While you play Arknights: Endfieldyour battle system will be unlocked pretty early on as you have to participate in it to progress through the story. But during the early game, you can easily defeat enemies just by hitting them with your characters without paying much attention to the team compositions and synergies.
The late game is the exact opposite of this as you need to understand all types of damage and reactions to do well with your characters. Depending on your character's damage type and kit, you will use different teams with them that can provide relevant reactions to increase their damage.
All damage types, explained
Each character in Arknights: Endfield has a certain type of damage they can do, and these are divided into two categories: Physical is a standalone damage type and Arts involving four other damage types based on different elements. Characters that can damage art can do Heat, electricity, cryo and natural damage based on their abilities.
The damage your character deals can be improved by giving them a DMG bonus stat for their preferred type. For example, Physical characters receive increased damage from the Physical DMG Bonus while Arts characters receive increased damage from the Arts DMG Bonus. Each type of art also has a specific damage bonus stat which you can get from various gear sets and weapons.
Some characters can damage the art with some of their abilities at the same time also deal with physical harm with others.
You can easily tell the type of injury a character trades based on their color:
|
Damage type |
Damage paint |
|---|---|
|
Physical |
White |
|
HEAT |
RED |
|
Electrical |
Yellow |
|
Cryo |
Blue |
|
Nature |
Green |
7 Best Automation Games for Nintendo Switch
Factory play on the go
All art outbreaks and reactions, explained
The biggest complications with damage types come when you start digging into art bursts and reactions. The important thing to learn before the outbreaks and reactions are the additions. You cannot apply art effects to an enemy just by using a specific damage type on them. Instead, you must use specific abilities that mention they will apply inflictions.
Once you apply any art effect on the enemy, you can see it on the right side of their health bar. If you apply the same attack to the enemy again, it gains a stack and the Art Burst for that art is triggered. When you trigger an art burst for any of the arts, the enemy takes an extra damage from that art after a little delay.
Art Bursts usually don't do much damage, but they can be a decent addition when you're just trying to stack Arts Infliction.
On the other hand, if you apply two different art inflictions on the same enemy, it will trigger a reaction based on the second art infliction applied. Each reaction has different effectsand here's how to enable them:
|
Reaction name |
How to trigger |
Effect |
|---|---|---|
|
Combustion |
Heat Infliction is applied to an enemy with a non-Heat Arts Infliction. |
As long as the burn effect lasts, the enemy takes regular damage Heat damage based on ATK the operator who applied it. |
|
Electrification |
Electric Infliction is applied to an enemy with a non-electric artifact effect. |
The enemy that has Electrify status takes more damage from all arts. |
|
Solidification |
Cryo Infliction is applied to an enemy with a non-Cryo Arts Infliction. |
If you apply this reaction to a small enemy, they freeze in place for the duration of the reaction. |
|
Corrosion |
Nature Infliction is applied to an enemy with a non-Nature Arts Infliction. |
As long as corrosion lasts, enemy resistance to all arts decreases over time. |
In addition to the reaction effects themselves, art effects and reactions can also be used to trigger specific abilities in different characters.
Physical states and reactions, explained
Since Physical is largely a standalone damage type, it mostly doesn't interact with arts and their reactions. Instead physically has its own set of effects and reactions to the enemy. You can apply four different physical statuses to an enemy: Lifted, knocked down, crushed and broken.
If you use these effects on an enemy that has no physical damage, they give the enemy an Infliction, called Vulnerable. If the enemy already has a stack of vulnerable, these four statuses have different effects on the enemy:
|
Lift |
Applies another vulnerable stack to the enemy, dealing physical DMG and lifts smaller enemies into the air. |
|---|---|
|
Beaten down |
Applies another vulnerable stack to the enemy, dealing physical DMG and knocks down smaller enemies. |
|
Crushed |
Uses all current vulnerable stacks on the enemy to deal high physical DMG. |
|
Broken |
Uses up any current vulnerable stacks on the enemy to deal some physical DMG, but also causes the enemy to take more physical DMG from all sources for a few seconds. |
Since Physical has its own set of reactions, you will usually have a mono-physical team for these characters.
The only time Physical interacts with other arts is if you apply one of the above statuses to an enemy with Solidification, which triggers Shatter and deals massive physical DMG.
Best Gacha Game, Ranked
No, you don't need to spend money on each gacha game to enjoy them. Let's check out the best ones on this list.
