Building a team: roles, elemental affinities and the level gap
"Which Aniimo is strongest for each element?" has no answer: the game does not rank species by power, it gives them roles. A working team has a DPS, a way to break the BREAK gauge, and the right element for the target. And if your damage suddenly collapses, check the level gap: it works both ways, except on BREAK, which it never touches.
On this page
The question lands every day in chat: “what’s the strongest Fire one? the strongest Water one?”. The honest answer is that it does not exist — the game does not rank Aniimo by power. It gives them a role, and combat runs on three levers: role, element, and level gap.
1. The five roles
| Role | What it does |
|---|---|
| DPS | Deals most of the team’s damage |
| Break | Breaks the BREAK gauge to open damage windows |
| Support | Buffs the team and weakens enemies |
| Heal | Restores HP |
| Regen | Restores energy so skills come back faster |
The real constraint shows up when you cross role with element. Across the 86 recorded species:
| Element | DPS | Break | Support | Heal | Regen | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wind | 1 | 4 | 6 | 2 | 0 | 13 |
| Fire | 4 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 12 |
| Water | 3 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 12 |
| Rock | 4 | 5 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 12 |
| Dark | 5 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 11 |
| Grass | 4 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 10 |
| Electric | 3 | 2 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 10 |
| Ice | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 |
| Holy | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
That table says the important part: healing only exists in Water and Wind, Ice and Holy are tiny, and several cells are empty. Looking for “the best Fire healer” is a dead end: there isn’t one.
2. The full affinity table
The client defines three values: ×1.6 when the element is effective, ×0.625 when it is not, ×1 otherwise. Here is what each attacking element hits hard, and hits badly.
| Attacking element | Effective against (×1.6) | Ineffective against (×0.625) |
|---|---|---|
| Fire | Grass, Ice | Fire, Water, Rock, Holy |
| Water | Fire, Rock | Water, Grass, Ice, Holy |
| Grass | Water, Rock | Fire, Grass, Holy |
| Electric | Water, Wind | Electric, Ice, Rock |
| Ice | Water, Electric | Fire, Ice, Rock |
| Rock | Fire, Ice | Water, Grass, Rock, Dark |
| Wind | Grass, Dark | Electric, Wind |
| Holy | Wind, Dark | Electric, Holy |
| Dark | Grass, Electric, Holy | Water, Wind |
Three notes that settle recurring arguments:
- Holy and Dark hit each other hard (×1.6 both ways). It is the only pair like that.
- Dark against Dark is neutral, not reduced — unlike most elements, which resist themselves.
- Wind is the only element besides Holy that is effective against Dark, which makes it valuable despite having a single DPS.
3. The level gap: the penalty you cannot see
One player summed the problem up well: their level 45 Aniimo killed a level 43 enemy in four hits, and did almost nothing to the same enemy at level 48. That is not an impression.
The client holds a correction table indexed on the level gap between your Aniimo and its target. It works both ways, and it is symmetrical:
- Above the target’s level, you deal more and take less. The bonus grows with the gap.
- Below, the reverse: your damage drops and the damage you take rises. It stacks, and it gets bad fast.
- An extra tier kicks in around five levels down. That is where “this is taking a while” turns into a wall.
One exception, and it is a valuable one: BREAK damage is never corrected by the level gap. The matching coefficient is 1 on all 201 rows of the table, without exception. In other words, an under-levelled breaker still breaks just as well — which is exactly the role to keep when you punch above your level.
Practical consequence: check the target’s colour before rebuilding your team. Three levels behind can be offset with the right element and a breaker; six cannot.
4. The method for putting a team together
- One DPS whose element is effective against the target.
- A way to break BREAK. Without a break window most fights drag on — and capture gets hard, as explained in how to catch an Aniimo.
- A support or a healer if the fight is long. At which point, remember healing only exists in Water and Wind.
- Check the level gap before deciding an Aniimo is bad.
To compare species on explicit criteria, our tier lists weight stats by role — the calculation is shown on every page. And for the combat mechanics themselves (Control Mode, Twine, EP, Ultimate), everything is in combat basics.
Frequently asked questions
Which Aniimo is the strongest in the game?
The game establishes no power ranking. It gives each species a role — DPS, Break, Support, Heal or Regen — and a team is built by covering those roles and the element that works against the target.
What is the elemental affinity table?
An effective attack deals ×1.6 damage, an ineffective one ×0.625, everything else ×1. The full nine-element table is in this guide.
Why does my level 45 Aniimo barely scratch a level 48 enemy?
Because the game applies a level-gap correction, both ways: above it you hit harder and take less, below it the reverse, and it gets bad fast. Three levels behind already puts the target in the "dangerous" threat band.
Does the level gap affect the BREAK gauge?
No. The coefficient applied to BREAK damage is 1 whatever the gap, on every row of the table. An under-levelled breaker stays effective.
Is Magmarex a DPS or a breaker?
The official index lists it as a breaker (Break role). Some players claim it changed role since a trailer: as of today, the published data says Break.
Are there duplicate roles per element?
Very few. Holy and Ice have the fewest species, and some roles simply do not exist for some elements: that is what really constrains a team.