The damage skills on weapons are roughly comparable to the corresponding passive damage skills or spells (except that Frost on a weapon ignores the target's resistances, so is much more effective than the Freeze spell). As for the details, the Larians have not published any specifics, and I have not done any comparisons (and don't know if anyone else has).
Actually, I never used the passive damage skills (other than Augment Damage), and damage skill bonuses were not high on my list when upgrading equipment, so I don't have a feel for how comparable Lightning(5) would be to level 5 of Lightning Damage, for example.
I did have a couple swords with damage bonuses, which were nice, but not missed after upgrading. I found Stun on a weapon handy, though, and started investing in the passive Stun skill after replacing a sword with Stun(2). Poison on a weapon might be effective... With the passive damage skills, low levels didn't seem to have a high enough chance to hit to make them worth investing in, and by the time I was a high enough character level to max them, I didn't need the extra damage (and higher level monsters have higher resistances, anyway).
care to do some testing?
i am pretty sure that (5) frost does not freeze the target for as long as level 5 freeze.
i will try to do some testing once i finish my finals!
thanks again Raze man
