Special attacks are secondary attack types available for each melee weapon. The secondary special attacks for rare and uncommon broadswords are shared, but only rare broadswords will apply status effects with their primary attack.
The elemental damage type of each weapon is indicated by the corresponding icon in the in-game tooltip. These can be damaging (like burning, poison, or electrified) or offer control by impairing enemy movement (like frost). In addition to determining the damage type, each elemental also applies a status effect. Some damage types are more effective against specific enemies than others. Most uncommon and rare broadswords have an assigned elemental damage type.