Fire

Those creatures affiliated with Fire are primarily known to thrive on strength by battle and destruction. Creatures of this element tend to be amongst the most physically powerful and directly assertive warriors in the world, and their penchant for carving a path of destruction on their way to a swift victory is well-known to all that have faced them.

When faced with a threat, most Fire creatures tend to believe that offense is the best defense. Opposing forces are typically addressed with overwhelming speed and power, with the hope that a sufficiently devastating offensive reaction will annihilate most of their foes, and demoralize the remaining ones enough that their efforts to rebuild will not matter.

As an extension of this mindset, there are several Fire creatures that can launch surprise attacks on enemies without any outside assistance, doing so by drawing energy directly from their surroundings. Likewise, there are several ways for Fire creatures to bolster their power, ensuring that they will come out on top in most direct conflicts. To supplement their preference for direct, uninterrupted combat, there are also multiple Fire creatures and spells that are specialized for the obliteration of enemy defensive units, leaving the path to their preferred targets clear.

With all of these methods for destroying things through battle, an army of Fire creatures will oftentimes attack far more readily than an equivalently-sized unit of other forces, relying on their ability to overpower their foes to ensure their own stability after sweeping strikes. As a supplement to the typical Fire strategy of obliterative offense, there are also creatures that have traded some degree of their physical might for the ability to attack instantly after entering a conflict, taking the opposition by surprise and ideally burning through their lines before they can mount a proper reaction.

Another devastating use of Fire's preferred tactic of bolstering power is the ability to do more damage to enemy defensive networks. As opposed to doing more damage in direct combat with other creatures, there are instead multiple creatures that can do damage in wider areas and are specialized at taking out opposing Grids rapidly, getting the most out of each individual unit's offensive prowess in a given battle. While some of these specialized combatants can offer this ability to others, and there are also spells specifically designed for this as well, there are also creatures who can steadily become more destructive in this way over time, either drawing power from the ambient energies of their enemies, or siphoning the will to fight from their own defeated allies.

While the forces of Fire draw great strength from their linear methods in combat, such linearity can also have drawbacks. Fire creatures absolutely must be stronger than their opponents to be effective in most situations; usually, this is of little concern to them because their specializations mean they generally are stronger in battle, but should they either be directly overpowered by those stronger creatures of other elements, or otherwise be weakened by enemy spells or other indirect effects, there is little they can do to counteract their resultant vulnerability.

Another drawback to their focus on destruction is that their methods for achieving this tend to be imprecise; there are creatures capable of destroying multiple weaker enemies at once upon entering the conflict, but they cannot control this ability, and any weaker allies present will be engulfed as well. Likewise, even flames that are harnessed and aimed only at enemies can still be a bit inaccurate, leaving the results of their few means at destroying things without direct battle somewhat unpredictable.

Their focus on speed can likewise present a problem if not governed correctly; while a swift end to the opponent is always ideal and welcome, attacking too early into a battle or too often at a time can allow the enemy to build up a suitable defense during the resultant opening, causing their speed to backfire as the redirected energy from their opponent's damaged Grid networks is used to hasten the deployment of larger creatures. Fire creatures must therefore be careful with their short-term momentum, because their ability to attack rapidly will diminish as the opponent builds their own defenses.

Because of this, their means of supplementing strikes on opposing Grids cannot always be used early; to artificially boost only a few creatures early into a battle can devastate enemy Grids very quickly, but if there are not enough powerful creatures ready for battle when such tactics are used, they can be easily overwhelmed or outright stopped by the hastened deployments of their enemies. However, despite the inherent risks in the typical Fire army's methods, their sheer power can be very potent. In the hands of a skilled commander who can determine when and how to channel the energy of their forces, a cohesive unit of Fire creates can present a offensive whose momentum is all but unstoppable.