Elements

Elements are a concept included in both the Dynasty Warriors, Samurai Warriors series, and many other Warriors related series. They can be fused with weapons or added as a separate item. Sometimes only one is allowed though more recent games and the Warriors Orochi series allow multiple elements. Elements are effects that affect enemies that are stuck by certain charge attacks. Some charge attacks will have elemental activation, some won't. The elements are generally as follows:

Elements

 * Lightning/Bolt: Stuns foes and spreads in some games. This effect will often be indicated by slow enemy fall speeds followed by a short period of immobility or small yellow indicators over their heads. The next hit will launch them into the air no matter what. Enemies killed by the lightning in earlier games do not count towards to player's direct K.O's.
 * Fire: Gradual damage on the target that ignores defense but cannot kill. The effect is brief if the target is on the ground, but if airborne they will stay on fire unless they recover in the air.
 * Ice: Chance to freeze and ground foes through attacks and lowers enemy defense. Frozen opponents cannot be set on fire and cannot break out of the ice for a short period of time.
 * Wind/Air: Increases knockback and airborne attacks. Wind will often add extra height to the target's air time. In Dynasty Warriors: Online it will also inflict "lethargy" on any computer or player commander by slowing down the target's foot speed for a small time.
 * Light/Flash/Blast: Breaks or damages through guard (as in inflicting chip damage not unlike in most fighting games), or is even outright unblockable. Occasionally throwing in extra damage.
 * Drain/Night/Absorb: Absorbs life or Musou from an enemy upon activation attack.
 * Clones/Multi: Creates a clone which will attack; can sometimes mess with knockback functions.
 * Dark/Vorpal/Death/Demon/Slay: Instantly kills peons and takes a percentage of a general's health; sometimes drains the player's Musou bar.
 * Poison: Appears only in Dynasty Warriors 4 and Shin Sangoku Musou 7. Lowers defense for a time or has similar effects as the fire effect in Dynasty Warriors Advance.

Appearances
In Samurai Warriors and Dynasty Warriors 3, they are attached to weapons and require full Musou gauge to use; the fire element was very common in a True Musou attack. Samurai Warriors: Xtreme Legends allows players to bypass this requirement with an item. In Samurai Warriors 2, the concept was slightly changed as they only required one full Musou bar out of three to activate. It also introduced the Demon and Wind elements, with the former being initially considered too powerful. This was changed in the expansion as the Demon element was downgraded. The same element system is retained in Samurai Warriors 3, though once again Demon element power has slightly been adjusted.

In Dynasty Warriors 4 and Dynasty Warriors 5, they come in the form of items, Orbs. Dynasty Warriors 4 still requires a full Musou bar to active the elements, however, high level 10 and 11 weapons negate this requirement (only for all physical attacks and certain non-physical attacks like elemental shots from a C1; non-physical attacks still require a full Musou bar). These orbs are normal items found on field in Dynasty Warriors 4, but in Dynasty Warriors 5 they act as rare and special items that need certain conditions to acquire them, and no longer require full Musou bars to activate (though C2 attacks no longer activate elements due to being underused at the time). In Dynasty Warriors 6, only the regular elements Fire, Ice and Bolt appeared; they are attached to weapons and certain horses. Elements in Dynasty Warriors: Strikeforce also inflict secondary ailments that may continuously persist within a set amount of time.

In the Warriors Orochi series, they are an ability attached to a weapon. These abilities can be given to other weapons through the Weapon Fusion system. They do not require a full Musou bar to activate, they will only activate on certain attacks, or "activation attacks".