'Genshin Impact': How Strong Are The New Element Buffs?

Patch 1.6 for “Genshin Impact” introduced some much-needed buffs to Swirl, Electro and Elemental Mastery, but the exact intensity of these buffs were never specifically mentioned in any official documentation.

To gauge the actual effect of the buffs, members of the “Genshin Impact” community tried, tested and compared damage values of the affected elements from before and after the patch. Hoyolab community member Nable created a forum post containing the approximate increase in the damage numbers of each element.

Here’s a quick look at the results of the tests to find out if the newly buffed elements and Elemental Mastery stat are worth it.

Beidou using Stormbreaker in Genshin Impact Photo: Genshin Impact

Post-Buff Damage Values

Electro and Anemo were underperforming before Patch 1.6 arrived. The damage of their major reactions was lackluster compared to those between Pyro, Hydro and Cryo.

The 1.6 patch buffed their damage values for characters above level 60. Elemental Mastery was also buffed for the benefit of all elemental reactions together with a small boost to hitpoints of Geo’s Crystallize shields.

The base damage values of Electro-based reactions (Superconduct, Overloaded, Electro-Charged, Swirl and Shatter) received a buff that increased incrementally based on level, according to Nable’s test results. Before the patch, a level 60 character with 0 EM would deal roughly 490.5 points of base damage. After the patch, the value increased to 492.3.

Meanwhile, a level 90 character’s 1,202.8 base damage increased to 1,448.38 after the buffs. The numbers would only spike even more once Elemental Mastery is introduced.

Elemental Mastery received a significant buff to its damage scaling. Nable’s approximations show that 300 EM now gives up to 208.7% more reaction damage compared to the previous value of 117.5%. This suggests that the EM scaling has effectively been doubled.

Further tests showed that level 80 characters with at least 200 EM can enjoy 80-100% more damage with Electro-based reactions just from the buffs alone. More EM will cause reaction damage to increase even further, making EM builds for Electro characters like Lisa even more viable than before.

This is made even more valuable considering that Electro reactions cannot crit and do not scale off ATK.

“Genshin Impact” content creator Zy0x posted a showcase video of the new 1.6 element buffs against the current Abyss rotation, easily gaining quick clears with a Swirl and Electro-Charged team with Sucrose as the main attacker.