*spoiler alert*

If you don't know what elementor is, skip this thread until you do. :)

*aight, carry on*

So, anyone have the skinny on how elementor works?

I found some vague explanations at the end of some walkthroughs but I really don't get it.
I've got a bunch of CCs and I have one level7 (full) beetle of almost every color but I still can't really get any awesome magic out of it. The loose mystech still outperforms my best try at elementor.

So maybe it would be a good idea to try to figure out exactly how it is supposed to work.

I found out that:

Each color corresponds to a different magic, each character in the game is "specialised" in one type of magic, giving a character "his" type of magic gives better performance.

Each color (each magic type) has an opposite color, except for white (bane) which is basically neutral. On the elementor grid, opposite colors are opposite on the grid.

The exception is Psy-magic, which has obsidian color, and does not seem to have any particular party member it is associated with, and does not seem to have a specific place on the grid, similar to cobalt crawlers.

Basics:
A) Feeding a flower petal to a beatle will incrase it's level to a maximum of 7
B) The pattern on each beetle indicates what parts light up on the grid when placed in the function spot of the elementor host.
C) You can't put beetles of opposite color on the grid.
D) Starting with an empty pattern at level 1, each level adds a line to it's pattern: so a level 5 beetle will have four lines, activating 4 grid positions around the edges, (the center white one is always active except for a level 1 beetle)

E) CC's fit everywhere on the grid, and are special case, since they are compatible with any of the colors

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It seems that lower-level patterns under level 4 will never have opposite grid positions activated. This would mean that (only) every beetle above level 4 placed on the function spot activates at least one spot that can't be filled with the proper beetle because of (B) and (C)

It's interesting to note that, when adding levels to beetles, the lines will actually shift on the pattern (but the beetles that are activated will never change)

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Guesses for getting best performance from the function beetle:
I'm assuming higher level is better, but maybe the "lower level" patterns are actually better since you don't activate contrasting positions.

Guesses for getting best performance from grid beetles:
It seems beetles do best when they are placed on their own color on the grid.
It seems that higher level beetles give better results, but the pattern doesn't seem to matter for grid beetles(?)

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I tried filling my elementor as follows:
level 7 beetle in the function (activating all positions)
1 level 7 beetle on bane(white) in the grid,
1 level 6 beetle on the grid-position of the function beetle.
2 level 7 beetles filling non-opposing colors

the 3 grid colors are filled with cobalt 3 crawlers.

Best I got was a Freeze Cubist (which seemed to be doing area damage, maybe because of CC?)

Yes, cobalt crawlers make whatever magic they're powering hit all targets.

As far as mechanics goes you pretty much have it. Max level beetle in the function slot(s), white beetle in the middle, three other non-opposing colors in their respective slots, and optionally fill however many slots with cobalt crawlers, equip on whoever has the best affinity. The only thing I can think of that might be tripping you up is that you also need enough power and throughput on your shieldcell to use your new magic. If you don't know what throughput is, it's basically how much NRG your shieldcell can blow on a single use of magic, and it's independent of how much NRG it can store. The throughput needs to be high enough to handle the cost of a spell or you can't cast it. When you're putting together your elementor, notice the cost - double that for the next level, then double THAT for the next level, and finally double that AGAIN for the last level (Rho explains this when mystech becomes active, but it's hard to follow then and would probably have been better placed in the elementor tutorial, where it actually becomes important).

Example: you wind up with a spell that costs 32 NRG to cast for the first level. Your shield cell has a throughput of 128. With this setup, you'd be able to cast levels 1, 2 (64 NRG), and 3 (128 NRG), but not 4 (256 NRG), even if you have enough NRG stored, because your throughput isn't high enough.

tl;dr version: if you want to cast more powerful elementor spells, find a shieldcell with better throughput. This is why the couple of unlimited throughput shieldcells are worth going for - if you've got the juice, you can cast the magic.

Oh, and if you haven't tried it yet, using cobalt crawlers in the function slot and all the booster slots (you need to find all 8 CCs in the game for this, obviously) creates a super-spell that does 9999 damage to all targets, but costs some absurd amount of NRG (250-ish? Can't recall offhand). It's mostly just for kicks (and possibly an optional battle near the end).

grr, still not getting any harmonic or ultimate spells out of the system

I got the "power" bar up a lot by using the parallel hosts, but that just gives me more effects, but no extra raw powerrrrrrr.

Any ideas?

P.S. I'm now at end-game, and I have the cells to cast harmonic stuff with mystech slags, but not with elementor mystech.