Element (XC2)

Elements are a property of most combatants and attacks in Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and Torna ~ The Golden Country. There are a total of eight elements: Fire, Water, Wind, Earth, Electric, Ice, Light, and Dark. While some attacks are of no element, the vast majority are one of these eight types. For players, the element of attacks is determined by the element of the weapon's , while for enemies, each individual attack is assigned a specific element.
There are several mechanics based on the element of attacks.
* If an attack is the opposite element of its target, it deals +20% damage. If an attack is the same element as its target, it deals -20% damage.
* If there is an element orb of the attack's element on the target, the damage is reduced by -25%.
* Certain Blade Skills, Aux Cores, and so on can modify the damage dealt or taken from specific elements.
* When a Blade Special is used, its element determines what sort of Blade Combo develops, and which seal and element orb will be applied at the end.
* During a , attacks target their opposite element orb and deal double damage to that orb. If no opposite orb exists, or it has already been broken, it targets an orb at random.
* Playable Drivers' idea levels increase the damage of attacks of the matching elements by +5% per level, and the biggest one increases the odds of receiving a Blade of those elements from Core Crystals by +5% per level.
==List of elements==
Note that this table lists the "raw" element of a Blade. Some Blades' element can be customised, or changed during battle.
Common Blades can be any element except for Light.
Element 	Opposite	Idea 	Rare Blades	Seal
Fire 	Water 	Bravery 	 	Seal
Water 	Fire 	Bravery 	 	Seal Stench
Wind 	Ice 	Truth 	 	Seal Blowdown
Earth 	Electric	Compassion	 	Seal Shackle Driver
Electric	Earth 	Compassion	 	Seal
Ice 	Wind 	Truth 	 	Seal Shackle Blade
Light 	Dark 	Justice 	 	Seal Affinity Down
Dark 	Light 	Justice 	 	Seal Reinforcements
==Strategy==
===Xenoblade Chronicles 2===
It is a commonly-held misconception that a team must have a wide variety of elements (via equipping s of many different elements) in order to be successful, and that having two Blades with the same element is not ideal because of the damage reduction that element orbs provide. In truth, this is not correct at any stage of the (base) game.
On Normal just playing through the story, the main use of elements is for performing Blade Combos to add element orbs for a , and to break said orbs during the Chain Attack in order to get extra rounds. For most purposes, the number of orbs that must be applied is really quite low - it is entirely possible to defeat most story bosses with a 2-orb Chain Attack, although some particularly-tanky bosses such as may require 3. This means that easy access to 3-4 elements is sufficient, as long as these can inflict 2-3 element orbs and consistently break them in a Chain Attack. Having multiple Blades with the same element is often a boon rather than a hindrance, if it means the desired Blade Combos can be more easily performed and the applied orbs can be reliably broken.
An example of a basic party setup which can do this as early as is as follows:
* as the player-controlled Driver, with and any Water-type Blade as Blades.
* , with and any Fire-type Blade.
* , with (Earth-element) .
This setup only has three elements and can be put together with only story Blades and Common Blades, yet it is able to easily inflict three element orbs: one with a Fire -> Water -> Fire or Fire -> Fire -> Fire Blade Combo using Rex and Nia, one with Water -> Water -> Water (again with Rex and Nia), and Earth -> Fire -> Earth with Tora and Rex or Nia. It can also consistently burst the orbs in a Chain Attack: using both Rex and Nia's Fire Blades in a round will be guaranteed to burst a Water orb, and vice versa for Fire. Indeed, three element orbs is overkill for all situations before chapter 4; the majority of early story bosses can be defeated with just one orb (once Chain Attacks are available), which is trivially easy to do with Fire -> Water -> Fire and requires no tactics to burst in a Chain Attack.
The above is only a minimal example which can be implemented very early on. As the story progresses, options such as and, later, A Dream of the Future make access to key elements even easier at no opportunity cost. If a three-orb Chain Attack is insufficient to defeat an enemy, it often indicates severe inefficiencies in the party's damage output, which are typically much more easily fixed by using better equipment than by changing around elemental setup to allow for more orbs. This is especially true given that inflicting more orbs takes more time in combat, which not only means more chances for things to go wrong, but also means the enemy will take more damage that could render the extra orb unnecessary by the time it's applied.
In theory, stacking extra unnecessary orbs does have a use because it allows for more Overkill, thus granting extra rewards. But in practice, this is only for serotonin purposes. It is already easy to become overlevelled due to Overkill without aiming to maximize it.
On Bringer of Chaos difficulty and during postgame optimisation, the strategy often shifts from many-orb Chain Attacks to be more reliant on Fusion Combos, and elements become less of a concern. If and when they are relevant, they are usually used to take advantage of enemy weaknesses; some enemies (such as Immovable Heir Carlos) take much greater damage to certain elements in certain circumstances, such as when they become . Setups exploiting this are obviously highly enemy-dependent.
===Torna ~ The Golden Country===
In Torna ~ The Golden Country, where Chain Attacks are weaker per-orb, having a wider variety of elements can be valuable, to the point that even having all 8 available is useful. This is especially true since element orbs are trivially easy to apply, nullifying the advantage of doubling up on elements.
Having all eight elements is easy to accomplish, as each of the six Blades have a unique element; all that is required is for the Drivers to cover the remaining two (Earth and Electric), which and provide by default. The remaining Driver will necessarily double up on an element. This should be an element which is not shared by any of the Driver's Blades, so that two different Teams can attack with the same element in a Chain Attack, guaranteeing a burst on its opposite orb and ensuring the Chain Attack will continue past the first round.
==Gallery==
Elemental Weakness Tutorial (XC2) 1.jpg|Elemental weakness tutorial
Elemental Weakness Tutorial (XC2) 2.jpg|Elemental weakness tutorial
Elemental Weakness Tutorial (XC2) 3.jpg|Elemental weakness tutorial
Category:Battle mechanics (XC2)Category:Battle mechanics (TTGC)