What is Elemental Mastery in Genshin Impact?

Elemental Mastery in Genshin Impact is a stat that boosts the damage and effects of elemental reactions. This article will show you what it is, how it works, and how to increase it.

In Genshin Impact, you can choose from a variety of characters, each with its own unique element. There are seven elements in total, and when you combine them in combat, you can unleash some great elemental reactions. Some of these reactions include Melt, Vaporize, Freeze, and Superconduct, and they can easily give you an edge over your foes if you practice them.

Reactions are a key feature of Genshin Impact, and they can help you defeat the toughest bosses like Raiden Shogun. Some characters are especially good at triggering reactions, like Kokomi and Ayato, who can keep their enemies soaked or frozen with their elements.

Now that we know about its significance, here’s everything to know about Elemental Mastery in Genshin Impact.

• What does Elemental Mastery do in Genshin Impact?
  • Reactions in Genshin Impact explained
• Difference between Transformative and Amplifying reactions in Genshin Impact
• How Elemental Mastery buffs Vaporize and Melt
• How Elemental Mastery buffs Overloaded, Swirl, and other transformative reactions
• How Elemental Mastery buffs Crystalize
• How Elemental Mastery buffs Aggravate and Spread
• How to increase Elemental Mastery in Genshin Impact

What does Elemental Mastery do in Genshin Impact?

Elemental Mastery in Genshin Impact increases the damage dealt by elemental reactions like Melt, Vaporize, Superconduct, Electro-charged, Overloaded, Shattered, Swirl, Bloom, Quicken, and Crystalize.

Reactions in Genshin Impact explained

Here’s how you can trigger different reactions in Genshin Impact:

• Vaporize – Pyro (first) + Hydro (second) (deals 2x damage)
• Reverse Vaporize – Hydro + Pyro (deals 1.5x damage)
• Overloaded – Pyro + Electro or vice versa
• Melt – Cryo + Pyro (deals 2x damage)
• Reverse Melt – Pyro + Cryo (deals 1.5x damage)
• Electro–Charged – Hydro + Electro or vice-versa
• Frozen – Hydro + Cryo or vice versa
• Superconduct – Cryo + Electro or vice versa
• Crystalize – When Geo is used on an enemy affected by Hydro/Electro/Pyro/Cryo. This creates a shard that turns into a shield when a character picks it up.
• Swirl – When Anemo is used on an enemy affected by Hydro/Electro/Pyro/Cryo.
• Burning – Dendro + Pyro
• Bloom – Dendro + Hydro (includes Burgeon and Hyperbloom).
• Quicken – Electro + Dendro (includes Spread and Aggravate).

You might have noticed that only Vaporize and Melt reactions have ‘reverse’ mechanics and they have a multiplier. These are called Amplifying reactions. All other reactions are Transformative in nature.

Difference between Transformative and Amplifying reactions in Genshin Impact

Amplifying Reactions in Genshin Impact

The damage output of Amplifying Genshin Impact reactions like Melt and Vaporize depends on a character’s attack. This means that Melt itself doesn’t deal damage but it replaces the damage of the attack that triggers it.

As a result, to make the most of Vaporize and Melt, you don’t really need a lot of Elemental Mastery but focus on great ATK, Crit Rate, and Crit DMG stats instead.

From the list mentioned above, it is clear that Hydro attacks can trigger Vaporize while Pyro attacks can trigger Reverse Vaporize. This is important because Elemental Mastery is applied to the attack that triggers the reaction.

Accordingly, for the best damage numbers, you’ll have to increase the Elemental Mastery of your Pyro character if your team is based on triggering Reverse Vaporize (Xingqiu + Hu Tao).

Mathematically, a Hydro attack that does 10,000 damage will deal 20,000 damage (2x damage buff provided by reaction) if it’s executed on an enemy affected by Pyro. Similarly, a Pyro attack that normally does 20,000 damage will deal 40,000 damage (2x damage buff by Melt) when executed on an enemy affected by Cryo.

Transformative reactions in Genshin Impact

Every other reaction except Melt and Vaporize is Transformative in Genshin Impact. These attacks have their own damage counter and other stats like ATK, Crit Rate, and Crit DMG do not affect their damage.

This implies that to get the most damage from Transformative reactions, you only need Elemental Mastery and a high-level character. These reactions have base damage, and EM basically multiplies it.

Now that you know how reactions work in Genshin Impact, let’s take a look at how Elemental Mastery affects them:

How Elemental Mastery buffs Vaporize and Melt

For Melt and Vaporize, Elemental Mastery puts an additional DMG multiplier that increases the damage of attacks that trigger these reactions. Hence, with EM, you still need to improve the attack, Crit Rate, and Crit DMG of the attacker.

The 1.5x and 2x multipliers are inherently a part of Melt and Vaporize, and Elemental Mastery further multiplies the damage with its own multiplier. This is why the EM effect for Vaporize and Melt is almost half of what it is for other reactions.

There’s a fixed formula to calculate the damage buff from Elemental Mastery:

• 278 X EM/EM + 1400

If you replace EM with 48 in this formula, the damage buff will turn out to be 9.2%. The same has been verified in the first image of this article.

How Elemental Mastery buffs transformative reactions like Overloaded and Swirl

Elemental Mastery in Genshin Impact simply increases the reaction DMG for Overloaded, Superconduct, Electro-Charged, Shattered, Bloom, Hyperbloom, Burgeon, and Swirl. These reactions have a fixed damage counter and it is multiplied based on the character’s EM.

As explained above, these are transformative reactions so attributes like attack, Crit Rate, and Crit DMG won’t play a role in increasing elemental damage.

Swirl especially benefits from Elemental Mastery which is why you might have noticed that characters like Kazuha, Venti, and Sucrose are built around this stat. This is because Swirl infuses with another element (Pyro, Hydro, Electro, or Cryo) and spreads it.

After infusion, the Swirl reaction doesn’t deal Anemo damage, but non-Anemo damage of the reaction it is infused with.

The fixed formulas for Elemental Mastery’s impact on Overloaded, Superconduct, Electro-Charged, Shattered, Bloom, Hyperbloom, Burgeon, and Swirl are:

• 1600 X EM/EM + 200

If you replace EM with 48 in this formula, the damage buff will turn out to be 37.5%. The same has been verified in the first image of this article.

Some Anemo characters like Venti, Kazuha, Sucrose, and Heizou have abilities that have elemental absorption. With this, their attacks absorb the on-field element and continuously deal elemental damage. This should not be confused with Swirl as the reaction can only take place once per attack.

How Elemental Mastery buffs Crystalize

Elemental Mastery in Genshin Impact increases the damage absorption power of a shield made by Crystalize (when Geo meets any other element). The buff can be calculated with this formula:

• 444 X EM/EM+ 1400

If you replace EM with 48 in this formula, the shield absorption buff will turn out to be 14.7%. The same has been verified in the first image of this article.

This is beneficial for certain characters with talents that increase their DMG output when they’re inside a shield. Some weapons also have passive abilities which require the character to be inside a shield for the best results.

How Elemental Mastery buffs Aggravate and Spread

Elemental Mastery in Genshin Impact buffs Dendro reactions like Aggravate and Spread based on this formula:

• 500 X EM/EM + 1200

How to increase Elemental Mastery in Genshin Impact

Weapons and artifacts are the primary ways to increase your characters’ Elemental Mastery in Genshin Impact. Having said that, some characters like Xiangling gain EM upon ascension as well.

Weapons

Every weapon in Genshin Impact has a passive ability, Base ATK, and a sub-stat. The Base ATK and sub-stat increase when you power up the weapon while the passive ability improves upon refinement.

Look for weapons that have an Elemental Mastery sub-stat and equip them on the desired characters. Obviously, the total EM of the weapon depends on its level.

Artifacts

Artifacts in Genshin Impact have sub-stats and a main stat. For the highest amount of Elemental Mastery, try looking for a Sands, Goblet, or Circlet artifact with an EM main stat.

You can also get EM as one of the three/four sub-stats of an artifact. However, there is no guarantee that your artifact’s EM will increase upon leveling up as artifact rolls in Genshin Impact are based on the RNG system.

As a casual Genshin Impact player, you don’t really need to worry about the statistical side of things. You’ll be able to clear the Spiral Abyss even if you don’t know the exact amount of buffs provided to your elemental damage by Elemental Mastery.

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