ESO: Necromancer Bashcro DPS PvE Build (Deadlands)

Image: ZeniMax Online Studios via HGG / Angus Green

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 Ashley Johnson

Let’s be frank — this build shouldn’t work as well as it does. The Bashcro was a briefly hated build in PVP, but its viability in Deadlands as a PVE build is wild. It is gimmicky, but I was surprised to find that it outperformed some of my other DPS builds.

This build offers a lot of AOE damage. I was hitting 50K DPS on a single target, and easily getting above 100K against groups of enemies. It’s hard to keep the numbers up during extended fights since bashing eats through your stamina, but the satisfaction of slamming down your enemies makes this easy to look past.

In this week’s build guide, we’ll be taking a look at the Bashcro as a PVE DPS. We’ll cover the skills, sets, and Champion Points you need for a solid build. Let’s get started!

Related reading: Best DPS Builds in ESO

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Unabashed Bashing Build (Bashcro)

The Deadlands Demolisher

Race: Imperial (if Imperial unavailable: Dark Elf) | Mundus: Thief or Serpent | Food: Best Option – Lava Foot Soup-And-Saltrice (4575 stamina, 457 stamina recovery), or Cheaper Option – Garlic Cod with Potato Crust or equivalent (5395 health, 4936 stamina) | Potion: Tri-pots or Essence of Weapon Power | Attributes: 64 Stamina

You’ll get the most mileage out of the Bashcro by smacking down some enemies and then moving onto another group while letting your stamina recover. The build won’t work as well if you’re constantly attacking, so keep that in mind!

Imperial is the best race for this build hands down, mainly due to their 6% reduction of all skill costs. This includes bashing, which makes the build more sustainable. You also get 2000 extra stamina, which means three more bashes by the time you use up the resource. If you don’t have Imperial available, any race with stamina bonuses will do nicely, such as the Dark Elf. 

Skills

Bashes work slightly differently than light attacks, as you can fire them off much faster. You’ll get some solid DPS as you increase the damage of your spammable bashes. I was averaging 25–30K on single targets just by walking up and bashing them, but you can exceed 50K if you set it up with your other skills. This is even without Pummeling Goliath active!

The delays on Blighted Blastbones and Endless Hail (2.5 and 2 seconds, respectively) make them easy to pop on enemies at the same time. Place Unnerving Boneyard just before the other two start dealing damage to get the Major Breach / Fracture debuff, reducing their resistances by 5948. Once this is set in motion, just lay down the bashes and let the build do the rest. Bashing can critically strike, so the Thief mundus is usually best, but you can go for Serpent if you need more stamina recovery.

You won’t be able to recover stamina while blocking (and thus bashing), but you’ll recover between fights more quickly. Mortal Coil should allow you enough stamina recovery by siphoning stamina away from corpses. Activating Pummeling Goliath will skyrocket your DPS, increasing your bash damage by 1799 while also letting your bashes hit multiple enemies. The 30K bonus health for 20s isn’t bad, either.

There are a couple definitive musts for this build. First and foremost is enchanting your three pieces of jewelry with glyphs of bashing. This will increase your bash damage by 500 each. If you change the jewelry trait to infused, you’ll get 60% more potent glyphs, changing them to 800. All in all, you’ll be getting 1500 more damage with each bash (or 2400 with all infused). This is going to add up.

Transmuting each piece will cost you 50 transmutes though, so if that isn’t feasible for you, keep them at their original trait. Another very important thing is to make sure you’re wearing heavy armor. For each heavy piece of armor you wear, your bash will deal 3% more damage, to a total of 21%.

With that out of the way, let’s get into the actual build.

Build

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

Deadlands Demolisher (crafted in the Deadlands) is the bread and butter of this set, increasing your bashing potential by a large margin. Each bash will deal 935 more damage, and when you bash, you’ll deal 6315 physical damage in a cone in front of you that can activate every two seconds. This conal AOE interrupts enemies and also counts as bash damage. This is a crafted set, so be sure to enchant these body pieces with stamina glyphs so you can bash to your heart’s content.

Veiled Heritance (from Auridon) will increase bashing damage by 516. When you interrupt an enemy, you also gain 516 weapon and spell damage. With Deadlands Demolisher providing an interrupt every two seconds with its AOE bash, it will be almost too easy to activate this set. 

For a monster set, I like Stormfist (from Tempest Island) the most, but you can honestly go for anything that fits your playstyle. Stormfist provides 129 stamina recovery, which is great for recovering between fights. The proc from this set has a 10% chance to occur from dealing any damage, where a huge stonefist shoots out of the ground smashing enemies. It deals 900 shock damage for three seconds upon proccing, and finishes with a 14K physical damage burst, all of which is AOE. 

For a backbar set, I opted for the Maelstrom’s Bow: Thunderous Volley, as it deals consistent damage and provides you with great glyph procs. For more damage, you should enchant it with Poison. I prefer to use an Absorb Stamina glyph for more sustain, giving me stamina back consistently while enemies are taking damage from my Endless Volley. 

Champion points are also a very important factor in getting good bashing damage as well as sustain. Be sure to take the ones listed below!

Champion Points

Essentials Slottables in Order:

Warfare: 50 Master-at-Arms, 50 Deadly Aim, 50 Biting Aura, 50 Fighting Finesse

Fitness: 50 Boundless Vitality, 50 Ironclad, 50 Rejuvenation, 50 Bloody Renewal

*Important Bash Passives: 20 Bashing Brutality (increases bashing damage by 120), 20 Tireless Guardian (reduce cost of block by 40), 30 Savage Defense (reduces cost of bash by 90), 6 Nimble Protector (increases movement speed while bracing by 6%)

Craft: 50 Steed’s Blessing, 50 Treasure Hunter, 75 Liquid Efficiency, 30 Rationer

Join the High Ground

That’s it for our Deadlands Bashcro build — thanks for reading! I hope you enjoy this fun and bizarrely functional build as much as I did. Comment if you find any other bizarre ways to boost your bashing damage up even further, as I would love to try them myself. For the latest on ESO and your other favorite games, follow us on social media and subscribe to our newsletter. 

Happy gaming!