ESO | The Best Necromancer Solo Builds

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Human Made

Penned by Angus Green

Angus is our resident Elder Scrolls Online specialist. He lives in Eugene and is a teacher by day.

Reviewed by Benjamin Barr

Soloing in the Flames of Ambition patch on a Necromancer feels very manageable and effective given the large range of skills the Necromancer can take advantage of to excel in any difficulty of Solo play. Even ESO’s most difficult solo content like Veteran Arenas are manageable with these builds and some practice.

Related guides: Best Group PvE Necromancer Builds, Best PvP Necromancer Builds, Best Races for the Necromancer Class

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The Best Necromancer PvE Builds for Solo Content

The Magicka Necromancer below focuses on dealing high amounts of damage and crushing enemies before they have a chance to deal damage. The Stamina Necromancer focuses instead on high survivability with massive AOE damage and large shields gained from those damaging abilities. Both builds can be used efficiently for all solo content, but the Stamcro shines the brightest when overwhelmed by enemies. 

Solo Magcro (Magicka DPS Build)

Race: Khajiit (Dark Elf or High Elf) | Mundus: Thief  | Food: Solitude Salmon Millet Soup or equivalent (5395 health, 4936 magicka), and Bewitched Sugar Skulls is a more expensive option for better survivability with more recovery (4620 health, 4250 magicka/stamina, and 462 health recovery) | Attributes: 64 Magicka

Soloing content as a Magicka Necromancer requires using various skill lines to ensure we get the buffs we need and be able to debuff our enemies to take them down with ease. Magcros are very strong and can use many class abilities to make Solo play manageable and straightforward.

We suggest using the Khajiit for this Solo Magcro, as you will gain great benefit from having 915 extra health, stamina, and magicka along with 100 health recovery, and 85 stamina/magicka recovery built into your character. The extra 12% critical damage and healing never hurts either, helping you to burst down opponents as well and shoot your health back up to full when you need to. Both Dark Elf and High Elf can make great Solo Magcros as well, providing them with great magicka passives. 

Skills

When soloing content with your Magicka Necromancer, you’ll want to make sure that you have your summons up at all time, and that you have Summoner’s Armor active before you recast them. This will help manage your magicka as Summoner’s Armor reduces Necromancer summon costs by 15%, and that includes Blastbones as well. Avid Boneyard, Stalking Blastbones, and Ricochet Skulls’ third cast that causes it to bounce to two other nearby enemies will help you clear out groups of enemies quickly.

Depending upon how dangerous a situation is, using Glacial Colossus can speed up your damage and get you out of it quicker, but sometimes you will need to use Ravenous Goliath for that extra 30,000 health it grants you immediately to easily avoid a near-death situation. 

Armor & Weapons Build (5 light – 1 medium – 1 heavy)

Easy starting set alternative: 5 Law of Julianos (craftable), 5 Mother’s Sorrow (from Deshaan), 2 Monster Set / Willpower Set

The sets we will use for our Solo Magcro start off with Burning Spellweave (from City of Ash) for its great additional damage. This set gives you 1096 magicka, 129 spell damage, and 657 spell critical and its 5 piece bonus is an extra 490 spell damage for 8 seconds when you deal damage with a flame damage ability. Luckily our Ricochet Skull and Stalking Blastbones will serve as this fire damage ability source, so the uptime should be great for it except for the 4 seconds before it can proc again after you’ve had the 8 seconds of extra damage. 

Our second set will be Medusa (from Arx Corinium) for the loads of spell critical it has to offer. The 5 piece bonus from this set gives Minor Force as well, which increases your critical damage by 10%. With this set giving 2,863 spell critical overall, it won’t be hard to get those bonuses from Minor Force. 

Instead of a full monster helm set, we’ll be using the mythic item Ring of the Pale Order (from scrying) along with one piece of Slimecraw (from Wayrest Sewers 1). Ring of the Pale Order restores 20% of the damage you deal as health, making managing your health bar very easy in Solo play. The increase is reduced by 4% for each ally you are grouped with, and you cannot be healed by anyone but yourself, so be mindful if you join a group for a daily dungeon to take off that ring while you lose your healing benefits!

Champion Points – Essentials in Order

Warfare: 20 Eldritch Insight, 20 Preparation, 20 Precision, 50 Deadly Aim (slot), 50 Biting Aura (slot), 20 Elemental Aegis, 20 Hardy, 50 Fighting Finesse (slot) , 20 Flawless Ritual, 30 War Mage, 50 Wrathful Strikes (slot), 20 Blessed

Fitness: 20 Hero’s Vigor, 50 Boundless Vitality (slot), 50 Ironclad (slot), 50 Rejuvenation (slot), 30 Tumbling, 20 Defiance, 50 Siphong Spells (slot), 30 Fortification, 20 Tireless Guardian

Craft: 50 Steed’s Blessing (slot), 75 Liquid Efficiency (slot), 30 Rationer (slot)

Solo Stamcro (Stamina DPS)

Race: Orc (Wood Elf or Khajiit) | Mundus: Thief | Food: Garlic Cod with Potato Crust or equivalent (5395 health, 4936 stamina) and Bewitched Sugar Skulls is a more expensive option for better survivability and more resources (4620 health, 4250 magicka/stamina, and 462 health recovery) | Attributes: 64 Stamina

Stamina Necromancers really lean into the great AOE options that are available to them through both their class abilities and the two handed skill tree. It feels easy to stay healthy while dealing out loads of damage on a Stamcro, and with this build it will be easy to clear content quickly and without breaking a sweat.

We suggest using an Orc for their bonus 1000 health and stamina, along with their extra 258 weapon damage, and finally the 2125 health they gain every four seconds from dealing damage. Other races that give both flat stamina bonuses along with stamina recovery work really well for this build, like Wood Elf or Khajiit. 

Skills

Soloing on a Stamina Necromancer requires you to get up close and personal with some very dangerous enemies, meaning you need to both deal high damage as well as have survivability built into your kit. Luckily with our skills, we can maintain our health easily while dealing out loads of AOE damage, and can save ourselves in a pinch with the Ravenous Goliath ultimate.

Our AOE spammable Brawler will give us large shields consistently when fighting against groups of enemies, so the Ravenous Goliath shouldn’t be necessary that often. We use Beckoning Armor to pull in enemies that would otherwise stay far away and would take up time chasing down, and doubles as additional enemies to get that Brawler shield to activate on. 

Armor & Weapons Build (All Medium)

Easy starting set alternative: 5 Hunding’s Rage (craftable), 5 Leviathan (from Crypt of Hearts), 2 Monster Set / Agility Set

As our Stamcro build is so focused on dealing out large amounts of AOE damage, no other set than the new Dagon’s Dominion (from The Cauldron) would better fit this playstyle. The 5 piece bonus adds 492 weapon damage to all of your area of effect abilities, making almost all of our major damaging abilities hit for much harder. As this set already gives 258 weapon damage and 1096 stamina, it is a great set for dealing large chunks of damage to enemies. 

Our second set is Tzogvin’s Warband (from Frostvault) which gives us great weapon critical, physical penetration, and eventually Minor Force. Each time you deal critical damage, you gain a stack of Precision which increases your weapon critical by 177 for five seconds, and at 10 stacks you also gain Minor Force, increasing your critical damage dealt by 10%. With 10 stacks you’ll have a substantial amount of extra weapon critical being 1770, which will help to maintain the continuation of getting those stacks to retain the Minor Force buff. 

Our mainhand set is (Perfected) Titanic Cleave (from Dragonstar Arena) that focuses on buffing the damage of our Brawler spammable. For each enemy within the cone AOE, the damage is increased up until a cap of 9,000. This is substantial as you will be dealing a larger amount of AOE damage consistently which will already be buffed from Dagon’s Dominion.

Our backbar set will be (Perfected) Thunderous Volley (from Maelstrom Arena) to add some additional damage over time on the ground from our Endless Hail ability. This increases the damage of Endless Hail each second, and the bonus itself increases each time to a maximum of 8 times. This means that you do not want to reset the ability too early and let it play its course as it deals increasing amounts of DPS as you lay waste to groups of enemies with it. 

Champion Points – Essentials in Order

Warfare: 20 Tireless Discipline, 20 Preparation, 20 Precision, 50 Biting Aura (slot), 50 Fighting Finesse (slot), 50 Master-at-Arms (slot), 20 Hardy, 20 Elemental Aegis, 20 Blessed, 50 Wrathful Strikes (slot), 20 Battle Mastery, 30 Mighty

Fitness: 20 Hero’s Vigor, 50 Boundless Vitality (slot), 50 Ironclad (slot), 50 Rejuvenation (slot), 30 Tumbling, 20 Defiance, 50 Bloody Renewal (slot), 30 Fortification, 20 Tireless Guardian

Craft: 50 Steed’s Blessing (slot), 75 Liquid Efficiency (slot), 30 Rationer (slot)

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