When to use elemental weapons?

So I am curious about when one should use elemental compared to scaling. I understand that if you have alot of that stat then you want scaling, but if not then you need elemental. Is there a specfic magic number, range, or guideline?

Best I can offer isn't specific or new, elemental weapons deal split damage where each type goes through a different defense that lessens the overall damage. That's not so bad against light armors, and might be better against them, but elemental weapons have been poor in my experience against heavy (giant) armor, not just poor but down one to two hundred damage. Solid damage is usually better (I don't know any exceptions, though), which is one of the reasons the moonlight greatsword is popular, it deals mostly magic damage which most armors have a lower defense to.

Given that the elemental weapons will be nerfed soon, they'll do less damage total than the pure physical, faith, intelligence scaling weapons. Basically, elemental weapons are going to get a more visible kick in the pants.

Elemental weapons, as far as I've seen and used them, are for builds that don't have much in weapon scaling stats, like vitality and stamina builds or just low levels. On the other hand, you might just like stuff bursting into flame when you hit them.

I'd like to find a dmg calc that does different armors, but the best way to tell whether elemental or scaling is better is to compare them on mugen with your stats and keep in mind that the elements aren't as powerful as they look.

Use elementals with base stats for a particular weapon, then put rest of the stats else where e.g. vit, end etc.