Different effects from shock/frost/flame glyphs?

Triplesixtyson

Hey guys,
So heres my deal, I got an exp grinding set on my magcro. Ive been running public dungeons blowin up mobs. I switched from a fire staff to a lightning since im burning large groups with AoEs. That 10% boost in AoE dmg for using a lightning staff from the destruction staff passive has made a huge difference in my kill speed.

But now after reading up and talking to people I still cant figure out what the difference is of adding a glyph of shock, frost or flame? All it says is for example; "Deals 2914 shock Damage". What is shock damage exactly? Is it just the element, and therefore may affect some enemies differently than others depending on resists, or is there more to it?

Some stuff I read was saying the flame glyph will add spell damage;
"When you deal damage with a Flame Damage ability, you apply the Burning status effect to the enemy and increase your Spell Damage by 11-490 for 8 seconds."

Where as the shock says;
"When you block a Flame, Frost, Shock, or Magic Damage ability, you restore 18-805 Magicka. This effect can occur once every 1 second. When you take Physical Damage, you deal 928 Shock Damage in a 5 meter radius around you."

Im sure im way off here and thats why im asking you guys. So... my lightning staff is doing more damage for what im doing in particular. But what glyph do I add? Is there any reason to have a shock glyph on my lightning staff over a flame glyph? Please help me out with anything you can, thanks in advance.

Varana

First, enchantments on weapons will be applied every time you do damage to an enemy, with a 4 second cooldown (for most of them), and unless the effect is already on the enemy.
So a shock glyph means that you attack -> it does X amount of additional shock damage to the enemy. 4 seconds later, if you attack, the same happens again. (Please continue attacking in the meantime; the enchantment damage is only minor, so don't wait for its cooldown.)
You can swap shock for ice or fire here; there are no specific elemental resistances in ESO. (Edit: on NPCs.)

Second, every kind of elemental damage has a 20% chance to proc a secondary status effect.
A flame glyph has a chance of applying Burning, which is a bit of damage over time.
A shock glyph has a chance of applying Concussed, which makes the enemy take more damage by affecting them with the Minor Vulnerability debuff.
A frost glyph has a chance of applying Chilled, which makes the enemy deal less damage by affecting them with the Minor Maim debuff.

So for general play, fire or shock glyphs are good because they add damage done. A frost glyph is less useful - you can get that debuff from various skills as well, and its better effects come into play in more coordinated or advanced situations.

The text that you quoted is not the effect of an enchantment but a set bonus. If you wear a certain amount of pieces of a set, that will give you the bonuses stated in the description. That has nothing to do with enchantments.

Triplesixtyson

Thank you so much. Cleared it all up for me. Much appreciated