Every ability which does damage over time, has its first tick as a direct damage. It's a bit weird, but it is what it is.

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

It is 100% damage over time. No ticks are direct damage. Put on nerianith and use the skill. The set will never proc.

Also confirming this to be the case.

@CMDR_Un1k0rn some dots are completely classed as damage over time. The only ones that are direct show 2 portions of their damage like Poison Arrow for example.

"Shoot an arrow coated in Baandari poison at an enemy, dealing direct poison damage and an additional over time poison damage over 10 seconds"

Dots with a single value like Blockade and Volley will not have any direct damage segments, only those with a split value of initial hit such as Twin Slashes and Destructive Touch.

You can spam the first hit of Volley and Blockade for a while and check with acuity, while spamming the first hit of poison arrow or destro touch will proc it eventually, I could not get Volley or Blockade to proc it.

There is a tooltip bug with AoEs currently that let's them get increased by Master-at-Arms, but their actual damage increases with Thaumaturge.

The first tick of dots used to be direct damage until dragon bones (dont remember when it was changed), but now only the skills that actually have a direct damage portion in their tooltip count as direct damage.