How do melee classes kill effectivly in hell?

[Nicator]

Interesting remark. Yes, 'open wounds' has a poison-alike effect but again, afaik, it is triggered by a physical damage.

If your first paragraph is right, the game is making a distinction between elemental damage carried by physical contact and elemental damage carried by a spell. It looks a little bit complex but can be true, of course. It's also possible that 'open wounds' could be triggered by any damage, opening possibilities for spell classes.

I'll try to test it on a huge hp physical and poison immune with high life regeneration. More than watching his life drop -363.67 over 4 seconds in a clvl 99-, the lack of life regeneration should be visible.