In Horizon Forbidden West, players will come across many machines but each one demands a different type of approach when you’re going to battle them.
An important part of combat in the game is building an enemy’s elemental state, which is key to most fights involving machines in Horizon. You can do this by dealing elemental damage with your arrows. When you face a certain machine, an icon representing their element will appear over them, and it will fill with every attack. The more it’s filled, the closer you are to causing an elemental state.
Therefore, it’s important to know how many elemental damage types there are in the game and how are they different from each other. In Horizon Forbidden West, there are a total of six of them, and most of them are self-explanatory. The list is as follows:
- Acid
- Fire
- Frost
- Plasma
- Purgewater
- Shock
Acid causes the enemy to lose health and armor over time, decreasing the amount of damage their armor can sustain. Fire inflicts the burning state and, similar to Acid, deals damage over time. Frost causes the Brittle state and makes enemies take more damage from Impact ammunition. Plasma, apart from dealing damage like other types, explodes after a certain period of time.
Purgewater is probably the most interesting element. It makes your enemies go into the Drenched state, causing them to be more vulnerable to Frost and Shock attacks. At the same time, it blocks elemental bonuses from their attacks. And then there’s Shock, which besides causing damage, stuns your enemies.
