ESO Solo Sorcerer Magicka Build for PvE

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

The ESO Solo Magicka Sorcerer PvE build is for players looking to complete solo content with a well-rounded class with great survivability. The Solo Magicka Sorcerer PVE build shines in both single targets and tanking a lot of damage. If you are a beginner or looking to play solo, the Magicka Sorcerer is very forgiving, as it has a lot of shields and heals in its tool kit.

In ESO, the Magicka Sorcerer is perfect for everyone looking for a simple-rotation survival class with a complete set of tools for solo PvE gameplay. So, if you are the shadow assassin with blood magic and the power to control the elements, this is the build for you!

Sorcerer Class Pros

• Boss Shredder: Sorc has the highest single-target DPS in the game right now.
• Simple Playstyle: Double barring pets, while overall a con, does simplify the skill rotation.
• Unreal Healing: Critical Surge, with the option to run Ring of the Pale Order, feels unkillable.

Sorcerer Class Cons

• Bar Space: Pets must be double-barred, leaving the Sorc feeling like it needs an extra skill slot.
• Single Target Output: While no-pet sorc is insane aoe damage, it doesn’t hold up as well in single target dps like the DK or Arcanist.
• Stamina is Better: Magicka Sorc spammables just don’t do as much damage as the options available to stamina sorcs. Why not hit harder?

ESO Solo Sorcerer Magicka Build for PvE Playstyle

The Sorcerer normally has a very static bar with pets, but it’s always been weak in solo content because of the lack of bar space. With the introduction of scribing, however, no-pet sorcs are extremely viable, potentially even better in solo play. While you do need to start working on your scribing grind to full utilize the no-pet sorc, it’s an incredibly fun playstyle that’s very rewarding.

The central skill that’s always tricky to learn is Crystal Fragments for the Sorcerer. There’s a proc that you always want to cast, regardless of what else happens because of the proc chance conditions. Besides Frags, however, there really isn’t all that much that’s challenging with the sorcerer. You need to learn to apply and reapply your Damage over Time (DoT) abilities, and you’ll then cast your spammable while everything is up on your target.

The major difference this patch is the introduction of scribing, and you’ll want to add Traveling Knife into your skill rotation as soon as you unlock Class Mastery scripts on your magicka sorcerer. Traveling Knife actually hits twice, once on its cast and another when it returns to you after a short delay.

Survivability

Critical Surge makes survivability a breeze on the Sorcerer. Every time you deal critical damage, which is very often, you’ll heal up to once every second. This healing is insane, and it lets you drop Ring of the Pale Order in most content. Resource sustain might be the only thing you have trouble with, but you can just opt for food with higher sustain if you start to run out of magicka. This build also runs Dark Convergence to help with the sustain and give you extra healing.

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. If you heavy attack with either bar in this build, you’ll return magicka.

ESO Solo Sorcerer Magicka Build for PvE Features and Mechanics

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

• Class – Sorcerer
• Weapon One – Daggers
• Weapon Two – Lightning Staff
• Armor Types – 3 Medium, 4 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 – Daggers

Front Bar Weapon Style Choices:

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

Crystal Fragments (Morph of Crystal Shard | Skill Line : Dark Magic) – This is your main spammable which you can recast instantly when proc’ed.

Camouflaged Hunter (Morph of Expert Hunter | Skill Line : Fighters Guild) – Sources your other major damage buffs, opposite of Crit Surge. You’ll replace this with Traveling Knife as soon as you unlock scribing Class Mastery.

Daedric Prey (Morph of Daedric Curse | Skill Line : Daedric Summoning) – Always keep this on target for huge damage increase

Bound Aegis (Morph of Bound Armor | Skill Line : Daedric Summoning) – Big max magicka increase, go with inner light if you want to use tri pots instead.

Dark Conversion (Morph of Dark Exchange | Skill Line : Dark Magic) – Great health and magicka restore. It makes sustain so much easier and gives you a panic heal if crit surge isn’t enough.

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. This is a low cost alternative to use when trying to finish fights and needing a bit of burst

Back Bar – Lightning

Back bar options:

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

Blockade of Storms (Morph of Wall of Elements | Skill Line : Destruction Staff) – AoE deals magic damage plus sets concussed enemies off-balance.

Hurricane (Morph of Lightning Form | Skill Line : Storm Calling) – One of the best AoE damage and single target abilities we have, plus armor!

Lightning Flood (Morph of Lightning Splash | Skill Line : Storm Calling) – Huge aoe lightning ability, proccing more concussion and Storm Cursed damage.

Critical Surge (Morph of Surge | Skill Line : Storm Calling) – God tier survivability can be swapped out for another ability.

Streak (Morph of Bolt Escape | Skill Line : Storm Calling) – Very fun mobility skill, allowing you to jump through packs of enemies.

Thunder Storm (Morph of Elemental Storm | Skill Line : Destruction Staff) – Massive aoe ultimate. Normally, you’d run the atronach, but it actually nullifies your no-pet buff, so we’re rocking the Destruction Staff ultimate for some insane aoe damage.

Scribing Skills & Grimoires

Ulfsild’s Contingency and Traveling Knife are the best Grimoires (skills) for a solo Magicka Sorcerer PvE build. Contingency grants powerful area-based damage and buffs. Traveling Knife gives you a ranged attack that does damage on the return. What really brings out the damage in this build is when you can source the class mastery signature script. When you get the class mastery buff, you’ll drop Mage’s Wrath, picking up Traveling Knife as your main spammable and only using Crystal Fragments on a proc. If you really want to use a front bar staff, however, you’ll pick up Ulfsild’s Contingency instead with Class Mastery.

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

• Ulfsild’s Contingency (Mage Guild) – Lightning Damage (focus script), Class Mastery/Lingering torment (signature script), Vulnerability (Affix Script)
• Traveling Knife – Magic Damage (focus script), Class Mastery (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

Consider taking all of the passives in the below skill trees to increase your ESO Solo Sorcerer builds performance without slotting any skills:

• Dark Magic (class skill line)
• Daedric Summoning (class skill line)
• Storm Calling (class skill line)
• Destruction Staff (weapon skill line)
• Light Armor
• Medium Armor
• Undaunted
• Fighters Guild
• Mages Guild (if using inner light)
• Psjiic Order
• Racial
• Alliance War Support
• Alliance War Assault
• Crafting, Alchemy Medicinal Use

Gear – Best in Slot

Use the below gear template for the ESO Solo Sorcerer when playing solo arenas and Veteran dungeons:

Slot	Type	Set	Trait	Glyph
Head	Medium	Perfected Sul-Xan’s Torment	Divines	Magicka
Shoulders	Light	Valkyn Skoria	Divines	Magicka
Chest	Medium	Perfected Sul-Xan’s Torment	Divines	Magicka
Legs	Medium	Perfected Sul-Xan’s Torment	Divines	Magicka
Gloves	Light	Storm-Cursed’s Revenge	Divines	Magicka
Boots	Light	Storm-Cursed’s Revenge	Divines	Magicka
Belt	Light	Storm-Cursed’s Revenge	Divines	Magicka
Front Bar	Dagger	Perfected Sul-Xan’s Torment	Charged	Flame
	Dagger	Perfected Sul-Xan’s Torment	Charged	Poison
Back Bar	Lightning Staff	Perfected Crushing Wall	Infused	Berserk
Necklace	Mythic	Velothi Ur-Mage’s Amulet	Bloodthirsty	Weapon Damage
Ring 1		Storm-Cursed’s Revenge	Bloodthirsty	Weapon Damage
Ring 2		Storm-Cursed’s Revenge	Bloodthirsty	Weapon Damage

Monster Helms and Mythic

Valkyn Skoria: obtained in City of Ash II veteran. Gives a mighty one-piece bonus for penetration.

Velothi Ur-Mage’s Amulet: Mythic obtained by collecting five pieces. Massive damage boost, extra penetration, permanent Minor Force.

FLEX OPTIONS (if you switch to monster setup, drop the ring and replace it with Vicious or flex piece)

1. Slimecraw – If you’re at penetration cap, crit chance is the next best thing.
2. Kra’gh – one piece is great for a pen, maybe easier to obtain than Valkyn Skoria.
3. Ring of the Pale Order – Similar effect to Crit Surge when your healing just can’t keep up with the damage in solo encounters.

Gear Sets

Perfected Sul-Xan’s Torment: Trial set that drops in Rockgrove, Elsweyr Chapter. Gives you a massive amount of crit chance and damage

Storm-Cursed’s Revenge: Dungeon set that drops in Shipwright’s Regret.

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. Order’s Wrath = Best overall crafting damage option.
2. Pillar of Nirn = Great overall proc set damage.
3. Whorl of the Depths = Great light armor 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	Symmetry of the Weald	Divines	Magicka
Shoulders	light	Symmetry of the Weald	Divines	Magicka
Chest	Medium	Order’s Wrath	Divines	Magicka
Legs	Medium	Order’s Wrath	Divines	Magicka
Gloves	light	Order’s Wrath	Divines	Magicka
Boots	light	Order’s Wrath	Divines	Magicka
Belt	light	Order’s Wrath	Divines	Magicka
Weapon One	Inferno Staff	Symmetry of the Weald	Precise	Flame
Weapon Two	Lightning Staff	Symmetry of the Weald	Infused	Berserker
Necklace		Symmetry of the Weald	Arcane	Magicka Recovery
Ring 1		Willpower	Arcane	Spell Damage
Ring 2		Willpower	Arcane	Spell Damage

• Symmetry of the Weald – New overland set dropping in West Weald with the Gold Road Chapter.
• Order’s Wrath – Best overall crafting damage option.
• Willpower – Jewelry set from the Imperial City, buyable on guild traders.

Race

The best racial choice for the Magicka Sorcerer 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 – The Solo Sorcerer 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 Solo Sorcerer Magicka Build for PvE:

1. Precision 10
2. Wrathful strikes (slottable) 50
3. Fighting Finesse (slottable) 50
4. Extended might – sub con – piercing 10
5. Masters at arms (slottable) 50
6. Deadly aim (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 Solo Sorcerer 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 and 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 Solo Sorcerer 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 efficiency (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 10
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 683 cp spent 2,049.

Consumables

The best consumables for the solo Magicka Sorcerer 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 potions 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, but they’re very expensive. Tri-pots are usually better.

• 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 – The Solo Sorcerer Magicka Build for PvE

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