SLM: Elements

⚙️ Advanced Details – Elements & Damage Behavior

🌿 Element Identity & Effects

Each element not only defines damage type, but also introduces unique status effects and gameplay interactions.

🔥 Ignis

• Applies Ignis Tick (burning damage over time)
• Deals 1 damage per tick
• More effective against low armor targets

❗ Will not apply if the target is already burning

💧 Aqua

• Currently has no direct status effect
• Acts as a reaction enabler and scaling modifier

🌍 Terra

• No direct status effect
• Strongly tied to positional combat (grounded targets)

❄️ Frost

• ❄️ Reduces movement speed
• 🍖 Slows natural regeneration (increases hunger consumption)

⚡ Volt

• ⚡ Reduces total experience gained by the player

🌪️ Aero

• 🌬️ No direct debuff
• Focused on area propagation and aerial interaction
• Core element for AoE reaction spreading

✨ Lumen

• 💡 No direct debuff
• Represents purity and amplification
• Strong synergy with high-health targets and utility reactions

🌑 Umbra

• 🌘 No direct base debuff
• Focused on execution, corruption, and scaling with missing health
• Enables high-risk / high-reward mechanics

⚔️ Elemental Damage Behavior

Each element modifies how damage is calculated depending on the target’s state.

🔥 Ignis (Anti-Armor – Inverse Scaling)

• ✔️ Up to +25% damage vs low armor (0–20 Armor)
• ❌ -10% damage vs high armor (20+ Armor)

💧 Aqua (Anti-Low HP Targets)

• ✔️ Up to +20% damage vs low Max HP targets (0–60 HP)
• ❌ -10% damage vs very high Max HP targets

❄️ Frost (Anti-High HP – Boss Killer)

• ✔️ Up to +25% damage vs high Max HP targets
• ❌ -10% damage vs low Max HP targets

⚡ Volt (Armor Scaling)

• ✔️ Up to +25% damage vs high armor targets
• ❌ -10% damage vs low/no armor targets

🌍 Terra (Ground Control)

• ✔️ +15% damage if target is grounded
• ❌ -10% damage if target is airborne

🌪️ Aero (Air Control)

• ✔️ +15% damage if target is airborne
• ❌ -10% damage if target is grounded

✨ Lumen (Health-Based – Frontloaded)

• ✔️ Up to +20% damage at full health
• ❌ Scales down to -10% as target loses HP

🌑 Umbra (Execution Scaling)

• ✔️ Up to +25% damage as target HP approaches zero
• ❌ -10% damage vs full health targets

🧠 Design Philosophy

• Elements are not just damage types, they define combat roles:
  • Ignis / Volt → Armor interaction
  • Frost / Aqua → HP scaling extremes
  • Terra / Aero → Position-based gameplay
  • Lumen / Umbra → Opposing health-state mechanics

🌐 ICD – Internal Cooldown Dealer:

The Internal Cooldown Dealer (ICD) introduces a cooldown mechanism between successive elemental infusions or transfers. It ensures that elemental application does not occur too frequently from regular attacks, maintaining balance between basic attacks and special abilities.

When a weapon is infused with an element (e.g. Ignis), it can only apply or transfer that element to a target once every 2.5 seconds, or after 3–4 consecutive hits. This restriction applies to normal attacks only.

Special abilities bypass this limitation and always apply their element.

The ICD behavior is dynamic and depends on:

• The source entity’s characteristics.
• The weapon’s properties.
• Whether the interaction is through basic attack or skill.

Elemental Transfer:

When an element is transferred via ICD, additional data is passed from the Source Entity to the Target Entity. This includes metadata to determine reaction damage scaling, which depends on the source’s weapon stats and base damage.

Reaction damage is categorized into two main types (not detailed here).

Elemental Durations (in Ticks):

⚛️Elemental Reactions

Elemental Reactions occur when two elements interact on the same target, producing unique effects that range from burst damage to utility and battlefield control.

Reactions are divided into four main categories:

⚡ Instant Reactions

These reactions are resolved in a single tick, delivering immediate impact.

🔥 Undetermined Reactions (Source-Based)

These reactions scale primarily with the attacker’s weapon, not the target.

💥 Overload (Ignis + Volt)

• Deals 125% weapon damage
• Triggers an AoE explosion (75%)
• Applies knockback
• ⚠️ PvP: Only direct damage is applied

💧 Vaporized (Ignis + Aqua)

• Deals 145% weapon damage
• 🔁 Reverse (Aqua → Ignis): 170% damage

❄️ Melt (Ignis + Frost)

• Deals 165% weapon damage
• 🔁 Reverse: 170% damage
• 🔥 Double Ignis setups may reach 200% damage

💥 Flare (Lumen + Ignis)

• Deals 55% damage
• Applies blindness

💧 Purify (Lumen + Aqua)

• Removes negative effects
• Deals bonus damage per removed effect:
  • +10% / +15% / +20% / +25% (max 4 stacks)

📌 Rule:
The last applied element defines the final damage type.

❄️ Determined Reactions (Target-Based)

🧊 Frozen (Aqua + Frost)

• Deals 14% of target's Max HP
• Scales with weapon damage (with diminishing returns)
• Strong vs high HP targets

Scaling behavior:

• 40 damage → no penalty
• 20 damage → -35%
• 0 damage → -70%

Caps:

• Base: 175 damage
• With Frost scaling: 262.5 max

☣️ On-Tick Reactions (DoT)

Applies damage over time instead of instant burst.

⚡ Electrocharged (Aqua + Volt)

🌍 Cold (Terra + Frost)

🔥 Burning (Terra + Ignis)

Characteristics:

• Ignores 100% armor
• No knockback
• Scales with weapon damage (flattening over time)
• Behaves like poison-type damage

🔁 Reverse Scaling Bonus

• Cold (Terra base) → +15% total damage
• Burning (Terra base) → +18% total damage

🌍 Decay (Umbra + Terra)

• Deals Terra-based damage over time

⚡ Corruption (Umbra + Volt)

• Applies scaling DoT
• Damage increases as HP decreases

💀 Execution Rule:

• If target reaches ≤ 5% HP → instant execution

🧠 Utility Reactions

These reactions do not deal direct damage, but modify combat behavior.

⚡ Conductor (Terra + Volt)

• +30% Volt damage taken
• 10% chance every 3s to trigger lightning strike

❄️ Superconductor (Frost + Volt)

• Reduces all resistances by 20%
• Fallback: +10% damage taken

🌍 Rooted (Aqua + Terra)

• +25% Terra damage taken
• -15% movement speed

🛡️ Crystallize (Lumen + Terra)

• Removes 45% absorption hearts
• Else:
  • -10% resistance
  • or +5% damage taken (fallback)

❄️ Hyperconductor (Lumen + Frost)

• +12% Frost damage from all sources

⚡ Lumishock (Lumen + Volt)

• +17% Lumen damage from all sources

🔥 Shrivelled (Umbra + Ignis)

• +10% Ignis damage taken

💧 Drowning (Umbra + Aqua)

• +15% Aqua damage taken

❄️ Shadowfrost (Umbra + Frost)

• +13.5% Umbra damage from all sources

🌪️ AoE Propagation

All Aero reactions are Static and focus on element spreading.

• Deal 25% Damage
• Consume elements
• Apply AoE propagation

🌗 Eclipse (Lumen + Umbra)

• Emits a symmetrical AoE burst
• Applies both light and dark energy

🧠 Reaction Rules Summary

• Direct → Chainable, lower burst
• Reverse → Higher damage, consumes elements
• Static → Same behavior regardless of order

The environment can also trigger reactions, these have lower damage; in turn, if the environment executes a reaction on the player, the damage of this will increase based on the difficulty of the world.

🌐 ERCS – Reaction Shield

The Entity Reaction Cooldown System (ERCS) prevents elemental reactions from being triggered too frequently on the same entity.

Each reaction has its own independent cooldown, meaning:

• Reactions do not share cooldowns
• Direct and reverse combinations are treated separately (when applicable)
• Static reactions behave identically regardless of order

This system ensures combat remains balanced, readable, and non-exploitable.

⚙️ Cooldown Rules

• Cooldowns are measured in milliseconds (ms)
• Applied per entity, per reaction
• If a reaction is not registered → defaults to 100 ms
• Works alongside ICD and ERGCS

🔥 Base Reactions

🌪️ Aero Reactions (Propagation)

All Aero-based reactions are Static

✨ Lumen Reactions 

🌑 Umbra Reactions (Corruption)

📌 Notes

• Frozen (1200 ms) has the highest cooldown due to its scaling with max HP
• Corruption (670 ms) is limited due to its scaling DoT + execution potential
• Crystallize (600 ms) prevents defensive stacking abuse
• Aero reactions (450 ms) are balanced for propagation without spam

🌐 ERGCS – Global Reaction Shield

The Entity Reaction Global Cooldown System (ERGCS) introduces a global protection layer that prevents entities from being overwhelmed by continuous elemental reactions.

Each reaction adds intensity to a global meter.
When the meter reaches a threshold, the entity becomes temporarily immune to all reactions.

• ⚠️ Prevents reaction spam
• ⚖️ Balances high-damage combos
• 🧠 Especially relevant for bosses or high-HP entities

🔍 More Details

The system works through a cumulative intensity counter:

• Each reaction adds a predefined intensity value
• When the total reaches 205, reactions are blocked
• While blocked:
  • ❌ No reactions can be triggered
  • ✅ Normal damage still applies

⏳ Decay Behavior

The global shield is not permanent:

• 🔻 -1 intensity per hit received
• 🔻 -1 intensity every 2 ticks (passive decay)

Once the value drops below the threshold, reactions can occur again.

⚖️ Reaction Intensity Table

🌪️ Aero Reactions (AoE Propagation)

✨ Lumen Reactions

🌑 Umbra Reactions

🧠 Intensity Rules

• Direct → Lower intensity, allows chaining
• Reverse → Higher intensity, more burst-oriented
• Static → Same value regardless of order