''You charge forward, fighting against Daedric forces and the occasional Mudcrab. These long lost texts will school you in the way of a true Slayer''

DAMAGE DEALER : A BRIEF SUMMARY

Damage Dealer (henceforth refered to as 'DD') is one of three major roles you can play in The Elder Scrolls Online. It's main goal is to kill shit and don't die, along with resurecting any allies that failed the 'don't die' part. There is a lot more that goes into it, but that's what this guide is for. It will not offer build advice, but it will cover general stuff every good DD should master. Without these essentials, you will under perform in actual content or even cause your whole group to wipe. If you can master these basics, you will notice a massive improvement in individual performance and, as a result, help your group out massively, resulting in smooth fights.

WHY IS GOOD DPS IMPORTANT?

There are a few reasons why having good damage is important. If anything, it makes any fight a lot shorter. The higher your DPS (Damage Per Second), the faster your enemies die. This can shorten any encounter and even skip some nasty mechanics, which can be annoying to deal with, by damaging enemies so much that you totally skip these mechanics. On the flipside, there are numerous encounters where low DPS will result in very difficult fights. For example, the Lokkestiiz (Ice Dragon) fight in veteran Sunspire has a mechanic where it spawns Storm- and Ice Atronachs. If these aren’t killed quickly enough, they will make the boss fight A LOT harder, as the tanks will have to deal with high incoming damage alongside the boss itself. Other fights have ‘execute phases’, where the group will if a minimum DPS requirement isn’t met. A prime example of this is the final boss of veteran Sunspire, as it has a lot of nasty mechanics that will become a lot of trouble the longer the fight goes on.

Here is what I would consider sufficient DPS for specific content :

Normal Trials and Dungons : 20K+
Veteran Dungeons : 30-40K for non-DLC dungeons. 65K+, but preferably higher for DLC dungeons.
Veteran Trials : 65K+ for the Craglorn ones. 80-85K+, but preferably higher for the DLC ones. Anything above 100K+ is perfect.

Tips on how to improve your DPS will be listed later on in this guide.

DAMAGE DEALER : WHAT TO DO AND WHAT NOT TO DO

DD’s have a few responsibilities, alongside a few things a DD should NEVER do.

This is what a DD should do :

a DD should focuss down enemies and kill them as quickly as possible.
a DD should move as a group, standing between the Healers and the Tanks.
A DD should resurrect their fallen allies in the following order : Tank first, Healer second, DD’s who have to do mechanics, other DD’s.
a DD should have at least a single self Heal. Don’t be reliant on your Healers. A 100K DPS doesn’t mean anything if you can’t stay alive.

Now for what a DD should NEVER do :

a DD should NEVER take Taunt from a Tank. Seriously, don’t do it, you will cause your whole group to wipe.
In general, a DD should NOT focus on healing their allies. That’s what Healers are for.
a DD should NEVER move out of the group unless there is a valid reason for it, such as a mechanic. If you move out of group, the Healers can’t heal you, which will result in an untimely death.

DAMAGE DEALER : PROPER POSITIONING

The picture below (source : Healers Haven) shows you how a group should be positioned in general. As you can see, the DD’s stand in front of the healer and behind the boss, who is faced away from the group by the Tank. This position is important for a few reasons. Firstly, you won’t take much damage, as the Boss is faced away from the group. Secondly, the healers can properly heal you. You’ll benefit from all these healing skills if you stay with the group, but if you run around outside of the group, you’ll take a lot more damage and the healers won’t be able to heal you, resulting in your death. In short, stay in front of your Healers and behind the Boss to make any fight go smoothly.

DAMAGE DEALER : WHAT CLASS TO PICK

As a general rule of thumb, in matters of pure numbers, all of the classes offer similar DPS output. You might find some classes easier to play than others, so pick the one you like the look off and put in the work. You’ll be hitting high numbers if you put in the time and practice. Some classes and setups can offer a lot of help in harder content, but these options will be covered later in this guide.

DAMAGE DEALER : CHOOSING YOUR RACE

Races in Elder Scrolls aren’t just for looks. Your character actually benefits from a few racial bonusses that could increase your overal damage output. These bonusses are very minimal, but if you truly want to get the best results possible, these are the best possible options :

For Magicka users, High Elf is the best option, as it has innate Weapon/Spell damage and extra Magicka. Dark Elf and Khajiit are also good options, as they have innate Weapon/Spell damage + a bit of extra Magicka and Critical Damage respectively.

For Stamina users, Dark Elf is the best option, as it has innate Weapon/Spell damage and extra Stamina. Khajiit is also a good option, as it has innate Critical damage and a bit of extra Stamina.

These are the optimal races, but feel free to pick whatever race you like. Personally I prefer a Breton for Magicka users, as they have increased Magicka recovery, which makes sustain a lot easier.

DAMAGE DEALER : ATTRIBUTES

As our damage scales with our total resources, we want to put all our points into Magicka as a Magicka DD and Stamina as a Stamina DD. The bigger the resource pool, the higher the damage you deal with associated skills. In short, put 64 points into Magicka or Stamina.

DAMAGE DEALER : MUNDUS STONE

In all cases, go with the Thief, as it provides you with exta Critical rating. Critical strikes provide 50% extra damage over normal attacks, so they can impove your overal damage output. The Thief is the only viable option in trial environments and most dungeons. (edited)

DAMAGE DEALER : WHAT FOOD TO USE

In ESO, we use two types of food as damage dealers : parse food and bi-stat food. Parse food provides maximum Mag/Stam + recovery, whereas bi-stat food will provide maximum Health, Mag or Stam + recovery. For normal content, you can use parse food. For veteran content, you might want to consider using bi-stat food for survivability. If you want to try a parse on the trial dummy, I highly suggest using parse food, as this will help you with resource management and show you how you’d perform in the most optimal environment.

Note : for the Bi-Stat food, the golden versions are slightly better, but much more expensive to make. The purple ones are nearly just as good and will be more than sufficient. (edited)

DAMAGE DEALER : POTIONS

Generally there are only 3 types of potions you’ll ever use. Use Essence of Spell Power if you are a Magicka DD. Use Essence of Weapon Power if you are a Stamina DD. If you can get the damage related buffs these provide from other sources, use Tri-Stat potions for extra Survivability. (edited)

DAMAGE DEALER : CHAMPION POINTS

I will be brief in this section, as this will fully depend on your build, at least for the Blue tree. Stick to whatever your build recommends. Focuss on getting your 4 slottables first, as these will improve your DPS. Once you have all 4, focuss on your passives, specifically the ones in the Staving Death constellation, as they improve your survivability.

In the Red tree, you’ll be using the following : Boundless Vitality, Fortified, Rejuvination and Siphoning Spells (Magicka DD) or Bloody Renewal (Stamina DD) (edited)

DAMAGE DEALER : FINDING A GOOD BUILD

This might be the second hardest part about being a DD, finding a good build. There are a ton of content creators out there and it can be hard to sepperate the good from the bad. Below you’ll find a list of content creators I’d personally recommend and content creators I would avoid at all costs :

NinjaPulls : By far the best content creator for Trials and Dungeons. Personally tested a few his builds and hit 100K+ DPS on them. Builds are easy to understand, both on a website and Youtube. Consider this a go to option. Website link : https://www.ninja-pulls.com/

Slayers of Tamriel : Our Guild Website has a lovely selection of builds for DD’s, some of which I’ve personally created. Another safe option. Website link : https://www.slayers-of-tamriel.net/

Deltia’s Gaming : Deltia has okayish builds. Most of them won’t perform for high end content, but they are good options for normal and veteran dungeons. I would go for the two options listed above first, but this website has decent options as well. Website link : https://deltiasgaming.com/

Xynode Gaming : A slightly controversial take, but Xynode has some unique and interestinf builds that actually work. I prefer the options listed above, but I won’t discredit this content creator. Website link : https://xynodegaming.com/

AlcastHQ : Probably the first thing that pops up when you look for builds. This content creator hasn’t played the game in years and a lot of information on this website is either outdated or simply wrong. Avoid it at all costs.

Hack the Minotaur : Perhaps a controversial opinion, but Hack doesn’t make good builds for the harder content. His solo builds are okay and easy to play, but don’t expect to clear endgame content with them.

LuckyGhost : I can be brief here : all his builds suggest Whorl of the Depths + Pillar of Nirn/Aegis Caller. This is just very run of the mill stuff and there are much better options out there.

DAMAGE DEALER : HOW TO ACTUALLY IMPROVE DPS

The only way to improve your DPS is practice : Go hit the 21 Million Target Dummy at the Guild House and practice your rotation. You don’t have to spend hours hitting it, but I would suggest doing a rotation when you log on and when you log off. Get it down to muscle memory and increase the speed of your rotation. This is the only way to actually improve. Those guides who say you’ll hit 120K easily? Bullshit, it’s down to a lot of practice, so put in the work. If you want to see how fast you have to press your buttons to hit higher than 100K, I’ll link one of my own parses here. This took me a while to perfect, so don’t expect instant results. Remember to fully kill the Target Dummy, as this is the only way to accurately see your DPS! Also, stand BEHIND the dummy to fully benefit from certain CP nodes.

A very important, but overlooked mechanic, is weaving. Weaving is the art of doing a Light or Heavy attack inbetween your skills. This has a couple of reasons : A) it adds a bit of extra damage. B) Light/Heavy Attacks build up Ultimate, meaning you can use your Ultimates a lot faster, resulting in a DPS increase. C) There is a global cooldown on skills. No matter how fast you are, you won’t be able to hit skills until the 1 second cooldown has finished, but you can do a light or heavy attack. People underestimate how important this weaving actually is, but it truly adds a significant chunk of damage. If you look at my parse linked below, I always hit a Light Attack between every skill (and if I don't, I mess up lol). Even if you wear the Velothi mythic, which reduces the damage of your Light/Heavy Attacks by 99%, you should still weave in those attacks. I actually use the mythic on my Templar and my damage would drop by about 15K if I did not use those Light Attacks. (edited)