Welcome to our ESO Destruction Staff Skill Line guide. This shows all the destruction staff skills from the Elder Scrolls Online.
Version
- 5/31/2015 – Updating the layout
- 2/4/2015 – Original release
Destruction Staff
Destructive Touch
Devastate enemy with an enhanced charge from your staff, dealing X Magic Damage and X Magic Damage more over X seconds. Also applies an effect based on your staff’s attack element:
Fame Touch causes knock back.
Frost Touch causes deep freeze.
Shock Touch deals damage to nearby enemies.
| Cast time | Instant |
| Target | Enemy |
| Range | 17 meters |
| Cost | 3351 Magicka |
Destructive Reach
Devastate enemy with an enhanced charge from your staff, dealing X Magic Damage and X Magic Damage more over X seconds. Also applies an effect based on your staff’s attack element:
Fame Reach causes knock back.
Frost Reach causes deep freeze.
Shock Reach deals damage to nearby enemies.
NEW EFFECT: Has increased range.
| Cast time | Instant |
| Target | Enemy |
| Range | 17 meters |
| Cost | 3351 Magicka |
Destructive Clench
Devastate enemy with an enhanced charge from your staff, dealing X Magic Damage and X Magic Damage more over X seconds. Also applies an effect based on your staff’s attack element:
Fame Clench causes knock back and stun.
Frost Clench causes deep freeze.
Shock Clench deals damage to nearby enemies and has a chance of setting them off balance.
NEW EFFECT: Adds additional elemental effects.
| Cast time | Instant |
| Target | Enemy |
| Range | 17 meters |
| Cost | 3351 Magicka |
Wall of Elements
Slam your staff down to create an elemental barrier in front of you, dealing X Magic Damage to enemies in the target area every 0.5 seconds. Also applies an effect based on your staff’s attack element:
Wall of Fire deals extra damage.
Wall of Frost reduces enemy Movement Speed.
Wall of Storms sets concussed enemies off balance.
| Cast time | Instant |
| Duration | 4.5 seconds |
| Cost | 3351 Magicka |
Wall of Elemental Blockade
Slam your staff down to create an elemental barrier in front of you, dealing X Magic Damage to enemies in the target area every 0.5 seconds. Also applies an effect based on your staff’s attack element:
Wall of Fire deals extra damage.
Wall of Frost reduces enemy Movement Speed.
Wall of Storms sets concussed enemies off balance.
NEW EFFECT: Increased size and duration.
| Cast time | Instant |
| Duration | 6.5 seconds |
| Cost | 3351 Magicka |
Unstable Wall of Elements
Create an unstable elemental barrier in front of you, dealing X Magic Damage to enemies in the target area every 0.5 seconds. Also applies an effect based on your staff’s attack element:
Wall of Fire deals extra damage.
Wall of Frost reduces enemy Movement Speed.
Wall of Storms sets concussed enemies off balance.
When the effect ends, the barrier explodes, dealing X damage.
NEW EFFECT: Wall explodes when it expires, damaging enemies in the area.
| Cast time | Instant |
| Duration | 4.5 seconds |
| Cost | 3351 Magicka |
Force Shock
Focus all the elemental energies with your staff and blast an enemy for X Flame Damage, X Cold Damage, and X Shock Damage. The blast also has an 40% chance of afflicting an enemy with Chilled, Burning, and Concussion status effects.
| Cast time | Instant |
| Target | Enemy |
| Range | 28 meters |
| Cost | 2394 Magicka |
Force Pulse
Focus all the elemental energies with your staff and blast an enemy for X Flame Damage, X Cold Damage, and X Shock Damage. The blast also has an 40% chance of afflicting an enemy with Chilled, Burning, and Concussion status effects. Up to 2 nearby enemies will take X Magic Damage if they were already afflicted with Burning, Chilled or Concussed status effects.
NEW EFFECT: Damages nearby enemies that are burning, chilled or concussed.
| Cast time | Instant |
| Target | Enemy |
| Range | 28 meters |
| Cost | 2394 Magicka |
Crushing Shock
Focus all the elemental energies with your staff and blast an enemy for X Flame Damage, X Cold Damage, and X Shock Damage. The blast also has an 40% chance of afflicting an enemy with Chilled, Burning, and Concussion status effects. Enemies hit while casting are stunned and set off balance for 3 seconds.
NEW EFFECT: Stun and off balance casting targets.
| Cast time | Instant |
| Target | Enemy |
| Range | 28 meters |
| Cost | 2394 Magicka |
Weakness to Elements
Send the elements to sap an enemy’s defenses, afflicting them with Major Breach, which reduces Spell Resistance by X for 18 seconds.
| Cast time | Instant |
| Target | Enemy |
| Range | 28 meters |
Elemental Susceptibility
Send the elements to sap an enemy’s defenses, afflicting them with Major Breach, which reduces Spell Resistance by X for 18 seconds. Any damage you deal to the enemy refreshes the effect’s duration.
NEW EFFECT: Duration is refreshed on damage.
| Cast time | Instant |
| Target | Enemy |
| Range | 28 meters |
Elemental Drain
Send the elements to sap an enemy’s defenses, afflicting them with Major Breach, which reduces Spell Resistance by X for 18 seconds. While the effect is active, attacks with Flame, Shock or Frost Damage restore X Magicka to the attacker.
NEW EFFECT: Restores Magicka.
| Cast time | Instant |
| Target | Enemy |
| Range | 28 meters |
Impulse
Release a surge of elemental energy to deal X Magic Damage to nearby enemies. Affected enemies also have a 40% chance of being afflicted with Burning, Chilled or Concussion status effects, based upon the element they’re attacked with.
| Cast time | Instant |
| Target | Area |
| Radius | 6 meters |
| Cost | 2872 Magicka |
Elemental Ring
Release a surge of elemental energy to deal X Magic Damage to nearby enemies and an additional X magic damage over X seconds. Affected enemies also have a 40% chance of being afflicted with Burning, Chilled or Concussion status effects, based upon the element they’re attacked with.
NEW EFFECT: Adds damage over time.
| Cast time | Instant |
| Target | Area |
| Radius | 6 meters |
| Cost | 2872 Magicka |
Pulsar
Release a surge of elemental energy to deal X Magic Damage to nearby enemies and afflict them with Minor Mangle, whick reduces their Max Health by 10% for 30 seconds. Affected enemies also have a 40% chance of being afflicted with Burning, Chilled or Concussion status effects, based upon the element they’re attacked with.
NEW EFFECT: Reduces enemy’s max health.
| Cast time | Instant |
| Target | Area |
| Radius | 6 meters |
| Cost | 2872 Magicka |
Tri Focus
While using a destruction staff heavy attack, grants bonus effects based on the element used:
Heavy fire attacks deal (8-15%) additional damage.
Heavy frost attacks reduce enemy movement speed (30-40%) for 3.5 seconds.
Heavy shock attacks damage up to 2 nearby enemies, dealing (10-20%) of the damage inflicted on the primary target.
Penetrating Magic
With destruction staff equipped, allows your Destruction Staff spells to ignore (5-10%) of an enemy’s Spell Resistance.
Elemental Force
With destruction staff equipped, increase your spells’ chance of afflicting enemies with burning, concussion and chilled status effects by (8-15%).
Ancient Knowledge
With destruction staff equipped, reduces the time it takes to charge heavy attacks by (5-10%).
Destruction Expert
With destruction staff equipped, restores X Magicka when you kill a target with a Destruction Staff spell or weapon attack.
Does weakness to elements now work for all magic damage?? or is the tool tip missing the fire, ice, lightening part
Elemental damage yes, so not poison or disease.
Could weakness to elements work on say a night blade that deals magic damage? The skill just say magic damage there does say poison or disease on there, but it doesn’t say anything about elements ether.
If you’re using crushing shock yes
Wall of Elemental Blockade (4.5 seconds)
Effect: Increase size and duration
Wall of Unstable Wall of Elements (6.5 seconds)
New Effect: Wall explodes when it expires damaging enemies in the area
is this a mistake? Shouldnt the first of the morphs be 6.5 seconds and the 2nd 4.5 seconds? it says it increases duration but the tool tip doesnt show any increase.
Hm that is strange but might have been a typo. I’m going to check all of the abilities after 1.6 launches.
I’m trying to figure out the effectiveness of the Weakness to Elements and Impulse morphs.
Starting with Weakness to Elements, the description makes no mention of elemental damage anymore. It simply applies a debuff that effects all spell damage, right?
As for the morphs, the Elemental Drain obviously has the utility to restore magicka on hits, but the amount is very small. It seems to me that having a debuff that automatically refreshes (Elemental Susceptibility) without me having to recast it is a better option, especially for someone who isn’t as adept at bar switching. Is the magicka gain large enough to offset the chance that the debuff drops?
It makes no mention of the damage type required, so is any damage going to keep it going/restore magicka? Also, it doesn’t list a casting cost. Is it free?
Now, for the Impulse morphs. I’ve always been told that Elemental Ring is better because of the DOTs, but does it stack like Healing Springs or am I wasting the DOTs when I spam ER? Obviously Minor Mangle doesn’t stack, but spamming it keeps it up, right?
However, the most important question is if dungeon bosses in PvE are immune to the debuff or not. If they aren’t then 10% is HUGE on a boss with 1.5 million HP. If not, then it is pretty useless, as lesser monsters won’t last long enough to matter, in most cases.
Well most healers run weakness or the tank runs the spell resist taunt. Other than that, I honestly don’t know.
Can you verify whether bosses are immune to minor mangle from impulse?
I honestly don’t know. That’s something worth testing today, if the damn servers ever come up.
I saw a Mage littey throw a projectile ring of fire forward. Which skill is this move in.
Destructive Reach fire staff.
Do destruction staves benefit more from spell damage or weapon damage? When using a DS, should I beef up the spell crit or the weapon crit? Someone said the staves are all spell-based. Is that true? I’m trying to gather the correct armor sets and rings, etc. for DS skills and really hope you or someone can clarify and put this to bed for me. Thank you and congratulations on your new baby!
If an ability costs magicka, it scales off of spell damage (stamina abilities scale off of weapon damage). Same with spell crit vs. weapon crit.
In Vet Maelstrom Arena is it worth crafting different elemental destro (fire, shock or frost) staves and swapping between arenas to tailor dps to mobs with specific elemental weaknesses? CP240 here struggling in VMA
No, fire preforms the best.
Does destruction expert activate while your weakness to elements is active?
Good question which I would assume so but don’t know for sure.