elemental materia

what does this do? i dont get it _-_

I think if you pair elemental with fire in your armor, i think it absorbs the hit points for fire yourself if you get attacked with it. Not sure what it does with the weopon.

Examples:
Weapon: Elemental-Fire= Fire elemental pshycical attacks.
Armour: Elemental-Ice= Ice elemental resistence. If the Ice materia is mastered, then you'll absorb Ice dammage.

If you pair it with a materia that has an elemental property, it will have an effect on your weapon/armor. If you pair it with Fire on your armor as ProjectD said, you will either lessen the blow of a fire based attack or absorb it depending on how much leveled up the Elemental materia is. If you it with Ice on a weapon, it will make your attack stronger against enemies weak against Ice. You can use this materia with many of the magic materias: fire, ice, lightning, earth, gravity, poison. I'm not sure what might happen if you pair Elemental with a Master Magic materia. I'm not sure if they level of the magic materia has anything to do with how the Elemental materia will work or not. You can also pair Elemental with most of the summon materias, as many have elemental properties to them. If you are low on Ice materia and want to give someone defense against Ice, you can pair Elemental with Shiva on an armor and it will have the same effect. You can pair Elemental with Leviathan, one of the only ways to attack with/defend against Water attacks. The same with Alexander and Holy attacks.

Just to note, I think that poison is both an element and a status in this game. I don't really know what the difference is between pairing Poison with Elemental or Added Effect.

I'll use a Fire materia for the following example.
When equipped on armor, it has the following effects:
1st level - cut fire damage by 1/2
2nd level - no damage from fire
3rd level - heal half damage from fire
4th level - heal all damage from fire
5th level - heal all damage from fire (it just produces a new Elemental materia)

I might have my numbers a tad off but you get the idea of what it does.

if possible use contain its best to add on armor, it gives wind, fire, earth, ice defense if i remember it right way.
tell me if i am wrong about this.