The Elder Scrolls Online features seven different classes, with each class having its own theme and gameplay identity. However, some classes allow for a solo play better than others, and you may find this subjective list helpful as ESO rolls into 2024. So, today, we’re exploring The Elder Scrolls Online best solo classes tier list.
S Tier
Magicka Templar
As the first S tier class on this list, the Magicka Templar holds one of the top spots for solo play for a variety of reasons. One of those reasons is simply because the Magicka Templar has Magicka skill morphs like ‘Puncturing Sweep’ that heals for 33% of the damage done with the ability. That’s not your only Magicka ability that heals you while dealing damage, because the ‘Radiant Glory’ skill also heals for 20% of the damage inflicted. All while others like ‘Purifying Light’ allows for massive damage while healing you after its main effect ends after 6 seconds.
Even while likely needing to stay within Melee range for most skills, it is easy to see why the Magicka Templar excels at solo play with its ability to deal great damage and heal constantly. However, because this class largely only uses Magicka-based skills, maintaining said resource can be difficult without the right armor sets, mythics, and placed points in the Champion System. Still, even with those difficulties and need for mostly melee range, this class stands alongside the Stamina Arcanist in the ways that matter for easy and reliable solo play.
Stamina Arcanist
There is very little wrong when it comes to the Stamina Arcanist—which is why it deserves an S rating. This is because you have the upsides of what the Magicka variant could do, on top of being able to wear heavier armor and with the benefits of a larger Stamina pool. If you go the medium armor route, the critical attacks with your green kamahama will be plentiful while your critical heals will be equally as impactful for keeping you alive, and you’re going to have a lot of heals.
Meanwhile, passives like the ‘Psychic Lesion’ allow for an easy way to greatly increase the chance to generate a status effect off magical damage, while also increasing the damage of those effects. You will also have numerous ways to generate barriers on top of heals with morphs like your green beam’s ‘Pragmatic Fatecarver’ that reduces the magicka cost while generating a damage shield while you channel big damage.
One of the only real downsides of this class build is the reliance on said channeled beam of death and how, if you’re solo, you will likely need to cancel it early and often to block and dodge. That said, the Stamina Archanist’s ability to keep resources maintained, shields for damage mitigation, and big crit heals for survivability all while dealing best-in-class damage makes this a no-brainer for solo play.
Magicka Nightblade
Coming in at an S-, the Magicka Nightblade shares a good deal in common with its Stamina counterpart. Especially in that it can be a difficult class with a difficult rotation, however, that is the extent of this class’s downsides. Because we’re talking Magicka Nightblade here with a larger Magicka pool, ability morphs like ‘Impale’ can be used at range, while other skills like teleport strike’s morph ‘Lotus Fan’ gets an area of effect damage over time.
Because of the focus on Magicka this time around, Nightblades have better sustain, more range, and arguably more damage in the right scenarios. There is also the ‘Soul Harvest’ Ultimate morph that helps generate 10 Ultimate for each enemy killed on a 70 Ultimate cost, making this build one of the best for Ultimate generation and use as long as its slotted.
The rotations can still be complex with the need to weave in light and heavy attacks for potentially keeping your Magicka resource topped off, but the other upsides help elevate this class to one of the best for solo play.
Magicka Arcanist
It shouldn’t be too much of a surprise to discover that the Magicka and Stamina Arcanist both represent some of the best solo play available. As such they both have found a spot on the S Tier, with the Magicka variant earning an S-. Now, as the Magicka variant, the smaller stamina pool may make things a bit more difficult when bashing, dodging, and blocking are so important for survival when playing by yourself.
That said, you can still play range, melee, or a combination of the two with equal effectiveness while still making use of some stamina skills for very effective hybrid play as long as your resources hold out. Wearing light armor to keep a high Magicka pool may also hinder defenses compared to the Stamina build’s medium or heavy armor options. Beyond those minor drawbacks, the Arcanist kit is ridiculously effective for solo play and really can do it all. That said, it’s likely many of ESO’s millions of players will gravitate toward this new class.
A Tier
Stamina Templar
When it comes to hybrid play and the ease of solo play, Stamina Templar may be one of the best options for new players. Additionally, your Biting Jabs skill is going to be your best friend with its area of effect damage and even stronger single target damage. Moreover, the Stam Templar also offers lots of easy survivability thanks to access to hybrid skills like Carve, Vigor from other skill lines. While Living Dark and Extended Ritual from Templar skills will keep your health up and bad conditions cleansed.
One of the main issues though with the Stamina Templar is that you’re incentivized to play at melee range. This can be difficult and not something that ranged users have to deal with as much. So, while Stamina Templar is easy to play, the melee dominance makes it less than ideal for a class that is easy to play in other ways. Hence why this class gets only a high A+.
At the end of the day, ESO’s companions can always help make up for your class’s downsides. Personally, I like companions enough to have the confidence to claim they’re a key part of ESO solo play.
Magicka Sorcerer
Like the Stam Sorcerer, the Magicka Sorcerer does very well on their own since they can rely on Critical Surge for damage and healing. Beyond that, a Magicka Sorc also has full and easy access to the class’s Daedric Summons that can help bolster damage and even more healing. Skills like the ‘Empowered Ward’ morph are going to be an easy way to help survivability with how it can shield you and your summons.
You should have an easier time managing your resources as well with some hybrid skill setups into Stamina territory. It’s the better resource management, double summons, and Critical Surge for damage and healing that propels this class to an A+ spot. If pets weren’t as required as they are, however, then Magicka Sorcerer could have been higher. If you’re on PC or next-gen consoles, you’ll likely enjoy how this class lights up the ESO’s gorgeous environments.
Magicka Dragonknight
As mentioned with the Stamina Dragonknight, the Magicka Dragonknight does what the stamina variant can, but better without the stamina-focused drawbacks. For example, the magicka variant morphs of your Ardent Flame skills are going to synergize very well with one another by doing more damage, making the enemy take more damage and even healing you while also stunning the enemy. If you do use some stamina morphs of certain skills, you will need to be careful of your stamina management as blocking and dodging are still important to a Dragonknight’s toolkit.
The only other drawback to this class build, is that it can be very gear reliant. Without the best sets and mythic items, resource management may be a bigger hurdle than normal and hold back either your damage or survivability somewhat. Still, Dragonknight will be fun to play if you like big damage over time numbers and lots of fire.
Stamina Sorcerer
The Stamina Sorcerer is certainly one of the more unique classes to play as due to a very specific skill morph. The morph in question is ‘Critical Surge’ from the ‘Surge’ skill and it not only gives you a 20% spell and weapon bonus, and while active, dealing a critical strike heals you for a substantial amount of health every one second. If it weren’t for this particular morph, this class wouldn’t be in the A- spot that it is. Not only will you heal from crits, but you’ll be fast too with morphs like ‘Hurricane’ for the ‘Lightning Form’ skill.
That said, with a build like this you’ll need to specialize into committing toward single target or area of effect damage. Because mixing into both will likely only weaken the other, especially without as many summons. Still, this is one of the more memorable builds and can be fun regardless.
B Tier
Stamina Warden
Clocking in at somewhere around a B+, the stam Warden is fairly competent in its own right. You’ll be a pet focused build utilizing a lot of the Animal Companions tree for full effect, but what’s there will ensure consistent damage output without running out of stamina too quickly. You’ll even be able to use some magicka skills as part of your rotation for extra healing or defense.
That said, I hope you like using the ‘Wild Guardian’ ultimate and only that ultimate, because that’s where a good chunk of damage is going to come from. Using anything else just doesn’t synergize as well with the class’s passives. You’ll also still need to heavily invest in stamina, potentially making you a bit squishy, at least your healing will be above average.
Magicka Necromancer
I struggled putting the mag Necro in B tier, but the class’s Bone Goliath ultimate won me over. This is because you can stack health which not only scales with the ultimate, but also Death Scythe and its morphs, meaning you have survivability and healing taken care of between those two. Additionally, the passive ‘Resuable Parts’ in the Grave Lords tree will make the use of ‘Blastbones’, ‘Skeletal Mage’, and ‘Spirit Mender’ up to 50% cheaper to cast.
That said, building for health and magicka will likely not be enough to ensure you won’t run into issues where you run out of magicka. From there, specking into more resource generation will only hurt health and/or damage without the right set(s) equipped.
Stamina Necromancer
The stam Necromancer is a lot like the magicka variant in that the Bone Goliath transformation, Death Scythe skill and building for health will work fairly well. Where the stamina Necromancer fairs just a bit better is in the low cost of its stamina variant abilities in the Grave Lord skill tree. Especially with how cheap the ‘Reusable Parts’ passive will make skills like the stamina variant of ‘Blastbones’.
Even if you only put half your points into stamina, you’ll still be able to use a few magicka-based spells in between your normal rotation. The complexity of this class’s rotation though is the reason it’s not being placed any higher than B tier. Especially with skills like the ‘Venom Skull’ morph allowing other Necromancer abilities to count toward its 3rd cast dealing more damage.
C Tier
Magicka Warden
The magicka Warden sadly ends up on the C tier for a variety of reasons that stem from not being able to do everything that it needs to without sacrificing other aspects of their build. It’s certainly a fun class in general, but the magicka sustain is going to be difficult without sacrificing health and/or damage.
You can get some natural resource sustain by using the Blue Betty (Betty Natch) morph. Especially when combined with the Flourish passive that boosts your magicka and stamina regen by 12% when an animal companion ability is slotted. However, at that point, you might as well play a hybrid Warden or stamina Warden which will have naturally higher damage. At least this particular class really nails that ice and frost identity when using an Ice staff.
Stamina Dragonknight
This class is C tier for the primary reason being that you essentially need to play it hybrid to some degree. This is because while magicka Dragonknight has quite a few powerful damage over time skills while still being able to stay alive with spells like the Ash Cloud morph Cinder Storm. Stam Dragonknight’s don’t have that luxury when so many of those useful defensive and healing skills cost between 4k and 6k Magicka per cast.
Thankfully, the stamina morphs in the Ardent Flame skill tree are very effective at racking up mind-boggling amounts of damage over time. It just takes longer than I would like to get to the point in my rotation where those numbers begin to show, all while not being able to heal myself as much as my resources could handle
Stamina Nightblade
C tier might be an odd place to find the stamina Nightblade, hell, even I found it a very high C++. That said, while what it does is very good, it’s lacking just enough to hold it back from being much higher. What the stam Nightblade does well is incredible single target burst damage while also maintaining a good hold on resource use and generation—meaning hybridization isn’t as required as other classes. Ultimate generation is quite excellent as well.
Where the class falters are within their ability to self-heal and their complexity. It’s hard to recommend to new players due to how squishy the class can be and how difficult it can be to stay healed if you aren’t weaving in lots of light or heavy attacks thanks to abilities like Siphoning Strikes morph ‘Leeching Strikes’. In the hands of a pro with equally proficient gear, this class could be in a higher tier for solo play, but as is, remains lower.
Ultimately, all of the class builds listed here are still viable in a variety of ways and can be fun regardless of where they have been placed. So, enjoy what you want to enjoy because ESO has a bright future regardless of what you play as!
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