Element

In Soul's Remnant, there are currently 7 element types in the game: Normal, Fire, Ice, Ghost, Metal, Lightning, Water. Element typing plays a significant role in Soul's Remnant, not only reducing and increasing damage dealt, but for the player it also adds a chance to trigger an additional effect when landing a skill on an enemy.

Additional Effect

Weapons with Normal element may surprise you with how much more damage you deal with them equipped. This is because beyond just a unique visual effect, every element also has a unique additional effect. For the Normal element, its effect is a chance to add a respectable amount of damage. Elemental Potency will increase the strength of an element's effect, and Elemental Chance will increase how often the effect occurs. You can find their effects below, or by talking to Shepherd at Spawn!

*the value of this number is calculated as when the player has exactly 100% Elemental Potency. Having less than that or more than that will change this number's value.

Normal: Deal 85%* extra damage to the target.

Fire: Deal 25%* damage to up to 4 nearby foes. The initial target also burns for 40%* damage over three seconds.

Ice: Apply "Frozen" for 6* seconds, slowing the target for the duration. "Frozen" also has an additional stacking effect which increases the target's damage taken by 30% at one stack, 45% at two stacks, and 60% at three stacks.

Ghost: Inflicts "Haunted" on enemy, causing 115%* damage over 2.5s and pulling other enemies to it. The damage can stack, and enemies already Haunted will instead spread Haunted to others.

Metal: Lower the target's DEF while gaining a stacking buff that increases your own DEF. Maximum stacks of 10*.

Lightning: Deal damage to up to 4 nearby enemies, 75%* damage to the first and reducing that amount by 40% with each bounce (e.g. 500 -> 300 -> 180 -> 102). This effect does nothing to the initial target.

Water: Slow the target slightly, and create a healing orb for 5s that any single player can absorb in order to immediately recover up to 15HP*.

Type Chart

Element damage is not in the current playtest, so you can use whatever element you want without worrying about dealing less damage!

Attacking Element Column on the left (↓), Defending Element Row across the top (→)

	Normal	Fire	Ice	Ghost	Metal	Lightning	Water
Normal	Neutral	Neutral	Neutral	Resisted	Resisted	Neutral	Neutral
Fire	Neutral	Resisted	Effective	Neutral	Neutral	Neutral	Terrible
Ice	Neutral	Terrible	Resisted	Effective	Neutral	Neutral	Neutral
Ghost	Neutral	Neutral	Terrible	Neutral	Effective	Neutral	Neutral
Metal	Neutral	Neutral	Neutral	Terrible	Neutral	Effective	Neutral
Lightning	Neutral	Neutral	Neutral	Neutral	Terrible	Resisted	Effective
Water	Neutral	Effective	Neutral	Neutral	Neutral	Terrible	Resisted

Example:
Using a Fire attack against an Ice enemy like a Sadling will deal more damage.
Using a Fire attack against a Fire enemy like Blaze will deal less damage than usual.
And using a Fire attack against a Water enemy like Snapper will deal even less damage.

Changing Your Element

The player by default will deal Normal type damage, and referring to the table below will show you that you deal less damage to Ghost and 'Metal type enemies. This can be changed by equipping a Weapon. Every weapon you find has a randomized Element type to it, and when equipping a weapon your skills take on that weapon's Element type.

Visually, beyond just changing the elemental effectiveness of your attacks, taking on a different element will also change the appearance of your skill. Some skills will have only their color change to match its current element, while other skills will have their sprite change as well. Every element also has an additional hit effect that will show when triggering its effect. Ghost, for example, will show an impish face:

Damage Numbers

Element damage is not in the current playtest, so you can use whatever element you want without worrying about dealing less damage!

Looking at the damage numbers is a good way to check if your element is a good match up for the monster(s) you are fighting. The numbers that show up when damage is dealt have a fill color and an outline color, and these colors will change independently from one another, for specific reasons.

Example of effective damage and neutral damage (That's the sun in the background).

Note: The below information is out of date, damage outlines now reflect the Element of your weapon (see mentions of the Elements above for a visual guide on how that looks):

Neutral damage numbers have a white fill color and faded blue outline color.

Terrible/Resisted element damage turns the outline color into a dull gray.

Effective element damage replaces the outline color with a sharp red.

Critical damage replaces fill color with yellow, adding a small explosive depiction behind the numbers as well.

Damage to Players has a faded red fill color and a dark red outline color.

Damage that other players deal have a lower opacity to them.