The rule of the tide
Every weapon channels one or more of the three sea-born elements as bonus damage on every blow, and every armour piece wards one or more. Elemental bite bypasses Defence entirely; the ONLY thing that stops it is a matching ward, which soaks its own element point for point: net = max(0, bite - ward) per element, resolved independently. A storm ward does nothing against frost. A blow carrying two elements is soaked twice, each bite against its own ward, which is why split-channel gear carries more total bite than the single-channel line (see Gear).
The Elemental stat
Elemental is the fifth levelable stat. Its effective total flows 0.65 per point into your weapon’s bite channels and 0.15 per point into your armour’s wards, split across a piece’s channels in proportion to their own values. Every cockle also carries a baseline flow worth 0.3 x ref(L) points, so even an uninvested build deals and soaks a trickle of its gear’s elements. The ward share is deliberately small: elemental defence is meant to come from armour choice and warded gear, not from stat points alone.
Afflictions
A landed bite can inflict its element’s affliction. The chance per blow is min(cap, landed damage / victim max HP x 2.5), so token bites rarely proc and a channeler’s torrent procs reliably. A ward that soaks a bite in full prevents its affliction entirely. One pending affliction of each kind at a time; a fresh proc refreshes, never stacks. The rarest magic amplifies both the chance and the cap (see Magic items).
| Element | Affliction | Chance cap | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brine | Corrosion | 15% | The salt keeps eating: 50% of the landed brine again at each of the victim's next 2 strikes. |
| Frost | Chill | 12% | The victim's next strike is delayed by 0.5 of the striker's own attack interval. |
| Storm | Shock | 8% | The victim's next strike is delayed by a full striker interval (1x), the hardest stall, so it carries the lowest cap. |
Chill and shock stalls are measured in the STRIKER’S interval, which keeps stagger pressure rate-neutral: a fast attacker procs often but each stall is short, a slow titan procs rarely but each stall is long. Speed buys blows, not extra stagger. Your own sheet at the Cove shows your exact proc odds per element against an evenly matched rival.