Six weakness labels, three equippable elements
Read our boss list and our weapons page side by side and a gap opens up that neither page states outright. The boss roster records six different weakness labels across eleven story bosses — Flame, Poison, Lightning, Acid, Water and Explosive — plus one boss with no weakness at all. The weapons page records three enchantable elements: Fire, Lightning and Wet.
Those two lists overlap in exactly two places. That is the single most useful thing to know before you plan a loadout around elemental counters, and it reframes what “exploit the weakness” means in this game: for most of the roster, the counter is not something you buy or slot, it is an ability line you earn from an earlier boss. This page lays the two lists against each other row by row so you can see which fights reward a shopping trip and which reward a routing decision.
What you can actually enchant
The weapons page is precise about the equipment side. Emma's arrows and crossbow bolts take up to three elemental slots, and a katana can carry an elemental property of its own. Three elements are confirmed in the shipped build:
| Element | What it does | A boss is recorded weak to it? |
|---|---|---|
| Fire | Ignites the target and can trigger explosions | Yes — Rangifer, recorded as “Flame” |
| Lightning | Applies Shock; fast, punchy status pressure | Yes — Lacerta and Corvus |
| Wet | Soaks the target with a Wet status, a setup layer for the other two | No boss on the roster is recorded as weak to Wet |
Note what the third column says about Wet. It is one of only three things you can enchant, and not a single entry on the boss roster names it as a weakness. Our weapons page describes it as a status-setup layer that pairs with the other elements' follow-ups rather than as a damage type in its own right, which is consistent — Wet is a combo piece, not a counter. If you are picking element slots purely to break bosses, you have two live options, not three.
Because bows and crossbows hold three slots, our builds guide treats ranged elemental play as the most flexible of the four build directions: you can arrive at an arena pre-configured for the fight rather than adapting inside it. Our Rangifer guide makes the same point from the other end — Chapter 1's boss is the game deliberately teaching you to do this once, early, with the one element it is certain you can slot.
Every recorded weakness
The full roster, with what our coverage says you can bring to each:
| Boss (first chapter) | Weakness | Can you enchant it? | What our pages suggest instead |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rangifer (Ch.1) | Flame | Yes — Fire | The site's worked example; corroborated on three separate pages |
| Nue Malefact (Ch.1) | Poison | No | The Dokuzeri line from Lacerta, one chapter later |
| Lacerta (Ch.2) | Lightning | Yes | Shock staggers also feed the Down Gauge |
| Shidou & Nue (Ch.3) | Poison | No | The boss list calls the Dokuzeri kit “built for exactly this” |
| Taurus (Ch.4) | Acid | No | Acid arrows/bolts are named on the boss list but not on the weapons page |
| Corvus (Ch.7) | Lightning | Yes | Fully equippable; the cleanest counter in the back half |
| Kunai & Kirin (Ch.8) | Poison | No | Same Dokuzeri answer as the other Poison fights |
| Crimson Malefact (Ch.9) | Water — disputed | No | Treated as unconfirmed; fundamentals over elements |
| Ursa (Ch.10) | Acid | No | Acid Burst Nobudou, taken from Corvus in Ch.7 |
| Erymanth (Ch.12) | Explosive | Not as an element | The walkthrough names explosive ammunition as the fast route |
| Beast of Reincarnation (Ch.13) | None | — | The finale tests fundamentals, not elements |
One optional oddity sits outside the story roster: our boss list records a Chapter 1 Door Golem as weak to Bind and Acid, which introduces a seventh and eighth label the weapons page never mentions. It drops Scrap Metal and is described as the game's first gimmick fight, so treat those labels as evidence that enemy weakness tagging goes wider than the eleven story bosses rather than as two more things to shop for.
The four labels you cannot slot
Poison, Acid, Water and Explosive account for six of the eleven story bosses, and none of them appears on the weapons page's element list. Our coverage handles each differently, and the differences are instructive.
- Poison is answered by an ability line. Lacerta's reward is Dokuzeri Shower plus the Dokuzeri Blade Art, which the boss list calls the poison tools you will want for the next stretch — and the three Poison-weak bosses between them account for eight separate encounters across Chapters 1 to 12. Getting Lacerta's kit is therefore the highest-leverage single reward on the roster by fight count.
- Acid is the same pattern one act later, via Corvus. Our Corvus guide raises the honest caveat this page inherits: what Corvus grants is an acid ability line, not confirmation that acid ammunition exists. The boss list does use the phrase “acid arrows/bolts” for Taurus, which sits awkwardly against the weapons page's three-element list; we flag the tension rather than resolve it.
- Explosive has a one-line answer and no ability behind it. Our walkthrough says explosive ammunition is the fast route on Erymanth, and our Erymanth guide notes it is the only boss on the roster recorded with that weakness. Whether explosive ammunition is a manual-crafted arrow type, a consumable, or an enchantment is not confirmed anywhere on this site.
- Water is the one genuine contradiction in our coverage, and it belongs to a single fight — see below.
The Crimson Malefact dispute
Our boss list records the Chapter 9 Crimson Malefact as weak to Water. The tested attack breakdown behind our Crimson Malefact guide lists its weakness as none. Both agree it drops no Nushi Skill and exists as a pure story wall, and our glossary carries the disagreement forward rather than picking a side. This site's standing position is that the weakness is unconfirmed: pack a spare elemental option if you have one, but do not build the loadout around Water. It is also the one fight without Koo, so parry discipline and sustain gear carry far more weight there than any element would.
Stones that pay you for element-matching
Element-matching is not only about damage. Two entries on our Spirit Stones guide turn exploiting a weakness into resource income, which changes how much a correct element is worth:
- Sharpshooter — exploiting an enemy's elemental weakness with a ranged weapon has a chance to restore 1 FP to Koo, at a recovery rate scaling from 20% to 30% across three levels.
- Entanglement Increase — exploiting an elemental weakness has a chance to restore both the Entanglement Gauge and Koo's FP, at a rate scaling from 3% to 7% across five levels.
Both are dead weight against the final boss, which has no weakness at all, and both are working the entire fight against Lacerta or Corvus. That is a real build consequence: the value of these two stones is not constant across the campaign, it tracks the roster. Our gauges guide covers how the FP and Entanglement economies they feed actually work.
The Spirit Stones guide also notes that Emma equips up to four stones early and up to six by the end of the game, without pinning the expansion to a chapter — so if you are planning a slot for a weakness-trigger stone, check your own slot count rather than assuming six.
Ammunition is its own collection system
Two entries in our achievement tracker prove the ammunition layer is deeper than the three-element list implies. Manual Maniac — one of the eight achievements Steam actually describes — reads “Obtain the manuals for every arrow and bolt type,” and sat at 12.9% on the tracker's 7 September read (12.5% on the trophy page's 31 August read). Munitions Master, hidden and undescribed, sat at 5.9% and 5.6% on the same two reads.
So there are multiple arrow and bolt types, they are gated behind manuals, and manuals are among the things our Amber farming guide lists as purchasable from Brad and wandering merchants. Our trophy page flags Manual Maniac as one of the two achievements sitting well below its neighbours — optional content that is easy to walk straight past. If explosive ammunition for Erymanth is bought rather than enchanted, this is the system it most likely lives in; we say “likely” because no page here states it.
Flame or Fire? A naming note
Rangifer's weakness is written as Flame on the boss list and the equipment side is written as Fire on the weapons page. Our Rangifer guide treats these as the same weakness under two labels, and that is the reading this page uses too. It is the only place on the roster where a weakness label and an element label differ in spelling while clearly meaning the same thing — Lightning is written identically on both sides.
A second naming wrinkle worth knowing: Lightning's status effect is written as Shock, so a guide that tells you to apply Shock and a guide that tells you to slot Lightning are giving the same instruction.
What this page does not claim
No page on this site carries an elemental damage number. There is no multiplier for hitting a weakness, no resistance value, no duration for Wet or Shock, and no stated interaction table for stacking two or three elements on one bow. Our weapons page says exact elemental damage figures are still being catalogued; our builds page says the game does not display the underlying interaction values and recommends testing on your own save rather than trusting a formula. We also have no weakness data for ordinary enemies beyond the Door Golem, and no confirmation of whether a katana can carry Poison, Acid or Explosive the way it carries Fire.
Weakness FAQ
How many elements are in Beast of Reincarnation?
Three are confirmed as enchantable: Fire, Lightning and Wet. The boss roster uses six weakness labels, which is a different and larger list — most weaknesses are answered with boss-reward ability lines rather than enchantments.
What element should I use on my first bow?
Fire. It is the counter to Chapter 1's Rangifer, which our boss list, review and weapons page all record as weak to Flame, and it is the element the game's own tutorial fight is built around.
Is any boss weak to Wet?
None on the recorded roster. Wet is described as a status-setup layer that pairs with the other elements' follow-ups, so its value is in combination rather than in weakness-matching.
Which bosses can I fully counter with equipment?
Three bosses: Rangifer with Fire, and Lacerta and Corvus with Lightning. Everything else asks for an ability line, ammunition, or — for the final boss — nothing elemental at all.
Does the final boss have a weakness?
No. Our boss list records it as none, and our final boss guide frames the fight as a test of fundamentals: deflection, Down Gauge pressure and disciplined FP spending. Bring your most practised loadout rather than your most exotic one.
Is the Crimson Malefact weak to Water?
Unconfirmed. Our boss list says Water; the tested breakdown on the Crimson Malefact page says none. Both agree the fight grants no reward, so the stakes on the question are low — play it as a parry check.
Related guides
- All weapons — the three types and the element slots
- All bosses — the roster these weaknesses belong to
- Nushi Skills — the ability lines that answer the unequippable labels
- Spirit Stones — the weakness-trigger stones
- Builds — where ranged elemental play fits
Sources on this site
Every weakness, element and percentage above is drawn from the following pages of this guide, each of which names the outside material it was checked against:
- All bosses
- All weapons
- Walkthrough
- Builds
- Spirit Stones guide
- Amber farming guide
- Trophies & achievements
- Achievement tracker
- Glossary
- Rangifer boss guide
- Corvus boss guide
- Crimson Malefact boss guide
- Erymanth boss guide
Last reviewed: September 11, 2026 · Game version checked: 1.0.11 · Every figure on this page is sourced from the pages listed above; where they disagree or fall silent, this page says so instead of choosing.