ESO Solo Necromancer Magicka Build for PvE

This guide explains how to use the best Elder Scrolls Online (ESO) Solo Necromancer Magicka 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 ESO Solo Necromancer Magicka Build for PvE?

In ESO, the Magicka Necromancer is perfect for everyone looking for a high survivability class with solid aoe damage and a complete set of tools for solo PvE gameplay. The Magcro can reliably run Runecarver as well, which is a fun set after the set damage was reclassified in Update 41. Now, Runecarver properly deals direct damage, increasing your burning damage. The Magcro does seem to fall behind the Stamcro overall with the introduction of Scribing, but this is the build to run if you’re adamant about playing a Magcro.

Necromancer Class Pros

• Unkillable: The Necromancer has always been very difficult to kill, and that’s still true.
• Incredible Sustain: With the proper buffs, you shouldn’t have any trouble sustaining resources.
• Great Skill Animations: While the damage is lacking, the Cro has some of the best animations in the game, and it feels cool to play.

Necromancer Class Cons

• No Major damage buffs: The Necromancer can’t naturally source Major Brutality, Savagery, Prophecy, or Sorcery in their kit as other classes can. You need to run Inner Light until you unlock them through Scribing.
• Weaker Ultimate Options: The Necromancer’s ultimate abilities are great for utility but lose their usefulness in solo content.
• Weaker than Stamina: You can still run the new signature script Warrior’s Opportunity, but you just have less martial damage available than the Stamcro.

ESO Solo Necromancer Stamina Build for PvE Playstyle

Magicka Necromancers got a solid damage boost once you have the Warrior’s Opportunity signature script on Traveling Knife, albeit less than Stamcros. Once you get to that setup, you get a large boost to martial damage, and your aoe damage really shoots up. The key to high damage on the necromancer is to cast your Blastbones every third skill, and get your Damage Over Time (DoT) abilities down as fast as possible to start proccing Runecarver. Once your Blastbones explodes, you can cast Detonating Siphon and begin using your spammable after your DoTs are on the ground.

Once you unlock the scribing skills, your main spammable is going to be Traveling Knife. You’ll cast Ruinous Scythe once to proc off balance on every enemy, then spam Traveling knife, remembering to cast Blastbones every third skill. The necro rotation does take some practice to get a feel for, but learning the rhythm through practicing on target dummies and in content will make it easy in no time.

Survivability

Keeping Spirit Mender up is crucial for your survivability. The base version of this build doesn’t have Major Resolve, so you want the healing and extra damage mitigation for sure. Your scythe also heals you, which you can work into your rotation any time you start needing to heal. You can of course always use Ring of the Pale order for much more healing-intensive fights, but you shouldn’t need it for most content.

If you run out of resources, a heavy attack will restore stamina on either bar in this build.

ESO Solo Necromancer Magicka PvE Build Features and Mechanics

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

• Class – Necromancer
• Weapon One – Daggers
• Weapon Two – Flame Staff
• Armor Types: 1 Medium, 6 Light
• Mythic – Pale Order
• Race – Dark Elf
• Attributes – 64 Magicka
• Mundus Stone – Thief
• Best Grimoires – Ulfsild’s Contingency, Traveling Knife

Skills

Front Bar – Daggers

Front Bar Weapon Style Choices:

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

Blighted Blastbones (Morph of Blastbones | Skill Line : Grave Lord) – Summon a skeleton that blows up in a large aoe. You want to cast this every third skill cast.

Ricochet Skull (Morph of Flame Skull | Skill Line : Grave Lord) – Does great damage and allows you to play at range. You’ll swap this out for Traveling Knife when you unlock it.

Ruinous Scythe (Morph of Death Scythe | Skill Line : Bone Tyrant) – Your heal and off-balance proc on enemies.

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

Inner Light (Morph of Magelight | Skill Line : Mages Guild) – Grants Major Savagery and Prophecy while slotted and increases maximum magicka by 5%. When you unlock Traveling Knife, you’ll swap this out for Contingency

Temporal Guard (Morph of Undo | Skill Line : Psijic Order) – Reset your Health, Magicka, Stamina, and position to what they were 4 seconds ago. Gain Minor Protection while slotted.

Back Bar – Lightning Staff

Back bar options:

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

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

Beckoning Armor (Morph of Bone Armor | Skill Line : Bone Tyrant) – Gain Major Resolve for 20 seconds. While active taunts and pulls attacking ranged enemies towards you.

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

Degeneration (Morph of Entropy | Skill Line : Mages Guild) – DoT ability that also grants Major Brutality and Sorcery.

Spirit Guardian (Morph of Spirit Mender | Skill Line : Living Death) – Summon spirit heals you or lowest health ally and takes 10% of your damage.

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 & Grimoires

Ulfsild’s Contingency and Traveling Knife are the best Grimoires (skills) for a solo Magicka Necromancer PvE build. Contingency grants powerful area-based damage and buffs. Traveling Knife gives you a ranged attack that does damage on the return. The major changes you’ll make when you unlock scribing is to replace your Ricochet Skull with Traveling Knife, then drop Inner Light for Contingency.

Below are the suggested combination of Grimoires, focus, signature, and affix scripts:

• Ulfsild’s Contingency (Mage Guild) – Flame Damage (focus script), Class Mastery (signature script), Vulnerability (Affix Script)
• Traveling Knife – Magic (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).  To learn more about scribing, check out our full guide here.

Passives Skills

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

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

Gear – Best in Slot

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

Slot	Type	Set	Trait	Glyph
Head	Light	Perfected Whorl of the Depths	Divines	Magicka
Shoulders	Medium	Slimecraw	Divines	Magicka
Chest	Light	Runecarver’s Blaze	Divines	Magicka
Legs	Light	Runecarver’s Blaze	Divines	Magicka
Gloves	Light	Runecarver’s Blaze	Divines	Magicka
Boots	Light	Runecarver’s Blaze	Divines	Magicka
Belt	Light	Runecarver’s Blaze	Divines	Magicka
Weapon One	Daggers	Perfected Whorl of the Depths	Nirnhoned	Poison
	Daggers	Perfected Whorl of the Depths	Charged	Absorb Stamina
Weapon Two	Lightning Staff	Perfected Crushing Wall	Infused	Berserk
Necklace		Perfected Whorl of the Depths	Bloodthirsty	Weapon/Spell Damage
Ring 1	Mythic	Pale Order	Bloodthirsty	Weapon/Spell Damage
Ring 2		Perfected Whorl of the Depths	Bloodthirsty	Weapon/Spell Damage

Monster Helms and Mythic

Slimecraw: obtained in Wayrest Sewers veteran. Gives a powerful one-piece bonus for critical chance.

Ring of the Pale Order: Mythic obtained by collecting five pieces. This gives great healing for doing damage and allows you to focus on pure damage.

Alternatives

(if you switch to monster setup, drop the ring and replace it with another piece).

• Stormfist – always works, easy to obtain and AoE DPS set.
• Balorgh – is incredible for boss burns in Veteran Maelstrom Arena saving up ultimate for 500 burns.
• Kra’gh – one piece is great for a pen, two-piece does good single-target damage
• Iceheart – is great for survivability.
• Velothi Ur-Mage’s Amulet – new mythic that is incredible damage if you have good survivability and don’t require Pale Order.
• Mora’s Whisper – set and forget high critical mythic but requires a collection of Mages Guild books.
• Death Dealer’s Fete – high max stats and requires no effect but in combat.

Gear Sets

Perfected Whorl of the Depths: Found in Dreadsail Reef trial, part of High Isle chapter. Light attack and create AoE summon once every 18 seconds.

Runecarver’s Blaze: Dungeon set that drops in Scrivener’s Hall. Procs massive flame damage that applies the burning status effect constantly.

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

• Order’s Wrath – Best overall crafting damage option.
• Pillar of Nirn – Great overall proc set damage.
• Ansuul’s Torment – Great Medium armor set-and-forget trial set.

Gear – Beginner

This setup is for someone who just started and doesn’t have access to Monsters, Mythics, 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	Inferno Staff	Willpower	Precise	Flame
Weapon Two	Inferno Staff	Willpower	Infused	Berserker
Necklace		Withered Hand	Arcane	Magicka Recovery
Ring 1		Withered Hand	Arcane	Magicka Recovery
Ring 2		Withered Hand	Arcane	Spell Damage

• Withered Hand – found in Alikr Desert overland or in build traders. Gives resources back on kills.
• Willpower – is obtained in dungeon daily rewards or cheaply from build traders. Gives you a big magicka stat boost.
• Mother’s Sorrow – found in overland Deshaan or bought from guild traders. Useful for high critical and base game easy to obtain.

Race

The best racial choice for the Magicka Necromancer 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. 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.
3. 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 is 64 magicka, which increases damage, healing, and DoTs.

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 Solo Necromancer Magicka Build for PvE

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 Solo Necromancer Magicka Build for PvE:

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 Solo Necromancer Magicka Build for PvE:

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 Solo Necromancer Magicka Build for PvE:

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 and passive champion points at 723 cp spent, 2,169 total spent.

Consumables

The best consumables for the solo Magicka Necromancer PvE build are Mistral Banana-Bunny Hash food and Heroism potions. Mistral Banana-Bunny Hash gives the most damage possible, though Clockwork Citrus Filet is good for resource sustain if you struggle. A third balanced option for more hybrid resource pools is Bewitched Sugar Skulls. The best potion if you have spell critical and spell power buff is Heriosm (the essence of magicka). Another option is Spell Power potions if you lack the buffs or tri-stat Essence of Health. Below are our recommended food and potion choices:

Mistral Banana-Bunny Hash (best damage no sustain) – Increases max health and max magicka. Crafted with Provisioning ingredients of Small Game, Bananas, and Seasoning.

• Clockwork Citrus Filet – Increases max health, health recovery, max magicka, and magicka recovery. Crafted with Provisioning ingredients of Red Meat, Lemon, Frost Mirriam, and Perfect Roe.
• Witchmother’s Potent Brew – Increases max magicka, max health, and magicka recovery. Crafted with Provisioning ingredients of Nightshade, Bervez Juice, Rice, and Small Game.
• Bewitched Sugar Skulls (tri-max stats) – increases max health, stamina, magicka, and health recovery. Crafted with provisioning from ingredients of Scrib Jelly, Flour, Columbine, Bervez Juice, and Honey.

Heroism Potion – Restores stamina and magicka and grants minor heroism for a time. Crafted with Alchemy from ingredients of Columbine, Dragon’s Blood, and Dragon Rheum.

• Essence of Spell Power – grants major critical, major spell power buff, and magicka recovery. Crafted with alchemy from ingredients such as Corn Flower, Lady’s Smock, and Luminous Russula (other combinations).
• Tri-Pots – grants immediate health, stamina and magicka, along with tri-recovery. Crafted with Alchemy from ingredients of Bugloss, Columbine, and Mountain Flower.

Build Summary – ESO Solo Necromancer Magicka PvE Build

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