The Alliance War is the PvP skill line set in ESO. There’s three dedicated Alliance War skill lines: Assault, Support and Emperor. You will progress in these skill lines by gaining veteran ranks in Cyrodiil’s PvP campaigns.
Each skill line includes one ultimate skill, two active skills and three passive skills except the Emperor skill line, which only has passive skills. The ultimate skills and active skills can be morphed. Morphs enhance the original skill, giving you more room to customize your character and play it just the way you want. Each ultimate skill and active skill comes with two morph options. Once you have morphed an ability, it will replace the original ability.
Assault
Assault skill line is the more offensive skill line of the two major Alliance War skill lines in Elder Scrolls Online. The two active skills of this skill line, Rapid Maneuver and Caltrops both use Stamina as the resource.
War Horn is the ultimate skill of Assault skill line, increasing max Magicka and Stamina by 20% for 30 seconds. A well organized group could easily keep this buff up almost permanently.
Rapid Maneuver is a great skill for mobility. It increases Movement speed of nearby allies by 20% and grants immunity against snare and immobilize effects. The effect ends when you perform your first attack.
Caltrops is a pretty powerful AOE snare and physical damage skill. It can be used to hinder the progress of your opponents, especially when morphed to Anti-cavalry Caltrops, which will force enemies to dismount in the area of effect.
Continuous Attack is one of the passive skills, and it’s worth mentioning. It increases Weapon Damage by 20% and Magicka and Stamina regeneration by 20% for 600 seconds after capturing a resource. That’s a very strong 10-minute buff, and I suspect organized groups will want to grab this buff for veteran dungeon challenges or other difficult PvE encounters, even if you’ll only be able to benefit a couple of minutes in the end.
Support
Support skill line is the exact opposite of Assault: it is a defensive skill line, which will offer a lot of help for those who wish to protect friendly players and keeps. The two active skills of this skill line, Siege Shield and Purge use Magicka as the resource.
Barrier is the ultimate skill of Support skill line. It creates a targetable damage shield for allies in a 12-meter radius. Barrier will be very useful for choke points.
Siege Shield creates a shield bubble for allies in an area which grants 20% protection against ranged and siege attacks. Just like Barrier, this skill is very nice for chokepoints.
Purge can be a very important skill in PvP. It removes negative effects from allies and halfs the duration of negative effects on allies within radius for 6 seconds. It’s an important skill because there’s a lack of dispel skills in Elder Scrolls Online. Sorcerers gain an ultimate skill called Negate Magic which can dispel, and Templars have a skill called Cleansing Ritual which offers the allies the Purifying synergy, capable of dispelling. Nightblades can dispel themselves with the Dark Cloak morph, but Dragonknights have no ways to dispel themselves it wasn’t for this skill.
Combat Medic is a passive skill worth mentioning, because it increases your healing done by 20% when near a keep. It’s simply a must have for anyone thinking of doing some healing in PvP.
Emperor
Emperor is the final Alliance War skill line. It’s only available for those who are crowned emperors in their Cyrodiil campaigns. In order to become the emperor in ESO, your alliance must simultaneously control all six keeps in Cyrodiil, and you have to be player with the most alliance points of your alliance.
Becoming the emperor is no easy task, but the rewards are well worth it. As the emperor you gain access to five emperor-only passive skills, most of which have two versions of the passive: a more powerful version which is in place whilst you are the emperor, and a weaker, but still a very impressive version when you have been dethroned. This way ex-emperors also get to reap some of the benefits, but you, as an ex-emperor, still have an incentive to become the emperor again.
Domination increases weapon damage by 10% and Stamina & Magicka regeneration rates by 20% after you take part in capturing a resource in Cyrodiil. It’s a pretty big bonus, and you’ll definitely want to keep capturing resources, but I suspect anyone who has been crowned Emperor will be doing it anyway.
Authority increases your Ultimate generation rate by 200% while emperor, and 4% as former emperor. Needless to say, 200% increased Ultimate generation rate is absolutely insane, and apart from the pure badass factor, is easily the biggest reason you’d want to become the emperor.
Monarch Increases the magnitude of healing effects on Emperors by 50%, and on former Emperors by 1%. The increased incoming healing means you’ll be much easier to keep up.
Tactician increases the siege weapon damage you deal by 400% while emperor. For former emperors the increase is 8%. Because of this passive, it’s pretty clear that your alliance will love you whenever you’re with them at a keep siege. You counting as five other siege weapons is a pretty big deal.
Emperor passive increases Health, Magicka and Stamina regeneration by 100% while in your campaign. This passive doubles your regeneration rates. It will certainly allow you to plan builds which you would not be able to do normally.
Alliance War Skills
Here’s a compilation of all the Alliance War Skill Lines and the individual skills.
Ultimate Skills
- Instant
- Target: Area
- 20 m. radius
- 250 ultimate
- Increases Max Magicka and Stamina of nearby allies by 20% for 30 seconds.
Morphed from War Horn
- Also increases weapon damage.
Morphed from War Horn
- Also increases Max Health by 20%.
Active Skills
- Instant
- Target: area
- 20 m. radius
- 20 sec. duration
- 105 Stamina
- Increases movement speed of nearby allies by 20% for 20 seconds and grants immunity to snare and immobilize. Effects end when an attack is made.
Morphed from Rapid Maneuver
- Allies’ Weapon Power is increased.
Morphed from Rapid Maneuver
- Also removes all snares and roots from affected allies.
- Movement speed increased to 30% from 20%.
- Instant
- 28 m. range
- 105 Stamina
- Throws caltrops at target location, dealing Physical Damage every 0.5 seconds to enemies in the area of effect for 30 seconds. Affected enemies are snared for 30%.
Morphed from Caltrops
- Also forces mounted enemies to dismount.
Morphed from Caltrops
- When the caltrops land, enemies in the area of effect take additional Physical Damage and are snared for 70%.
Passive Skills
Continuous Attack
- Increases Weapon Damage by 20% and Magicka and Stamina regeneration by 20% for 600 seconds after capturing a lumber mill, farm, mine or keep.
Reach
- Increases range of all abilities with greater than 15m range by 5 meters when near a keep.
Combat Frenzy
- Bestows an additional 25 Ultimate when killing an enemy player.
Ultimate Skills
- Instant
- Target: area
- 12 m. radius
- 250 ultimate
- Creates a damage shield on nearby allies for 30 seconds.
Morphed from Barrier
- Gain ultimate and magicka any time an ally’s shield expires or is destroyed.
Morphed from Barrier
- Allies in radius gain a heal-over-time, ticking every 2 seconds for a total of 30 seconds.
Active Skills
- Instant
- Target: area
- 10 m. radius
- 101 Magicka
- Creates a shield bubble that bestows 20% protection vs. ranged attacks and siege weapons and lasts for 20 seconds.
Morphed from Siege Shield
- Allies in the area of effect gain 7 meters increased range on abilities with 28 meter range or greater.
Morphed from Siege Shield
- Allied siege weapons in the area of effect take 75% reduced damage from other seige weapons.
- Instant
- Target: area
- 12 m. radius
- 87 Magicka
- Removes up to 2 negative effects from nearby allies and reduces the duration of negative effects on nearby allies by 50% for to 6 seconds.
Morphed from Purge
- Restores 20% Max Health to target if at least one effect is removed.
Morphed from Purge
- Reduces Purge cost by 50%.
Passive Skills
Magicka Aid
- Increases Magicka regeneration by 10% for each Support ability slotted.
Battle Resurrection
- Decrease the time it takes to resurrect another player by 50%.
Combat Medic
- Increases healing done by 20% when near a keep.
Passive Skills
Domination
- After capturing a lumber mill, farm, mine, or keep: Increase weapon damage by 10% and Magicka and Stamina regeneration by 20% for 10 minutes.
Authority
- While Emperor: Increase Ultimate gains by 200%.
- As a former Emperor:
Increase Ultimate gains by 4%
Monarch
- While Emperor: Increases the magnitude of healing effects on Emperors by 50%.
- As a former Emperor: Increases the magnitude of healing effects on Emperors by 1%.
Tactician
- While Emperor: Increase siege weapon damage by 400%.
- As a former Emperor: Increase siege weapon damage by 8%.
Emperor
- While Emperor:
Increase Health, Magicka and Stamina regeneration by 100% while in your campaign.