What is the purpose of each element?

[Bong Water]

New Destiny 2 player here with less than 30 hours of playtime. Absolutely loving the game so far, bought all of the DLC.

As im starting to get comfortable with the game mechanics, I'm having a hard time finding/ understanding any information about the different element types in the game. I've played the entire Borderlands franchise so I'm aware of how elements work in that matter. I'm just curious of what makes each element different, and when I should use each one considering the situation.

[schicke]

The most obvious mechanic are elemental shields. Use a matching element -> more dmg to the shield.

Which element you should use? Up to you. Depends on how you want to play.
A gun focused build on a hunter should prolly run solar, cause amazing gun buffs.
More CC? Stasis or strand.
Better survival? Void.
Arc if you want to go fast and punch enemies.
Thats for hunter and only a small breakdown. It´s up to you what you play.

Champions can be countered with the mechanics of the elements. Check the champion icons in your character screen to see which champion gets countered by which element and make sure to counter them, if you play something that has champions.

[Verios44]

Solar
- ignitions and burning. Basiclly you can burn targets and after soo much burning they ignite aka explosive effect.
- also restoration is a key part of this element
Arc
- jolting targets, and arcing between several.
- fast movement speed
Void
- turning everything into purple ooze.
- one of the easier debuffs applied to enemies
- for hunter, also comes with invisibility
Stasis
- think of freezing targets. Creating crystals and freezing storms to trap opponents, and even shatter them
Strand
- suspension is one of the highlights. Same with grapple which is like spidermanning around the map.

Brief descriptions

[Nibbie]

The only passive difference between elements is enemy shields. Enemy shields have elemental affinities, and hitting a shield of matching affinity deals 2X or 3X damage, something like that, and creates a small explosion when you break the shield. You can tell the shield element by the color, red shield = solar for example.

Otherwise, you have to actively use an element for it to matter; nothing else happens passively or automatically with them, so you can read any other interactions they have. For example, some Arc weapons can roll the Voltshot perk, which allows them to create lightning strikes when they fire. Only Arc weapons can roll with that perk, but not all Arc weapons even *can* roll with that perk, and the ones that can still need to randomly roll with it. Each of the other elements have their own unique weapon perks as well.

There are also various mod and subclass interactions you can choose depending on your playstyle and preferred equipment. For example, there are cheap versions of various mods that only work for weapons that match your subclass element, or subclass perks that only do something if you use weapons of the same type. Thus, while using weapons of different elements allows you to break different kinds of shields better, using all the same element makes you more effective at using that element.