All Elemental Reactions in Arknights Endfield

Combat systems based on skill combos are fairly common nowadays, but Arknights Endfield's take on such a style involves a bit more nuance compared to other titles. Fights are more methodical, and while it seems simple at first, there's actually a lot of complexity hiding beneath the surface. In this guide, we're going to go over Arknights Endfield's Arts Infliction system, covering the very basics of how it works, the different elemental reactions players can exploit, and all the fun stuff you can expect to do when you're fighting with your team of Endfield Operators.

How Does Elemental Combat Work in Arknights Endfield?

The game's combat revolves around Inflictions, which prime enemies for reactions with elemental (and sometimes, physical) reactions. An Operator's Skill can either Apply, Consume, or interact with Inflictions in a variety of ways.

An Infliction usually does nothing by itself. However, when a target gets hit with another Infliction while already affected by one, a Reaction occurs. The type of Reaction you get depends on the element of the Skill that triggers as well as the nature of the Skill itself.

For example, the Endministrator's Battle Skill is a Physical Damage Crush-type Skill. Since it's a Physical Skill, it will always apply the Vulnerable Infliction when hitting enemies. When it hits a Vulnerable enemy, the Crush portion of Endmin's Skill triggers. Crush consumes Vulnerable to deal more damage per stack of Vulnerable on the target.

Meanwhile, Chen's Battle Skill also deals Physical Damage, but instead of Crush, hers is a Lift-type Skill. Since it still deals Physical Damage, it will also apply Vulnerable like how Endmin does. However, Lift Skills do not consume Vulnerable — they instead inflict more stacks of Vulnerable while knocking enemies up into the air.

Every damage type in the game uses this kind of damage model. The Infliction from the first instance of damage won't do anything unless the target already has a different Infliction on them.

Arts Inflictions, Bursts & Reactions

Arts is the term Arknights Endfield uses to refer to the four different types of elemental damage: Heat, Cryo, Electric, and Nature. As mentioned above, none of these elements will do anything special unless a target already has some other Infliction affecting them. What sets these apart from the Physical damage type is that Arts Inflictions have Burst and Reaction interactions.

What are Arts Bursts?

An Arts Burst is a delayed instance of damage that triggers if you apply the same Arts Infliction on an enemy more than once. If you hit a target with a Heat Infliction while they already have a Heat Infliction, you will trigger a Heat Burst, which will cause your target to take an additional instance of Heat damage after a short while. The same thing happens with other elements.

Arts Bursts deal more damage based on the hit that triggered them. They are also affected by your Operator's Arts Intensity stat.

What are Arts Reactions?

An Arts Reaction is what happens when two different Arts Inflictions interact with each other. The reaction is determined by the element of the Skill that triggers it, and not necessarily the combination of the elements themselves. For example, an enemy with Electric Infliction will always Solidify when hit by a Cryo Infliction, but if you flip the order of the Infliction application, you will get the Electrified reaction instead. The element of the triggering Skill is what matters most.

There are four Arts Reactions in Arknights Endfield:

Arknights Endfield Elemental Reactions
Reaction	Triggering Element	Effect
Combustion	Heat	Enemies take damage over time
Electrification	Electric	Enemies take more Arts DMG from all sources
Solidification	Cryo	Weak enemies are frozen solid
Corrosion	Nature	Reduces enemy elemental resistances over time

When an Arts Reaction is triggered, all Arts Inflictions are consumed.

Physical Damage Reactions

Physical Damage does not count as Arts Damage, and with the exception of Cryo, it won't interact with the other elemental types. However, there are various Physical Statuses that all interact with the Vulnerable Infliction:

Crush consumes Vulnerable or Solidification to deal more damage
Breach consumes Vulnerable to increase the damage enemies take from Physical damage
Lift knocks Vulnerable enemies up into the air
Knock Down slams Vulnerable enemies into the ground

Lift and Knock Down are valuable for crowd control, while Crush and Breach amplify the damage your Operators deal.

Such reactions aren't necessarily limited to Physical characters. Operators like Ember can deal a mix of Physical and Arts damage with her kit.

Operator-Specific Interactions

Some Operators in Arknights Endfield have unique interactions with the Arts and Physical Status systems. The same Apply→Consume principle still applies to them, but they also have special Skills that behave in interesting ways based on the type of Infliction affecting your enemies.

For example, Wulfguard's Thermite Tracers Skill normally applies Heat Infliction with its final shot. However, if your target is affected by either Combustion or Electrification, Wolfguard will instead consume the Arts Reaction and fire an additional, significantly more powerful shot. There are many such interactions across the Endfield roster, so pay attention to what your characters can do.

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