How to Amplify Elemental Mastery Damage in Genshin Impact
Elemental Mastery (EM) is a crucial stat in Genshin Impact that significantly enhances the damage of elemental reactions. Unlike direct damage which relies on ATK, CRIT, and DMG bonuses, Elemental Mastery focuses on boosting the potency of interactions between different elements. So, how do you increase Elemental Mastery damage in Genshin Impact? It’s a multifaceted process, involving character builds, strategic artifact selection, and understanding how EM scales. Essentially, you’re not directly boosting EM damage itself, but rather, the damage resulting from elemental reactions, which is calculated based on your character’s EM value.
Methods to Increase Elemental Mastery Damage
The primary way to increase the damage stemming from Elemental Mastery is to actually increase the stat itself. This can be achieved through several key methods:
Artifacts
Artifacts are perhaps the most impactful means of enhancing Elemental Mastery. Each artifact has a main stat and several substats.
- Main Stat: Certain artifact types, such as the Sands, Goblet, and Circlet, can roll Elemental Mastery as a main stat. Prioritizing these when building a character focused on reactions is crucial.
- Substats: Even if the main stat of an artifact isn’t EM, substats can also roll as EM. This allows for even more fine-tuning of your character’s build. Leveling up artifacts also provides random additional stat bonuses every four levels, increasing your odds of landing desirable Elemental Mastery substats.
- Artifact Sets: Some artifact sets provide flat Elemental Mastery bonuses or enhance it further in conjunction with set bonuses. For example, the Instructor Set is a powerful option:
- 2-Piece Bonus: Increases Elemental Mastery by 80
- 4-Piece Bonus: After using an Elemental Skill, increases all party members’ Elemental Mastery by 120 for 8 seconds. This makes it excellent for a support character role, enabling the whole team to trigger more powerful reactions.
The most popular and potent artifact set for EM builds is arguably the Viridescent Venerer (VV) set. Although its primary focus is on shredding enemy resistances when triggering Swirl, it still provides a notable 15% Anemo damage bonus with two pieces, enabling great scaling alongside high Elemental Mastery.
Weapons
Weapons also play a vital role in increasing Elemental Mastery:
- Base Stat: Some weapons have Elemental Mastery as their primary stat, making them ideal for reaction-based builds. Examples include:
- Wandering Evenstar (Catalyst)
- Alley Hunter (Bow)
- Makhaira Aquamarine (Claymore)
- Moonpiercer (Polearm)
- Iron Sting (Sword)
- Weapon Passives: Certain weapon passives also boost Elemental Mastery, further magnifying your damage. For example, the Wandering Evenstar’s passive increases EM and ATK based on team composition.
Character Abilities
Specific characters have abilities that enhance their Elemental Mastery or that of the party:
- Passive Talents: Some characters have passive talents that directly increase their own Elemental Mastery.
- Skills & Bursts: Certain character skills or bursts can provide EM boosts to the active character or the entire party. Nahida’s Elemental Burst, for example, increases the active character’s EM while within her field. Sucrose’s passive and burst provide significant EM buffs to party members. Kazuha also benefits greatly, both personally and for his teammates, from high Elemental Mastery.
Understanding How EM Increases Damage
It’s crucial to understand that Elemental Mastery does not increase all damage – instead, it scales the damage dealt by elemental reactions. The game uses a complex formula to calculate this, but the general idea is:
- Reactions such as Vaporize and Melt have higher damage scaling with Elemental Mastery.
- Reactions like Overloaded, Superconduct, Electro-Charged, Burning, Shattered, Swirl, Bloom, Hyperbloom, and Burgeon also receive significant boosts from Elemental Mastery.
- Aggravate and Spread, Dendro elemental reactions, also get damage increases.
The specific damage multiplier you get from Elemental Mastery depends on the reaction triggered. Therefore, a higher Elemental Mastery will generally lead to more powerful reactions. For example, a character with 50% EM bonus from their stat will deal increased damage with reactions, following the formula: Base Reaction Damage x (1 + EM Bonus).
Optimizing Your EM Build
- Prioritize Character Needs: Different characters benefit from EM differently. Some characters like Kazuha and Sucrose primarily scale with EM, while others may benefit from a blend of EM and other stats.
- Team Composition: Your team composition should complement your EM builds. Having multiple characters that can trigger reactions is the key to leveraging high EM.
- Reaction Types: Understand what elemental reactions your team relies on. Build EM and teams to maximize those reactions. For example, a team based around Dendro and Hyperbloom should maximize EM for the characters triggering the reaction, typically the Electro character.
In conclusion, maximizing your Elemental Mastery damage in Genshin Impact involves a careful combination of artifact selection, weapon choices, team composition, and strategic character usage. Understanding how Elemental Mastery functions within the game is the key to creating devastating elemental reaction combinations.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
1. How does Foliar Incision increase Elemental Skill damage?
Foliar Incision is a unique effect that increases Normal Attack and Elemental Skill damage by a percentage based on the character’s Elemental Mastery after they deal Elemental damage through a Normal Attack. The percentage increases with higher EM, making it a valuable asset for reaction-focused characters.
2. Can you increase Elemental Mastery through food buffs?
No, food buffs in Genshin Impact do not directly increase Elemental Mastery. Food buffs primarily focus on increasing attack, defense, or other stats.
3. What’s the difference between EM and elemental damage bonus?
Elemental damage bonus directly increases the damage of a character’s elemental attacks, while Elemental Mastery increases the damage of elemental reactions. They are two separate but very important stats for scaling your characters.
4. Does Elemental Mastery increase the damage of all elemental reactions?
Yes, but the amount of the increase varies depending on the specific reaction. Reactions like Vaporize and Melt benefit more than others, while others also benefit significantly.
5. Is it better to stack EM or focus on ATK/Crit stats for reaction-based characters?
It depends on the character. Characters like Kazuha and Sucrose primarily scale with EM. Other characters like Xiangling still benefit from EM, but may need a mix of ATK/Crit for their direct damage.
6. Is there a cap on how much EM I can get?
While there isn’t a hard cap in the game, there’s a point of diminishing returns. After a certain level, the gains from additional EM start to decrease. It’s best to find a good balance depending on your team and character.
7. Does Elemental Mastery affect healing?
It depends on the character. Kuki Shinobu’s healing is partially boosted by her Elemental Mastery. However, most healers scale primarily with HP or ATK, making EM less effective for healing characters.
8. How does the Instructor artifact set boost EM?
The 2-piece set bonus increases the character’s EM by 80. The 4-piece bonus grants all party members an additional 120 EM for 8 seconds after the wearer uses an Elemental Skill. This makes it a fantastic set for EM support roles.
9. What is the ideal amount of EM for Kazuha?
Most players recommend between 500 and 1000 EM for Kazuha. The higher, the better, as this maximizes his Swirl damage and team buffing capability.
10. Does character ascension affect EM?
No, character ascension does not directly affect EM. However, it does provide other stat bonuses like elemental damage, which can be beneficial.
11. Why is Viridescent Venerer a popular set for EM-focused characters?
The Viridescent Venerer (VV) set provides an Anemo Damage Bonus with two pieces and, most importantly, decreases enemy elemental resistance to the element swirled by 40% for 10 seconds with four pieces. This greatly boosts reaction damage and makes it essential for many Anemo characters in reaction based teams.
12. How does EM affect the Hyperbloom reaction?
Hyperbloom is a very powerful reaction that scales massively with EM. When an electro application hits a Dendro seed, it triggers Hyperbloom, which deals high Dendro damage. The amount of damage depends entirely on the EM of the electro character triggering the reaction.
13. Does Elemental Mastery work in co-op?
Yes, Elemental Mastery works the same way in co-op as it does in single-player. You will still trigger reactions based on the combined elements, and your EM will increase the damage caused by them.
14. What are the strongest elements for Elemental Reactions?
While many elements have powerful reactions, Pyro and Electro tend to be the most powerful due to the high damage multiplier offered by the Melt and Vaporize reactions when using Pyro to trigger it, or reactions like Aggravate and Hyperbloom when using Electro.
15. Do Anemo characters benefit most from Elemental Mastery?
While not all Anemo characters are the same, characters like Kazuha and Sucrose specifically benefit greatly from EM as it increases their damage through swirling. They are highly versatile in different teams, amplifying the power of elemental reactions. This makes EM an essential stat to prioritize when building them.