Elemental damage multipliers and skill typing

Attacking with an elemental type advantage deals 1.6 times normal damage. That figure is the anchor for everything else here. Fire is the plainest example: Fire attacks and Fire-type Aniimo deal 1.6 times damage against Grass and Ice types.

The other direction is less tidy. Water-element and Wind-element Aniimo resist Dark-element attacks and take 0.625x damage from them. The general multiplier for a resisted attack, though, is not settled. It is given both as exactly half damage and as 0.5 to 0.6 times normal damage. Treat any resisted hit as losing a large share of its damage, and do not plan around a precise figure yet.

Individual Aniimo can go further than the chart. Base-form Magmarex strongly resists Ice, taking 0.4x damage from Ice and Fire. That is a steeper cut than either the 0.625x Dark resistance or the half-damage figure, so a creature's own profile is worth checking before you assume the standard numbers apply.

Defence and offence work from different inputs. An Aniimo's defensive matchup is determined by its own typing against the attacks coming in. You cannot change that mid-fight; it is what the creature is.

Offence is phrased in terms of the attack. Water and Wind resist Dark attacks. Dark Aniimo take increased damage from Light and Wind attacks. Fire attacks deal the 1.6x bonus to Grass and Ice. In every case the question is what element the hit carries, and that is the part you control when you choose what to attack with.

This is also why element matters more here than in games built around combos. Aniimo combat has no elemental chain reactions, so there is nothing to prime and detonate. The damage an element adds comes from landing it on the right target, and from the buffs covered further down.

The combat system uses nine distinct elements, but which nine is not settled. One line-up is Light, Dark, Fire, Wind, Water, Ice, Grass, Earth, and Lightning (also called Electric). A second list adds Rock to that set for ten. A third gives nine as Holy, Fire, Ice, Dark, Electric, Grass, Water, Rock and Wind.

For practical purposes, the names you will see in matchups are the ones above. Lightning and Electric refer to the same element, and Holy sits where Light does in the other list. Rock appears in matchups even though it is missing from one roster, which is part of why the count is still open.

Fire deals 1.6x to Grass and Ice. Water-type Aniimo resist Fire, and Rock attacks as well.

Light and Dark are super effective against each other. Dark attacks are also super effective against Grass. Dark's third strong matchup is unsettled: it is given as Fire, and as Electric after a change made after the beta replaced Fire with Electric. On defence, Dark Aniimo take increased damage from Light and Wind, while Water and Wind Aniimo resist Dark at 0.625x.

Earth deals super-effective damage to Ice. The second type Earth beats is unsettled and given as both Fire and Lightning. If it is Lightning, Earth becomes a serious threat to any team built around Lightning damage, which matters a great deal given the Lightning buffs below.

The type multiplier is not the only way to raise elemental damage. Some Aniimo skills add to it directly, and Lightning is where this is clearest.

Desmond can apply a Lightning debuff. Each stack raises the enemy's damage taken from Lightning by 1%, and it stacks up to 20 times for a maximum of 20%. Luminel's ultimate creates a Lightning arena that grants a 30% Lightning elemental damage boost. Both reward committing your team's offence to one element, and both are only worth it if your hits are not being resisted.

Not every useful skill is a damage number. Helion can stun enemies with an empowered attack, which buys time rather than raw damage.

Outside combat, Homeland furniture and items grant buffs to elemental damage and elemental resistance, at 5% against every element. It is small next to a 1.6x advantage, but it applies to every element and every fight.

06Where to start

Choose your attack's element for the 1.6x before anything else, and avoid targets that resist it. Do not count on an exact resist figure yet. If you build around Lightning with Desmond and Luminel, keep an eye on whether Earth turns out to counter it, and pick up the Homeland elemental buffs, since they apply to every fight.