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Preamble and caveats[]

I never have fully understood the elemental and non-elemental magical powers and corresponding defenses. I find it easy to confuse them with classifications of types of damage received from either mobs or other players. viz. organic - spirit - inorganic damage received, respectively, from ain, beast, player - angels, demons, spirit - undead, mecca.

  • I'd love for somebody to write an article that spells (sic) this out clearly.

When that is done this discussion can be deleted or moved to the Talk page. As it is written today, this is just the viewpoint of one player whose in-game experience does not go beyond the early Rank 3 or 6X range.

The following is my current best understanding:

  • there are two plausible theories
  • until convincingly argued otherwise theory 1 (below) is assumed for magic skill descriptions at this wiki
(this primarily affects the datafield typeMagic - see skill data record schema)

najevi 00:20, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

The facts[]

We'll start with the list of classifications for magical power. This part is not theory. It is clearly evident from routine, in-game observations.

  • holy (a.k.a Holy (previously known as Light)
  • shade (a.k.a Shade (previously known as Dark)
  • earth magic Earth
  • water magic Water
  • air magic Air
  • fire magic Fire

The magic characteristics associated with each race overlap with just one other race.

  1. Those associated with the Gaia race are earth, water, air and fire.
    • never shade
    • never holy
  2. Those associated with the Deva race are earth, water and holy.
    • never shade
    • never fire
    • never air
  3. Those associated with the Asura race are air, fire and shade.
    • never holy
    • never water
    • never earth

Theory 1 : 4 elemental plus 2 non-elemental[]

Which races can use which powers.
Race \ Can use? holy (a.k.a water magic earth magic air magic fire magic shade (a.k.a
Theory I :Elemental
or Non-Elemental
NE E E E E NE
Deva Y Y Y no no no
Gaia no Y Y Y Y no
Asura no no no Y Y Y

Theory 2 : 6 elemental plus 1 non-elemental[]

Which races can use which powers.
Race \ Can use? holy (a.k.a water magic earth magic air magic fire magic shade (a.k.a Other
Theory II :Elemental
or Non-Elemental
E E E E E E NE
Deva Y Y Y no no no Y
Gaia no Y Y Y Y no Y
Asura no no no Y Y Y Y

Discussion[]

See also
Terminology - please explain these in-game adjectives

Until the above gPotato forum discussion, I had thought that earth, water, air and fire are the so-called elemental classifications of power while shade and holy are the non-elemental classifications.

What tends to support this (Theory I) are the various derivatives of the four elemental powers:

  • earth: poison, rock, avalanche etc.
  • water: ice, rain, dew, etc
  • air: wind, lightning, stun etc.
  • fire: burn, power, ?I've drawn a blank?

I am not aware of any similar derivatives for Holy and Dark powers. Especially none which can be easily associated with the kind of routine, natural phenomenon listed above. The skills using holy and shade powers seem other-worldly or supernatural to me.

Some gPotato documentation appears to support Theory I :

  1. The gPotato website introductory description mentions:
    • Play as one of three races representing Light, Darkness, and the Four Elements.
  2. The USA Rappelz Team compiled Reference Guide mentions:
    • The Deva are a Holy-based race ...
    • The Gaia are a neutral race who focus on nature magic ...
    • The Asura are a Shade-based race ...
  3. The gPotato hosted wiki story line states:
    • In the beginning of time, the world was kept in order by the divine elements of Creation and Destruction. Two gods held providence over the human race. The gods came to believe that the humans, in their floundering youth, were too naïve and ignorant to develop their own civilization. As a result, the gods sent the Deva and the Asura to assist the humans. The Deva embodied light, while the Asura embodied darkness.

That third quote seems a little bizarre unless you consciously choose to associate:

  1. earth and water with the elements of creation and
  2. fire and air with the elements of destruction

Why they are described as "divine elements" is beyond me! (Had the word "natural" been used here then I'd be chalking a win up to Theory 1 without any further discussion.) That controversial choice of the word "divine" seems to contradict the first source by promoting a bizarre switch in the Elemental and Non-elemental classifications while still preserving 4 of one classification and 2 of the other classification.

  • I suspect that the correct model is: earth & water = creation and fire & air = destruction.
Finally
there is no in-game icon for a 7th class of magic power. In-game you can inspect the Alt+C Character window and then click the [Add. info] button at bottom right to see the not-yet-implemented Attack and Defense status for each of just 6 classifications, not 7.

For the above reasons, I find Theory 1 to be the more intuitive and so I have classified Energy Beat as being Holy/Light ->holy (a.k.a due to it being a Deva skill and holy being the only non-elemental characteristic the Deva race has access to.

A different theory postulates that all six of the above are the elemental powers and that there is a 7th classification of power named "non-elemental". That 7th category includes:

  • any power explicitly named so - Energy Beat is the only skill whose description does this explicitly classifies it as non-elemental!
  • any power that does not name one of the 6 elements listed above - several skill and skill card tool-tips fail to mention a class of magic; some of those are quite clearly physical skills while others are magical or at least magic-enhanced physical skills.

By the above definition, could it be that skills which consume spiracles per use instead of MP per use are considered to be using non-elemental power? Or are those skills elemental because they are unique to the Gaia race whose racial trait describes their affinity to the 4 elements of the earth?

Which is correct?[]

Just which theory is correct will eventually be determined.

  • Both are put forward here to invite discussion and further clarification.

Part of the problem in figuring this out is the fact that some in-game features have not been fully implemented. So it is quite possible that one of the above theories describes the game designer's original intent while the other describes the mechanics as they exists in-game today. Whatever the case may be, the current in-game behavior is what this wiki ought to document very clearly.

It seems the best tools available to investigate this are

  1. the various Resistance buffs (use the search feature) available to certain summoner class jobs.
  2. Energy Beat - the only skill that is explicitly stated to be using non-elemental power

Although it is never appropriate to use a signature in a wiki article this page is more of a discussion than an article and since the content is subjective and not yet substantiated I am signing below to make this very clear that it is one player's perspective. When definitive answers are known this entire page content can be moved to the Talk page. Please state any counter argument in very clear terms so that ambiguity cannot creep in. najevi 00:20, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion to test out. Useing sheilds should decrease the damage done by skills by a certian %, Someone tame a few pantera's tortus, or poultry dosent matter which one, get like 3 of them to lvl 15. Test out damage of energy Beat on one of them with all JP free, also test out damage of Earth Spear, Frost Spear, Flash, Fire Arrow, Lightning Bolt, Life Leech. On one of the pets get lvl 5 fire, and water sheild. Test out damage of all spells agian Fire Arrow and Frost Spear should do 30% less damage. On another one get lvl 5 shade and holy sheild, flash, and life leech should do about 30% less damage. On the last pet get Earth and Wind sheilds test out damage agian, Earth Spear, and lightning bolt should do 30% less damage. If Energy Beat dose 30% less damage like flash then it is a Holy attack, and all Holy attacks would be unelemental damage, along with shade attacks. Also test out spells that dont have a damage type to go along with such as Spinning Blow, Charge Stab, Piercing Arrow, Stun Mace. See if they fit into any of the categories, or maybe they are a combination of 2 elements or more.

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