Genshin Impact Elements & Elemental Reactions Explained

Like Zelda, the game mechanics in Genshin Impact heavily depend on different elements. Elemental reactions are at the forefront of the game and help you progress through the story, quests, combat, and exploration. There are a total of seven elements in Genshin Impact. Each element has the ability to react to other elements and create a powerful move that deals more damage compared to when used alone. To efficiently use and maximize the damage from elements and elemental reactions, in this article, let’s look at all seven Genshin Impact elements and their reactions.

Genshin Impact Elements

1. Anemo

Anemo is associated with wind, and so is the nation of freedom Mondstadt ruled by Venti, the Anemo Archon. Anemo is THE most versatile reaction in the game as it reacts with almost every other element in Genshin except Geo. Anemo is meant to be used as support and to shatter the elemental resistances of enemies to deal increased damage. In fact, Anemo’s flagship artifact set Viridescent Venerer reduces the enemy’s resistance by 40% if you’re rocking a 4PC set.

Anemo does swirl damage, meaning it absorbs the applied element, and when attacking, applies an independent swirl plus elemental damage. Some of the best Anemo characters in Genshin Impact are Kazuha, Venti, Jean, Faruzan, Wanderer, and Sucrose.

2. Geo

Geo was the second element introduced in Genshin, and it’s quite simple to understand, a little too simpler, rather. Geo mainly deals with shielding and support. Zhongli, the deity of contracts, resides in the nation of Liyue. And Liyue Harbor’s main theme is business and earning Mora, one of Genshin’s currencies. Geo reacts with all elements except Dendro and Anemo and drops a shard. Once a character picks up that shard, it creates a shield that protects them from attacks of that particular element. And that’s all Geo does.

Geo is also an element that not a lot of players like because it doesn’t bring much fun to the table. Characters associated with Geo either have offensive play styles like Arataki Itto or defensive play styles like Zhongli, Noelle, Yun Jin, and Gorou. The game doesn’t have as many Geo characters as Cryo, Pyro, and Hydro characters.

3. Electro

Electro was the third element introduced in the game and it belongs to the region Inazuma which is ruled by Ei or the Raiden Shogun. Electro’s primary characteristic is to supply and replenish the energy of the team, which sounds like what it should do (Electro = Energy?). Although, Electro is one of the most versatile elements in the game because it can react with almost all elements except Geo.

It also has the most number of reactions out of all elements on this list. Most electro characters in the game are either used as support characters or sub-DPSes, with the exception of a few that are used as DPSes. Raiden Shogun, Yae Miko, Kuki Shinobu, Beidou, Fishcl, and Kujou Sara, are either battery replenishers or sub-DPSes or support characters.

4. Dendro

Dendro resembles nature and nature reacts with elements. Hence, Dendro, in the game, also reacts to almost every element (except Anemo, Geo, and Cryo.) Dendro has two reactions each for Hydro, Electro, and Pyro and the primary reaction is a subset of the reaction that happens later when the same element is applied. For example, Dendro plus Electro causes Quicken, adding further Electro to the reaction causes “Aggravate.”

In fact, Dendro is the first element that introduced three-element stack reactions such as Aggravate, Spread, Hyperbloom, and Burgeon. Out of all, Aggravate and Spread are the most powerful Dendro reactions. Here’s a list of Dendro reactions for a better idea.

5. Hydro

Hydro is also a versatile element and reacts with all other elements except Geo. It resembles water and like Dendro has lots of reactions, although most are two-fold reactions. Now, Hydro isn’t related to a particular characteristic since most of the characters associated with the same are damage dealers or support characters, or sub-DPSes. That said, Hydro as a support makes more sense since it’s the other elements that help players get the most out of the element.

Vaporize (Pyro+Hydro 2x Hydro damage) is the most powerful Hydro reaction, followed by the recently added Hyperbloom, Overloaded, Frozen, Melt, and Electro Charged. Some of the best Hydro characters in the game are Yelan, Xingqui, Ayato, Childe, and Kokomi. While some of them are offensive, most are characters meant to support your party.

6. Pyro

Pyro and Geo are the only Genshin Impact elements whose characters can be used in what we call “Mono” teams since their independent damage is so high you don’t need elemental reactions. Although, if you have well-built characters like Xingqui and Hu Tao, combining Hydro and Pyro gives Pyro a 1.5X Pyro damage bonus, increasing Hu Tao’s overall Pyro damage output. As mentioned earlier, Hydro + Pyro also causes Vaporize but comes with a Pyro damage bonus.

Burning is a decent reaction if you have a Dendro character built with good elemental mastery, but Burgeon is better with Dendro. As mentioned earlier, you can run a Pyro mono team and still have a powerful team; hence, most Pyro characters are damage dealers like Hu Tao, Bennett, Yoimiya, Diluc, Yanfei, Dehya, etc.

7. Cryo

Region-wise, Cryo is the last element in Genshin Impact. There are lots of Cryo characters currently in the game and most but all of them are DPSes, which tells us the nature of both the element and the powerful Archon in Teyvat, the Tsaritsa from Snezhnaya. Cryo reacts with Hydro, Pyro, and Electro to form Frozen, Melt, and Superconduct reactions.

The most powerful out of all is the Melt reaction, which is quite similar to Vaporize with 1.5X and 2.0X damage bonus outputs depending on which is applied first and second. Some of the best Cryo characters in the game are Kamisato Ayaka, Ganyu, Shenhe, Eula, Chongyun, and Rosaria.

Genshin Impact Elemental Reactions

As you may have guessed from the number of elements, there are lots of elemental reactions in Genshin Impact, 15 to be precise. A few of them could be a bit hard to understand; Hence, here are all the elemental reactions in Genshin Impact.

1. Swirl

Swirl is a reaction that occurs when you apply Anemo to Hydro or Pyro or Electro or Cryo. When an enemy is affected by one of those elements, adding Anemo creates swirl which deals extra elemental damage, and deals a wider AoE damage. Characters that are great at Swirling are Kadehara Kazuha, Jean, and Wanderer.

2. Crystallize

Crystallize occurs when Geo reacts with either Hydro, Pyro, Cryo, Electro. Crystallize reaction drops a shield of the element which protects you from the incoming attacks of the same element. For example, if you pick up a Pyro crystallize shield, you’ll have protection from incoming pyro attacks. All Geo characters can drop crystallize elements.

3. Vaporize

Vaporize is caused when you combine Hydro and Pyro or vice versa. Although Pyro + Hydro or vice versa causes the same reaction, the damage multiplier of Pyro + Hydro vaporize is more (2x Hydro bonus) than Hydro + Pyro vaporize which gives us 1.5x Pyro bonus attack output.

4. Frozen

Freeze and Melt are probably some of the most straightforward reactions in the game. As the name implies, when you combine Cryo + Hydro or vice versa, you can freeze enemies for 2.5 seconds with one unit of Cryo application. Although the freeze duration depends on the elemental aura of the characters, and among all, Kaeya has the most and can freeze enemies for up to 8 seconds.

5. Melt

Like Vaporize, Melt is caused when you combine Pyro and Cryo or vice versa. The Pyro + Cryo melt deals melt with 1.5x damage, whereas the Cryo + Pyro melt does 2x damage.

6. Superconduct

Superconduct is by far the only reaction in the game that, when triggered, lowers the enemy’s physical damage resistance. Electro + Cryo combined or vice versa lower the enemie’s physical resistance by 40%. This makes characters such as Eula and Freminet ideal for increased damage output. All you need to do is add a character that applies continuous Electro such as Raiden Shogun or Fischl.

7. Electrocharged

Electrocharged occurs when Electro reacts with Hydro or vice versa. This reaction deals continuous damage to the enemy for four seconds, and can, in turn, react with Pyro to give off two reactions, Vaporize and Overloaded at the same time because Pyro + Electro gives Overloaded and Pyro + Hydro gives Vaporize with 1.5x the hydro damage bonus.

8. Overloaded

Overloaded occurs when you combine Electro with Pyro or vice versa. It deals increased damage and that’s all there is to it. It also has a knock-back effect on the enemies, which makes sense as combining electricity with fire would give you a blast and knock you back.

9. Burning

Burning is the result of Dendro reacting with Pyro and it deals increased AoE damage over time. It’s quite similar to what would happen if you had to wrap yourself with plant wines and set fire to it. The amount of burning damage over time is directly proportional to the elemental reaction of the Dendro character that let you facilitate the reaction.

10. Quicken

Quicken happens when Electro reacts with Dendro or vice versa. It has a decent damage multiplier and is a gateway to other reactions such as Aggravate and Spread which are very effective against swarms of enemies as they do increased damage.

11. Aggravate

Aggravate occurs when you apply Electro to enemies affected by Quicken, i.e., Electro + Dendro. Aggravate has the ability to shell out some crazy damage as it does increased flat attack damage once triggered. Some of the best candidates to see this reaction in action are the Raiden Shogun + the traveler or Collei combo, or any electro DPS unit like Keqing or Beidou.

12. Spread

Like Aggravate, Spread is the result of applying more Dendro to enemies affected by the Quicken reaction (Dendro + Electro). Unlike Aggravate, Spread doesn’t do as much crazy damage but the output is still significant.

13. Bloom

Bloom is the result of Dendro reacting with Hydro or vice versa. This reaction drops Dendro cores that explode after some time and do Dendro damage. The damage that the cores do can be amplified using other elements which you’ll see below. One of the drawbacks of this reaction is when the Dendro cores explode, they deal damage to your character since the damage is AoE.

14. Hyperbloom

Hyperbloom occurs when the Dendro cores created by bloom (Hydro + Dendro) react with Electro. The cores then become projectiles and deal increased Dendro damage but in a small AoE.

15. Burgeon

Burgeon is caused by adding fire to the fuel, yes literally. Add Pyro to the Dendro cores dropped by Bloom reaction and see the cores explode to do increased AoE Dendro damage.