This short guide was put together to bring awareness to the Magician community regarding the damage potential of the Elemental Resistance Combos, listed below.

I know that many of you have used the Fire Strike + wind combo and the others a lot to get in some extra damage, but the total damage potential depends on the number of attacks you can execute in those 6 seconds. As such, depending on the situation, it might be more efficent to replace that Fire Strike with another wind attack.

I will admit that using these combos can also be beneficial in other areas besides damage output, but this guide only focuses on raw power and damage output, not skill or strategy.

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Some Preliminary Information:

Fire Strike decreases a target’s water resistance by 20% for 6 seconds.

Water Well decreases a target’s electric resistance by 20% for 6 seconds.

Lightning Shock decreases a target’s earth resistance by 20% for 6 seconds.
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Let’s say you want to use the Water Well + electric combo. Let "W" be the damage your Water Well does to a monster, and let "L" be the damage one of your lightning attacks does to that same monster without the 20% bonus from Water Well. To acheive the best output, let’s say you can actually execute an entire action slot with 1 Water Well followed by 4 lightning attacks. The goal is for the 1 Water Well and 4 lightning attacks to do more damage than 5 lightning attacks. In other words,

W+4*(1.2L) > 5L (note that the 1.2 represents a 20% damage increase)
W+4.8L > 5L
W > 0.2L = (1/5)L

Basically, the last line means that the Water Well combo will have a higher damage output only if Water Well does more than one-fifth the damage of your lightning attack. So, if your normal lightning attack does 5000 damage, Water Well must do more than 1000 damage for the combo to have the best damage potential.

Here’s the catch though. How often do you actually execute a filled action slot in either PvM or PvP? The less attacks you can execute in that 6 second window, the less efficient the combo becomes. I’ve done the math for you, so all you have to do is a bit of damage testing to see what works best for you. Oh, and I’ll stick with the W and L convention I used above, but the same formulas work for the Fire Strike + water and Lightning Shock + earth combos.

1 Water Well followed by 4 lightning attacks vs. 5 lightning attacks:
W > 0.2L = (1/5)L
Water Well must do more than one-fifth the damage of your lightning attack.
Ex: Lighting attack of 5000 —> Water Well must do 1000+ damage

1 Water Well followed by 3 lightning attacks vs. 4 lightning attacks:
W > 0.4L = (2/5)L
Water Well must do more than two-fifths the damage of your lightning attack.
Ex: Lighting attack of 5000 —> Water Well must do 2000+ damage

1 Water Well followed by 2 lightning attacks vs. 3 lightning attacks:
W > 0.6L = (3/5)L
Water Well must do more than three-fifths the damage of your lightning attack.
Ex: Lighting attack of 5000 —> Water Well must do 3000+ damage

1 Water Well followed by 1 lightning attack vs. 2 lightning attacks:
W > 0.8L = (4/5)L
Water Well must do more than four-fifths the damage of your lightning attack.
Ex: Lighting attack of 5000 —> Water Well must do 4000+ damage

In summary, the more attacks you can string together while that 20% bonus damage is active, the more efficient the combo will be.

Credits go to WindAero.