Pure Physical Damage

Pure physical dogshit basically.

If physical had some advantage (bleeding isn't that great if you don't invest heavily) like only physical damage could stun, or had an inbuilt chance to maim that you can't get from elemental.
And even then, you could still use physical and added elemental on top.

I did a pure crit/phys BV occultist during flashback event. No comparison possible with elemental BV but if you really want to play brutality, it's possible. However, the clearspeed comes only from profane bloom.

No, as others have said; you cannot scale physical damage high enough to feel comfortable when pushing red maps/Shaper/Uber Elder.

I guess they've made it this way because of how armor works. While adding elemental damage on top of your physical damage is the most effective way to go, monsters elemental resistance is also more effective than their armor would be, if you only scaled physical.

But we have so many sources of penetration these days, in addition to the idiotic statstics, that scaling pure physical is just... Stupid.

It works, but it doesn't work as well as elemental sadly.

They'd need to buff brutality to a stupidly high number for pure phys to compete like 100-150% more if they actually wanted pure phys to do similar damage to stat stick converters.

I was close to rage at GGG about that, but then i think i got it why they made it this way: phys dmg vs armour works shitty compared to ele dmg vs resists. Yeah, we got inquisitor here, we got dozens ele pen bonuses and even occultist, but iirc armour does really good vs small/decent phys hits or really good vs hit-like-a-truck phys hits. So i guess monsters' armour could be real shit for us if we run higher tier maps or party or idk, if its high enough, or would feel like now-0 unless vs rare mob with armour mod.
I dont talk about evasion or block because first would be negated by "100% hit chance" item and block would be too much and too bad /cuz it wont let us leech, right?/. Maybe armour mechanics rework could help but doubt we'll get any, its too much work for GGG.
If thats the case why GGG made the game this way, then i kinda agree with it, if not...hmm.

There are such builds, easily. For example max block double strike glad or starforge slayer

The only benefit you get from pure physical for now are great amount %life leech from ATTACKS and bleeding. If someone want to build one, you need to focus on those aspects.

Elemental overload shits on phys.

I have a Bowserker using Brutality, Maim and Vulnerability to max the damage output with Siege Ballistas applying high bleeds that even bosses feel. It works well enough, but I am certain it's not in the top tiers.