Ability Synergies in ESO are designed to give players additional opportunities to benefit from teamwork and communication. Leading up to Update 17, we weren't seeing groups use Synergies as effectively as we wanted, so we made them easier to use and gave them a series of buffs and fixes.

“With this update, we wanted to make Synergies easier to understand and even easier to activate," says ESO's Lead Combat Designer Eric Wrobel. “Every ability that offers a Synergy now displays a clear visual indicator, such as a column of light. Once the Synergy is used, the indicator disappears. This helps other players know whether they can expect to find a Synergy there."

You seriously believe they need to be easier to understand?

The biggest problem which this change doesn't address is that ESO's synergies are woefully unsophisticated. "Teamwork" = pressing an x when it pops up on your screen.

Yawn.

Personally I tend to play at range so synergies rarely happen anywhere near me. Even when they do I tend to ignore them. Not because I'm stupid but because the synergies are. For me ESO's combat is superior most other MMOs because it's not the typical cooldown driven rotations where combat feels more like the game playing you. Synergies however are precisely that. This is one of those examples of how ESO fights itself and is less than the sum of its parts.

City of Heroes had vastly superior synergies. For example, one tank set had an ability which created a fire field. Foes wouldn't just stand around in it either. They'd very quickly run out it. So solo that ability functioned as a fear field with a tiny bit of damage. Some other powersets had immobilizes though, so used in combination they became a very powerful damage field and that effect made perfect sense. It wasn't just some arbitrary completely new effect plucked out of thin air. The game had a number of combos like this and even included some negative ones.

That's the direction ESO could take with synergies.

For example, DK's Ash Cloud + a lightning field (either Sorc's Lightning Splash or lightning staff wall of elements) might create an electromagnetic effect, pulling foes into the field.