If you start looking at hunting world bosses, doing PvP or the trickier dungeons, you’ll want to start making use of the active defensive tools available to every character. Block: Activated by holding right-mouse by default (you should see a little shield appear in front of your character) to reduce incoming damage by 50% or better. Every time you block an attack, you will lose some stamina – and you will not recover stamina while blocking. PvE enemies can wind up an attack, generating golden sparks as they do so – these attacks will typically deal high damage and stun … Continue reading Elder Scrolls Online: Block, Bash, Dodge & Damage Shields

Critical hits can vastly increase the damage you deal in PvE content, or provide the unpredictable burst you need to take out a hardy build in PvP. Critical Chance: Split into spell and weapon critical, this is simply the percentage chance that any attack will be counted as a critical and thus deal additional damage. Note, if an ability costs Magicka (or Health) to cast it will count as a spell, Stamina abilities count as weapon. Class Skills: Certain classes can obtain the prophecy or savagery buffs from passive abilities (i.e. critical hits from a Nightblade can grant the minor … Continue reading Elder Scrolls Online: Critical Strikes

Penetration and resistance are extremely important for an effective combatant in Elder Scrolls Online – but poorly explained. Resistance Effect: Your resistance values are split into spell (elemental/magic) and physical (physical/disease/poison) and reduce the damage you take from attacks of those types. It takes roughly 660 resistance to reduce incoming damage by 1%, and reaches a “soft” cap at 33000 or 50% damage reduction. Resistance Sources: If you want to increase your resistance ratings, you have a few options available: Armour: All armour provides both physical and spell resistance equal to the armour rating Traits: The reinforced armour trait and … Continue reading Elder Scrolls Online: Resistance & Penetration