Genshin Impact mechanics: Reactions, Energy, Defence and Resistance
Learning Genshin Impact game mechanics such as Reactions, Energy, DEF and RES, is necessary to understand why certain characters and synergies work better than others.
Defence and Resistance
Enemies have two different ways to mitigate your damage:
The first is DEF (defence), which reduces all types of damage.
The second is RES (resistance), which reduces specific types of damage.
DEF is thought to be calculated based on the difference in levels between you and the enemy.
Your damage is multiplied by (100+Character Level)/[(100+Character Level) + (100+Enemy Level)*Defence drop)]. This is 0.5 when you and your enemies’ levels are equal.
RES varies from enemy to enemy, with separate values for Phys RES and Elemental RES.
Some enemies have different Elemental RES depending on the element: for example, Electro Cicin Mages have 50% Electro RES, but only 10% against other elements.
Most humanoid enemies have lower Physical RES than Elemental RES: for example, Treasure Hunters have -20% Physical RES and 10% Elemental RES. This means your Physical DMG against them will be multiplied by (1+20%)=1.2, whereas your Elemental DMG against them will be multiplied by (1-10%)=0.9.
Common non-humanoid enemies will usually have either equal or higher Physical RES than Elemental RES: for example, Hilichurls have both 10% Physical and Elemental RES, Mitachurls have 30% Physical RES but 10% Elemental RES.
How to reduce the enemy DEF and RES
You can reduce both the enemy DEF and RES to increase your damage. At the moment, you can reduce DEF only via certain constellations and character passives, while there are several options for RES.
There are two notable ways to reduce RES:
Superconductor, which reduces Phys RES by 40%.
The Viridescent Venerer artifact set, which when using swirl reduces the infused element’s RES by 40%.
There are however diminishing returns on reducing RES, with the effectiveness halving as you reduce it past 0%.
For example, if you use Superconductor on an enemy with 10% Phys RES, the first 10% of Superconductor will reduce the RES to 0%, then the 30% left will reduce it by 15% to -15%. This is equivalent to about a 27.78% physical damage increase (115/90). You can easily test this in-game on a slime to check for yourself.
Since the main way to reduce elemental RES is through the Viridescent Venerer artifact set, anemo units are particularly valuable. However, this artifact set is not always practical, especially if you’re fighting enemies with their own elements attached to them, or have a team with multiple elements where buffing a single element’s damage will not be as important.
Fighting enemies using their weakness is a good way to increase DPS, i.e. using Physical DMG versus Treasure Hunters. That being said, reducing RES against enemies that already have negative RES will not be as impactful.
For example, using Superconductor versus Treasure Hunters will reduce their Physical RES from -20% to -40%. This is only a 16.7% increase in DPS (140/120).
Carefully weigh out the options and see if going Physical will be worth it.
Reactions: Amplifying and Transforming
In Genshin Impact, you can create reactions by combining different elements. These reactions deal damage to enemies based on your level, elemental mastery, and enemy resistance (certain artifacts/constellations as well).
For example, if you create Overload, the damage will be based on your level, your elemental mastery, and your enemy’s pyro resistance.
The damage is also based on the procing unit’s elemental mastery, not the one who laid the first element.
There are two types of reactions:
Amplifying (Melt/Vaporise), which multiply your damage.
Transforming (Superconductor, Swirl, Shattered, Overload, Electro-charged), which create an additional hit.
Transforming reactions do not scale with your talent levels, attack, crit or elemental damage%, and as such will not become stronger as you upgrade your characters.
Transformation reactions deal damage in ratios; Superconductor : Swirl : Shattered : Overload : Electro-charged = 1 : 1.2 : 3 : 4 : 4.8. This means Overload deals 4x as much damage as Superconductor, Electro-charged deals 20% more damage than Overload and so forth.
Since you’ll be poorly geared early on, transformation reactions will be very strong and will likely make up a large percentage of your damage.
Later on, as your damage increases and the effectiveness of transformation reactions falls, amplifying reactions may become stronger.
It should be noted though that a strong unit such as Fischl will always be relevant despite only being able to create transformation reactions.
Finally, reaction damage increases with your elemental mastery, but there are fairly significant diminishing returns as your EM increases.
Energy
There are several ways to gain energy, the resource needed to use your elemental burst.
Firstly, you can gain energy by using skills (E) on enemies: this will generate elemental (coloured) particles. Each skill generates a specific amount of particles (or a range), and some do not generate any at all (Noelle/Barbara E currently generates 0 particles).
Each elemental particle gives more energy to units with the corresponding element, while a third of the energy is given to units of differing elements. Party members off the field receive slightly reduced energy rates: about 90% of what the field party member receives.
You can also generate particles by simply dealing damage to enemies. In most cases, enemies will drop clear or elemental particles at certain HP thresholds; for example, hilichurls will always drop clear particles at 50% and 0% HP.
Clear particles give equal energy to all elements. Some other enemies will only drop elemental particles/orbs: for example, Baby Cryo Slimes will drop cryo particles at 50% and 0% HP.
Energy generated
The table below shows how much each particle/orb gives at base energy recharge%.
The table is responsive. If you are using a phone, turn it sideways for a full view. Otherwise, zoom in or click the grey area to sort it.
| Ele Particle | Ele Orb | Clear Particle | Clear Orb | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Field, Same Element | 3 | 9 | 2 | 6 |
| Party, Same Element | 1.8 | 5.4 | 1.2 | 3.6 |
| Field, Different Element | 1 | 3 | 2 | 6 |
| Party, Different Element | 0.6 | 1.8 | 1.2 | 3.6 |
You also generate energy by auto-attacking things (1 energy per 4 auto-attacks), however, this only applies to the field unit, and it has a much smaller effect on your total energy rates.
Summarizing, you can generate energy faster by using characters of the same element. Of course this comes at the cost of reduced reaction damage, so consider how important reactions are to you.
For example, if an Abyss Floor doesn’t buff reaction damage but buffs elemental damage, stacking the same element and sacrificing reaction damage may be worth it.
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Credit to robin who provided information for this article. - Images: miHoYo
