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If you're looking for reliable information on Genshin Impact elements and their weaknesses, you've come to the right place. Like many games of its ilk, Genshin Impact places a large emphasis on its elemental effectiveness system — essentially, certain elements are strong against others, while other ones can be nearly useless.

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Fortunately, because you can have up to four party members on your team at any given time, it's quite easy to set up elemental chain combos while also ensuring that you are always playing as defensively as possible. Working out how to best use your elements in tandem is how you get ahead in Genshin, so knowing when to use which element is vital.

Updated January 31, 2024, by Sean Murray: It's not quite as complicated as Pokemon, but Genshin Impact's elemental weakness chart is still something every Genshin player should know and understand. That's why we've updated this guide with improved formatting and more breakout tips for getting the most out of your elemental combinations. We've also given this guide a few more links to other helpful Genshin Impact topics.

What Elements Are Weak To Others

Genshin Impact Elemental Crystals Near Baptist Boss

First things first: elements in Genshin Impact don't function quite like the type-effectiveness you might expect to see in Pokemon or Persona. As opposed to having strict rules for which type trumps what, Genshin Impact's elements are arranged more reactively.

Each element has a certain property that reacts differently to all other elements it comes into contact with, and can change its form based on the kind of combinations you come up with.

So, instead of saying "Hydro is weak to Electro," it's probably more useful to list each element separately to explain how it reacts to every other element.

It's worth noting that the order in which the two elements in question come into contact doesn't matter — for example, applying Hydro to someone that was recently struck with Electro will trigger Electro-Charge, while applying Electro to Hydro in reverse will achieve the same end result.

Dendro seems to be massively weak to Electro and Pyro damage, but it doesn't resist anything particularly well when compared to the other elements that have a clear opposite.

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Elements Weakness Guide — Elemental Chart

Genshin Impact - close-up of the geo and cryo mondstadt visions

The elements of Genshin all play together in some way. In total, there are seven elements. Pyro, Cryo, Dendro, Hyrdo, Electro, Anemo, and Geo.

Hydro

  • Electro: Electro-Charge — Wet channels Electro, dealing extra damage.
  • Pyro: Melt — Can cause Cryo foes to lose their Cryo resistance or prime Electro-Charge. Also deals damage.
  • Cryo: Freeze — Freezes enemies in place, can be used to prime Superconduct.

Pyro

  • Cryo: Melt — Self-explanatory, causes Cryo foes to lose their Cryo armour, plus deals damage.
  • Hydro: Vaporize — Deals additional damage in a certain radius.
  • Electro: Overload — Triggers an elemental explosion. The damage is Pyro-based, as opposed to Electro, which may come as a surprise.

Electro

  • Pyro: Overload — Triggers an elemental explosion. The damage is Pyro-based, as opposed to Electro, which may come as a surprise.
  • Electro: Electro-Charge — Wet channels Electro, dealing extra damage.
  • Cryo: Superconduct — Deals a significant amount of additional Cryo-based damage.

Cryo

  • Pyro: Melt — Self-explanatory, causes Cryo foes to lose their Cryo armour, plus deals damage.
  • Electro: Superconduct — Deals a significant amount of additional Cryo-based damage.
  • Hydro: Freeze — Freezes enemies in place, can be used to prime Superconduct.

Geo

Geo can react with any of the above elements. It triggers the Crystallize effect, which causes crystals similar to the ones summoned during Traveler (Geo)'s Ultimate ability.

These crystals take on the properties of whatever element they come into contact with and deal damage appropriately, while also creating shields for your party based on the same element.

Anemo

Similarly to Geo, Anemo can react with all four core elements. Anemo triggers the Swirl effect, which converts other attacks into elemental explosions.

It's a great reactionary element for combining crowd control with massive area of effect damage.

Dendro

Dendro as an element has been in Genshin for ages, but the 3.0 Sumeru update added it as a playable element for characters.

Dendro is seemingly weakest to Electro, which triggers the Catalyse, Aggravate, and Hyperbloom depending on team compositions.

Pyro damage is also effective against Dendro since it triggers the Burning reaction at an expedited rate than normal Pyro burning.

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