User:NtCarlson/Guide to Elementals

Elementals

 Conjure Elemental when used with a 5th level spell slot can summon one of four types of elementals: Air, Earth, Fire, or Water. All four types have the same general kit:

• A basic melee attack that inflicts a status effect without a save.
• A multiattack that is stronger when attacking targets inflicted with the above status effect.
• An area of effect attack that inflicts a different, often unique, status effect.
• A bonus action 18m teleport that can be used at will.

The air elemental deviates from this and winds up being the weakest type as a result.

Stats

Elemental	hit points	Armour Class (w/  Mage Armour)	Initiative	Attack ability	Spellcasting ability	Damage immunities	Damage resistances
Air Elemental	90	15 (18)	5	Strength (16)	Intelligence (6)	Poison	Physical (non-magical), Lightning, Thunder
Earth Elemental	126	17 (17)	-1	Strength (20)	Intelligence (5)	Poison	Physical (non-magical)
Fire Elemental	102	13 (16)	3	Dexterity (17)	Intelligence (6)	Fire	-
Water Elemental	114	14 (15)	2	Strength (18)	Strength (18)	-	Physical (non-magical), Acid

The reason for the different impact of  Mage Armour is that some elementals have more than 10 base AC. Earth Elemental has 18 (with a -1 Dexterity modifier) and Water Elemental has 12 (with a +2 Dexterity modifier). Mage Armour increases the base AC to 13 so it doesn't help the Earth Elemental at all, and only gives 1 AC to the Water Elemental.

The spellcasting ability is used to determine the save DC on the area of effect attack. This value defaults to Intelligence and only for the Water Elemental was this default changed. This means the AoE attacks for the other 3 elementals will have pitiful DCs.

Basic attacks

With the exception of the Air Elemental, all the elementals have a basic melee attack that inflicts a 2 turn status effect without a save, so long as the attack hits. This status effect is required to unlock the full power of the corresponding multiattack ability.

Elemental	Attack	Attack bonus	Damage	Inflicts	Additional properties
Earth Elemental	Soil-Clogged Slam	9	2d6 + 6Bludgeoning	Prone	Creates a small pool of mud centered around the target
Fire Elemental	Smouldering Touch	7	2d6Fire	Burning	-
Water Elemental	Slam	8	5Bludgeoning + 2d6Cold	Chilled	Creates a small puddle of water centered around the target

Instead of a melee attack, the Air Elemental gets  Gushing Air. This is a ranged attack with two projectiles that can be targeted separately like  Eldritch Blast. The damage per projectile is 2d6+1Thunder and is halved on a DC 15  Dexterity saving throw. This attack does not inflict the condition required for the improved multiattack damage.

Multiattack

All elementals have a 2-hit multiattack that doubles the damage dice when targeting enemies inflicted with certain conditions. These multiattacks have a once-per-turn cooldown, so if you opt to  Haste your elemental, it can still only multiattack once.

Elemental	Attack bonus	Target condition	Normal damage	Damage vs. targets inflicted with target condition
Air Elemental	6	Shocked	${\Big (}$2d4 + 3Slashing + 2d4Lightning ${\Big )}\times 2$	${\Big (}$4d4 + 3Slashing + 4d4Lightning ${\Big )}\times 2$
Earth Elemental	9	Prone	${\Big (}$2d4 + 5Bludgeoning ${\Big )}\times 2$	${\Big (}$4d4 + 5Bludgeoning ${\Big )}\times 2$
Fire Elemental	7	Burning	${\Big (}$2d4 + 3Bludgeoning + 2d4Fire ${\Big )}\times 2$	${\Big (}$4d4 + 3Bludgeoning + 4d4Fire ${\Big )}\times 2$
Water Elemental	8	Chilled	${\Big (}$2d4 + 4Bludgeoning + 2d4Cold ${\Big )}\times 2$	${\Big (}$4d4 + 4Bludgeoning + 4d4Cold ${\Big )}\times 2$

The Earth Elemental doesn't deal any elemental damage on its multiattack and doesn't receive additional physical damage to compensate. On paper, this makes its version of multiattack the weakest, but that title actually belongs to the Air Elemental.

Air Elemental's multiattack requires the  Shocked condition, which is extremely rare. Aside from Air Elemental's extremely unreliable area of effect attack, the only way for players to inflict the condition is with The Jolty Vest. This essentially locks Air Elementals out of receiving the improved damage on their multiattacks.

The other three conditions can be consistently applied in numerous ways, either by party members or by the elemental itself. This is particularly true of  Burning and  Prone which have a huge number of sources. If you plan for it, you can reliably get the improved multiattack damage with the other elementals.

Also note that  Chilled inflicts vulnerability to Cold damage, so Water Elemental's multiattack damage is even better.