Welcome to the What is Direct Damage Guide in ESO (Elder Scrolls Online). Often players get confused what direct damage is. In ESO damage is classified as either direct damage or damage over time.
Damage that hits the target with a single hit is classified as direct damage in ESO. Some single target (ST) abilities that have direct damage are: Force Pulse, Swallow Soul, Crystal Fragments, Elemental Weapon, Wrecking Blow, Snipe, Puncture, Dark Flare and many more. Some area of effect (AoE) abilities that have direct damage are: Whirlwhind, Impulse, Sap Essence or Proximity Detonation and many more.
Light attacks from Fire, Frost and Lighting staves are also considered direct damage. Heavy attack from Fire and Frost staves are also considered direct damage. The Lighting staff has a channeled heavy attack and is considered damage over time.
Any damage type such as magic, physical, poison etc. can be classified as direct damage in ESO.
Direct damage can be amplified by the Champion Point perk Master-At-Arms (Increases your damage done with direct damage attacks by 2% per stage). Therefore, if you don’t trust information on the web you can actually test this out yourself by simply putting points into Master-At-Arms 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 Master-At-Arms you know that it is direct damage.
The image below shows the Spectral Bow proc from the Merciless Resolve ability which is a direct damage ability.
Do you want to know what damage over time (DoT) is? Then please check out the Damage Over Time Guide.
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