So there’s lots of good combos, but meta combos is a different matter and I think it’s pretty interesting.
Unlike single magics, combos don’t just counter each other, they hard-counter each other. Fire beats Glass, but Fire/Poison stomps Glass/Earth.
The most meta combo won’t just be the combo with the best stats, but the combo that counters the most other meta combos.
Meta’s right that (assuming primordial/lost magics don’t obsolete elemental ones) the three magic meta will probably be something boring like Wind/Snow/Magma to just clear every combo and win every fight using solo-wind, but we’re only getting two magics, which is way more interesting because you can’t cover everything.
I’m expecting a meta of around half a dozen combos. Dunno which, but here’s my current thinking:
- Wind/Ice is my guess for top combo. Standard freeze stun (with a 20% bonus to boot), good range coverage, and every DoT status is covered except Scorched, and Petrified is almost entirely covered barring the niche options of Plasma/Ash and Plasma/Explosion.
When it’s not winning with Frozen, it’s shutting down its opponent and winning with Wind.- What makes this combo good is that it counters the other best combos (though we’ll get to that), and it doesn’t have many counters itself.
- I’m not totally sure if this interaction actually inflicts petrified, but I think your best option to counter this is Plasma/Ash (or Plasma/Explosion if the petrify doesn’t work). Maybe Plasma/Wood? Wood is pretty slow though, so you might just find you get ranged by solo Wind.
Worth noting that this only really matters if Wind/Ice is very common - otherwise better versions of these combos exist and nobody will run the plasma version.
- Fire/Poison is probably my favourite combo, because it’s actually got negative synergy, but the positive synergy in the other direction is so incredible it doesn’t matter.
It covers Bleed and Soaked and stops Frozen, but compared to most meta combos its clears are pretty bad. That said, this doesn’t matter because Fire/Poison is almost certainly the game’s best combo in a vaccum. DoT magics complement each other by letting you alternate to get full DoT value every time, and Poison is easily the best magic to do this with.- If it wasn’t for Wind being meta, I’d say this is the best combo outright. Even if they can clear Fire, the combo still makes Fire into 1 damage, 1 speed magic, which is above curve, and the regular 1.5/1 hits from poison let you compete with many undisrupted combos.
- Unfortunately, wind exists, is meta, and clears both statuses, so Wind/Anything (probably Wind/Ice) is going to be the biggest factor in keeping this magic down.
- Lightning/Water finishes my top three. +25% repeatable on a 10 second combo is almost as good as Fire/Poison, but what this lacks in synergy it makes up for in clears.
It’s honestly faster to list what this doesn’t clear: Snowy and Freezing (but it does cover Frozen). No other (important) status is missed. Very good clears here.- I’ve discussed it’s matchups in more detail before, but in short:
Very good. It loses badly to Wind/Ice, might lose to Fire/Poison, and disrupts and destroys almost everything else.
- I’ve discussed it’s matchups in more detail before, but in short:
- Fire/Acid is one of vetex’s top three, and for good reason. Clears almost every important status (only missing their own DoTs and Poison), and with two +25% stackable synergies on DoT magics. Still folds to Wind/Ice, but that’s par for the course.
- This is good for all the same reasons Fire/Poison is, and even clears a few more statuses (including both the stuns), though I’d rate Fire/Poison higher because it’s more vulnerable to clears and I’m skeptical of how easy it will be to land hits on a 5 second status, whereas a 20 second status is great (and Fire/Poison is cooler).
- also if you’re wondering what I think of Ice/Water being in vetex’s top three, i think that’s stupid because Wind/Ice outclasses it
- Crystal/Light is noteworthy for being an excellent combo held back by awful clears. Crystalised is a fantastic status for comboing with as it stacks, letting you refresh the status effect’s timer. Light’s synergy is equally fantastic, making it a 1.1/1.9 magic. Needless to say, the range coverage here is the best you’ll see of any combo.
- Unfortunately, it can only clear Drained, which in practice means zero clears and zero good matchups. Crystalised has a fair few things that can clear it, including some magics in the meta like Lightning.
- Overall, Lightning/Water mostly outclasses it, but I reckon you’ll still see this around.
- Frozen combos will probably be pretty common, but since they’re cleared by almost everything, they’ll suck unless they involve Ice or Wind.
- I see a lot of praise for snow as “better than Ice”, but non-Ice freeze combos have crippling anti-synergy with themself. Sure, they’re frozen, but Snow has a -60% multiplier, water and wind have -50%. Your free hit is worthless. Until we get third magic, you need Ice (with it’s +25%) to actually make use of the freeze.
- Similar to Petrified combos, you’re picking two heat/cold magics and your clears suffer for it. Wind has relatively little overlap with other cold magic clears, making it your best option.
- Petrified combos will be much better than your average Freeze combo (since they don’t have the crippling anti-synergy), but they’re similar to Frozen in that they’ll be commonplace but not very good. Most self-respecting combos can clear Petrified, and three of Charred’s four clears are meta magics.
- Plasma/Explosion (and Plasma/Ash if it works) are probably your best bets, because this at least sidesteps the pseudo-immunity granted by Wind.
- Other noteworthy combos include:
- Metal/Acid and Glass/Acid. These are good synergies, but they’re a bit outclassed by others doing the same kind of thing (Fire/Acid in particular).
- Crystal/Metal. Almost worth a section, but I decided against it. This suffers from the same thing as Crystal/Light (no clears), and while it’s going to hit like a truck, it’s very easy to outrange and it’s not the only thing hitting like a truck (fire’s synergies are good).
- The metal hit only uses up one stack of Crystalised though, so it’s got that going for it.
- Lightning/Sand is fairly good, but Lightning/Water outclasses it. Sand’s just as easy to clear as water, so it’s not got anything going for it there.
There’s lots of other decent synergies like Explosion/Sand, Sand/Wood, Acid/Plasma, Wood/Fire and Wood/Glass, but they all suffer from poor clears or being outclassed by a better combo. While every magic (except shadow) has some good option, some are definitely better than others.