ESO Magicka Necromancer PvE Build

This guide explains how to use the best Elder Scrolls Online (ESO) Magicka Necromancer PvE Build, skills, gear, champion points, and more!

This build has been updated for the Updated 42, the Gold Road Chapter of the Elder Scrolls Online (ESO).

Why Should You Play the ESO Magicka Necromancer PVE Build?

The ESO Magicka Necromancer PVE build is for players looking to complete group content with a well-rounded class. Firstly, the build shines in both single-target and AoE attacks, but it is performing slightly weaker than the Stamina Necromancer this patch. The Necro rotation can be challenging for beginners compared to other classes because some of their moves depend on corpses on the ground and keeping buffs up, but it is definitely doable.

The ESO Magicka Necromancer PVE Build Playstyle

Use the following rotation as the starter point. After, apply your buffs and cast the DoT skills on cooldown for the best, highest DPS. In total, the Damage over Time skills (DoTs) do more damage than your main spammable. Thus, they need to be cast less often and are easier to maintain, for example, The Degeneration from Mages Guild or the Barb Trap from Fighters Guild. Maintain DoTs and use your spammable skill as filler until you need to reapply the DoTS.

Healing

Use the healing skill when your health drops below 50% or the shield skill when you anticipate damage. Also, always use the suggested food and potions as they significantly increase your damage, survivability, and resource sustain.

If you run out of resources, do a heavy attack and return to your rotation. Remember that a heavy attack on off-balance enemies will return double the resources.

ESO Magicka Necromancer PvE Build Features and Mechanics

Below are some of the features found using the PvE Magicka Necromancer in the Elder Scrolls Online:

• Class – Necromancer
• Weapon One – Dual Wield
• Weapon Two – Flame Staff
• Armor Types: 6 Medium, 1 Light
• Mythic: Velothi Ur-Mage’s Amulet
• Race: Dark Elf
• Attributes: 64 Magicka
• Mundus Stone: Thief
• Best Grimoires: Ulfsild’s Contingency, Traveling Knife

Skills

Front Bar – Dual Wield

Front Bar Weapon Style Choices:

1. Dual Wield
2. Flame Staff
3. Lighting Staff

Grave Lords Sacrifice (Morph of Blastbones | Skill Line : Grave Lord) – 15% increase in damage done with class abilities and damage over time effects for 20 seconds.

Ricochet Skull (Morph of Flame Skull | Skill Line : Grave Lord) – Our ranged main spammable ability.

Deadly Cloak (Morph of Blade Cloak | Skill Line : Dual Wield) – Reduces damage from AoE and deals AoE in return.

Detonating Siphon (Morph of Shocking Siphon | Skill Line : Grave Lord) – Uses a corpse for crazy AoE DoT.

Camouflaged Hunter (Morph of Expert Hunter | Skill Line : Fighters Guild) – Use for critical damage buff and minor berserker.

Flawless Dawnbreaker (Morph of Dawnbreaker | Skill Line : Fighters Guild) – Reworked in latest update to give spell damage of 300 for 20 seconds and passive spell damage of 3% for slotting on our spammable bar.

Back Bar – Fire Staff

Back bar options:

1. Inferno Staff
2. Lighting Staff
3. Two Handed

Unnerving Boneyard (Morph of Boneyard | Skill Line : Grave Lord) – Damage over time that also debuffs mobs resistances.

Blockade of Fire (Morph of Wall of Elements | Skill Line : Destruction Staff) – AoE deals magic damage plus additional effect depending on type of staff

Skeletal Arcanist (Morph of Skeletal Mage | Skill Line : Grave Lord) – Summons skeleton mage for 20 seconds. Deals AoE shock damage to nearby enemies.

Anti Cavalry Caltrops (Morph of Caltrops | Skill Line : Assault) – Causes physical damage, movement reduction, and stamina drain.

Camouflaged Hunter (Morph of Expert Hunter | Skill Line : Fighters Guild) – Can be used as a flex spot for Resistant Flesh or Mortal Coil for a heal.

Glacial Colossus (Morph of Frozen Colossus | Skill Line : Grave Lord) – Colossus summon deals Frost damage in three smashes, and stuns enemies for 4 seconds in final blow. Also applies Major Vulnerability to all enemies hit for 17 seconds.

Scribing Skills – ESO PvE Magicka Necromancer Build

The best grimoires for a Magicka Necromancer PvE build are Ulfsild’s Contingency and Traveling Knife. Contingency gives you a large radius burst of damage as well as a long DoT. Setting Contingency up with Flame damage modifiers gives you the greatest dps increase for aoe fights, but this skill isn’t really worth using in more single target encounters. Traveling Knife is another great grimoire for the Necro that does great damage. Below are the suggested combination of Grimoires, focus, signature, and affix scripts:

• Ulfsild’s Contingency: Flame Damage (Focus Script), Lingering Torment (Signature Script), Minor Vulnerability (Affix Script)
• Traveling Knife: Bloody (Focus Script), Warrior’s Opportunity (Signature Script), Major Savagery/Prophecy (Affix Script)

The Scribing System utilizes one of 11 new skills from the Gold Road Chapter called Grimoires. With Grimoires, you can customize spells via Scripts. The scribing feature requires the purchase of the Gold Road Chapter (sponsored link). If you wish to know more about Scribing, check out our full guide here.

Rotation and Parse

The new necromancer is going to take some time getting used to. With the major rework of Blastbones, Grave Lord’s Sacrifice now buffs your class abilities and DoTs by 15% for 20 seconds, instead of being a skill you need to recast the skeleton every third skill. There was also an extra AOE added to the skill, causing your third Flame Skull cast to deal its damage in an area around your target. Because of this, Flame Skull is a pretty solid spammable.

While Magicka Necromancer is definitely a viable option, Stamina Necro will likely outperform it in AOE situations because of the changes made to disease and Venom Skull, but we’ll address those strengths later. Grave Lord’s Sacrifice just doesn’t do as much damage as Blighted Blastbones, but you will likely want to switch to Stamina if you’re running that skill anyway.

As a rotation, you can pre-buff a fight with Skeletal Arcanist, and Deadly Cloak, then you’ll want to press Grave Lord’s Sacrifice as soon as you enter combat. Unfortunately, you cannot cast this skill outside of combat. Then you’ll Bar Swap>Colossus>Elemental Blockade>Bar Swap>Detonating Siphon>Bar Swap>Unnerving Boneyard>Anti-Cavalry Caltrops>Bar Swap>then spam Ricochet Skull until you need to start applying DoTs again. If you end up needing more AOE damage or sustain, you can also cast Detonating Siphon early, as you get corpses to consume.

Passives Skills

Below are the lines of the passive skill that add power without requiring a skill slot while playing the ESO PvE Magicka Necromancer Build. Consider taking all the skill passives in the skill tree listed below:

• Bone Tyrant  (class skill line)
• ‎Grave Lord (class skill line)
• Living Death (class skill line)
• Dual Wield (weapon skill line)
• Destruction Staff (weapon skill line)
• Light Armor
• Medium Armor
• Undaunted
• Fight’s Guild
• Racial
• Alliance War Support
• Alliance War Assault
• Crafting, Alchemy Medicinal Use

Gear – Best in Slot

The gear chart below represents the best gear for ESO Pve Magicka Necromancer Build:

Slot	Type	Set	Trait	Glyph
Head	Medium	Aegis Caller	Divines	Magicka
Shoulders	Light	Slimecraw	Divines	Magicka
Chest	Medium	Perfected Ansuul’s Torment	Divines	Magicka
Legs	Medium	Perfected Ansuul’s Torment	Divines	Magicka
Gloves	Medium	Perfected Ansuul’s Torment	Divines	Magicka
Boots	Medium	Perfected Ansuul’s Torment	Divines	Magicka
Belt	Medium	Perfected Ansuul’s Torment	Divines	Magicka
Weapon One	Dagger	Aegis Caller	Charged	Fire
Secondary	Dagger	Aegis Caller	Charged	Poison
Weapon Two	Flame Staff	Perfected Crushing Wall	Infused	Weapon Damage
Necklace		Velothi Ur-Mage’s Amulet	Bloodthirsty	Weapon/Spell Damage
Ring 1		Aegis Caller	Bloodthirsty	Weapon/Spell Damage
Ring 2		Aegis Caller	Bloodthirsty	Weapon/Spell Damage

Magicka and stamina builds will run similar gear setups, including medium armor. Medium is more robust in trials due to the passive bonuses. If you don’t play with a coordinated trials team, you can swap to Light. However, it will suffer overall damage loss.

Monster Helms and Mythic

Velothi Ur-Mages Amulet: Mythic item requiring the Antiquies system and Necrom Chapter. Requires five leads; find them here. Incredibly strong passive damage in the current meta.

Slimecraw: Obtained in Wayrest Sewers I Veteran dungeon and Maj Undaunted Vendor. Gives us the highest critical chance for a one-piece item.

FLEX OPTIONS

1. Harpooner’s Wading Kilt Set = Great mythic if avoiding damage and can keep the stacks up.
2. Mora’s Whisper = This provides up to 10% critical chance but requires collections of Mages Guild Books on your specific character.
3. Death Dealer’s Fete = Is a great option because it boosts max stats with zero downsides.

Gear Sets

Aegis Caller: Dungeon set that drops in Unhallowed Grave, Harrowstorm DLC. Passive Bleed damage and good bonuses for martial melee build.

Perfected Ansuul’s Torment: Obtained in Sanity’s Edge, Necrom Chapter Trial. It is the best overall damage-dealing set that comes in medium armor. If you struggle with resources, you can swap to a light armor setup but it will be less damage.

Perfected Crushing Wall: From Veteran Maelstrom Arena in Orsinium. Increase your overall DPS due to the ability of the wall of elements and more damage.

FLEX OPTIONS

1. Pillar of Nirn: Obtained in Falkreath Hold dungeon, Horns of the Reach DLC.
2. Perfect Whorl of the Depths: Trial set found in Dreadsail Reef, High Isle chapter.
3. Kinra’s Wrath = Dungeon set that drops in Black Drake Villa, Flames of Ambition DLC.
4. Perfected Arms of Relequen = the bust pure damage set in the game.
5. Perfected Coral Riptide = god tier damage if you run low stamina (dodge roll a bit before pull)
6. Order’s Wrath = great craftable option though watch for too much critical damage (125% cap)
7. Leviathan = easy base game dungeon set with high critical

Gear – Beginner

This setup is great for beginners who do not have access to trials gear

Slot	Type	Set	Trait	Glyph
Head	Light	Withered Hand	Divines	Magicka
Shoulders	Light	Withered Hand	Divines	Magicka
Chest	Light	Mother’s Sorrow	Divines	Magicka
Legs	Light	Mother’s Sorrow	Divines	Magicka
Gloves	Light	Mother’s Sorrow	Divines	Magicka
Boots	Light	Mother’s Sorrow	Divines	Magicka
Belt	Light	Mother’s Sorrow	Divines	Magicka
Weapon One	Dagger	Trainee or Willpower	Precise or Sharpened	Flame
Secondary	Dagger	Trainee or Willpower	Precise or Sharpened	Poison
Weapon Two	Inferno Staff	Trainee or Willpower	Infused	Weapon Damage
Necklace		Withered Hand	Arcane	Magicka Recovery
Ring 1		Withered Hand	Arcane	Spell Power
Ring 2		Withered Hand	Arcane	Spell Power

• Withered Hand: obtained in Alik’r Desert overland  or from guild traders (delves, dolmans, world bosses, chest). WHY? If you’re new player, low champion points and lack trials gear, this gives great sustain and healing when killing mobs and is ideal for a newer player.
• Mother’s Sorrow: obtained in overland zone Deshaan or from guild traders (delves, dolmans, world bosses, chest). WHY? easy to obtain and works well at every stage of the game including end game trials!
• Willpower: obtained in Imperial City keys or dungeon finder rewards or on guild traders. Great two piece bonus.

Race

The best racial choice for the ESO Magicka Necromancer PvE Build is below:

1. Dark Elf: Gain max magicka, stamina, and weapon and spell damage. The flame resistance is also helpful and considered the strongest overall PVE DPS race.
2. Khajiit: This race gets recovery, max stats, and critical damage and healing. Consider the Khajiit a great option if you aren’t over the critical cap of 125%.
3. High Elf: Gain resource sustain passive, max magicka, and weapon and spell damage. The downside of High Elf is a lack of stamina or flame resistance.

Attributes

The best choice for slotting Attribute points is 64 magicka, which increases damage, healing, and shields.

Mundus Stone

The Thief is the best Mundus Stone for PvE Builds because it gives Increases Weapon and Spell Critical Strike a chance.

Champion Points – ESO PvE Magicka Necromancer Build

Craft	Warfare	Fitness
Treasure Hunter	Fighting Finesse	Siphoning Spells
Liquid Efficiency	Deadly Aim	Boundless Vitality
Rationer	Master-at-Arms	Rejuvenation
Steed’s Blessing	Wrathful Strikes	Fortified

Warfare Constellation Champion Points

Below is a step-by-step method for slotting your champion points in the Warfare tree (blue).  We have used the minimum possible to reach 4 slottable selections all maxed out.  If you have more CP, consider taking more in the passives for optimal performance.

Below are recommended Warfare Champion Point selections for the ESO Magicka Necromancer PvE Build:

1. Precision 10
2. Wrathful Strikes (slottable) 50
3. Fighting Finesse (slottable) 50
4. Extended Might – sub constellation – piercing 10
5. Deadly Aim (slottable) 50
6. Master – at- Arms (slottable) 50

This would be the bare minimum setup, spending 220 CP (660 total required). The next step is to max out passives, that do not require a slottable but increase performance.

1. Precision 10
2. Piercing 10
3. Tireless discipline 20
4. Eldritch insight 20
5. Blessed 20
6. Quick recovery 20
7. Flawless ritual 40
8. War mage 30
9. Battle mastery 40
10. Mighty 30
11. Elemental aegis 20
12. Hardy 20
13. Preparation 20

This would max out the Warfare tree with all active and passive champion points at 520 spent 1,560 total spent.

Fitness Constellation Champion Points

Below are recommended Fitness Champion Point selections for the ESO Magicka Necromancer PvE Build:

1. Fortified (slottable) 50
2. Boundless vitality (slottable) 50
3. Rejuvenation (slottable) 50
4. Sprinter 10
5. Winder chaser – sub con – hasty 8
6. Hero’s Vigor 10
7. Siphoning Spells (slottable) 50

This would be the bare minimum setup, spending 228 CP (684 total required). The next step is to max out passives, that do not require a slottable but increase performance. 

1. Hero’s Vigor 10
2. Tumbling 30
3. Sprinter 10
4. Defiance 20
5. Hasty 8
6. Tireless guardian 20
7. Fortification 30
8. Nimble 6
9. Mystic tenacity 50
10. Tempered soul 50
11. Piercing gaze 30
12. Savage defense  30
13. Bashing brutality 20

This would max out the fitness tree with all active passive champion points at 542 cp spent and 1,626 total spent.

Craft Constellation Champion Points

Below are recommended Craft Champion Point selections for the ESO Magicka Necromancer PvE Build:

1. Steed’s blessing (slottable) – 50
2. Breakfall 10 
3. Wanderer 15
4. Steadfast 10
5. Treasure hunter 50 (slottable)
6. rationer (slottable) 30
7. liquid effiency (slottable) 75

This would be the bare minimum setup, spending 240CP (720 total required). The next step is to max out passives, that do not require a slottable but increase performance.

1. Steadfast enchantment 40cp
2. Breakfall 40 cp
3. Wanderer 60
4. Fortunes favor 50
5. Friends in low places 25
6. Out of sight 30
7. Fleet of phantom 40
8. Soul’s Reservoir 33
9. Gilded fingers 50
10. Fortunes favor 40
11. Inspiration boost 45
12. Infamous 30

This would max out the crafting tree with all active passive champion points at 723 cp spent 2,169 total spent

Consumables

The best consumables for the Magicka Necromancer PvE build are Mistral Banana-Bunny Hash and Essence of Health tri-stat potions. Mistral Banana-Bunny Hash gives a massive amount of health and magicka, stats that give you both the most survivability and damage of any other consumable. Arcanists have very good sustain. If you struggle with magicka sustain, you could switch to Clockwork Citrus Filet or Witchmother’s Potent Brew, giving up some magicka and health for magicka sustain.

For your potions, both of your major weapon/spell damage and critical chance buffs are sourced through the build, so you can run tri-pots. This gives you a large burst of resources when you need them. You can of course switch these out for heroism potions, but with Update 42, many groups can source Minor Heroism through group scribing skills instead.

• Mistral Banana-Bunny Hash: Increase Max Health by 5395 and Max Magicka by 4936 for 1.5 Hours. Ingredients: Bananas (1), Seasoning (1), Small Game (1).
  • Clockwork Citrus Filet: Increase Max Health by 3326, Health Recovery by 406, Max Magicka by 3080, and Magicka Recovery by 338 for 2 hours. Ingredients: Frost Mirriam (1), Lemon (1), Perfect Roe (1), Red Meat (1).
• Essence of Health (tri-stat): Restore 7329 Health, 6618 Magicka, and 6618 Stamina immediately. Grants Major Fortitude, Major Intellect, and Major Endurance, which increase your Health Recovery, Magicka Recovery, and Stamina Recovery by 20% for 31.7 seconds. (effects are scaled based on your level) Ingredients: Bugloss, Columbine, Mountain Flower.

Build Summary – ESO PvE Magicka Necromancer

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