Initial Combat Tactics — The Elder Scrolls Online: Morrowind eGuide

At the most basic level, there are strikes you always attempt that are open to any type of character, without the need of skill-learning, though you can augment these with Passive Abilities.

Light Attacks

Lightly damaging and swift, the attack most often used in battles across Tamriel.

These are swift strikes that you can inflict with any equipped weapon. Tap the Attack button to attempt a light attack. The damage caused scales to your Maximum Stamina (unless you’re using staves, in which case it’s related to Magicka), but performing the attack doesn’t use Stamina (or Magicka for a staff).

Animation Canceling: “Weaving”

This technique requires timing. When you’re about to use one of your Active Effects, tap a light attack immediately beforehand. This grants you a small additional damage bonus between more powerful attacks. With proper timing, the light attack actually strikes after the ability animation has started, hence the technique’s other name, negating the problems associated with cast times.

This only works if your target is within attack range, so some players may find staves excellent to use for this. The timing requires practice—try executing the light attack, then the Active Effect in time with your own heartbeat.

This is an excellent exploit, allowing seamless and frequent light attacks along with a favored Active Effect that adds to the damage you cause. It also shortens the time you need to wait before recharging your Ultimate Ability.

Heavy Attacks

These are slow-building strikes you must charge by holding down your Attack button, before releasing to inflict a greater amount of harm than a light attack. Accurate timing is necessary—for example, move to an enemy while holding this strike until you’re within range, and then let go. During the buildup, you’re prone to a foe bashing or interrupting you. The exact buildup time—before a weapon inflicts damage after release—can vary depending on your weapon, so experiment. As with light attacks, heavy attacks also replenishes your Stamina (or Magicka) when the attack is over, though the attack must be fully charged.

Staff Damage

Are you wielding a staff? Then your damage scales to your Maximum Magicka, not Stamina. Staves also deal Spell Damage rather than Weapon Damage, so if you’re focusing on using these, you may wish to increase your Magicka more often than your Stamina. For all other weapons (one-handed, two-handed, shields, bows, and dual-wielding), Stamina scaling and Weapon Damage are used to calculate the damage caused by your actions.

When using a staff during a heavy attack, remember the weapon begins to damage a foe as the attack is charging, rather than at the end, like Stamina-based weapons. This means you can’t focus all your damage on a massive and mighty wallop as you would with a two-handed weapon, for example, at the end of the charge. Therefore, a foe notices you earlier, which can be a problem if you’re worried about interruptions.

Blocking

Defending yourself from an attacker, understanding the timing involved, and learning to watch for an enemy’s defenses and exploit them are keys to longevity in Tamriel. Blocking uses Stamina.

The biggest benefit to blocking is the reduction in damage; usually at least half of the power of an enemy’s attack is negated, though the value varies depending on a number of factors (disabling secondary effects the enemy may use such as knockbacks, roots, snares or stuns, or whether you’re blocking with a shield or a weapon). You can increase your protection, and reduce damage taken, by choosing certain skills.

A block can counter secondary effects an enemy attempts to harm you with. With correct timing, you can also interrupt an enemy attempting a heavy attack on you (see the following “Observe and Counter” section). Indeed, the blocking of an incoming heavy attack is perhaps the best use of the blocking technique, as it usually absorbs the most damage in the shortest amount of time.

Bashing (Interrupting)

It’s always a good idea to attempt a bit of offense with your defense, and the bash, which is a light attack while you’re blocking, is an excellent way to inflict harm on a foe even though you’re defending. This is usually used to interrupt an enemy at melee range, and sometimes leads to staggering them. If your foe has a special ability (a channeled attack is the best example), then bash them before they launch this dangerous strike.

Observe and Counter

You can take down enemies more proficiently if you observe their actions and choose an appropriate counter. For most battles, at a rudimentary level, try the following:

Block if your enemy uses a regular attack.

Bash (light attack) if your enemy tries a heavy attack or channeled attack, to quickly interrupt and stagger them.

Inflict a heavy attack if your enemy is blocking, so you break their block and stagger them.

Attack quickly if your enemy is staggered, to instantly deal damage and possibly cut them down.

Dodging

Also known as roll dodging or dodge rolling, this defensive technique is used along with movement in a certain direction—rolling forward, backward, to the sides, or any angle in between. This is different from blocking in that you’re (theoretically) maneuvering completely out of the way of an opponent’s attack so no damage or secondary effects are inflicted on you. Dodging isn’t used all the time, due to the high cost of Stamina needed to attempt it over the course of multiple occasions.

When a foe is attempting an area-of-effect attack, a quick way to retreat is the dodge roll.

When an enemy attempts an area-of-effect attack (usually indicated by a red glow on the ground near or around the foe’s body), root effect, or a weighty heavy attack known to be highly damaging, execute a roll. Keep doing this (at the cost of Stamina) until you’re outside the area of effect, or away from the enemy’s strike.

Ranged Combat and Targeting

The target reticule is helpful when situating yourself toward a certain foe. Produce a bow and strike the target from range; a quite generous hit area enables arrows to hit home even if the foe moves slightly out of your central view. The target shrinks when you’re directly targeting an enemy, and the enemy takes on a red glow about it. Don’t forget you can also block using a bow, as well as cancel an arrow you’re about to fire.

Use ranged targeting to perfect your bow-based takedowns, or to coax a foe into moving toward you.

Cycling Targets

You can cycle through all nearby enemies within range. This is doable whether you’re attacking from range or with a melee weapon. Don’t like the foe you’ve targeted? Then quickly cycle through to find another. This is usually helpful if you’re ignoring a weaker enemy in favor of concentrating an attack on a greater threat.