What’s Symbiosis? …and how to activate it

Hello Dragon hunters!

With the recent Tracker update, we thought this would be the perfect time to share a guide on Symbiosis for our new players.

We’ll go over how to achieve it, what it means in terms of damage, and clear up some common misconceptions.

Players often ask:

“Do I need to match my character’s base element with my wyrmling? For example, if my Knight is Fire, should I always choose a Fire wyrmling for the best results?”

Short answer: no

If you’d like a more basic, yet detailed introduction to the Ancestral Grid, we highly recommend checking out our guide, which covers everything you need to know:

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So, let’s get started and explain how Symbiosis really works!

What’s Symbiosis? …and how to achieve it

When placing fragments in the Ancestral Grid, if you apply AT LEAST 8 modifiers to a character skill, you can achieve a state of Symbiosis with your Wyrmling.

Once active:

• the skill changes visually adopting the element of your Wyrmling

• Also, skills in symbiosis benefit from a +20% damage output

Note: this doesn’t necessarily mean your skill will immediately deal another type of damage, even if its visuals have changed! We’ll explain how this works in a moment.

Let’s take Dance of Daggers as an example

You need a total of 8 modifiers connected to the skill fragment to enable Symbiosis.

Below, we can see that the Dance of Daggers fragment already comes with 2 modifiers.

Since Dance of Daggers is a 3-fragment shape and already comes with 2 modifiers, we only need to connect 6 additional modifiers to activate Symbiosis.

• Blue: indicates the skill shares keywords (tags) with the modifiers and can connect

• Green: indicates the fragment will physically touch the other fragments and will connect to them

Dance of Daggers is now in Symbiosis!

Because we have a Fire Wyrmling equipped, the skill now visually changed to add Fire!

Note: at the same time, the skill gain the [ [b]fire ] tag in the keywords list.

Any Wyrmling skill also count as modifiers!

This means we can definitely replace Greater Area of Effect with a Wyrmling skill such as Fire Breath, since it also counts as a modifier to achieve Symbiosis.

Fire Breath deal its own damage independently and is triggered by Dance of Daggers.

How are Damage Calculated?

Short answer: it's adaptive

First of all, there are no dual elements.

This means that if your base skill deals Toxic Damage, like Dance of Daggers, and you enter Symbiosis with Fire, the skill will not deal both Toxic and Fire damage, it will deal damage from only one element.

"How does it work? Which element is taken into account?"

The game checks which of your elemental damage bonuses is the highest and uses that for the skill.

Note: You can check your Battle Log to see the color indicator, which instantly shows the element each skill is dealing damage with.

For example:

• Dance of Daggers deals Toxic damage by default

• Once Symbiosis is active, if you have a Fire Wyrmling equipped and your Fire Damage stat is higher than any other element, then Dance of Daggers will deal Fire Damage instead of Toxic

• If your stats are tied (e.g., Fire Damage = 100% and Toxic Damage = 100%), then the skill defaults to its base element, in this case, Toxic

Note: even though you deal Toxic damage, the visual effect will still show Fire Symbiosis. The true indicator of damage type is shown in the battle log.

In that screenshot, because Fire is the highest at 112%, Dance of Daggers will deal Fire damage.

In that screenshot, because Toxic is the highest at 150%, Dance of Daggers will deal Toxic damage.

Note: you can check your stats at any time and pin them. On PC, press “U” by default, or on a controller, press "Start" and navigate to the 4th tab.

Do I NEED to pick the same element as my character?

Short answer: no

There’s no particular advantage to choosing the same element as your class, as it won’t make your character significantly stronger. So keep in mind:

Characters aren’t tied to their base element.

To continue with our exemple, Dance of Daggers deals Toxic damage by default. But once you enter Symbiosis, the skill’s element CAN change to match the Wyrmling you’ve chosen.

In our example, that’s Fire.

Of course, you can keep it toxic by swapping to a Toxic wyrmling, or keep the Fire Wyrmling and invest in toxic damage, but with a Fire wyrmling and its own fire skills, it would be more efficient to invest in fire bonus.

What truly matters is how the Wyrmling influences your playstyle, working as a specialization for your character. Here’s a breakdown of each Wyrmling’s strengths and role focus:

That's it!

Now you should know everything you need to start theorycrafting and experimenting with Symbiosis.

Let us know if you’d like more Dragonkin guides.

Stay tuned and keep the feedback coming!