ESO Mechanics for Dummies

Overview

Common combat and crafting mechanics in ESO with explanation on how they work. This is mostly aimed at intermediate players.

Changelog

4.13
16th June 2018 – Updated for 4.0.
4.12
19th February 2018 – Updated for 3.3.
4.11
5th February 2018 – Updated section on Crafting fundamentals.
4.10
24th October 2017 – Updated for 3.2.
4.9
23rd September 2017 – Minor changes.
4.8
13th September 2017 – Updated for 3.1, major update on trait analysis, added section on Healing traits.
4.7
10th August 2017 – Added section on Stat snapshot.
4.6
30th June 2017 – Updated section on pet passive regen, due to changes in 3.0.10.
4.5
12th June 2017 – Updated for 3.0, removed section on Recommended addons.
4.4
12th March 2017 – Minor changes.
4.3
6th February 2017 – Updated for 2.7.
4.2
27th October 2016 – Minor changes to Buff and debuff.
4.1
23rd October 2016 – Updated for 2.6.
4.0
8th October 2016 – Major change to Combat fundamentals, minor changes to the Introduction, Implications of VR removal in 2.4, Character attributes, Buff and debuff, Weapon traits and Recommended addons.
3.7
9th September 2016 – Minor changes.
3.6
18th August 2016 – Added section on Weapon traits, minor overall changes
3.5
15th August 2016 – Minor update on Weapon enchantments
3.4
8th August 2016 – Added sections on Alchemy reagents, solvent, poisons and potions
3.3
6th August 2016 – Added section on Damage shields, minor update on projectile mechanics, minor changes to structure of guide
3.2
5th August 2016 – Added section on Weapon enchantments
3.1
1st August 2016 – Updated for 2.5, added section on Attack categories, minor update on Buff and debuff
3.0
25th July 2016 – Added section on Damage types, assorted Statuses and CC, major update on Buff and debuff, minor update to the Introduction and Skills
2.1
30th June 2016 – Added section on the implications of VR removal
2.0
28th June 2016 – Updated for 2.4
1.1
27th May 2016 – Minor corrections and rearrangement
1.0
30th April 2016 – Original guide

Introduction

Note – 18th Aug, 2018
I am deeply concerned with many of the changes and the general development priorities of ESO since 3.0. The processes of standardisation and narrowing of floor-to-ceiling diminished the relative value of theorycrafting; the recycling of content in the endgame and meaningless extension of ‘the grind’ also reduced my long-term enjoyment of the game. I am taking a break from ESO for an indefinite period of time. Therefore, I will not be updating this guide in the foreseeable future.

Thank you to all for being a part of the readership, I hope that this had been somewhat useful in helping you navigate the many hidden mechanics of ESO.

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This guide provides a treatment of the commonly encountered combat and crafting mechanics of the Elder Scrolls Online (ESO), aimed towards apprentice, adept and journeyman players.

Certain strategies are also provided to help readers optimise their setups in response to how different mechanics and skills synergise with each other; efficient levelling and gameplay are predicated on min-maxing effectively from the early-game to the late-game.

The purpose of the guide is to inform and enlighten non-theorycrafters of the underlying mechanics in ESO, which may not otherwise have been obvious and help them make sound decisions on building characters, acquiring gears and to some extent, enhancing their practical gameplay experience.

This originated from a condensed summary of the fundamentals assumed for my Ovis project, where I utilise machine learning for predictive modelling on ESO mechanics. Sections of or an abstract of the project documentation may be made public in the future, but there is no timeframe for that at the moment.

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Acknowledgement
Credit to Mystborn for his pioneering work done on the beta v0.15 and live 1.0, Asayre for his continued work[tamrielfoundry.com] starting from PTS 2.1, along with the insightful correspondence, UESP/Reorx for maintaining a comprehensive database[esoitem.uesp.net] and depository[esoitem.uesp.net] and Solinur for some insightful discussion and correspondence over the years, as well as for writing the Combat Metrics addon. A special thanks to Frey_verd for the collaborated projects on beta v0.17, live 1.0, live 1.2, PTS 1.5, PTS 2.3, live 2.7 and PTS 4.0.

Disclaimer

This is a guide written from thousands of hours of personal experience in the Elder Scrolls Online; it is intended to be used for non-monetary reference purposes only. The Elder Scrolls Online, its contents, trademarks and related IP are the property of their respective owners.

Content

1. Current level cap & the removal of Veteran Ranks in 2.4
2. Zone scaling & One Tamriel changes in 2.6
3. Character attributes
4. Character & pet stats
5. Weapon and armour
6. Damage type & attack categories
7. Area of effects, elemental status & crowd control
8. Weapon enchantments
9. Damage shields
10. Buff and debuff
11. Skill categories
12. Dps-oriented weapon traits
13. Healing-oriented weapon traits
14. Stat snapshot
15. Combat fundamentals – technique, rotation and grouping
16. Crafting fundamentals – basics and crafting writs
17. Alchemy reagents and their effects
18. Effects of poisons and potions

1. Current level cap & VR removal in 2.4

Standard Level Cap
Currently, the standard level cap is 50 as before.

At level 50, players gain access to Champion Points (CP), which can further bolster one’s abilities and attributes through different champion constellations (default hotkey is = ) that you can assign points into.

The level progression goes from 1-50, and then your level at 50 is reflected by your champion rank, up to the current cap. Champion Ranks are the same for all your characters. For example, if you already have a c300 character and is leveling a new one, that new character will automatically be boosted to c300 upon reaching level 50; it will also have access to all 300 CP from the start.

Although Champion Point refers specifically to the points available within the Champion System, it is also used interchangeably with Champion Rank when referring to the level of a player (particularly beyond the standard level 50). Thus it is important to note that the phrases could be used synonymously in different contexts.

Champion Points (CP) Cap
The current CP cap is 750 (as of update 4.0). Players can still gain CP beyond the cap, but due to the xp curve adjustment, the amount of xp required for every rank over the cap is increased by 50%. The number of points available to be allocated for the various perks is also limited by the CP cap.

Difficulty Cap (which affects mob and quest levels, itemisation and content accessibility)
The difficulty cap is set at Champion 160 (c160 hereafter), this means that contents could be scaled in difficulty, beyond level 50, in increments of 10 champion ranks, up to a maximum of 160.

Items and gears can be harvested, crafted, looted or obtained otherwise, in levels up to and including c160.

Notes on the Removal of Veteran Ranks in Patch 2.4 (a.k.a. Update 10)
Any other guides you may have read that refers to VR and veteran levels (e.g. v12 and v16) are dated before 2.4. In essence, every Veteran Rank before the update is now equivalent to 10 Champion Ranks in terms of content difficulty, scaling and itemisation. So v12 now corresponds to c120. Though often there are major revisions to skills and possibly mechanics, which could mean that the contents in some dated guides may not necessarily be valid anymore.

2. Zone scaling & One Tamriel in 2.6

Zone and character scaling
In update 2.6, all open-world zones (including Cyrodiil and the Imperial City) and dungeons (including trials) are fixed to a difficulty level of c160. Any player below c160 will have the stats scaled up to approximately c160 level (just like how Wrothgar scaling worked pre 2.6).

The open-world zones (including Craglorn) are also no longer gated to characters by their level, the progression in the Main Quest or in the Cadwell’s Silver and Gold quests. This means that newly created characters have access to all the zones from the start (though DLC restriction still applies).

The difficulty of world bosses in open-world zones have been increased by a noticeable margin. They are now designed to be completed by a group of 4 players, instead of 2. Craglorn quests and delves have also been redesigned; they are now designed to be completed by 1-2 players.

*Though note that players under c160 (but being scaled up) may still struggle to complete some of the contents (particularly world bosses and some Craglorn quests) due to the skill, gear and champion point limitations at lower levels.

Removal of alliance restriction in non-PvP areas
The alliance restriction that previous gated players from different alliances from interacting in open-world zones, has been lifted, with the exception of PvP areas. So you can now see players from different alliances and interact (e.g. trade and duel) with them in all open-world zones.

Standardisation of NPC resistance values
The normal resistance values of all NPCs have been standardised.

For dungeon (including trials) NPCs, the normal resistance value for all damage types is now around 18200. For open-world NPCs, the normal resistance value for all damage types is now around 9100. These values apply to both bosses and trash mobs. However, the specific weakness against certain damage types for certain NPCs still remains unchanged from pre 2.6. Additionally, some bosses still have varied resistance for some obscure reasons, e.g. vMA.

3. Character attributes

Attributes
Attributes refer to the Magicka, Health and Stamina pools of a character. The base attribute pool for a level 50 character is 8744 health and 7958 for magicka and stamina.

Attribute points refer to the Magicka, Health and Stamina points that can be gained every time a character levels up. You gain 1 point for every level from 2 to 49, 2 points for every 5 levels in between and 3 points for every 10 (including level 50), Thus, 64 attribute points can be gained in total. Each attribute point assigned to Health gives an extra 122 Max Health, each point assigned to Magicka or Stamina gives an extra 111 to Max Magicka or Max Stamina respectively.

The overall attribute pool can be calculated as a product of a number of factors, including attribute points, mundus effects, gear bonuses, enchantments, food buffs, skill buffs and skill passives.

Furthermore, each of the first 100 Warrior (red) champion point assigned increases the max health by a small amount. Similarly, each of the first 100 Mage (blue) and Thief (green) champion point assigned increases the max magicka and stamina respectively.

Health is essentially how much effective damage you can take before you die.

Magicka is a resource pool that allows you to cast spells that use magicka as a resource; these skills are typically class skills and weapon skills that are associated with magical damage and healing spells and staves.

Stamina is another resource pool that allows you to cast spells that use stamina as a resource; however, it is also required for physical manoeuvres such as sprint, block, break-free and dodge rolls.

All attribute regenerates naturally, over time, to their maximum values. The recovery rate in-game is indicated with a per-2-seconds unit, to reflect that attributes recovery ticks once every 2 seconds. Recovery rates can be increased through mundus effects, champion points assigned, gear bonuses, enchantments, drink buff, skill buff and skill passives.

4. Character & pet stats

Stats
Character stats refer to the stats underneath your attribute pools on your character sheet (default hotkey: C). They are largely separated into 3 categories – magicka based, stamina based and criticals. These stats can be increased through skill buffs, set bonuses, enchantments, mundus effects, champion point passives, potions and food/drink buffs.

Magicka based
Magicka based stats are ones that can increase the potency of magicka-based skills (i.e. skills that cost magicka to cast) and to the effectiveness of your magicka pool.

Spell Damage directly increases the damage/healing value of a skill, as reflected by its tooltip value.

Max Magicka indirectly increases the damage/healing value of a skill, it is not reflected by the tooltip value.

Magicka Recovery is a measure of how much magicka is regenerated naturally to a character, every 2 seconds.

Spell Resistance is the dominant mitigation stat that is considered when determining how much damage a target will take, from magicka-based attacks made by the character.

Spell Penetration is a measure of how much of opponent’s spell resistance your spells can bypass; the higher the penetration, the lower the opponent’s effective resistance is. Essentially, increased penetration will lead to increased damage, up to the point where the opponent’s effective resistance becomes zero.

Stamina based
Stamina-based stats are ones that can increase the potency of stamina-based skills (i.e. skills that cost stamina to cast) and to the effectiveness of your stamina pool.

Weapon Damage directly increases the damage/healing value of a skill, and is reflected in the tooltip value.

Max Stamina indirectly increases the damage/healing value of a skill; the increase is not reflected by the tooltip value.

Stamina Recovery is a measure of how much stamina is regenerated naturally to a character, every 2 seconds; note that stamina recovery is always zero while the character is blocking.

Armour is also known as physical resistance, it is the dominant mitigation stat that is considered when determining how much damage a target will take, from stamina-based attacks made by the character.

Weapon Penetration is a measure of how much of opponent’s armour your attacks can bypass; the higher the penetration, the lower the opponent’s effective resistance is. Essentially, increased penetration will lead to increased damage, up to the point where the opponent’s effective resistance becomes zero.

Criticals
A critical hit is one that does extra damage/healing, and it is governed by critical chance and a critical damage modifier.

Critical chance is separated into spell critical and weapon critical. Spell critical is the long-term percentage of chance for the character to land a critical hit on a target, using skills that cost magicka to cast. Similarly, weapon critical is the long-term percentage of chance for a character to land a critical hit, with skills that cost stamina to cast. The base critical chance is 10%.

The critical damage is the modifier that determines how much harder a critical hit does to a target before mitigation, as compared to a normal hit. It also applies to healing ticks on allies and self. The base critical modifier is 50%.

Note on armour and resistance
There is a hard cap on effective resistance from armour, which is 50%. This means that any additional spell or physical resistance over 33000 will not contribute to the character’s damage mitigation.

The only exception is when the character is debuff by Minor Breach, Minor Fracture, Major Breach and/or Major Fracture. But very few NPCs can cast these debuff and they are only seldom applied by other players in PvP.

Note on Summoned Pets (Sorcerer, Nightblade, Warden and monster set proc)
The base damage of their attacks is specified in the tooltip of the skills or items concerned. The damage is affected by penetration, champion point passives and external buffs (e.g. Spell Power Cure).

The spell and physical resistance of summoned pets, specifically from the Daedric Summoning skill line of Sorcerer, vary with the character level. They cap at 18200 for c160, which is about 27.5% mitigation. They can also be shielded through the Conjured Ward skill (Sorc); the mechanics of the damage shield are the same as that when applied to player characters.

As of update 3.0, the damage reduction of pets from incoming AoE damage has been increased to 85%. The previously removed (3.0.5) passive regen has been reinstated in 3.0.10, pets will automatically regenerate back to full health whenever they and the player character are out of combat. They can still be actively healed whilst in combat.

5. Weapon and armour types

Weapon types
There are 6 types of weapons available, they are two-handed (2h), dual wield (dw), one-handed and shield (1h+s), bow, destruction staff (destro) and restoration staff (resto). The former 4 weapons and their corresponding weapon skills are influenced by stamina related stats. The latter 2 and their corresponding weapon skills are influenced by magicka related stats.

The base spell and weapon damage of a character depends on the damage stat of the equipped weapon; regardless of whether the weapon is driven by magicka or stamina, the contribution to the base damage stat is the same. For example, a staff with a damage value of 1335 will lead to a base spell and weapon damage of 1335 each, despite the fact that it is a magicka related weapon.

Any additional spell and weapon damage contributed via set bonuses, buffs and enchantments will be added to the specific damage stat as specified in their description. For example, with the aforementioned staff, a ring with a 174 spell damage glyph is equipped; the weapon damage stat remains the same as before, while the spell damage stat increases to 1509.

Note on destruction staff passive changes in 2.7
It is helpful to pay attention to the destruction staff passives, in particular, Ancient Knowledge and Tri Focus, because they can potentially improve the effectiveness of your combat based on the element of your destruction staff.

Inferno staves tend to increase the single target damage dealt, while the lightning staves emphasise on AoE, increasing AoE damage dealt as well as allowing for AoE damage done through its (channelled) weapon attack. Frost staves are tanking and blocking oriented, with bonuses to reduce the cost of blocking, increase the amount of damage blocked and to drain magicka instead of stamina when blocking.

Armour types
There are 3 types of armours available, they are light, medium and heavy armours. In a similar case to base spell and weapon damage, the armour value granted by each piece of armour combined, act as the base spell resistance and armour values for the character. For example, 7 pieces of light armour are worn, with a total of 4200 armour based on their item tooltip; the character then has a base armour and base spell resistance of 4200.

It is logical to conclude that heavy armour offers the best mitigation for characters due to the larger armour tooltip values. Indeed, medium armour only offers 75% of the armour provided by heavy, assuming level and quality is constant; similarly, light armour only offers 25% of the armour provided by heavy. But often, the passives of the armour skill trees play a more dominant role for players deciding on which type they should use, based on the passive effects and their roles.

The usage of the armour skills Annulment, Evasion and Immovable require at least 5 pieces of light, medium and heavy armour equipped respectively.

Light armour passives generally benefit magicka dps and healers. There are bonuses to reduced magicka cost of spells, increased magicka recovery, increased spell critical, increased spell resistance and increased spell penetration. Medium and heavy armour users may find it useful to have 1-2 pieces of light armour for magicka recovery/cost reduction (if using magicka-based class utility skills) and/or the Undaunted Mettle passive.

Medium armour passives generally benefit stamina dps and offensive minded stamina tank. There are bonuses to reduced stamina cost of spells, increased stamina recovery, reduced cost of sneaking and dodge rolls, increased sprint speed, increased weapon damage and increased weapon critical. Light or heavy armour users may also find it useful to have 1-2 pieces of medium armour for additional resistance and/or the Undaunted Mettle passive.

Heavy armour passives generally benefit tanks, but PvP-focused players may also find it very useful for survivability at the cost of resource sustain. The main passives for heavy armour that players find desirable are Constitution (especially if used with the Black Rose set) and Revitalise.

There are various bonuses to spell and physical resistance, increased health, increased health recovery, increased healing received, increased resource restored from fully charged heavy attacks and resource restored when you take damage. Heavy armour can also be used in conjunction with 5-6 pieces of light armours for the case of magicka dps and healers, for additional resistance and/or the Undaunted Mettle passive.

6. Damage type & Attack style categorisation

Damage Types
There are 7 different types of damage in ESO, these damage types are specified by the skill being used (via skill attacks) or determined by the weapon used (weapon attacks). Asides from being mitigated by the spell or physical resistance depending on the resource that drives the skills and the weapon that is associated with the attack, they are also mitigated by additional resistance such as magic, poison and elemental resistance wherever applicable.

• Magic damage
• Cold damage
• Flame damage
• Shock damage
• Poison damage
• Disease damage
• Physical damage

The cold, flame and shock damage are typically referred to as elemental damage; they are the core damage types that magicka users typically use and form the controlling elements for the 3 types of destruction staves – Frost, Inferno and Lightning Staff. All of the destruction staff skills do either one or all of these elements. Most of the class skills of Sorcerer do shock damage; and magicka-based Dragonknight skills do flame damage.

Magic damage is another commonly encountered type of damage; many magicka based bosses do magic damage, restoration staff weapon attacks do magic damage, and it is also the most common damage type for magicka based Nightblade and Templar class skills.

Physical damage is the governing damage type for weapon attacks initiated by stamina driven weapons, i.e. 1h+s, dw, 2h and bow, as well as the skill attacks of these weapon sets. It is also the most common damage type for stamina based class skills (other than DK). Bleeding is a fairly common physical damage DoT applied by skills and passives.

Poison damage can be applied by some stamina-based Dragonknight skills, some bow skills as well as via weapon enchantments. Disease damage is quite uncommon, it can be applied through weapon enchantments, siege weapon attacks and werewolf skills.

Attack style categories
The 3 defined categories of attacks in ESO are melee, ranged and spell. The categories differ from each other based on their effective range/radius, primary stats attribution and governing weapon (where applicable); they can be both instant-cast and channelled, and can do both discrete damage and DoT. Projectiles are considered to be a sub-category description of certain ranged and spell attacks; they will be discussed later in this section as well.
Note that Caltrop is currently undefined in terms of its category of attack; it was classified as melee attack prior to 2.1, but has subsequently been altered for balance purpose.

Melee attacks
Melee attacks are any form of weapon attacks by melee weapons (1h+2, dw and 2h) and skill attacks that are driven by stamina, with a maximum range or radius of 5 m and are non ground-targeted or conal.

However, there are some exceptions to this. Flurry has a range of 7 m, but will trigger item set effects concerning melee attacks like Ravaging, and racial passives like Adrenaline Rush and Red Diamond. Whirlwind and its morph Whirling Blades both have radius of 5 m and are as such considered as melee attacks. But the Steel Tornado morph increases the range to 9 m for all ranks, in this case, the skill will no longer be considered as a melee attack. Biting Jab has a conal attack range of 8 m; it triggers the set effect of the Ravaging set even though it isn’t considered as a melee attack.

Ranged attacks
Ranged attacks are weapon attacks initiated by a bow regardless of range from the target, and any skill attacks that are driven by stamina with maximum range or radius of more than 5 m. They can include ground area-targeted and conal targeted skills.

Skills from the melee weapon skill trees that do not fall under melee attacks are generally classified to do ranged attacks, as are all the bow skills.

Spells
Spells encompass the weapon attacks made by the destruction and restoration staff along with any skill attacks that are driven by magicka.

Projectiles (as a subset category)
Projectiles refer to the arrow or spell that result from a ranged attack or spell casted towards a target. Projectiles are considered to be part of the skills that ‘generated’ them but are considered to be a separate entity in-game whilst travelling towards the target.

Projectiles can be reflected once between targets (including player characters). The damage inflicted by a reflected projectile is the same as the damage inflicted by its normal non-reflected counterpart assuming the same mitigation modifiers. The damage type and attack category of any reflected projectile are also the same as their normal counterparts.

It is generally assumed that the projectiles have non-zero time of flight, but the relation (or non-relation) between the time of flight and the distance travelled is unknown. The game computes damage of an attack (or a projectile) upon impact, thus any measurement of the time interval between the initiation of an attack and the moment it is registered on the target can be interpreted as the time of flight. It is hypothesised that this interval is less than 0.5 s, but more precise measurement is inhibited by lag; anyone with other proposals are welcomed to suggest them in the comments section below.

As described, damage is calculated upon impact of an attack or projectile, thus it should also be the case for reflected projectiles. As a practical implication of the mechanics of projectiles in combat, given that the time of flight of projectiles are typically in the order of 0.5 s, one should ideally activate a reflective shield to reflect an incoming projectile either pre-emptively to the target’s behaviour or action cues, or momentarily as the target’s casting animation begins.

7. AoE, elemental status & CC

Area of Effects (AoE) Damage Restrictions
The extent and value of AoE damage were adjusted for all skills in patch 2.7.

The first 6 targets take 100% of the damage as before, along with any secondary effects (if triggered, wherever applicable). However, the next 18 targets will now take 75% of the damage, but any secondary effects will not be applied. The last 36 targets will take 50% of the damage, but again, the secondary effects will not be applied.

These changes served to discourage group stacking in Cyrodiil and to potentially improve server performance and reduce latency issues.

As of patch 3.3, all AoE skills will do the full damage (before any mitigation is taken into account) to all targets hit, without having the damage penalty previous implemented in 2.7.

Secondary effects (status effects and crowd control effects) from the AoE skills are still capped at 6 targets by proximity to the caster.

Elemental Statuses and Crowd Control (CC) Effects
Associated with some of the types of damage and attacks in ESO are Elemental Statuses and CC effects. These are essentially effects that have a chance to be applied on a target through the use of attacks that do the corresponding type of damage (from the list specified above) or as specified in their tooltip descriptions.

The theoretical chance of a skill to apply elemental and other statuses (whenever applicable) depends on the type of skill. For most standard, targeted, non-DoT abilities, it is 10%. For AoE skills, it is 5%; for DoT skills, it is 3%; and for AoE DoT skills, it is 1%. The theoretical chance for weapon enchantments to apply the status is 20% and that of weapon attacks (specific to flame, frost and lightning staves) is 10%. Simulation through machine learning, based on small scaled field data tends to agree with the theoretical figures.

The damage component of elemental statuses will scale with the highest of max magicka/stamina and spell/weapon damage.

The following is a list of the common statuses and effects, what their effects are and how to break them (if possible).

Elemental Statuses

• Burning – applies a flame DoT over 4 s (ticks 3 times every 2 s); it could be applied by any skill that does flame damage and enchantments. It can be cleansed using skills.
• Chill – applies Minor Maim for 4 s, reducing damage done by 15%; it could be applied by any skill that does cold damage and enchantments. It can be cleansed using skills.
• Concussion – applies Minor Vulnerability for 4 s, increasing damage taken by 8%; it could be applied by any skill that does shock damage and enchantments. It can be cleansed using skills.

Other Statuses

• Bleed – physical DoT over 5-10 s, applied through some skills and passives; can be cleansed using skills.
• Diseased – damage component that also applies a Minor Defile for 4 s, reducing healing taken by 15%, can be applied through weapon enchantments, siege weapon attacks and werewolf skills; can be cleansed using skills.
• Immovability – immunity to knockback and disabling CC effects for x seconds; it is a buff to the character or a target, granted after a CC effect expires on the character (7 s duration), by Breaking Free from a hard (disabling) CC effect (7 s duration), from the Immovable skill (Heavy Armour skill, 5 s duration) and from relevant potions/poisons (varying duration).
• Poisoned – DoT over 6 s (ticks 7 times every 1 s), applied through some stamina-based DK skills, bow weapon skills and weapon enchantments; can be cleansed using skills.
• Taunted – NPC target forced to attack character who initiated the taunt, for 15 s; effect can only be triggered from two skills, Puncture (1h+s) and Inner Fire (Undaunted) and their morphs. Status has no effect on other player characters.

Crowd-control (CC) Effects

• Deep Freeze – an elemental effect that roots character (refer to immobile below) but with an additional damage component; chance to proc from cold damage attacks, frost staff attacks and enchantments.
• Disoriented – removed in 3.2.
• Feared – forces character to run away from caster and unable to perform any action until effect breaks. Can be applied by skills including Aspect of Terror (NB) and Turn Undead (Fighter’s Guild); can Break Free to counter it.
• Immobile – roots character but doesn’t prevent actions, applied through skills including Dark Talons (DK), Encase (sorc) and Stampede (2h); can Break Free or Dodge Roll to counter it.
• Interrupt – interrupts a character that is channeling or casting a skill that has a non-zero cast time (exceptions include Heavy Attacks, Puncturing Strikes, Soul Strike and Uppercut), character is staggered, stunned (2.5 s) and set off-balance (5 s); Immovability is granted when the stun duration elapses. A character interrupted will be unable to re-cast the interrupted skill for 3 s, even if broken-free of the stun and gained immovability before the 3 s penalty elapses.
• Knockback – knocks character away from caster by 5 metres; applied through skills like Piercing Javelin (temp), Fire Touch (destro with inferno staff) and Scatter Shot (bow).
• Knock-down – knocks character to the ground, disabling any action for its duration. Can be applied by skills including Crystal Shard (sorc) and Stonefirst (DK); can Break Free to counter it.
• Off-balance – knocks character off-balanced and applies a vulnerability to heavy attacks for 5 s; full heavy attacks against an off-balance target will return double the normal amount of resources. A non-boss target will be stunned if hit with a full heavy attack and the status will be consumed; a boss target (that is cc immune) will have the Off-balance effect for 5 s, then become immune to it for the next 15 s. Can be applied to a target by blocking its heavy melee attacks, interrupting its spell casts and using skills.
• Pull – pulls character to the caster; applied through skills like Fiery Grip (DK), Frozen Gate (warden) and Silver Leash (Fighter’s Guild). Cannot break the pull but character gains Immovability for 5 s afterwards; if pull is casted on a target with Immovability will instead pull the caster towards it.
• Silenced – disables spell-casting, but character can still move and use other attacks; applied through Negate Magic (sorc). Can Break Free to counter it, or simply move out of the silenced area.
• Snared – slows the movement speed of the character, but does not disable actions. Snared amount dependent on skill used, including Low Slash (1h+s), Sun Fire (temp) and passive effects of Ardent Flames skills (DK); can counter with snare break like Retreating Manoeuvre (Assault), Shuffle (MA) and Forward Momentum (2h), and Purge/Purify like Efficient Purge (Support) and Cleansing Ritual (temp).
• Stunned – disables character from performing any action for its duration, character can sustain other CC effects while stunned; immovability is granted when the effect elapses. Can be applied by skills like Crystal Blast (sorc), Petrify (DK), Scattershot (bow), Shield Charge (1h+s) and Toppling Charge (temp), and countered by Breaking Free.

8. Weapon enchantments

Weapon enchantments play an integral role to characters in combat. They can serve to provide extra damage, act as an additional source to proc elemental status, provide self buff and to inflict debuff on targets. Below, I illustrate the 2 groups of weapon enchantments in ESO, what they are about and how they work, and provide some further information on the mechanics and peculiarity of enchantments.

The first group is damage enchantments; when these proc, they have a damage component which is inflicted on the target. The internal cooldown (ICD) of damage enchantments is 5+-0.5 seconds (PTS 2.4.2). This group of enchantment includes fiery weapon, shock weapon, frost weapon, absorb magicka, absorb stamina, absorb health, poisoned weapon, foul weapon, irresistible damage and prismatic weapon. These enchantments can critically hit and are affected by modifiers that specifically increase the respective damage types, but they are not affected by spell/weapon damage and max magicka/stamina.

The second group is effect enchantments; when these proc, they apply an effect on the target (if the effect of the enchantment is negative) or the character itself (if the effect of the enchantment is positive). The ICD of effect enchantments is 10+-0.5 seconds (PTS 2.4.2). This group of enchantment includes crusher, shielding, weapon/spell damage increase and weakening. The negative effect of the crusher and weakening enchantments from multiple players do not stack. The damage boost from the weapon/spell damage increasing enchantment is explicitly reflected on the character screen and alters the tooltip damage for skills for its duration.

There are several things to note about weapon enchantments.

Guaranteed enchantment proc
Weapon enchantments are guaranteed to trigger through successfully weapon attacks or weapon skill attacks on targets (even if blocked), assuming they are not on cooldown. Attacks that are dodged through active dodge roll or passive dodge chance are considered missed attacks and thus do not trigger enchantments.

Shared ICD
Enchantments of the same type, on the same character share the same ICD, regardless of which weapon/ability bar they are on or their respective enchantment qualities. To illustrate this, suppose a character is using dual wield daggers and a bow on the back bar, s/he uses a poisoned weapon and weapon/spell damage increase enchantment for the daggers and a poisoned weapon for the bow. When the poisoned weapon is triggered through the dagger, it cannot be triggered on the bow until its cooldown has elapsed. But in the meanwhile, the weapon/spell damage enchantment on the other dagger can be triggered (if it isn’t on cooldown) as it is a different enchantment.

Elemental status proc
Elemental status can be triggered through the procs of certain damage enchantments. Fiery weapon can trigger burning, shock weapon can trigger concussion, cold weapon can trigger chill, foul weapon can trigger diseased and poisoned weapon can trigger poisoned status. The theoretical proc chance of the elemental status from enchantments is 20%, but through learned simulation of 10k iterations, from a field data of 1000 attacks (PTS 3.2.0), the chance appears to be closer to 30%.

Glyph of Weapon Damage, a.k.a. Berserker enchant
Lastly, we have a look at the Glyph of Weapon Damage, which is a redesigned equivalent of Glyph of Rage pre-2.4. For c160 tier legendary quality, it now increases the character’s spell/weapon damage by 348 for 5 seconds. This is incredibly potent for all non-Maelstrom and non-Master weapons and as such, is highly recommended for weapons that do not belong to the aforementioned categories, in the context of DPS and healers.

To see how much damage is increased by having this enchantment on a weapon, it is important to note its uptime due to the 10 s ICD (6 s for infused weapons) – the uptime is 0.83 for infused weapons and 0.50 for weapons of all other traits. Accounting for the downtime, we can work out the average increased spell/weapon damage for each of the staves, then to find the percentage increase in damage against controlled targets.

(WIP – update pending)
Through field tests against the same target under the same conditions, over 60 seconds for 30 trials each, the damage increase with the enchantment, compared to without, is 3.74% for nirnhoned (the inherent higher tooltip weapon damage means that percentage-wise, the 348 damage buff becomes less profound to the overall damage), 3.87% for generic traits (charged, decisive, defending, sharpened, training – all of which do not explicitly or implicitly modify the value and effect of the 348 increased damage), 3.90% for powered (looked at the increased healing, which in theory, works the same way as increased damage), 6.87-7.35% for precise (dependent on the actual recorded crit chance) and 7.41% for infused. The higher the percentage increase, the more profound the effect is for having the Glyph of Weapon Damage enchantment on the weapon.

9. Damage shields

In essence, damage shields in ESO act as additional health for the character. Damage shields from skills typically last for 6 seconds unless they are depleted before then; shields that are triggered through skills, sets or buffs vary in duration, ranging from 2 seconds to 30 seconds.

There are a few peculiarities worth noting.

First of all, damage shields do not benefit from blocking, armour and spell resistance, i.e. these three stats play no role to any damage dealt onto a damage shield. Note that other mitigation stats (e.g. flame resistance, shock resistance and poison resistance) still play a role in reducing damage dealt onto damage shields.
But any excess damage (i.e. the damage that is dealt directly to the character’s health, due to incoming damage exceeding the value of the existing damage shield) will be mitigated as normal, i.e. will benefit from damage reduction through stats like blocking, armour, spell resistance, flame resistance and poison resistance.

Secondly, damage done onto damage shields cannot crit, irrespective of any active crit modifiers. However, any excess damage can crit, but only for the component of damage that is in excess of the shield value, not the entire amount.

Thirdly, the same damage shield skill/proc does not stack, but the damage shield values from different skills/procs do. As such, it is possible to stack damage shields to great defensive effect. Also, refreshing the damage shield skills before they elapse or become completely depleted will only refresh the respective shields to the original maximum value.

Fourthly, damage shield skills do not scale off spell or weapon damage. They solely scale off max magicka or max stamina, whichever applicable. The exact scale of max magicka/stamina to shield value depends on the skill (they will be given in a future update).

Lastly, the strength of damage shields can be boosted through the Bastion passive in the Lord constellation of the Champion System. It increases the value of the damage shield by the percentage as indicated in the tooltip. All damage shields in-game, whether activated through skills or triggered through skills or set procs are affected by Bastion.

10. Buff and debuff

Short buff
Buff and debuff are temporary statuses applied to a character and/or its opponent, they can increase or decrease their stats and abilities respectively. These buff typically do not last more than a minute in duration, and are thus known as short buff; they can be applied through skills, skill passives, potions and set effects.

For each kind of buff/debuff, there is a Major and a Minor variant, with the former applying a stronger effect than the latter. Major and Minor of the same type stack, but two of the same Major or Minor do not.

There is no restriction on how many short buff/debuff can be active at a given time. But applying multiples of the same buff do not stack or enhance the effect, the newer application merely refreshes the existing by refreshing its duration.

In general, skills do not snapshot stats altered with buff/debuff. For example, if Major Sorcery (+20% spell damage) elapses after 1 second after casting the Radiant Oppression skill (which channels for 3 seconds), the increased spell damage will not be factored into damage calculation for the damage ticks in the remaining 2 seconds of the channelled spell.

Below is a list of all buff and debuff in-game.
Note that the numerical values of resistance buff and debuff are level dependent (scales between level 1 and c160); at c160, the value for the minor buff/debuff is 1320 and value for major buff/debuff is 5280.

• Minor Resolve – Small increase to physical resistance.
• Major Resolve – Large increase to physical resistance.
• Minor Fracture – Small decrease to target’s physical resistance.
• Major Fracture – Large decrease to target’s physical resistance.
• Minor Ward – Small increase to spell resistance.
• Major Ward – Large increase to spell resistance.
• Minor Breach – Small decrease to target’s spell resistance.
• Major Breach – Large decrease to target’s spell resistance.
• Minor Mangle – Reduces target’s maximum health by 10%.
• Major Mangle – Reduces target’s maximum health by 40%.
• Minor Protection – Reduces damage taken by 8%.
• Major Protection – Reduces damage taken by 30%.
• Minor Evasion – Increases passive dodge chance by 5%.
• Major Evasion – Increases passive dodge chance by 15%.
• Minor Maim – Reduces target’s damage dealt by 15%.
• Major Maim – Reduces target’s damage dealt by 30%.
• Minor Berserk – Increases all damage done by 8%.
• Major Berserk – Increases all damage done by 25%.
• Minor Empower – Increases damage of the next attack by 5%.
• Major Empower – Increase damage of the next attack by 20%.
• Minor Force – Increases critical damage by 10%.
• Major Force – Increases critical damage by 15%. (This is no longer multiplicative as of 2.7)
• Minor Savagery – Increases weapon critical chance by 3%.
• Major Savagery – Increases weapon critical chance by 10%.
• Minor Prophecy – Increases spell critical chance by 3%.
• Major Prophecy – Increases spell critical chance by 10%.
• Minor Brutality – Increases weapon damage by 5%.
• Major Brutality – Increases weapon damage by 20%.
• Minor Sorcery – Increases spell damage by 5%.
• Major Sorcery – Increases spell damage by 20%.
• Minor Mending – Increases healing done by 8%.
• Major Mending – Increases healing done by 30%.
• Minor Vitality – Increases healing taken by 8%.
• Major Vitality – Increases healing taken by 30%.
• Minor Defile – Reduces target’s healing taken by 15%.
• Major Defile – Reduces target’s healing taken by 30%.
• Minor Fortitude – Increases health recovery by 10%.
• Major Fortitude – Increases health recovery by 20%.
• Minor Intellect – Increases magicka recovery by 10%.
• Major Intellect – Increases magicka recovery by 20%.
• Minor Endurance – Increases stamina recovery by 10%.
• Major Endurance – Increases stamina recovery by 20%.
• Minor Expedition – Increases movement speed by 10%.
• Major Expedition – Increases movement speed by 30%. (For comparison, Sprint is 40%)
• Major Gallop – Increases mounted speed by 30%.
• Minor Heroism – Increases ultimate gain by 1.
• Major Heroism – Increases ultimate gain by 3.
• Minor Aegis – Reduces your damage taken from Dungeon and Trial monsters by 5%.
• Major Aegis – Reduces your damage taken from Dungeon and Trial monsters by 15%.
• Minor Slayer – Increases damage done to Dungeon and Trial monsters by 5%.
• Major Slayer – Increases damage done to Dungeon and Trial monsters by 15%.
• Minor Lifesteal – Restores health to the attacker every second. (600 health per second at c160)
• Minor Magickasteal – Restores magicka to the attacker every second. (300 magicka per second at c160)
• Minor Cowardice – Increases cost of ultimate abilities by 60%.
• Minor Uncertainty – Reduces weapon and spell critical by 657 (3%).
• Minor Enervation – Reduces critical damage by 12%.
• Minor Vulnerability – Increases damage taken by 8%.
• Hindrance – Reduces movement speed by 50%.
• Unstoppable – Renders you immune to control effects for x seconds (varies).
• Minor Toughness – Increases max health by 10%.

Long buff
Food and drinks buff are crafted through the provisioning skill. They are considered to be long buff for lasting from 10 minutes upward to 2 hours, as opposed to the ones described above, as short buff. Characters can only have 1 long buff active at a given time.

Originally, food buff increase the max attribute of a character, and drink buff increases the recovery of attributes. Several new variants of food and drinks were introduced through updates and holiday events since 2.2; they now carry combinations of increased max attribute and increased recovery.

Green quality increases that of 1 attribute, blue quality increases 2 and purple 3; however, the amount increased comparatively is less for blue compared to green, and less for purple compared to blue, for game-balancing. There is also a fourth variant, gold quality products, which tend to have special effects to accompany stat increase or bonus to experience gained.

Certain racial bonuses can extend the duration of food/drink buff. Some sets introduced in update 2.6 have set effects that are activated with any active food/drink buff.

Note that food and drinks (including those from holiday events) that grant bonus to experience gained do not stack with each other.

11. Skill categories (incl. ultimates)

Magicka skills
As described earlier, skills that cost magicka to cast are influenced by max magicka, spell damage and spell critical. Skills under this category include the majority of class skills, destruction and restoration staff weapon skills, Mages’ Guild skills, some undaunted skills, Support skills, Magicka Detonation from the Assault skills, Soul Magic skills and vampire skills.

Stamina skills
Skills that cost stamina to cast are influenced primarily by max stamina, weapon damage and weapon critical. Skills under this category include a minority of class skills, the weapon skills of two-handed, dual wield, one-handed and shield and bow, Fighters’ Guild skills, some undaunted skills, most skills from Assault and werewolf skills.

Ultimates
Ultimate skills are unique in that they are influenced by the highest of either max magicka or stamina, spell or weapon damage and spell or weapon critical. They also cost ultimate (as a resource) to cast as opposed to magicka or stamina. Ultimate is its own resource pool that does not regenerate naturally.

Characters gain ultimate points in combat, using weapon attacks as primary triggers for ultimate gain; weapon attack refers to a direct attack using a weapon of choice, e.g. a sword while dual wielding. A damaging weapon attack on a target will trigger a temporary buff for the character which gives 3 ultimate points per second, for 8 seconds; this duration of the buff will refresh with every weapon attack, but the buff will not stack over itself.

Healers that are healing players that have the aforementioned ultimate gain buff, but who are not at full health prior to being healed will also acquire this ultimate gain buff for 8 seconds. Tanks that successfully blocks any incoming attacks can also acquire this buff for 8 seconds. The rate of gain for ultimate points as such, is mostly standardised. There are some additional buffs and skill effects that can enhance ultimate point gains; they include Major and Minor Heroism, the skill effect of Shooting Star and some skill passives.

Ultimates can be accumulated up to 500 points. Other than Overload (Sorc), all ultimate points are expended upon the activation of an ultimate skill, irrespective of how many more ultimate points the character had (over the cost of the skill) at the point of activation.

Weapon & armour skills usage explained
Weapon skills can only be used when their corresponding weapons are equipped. Werewolf skills (other than the Werewolf Transformation ultimate) can only be used when transformed into the werewolf state. All other skills can be used regardless of the type of weapon equipped. Some skills can be used outside of combat if they do not require specific targets, i.e. are either conal or ground-based.

Weapon-based ultimates are introduced in update 2.6. These ultimate skills also require the corresponding weapons equipped, in order to be used. Though damage-wise, they are still scaled like other ultimates, i.e. to the highest of either stamina, weapon damage and weapon critical, or magicka, spell damage and spell critical.

Armour skills can only be used when a minimum of 5 pieces of the corresponding armour type is currently equipped. There is an additional duration or magnitude bonus to the skills when having extra pieces of the type of armour equipped.

12. Dps-oriented weapon traits

Introduction and Testing Parameters
In this section, I outline some of the recent changes to the traits and how they impact on the comparative effectiveness. Note that I based my illustration on magicka builds and weapons, as I play and test predominantly with magicka builds. But for the most cases, they do apply to stamina builds and weapons as well. I will specify when this is not the case.

I am also assuming the use of berserker (weapon/spell damage) enchant on the weapon – while fiery or charged weapon enchant may deal more damage on single target, they are much less effective when there is more than one target. A 100% uptime is assumed for the Infused trait, and 45% uptime for the others. Effectively, this means that berserker enchant adds 452 spell/weapon damage for Infused, and 156.6 for the others.

The baseline critical modifier is 0.5 and the critical chance is 0.5. No passive, mundus, champion points and attributes were allocated for the tests.

Infused
In 3.1, Infused increases the bonus value of enchantment by 30% while increasing the cooldown reduction to 50%. Berserker enchant can theoretically be kept with a 100% uptime with the use of this trait; practically, it is dependent on the rotation, but one can expect at least 80% on average. The 100% uptime is taken here to illustrate the optimised potential of Infused, relative to other traits.

With the substantial increase in spell/weapon damage from the berserker enchant, it is unsurprising that Light Attacks benefit significantly, given that they scale with damage 4 times better than max magicka/stamina. In the tests, Infused contributed to a 15.8% increase in damage for Light Attacks, 9.97% for weapon skill and 10.09% for class skill. This works to an average of 11.98%.

Nirnhoned
Nirnhoned was buffed in 3.1, it now increases the sheet damage of a weapon by 15%. This increase is reflected on the character sheet and the tooltip of skills. As quoted above, Light Attacks scale better with spell/weapon damage than weapon or class skills; as such, Nirnhoned increases the damage of Light Attacks (10.83%) moreso than weapon (6.81%) or class skills (6.84%). This works to an average increase of 8.16%.

Sharpened
Sharpened was nerfed in 3.1, the penetration value was reduced by approximately 47%, now granting 2752 in legendary quality. The test was done without other penetration debuff and should therefore be evaluated purely as a straight comparison with other traits when penetration has not been optimised. The nominal value of penetration will comparatively decrease as the number of debuff increase. Sharpened has no value when the value of penetration debuff exceeds the value of resistance of the target.

Since penetration does not factor directly into the skill coefficients, weapon attacks, weapon skills and class skills benefit fairly equally, from the trait. In the course of testing, it was found that it increases the damage of Light Attacks by 8.66%, weapon skill by 8.75% and class skill by 8.62%. This translates to an average increase of 8.68%.

In an organised trial group, it could be mostly assumed that penetration debuff is optimised boss, thus sharpened could be utilised for AoE-heavy fights where debuff like Infused crusher, Major/Minor Breach/Fracture may not be present on all of the targets. The additional 2752 spell/weapon penetration can reduce target’s mitigation by 5.51%; depending on the character stat and existing target debuff, the spell/weapon damage equivalent can exceed 500.

Decisive
For most cases, the main source of ultimate gain is through the heroism buff from doing weapon attack, healing and blocking. It grants 3 ult/s for 9 s. This trait was buffed in 3.1, now granting a 40% chance to gain an additional 1 ult when already gaining ult. This translates to an effective ult regen rate of 3.4 ult/s.

Assuming that an ultimate costs 200 ult, e.g. Meteor, a regen rate of 3.4 ult/s means that the ultimate could be cast in 58.8 s as opposed to 66.6 s without decisive, and 59.8 s with a pre 3.1 decisive. This means that one could cast an ultimate 11.8% quicker with decisive.

Suppose that ultimate skill accounts for 10% of a total damage parse, an increase of 11.8% means an overall increase in dps by 1.18%. This is quite a bit less than other damage traits examined. But it retains value for tanks and healers, as indirect group dps support (through Aggressive Horn rotation).

12. Dps-oriented weapon traits (cont.)

Precise
The nominal value of precise remained unchanged in 3.1, but the practical value has decreased because of nerf to the Thief and Shadow mundus. Stamina builds can still attain high crit chance with ease, which reduces the inefficiency of precise to the point where it could be the favoured trait when penetration has been optimised. But for magicka builds, the value of precise is highly dependent on the crit modifier, which is typically lower than that of stamina builds, because stamina tends to be reserved for dodging or blocking rather than Trap Beast (Minor Force) in most trials.

For the purpose of this comparison, the test was carried out between a non-precise staff and a precise staff, using Light Attack, a weapon skill (Force Pulse) and a class skill (Crystal Fragment, hard-cast), 1000 times each. For comprehensiveness, the test was repeated a second time without using the berserker enchant. This generated a set of field data of average damage and observed crit chance.

The observed crit chance from the field data was 2% higher than the quoted value of 7%. The average damage increase from precise was consistent across the attacks recorded, averaging 4.35% for both the berserker and non-berserker enchant tests.

Due to the random nature of critical hits, a further simulation was carried out for the precise trait. This involved parsing the theoretical/quoted critical chance from precise (i.e. 7%) into a preset data field (from ESO field tests carried out in the past) with the baseline stats and boundary conditions. Weapon attacks, weapon skill and class skill usage were simulated over 10000 iterations each, with and without the berserker enchant.

The damage increase from the precise trait was found to be 3.28% with the berserker enchant and 3.29 without it. The weighted average in consideration of the assumed uptime, puts it at 3.29%. The discrepancy with the observed field data could be attributed to statistical fluctuation and sample size.

13. Healing-oriented weapon traits

For healing output, it was considered that Powered and Infused traits would play the most prominent roles. Similarly in setup to the dps-oriented trait comparison, tests were carried out using Healing Springs and Dark Conversion (only for Powered), with and without the berserker enchant. In practice however, healers should opt for the Weakening enchant on the restoration staff bar instead.

Powered
Powered was buffed in 3.1, increasing healing done by 9% as opposed to 7%. This increase is reflected in the tooltip of the relevant skills and stacks additively with other sources that increases healing done.

Tests showed that Powered increases the healing output of Dark Conversion (to self/caster) by 8.99% and that of Healing Springs by 8.98%. This is in agreement with the quoted value of 9%.

Infused
The healing output increase from Infused was zero for Dark Conversion, which is expected as it has no skill coefficient (i.e. the amount of healing does not scale with spell damage or max magicka).

For Healing Springs on the other hand, the healing output was increased by 9.99% with a 100% uptime on the berserker enchant. However, note that the healing output varies greatly depending on how one manages the uptime of the enchant using appropriately timed light attacks. This is because an Infused healing staff is basically the same as any other generic staff when the berserker enchant is inactive. To illustrate, the healing output increase is drastically reduced to 2.32% if the uptime on the berserker enchant is reduced to 50%.

Note that this comparison purely examined the Infused trait on restoration staff in the perspective of having a berserker enchant. In practice, it could be paired with enchantments that provide group utilities which do not correlate with one’s healing output, e.g. Weakening (reduce weapon damage of target) and Charged weapon (20% chance to proc Concussion).

14. Stat snapshot

Outline
Stat Snapshot refers to the instances where stats such as spell penetration are included in the damage calculation of skills (particularly DoTs) that were not cast from the “current bar”.

The easiest way to reproduce this is to slot a DoT skill on your backbar with sharpened trait weapon(s). Cast this skill, and then swap to front bar with a non-sharpened trait. Assuming damage and max stam/mag are constant, the damage of the DoT will also remain the same, irrespective of whether the penetration values are the same. This is because all skills “snapshot” penetration value upon their first damage tick.

How it could be used?
This could be used to compensate for gearing inadequacies, depending on the skill used.

For a rough illustration, consider Liquid Lightning and Elemental Blockade, both are ground-target DoTs. But from testing, we note that the first damage tick of Elemental Blockade starts immediately from cast, whereas that of Liquid Lightning has a 0.5 second delay from cast. Assuming perfect bar swap cancelling, this delay could mean that Liquid Lightning could be slotted on backbar (even if you don’t have a sharpened staff there); by the time the first damage tick occurs, you would have been back on the front bar, with the sharpened penetration. This frees up one slot for another skill on the front bar, which could be used for a direct damage skill.

On the other hand, if you play with sizeable lag and/or struggle to consistently execute bar swap cancelling, the sharpened trait on your backbar would definitely matter.

Where else could you encounter it?
Another commonly encountered example is when your spell damage potion (Major Sorcery buff) runs out while you are in the middle of channelling Radiant Oppression. Will the damage tick of the skill suddenly drop off due to the change in spell damage?

Consider identical target health and player’s current magicka at all points during the test, one should notice that the value of the damage tick will be the same. This is because the single target DoTs will snapshot your spell damage.

What this means for the endgame?
Since the buff from Maelstrom destruction staves and Maelstrom bows can be snapshot, they are ideal for use on the backbar, only swapped to reapply DoTs and refresh the corresponding buff. This enables players to use stronger alternatives on the front bar, such as the Asylum weapons or another complementary set weapon.

Summary of the skills and stats that can snapshot

• Single target and ground target AoE DoT skills can both snapshot spell/weapon penetration.
• Single target DoT skills can snapshot max magicka/stamina and spell/weapon damage values.
• Other types of skills and stats, including critical chance and critical modifiers cannot be snapshot. This means that whatever their values are, on the current bar, will be the ones taken into account in damage calculation of skills to be cast, as well as the damage ticks of ongoing DoTs.
• The buff to light and heavy attack from Maelstrom destruction staves can be snapshot.
• The magicka restored from Maelstrom restoration staves will also snapshot.
• The increased damage tick of volley from the Maelstrom bow will snapshot.
• All the other effects and stat buff of the Maelstrom weapons will not.

Definitions
Single target DoT skills include ones like Destructive Clench and Poison Injection.
Ground target AoE DoT skills include ones like Elemental Blockade and Endless Hail.

15. Combat fundamentals

To begin, two intermediate concepts will be introduced here for combat rotations particularly useful in group dungeons – weapon weaving and block casting, which can significantly improve damage and survivability in combat.

Weapon weaving
Weapon weaving essentially means that the player presses the LMB to initiate a weapon attack between skill use. How long the LMB is pressed depends on whether the player wanted to do a light, medium or heavy attack. A quick tap of the LMB will cause a light attack, holding the LMB for over 0.5 second will lead to a medium attack, holding the LMB until the character hits the target with the weapon (typically 3 seconds) will constitute a heavy attack (fully charged heavy attack, as described in-game). Weapon weaving is typically done through the use of light or medium attacks, for the proc of ultimate gain buff and for animation cancelling, leading to higher dps (animation cancelling is explained in detail in the standard ovis document).

Block casting
Block casting is essentially casting skills by pressing their respective hotkeys while holding RMB (i.e. holding block). This is very useful for magicka dps, healers and to some extent, tanks, where skills need to be cast for damage, healing, taunt or support, in close range to the opponent (lower reaction time to heavy attacks and crowd control) or where there is an impending attack and/or one-shot mechanic that has to be mitigated through blocking.

This is effective in which damage can be cast at opponents while maintaining some degree of mitigation against incoming damage; it is compatible with most magicka skills and most ultimate skills. It is important to note that block casting should only be used sparingly for stamina dps and stamina tanks, because stamina recovery is halted while blocking and that many stamina skills cannot be block-casted.

Group dungeon fundamentals
Group dungeons are typically designed for 4 players to complete; each consists of 3-7 main bosses, accompanied by a number of mini-bosses and lesser mobs. For each dungeon in the game, there is a normal and veteran version, with an optional hard mode that can be triggered for the final boss in the veteran version of the dungeon. Generally speaking, for dungeons that have versions I and II, the former is typically easier than the latter.

Typically, dungeons require a 4-player group to complete; the standard composition required is 1 tank, 1 healer/support and 2 DPS. Indeed, this strikes a balance between the need to do damage, to heal and to execute crowd control and taunts; it is also the standard group setup that the in-game Group Finder uses to assign players to random groups.

Combat rotation explained
For combat rotation, it is important to know what skills you have unlocked, what role you are playing and at least some idea of how the fight will unfold.

This way, you can cover over your skill choices, how to setup your ability bars, where to position yourself in the fight, how you should move about during the fight, the priorities to attack adds/boss, to mitigate against mechanics, to interrupt mechanics and how to synergise with the rest of your group where applicable.

Much of these may not apply to solo questing, but should still be kept in mind as it will help greatly when one moves on to do group contents.

16. Crafting fundamentals

Crafting skills are integral to combat and to the economy of the game. Some of the best sets to be used in PvE and PvP are crafted, traits and motifs of armours and weapons can be picked at will, unlike many other looted sets. Crafted potions, enchantment glyphs and provisions are in general, much more potent and effective than looted ones.

The experience system associated with crafting is based on Inspiration Points (IP), which is different from Experience Points (XP) that combat related skills depend on. As such, any XP boosts will not apply to IP; for IP specific boost, there is an Inspiration Boost passive in the Champion System that grants 20% increased IP gain.

There are seven crafting skills, as followed:

• Alchemy – Mixes potions that provide buffs like increased damage, increased critical and restores health.
• Blacksmithing – Forges melee weapons and heavy armours.
• Clothing – Weaves light and medium armours.
• Enchanting – Creates glyphs of magical enchantments for armours, weapons and jewellery, which provide effects such as increased max health, increased damage, additional flame damage proc, increased flame resistance and reduced cost of blocking.
• Jewelry Crafting – Crafts necklaces and rings. Requires the Summerset expansion.
• Provisioning – Prepares food and drinks that provide buffs that increase max attributes and their recovery rates, and increased XP gained.
• Woodworking – Crafts bows, shields and staves.

Alchemy
Alchemy can be levelled through combining solvent, which dictates the level of the resulting potion, and reagents, which are plants that are found in the wild, with medical effects.

Multiple reagents that share the same medical property (e.g. Columbine and Mountain Flower both having Restore Health) will provide that particular effect in the potion produced. Reagents with conflicting medical properties (e.g. Increases Spell Damage and Reduces Spell Damage) will cancel out each other.

With a sustained income stream, alchemy can be levelled fairly quickly; it is fairly slow otherwise.

The Medicinal Passive under Alchemy is considered to be the most important crafting passive to PvE and PvP combat activities, as it increases the duration of some active effects in potions substantially.

Blacksmithing
Blacksmithing can be levelled through deconstructing heavy armours and melee weapons (i.e. axes, daggers, maces and swords), which are looted from mobs, stolen from the built environment, crafted by players or bought from players.

Higher levelled and better quality items typically provide more IP when deconstructed, but players without the corresponding passive to craft them may not be able to recover materials from them. Also, items that are crafted by other players give more IP when deconstructed than items that are looted, stolen or crafted on the same character that is deconstructing them.

With a sustained income stream, blacksmithing items with the Inspiration trait that gives additional IP when deconstructed, can be purchased from other players, greatly improving the speed of levelling. Otherwise, by deconstructing loot from mobs killed while questing or doing dungeons, blacksmithing can still be levelled fairly quickly without significant financial investment.

Clothing
Clothing works and can be levelled very similarly to Blacksmithing, Jewelry Crafting and Woodworking, with the exception that it dictates light and medium armours.

Enchanting
Enchanting can be levelled by deconstructing glyphs that are looted from mobs, crafted by players or bought from players.

Higher levelled and better quality items typically provide more IP when deconstructed, but as with Blacksmithing and Clothing, players may not necessarily be able to recover any material from deconstructing without the passives that are required to craft them. As with Blacksmithing, glyphs that are crafted by other players provide more IP than glyphs that are looted or are crafted by the same character that is deconstructing them.

Enchanting is the slowest and the most expensive of the crafting skills to level; even with a sustained income stream, it still takes a very large number of glyphs to level. For other players, it is best just to passively level Enchanting by deconstructing glyphs looted from mobs while questing or doing dungeons.

Jewelry Crafting
Jewelry Crafting is leveled like Blacksmithing, Clothing and Woodworking. It works with necklaces and rings, allowing the player to create and deconstruct them, research traits and to upgrade them by using the corresponding platings. This crafting skill is only accessible for players with the Summerset expansion, however, any player can harvest and refine the raw materials (dust). The jewelry crafting dusts could be found among rocky outcrops, similar to the locations for ores (in blacksmithing).

Provisioning
Provisioning is levelled like alchemy, by producing provisions in the form of food and drinks, by learning a recipe and combining the required ingredients over a cooking range or fire.

Recipes can be stolen from containers in the environment, obtained through some quests, bought from Chef vendors in towns and looted from mobs. Provisioning ingredients can be stolen from containers in the environment and looted from some mobs.

Provisioning can be levelled fairly quickly even on a shoestring budget, but the sheer number of ingredients is a drawback to levelling the skill on all characters.

Woodworking
Woodworking works and can be levelled very similarly to Blacksmithing, Clothing and Jewelry Crafting, with the exception that it dictates bows, shields and staves.

16. Crafting fundamentals (cont.)

Crafting Writs
Crafting writs can be taken and completed after the introductory quests found in the starting town of each alliance, Daggerfall, Devon’s Watch and Vulkel Guard. After this, the writ quests could be picked up from any town, and the products produced could be deposited at the deposit boxes in any town.

The level of the products required and the potential reward from the reward containers depend on the passives unlocked on the character, specifically, the Solvent Proficiency, Metalworking, Tailoring, Potency Improvement, Recipe Improvement and Woodworking. The higher the rank of the passive, the higher the level of products required to make and the reward awarded.

These crafting writs can be completed for various rewards, including ornate equipment (with vendor value of 400% that of their normal counterparts), raw materials, motif style materials, provisioning recipes, glass motif fragments, survey reports and some Homestead furnishing materials.

Furthermore, master crafting writs can occasionally be found from the reward boxes of the standard crafting writs. The chance of getting a master writ is influenced by factors including the amount of trait research done on the character, alchemy reagent knowledge, runestone knowledge, recipes learnt, motif knowledge and achievement completion. These master writs are tradeable and typically require the character to craft a specific high-leveled set item with a certain trait and motif style, in epic or legendary quality.

Writ vouchers are awarded upon completion of master writs. They can be used to purchase motif chapters, motif style materials, legendary-quality Homestead furnishing plans and materials, assorted crafting and transmutation stations, and the recipe and ingredients for the Aetherial Ambrosia (a drink that temporarily increases experience gained).

Transmutation
Transmutation is a new crafting feature that is independent from the six crafting skills highlighted previously. This was introduced in update 3.2. Transmutation involves the changing of the trait on any item to another researched trait for the same piece. For example, an inferno staff with a precise trait could be transmuted to an inferno staff with an infused trait only if you have infused researched for inferno staff.

Fifty transmutation crystals are required for each transmutation process. This will also render any transmuted items untradeable. The crystals themselves are bound to the account, but could be accessed by any characters of that account (similar to AP).

These crystals are obtained in varying quantities (typically 2-5) by opening a crystal geode (container) that is awarded through a number of methods, as noted below.

• Last boss of vet dungeons (not 100% rate)
• Last boss of vet trials (not 100% rate)
• Turning in vet pledges.
• Completing the weekly trial quest.
• Completing vet Dragonstar Arena (vDSA) and vet Maelstrom Arena (vMA).
• Being ranked on Battleground, Trial, vDSA and/or vMA leaderboard at the end of period.
• End of Alliance War campaign reward
• Rewards for the Worthy (PvP reward mail; 100% rate only for the first mail of every day for each character)
• Reward mail for completing a random dungeon via the group finder (100% rate only for the first mail of every day for each character)

The most consistent way of obtaining lots of transmutation crystals is by completing vMA. For inclusive purpose, let’s assume a (slower) completion time of 1 hour, each completion awards 4 crystals (guaranteed). This means that the 50 required for transmutation could be obtained in 12.5 hours, which is a reasonable time frame considering its utility value. Since vMA is done solo, the farming rate isn’t dependent on the activity of other players, and thus presents itself as the most consistent method of farming. For the more advanced players that could complete vMA in 40 minutes for example, the hourly rate becomes 6. In such case, the 50 required for transmutation could be obtained in just over 8 hours. If we factor in the leaderboard reward as well, the effective rate could be even higher.

Comparing against other methods listed above, vMA is the second most time efficient method as well (behind completing the weekly trial quests on normal difficulty – 5 crystals per character). Of course, this is assuming that the player is competent and comfortable at vMA for a prolonged period; if not, then being ranked on the weekly PvE leaderboards (5 crystals for each character ranked) on as many characters as possible will be the second best (though depending on class and group coordination, it may not be the most time efficient).

For lower level or PvP-exclusive players, the End of Alliance War reward may be considered instead (50 crystals awarded for the 30 day campaign, 10 crystals for the 10 day campaign). The eventual number of crystals will be higher depending on the crystals awarded from Rewards of the Worthy along the way.

17. Alchemy reagents & their effects

Below is a table of all the alchemy solvent in ESO. The use of higher tiered solvents typically result in stronger poisons and potions that last for longer.
Higher tiered solvent also require progressive alchemy passives unlocked before they can be used; the products are also gated by character level.

Below is a table of all the alchemy reagents in ESO and their effects when used in poisons and potions. The potency and the duration of the effects depend on the tier of the solvent used. To ‘discover’ the effect of the reagents, simply use two reagents with the same effect together in a poison or potion.

18. Effects of poisons and potions

Below is a table of the effects of all the poisons and potions produced through the Alchemy skill, in ESO. Potions are consumed by the character, hence their effects are applied to the character itself. Poisons are equipped with weapons, hence their primary (negative) effect is applied on the target; some poisons have secondary (positive) effects that are applied on the character.

The standard cooldown period of poisons is 10 seconds and that of potions is 45 seconds. The cooldown of potions can be reduced through the alchemy enchantment. Poisons of the same type share the same cooldown irrespective of which action bar they are equipped on, similar to how enchantment cooldown works.

Note: x, y and z are numbers; they refer to the amount of resource restored and/or the duration of poison/potion in the unit of seconds. Their values depend on the number of effects present in the poison (the more effects present, up to 3, the shorter the duration of the effects) and the tier of solvent used to make the poison or potion.

Concluding remarks

It is hoped that this guide provides the readers with some simple and practical insights into the commonly encountered mechanics of Elder Scrolls Online, at an entry level. Please comment below or message me for suggestions and/or corrections.