Genshin Impact - Elemental Mastery explained

Elemental Mastery is an important but sometimes confusing aspect of Genshin Impact, allowing you to exploit Elemental Reactions for huge damage if you know what to do.

There are numerous factors involved, and many different reactions you can trigger. Understanding how Elemental Mastery works will be a key component of certain attacks, so we will cover everything you need to know, including the main stats that affect your results. Rather than going through all of the scientific damage formulas, we will try and keep things as simple as possible.

Here’s our explanation of Elementary Mastery in Genshin Impact, confirming what is Elemental Mastery and some further tips to take advantage of Elemental Reactions.

What is Elemental Mastery in Genshin Impact?

Elemental Mastery is generally the stat that determines how much elemental damage is done when an Elemental Reaction is instigated. The higher the Elemental Mastery of the character who triggered the reaction, the higher the damage. There are some other permutations, which we’ll address further below.

To be clear, Elemental Mastery has nothing to do with general damage dealt by Elemental attacks. It is only relevant when an elemental skill is used to trigger an Elemental Reaction.

The important stat is the Elemental Mastery of the second character who actually causes the reaction, rather than the character who performed the first elemental attack and created the initial elemental aura. The first character’s Elemental Mastery makes no difference at all.

For instance, if you perform a Hydro attack with one character, followed by a Pyro attack from another character, this will trigger a Vaporize reaction. It would be the Pyro character’s Elemental Mastery stat that will determine the damage.

Elemental Reactions are a great way to deal damage, so it’s important to know the different types of chains. There is a bit more to it, and certain Elemental Reactions work differently to others, which we’ll cover next.

Genshin Impact Elemental Reactions explained

The key to utilising Elemental Mastery is to know how to trigger each type of reaction. Here’s an explanation of each different reaction type that can be triggered, and how Elemental Mastery affects it.

Amplifying Reactions

These reactions rely heavily on ATK, Elemental Mastery and CRIT stats and have the potential to do the most damage by far.

If you have high ATK and high Elemental Mastery, you will deal huge damage. However, if you have low ATK and high Elemental Mastery, the attack will probably be fairly ineffective. The Elemental Mastery only applies a bonus to the initial attack.

The Amplifying Reactions are:

Vaporise: Hydro attack, followed by a Pyro attack. Deals 200% damage bonus.

Reverse Vaporise: Pyro attack, followed by a Hydro attack. Deals 150% damage bonus.

Melt: Cryo attack, followed by Pyro attack. Deals 200% damage bonus.

Reverse Melt: Pyro attack, followed by Cryo attack. Deals 150% damage bonus.

Transformative Reactions

These don’t have quite as much potential for damage as the Amplifying reactions, and these depend on Elemental Mastery and character level. ATK is not relevant and these reactions cannot inflict critical damage at all.

The higher the Elemental Mastery and character level, the higher the damage, but these have a far lower ceiling compared to amplifying damage.

The Transformative Reactions are:

Overloaded: Electro attack and Pyro attack (any order). Causes AOE Pyro damage and blows enemy away.

Shatter: Inflict Frozen with Cryo/Hydro combo, then use a Geo or heavy attack.

Electro-Charged: Electro attack and Hydro attack (any order). Causes gradual electro damage and spreads damage to nearby enemies who are Wet (ie. Have been struck by a Hydro attack).

Super-Conduct: Cryo attack and Electro attack (any order). Deals AOE Cryo damage and also reduces physical resistance for 12 seconds.

Swirl: Pyro, Hydro, Electro or Cyro attack and Dendro attack (any order): Creates a swirl of the non-Dendro element that deals AOE damage. Also triggers other Elemental Reactions.

Bloom: Dendro attack and Hydro attack (any order). Creates a Dendro core that will explode for AOE Dendro damage. Can also have damage increased by hitting the core with Pyro or Electro before it explodes.

Burning: Pyro attack and Dendro attack (any order). Deals continuous Pyro damage.

Other Reactions

These are some of the more unorthodox Elemental Reactions and how Elemental Mastery affects them:

Crystalise: Pyro, Hydro, Electro or Cyro attack first, then a Geo attack. Produces a shard that will give an elemental shield based on the element of the first attack. The stronger the Elemental Mastery stat, the stronger the shield.

Frozen: Cryo attack and Hydro attack (any order). Freezes enemies in place and makes them vulnerable to Shatter. Elemental Mastery is not relevant to this at all.

Catalyse: Dendro attack and Electro attack (any order). Creates a Quicken aura, which will cause increased damage if the enemy is subsequently bit by another Dendro attack (Spread) or Electro attack (Aggravate). The damage from this works based on a complex additive formula that relies on level, Elemental Mastery, artifacts and other stats like DEF and RES.

How to deal the most damage with Elemental Mastery

As you’ll see from the above descriptions, generally the biggest damage potential comes from Melt and Vaporize reactions, triggered by Pyro characters who have high ATK and Elemental Mastery stats.

Make sure you have access to Hydro or Cryo, and then try to start your Elemental Reaction with these elements. When the Hydro/Cryo elemental aura is present, follow it up with a Pyro attack to deal huge 200% damage with Melt or Vaporize. You can do it the other way around to get Reverse Melt or Reverse Vaporize, but dealing Hydro/Cryo first will ensure an extra 50% damage bonus.

Remember, the Elemental Mastery of the character triggering the reaction is the important one, which will preferably be the Pyro character. If you can also increase your Pyro character’s Critical stats, then even better because these reactions can also inflict critical damage.

That’s not to say a non-Pyro character should never be used, but Pyros will have a higher ceiling. If your Cryo character has much more ATK and Elemental Mastery than your Pyro character, then performing the second attack with your Cryo character may still deal more damage despite getting a smaller bonus.

Other uses for Elemental Mastery in Genshin Impact

Elemental Mastery does not just help with damage-dealing. There are plenty of other useful reactions that will come in handy in certain situations.

Lots of the Transformative Elemental Reactions deal AOE damage which can obviously assist against multiple enemies. Swirl is a terrific way of dealing solid-damage to several enemies whilst also triggering other reactions. If you can get elemental auras on numerous foes and then create a Swirl, it will create Elemental Reactions on all of the surrounding enemies.

Electro-Charged has a similar benefit where it can generate continuous strong damage to nearby foes who are wet. If the character who triggers the Electro-Charge has high Elemental Mastery, there is some great damage to be done as well.

Finally, don’t write off the Crystalise reaction where a high Elemental Mastery character can provide a crucial shield with enough strength to withstand some strong attacks.

Regardless of Elemental Mastery, the Elemental Chains like Electro-Charged and Frozen are always handy due to their effects. These are worth utilising even with low Elemental Mastery stats, because you will still lower defence and freeze the enemies in place respectively.

Which characters should increase Elemental Mastery?

Pyro characters like Diluc, Xiangling and Hu Tao can be fantastic damage dealers if their Elemental Mastery stats are significantly improved.

You should generally choose one of these characters in any party prioritising Elemental Reactions, along with some other support characters who can trigger the first elements to inflict Melt and Vaporize (Hydro and Cyro).

Xiangling is a great option as she can be obtained for free, and also has Elemental Mastery as an Ascension stat. If you are building a free-only team, then she will definitely play a crucial role in dealing damage with Pyro Elemental Reactions.

It’s also a good idea to have a character who can provide temporary boosts, like Sucrose or Kazuha. We’ll discuss these further below, but they have abilities that can increase the Elemental Mastery of others at crucial moments. Sucrose can also cause a devastating Swirl with high Elemental Mastery (and does not need high ATK for this to be effective).

Obviously your character choices are largely determined by luck in the gacha system, but there are a few who can perform each necessary function so you should be able to cover all bases.

Should I raise Elemental Mastery or ATK?

These two stats are the most important for big damage-dealing, and you will likely end up in conflict over which one to prioritise. There’s no easy answer, but these tips cover the main pointers:

Amplifying Reactions (Melt/Vaporize and Reverse Melt/Vaporize) will need high ATK and high Elemental Mastery and high CRIT to get the biggest damage
Transformative Reactions (Overloaded, Electro-Charged, Swirl etc) only need high Elemental Mastery and character level – they do not need a high ATK or CRIT stats

However, Transformative Reactions will never get close to the damage of an Amplifying Reaction from a high ATK/Elemental Mastery character
Even if the character triggering a Transformative reaction has much higher Elemental Mastery than a Pyro character triggering Amplifying reactions, the damage will likely be lower as these attacks simply aren’t that strong
For the biggest rewards, focus on getting your Pyro character’s ATK and Elemental Mastery up high and get them to trigger Melt and Vaporize reaction

How to raise Elemental Mastery

Elemental Mastery does not increase when characters level up, but it can be raised in a number of ways.

Lots of Weapons have Elemental Mastery as its second stat. The best is currently A Thousand Floating Dreams, a 5-star catalyst that can boost Elementary Mastery by up to 265 when fully-enhanced. The Kitain Cross Spear is a solid F2P weapon that can boost it by up to 110.

Artifacts like the Instructor set can raise Elemental Mastery by 80 with two pieces or 120 with four pieces (the latter is a temporary boost in battle).
Some characters have Talents that will temporarily boost Elemental Mastery. For example, Sucrose can increase Elemental Mastery of other characters in the party with multiple Talents.
A few Constellations will grant temporary boosts to Elemental Mastery. Kazuha’s Yamaraashi Whirlwind can increase the Elemental Mastery by 200 for everyone within range of his Elemental Burst. Diona’s Cat’s Tail Closing Time and Nahida’s Cat’s Tail Closing Time also have similar boosts.

Keep an eye out for any weapons and artifacts with Elementary Mastery mentioned, and consider Sucrose for her Talents. Her Catalyst Conversion will increase Elemental Mastery of party members by 50 if Sucrose triggers a Swirl and they match the element. Meanwhile, Mollis Favonius will increase the whole party’s Elemental Mastery by 20% of Sucrose’s Elemental Mastery stat whenever her Elemental Skill or Elemental Burst hits.

That’s our Genshin Impact Elemental Mastery guide, explaining what is Elemental Mastery and the best tips for dealing the most damage. It’s a pretty complicated system, but you should have everything you need to exploit Elemental Reactions. Check out some of our other Genshin Impact content below: