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ESO Status Effects Guide

Q: Is charged good ESO?

Charged is best in slot on many builds. It massively increases status effect proc chance, which means more damage and better uptime on important debuffs like Minor Breach and Minor Vulnerability.

Article

Up to date for: Update 49 - 25th March 2026

Last changed: Update 49 - 25th March 2026

Status effects in ESO are additional damage procs triggered by the type of damage you deal. They also apply important buffs and debuffs like Minor Breach, Minor Vulnerability, and Minor Brittle. Understanding how they work, including proc chances, damage type interactions, and how traits like Charged multiply them, helps you make better gear and skill decisions across every build.

Overview

There are 9 damage types in ESO but Oblivion doesn't have a status effect, so that leaves 8. They split into two categories: Martial (Physical, Poison, Disease, Bleed) and Magical (Magic, Flame, Frost, Shock).

Most damage can proc status effects, but Light Attacks, Heavy Attacks, and status effects themselves can't (werewolves are the exception). All status effect buffs and debuffs last 4 seconds, which lines up with the cooldown of damaging weapon enchants, the source with the highest proc chance at 20%.

Damage Source	Base Chance	Example
Weapon Enchants	20%	Glyph of Flame
Single Target Direct Damage	10%	Uppercut
AoE Direct Damage	5%	Brawler
Single Target DoT (per tick)	3%	Degeneration
AoE DoT (per tick, ground DoTs tick every 1s)	1%	Razor Caltrops
Light Attacks, Heavy Attacks, Status Effects	0%

Sticky DoTs from AoE abilities (like

Carve and

Disintegrating Dragonfire) count as AoE DoTs for proc chance (1% per tick) even though each target gets their own DoT. This is inconsistent, because they get boosted by

Deadly Aim instead of

Biting Aura when it comes to Champion Points.

Werewolf Berserker - If you're using the Werewolf Berserker morph you can actually apply status effects with Light and Heavy Attacks. Light Attacks have 3% base chance (same as Single Target DoTs), partially charged Heavy Attacks have 5% (same as AoE Direct Damage) and fully charged Heavy Attacks have 10% (same as Single Target Direct Damage).

Multi-hit abilities - Some abilities that hit multiple times, like

Rapid Strikes, have their proc chance divided by the number of strikes. Rapid Strikes has a 2.5% chance per hit instead of 10%, which brings it in line with other single target spammables.

Force Shock is an exception because all three elements hit at the same time, so each one rolls its own 10% proc chance independently.

Biting Jabs is also an exception, its description states each hit has a 10% chance.

Pulsar has a 3x multiplier on its status effect proc chance, which isn't stated in the ability description, only visible in the morph tooltip.

You can check these values in-game by searching "status effects" in the Help tab.

Proc Calculator & Modifiers

Toggle your active modifiers to see the final proc chance. All modifiers are additive.

Damage

Enchant20%

ST Direct10%

AoE Direct5%

ST DoT3%

AoE DoT1%

Champion Points +0%

Battle Mastery /

Flawless Ritual

+60%

Skills +0%

Traveling Knife +

Assassin's Misery

+100%

Gear +0%

Charged

+235%

Symmetry of the Weald

+200%

Glacial Guardian

+200%

Passives +0%

+100%

+250%

+55%

+50%

DK abilities slotted

Other +0%

Focused Efforts

Base Chance20%

Total Modifiers+0%

Final Proc Chance 20.0%

20% × (100% + 0%) = 20.0%

Martial Effects

Sundered

Physical Damage

Enchant:

Glyph of Absorb Stamina

Damage 1.64% Max Stamina/Magicka + 17.3% Weapon/Spell Damage as Physical

Buff

Sunderer (4s) - +100 Weapon and Spell Damage

Debuff

Minor Breach (4s) - decreases Physical and Spell Resistance by 2,974

Additional

—

Minor Breach is a very important debuff that you'll need to fully penetrate your enemies' armor. Of course Sundered isn't its only source, tanks usually provide it with Pierce Armor or Elemental Blockade, but it can also be applied by Deep Fissure and Fatewoven Armor. There are also 5-piece item sets that apply it, but they're not worth using because this debuff has so many other more convenient sources.

In some builds Damage Dealers will want to constantly proc Sundered, through the use of Absorb Stamina enchant or other physical damage, to keep up the 100 Weapon and Spell Damage buff. This in turn will also keep up the Minor Breach debuff in single target fights, so with DDs running certain builds tanks don't have to pay attention to that anymore.

Skills

Sets

Poisoned

Poison Damage

Enchant:

Glyph of Poison

Damage 3% Max Stamina/Magicka + 31.1% Weapon/Spell Damage as Poison over 4s (3 ticks, at 0, 2 and 4 seconds)

Buff

—

Debuff

—

Additional

Execute - up to +100% damage based on missing health (50% HP = +50%, 5% HP = +95%)

Poisoned starts outdamaging Burning, the highest damage status effect, once the target drops below 50% HP.

Skills

Lethal Arrow

Sets

Diseased

Disease Damage

Enchant:

Glyph of Disease

Damage 1.5% Max Stamina/Magicka + 15.7% Weapon/Spell Damage as Disease

Buff

—

Debuff

Minor Defile (4s) - reduces Healing Taken and Shield Strength by 6%

Additional

AoE Explosion - once every 4s, deals 0.6% Max + 6.3% Weapon/Spell Damage to all enemies around the target and applies Minor Defile

Skills

Sets

Hemorrhaging

Bleed Damage

Enchant: None, no enchant deals Bleed damage

Damage 3.6% Max Stamina/Magicka + 34.2% Weapon/Spell Damage as Bleed over 4s (3 ticks, at 0, 2 and 4 seconds)

Buff

—

Debuff

—

Additional

Stacking - up to 3 stacks, each stack adds +25% damage

At 2 stacks Hemorrhaging roughly matches Burning's damage, and at 3 stacks it overtakes it.

Skills

Sets

Unleashed Terror

Magical Effects

Overcharged

Magic Damage

Enchant:

Absorb Health,

Absorb Magicka,

Prismatic Onslaught

Damage 1.64% Max Stamina/Magicka + 17.3% Weapon/Spell Damage as Magic

Buff

—

Debuff

Minor Magickasteal (4s) - attacking the enemy restores 168 Magicka per second

Additional

+65 Magicka restored to you

The same Minor Magickasteal debuff can be applied by the Elemental Drain ability but it's rarely being used, because Magic damage type is very common so most of the time the debuff will be kept up by random Overcharged procs, not to mention that Elemental Drain's other morph - Elemental Susceptibility, is way stronger.

Skills

Debilitate

Sets

—

Burning

Flame Damage

Enchant:

Glyph of Flame

Damage 4.5% Max Stamina/Magicka + 47% Weapon/Spell Damage as Flame over 4s (3 ticks, at 0, 2 and 4 seconds)

Buff

—

Debuff

—

Additional

—

The most straightforward status effect, it simply deals damage and that's it.

Skills

Sets

Chill

Frost Damage

Enchant:

Glyph of Frost

Damage 1.64% Max Stamina/Magicka + 17.3% Weapon/Spell Damage as Frost

Buff

—

Debuff

Minor Maim (4s) - reduces damage dealt by 5%

Additional

Minor Brittle (4s) - increases Critical Damage taken by 10% (only if you're on your Ice Staff bar when Chilled procs)

Skills

Sets

Concussion

Shock Damage

Enchant:

Glyph of Shock

Damage 1.64% Max Stamina/Magicka + 17.3% Weapon/Spell Damage as Shock (+15% if target was Concussed in the last 4s)

Buff

—

Debuff

Minor Vulnerability (4s) - increases damage taken by 5%

Additional

—

When combined with Lightning Elemental Blockade, Concussion also procs the Off Balance debuff. Off Balance increases enemies' damage taken from Heavy Attacks by 70% and doubles the amount of resources restored by Heavy Attacks against them, and it also lets your group benefit from the Exploiter Champion Point.

Skills

Sets

Status Effect Gear

Item sets that interact with status effects but couldn't be categorized under a specific one.

Set	Effect
Threads of War	Light and Heavy Attacks are guaranteed to proc status effects.
Spattering Disjunction	Arcanist only. Applies two random status effects when you deal damage with an Arcanist ability.
Serpent's Disdain	Extends status effect debuff duration. Extremely common bait set in Infinite Archive builds which isn't actually worth using.
Baron Zaudrus	Generates Ultimate when you apply status effects.
Caluurion's Legacy	Critical Light or Heavy Attacks launch a projectile that deals random elemental or disease damage and applies the matching status effect.
Xanmeer Spellweaver	Increases status effect damage.
Symmetry of the Weald	+200% Status Effect Chance while above 50% Health.
Glacial Guardian	Blocking tethers a nearby enemy, dealing Frost Damage and increasing your Status Effect Chance against them by 200%.
Shattered Paths Signet	Boosts status effect damage based on your current Ultimate. At 170+ Ultimate, Light and Heavy Attacks also apply random status effects. Drains 1 Ultimate every 1.5s while in combat.

FAQ

What do status effects do in ESO?

They deal extra damage based on the damage type that triggered them, and most of them also apply useful buffs or debuffs. For example, Concussion applies Minor Vulnerability and Sundered applies Minor Breach.

How to increase status effect damage in ESO?

Status effect damage scales off your Max Stamina or Magicka and your Weapon or Spell Damage, whichever pair is higher. You can also directly boost it with the Focused Efforts vision in Infinite Archive, the Xanmeer Spellweaver set, and class passives like Fan the Flames, Glacial Presence, and Psychic Lesion.

Is charged good ESO?

Charged is best in slot on most builds. It massively increases status effect proc chance, which means more damage and better uptime on important debuffs like Minor Breach and Minor Vulnerability.

How to apply Minor Brittle?

Proc the Chilled status effect while on your Ice Staff bar. Any Frost damage has a chance to apply Chilled, and the Charged trait, Elemental Force passive, and Glacial Presence passive all increase that chance.

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