Most action-RPGs hand you an elemental wheel — fire beats ice, ice beats wind, you know the drill. NTE throws that out. Its damage types are states of matter: Solid, Liquid, Condensate and their neighbours. It sounds fussy. In practice it's the most intuitive part of the game, because you already know how matter behaves in the real world.
Elements are states, reactions are transitions
The core idea: every attack applies a state to the enemy, and the fun happens when you force that state to change. Push a Liquid-soaked target into a Solid and you get a very different result than layering two of the same. Anomalies react to the transition between states, not to the states themselves. So the question a good team asks isn't "what's my element?" — it's "what am I turning this enemy into, and in what order?"
NTE is a live game, so the exact reaction table and any hidden multipliers get tuned patch to patch. Treat the pairings below as the durable logic, not final numbers — the thinking is what carries over.
The four roles
Every companion is an Esper, and each fills a role. You don't need all of them in one team — you need the right shape. The four you'll see most:
- Main DPS — your primary damage. Stays on field longest, spends the reactions everyone else sets up.
- Sub-DPS — burst damage on a quick swap-in, then back out. The "hand-off" specialist.
- DoT — applies a lingering state so the Main DPS always has something to react against.
- Support — shields, heals, buffs and state-priming. The glue that makes a combo repeatable.
A team isn't "two DPS and a healer." It's a little chemistry set. The NTE team-building rule
The swap is the system
You control a party of four and swap between them mid-fight. Each character has Esper Abilities that chain into the next character's opener if you time the tag right — cancel a heavy into a swap, land the follow-up while the state is still fresh, then swap to your payoff. Get the order right and a pack of anomalies folds in seconds. Mash randomly and you'll be dodging a lot.
Build your first reaction team
You don't need rare pulls for this. Any beginner squad works if it follows the shape:
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Pick a Main DPS you enjoy
Whoever feels best to play. Everything else is built to feed this character, so comfort beats theory at the start.
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Add a state-setter of a different element
A DoT or Sub-DPS whose state transitions with your Main DPS's — that mismatch is the reaction you're farming.
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Slot a support
Shields and heals keep you on-field long enough to actually land the combo. Priming states is a bonus.
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Leave the fourth slot flexible
A second Sub-DPS for tough packs, or a second support for survivability. Swap it per fight.
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Learn one loop, then repeat it
Set the state → swap → react → reset. Drill that single rotation until it's muscle memory before you chase optimisation.
Two characters of the same state don't react — they just stack damage. That's not wrong for a raw-damage burst, but you'll lose the reaction bonus. Mix states on purpose.
Don't over-invest materials into a launch-week team before you've seen the roster. NTE is a gacha — new companions arrive constantly, and early "best teams" shift fast. Build one solid squad, keep your resources flexible.
The one-sentence version
Mix elements so their states transition, arrange your four so someone sets the state and your Main DPS spends it, and time your swaps to keep the loop going. Do that and NTE's combat opens up fast — no spreadsheet required.