacier can have as much as 5-15. The king of cold damage bows is the Buriza-do Kyanon ballista with 32-196 cold damage.

Fire Damage

Fire is the middle ground of all elements: it has a good range of immediate damage, but at the same time is the most resisted of the elements. It has no special properties. The most fire damage a rare bow can have is 9-20; a magical condensing bow of incineration, 179-260; a rare jewel of burning can have as much as 25-50. A good fire damage bow to use would be the Kuko Shakaku cedar bow with 40-180 fire damage.

Lightning Damage

Lightning has the highest instant maximum damage of the elements, but the lowest minimum damage. The problems with minimum damage can be circumvented with multiple sources of lightning, but this won't solve the problem of its wild range of damage. The most lightning damage a rare bow can have is 6-120; a magical shocking bow of storms, 7-600; a rare jewel of thunder, 1-100.

Poison Damage

Poison can cause more damage than any of the elements, but its damage is gradual rather than instant. For the general user, even a little poison is enough, as it prevents monsters from regenerating and if one counts potential life lost as damage, then poison becomes very powerful. For example, an urdar in an eight-player game in Hell difficulty regenerates 300 life per second. If it's poisoned for 10 seconds, it's been prevented from regaining 3,000 potential hit points. Against ten urdar, ten seconds of poison equal to ~30,000 life lost due to lack of regeneration.

In v1.10, poison rates are added up and durations are averaged. If a poison attack hits a monster that's already been poisoned, the stronger poison takes precedence. Easy as that.

Where can I get enhanced damage?

Equipment:

Rare weapons: +10-450% enhanced damage

Rare circlets, +10-30% enhanced damage

Various unique, set, and rune word items give varying amounts of enhanced damage

Sockets:

Rare jewels: +5-30% enhanced damage

Magical ruby jewels: +31-40% enhanced damage

Ohm rune: +50% enhanced damage when inserted into a weapon

Auras:

Might: starting at +40% enhanced damage

Concentration: starting at +60% enhanced damage

Fanaticism: starting at +25% enhanced damage

Heart of Wolverine: starting at +25% enhanced damage

Where can I get maximum damage?

Equipment:

Rare weapons: +1-20 maximum damage

Magical weapons: +21-63 maximum damage

Rare amulets, rings: +1-4 maximum damage

Various unique, set, and rune word items give varying amounts of maximum damage

Sockets:

Rare jewels: +1-18 maximum damage

Magical jewels: +11-30 maximum damage

Ith rune: +9 maximum damage when inserted into a weapon

Charms:

Small charms: +1-4 maximum damage

Large charms: +4-8 maximum damage

Grand charms: +7-14 maximum damage

Where can I get minimum damage?

Equipment:

Rare weapons: +1-20 minimum damage

Rare amulets, rings, and circlets: +1-8 minimum damage

Magical amulets, rings, and circlets: +9-14 minimum damage

Various unique, set, and rune word items give varying amounts of minimum damage

Sockets:

Rare jewels: +1-19 minimum damage

Sol rune: +9 minimum damage when inserted into a weapon

Charms:

Small charms: +1 minimum damage

Large charms: +1-2 minimum damage

Grand charms: +1-3 minimum damage