This guide explains how to use the best Elder Scrolls Online (ESO) One Bar PvE Magicka Templar 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 ESO One Bar PvE Magicka Templar Build?
The ESO One Bar PvE Magicka Templar build is a Heavy Attack build that relies on fully charged heavy attacks in combination with champion points, base game gear, and the Oakensoul mythic. This will destroy a parse dummy and complete veteran content with ease. We are also stacking into magicka but still using medium armor for the critical damage passives. You could technically run stamina for heavy attacking as well, but the lightning staff returns magicka with your heavy attacks, making it the overall best choice for these heavy attack builds.
In ESO, the One Bar Magicka Templar is perfect for everyone. It’s great for beginners, veterans, and players of any age and experience. It’s easy to understand and doesn’t require bar swapping. Even if you love the higher cpm play of a two-bar build, heavy attack builds are great for just completing dailies or giving your hands a break.
ESO One Bar PvE Magicka Templar Features
Below are some of the features found using the Oakensoul Heavy Attack Templar in the Elder Scrolls Online:
- Class: Templar
- Weapon: Lighting Staff
- Armor Types: 1 Light, 5 Medium, 1 Heavy
- Race: Dark Elf
- Set 1: Deadly Strike
- Set 2: Sergeant’s Mail
- Mythic: Oakensoul ring
- Attributes: 64 Magicka
- Mundus Stone: Thief
- Best Grimoires: Ulfsild’s Contingency, Soul Burst
Related:
ESO One Bar PvE Magicka Templar Build Playstyle
Heavy attacking requires you to fully charge attacks in between abilities, and the lightning staff has the strongest heavy attack mechanics. It deals incremental damage before unleashing a large burst of damage in an aoe around your primary target. You essentially play this build in the opposite way of a traditional two-bar build with light attack weaving. Before you complete your heavy attack, you can actually pre-cast an ability, and your character will cast is as soon as they can. It kind of feels like weaving abilities in this way, but you can hold down your left mouse button to instantly start heavy attacking again.
Unstable Wall of Elements actually acts like a pseudo-spammable in this build, which is why we’re opting for the morph that gives you extra damage when reapplying it. If you chose to run Blockade, you would actually always lose a couple of ticks of damage every cast, since the duration doesn’t line up with the heavy attack channel. Instead, recasting it a little early gives you some extra damage as well as ensures you keep a consistent source of off-balance on your targets. Off-balance lasts for 7 seconds and every enemy has a 15 second cooldown after its duration before it can be applied again. The reason why this is so important is it gives us an extra 10% damage through the Champion Point Exploiter.
You’ll get used to the playstyle quickly, and applying the wall of elements will become second nature. You can also use the add-on “DebuffMe” on your PC to track your off-balance buff status.
Skills 1 – High Survivability
One Bar Lightning Staff – Solo | High Survivability Setup
Front Bar Weapon = Lightning staff is the highest damage heavy attack weapon, dealing incremental damage as well as a huge aoe burst at the end of your fully charged heavy attack.
- Lightning Staff
This build rewards you for fully charging heavy attacks and building up stacks of Sergeant’s Mail. Sergeant’s Mail increases the base damage of your heavy attacks prior to any damage multipliers, resulting in a huge overall damage increase. This is the single most important set for your damage, but it is also heavy armor. That means even if you swap the armor on your body, you’ll keep Sergeant’s as your jewelry, staff, and one armor piece. It can be any armor piece, but we recommend your chest piece, as it gives you the most armor benefit from a single piece of heavy armor.
Unstable Wall of Storms (Morph of Wall of Elements | Skill Line : Destruction Staff) – Blockade acts as a massive damage ground base AoE and the tool we used to proc off balance. Off balance is key to high DPS with the build due to Champion Point passive Exploiter along with huge area damage. You can “spam” or repeatedly cast the skill for an instant explosion doing area damage during “trash” or multiple mob non-boss fights. Consider this an important damage over time to maintain, and remember, an off-balance proc has a 7-second up time and 15-second downtime.
Honor The Dead (Morph of Rushed Ceremony | Skill Line : Restoring Light) – Most solo builds require a burst heal, and as a Templar, Honor the Dead is our best option. The morph choice gives us back magicka, so if we use it once in a while or spam it, we should be able to maintain our resources when it is trouble. Breath of Life is a slightly better heal for group content, since you can heal multiple targets.
Puncturing Sweep (Morph of Puncturing Strikes | Skill Line : Aedric Spear) – Puncturing Sweep is your spammable that you’ll recast after every heavy attack in this build if your DoTs are all up and you’re in melee range. This doubles as some extra healing, but you’ll want to swap it for Blazing Spear if you know you can’t enter melee range.
Radiant Glory (Morph of Radiant Destruction | Skill Line : Dawn’s Wrath) – Most one-bar heavy attack builds do not use an execute. Almost all are weaker than simply heavy attacking repeatedly, but not the Templar! This morph, Radiant Glory, sacrifices a little damage for massive healing during execute phase. You’ll want to use this: wait for a boss or a mini-boss to be around 15%, stop using heavy attacks, and just repeatedly use a beam. If doing a parse, you will still want to set off balance via Blockade to take advantage of Exploiter Champion Point passive.
Elemental Susceptibility (Morph of Weakness to Elements | Skill Line : Destruction Staff) – In solo PvE content at the Veteran difficulty, enemies have 18,200 resistances. The closer you get to this total without “spilling” or going over, the better your overall damage will be. Not only does Elemental Susceptibility reduce armor, but it applies three important status effects. An additional reason it remains powerful, it costs zero resources and can be used at very long ranges. Normally this skill isn’t needed in group play because either your tank, healer or another damage dealer will reduce armor. In solo play, it’s all up to you. You’ll want to replace this with Power of the Light if you are at the penetration cap.
Shooting Star (Morph of Meteor | Skill Line : Mages Guild) – The strongest damage ultimate remains Shooting Star from the Mage’s Guide. The downside is if the fight requires high mobility or massive AoE, the ability doesn’t shine. Moreover, getting Mage’s Guild skill line fully unlocked is very annoying. But if you want the best range damage, this is your skill. An alternative and something I use in the solo arenas is Elemental Rage Destruction Staff skill line ultimate. The advantage here is it provides massive AoE, quick channel time and doesn’t require a target. Thus in solo arenas, you can pre-cast the ability right as enemies spawn, giving you a damage advantage.
Skills 2 – Parse Max Damage
One Bar Lightning Staff – Parse | Optimal Damage Setup
Front Bar Weapon = Lightning staff is the highest damage heavy attack weapon, dealing incremental damage as well as a huge aoe burst at the end of your fully charged heavy attack.
- Lightning Staff
This build rewards you for fully charging heavy attacks and building up stacks of Sergeant’s Mail. Sergeant’s Mail increases the base damage of your heavy attacks prior to any damage multipliers, resulting in a huge overall damage increase. This is the single most important set for your damage, but it is also heavy armor. That means even if you swap the armor on your body, you’ll keep Sergeant’s as your jewelry, staff, and one armor piece. It can be any armor piece, but we recommend your chest piece, as it gives you the most armor benefit from a single piece of heavy armor.
Unstable Wall of Frost (Morph of Wall of Elements | Skill Line : Destruction Staff) – Used to proc our off-balance consistently and AoE damage while active.
Power of the Light (Morph of Backlash | Skill Line : Dawn’s Wrath) – PotL gives you a source of Minor Vulnerability as well as a ton of damage on a single target. You’ll actually want to let this ability fully expire on your target since you get a second burst of damage when it expires.
Ritual of Retribution (Morph of Cleansing Ritual | Skill Line : Restoring Light) – Ritual is an incredible DoT with one of the largest radiuses in the game. This ability continues to scale in damage the longer your target is in it, so you’ll want to keep enemies in this aoe if you can.
Puncturing Sweep (Morph of Puncturing Strikes | Skill Line : Aedric Spear) – Puncturing Sweep is your spammable that you’ll recast after every heavy attack in this build if your DoTs are all up and you’re in melee range. This doubles as some extra healing, but you’ll want to swap it for Blazing Spear if you know you can’t enter melee range.
Radiant Oppression (Morph of Radiant Destruction | Skill Line : Dawn’s Wrath) – This ability replaces our heavy-attacking at around 15% healthy. For the most damage, you will want to maintain an off-balance proc with wall of elements and light attack weave in between beams.
Shooting Star (Morph of Meteor | Skill Line : Mages Guild) – Highest burst damage on boss fights.
Group Added Utility Skills
One Bar Lightning Staff – Group | Optimal Damage Setup
Front Bar Weapon = Lightning staff is the highest damage heavy attack weapon, dealing incremental damage as well as a huge aoe burst at the end of your fully charged heavy attack.
- Lightning Staff
This build rewards you for fully charging heavy attacks and building up stacks of Sergeant’s Mail. Sergeant’s Mail increases the base damage of your heavy attacks prior to any damage multipliers, resulting in a huge overall damage increase. This is the single most important set for your damage, but it is also heavy armor. That means even if you swap the armor on your body, you’ll keep Sergeant’s as your jewelry, staff, and one armor piece. It can be any armor piece, but we recommend your chest piece, as it gives you the most armor benefit from a single piece of heavy armor.
Unstable Wall of Storms (Morph of Wall of Elements | Skill Line : Destruction Staff) – Use this skill to proc off-balance status effect and extra area and DoT damage.
Radiant Glory (Morph of Radiant Destruction | Skill Line : Dawn’s Wrath) – This ability replaces our heavy-attacking at around 15% healthy. For the most damage, you will want to maintain an off-balance proc with blockade and light attack weave in between beams.
Blazing Spear (Morph of Spear Shards | Skill Line : Aedric Spear) – Spear remains one of the strongest damage over time abilities the Templar possess. It does damage up front, damage over time and can proc the Burning Light passive. Moreover, slotting this skill on our front bar will increase overall critical damage by 10%, making it a very strong choice and a damage-over-time effect you want to maintain throughout the fights.
Breath of Life (Morph of Rushed Ceremony | Skill Line : Restoring Light) – Strong burst heal that will heal you and your group. Swap this for Ritual of Rebirth if you need even more aoe healing.
Ritual of Retribution (Morph of Cleansing Ritual | Skill Line : Restoring Light) – Ritual is an incredible DoT with one of the largest radiuses in the game. This ability continues to scale in damage the longer your target is in it, so you’ll want to keep enemies in this aoe if you can. If you need a lot more healing, you can actually swap this for the other morph to give a lot more healing over time for your group.
Shooting Star (Morph of Meteor | Skill Line : Mages Guild) – Highest burst damage on boss fights.
Scribing Skills & Grimoires – Heavy Attack One Bar Build
The best Grimoires for a Heavy Attack One Bar Build are Ulfsild’s Contingency or Soul Burst. For heavy attack one bar builds, the Scribing skills are not that applicable. Most are either melee or have a long cast time. One suggested grimoire ability is Ulfslid’s Contingency. This gives you a choice of buffs and debuffs, though it’s explodes from your character. Moreover, the Soul Burst is also helpful because it can pull enemies. This synergizes well with the shorter aoe from your heavy attack. Therefore, we suggest you experiment with these two and find what compliments your build for shields, survivability, and damage.
- Ulfsild’s Contingency (Mage Guild) – Flame Damage (focus script), Lingering Torment (signature script), Vulnerability (Affix Script)
- Soul Burst (Soul Magic) – Pull (focus script), Class Mastery or Lingering Torment (signature script), Courage (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). To learn more about scribing, check out our full guide here.
Passives Skills
Consider taking all of the passives in the below skill trees to increase your builds performance without slotting any skills:
- Aedric Spear (class skill line)
- Dawn’s Wrath (class skill line)
- Restoring Light (class skill line)
- Destruction Staff (weapon skill line)
- Light Armor
- Medium Armor
- Heavy Armor
- Undaunted
- Mages Guild
- Racial
- Alliance War Support
- Alliance War Assault
- Crafting, Alchemy Medicinal Use
Gear – Best in Slot
Use the below gear setup for optimal damage with the ESO One Bar PvE Magicka Templar Build:
Slot | Type | Set | Trait | Glyph |
Head | Light | Slimecraw | Divines | Magicka |
Shoulders | Medium | Deadly Strike | Divines | Magicka |
Chest | Heavy | Sergeant’s Mail | Divines | Magicka |
Legs | Medium | Deadly Strike | Divines | Magicka |
Gloves | Medium | Deadly Strike | Divines | Magicka |
Boots | Medium | Deadly Strike | Divines | Magicka |
Belt | Medium | Deadly Strike | Divines | Magicka |
Weapon One | Lightning Staff | Sergeant’s Mail | Precise | Flame |
Necklace | Sergeant’s Mail | Bloodthirsty | Spell Damage | |
Ring 1 | Mythic | Oakensoul ring | Bloodthirsty | Spell Damage |
Ring 2 | Sergeant’s Mail | Bloodthirsty | Spell Damage |
While this is a magicka build, we use Medium Armor specifically to get closer to the critical damage cap of 125%. If you’re under the penetration cap of 18,200, you’ll want to swap your monster helm to a one piece pen item like Valkyn Skoria. Thus, medium armor with specific gear sets will outperform light in most content.
Monster Helms & Mythics
Slimecraw: Obtained from Wayrest Sewers 1, a base game dungeon. The best 1pc critical damage bonus piece in the game. Pen is also a good option, but this is considered best in slot for a one-piece.
Oakensoul: Obtained through ESO Mythics/antiquities system. You need the 5 Leads here to create the mythic. The best one-bar build for DPS because it gives an insane amount of buffs, freeing up bar spots and making us tankier with zero effort. It also gives Empower, which is what makes your heavy attacks hit so hard.
FLEX OPTIONS
- Iceheart, Grundwulf, Stone Husk, Zaan – All one piece with critical chance, just not as much as Slimecraw.
- Lady Malygda, Valkyn Skoria – One piece penetration sets which are great when you’re not at penetration cap.
Gear Sets
Deadly Strike: Obtained in Bruma Elite Gear Vendor, Cyrodiil zone (base game). Best medium body damage option since Storm Master was nerfed.
Sergeant’s Mail: Obtained in the Wayrest Sewers I & II dungeon, Stormhaven zone (base game). This builds stacks by heavy attacking; at 5x stacks, it pumps your base heavy attack damage before damage multipliers, giving you a massive damage increase. The downside is that it comes in heavy, thus putting on jewelry, weapons, and 1x body.
FLEX OPTIONS
- Storm Master – Okay DPS set though Deadly is better currently.
- Tarnished Nightmare – A powerful new set that does lower single target, but more area damage for one bar builds.
- Noble Duelist – Longer and more consistent buff, but less dps.
- Pillar of Nirn – Good front bar proc damage set.
Race
The best racial choice for the one bar heavy attack PvE Build is below:
- Dark Elf: Gain max magicka, stamina, and weapon and spell damage. Dark Elf is considered the strongest overall PVE DPS race.
- High Elf: Gain resource sustain passive, max magicka, and weapon and spell damage. The downside of High Elf is a lack of stamina.
- 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%.
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 chance.
Champion Points
Craft | Warfare | Fitness |
War Mount | Weapons Expert | Boundless Vitality |
Gifted Rider | Fighting Finesse | Celerity |
Treasure Hunter | Master-at-Arms | Fortified |
Steed’s Blessing | Exploiter | Rejuvenation |
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 One Bar PvE Magicka Templar Build:
- Precision 10
- Fighting finesse (slottable) 50
- Extended Might sub-constellation – piercing 10
- Extended Might sub-constellation – weapons expert (slottable) 50
- Extended Might sub-constellation – exploiter (slottable) 50
- Master’s 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.
- Precision 10
- Piercing 10
- Tireless discipline 20
- Eldritch insight 20
- Blessed 20
- Quick recovery 20
- Flawless ritual 40
- War mage 30
- Battle mastery 40
- Mighty 30
- Elemental aegis 20
- Hardy 20
- 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 One Bar PvE Magicka Templar Build:
- Fortified (slottable) 50
- Boundless vitality (slottable) 50
- Rejuvenation (slottable) 50
- Sprinter 10
- Winder chaser sub-constellation – hasty 8
- Hero’s Vigor 10
- Celerity (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.
- Hero’s Vigor 10
- Tumbling 30
- Sprinter 10
- Defiance 20
- Hasty 8
- Tireless guardian 20
- Fortification 30
- Nimble 6
- Mystic tenacity 50
- Tempered soul 50
- Piercing gaze 30
- Savage defense 30
- 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 One Bar PvE Magicka Templar Build:
- Steed’s blessing (slottable) – 50
- Breakfall 10
- Wanderer 15
- Steadfast 10
- Treasure hunter 50 (slottable)
- Master gatherer 15
- Gifted rider (slottable) 100
- War mount (slottable) 120
This would be the bare minimum setup, spending 370CP (1110 total required). The next step is to max out passives, that do not require a slottable but increase performance.
- Steadfast enchantment 40cp
- Breakfall 40 cp
- Wanderer 60
- Fortunes favor 10
- Rationer 10
- Friends in low places 25
- Out of sight 30
- Fleet of phantom 40
- Soul’s reservoir 33
- Gilded fingers 50
- Fortunes favor 40
- Inspiration boost 45
- Infamous 30
This would max out the crafting tree with all active passive champion points at 823 cp spent 2,469 total spent
Consumables – ESO One Bar PvE Magicka Templar Build
The best consumables for a Templar One Bar Heavy Attack build are Mistral Banana-Bunny Hash and Essence of Health tri-stat potions. Mistral Banana-Bunny Hash give a massive boost to magicka and health, and you really shouldn’t struggle with sustain with a heavy attack build. For your potions, tri-stat potions are the best to passively give you a flood of resources and tri-recovery with the alchemy passive medicinal use. Below are our recommended food and potion choices:
- 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).
- Bewitched Sugar Skulls: Increase Max Health by 4620, Max Stamina and Max Magicka by 4250, and Health Recovery by 462 for 2 hours. They are crafted from provisioning with ingredients of Scrib Jelly, Flour, Columbine, Bervez Juice, and Honey.
- Tomato Garlic Chutney (parsing) increases max magicka. Crafted with provisioning of tomato and garlic ingredients.
- Essence of Health (tri-stat): Restore Health, Magicka, and Stamina immediately and increase your Health Recovery, Magicka Recovery, and Stamina Recovery. They are crafted from provisioning with ingredients of Bugloss, Columbine, and Mountain Flower.
Build Summary – Elder Scrolls Online (ESO) Magicka Templar One Bar PvE
Class: Templar
Race: Dark Elf
Attributes: Magicka 64
Mundus Stone: Thief
Weapon: Lighting Staff
Armor: 1 Light, 5 Medium, 1 Heavy
Set 1: Deadly Strike
Set 2: Sergeant’s Mail
Monster Helm: Slimecraw
Mythic: Oakensoul ring
Food: Mistral Banana-Bunny Hash
Potion: Essence of Health with Tri Restoration
Skill Bar
- Radiant Glory
- Elemental Susceptibility
- Honor The Dead
- Puncturing Sweep
- Unstable Wall of Storms
- Shooting Star
Scribing Grimoires and Scripts
- Ulfsild’s Contingency
- Flame Damage (focus script)
- Lingering Torment (signature script)
- Vulnerability (Affix Script)
- Soul Burst
- Pull (focus script)
- Class Mastery (signature script)
- Courage (Affix Script)
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