Elemental advantage build

This build relies on elemental advantage for every encounter, and thus requires viable teams for all 6 elements. Elemental advantage provides a +45/48% buff to elemental damage (translating to ~30% damage increase) and 25% damage resistance, which provides the foundation for this build. Teams with elemental advantage also seem to have a higher debuff success rate; ATK/DEF down is nearly guaranteed to land with affliction resistance down applied. Elemental advantage builds have the potential to outclass builds with comparable equipment focused on a single element, and runs can be smoother and more predictable since debuffs can be relied upon to stick. In addition, some abilities carried by characters and eidolons further increase potency against a team’s strong element. However, strong Elemental advantage builds require heavy investment in time, effort, and money, and also require some luck to land the right characters for each element.

The main bottleneck for Elemental advantage builds is debuffs. Since an elemental advantage build is only as strong as its weakest link (or element), the player needs access to a sufficient variety of characters for each element to cover necessary debuffs: class A ATK, class A DEF, class B ATK/DEF, and overdrive extension. A source of healing is usually desirable also. A Soul can only cover 2 of 5 of these, so characters need to provide the other 3. Without at least 1 of these 3 covered, the team probably won’t be viable in top difficulty content. To ensure a supply of strong characters, Elemental advantage builds tend to rely on a steady stream of SSR kamihime tickets, which makes these builds expensive relative to comparable single-element builds, which can progress to top-tier with only a strong initial roll and 2-3 Miracle tickets.

Elemental advantage builds also require a great deal of commitment to continuously raise. Players will need to participate in all events and earn all event SSR weapons at a bare minimum. Most players will also spend a great deal of time farming non-event content for materials (limit-break, enhancement, spawn) and accessories for all 6 elements, as well as gems to raise weapons and accessories. While it’s not 6x the effort of single-element builds, since diminishing returns usually apply, it’s easily 3x the effort that others would need to spend to achieve comparable strength.

Since Elemental advantage builds are very reliant on having strong teams for all 6 elements, they benefit especially from Miracle ticket picks that can contribute to multiple teams. Sol is a high priority for Elemental advantage builds, as she provides essential utility skills, can fit into every team, and has no weak element. Gaia is situationally useful in multiple elements, and Amaterasu can compensate for debuff deficiencies in some teams (and is virtually indispensable for Fire).

Elemental advantage builds are particularly strong in Guild Orders, where arbitrary handicaps are often assigned in mission goals, which may be difficult to overcome without the aid of elemental advantage.