Valkorn wrote:
Im going with cold .. for the def but why do i need fire then ??

I just skimmed and I don't think anyone answered your question yet.
Everyone says fire is a must because it has the strongest imbue. The truth is the imbue hardly has any effect on your damage output. It does about 1-2% more damage then electric, and 2-4%more then ice. In reality that is very little difference.
The reason you want to take fire is for the physical increase buff, and passive. Those 2 skills increase your physical damage by a fixed %.
Other pros to the fire tree is the magic defense buff. Pure str characters lack magic defense so this is extra beneficial.
Fire shield will allow you to be ice immune in you 50s as long as you have freeze reduce on your accessories.
And now there is a new skill to let you see invisible people or something.
As a pure str character you have lots of HP. Because of this most people think you have enough defense so they don't use the cold tree.
The only reason to get the cold tree would be the status effect of the imbue and low level mana shield.
You can't take high lvl mana shield because you don't have enough mana and would run out.
Lightning has grasswalk. We all like to run fast.
parry increase passive, and buff help you take lower damage, and the piercing force buff increases your magic damage(imbue). It wont help you much since you are pure str, but it will help.
So max damage build would be: max pacheon,fire, light. , and then whatever else you want.
Now I use ice imbue and love it. It is best for grinding and pvp against people who aren't immune. Some people max fire and ice and use both imbues. That would be nearly the most damage dealing build except you would have to leave light at lvl 60 so you wouldn't run as fast and would not have maxed piercing force. However that is only something like 2%magic damage difference so on your character probably less than 1% in overall damage reduction.
Of course the problem with 80bow, 80fire, 60light, 80ice Is........ At the 90 cap you would be90bow, 90fire, 90ice, and only 30 light which would make you damm slow. and loose that piercing force buff.
So in the end it is a compromise. You cant have it all
GL