How to unlock All 4 Elemental Attacks in Crimson Desert

Learn how and when you unlock the Elemental Attacks in Crimson Desert to utilize Flame, Frost, Lightning, and Wind with your weapons, Force Palm, and Meteor Kicks.

Where to find the abilities on the Skill Tree

In Crimson Desert’s red skill tree, you might have noticed abilities such as Lightning Surge, Storm Veil, Frost Mantle, and Flame Strike.

You are unable to spend Abyss Artifacts to unlock these. You also cannot observe NPCs to learn the abilities they use like most normal skills from the skill trees. You can only unlock the Elemental attacks by completing specific Abyss challenges.

The root of these abilities is Imbue Element, which can let you augment specific attacks with any of these four elements. You’ll be able to unlock this skill when you unlock one of these elements, but can only infuse attacks with the element(s) you’ve unlocked.

Unlocking the four Elements

You’ll unlock elements as you progress through the story. You should be able to gain all of them after completing Chapter VIII of the Main Quest.

Lightning Surge

The first elemental ability you can unlock is Lightning Surge in the Courtyard of Precision. This challenge is part of a series of Abyss puzzles and challenges you unlock after unlocking the Spire of the Stars in Chapter IV: The Price of Knowledge.

Here is the full order o Abyss Puzzles in this chain:

1. Spire of the Stars
2. Secret Garden
3. Vault of Vengeance
4. Courtyard of Precision (you unlock Lightning Surge here)
5. Altar of Solitude
6. Ice Cradle
7. Ancient Sealed Gate
8. Abyss Kutum Boss

Lightning Surge creates a field of electricity around you, shocking any enemies around you for a few seconds. With several shocked enemies nearby, using the large area attacks of the spear or longsword is a good way to finish off enemies.

Frost Mantle and Flame Strike

You unlock Frost Mantle and Flame Strike in Path of Trials and Tree of Slumber Abyss puzzles respectively. These are in the same chain of Abyss puzzles started by the Spire of Ringing Truth in western Pailune. You’ll be venturing into Pailune in Chapter VII: Homecoming.

Here is the full order of challenges in this chain:

1. Spire of Truth
2. Ether Rest
3. Frostbitten Paradise
4. Path of Trials (you unlock Frost Mantle here)
5. Sanctorum of Darkness
6. Loop of Life
7. Tree of Slumber (you unlock Flame Strike here)
8. Skyloop Bridge

Frost Mantle drains spirit quickly, but makes you immune to damage while it’s active. Once release, you’ll fire shards of ice at nearby enemies. Flame Strike pushes enemies away while lighting them on fire.

Storm Veil

Last, Storm Veil is unlocked when you complete the Riddle Square Abyss challenge. To access Riddle Square, you’ll need to complete Chapter VIII: Blood Coronation to obtain the key for the Spire of Clockwork.

Here is the full order of Abyss puzzles for this chain:

1. Spire of Clockwork
2. Riddle Square (you unlock Storm Veil here)
3. Origin of Thoughts
4. Forgotten Altar
5. Disconnected Truth
6. Denn River Cube Puzzle
7. Ether Fragment

Storm Veil is used for utility purposes. Once in the thick fog, enemies will lose light of you and will start coughing. This leaves them open to being assassinated, making it a great way to quickly take out tankier enemies while you’re being ganged up on.

One important thing to note is that using Flame Strike, Frost Mantle, or Lightning Surge will create a small area beneath you imbued with that element. Don’t stay in the same spot too long or you’ll suffer that element’s effects.

Imbue Element

When you have one or more elements unlocked, you can then invest Abyss Artifacts into the Imbue Element Skill. This skill has four levels which unlock Elemental Turning Slash, Elemental Charged Shot, Elemental Force Palm, and Elemental Meteor Kick.

Open the Function Radial Menu and select an element, use one of the four abilities, and that ability will be infused with your selected element at the cost of Spirit.

Adding elements to your abilities not only increases their damage, but it adds some additional effects. For example:

	Fire ignites enemies, dealing additional damage over time.
	Frost can freeze enemies in place, potentially shattering on impact.
	Lightning will shock enemies, leaving them in place for a few seconds.
	Wind will knock enemies into the air and make them land prone.

If you’re too low on Spirit, Imbue Element will not activate and you’ll only use the base form of the ability. When you’re done using an element, set your selected element to Spirit. This will make the abilities act as normal without draining extra Spirit.

Elemental Turning Slash

When using Elemental Turning Slash with a melee weapon, you’ll create an Area of Effect imbued with your element upon completing the attack. This applies to a standard Turning Slash and the Expertise version. The elemental effect only applies to the second downward slash of the Expertise Turning Slash.

One thing the game doesn’t tell you is that this also applies to the Unarmed ability, Tiger’s Fury. It’s already cool that you can imbue your weapons with flame, but it’s even cooler to imbue your fists with frost!

Elemental Charged Shot

The Elemental Charged shot is good for igniting brambles or dealing with annoying enemies that are weak to a certain element. One example is that a Fire Elemental Charged Shot is super effective against the ice sorcerers floating around the Spire of Frost.

Elemental Force Palm

Elemental Force Palm can be a bit awkward to use. The timing to use it is weird as you have to pull the Left and Right Triggers for controllers or V on KBM right before the Force Palm lands.

This will allow you to apply the element’s effects to a single target you’re using Force Palm on. The Wind Elemental Force Palm pushes away all enemies around you in a circle.

Elemental Meteor Kick

Elemental Meteor Kick does what you think it does, it adds an elemental effect to the AoE when you land.