Elder Scrolls Online: Damage Shields Correct Usage Guide

Today, we’ll be discussing Damage Shields in depth. I’ve noticed many players misusing them, also because the game doesn’t provide enough information on how they work. I actually made the same mistake for a long time.

How Damage Shields Work

Let’s start with the basics. Damage Shields provide your Health Pool with a temporary buffer against incoming damage before it affects your actual health. However, Damage Shields do not have block mitigation, which means that when you block while you have Damage Shields, block mitigation will not start to apply until you run out of Damage Shields.

Let me illustrate. Let’s say you have 50% block mitigation and 10K Damage Shields, and you’re blocking a hit that does 20K damage. Damage Shields are supposed to absorb 10k of damage, and the remaining 10K will affect your actual health. Now that your Damage Shields are depleted, block mitigation will start to apply.

In this case, you take 10K damage. Whereas in the first case you take 5K damage, which means 10K Damage Shields will only reduce the 5K damage you take.

How Damage Shields Do Damage Calculations

Let’s assume that an electric will deal 50k damage to the player before block mitigation. If you take a hit without Damage Shields, you will take 90% less damage from 50k damage. But if you were to cast 10K Damage Shields, this would become 5K. This is how damage is calculated.

First, 10K Damage Shields reduced the original unmitigated 50k damage to 40K. Then the remaining 40K hits are reduced by 90% block mitigation to 4K.

In the end, you’re only hurting by 4K in this case. And casting 10K Damage Shields will only reduce the damage you take from 5K to 4K by 1K. As you can see, Damage Shields are not very effective at mitigating blockable damage.

How To Use Damage Shields Accurately

We’ve discussed when Damage Shields spawns. Now let’s discuss when it is best to use them. Quite simply, Damage Shields tend to be worth much more than healing abilities, which also makes them a better option for mitigating unblockable damage.

For example, if you’re dealing mostly unstoppable damage, casting something like a Skill that provides around 15K Damage Shields will be more valuable than casting a 10K Coagulating Blood skill.

We’ve discussed when to use and when not to use Damage Shields. Now let’s focus on when not to cast the block. Let me explain, if you have a 10K Damage Shields and you block 8K damage hits, it does nothing but waste your stamina. Your Damage Shields take damage in 8K whether you block or not. In that case, a fight is completely pointless.

Under the effect of Damage Shields, your blocks also become worth using. Ward Master reduces all damage you take while blocking while affected by Damage Shields by an additional 10%. So if you’re using this Slaughter ball, you have to flip your mindset and continue to block normally. Even if you have the protection of Damage Shields.

All in all, it’s important to know when to block and when not to block. You need to know when your Damage Shields are strong enough to protect you. This way you save a lot of stamina and ESO Gold, while effectively blocking more damage.