Any shock damage (whether it be from staff attacks, weapon glyphs or abilities) has a chance of inflicting Concussion. Force Shock and Impulse have increased chances of inflicting elemental effects.

Off-balanced enemies can be knocked down with a charged heavy attack. Unfortunately this is harder to do with Lightning and Restoration staves because you have to finish the entire channel for this to proc, whereas for other weapons a partial charge is enough.

The AoE damage dealt by Tri-Focus will not knock down off-balanced enemies, unfortunately.

SeñorCinco wrote: »

I'm still uncertain as to what "off balance" actually is and how to identify it's animation. For that matter, I couldn't tell you when or if an enemy is effected by concussion.

They stand there with a kind of dazed stance for a few seconds. I think there used to be a white glow effect around them.

But having used all 3 of the Elements in a Staff, I have to say that Fire is the best overall. Also, they get knocked down and that is easy to see when it happens.

No. Nestor above was describing the off-balanced.

Concussed enemies have something like electric sparkles around them and it lasts few seconds at a time. This is caused by chance from any shock damage, similarly to burning is caused by chance from any fire damage.

Off-balanced enemies have a slumped posture and white glowing circular animation over their head, as Nestor said. However, often you have enemies not slumped but having the swirly glow (for example when using Unstable shock wall). Why? Because off-balance actually consists of 2 parts: a short but fragile disabling effect and a vulnerability effect. Initially off-balance disables the enemy like a stun, BUT the disable effect breaks on damage (whereas the actual stun is a solid disabling effect for the period it is supposed to last, unless broken free from), HOWEVER off-balanced are also vulnerable for getting knocked down with a heavy attack, which lasts for the supposed duration of off-balance. The disable part is animated by the slumped posture and the vulnerability is the glowing swirl on the head. Effectively, in most cases we break the disabling part of it so fast (aoe, dots, weaving, others attacking) that it basically go unnoticed, but the swirly glow still indicates to us that this enemy can be knocked down by a heavy attack. Off-balance is caused by hitting a melee heavy attack on a block (the attacker gets off-balanced) or getting a cast interrupted, also certain spells cause it as their side-effect (for example Molten whip if the enemy was stunned or immobile, Deep breath and Venom arrow if the spell did interrupt, Shock clench if you had the chance on your favor). The easiest way to experience off-balance is to find a mob that blocks and hit a heavy melee attack on their block.

Knockdown is definitely the same and not even a part of off-balanced, but can be triggered from it by executing a heavy attack (partially charged aka medium attack works). It is animated by the enemy falling on the ground totally disabled from doing any actions.

I've got a compilation of these status effect stuff here:
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/111840/status-effects-and-you