Welcome to the What is Damage Over Time Guide in ESO (Elder Scrolls Online). Often players get confused what damage over time (DoT) is. In ESO damage is classified as either damage over time or direct damage.
Damage that hits the target over a period of time is considered damage over time in ESO. Some single target (ST) abilities that have damage over time are: Twin Slashes, Venomous Claw, Cripple, Soul Trap and many more. Some area of effect (AoE) abilities that have damage over time are: Wall of Elements, Volley, Elemental Storm, Carve, Mystic Siphon and many more.
The Lighting staff has a channeled heavy attack and is considered damage over time. All other staff type light and heavy attacks are considered direct damage.
Any damage type such as magic, physical, poison etc. can be classified as damage over time in ESO.
Damage over time can be amplified by the Champion Point perk Thaumaturge (Increases your damage done with damage over time attacks by 2% per stage). if you don’t trust information on the web you can actually test this out yourself by simply putting points into Thaumaturge and see if the damage on the target went up by a few %.
I recommend checking out the Skill Overview Page which has information on each ability, if it is buffed by Thaumaturge you know that it is damage over time.
The image below shows the Unstable Wall of Elements ability which is a damage over time ability that places a shock field on the ground that deals damage over a period of time.
Do you want to know what direct damage is? Then please check out the Direct Damage Guide.
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