In Teyvat there are seven elements (元素), with each element corresponding to one of the seven nations. For versions 1-2, there have been six main elements. When Sumeru released in version 3, Dendro was introduced as the seventh element. Sometimes 'physical' is considered as an eighth element.
Reactions can be roughly classified into two types: amplifying and transformative.
Amplifying reactions include multiplicative reactions and additive reactions. Multiplicative reactions such as vaporize and melt, which multiply the incoming damage. Vaporize and melt are also asymmetric reactions.
With Dendro, there are also additive reactions: aggravate and spread, which add flat damage. These are also asymmetric reactions (explained in detail in the Dendro section below).
Transformative reactions basically do an extra instance of damage. These include:
The damage of transformative reactions scales with character level and EM. They typically do not factor in crit, defense, or dmg bonus. But they are affected by RES. By contrast, amplifying reactions can crit and factor in defense as well.
The damage multiplier for amplifying reactions is $$d_a = \text{reaction multiplier}\times (1 + 2.78 EM / (1400+EM) + \text{reaction bonus})$$ The reaction multiplier (RM) is:
At 0 EM, the multiplier is just 2 or 1.5. And this is multiplied to the damage of the triggering attack. With more EM, the multiplier can increase.
The damage formula for transformative reactions is $$d_t = \text{level multiplier}\times \text{reaction multiplier}\times (1+16 EM / (2000+EM) + \text{reaction bonus}) \times \text{RES multiplier}$$ The level multiplier (LM) is the base damage that depends on the level of the character proccing the reaction. At level 90 the LM is 1446.85. The reaction multiplier (RM) depends on the reaction:
Almost all of these reactions (amplifying and transformative) scale with the character's EM (except for frozen). The higher the EM, the more damage can be done or the stronger the shield (for crystallize). In version 1.6, transformative reactions received a buff (changing how the reactions scaled with EM).
It can be seen from above that Hyperbloom and Burgeon are the most powerful reactions in the game (highest EM scalings). Indeed there are full EM hyperbloom teams that can outdamage standard crit build teams. See 3.6 abyss. See Nilou for a discussion of Bloom and symmetric reactions.
Above, the RM for electro-charged and burning is per tick. Electro-charged can have two ticks so the total RM is 1.2*2=2.4.
Also, the above damage formula can get an extra multiplier from Nahida's C2 (which allows reactions to 'crit').
In the limit \(EM \to \infty \) the damage approaches $$d_t = \text{level multiplier}\times \text{reaction multiplier}\times (17 + \text{reaction bonus}) \times \text{RES multiplier}$$ So ignoring any further reaction bonus, there is an upper limit on transformative reaction damage. Assuming res multiplier of 0.9, level multiplier of 1446.85, the above becomes $$d_t = 1446.85*17*0.9*RC = 22136.8 (RC)$$ So for example, hyperbloom can reach up to 66k damage per hit. Because the EM scaling of transformative reactions is sublinear, they can hit diminishing returns a bit faster than linear scaling (but not as fast as exponential decay).
At 1k EM the multiplier is around 6 times the base damage of 0 EM. At 1k EM, hyperbloom will start to do around 20k per hit (assuming 0.9 RES multiplier and no other reaction bonuses). It is quite hard to get more than 1k EM in the game. The real way to further increase transformative damage is via RES shred.
But a more important limit involves the damage sequence and aoe limit: there is a limit on the number of times an enemy can be damaged by reactions like bloom, hyperbloom, burgeon (2 times per enemy per 0.5s). Moreover there is an aoe limit on how many times an enemy can be damaged by reactions like swirl (2 times per enemy). Lastly there is a limit on how many bloom cores can exist in the world (5 at a time). All of these restrictions are meant to prevent transformative reactions from having true quadratic scaling.
We can start converting the above real/true damage to mv scalings. Using the assumptions discussed in dps, to convert mv to true damage, multiply by 4050. So to convert transformative reaction damage to mv (for the limit \(EM \to \infty \)), $$m_t = d_t/4050 = 22136.8 (RC)/4050 = 5.47 (RC) = 547\% (RC)$$ In other words, hyperbloom has a cap of around 1500% scaling (a dendro nuke) per hit. The fact it can be spammed 4 times a second per enemy gives it 6000% mv, which is absolutely broken.
But if we tone it down a bit and stick with 1k EM, the formula becomes $$m_t = d_t/4050 = 8247 (RC)/4050 = 2.036 (RC) = 203.6 \% (RC)$$ So for hyperbloom, that is a nuke of around 600% scaling per hit, which is still quite large. And if the upper limit of 4 hits per second is saturated, that is ~2400% mv, which is comparable to C6 Xiao level of dps (top among C6 hypercarries).
Of course, the difference is that Xiao does aoe damage, whereas hyperbloom is single target (sublinear aoe scaling like Beidou's Q as there can only be 5 dendro cores at a given time, so we cannot create more dendro cores when there are more enemies or else they will automatically explode; so a single electro attack can proc at most 5 hyperblooms, which is finite, not linear scaling with number of enemies). So if there are two enemies, hyperbloom dps is split between the two so it becomes 1200% mv per enemy. But still, 1200% mv is near the level of C6 Scaramouche, C6 Itto, and C6 Cyno (also among the top hypercarries in the game). Not to mention that for single target enemies, hyperbloom is still one of the top teams in the game by theoretical calculations alone (though it may be harder to create 4 dendro cores per second on a single enemy).
In other words, a C0 hyperbloom team (with 1k EM electro driver) can do as much damage as many C6 characters. This is why hyperbloom can be so busted. But more importantly, hyperbloom (a transformative reaction) can do as much damage as standard crit teams. With the introduction of dendro, transformative reactions are no longer considered weird or niche, but actually buff and chad, something that can carry a team to complete the abyss. Because full EM builds and hyperbloom teams are quite easy to build, this makes them very friendly to rookies. That is why some say hyperbloom teams have a high floor in dps. Like the silicon chip and personal computer of the late 1900s, hyperbloom brings dps to the masses.
And as the prestige of hyperbloom and reaction teams goes up, 4p Gilded becomes one of the best sets for giving the largest EM buff in the game, giving a universal buff to all reactions. Many sets will only buff a specific type of reaction, but Gilded will buff everything, making it much more versatile and valuable.
As mentioned above, the shortcoming of hyperbloom is that it is single target and thus has sublinear aoe scaling. By contrast, bloom and burgeon are aoe. The disadvantage of bloom is that it is a symmetric reaction that can be procced by dendro or hydro and thus needs to buff the whole team EM to be consistent (one cannot guarantee that it is the same single character proccing bloom; by contrast hyperbloom and burgeon can be procced by a single character and thus only depends on one character's EM) The bloom team is sort of resolved by Nilou, who can make it viable by buffing team EM and core damage regardless of who procs bloom. But even with Nilou, bloom has less scaling than hyperbloom.
That leaves us with burgeon. In fact, burgeon has the same scaling as hyperbloom, so why don't we see burgeon teams as prevalently as hyperbloom teams (as of 3.6)? The reason is because the game currently has a paucity of pyro burgeon drivers (Dehya, Diluc, Thoma), whereas electro hyperbloom drivers are much more abundant (Raiden, Yae, Kuki, etc.). See subdps and abyss for more info on this topic. The reason for a dearth in burgeon drivers could be related to balancing the game, similar to why there is no cryo Yelan/XQ in the game (as of 3.6). Burgeon is superior to hyperbloom in aoe situations, fixing hyperbloom's problem against multiple enemies. If burgeon teams are so easy to build, then one can easily do 2400% mv that is also aoe, which would be at the level of C6 Xiao. But the game does not want to make it that easy for people to achieve C6 Xiao level of aoe dps.
Suppose we have full EM Dehya with 1k EM (e.g. has mailed flower). Say she applies pyro every 2.5s with her E and procs 2 burgeons each time (her Q can also proc burgeon with the punches). The dps is $$1200/2.5 = 480$$ which is decent. To apply burgeon at a faster rate (than once per 2.5s), we would want a character with a pyro infusion with 100% uptime (like how Cyno has electro infusion for near 100% uptime). This leaves us with Diluc (other pyro units like Yoimiya, Hu Tao have downtime). C6 Thoma has similar 18s duration, 20s cd on burst as C2 Dehya's E.
Swirl can spread an autumn element within a 6m radius. This can be used to create second-hand reactions. For example, suppose A has pyro on it and B has hydro. If you swirl A it will spread pyro to B and cause vaporize.
Now suppose A has electro and there are dendro cores nearby. If you swirl A it will spread electro and proc hyperbloom. The question in these cases is whose EM will be factored for hyperbloom? It will be the anemo unit's EM. The electro swirl damage is considered the anemo unit's damage and factors in their EM.
This introduces the concept of dendro taser involving anemo-dendro-electro-hydro. Here the anemo driver (e.g. Scaramouche, Sucrose, even Xiao or Venti) will proc some of the hyperblooms, converting their damage into dendro. This hyperbloom dps will then be attributed to the anemo unit. The rate at which hyperbloom is procced via electro swirl is governed by the icd of swirl. So dendro has even enabled anemo units to do even more dps.
So now anemo can deal damage in 6 different types via reactions: anemo, pyro, electro, cryo, hydro, dendro. This is more than any other element. Next would be electro (4 types: electro, dendro, pyro, cryo).
Suppose A has electro and B has quicken on it. Swirling A can cause aggravate on B. How is the aggravate damage calculated? One would think the damage is: (electro swirl damage)+(aggravate damage using EM of swirler) where the EM of the thing triggering the swirl is used for aggravate. These things are sometimes called aggravated swirls.
Suppose A has pyro and B has electro-charged on it (electro+hydro). Swirling A can proc vapeload on B.
Since 1.0, Dendro already had a reaction: burning (dendro+pyro). Version 3.0 introduced two new reactions for dendro: bloom and catalyze. Bloom happens when dendro+hydro react and can enable certain tertiary reactions (3-way reactions). Catalyze happens when dendro+electro react.
Burning happens when pyro makes contact with a dendro object, like wooden shields, grass, hay, dendro slimes, etc. It takes a certain amount of pyro gauge units (strong 2B) to get grass burning. It can be thought of as a certain 'dendro shield'. Once the shield is broken, the grass will start burning. However, wooden shields and grass are also different from other dendro objects in the game in that they can only trigger burning but not bloom or catalyze reactions. If grass could trigger bloom then when it is raining, there would be way too many dendro cores. Some people claim that wooden shields and grass are NOT dendro, but still elemental sight classifies such things as dendro. To say they are not dendro is an idiotic and blatantly wrong way of putting it. Another way is to expand the concept of dendro to include things that can burn but not necessarily bloom or quicken.Bloom drops a Dendro Core, similar to how crystallize drops an elemental shard. When pyro or electro is applied to the dendro core it will produce different effects. If pyro is applied (burgeon) the core will do greater aoe dendro damage. If electro is applied (hyperbloom) the core will produce a 'sprawling shot' that will home in and attack nearby enemies. If nothing is applied the dendro core will automatically deal dendro damage after a certain time. The dendro core explosion can deal damage to both player and enemy. Similar to geo constructs, only a finite number of dendro cores can exist at a given time. This will prevent it from having true quadratic scaling (i.e. create n cores, each of which does aoe dmg on n enemies for \(n^2\) scaling). Swirl also has an aoe limit (for swirl it is 2 instances of damage per enemy).
Catalyze applies the 'quicken' status to the enemy. This causes it to take increased dendro (spread) and electro (aggravate) damage. The game devs said it combines the 'wisdom' aspect related to dendro (as Sumeru is the nation of wisdom) and the energy aspect of Electro. They say it is connected to the local history of Sumeru.
Applying dendro and electro puts the target in the quicken state. Quicken is indicated by a dual dendro-electro status. When dendro or electro is applied, they produce the spread and aggravate reactions (and refresh the quicken status). Spread and aggravate give additive dmg that scales with character level and EM. This bonus dmg is similar to Shenhe or Yun Jin's buff. Whereas vaporize and melt are multiplicative reactions, spread and aggravate are additive. The additive dmg from spread and aggravate is given by $$\text{flat dmg} = \text{level multiplier}*RC*(1+\frac{5*EM}{EM+1200}+\text{reaction bonus})$$
Note additive and multiplicative reactions are affected by dmg bonus%, crit, enemy defense, whereas transformative reactions are not. However, enemy resistance can affect the dmg of all reactions.
For spread \(RC = 1.25\) and for aggravate \(RC = 1.15\). The level multiplier at level 90 is 1446.85. So if EM is 0, the flat dmg increase for spread is 1808.56, and the flat dmg increase for aggravate is 1663.56.
Additive dmg increase / flat dmg / base dmg is factored into dmg via the following formula $$(\text{ATK}*\text{scaling} + \text{flat dmg})*(1+\text{dmg bonus%})*(\text{crit multiplier})$$
The flat dmg increase has an effective scaling of $$\frac{\text{flat dmg}}{\text{ATK}}$$ So it is almost like increasing the scaling to $$\text{effective scaling} = \text{scaling} + \frac{\text{flat dmg}}{\text{ATK}}$$ so that the damage can be rewritten as $$(\text{ATK}*\text{effective scaling})*(1+\text{dmg bonus%})*(\text{crit multiplier})$$ The increase in damage is then $$\frac{\text{effective scaling}}{\text{scaling}} = 1+\frac{\text{flat dmg}}{\text{ATK}*\text{scaling}}$$
If a character has say 2000 ATK (no Bennett), then for spread \(1808.56/2000 \approx .90\) so the increase in effective scaling is 90%. For aggravate it will be less. As a rough approximation, the main result is that spread and aggravate can increase effective scaling by around +100% (actually less). If the initial scaling is 100% then this can double damage. If the initial scaling is 200% then this multiplies damage by 1.5. This is important since Bennett can buff ATK by 1.5 times, but using Bennett or pyro can destroy the quicken status on enemies. So many quicken teams will not use Bennett at all, but based on the above considerations, the buff from quicken can compensate for the lack of Bennett. This can free up Bennett for your other spiral abyss team, so the dendro reactions can offer flexibility and give another way to play the game.
Note that Bennett's buff and quicken's buff are not multiplicative with each other. They actually compete with each other. If you have 2000 ATK and Bennett gives 1000 extra ATK, that brings your attack to 3000. This will diminish the effect of the additive reaction. The increase in effective scaling for spread will be \(1808.56/3000 \approx .60\). So if the initial scaling is 100% it multiplies damage by 1.6 (whereas before it was 2 times).
The main result is that the higher the scaling, the less the buff. Hence things with lower scaling like normal attacks (around 100%) tend to get a bigger buff from quicken (and things like Yun Jin's buff). By contrast, things with higher scaling (like nukes) receive a smaller buff. However, due to standard ICD for most characters, not every dendro or electro hit will get buffed. Only every 3rd hit (or every 2.5s) will the hit get buffed. For example, for Yae's E, only 1 out of 3 E hits will trigger the aggravate reaction (and be buffed) due to ICD.
The quicken reaction has decent EM scaling. For 100 EM the aggravate flat dmg gets a 1.38 times multiplier. For 230 EM it gets a 1.8 times multiplier. For 500 EM it gets roughly a 2.5 times multiplier.
So for example if you have 230 EM (from Gilded Dreams), then at level 90 aggravate gives \(1.8*1808 \approx 3254\) flat dmg. For 2000 ATK and 100% scaling, aggravate can increase damage by around 2.6 times. (Note for things with higher scaling, the buff is lower.) Compare this to the 0 EM case when the buff was around 2 times for 100% scaling. So Gilded's EM buff can increase damage by 30%. Compare this to the lowsy underwhelming deepwood set, which can only increase dendro damage by 1.2 times. It is clear that of the two sets, Gilded is far superior.
For certain combinations of elements among party members, the party may gain certain buffs.
There is a theory that elemental resonances exemplify the 'theme' of that particular element, including its corresponding region and archon. For example, Raiden centers around regenerating energy, and Morax centers on shields. Anemo resonance is a bit different from the cc that Venti provides, but the effects of increasing speed and decreasing cooldown are more similar to what Xiao (especially C6 Xiao ignoring E cd) does.
Note elemental resonance effects have changed in the past. For example, geo resonance was once different before version 1.3. It only offered dmg bonus. But after version 1.3, geo resonance can now reduce geo res (good for geo dps like Itto) and increase shield strength. Also before 3.0, hydro resonance gave more healing. But after 3.0, hydro resonance now increases HP. This is a somewhat more useful change given that several hydro characters scale off HP.
Some character skills also depend on the elemental types of party members and can act like 'extended resonance' effects. For example, Gorou's field gives more buffs the more geo characters are in the party (mono effects). On the other hand, characters like Yun Jin or Yelan gain buffs the more diverse the party is, when there are more characters of different elements (diversity effects).
Geo resonance is fine as is. But with the recent units of version 2, geo seems to have shifted to being more def oriented. As such, perhaps geo resonance could give 25% def. Moreover, Morax probably would have synergized a lot more with Itto, Albedo, Gorou if Morax's shield and dmg buffs scaled with def rather than hp. This would have solidified the element's standing in the preservation class.
A gauge unit (GU) is a measure of the quantity of an element applied on a target. When an element is applied on a target, usually a status will appear on the target. The status will decay or deplete over time, depending on how many gauge units were initially applied. Currently, character gauges come in 1A, 2B, and 4C applications. (There were rumors that Yelan's Q hydro application was 1.5 gu in beta, but currently it is 1A.)
The quicken gauge is consumed when pyro is applied (burning) or hydro is applied (bloom). When anemo is applied, it will do electro swirl, and when geo is applied, it will do electro crystallize. Gauge units are also consumed. When cryo is applied, it will trigger the superconduct reaction. The dendro and cryo status can exist simultaneously on a target.
The quicken status is sticky. When you apply dendro for spread or electro for aggravate, it will not quickly deplete the quicken status. The quicken status will stick to the enemy for a while. As a result, the rate of dendro application does not need to be as high to consistently proc spread/aggravate. By contrast the 'vaporize' and 'melt' status are more ephemeral and do not last as long. When you trigger vape or melt, that will usually deplete the status in a few seconds unless you reapply the element.
So a dendro applicator almost does not need to apply dendro as often as a 'dendro xingqiu' (or dendro yelan). Even if you apply dendro once in a while, that will be sufficient to support an electro aggravate dps like Cyno because the dendro and quicken status will stick, whereas for vaporize the hydro status needs to be constantly replenished as it will be consumed by pyro. And that is why the DMC works with Cyno. Even if the DMC's Q is 15s, the quicken status will last beyond that because it is sticky, thereby allowing Cyno to proc aggravate throughout his 18s burst. So Cyno's long field time works with quicken.
Applying dendro on every hit (without icd) is nice especially if you are a spread dendro dps and want to spread on every hit. If you can apply dendro on every hit, then it will be easier to spread on every hit because unlike vape, the quicken status lasts much longer and does not need to be replenished as often. That is you can apply electro and say spread three times without icd without having to reapply electro. But if you apply hydro you may only be able to vaporize once before having to reapply hydro. This is the difference between vaporize and quicken. Although vaporize is multiplicative and quicken is additive, quicken is more sticky and robust, decreasing the need for frequent re-application.
Suppose that quicken can increase electro or dendro damage by 2 times from the additive buff. That does not mean the total damage will be doubled. This is because of icd. Not every hit will proc spread or aggravate. Usually every 3 hits will proc a reaction (or every 2.5s). So on average the overall damage increase from quicken is (2+1+1)/3 = 4/3 or 1.33 times. That is if we use dendro/electro on a quickened target three times within a short time period, only one of those hits will be doubled. This is why the goal of many quicken dps units is to attack many times within a short time period. They make a tradeoff between scaling and frequency (less scaling for more hits/higher frequency), just so they can proc the quicken additive buff as many times as possible. That is why these quicken dps units usually can do many hits with less scaling in a short time interval.
The introduction of the 7th element dendro, with characters such as Nahida, Alhaitham, Yaoyao, have brought a change in the balance of elements. Before 3.0, anemo was the dominant element, geo only had Itto, electro had Raiden and Yae, pyro was a good element too, cryo was decent, hydro was decent. But after 3.0, dendro balanced the element meta, buffing certain elements. First, dendro buffed electro characters via the quicken reaction. Second, dendro buffed hydro via the bloom/burgeon/hyperbloom reaction. Dendro did not bring as much change to pyro besides burgeon (as burning already existed in the game), and dendro did not do much for anemo, geo, or cryo (due to lack of interaction). So the biggest winners of dendro are electro and hydro characters.
Now Raiden was a character that was excellent without dendro. So dendro basically took a goddess to even higher above the clouds. Although Cyno and Raiden are both burst electro dps, Cyno kind of needs dendro (specifically Nahida) to reach his apex, whereas Raiden does not.
There is a limit to how often an element can be applied. For most abilities in the game, the standard ICD is 2.5s or 3 hits. That is an element can be applied once every 2.5 seconds or every 3 hits of that element.
There are only a handful of abilities that may not have an ICD (or the ICD is short enough). These include things like Diluc's E, Xiao's plunging, most polearm charged attacks. In practice this means that Diluc can vaporize each E hit. Some characters may have ICDs that differ from 2.5s or 3 hits. In practice and for calculations, the ICD tends to matter for characters that rely on vaporize, melt, or quicken to deal damage.
A commonly asked question is what element is the 'best'? Is it even true that certain elements are better than others? A general answer is that it depends on the situation. Each element has its own advantages in different scenarios.
Elements can be grouped in two clusters. There are now three elements that interact with every other element in the game: pyro, hydro, electro. And then there are the other four elements: anemo, geo, dendro, cryo. Pyro has melt, vape, burgeon, overload, burning. Hydro has vape, freeze, bloom, EC. Electro has quicken, hyperbloom, superconduct, overload, EC. All have swirl and crystallize.
Because of vv, anemo will always be meta. The fact that many anemo characters have crowd control and exploration benefits (like Venti, Scaramouche, Xiao) solidifies anemo's status as the premiere element of the game, even after the introduction of dendro.
Geo really only has Itto. Shields are not really needed as oftentimes a team wants more offense than defense. Zhongli's res shred is easily replaceable in all situations (vv, Faruzan, superconduct, deepwood).
Nahida and Alhaitham make dendro op and compensate for mid characters like Tighnari and Baizhu. Moreover, dendro resonance gives an EM buff, which buffs reactions and is useful for many teams.
For electro, many teams can take advantage of quicken and hyperbloom. Superconduct really only benefits Eula. Overload does less damage than hyperbloom and burgeon (for same EM, level) and knocks enemies around. However, vapeload does benefit many teams like Rational. Similarly, EC alone is ok, but becomes better with vapeload. So electro's reactions are overall great. Moreover electro resonance generates more energy particles.
For cryo, again superconduct only benefits Eula. Freeze can be used on various teams, but its drawback is that not every enemy can be frozen, especially big bosses (whereas you can use say hyperbloom on many big booses). Other than that, melt is probably cryo's most powerful reaction, and Dehya allows many cryo dps to melt readily. Cryo's other saving grace is that cryo resonance gives 15% cr (on opponents affected by cryo), and blizzard gives another 20% cr (on opponents affected by cryo). However, the additional 20% cr (on frozen opponents) is not always achievable as not every enemy can be frozen. So in terms of reactions, cryo is a bit weaker than other elements, but at least has access to melt and crit rate buff.
For hydro, many teams can use bloom (and hyperbloom/burgeon). Hydro also has access to vape, a powerful reaction, and freeze. Hydro can also enable EC, which becomes better with vapeload. Overall, like electro, hydro has access to very good reactions. Hydro resonance used to be mid (giving healing bonus), but after 3.0, it gave 25% hp, which is much better, especially since more units scale with hp. Still, the buffs from electro and cryo resonance are a bit stronger (as not every unit needs hp, whereas more units want energy and crit).
Lastly, pyro has access to two multiplicative reactions, vape and melt. This alone makes pyro one of the most powerful elements. Moreover, pyro resonance gives 25% atk. Also, Bennett, one of the best universal characters in the game is pyro. For exploration, pyro is needed a lot for lighting torches and burning vines. Other than that, pyro has burgeon (a good reaction), overload (which becomes better with vapeload), and burning (which is only really used for melt teams).
Rather than give an explicit ranking of the elements, here we will say which elements have room for improvement and rebalancing.
Before dendro, the electro and hydro elements probably were not as op as pyro, reaction-wise. Electro only had vapeload, but was not even necessary for reaction teams. But after dendro, giving access to quicken and bloom, the electro and hydro elements are now more balanced, though electro gained much more from dendro (whereas hydro at least had vape and freeze).
Also although a hydro Dehya/Nahida and a vape-based hydro dps can make hydro more op, it would not put hydro above pyro as such characters would also buff pyro as a side effect. Buffing hydro probably would not even put it above electro and dendro since hydro needs both of those elements for bloom and hyperbloom. So the value of hydro is connected to the value of electro, dendro, as well as pyro.
Similarly, although a cryo Yelan/XQ would obviously give a larger multiplier (2 > 1.5) to pyro dps, that does not necessarily mean melt teams would be better as pyro still can use hydro alongside electro and dendro for vapeload and burgeon (which cryo does not enable). In other words, a cryo Yelan/XQ would not necessarily be better than Yelan/XQ (as cryo just does not enable as many reactions as hydro). If a cryo Yelan/XQ ever releases, the pyro melt team would probably look like: pyro dps-cryo Yelan/XQ-anemo VV-Bennett or pyro dps-cryo Yelan/XQ-hydro Yelan/XQ-anemo VV/Bennett.
Also, it is very hard for pyro, hydro, electro, cryo to be more op than anemo for a simple reason: whenever these 'autumn' elements get a buff, that would also indirectly buff anemo (or make anemo more useful), as the autumn elements benefit from or rely a lot on anemo vv shred.
At the same time, it is hard for dendro to be more op than anemo as dendro does not interact with as many elements as anemo. While technically geo interacts with the same autumn elements as anemo, crystallize does not really provide offensive utility, whereas swirl can give a big buff via vv and aoe elemental application.
But perhaps the more important point is that anemo via swirl indirectly inherits all the reactions of the autumn elements. This means the op dendro reactions like hyperbloom can even be achieved with anemo characters via swirl. Anemo can swirl electro to apply electro and proc hyperbloom. Anemo can swirl pyro to proc vapeload. Anemo can swirl electro to aggravate on a quickened enemy. And so on. So the number of reactions that anemo has access to is much more than swirl. Anemo even has access to dendro reactions and thus subsumes the power level of dendro. Thus anemo acts as the ultimate master of the elements and can emulate any reaction that electro, pyro, hydro, and cryo can do, including the reactions with dendro.