Sandro99
Auto-translated
And what am I supposed to see there, besides your fantasies on the topic of "If combo points were in the beta..."? What does this have to do with everything I've said?
At the start of battle, every creature has at least one elemental bond: non-upgraded ones have one, upgraded ones have two. During battle, creatures that have only one bond will receive a second one if they are attacked — explanations are provided below.
To see these bonds (bond chains), you must have the Elemental Vision<-Invocation skill.
Seeing the elemental bonds of creatures provides little on its own; constructing full chains is difficult in the early game, and to construct a partial one, you must build an Altar of Elements in the city, which requires level 1 of the Mages Guild. Description (building): supports the ability (formation) of elemental chains and the detonation of partial chains with 1/4 damage. What a full and partial chain are is explained below.
Practice:
To build a chain, you must attack a creature (A) that has the same elemental bond as the attacker (B). When B attacks, creature A's elemental bond either changes or remains the same according to the attacker's bond and receives 1 combo point. This means the chain can be detonated with minimal damage if creature A is attacked by one of the creatures with an elemental bond opposite to the one A possesses. It must be remembered that creatures' elemental bonds change depending on what attacked them previously, so you must plan your actions and monitor the ATB bar to know exactly which chains can be constructed or detonated.
How can a chain be built and detonated? Example: let a Shadow Witch take her turn. Her elements are Air and Earth. The creature she attacks has 0 constructed chains, and its elements are Earth and Fire. After the Shadow Witch's attack, the attacked creature's elemental bonds change as follows: Air and Earth, and 1 constructed chain. The Shadow Witch and this creature share a common elemental bond — Earth. As long as they share at least one common element, the attacked creature will receive one combo point in the chain and change its elemental bonds to those of the attacker.
So, the creature has one chain and elemental bonds with Air and Earth. How do you detonate it (the chain)? Simple. It must be attacked by a creature linked to Water and Fire — let's say a Minotaur King. He will deal double damage, detonating the chain in the process, resetting the combo point counter to 0 and changing the creature's elemental bonds to Water and Fire. If the creature had 2 chains, the damage would be tripled, and so on. It should be noted that an attack by a creature linked to Water and Fire upon a creature linked to Earth and Air will achieve nothing if the attacked creature has no elemental combos. The attacked creature will also retain its elemental bonds.
This was an example of detonating a full chain. Note that a full chain can also be detonated when attacking a creature with only one elemental bond (Fire) by a creature with the opposite bond (Water). The trouble is that this requires separate tracking of opposite elements, which is difficult to do in the early game (due to lack of troops) and simply impossible at the end (since all units have two elemental bonds). But the construction of combos described above causes the same damage, so for almost the entire game, full chains of 2 elements will be constructed. Who constructs partial chains? — Non-upgraded creatures. They initially have only one elemental bond, so if you attack a target linked to Earth with someone without a bond to Earth, or with Earth paired with another element, nothing will happen. If you attack it (the target) with a creature having Air\Earth, it will receive 1 combo point, and the bonds will change to Air\Earth. And now comes what is called the detonation of a partial chain — the explosion of Air\Earth by only Fire or only Water (note: this is not very logical — Air is supposed to oppose Earth, so why hit it with Water or Fire for an explosion? But I translated it as written). Damage from a partial (IMHO, this is how it should be understood) chain is 1/4 (of a full one) or 1/2 if the Altar of Primordial Chaos is built in the city.
Rules:
Elemental chains are destroyed as soon as the turn reaches the creature — the changed elemental bonds remain on it, but all combo points are lost.
Magic. Casters are linked to destructive spells not only through Invocation and Empowered Spells, but also via elemental chains, as they (meaning the spells) are linked to one of the elements and are capable of both constructing and detonating chains. Although the description of the Magic Missile spell clearly states it is not elemental, it has succeeded in detonating many chains. Judging by tests, it is linked to Fire and Air.
<furthermore, something about gaining an advantage from taking a position on a dead creature. the reliability of the connection between this (semi)bug and the ability under consideration is, imho, doubtful>
Elemental bonds for underground dwellers:
Scout: Water
Blood Witch: Air
Minotaur Slave: Fire
Rider: Earth
Deep Hydra: Water
Matron: Earth
Deep Dragon: Fire
Assassin: Water/Earth
Shadow Witch: Air/Earth
Minotaur King: Fire/Water
Royal Ravager: Earth/Fire
Chaos Hydra: Water/Air
Matriarch: Earth/Air