Welcome to Hack The Minotaur ‘s top 5 easiest builds for beginners in the Elder Scolls Online. These are all beginner focused builds that are very powerful and easy to play all the way from level 1 to level 50, even to some of the early CP ranks.
Stamina Warden
The Stamina Warden, specifically the the Stamina Warden bow build is very powerful and can work in both PvE and PvP.
Race Options: Wood Elf/Redguard/Khajiit
Wood Elves have an extra stamina and stamina recovery. When you do a roll dudge, you increase your speed potential damage. Redguard is another good option for sustain and cost reduction, especially for bow abilities. Khajiit is an all-around option.
Food/Drink: Dubious Camoran Throne/Bewitched Sugar Skulls
Dubious Camoran Throne increases stamina, health, and stamina recovery, and you can buy it cheap on guild traders. If you think your recovery is enough, then you can use Bewitched Sugar Skulls for the extra stats.
Mundus: The Lover/The Thief
For Mundus Stone, you can choose The Lover for the extra penetration or The Thief for the extra crit chance.
Gear Set Options: Armor of the Trainee, Shadow of the Red Mountain
For beginners, I recommend Bow of the Trainee, which comes from the starter zones, gives you lots of max stats such as Stamina, Magicka, and Health. Health will be great for your survival, and Stamina increases your damage. Warden has a lot of utility skills that cost Magicka to cast, and Bow of the Trainee increases your Magicka.
The second set you can combine with Trainee is Shadow of the Red Mountain – a medium armor set that gives you bonuses to your damage. For the 5 pieces, you can practice molten lava effect from your bow abilities, which does good damage and has a pretty cool visual effect. You can put these gear pieces in any equipment slot you want. As long as you have 5 of each set, you are going to get both bonuses, and you should have 2 slots left for any other gear you want to wear.
Important Skills
Spammable: Focused Aim, Subterranean Assault
You can use Focused Aim for some strong single target damage, and you can combine it with Subterranean Assault since they are both timed abilities. You can cast Subterranean Assault first, which has a 3-second timer, then hit Focused Aim that has a 1-second timer. Both of them hit the ememies at the same time, doing tons of damage.
Damage Over Time: Arrow Barrage, Poison Injection, Growing Swarm
You’ll want to apply these before you do any of the spammable attacks. The Arrow Barrage from the bow skill line is an AoE damage over time, and it will damage all those enemies in the area. Poison Injection is a single target damage over time, and you can save this for bosses and bigger enemies. Growing Swarm is also single target damage over time, and it has a debuff effect called Minor Vulnerability, which will be useful for groups.
Area Of Effect: Subteranean Assault, Bombard
Subteranean Assault counts as an AoE skill, and when you combine it with Bombard from the bow skill line, this does AoE damage in front of you then roots enemies in place.
Buffs: Bird of Prey, Camo Hunter, Bull Netch, Ice Fortress
For buffs, you’ll want to make sure that you are running either a Bird of Prey or Camo Hunter. You’ll also want to make sure you have Bull Netch, which is a stamina morph of the Netch skill. It gives stamina sustain and major brutality, increasing your weapon damage. Also, Ice Fortress gives Minor Protection buff, reducing your damage taken 8% for 24 seconds.
Healing: Echoing Vigor, Green Lotus, Soothing Spores
I recommend you to unlcok both the Green Lotus and Soothing Spores from the Green Balance skill line. Echoing Vigor is a useful stamina base heal over time and AoE, which allows you to heal your group member as well. However, it is a PvP Alliance war skill line, so, you have to do some PvP to unlock it.
Ultimate: Wild Guardian, Ballista, Permafrost
You’ll want to start with Wild Guardian, which arouse a bear pet to fight at your side. Keep in mind that you have to use the bear on both your front and back-up skill bar because if you only have it on one bar, the pet is going to die as as soon as your bar swap.
Sample Skill Loadout
Main Hand: Bow
1. Bombard
2. Sub Assault
3. Camo Hunter
4. Focused Aim
5. Bird of Prey
Ult: Wild Guardian
Back-up: Bow
1. Poison Injection
2. Endless Hail
3. Echoing Vigor
4. Bull Netch
5. Ice Fortress
Ult: Wild Guardian
You can run bow on both the main hand and back-up bar. Bombard is going to be a flex spot on the front bar, and it’s AoE damage focused. If you want pure single target damage for a boss, you can substitute to Growing Swarm.
Important Passives
1. Bond With Nature
2. Savage Beast
3. Flourish
4. Ranger
5. Hawk Eye
6. Maturation
7. Wind Walker
8. Dexterity
9. Agility
Passives can be very tricky in The Elder Scrolls Online when you starting out because you might not have enough skill points, and that is why I’ve tried to prooritize your most useful passives in this list.
The first three come from animal companions. Bond With Nature gives you a little of heal from your pets. Savage Beast increases your ultimate generation, and Flourish gives extra stamina and magicka recovery.
Ranger and Hawk Eye are both bow passives, reducing cost and increasing your damage.
Naturation gives 10% extra health on your character. Don’t forget to get your medium armor passives – Wind walker, Dexterity, Agility because they give extra recovery, cost reduction, weapon critical, and weapon damage.
Stamina Dragonknight
This is a good option if you want a more Melee focused play style. The build is very strong for a group PvE, even PvP.
Race Options: Orc/Dark Elf/Khajiit/Nord
Races options for this stamina Dragonknight cover most of the stamina focused races. Orc is good for extra weapon damage and health. If you choose Dark Elf, you will get extra Magicka as well as weapon damage. Khajiit gives extra ciritical, and Nord is a good option for extra resistance, health, and ultimate gen.
Food/Drink: Dubious Camoran Throne/Bi-stat: Health & Stamina/Bewitched Sugar Skulls
You can use Dubious Camoran Throne for the extra stamina recovery. The Dragonknights get sustain from their ultimates, so Bi-stat (meaning that blue quality health and stamina) food is a good option. The Bewitched Sugar Skulls is always useful.
Mundus: The Lover/The Thief
For Mundus Stone, your top two picks will be The Lover for the extra penetration and The Thief for the extra weapon critical.
Gear Set Options: Venomous Smite/ Spriggan’s Thorns Set
For gear set optons, you are going with basic Overland content that is easy to get. Venomous Smite from the Greymoor chapter is a great damage over time focused set. The Spriggan’s extra physical penetration is going to increase all of your damage, and this is a classic set for both PvE and PvP, and it is very easy to get.
Important Skills
Spammable: Stone Giant, Bloodthirst
You can get Stone Giant, which is a Dragonknight calss skill. This is upfront AoE damage and you can spam it multiple times to single target damage. Or, you can pick Bloodthirst from the dual wield skill line since you are going to be running dual wield on this setup.
Damage Over Time: Venomous Claw, Endless Hail, Poison Injection, Noxious Breath, Deadly Cloak
This is where dragonknight shines. Venomous Claw from the Ardent Flame skill line is single time damage. Since you are running bow on the back-up bar, the Endless Hail, Poison Injection, and Noxious Breath will be useful. Deadly Cloak, another one from Ardent Flame Skill line, is AoE damage over time.
Area Of Effect: Stone Giant, Noxious Breath, Steel Tornado
This build has a lot of AoE potentials. Stone Giant’s initial cast is AoE, Noxious Breath is a very strong AoE, and you will want to combine it with Steel Tornado for extra AoE and execute damage.
Buffs: Molten Armaments, Volatile Armor, Camo Hunter
Molten Armaments gives you major brutality, and Volatile Armor gives extra armor buff. I also recommend you to pick the Camo Hunter, which gives you Minor Berserk.
Healing: Echoing Vigor, Cauterize, Ring of Preservation
Cauterize is the main class heal, but it’s not that great, so I recommend you to pick Echoing Vigor or Ring of Preservation so that you can have at least two heals.
Ultimate: Standard of Might, Magma Shell
Ultimates on Stamina Dragonknight are very strong. Standard of Might does excellent AoE damage, and it also protects you and helps all your abilities do more damage. The Magma Shell is very useful for group play because it protects you and your group from damage.
Sample Skill Loadout
Main Hand: Duel Wield
1. Venomous Claw
2. Steel Tornado
3. Camo Hunter
4. Stone Giant
5. Deadly Cloak
Ult: Standard of Might
Back-up: Bow
1. Noxious Breath
2. Endless Hail
3. Echoing Vigor
4. Molten Armaments
5. Volatile Armor
Ult: Magma Shell
Important Passives
1. Battle Roar
2. Combustion
3. Mountain’s Blessing
4. Searing Heat
5. Controlled Fury
6. Twin Blade and Blunt
7. Dexterity
8. Wind Walker
9. Agility
Battle Roar gives you extra stats every time you cast your ultimate, so it’s useful for sustain. Combusion gives Stamina back to you when you apply poison to an enemy. Mountain’s Blessing gives extra weapon damage, which is unique to the Dragonknight class. Searing Heat makes your claw, breath, and damage over time effects last longer.
Controlled Fury and Twin Blade and Blunt are dual wield passives. Controlled Fury is very strong because you can get 5% extra weapon critical just by using a dagger. Also, don’t forget your medium armor passives – Dexterity, Wind walker, and Agility.
Werewolf
This build is great for solo Overland, Maelstrom Arena, or even group DPS.
Class Options: Stamina Sorcerer/Stamina Nightblade
Werewolf is a little different in that any class can technically be a werewolf, but I recommend Stamina Sorcerer and Stamina Nightblade. You can choose Stamina Sorcerer for cost reduction and increased physical damage. And for this setup, you can choose Nightblade for extra passive, health, magicka, and stamina recovery.
Race Options: Orc/Dark Elf/Imperial/Nord
This is a typical melee stamina race setup, so Orc and Dark Elf are very close to it. Imperial is going to be a good option for the increased health, stamina, and cost reduction. Also, Nord is a good for extra health and resistances.
Food/Drink: Bewitched Sugar Skulls/Tri-stat food/Dubious Camoran Throne
Food and Drink is very important for Werewolf because you use all three stat pools. Bewitched Sugar Skulls comes out ahead. You can buy it in guild traders, and it should be very cheap. The extra health recovery and max stats will be perfect for this build.
Mundus: The Lover/The Thief/The Steed
Besides The Lover or The Thief, you can choose The Steed mundus for extra movement speed and health recovery, and it is useful in content like Maelstrom Arena.
Gear Set Options: Gryphon’s Ferocity Set, Eternal Vigor Set
Werewolf builds have a lot of good gear set options. But we are going with easy to get Overland sets. In this case, you are using Gryphon’s Ferocity Set for extra movement speed and access to minor force, which you don’t get from any of your werewolf skills. Also, the Eternal Vigor set from Greymoor boosts all of your recoveries through the roof which will be useful for sustaining all of your abilities and health.
Important Skills
Spammable: Howl of Agony, Heavy Attack
Howl of Agony is the main spammable ability. Heavy Attacks hit multiple targets and they are very strong.
Damage Over Time: Claws of Life, Brutal Pounce, Light Attack
Claws of Life deals very strong AoE damage over time. With this sepcific unltimate, the Light Attacks are going to apply a bleed DoT effect, which is also strong especially on single target.
Area Of Effect: Brutal Pounce, Claws of Life, Heavy Attack
Brutal Pounce: Gap closer and applies Brutal Carnage, increasing your Weapon Damage. Claws of Life hits all targets in a pretty wide conal area. Your heavy attacks will hit multiple targets. All of these abilities combined can do very a great deal of AoE damage.
Buffs: Hircine’s Rage, Deafening Roar
Hircine’s Rage gives you major Berserk, which is 20% bonus damage though it only works when you are at full health. Deafening Roar is useful for both group and solo play becaue it can debuff all of your enemies, reducing their resistances and applying minor main that makes them do 15% less damage to you and your group.
Healing: Hircine’s Rage, Claws of Life
Hircine’s Rage can be your burst heal though it costs a lot of Magicka, so you’ll want to depend more on your Claws of Life. The more enemeies you hit, the more healing you’ll get. With your set and food buff, you have a lot of health recovery, so you are making up a lot of healing too.
Ultimate: Werewolf Berserker
Light Attacks apply a bleed, and the Heavy Attacks do Splash damage. Do you want a damage focused Werewolf setup? That’s the morph you want.
Sample Skill Loadout
Main Hand: WW
1. Deafending Roar
2. Feral Pounce
3. Hircine’s Race
4. Howl of Agony
5. Claws of Life
Ult: Werewolf Berserker
Important Passives
1. Power Stone
2. Unholy Knowledge
3. Blood Rage
4. Savage Strength
5. Pursuit
6. Call of the Pack
7. Wind Walker
8. Agility
9. Dexterity
Power Stone will reduce the cost of Werewolf transformation, and Unholy Knowledge gives you cost reduction. Blood Rage is the most important Werewolf passive in my opinion because that increases your time in werewolf form. Savage Strength is close behind that because it gives you so much weapon damage and resistances.
Also, don’t forget the Call of the Pack. This works even if you are solo because it counts you towards your transformation timer, making the transformation last longer.
Keep in mind that weapon passives don’t work while you’re in Werewolf form because you got claws not weapons, but you’ll still want those passives when you are outside the Werewolf.
Magicka Templar
This build is an all-around strong setup. It is good at DPS, solo, Healer, and PvP.
Race Options: Breton/High Elf/Dark Elf/Khajiit
If you are a new player, then Breton will be the best new player friendly race because of the extra sustain.
Food/Drink: Witchmother’s Brew/Tri-Stat Food
Witchmother’s Brew is very useful especially for new players because this gives you extra recovery. If you feel like you are sustaining well without Witchmother’s Brew, then you can use Tri-stat food, which gives you all three resource pools and more stats. So, this will be useful for PvP or soloing where you need extra stamina.
Mundus: The Lover/The Thief/The Shadow
The Lover and The Thief will be good options. But if you can get your crit chance high enough, The Shadow is very strong especially on the Templar because they already have bonus critical damage.
Gear Set Options: Winter’s Respite Set/ Crafty Alfiq Set
Sets on this build are going to provide a great mix of healing and damage potential. Winter’s Respite Set is a great new set that gives you strong stats and passive healing, which is a good combination when you mix this with Punctuing Sweep. The Crafy Afiq is a very solid damage set, which gives you more Magicka.
Important Skills
Spammable: Puncturing Sweeps, Heavy Attack
Puncturing Sweeps does damage and healing, and it is AoE. Lightning Staff heavy attacks do 100% of their damage to all enemies in an area.
Damage Over Time: Vampire’s Bane, Wall of Elements, Solar Barrage, Blazing Spear, Radiant Glory
Vampire’s Bane is a single target damage over time, which is very strong against bosses. Solar Barrage and Blazing Spear are AoE and damage over time. Radian Glory has one of the strongest executes in the game.
Area Of Effect: Puncturing Sweeps, Wall of Elements, Blazing Spear, Solar Barrage, Heavy Attack
Buffs: Cleansing Ritual, Channeled Focus, Elemental Drain, Inner Light
Cleansing Ritual is strong for PvP because it cleanses negative effects from you and your group. Channeled Focus gives a lot of defense and Magicka sustain. Elemental Drain can give even more Magicka sustain. On top of that, I recommend Inner Light from the Mages Guild for extra max Magicka and critical.
Healing: Breath of Life, Cleansing Ritual, Healing Springs, Radiating Regeneration, Combat Prayer
Breath of Life gives one of the strongest heals in the game. You’ll want to use Cleansing Ritual for the AoE healing, and I also recommed leveling up your Restoration Staff, which means you can heal very easy in a group situation such as random dungeons.
Ultimate: Crescent Sweep, Solar Prison/Disturbance, Remembrance
All the class unltimates are very strong. Crescent Sweep is a good burst ultimate for both PvE and PvP. Solar Prison/Disturbance is useful for AoE damage reduction. Remembrance is a good emergency heal, and it’s also useful for both PvP and PvE.
Sample Skill Loadout
Main Hand: Lightning Staff
1. Wall of Elements
2. Inner Light
3. Breath of Life
4. Puncturing Sweeps
5. Elemental Drain
Ult: Solar Prison/Disturbance
Back-up: Restoration Staff
1. Healing Springs
2. Blazing Spear
3. Radiating Regen
4. Cleansing Ritual
5. Channeled Focus
Ult: Remembrance
Important Passives
1. Spear Wall
2. Prism
3. Illuminate
4. Burning Light
5. Sacred Ground
6. Ecocation
7. Prodigy
8. Concentration
9. Tri-focus
10. Ancient Knowledge
Spear Wall is the best passive if you either considering solo PvE or PvP because it gives you minor protection any time you use Puncturing Sweep spammable. Prism is also useful for extra ultimates. Illuminate gives Minor Sorcery, increasing your Spell damage by 5%-10%.
Burning Light – this Templar passive can proc extra damage on your Aedric Spear abilities. Also, from the Restoring Light tree, Sacred Ground is the best passive you’ll get, which gives you Minor Mending that increases healing done by 8%.
I also recommend Evocation for the extra cost reduction, Prodigy for the extra critical, and Concentration for the spell penetration.
In terms of Destruction Staff, Tri-focus gives you extra AoE splash damage on the Lightning staff. Depending on your staff type, the Ancient Knowledge gives you extra damage done, so this will buff your AoE damage by 8%.
Pet Sorcerer
The No.1 easy build on this list is going to be Pet Sorcerer, which is made up of pet damage, passive skills, and heavy attacks.
Race Options: High Elf/Dark Elf/Khajiit/Breton
Food/Drink: Bi-stat food: Health/Magicka, Tri-stat food, Witchmother’s Brew
Sustain should not be an issue, so you can use blue quality Bi-stat food for max health and max magicka. You can also use purple Tri-stat food if you need more stamina.
Mundus: The Lover/The Shadow
For Mundus, the top two options are The Lover and The Shadow for the extra spell critical damage.
Gear Set Options: Mother’s Sorrow set, Necropotence set
You are gong to focus on critical damage and pets. For example, you can choose the Necropotence set, which is from the base game, and it gives tons of Max Magicka when you have a pet summoned. Mother’s Sorrow set is an excellent set for Magical sorcerer, and it increases spell critical changce, and crit chance on sorcerer is tied to your healing, so this is a great synergy.
Important Skills
Spammable: Heavy Attack, Force Pulse, Crystal Fragments
Just the basic heavy attack on the Lightning staff will do a ton of damage both single target and AoE, and it doesn’t cost any Magicka to cast.
If you want something more advanced, you can slot skills like Force Pulse from the Destrution staff. You can also use Crystal Fragments. Both of those do a lot of damage and can be part of a more active rotation.
Damage Over Time: Wall of Elements, Lightning Flood, Volatile Familiar, Heavy Attack
For damage over time, you can choose Wall of Elements since you are using Destruction Staff. You’ll also need Lightning Flood and Volatile Familiar for main pet damage.
Area Of Effect: Wall of Elements, Lightning Flood, Volatile Familiar, Heavy Attack
All these skills are technically AoE as well, so, you can do strong single target damage over time, and Sorcerers are excellent at clearing through multiple packs of enemies for grinding experience and ESO gold.
Buffs: Critical Surge, Boundless Storm, Inner Light, Bound Armaments, Hardened Ward
Critical Surge is going to be essential because this heals you every time you do crit damage once every 1 second. Boundless Storm gives movement speed as well as armor buff. You’ll want Inner Light for the extra spell critical and Max Magicka. Bound Armaments is another Scorcerer class skill that gives even Max Magicka, which is useful for passive pet Scorcerer play style. I also recommend a damage shield on your front bar – Hardened Ward, which grants a massive damage shield for you and your pets.
Healing: Critical Surge, Twilight Matriarch
Critical Surge gives you healing, and Twilight Matriarch will be emergency heal on the build.
Ultimate: Negate, Greater Storm Atronach, Elemental Rage
Negate is going to be very strong for group setting in both PvE and PvP. The Great Storm Atronach is recommended for solo builds, and this is another pet you can throw on the ground that lasts almost 30 seconds. So, it will do lots of damage for you while you can be doing other things like healing, roll dodging, or blocking.
Sample Skill Loadout
Main Hand: Lightning Staff
1. Inner Light
2. Familiar
3. Hardened Ward
4. Matriarch
5. Bound Armaments
Ult: Elemental Rage
Back-up: Lightning Staff
1. Wall of Elements
2. Familiar
3. Matriarch
4. Boundless Storm
5. Critical Surge
Ult: Storm Atronach
Remember that for the back-up bar, you need to have your pets slot on both bars so they don’t die right away.
Important Passives
1. Unholy Knowledge
2. Power Stone
3. Expert Summoner
4. Capacitor
5. Evocation
6. Prodigy
7. Concentration
8. Tri-Focus
9. Ancient Knowledge
Unholy Knowledge reduces the cost of all abilities. Power Stone reduces the cost of your ultimates. Expert Summoner is a very good passive that I recommend specially for soloing, and this gives bonus health when you have a pet active. Capacitor gives extra magicka recovery.
In the Light Armor Skill line, the best three are Evocation, Prodigy, and Concentration. You’ll also want to pick up Tri-focus for extra splash damage on the Lightning Staff and Ancient Knowledge for the extra 8% AoE damage.
Please read the post on MmoGah for more details about the top 5 best builds for beginners: https://www.mmogah.com/news/eso/eso-builds-top-5-best-builds-for-beginners