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Welcome to the ESO Ember Ranged DPS builds! Companions, just like players come with class presets. Ember is your typical Sorcerer and master of magic. She has a very powerful ultimate with execute, the Raging Storm! Her Lightning Caller class skill line is a great damage-producing tool while the Mischievous Caster skill line will help you stun and immobilize enemies, allowing you and your companion have better survivability. Pair this with outside skill lines from destruction staff or bow and guilds skill trees and she’s damage per second producing nightmare. The ESO Ember Ranged DPS builds work, at some of the hardest content in the game and can work for you!
By Pixel | Updated for Necrom Chapter, U38 on June 3rd, 2023
Ember’s unique perk gives a chance to acquire hidden wallets of gold when pickpocketing. A very helpful ability for your thief’s travels!
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Insane AoE Ultimate | Weak class off healing abilities |
| Great for stealing |
How to unlock Ember and where do I find her? Ember quest, “Tower full of Trouble”.
You can find Ember quest in the High Isle zone in two locations. The First location, and most likely you’ll find easily is a man attacked by magic anomalies just next to the Tor Draioch Wayshrine.
The second location is on the northern road to the Tor Draioch tower, where Ember is fighting the magic anomalies.
After you complete the quest you can find Ember and all unlocked companions in your collections menu. Press the default key “U” on your keyboard or go to the collections tab, pick Allies from the list and then Companions.
Progression
Companions are similar to players and here are some areas of focus for you while working through optimizing your companion.
Obtain multiple gear sets: You’ll want flexible options once you hit the end game, even if you plan on leaving her as a DPS. You can find gear by looting defeated enemies or in various chests and boxes, almost everywhere in the game. Or you can go to any town Armor and Fine Garments store and pick up companion gear, light, medium and heavy. I’d also go to woodworker and weapon smith and pick up sword and shield, and various staffs. Swap a gear or weapons and level skill lines, because you never know if you want to switch!
Combat Level: Start levelling up your companion. Companions level up similar to a player, by killing enemies and eventually reaching level 20 (currently max). So you can grind with your companion (grinding video click). The exception are guilds’ skill lines (Mages Guild, Fighters Guild, Undaunted), to level them up you need to complete guilds’ daily quests. You can find them in Grahtwood (map click), Stormhaven (map click), and Deshaan (map click).
Focus on Guild Skill Lines: You’ll want to prioritise completing the guide-specific daily quests in order to unlock the most powerful skills in the game.
Gear: Now start collecting pieces of gear to optimize your DPS. The best trait for companion DPS is Aggressive, increasing damage done. Also, The Shattering (Penetration) and the Focused (Critical Strike Chance) are good choices. More about gear and Ember guide HERE.
Ember and Player Best Build Combo
ESO companions are a great way to have a helper in battle, but they can also be easily killed. This build will increase their survivability and your questing or even dungeon experience.
The secret is a five-piece craftable set from the Necrom Chapter Telvanni Efficiency. This combination reduces the cooldown on companions’ abilities allowing them to heal, evade and defend easier.
Here are examples of how it’ll help your builds:
- Tank companions commonly use the Fighters Guild ability Ritual of Salvation to reduce damage by 20%. With this five-piece active, the duration of the ability along with the cooldown is 8 seconds so hypothetically nearly 100% uptime.
- Damage Dealers use the medium armor skill Vanish for survivability, providing a full healing every 36 seconds. With 50% less time, every 18 seconds, your companion will outlive nearly anything as a DPS.
- Healers rely on the Restoration staff abilities, which can be cast repeatedly along with the Haste skill. This turns your companion into a spam casting machine and huge heals per second.
To further augment this effect, you can combine the armor trait “quicken.” This armor trait at purple quality gives a 2.6% reduction on ability cooldowns per piece with 5.2% on both weapons. So the new cooldown for the Vanish skill becomes only 5.7 seconds! Everything the companion does becomes radically improved.
To further aid in this, Isobel has a buff to light and heavy attacks after using penetrating strikes. Bastion has a buff for light and heavy attacks as well. In fact, each companion has some aid and utility to provide, and the reduction in cooldown means nearly 100% uptime giving them much greater survivability and utility.
How to modify your build?
We suggest a modified heavy attack/oakensoul build. You will have high health, mitigation and damage with the recommended gear sets. You always equip 5 medium Telvanni’s on your body and use Sergent’s Mail for heavy attack damage along with the Empower buff from Oakensoul.
Video
Ember Ranged DPS build
Companion abilities have a cooldown, unlike players and often they have 16 seconds before the skill can be used again. Thus, skills order has a great impact on its use frequency.
An example: Ember has a unique skill: Sun Brand, the ability last 8 seconds, with a 16-second cooldown. If you put it in the first spot on her skill bar, the companion will activate it first, and immediately when it comes off cooldown, giving you a consistent boost to team DPS. For the best results follow the skills listed here but also be knowledgeable about how it works. Now when you’ll make changes, you get the most out of the performance of the companion’s skills.
Mage skills – The Destruction Staff (Inferno Staff)
1. Crystal Blast (Skill line: Companion Lightning Caller) – hard-hitting single target ranged damage ability. Great opener and you want it on cooldown so it’s up quicker.
2. Destructive Blast (Skill line: Destruction Staff) – Ranged damage depending on the staff. Stick with Fire staff and you’ll have back-to-back ranged damage abilities.
3. Starfall (Skill line: Companion Mages Guild) – hard-hitting Mages Guild ability with low cooldown and range! Swap in a class-specific skill until you get Starfall or Destruction Staff Elemental Barricade. Other alternatives in class are a heal, shield or defensive because until max level the companions are squishy.
4. Thunderous Strike (Skill line: Companion Lightning Caller) – hard-hitting ranged execute if an enemy falls below 25% and extra AoE damage!
5. Vanish (Skill line: Companion Medium Armor) – “oh crap” ability when in trouble so companion can stay alive independently of a healer. This ability heals companion health, dropping in stealth but be aware of a long cooldown. Slot another DPS ability Fighters Guild Sniping Silver if your companion never gets in trouble due to off healing.
Ultimate: Raging Storm (Skill line: Companion Lightning Caller) – Insane damage AoE and execute that follows the enemy.
Sniper skills – the Bow
1. Crystal Blast (Skill line: Companion Lightning Caller) – hard-hitting single target ranged damage ability. Great opener and you want it on cooldown so it’s up quicker.
2. Viper’s Bite (Skill line: Companion Bow) – great single target damage over time. This is a good second skill because it gets the damage over time rolling quickly then comes off cooldown quickly so maintaining high single target DPS uptime.
3. Trick Shot (Skill line: Companion Bow) – AoE damage and immobilization which helps fend off attacks and do decent damage.
4. Sniping Silver (Skill line: Companion Fighters Guild) – A great single target damage and it’s better than Piercing Arrow (bow skill line) because of extra damage against Werewolfs and Vampires(Fighter guild passive). Use Piercing Arrow before you get access to Sniping Silver skill. However, make leveling Fighters guild a priority, because of this skill.
5. Vanish (Skill line: Companion Medium Armor) – “oh crap” ability when in trouble so companion can stay alive independently of a healer. This ability heals companion health, dropping in stealth but be aware of a long cooldown. Slot another DPS ability Fighters Guild Sniping Silver if your companion never gets in trouble due to off healing.
Ultimate: Raging Storm (Skill line: Companion Lightning Caller) – Insane damage AoE and execute that follows the enemy.
Gear
All medium armor gear pieces give the best possible damage potential. The frugal shopper will look to Shattering or Focused rather than Aggressive, but for raw damage Aggressive performs the best. You can use the mix of the tree and still have great results:
| Aggressive | Shattering | Focused |
| Increases damage done by 1.2% | Increases Penetration by 900 | Increases Critical Strike Rating by 394 |
| Increases damage done by 1.5% | Increases Penetration by 1100 | Increases Critical Strike Rating by 481.5 |
| Increases damage done by 1.7% | Increases Penetration by 1300 | Increases Critical Strike Rating by 569 |
Companion DPS Traits Priority:
- Aggressive (Increases Damage Done)
- Shattering (Increases Penetration)
- Focused (Increases Critical Strike Chance)
- Prolific (Increases Ultimate Generation)
- Quickened (Reduces Skills Cooldown)
- Augmented (Increases Ability Buff and Debuff Duration)
- Bolstered (Reduces Damage Taken)
- Vigorous (Adds Max Health)
- Soothing (Increases Healing Done)
The Destruction Staff (Inferno Staff) gear setup
| Slot | Weight | Set | Trait |
| Head | Medium | Companion’s Helmet | Aggressive |
| Shoulders | Medium | Companion’s Arm Cops | Aggressive |
| Chest | Medium | Companion’s Jack | Aggressive |
| Legs | Medium | Companion’s Guards | Aggressive |
| Gloves | Medium | Companion’s Bracers | Aggressive |
| Boots | Medium | Companion’s Boots | Aggressive |
| Belt | Medium | Companion’s Belt | Aggressive |
| Weapon | Destruction Staff | Companion’s Inferno Staff | Aggressive |
| Necklace | Companion’s Necklace | Aggressive | |
| Ring | Companion’s Ring | Aggressive | |
| Ring | Companion’s Ring | Aggressive |
The Bow gear setup
| Slot | Weight | Set | Trait |
| Head | Medium | Companion’s Helmet | Aggressive |
| Shoulders | Medium | Companion’s Arm Cops | Aggressive |
| Chest | Medium | Companion’s Jack | Aggressive |
| Legs | Medium | Companion’s Guards | Aggressive |
| Gloves | Medium | Companion’s Bracers | Aggressive |
| Boots | Medium | Companion’s Boots | Aggressive |
| Belt | Medium | Companion’s Belt | Aggressive |
| Weapon | Bow | Companion’s Inferno Staff | Aggressive |
| Necklace | Companion’s Necklace | Aggressive | |
| Ring | Companion’s Ring | Aggressive | |
| Ring | Companion’s Ring | Aggressive |
Ranged DPS companion Tips and Tricks
Control: Just like commanding a pet, you’ll need to hit the default key “Y” and the left mouse to attack or the right mouse to return (no PC). Companions don’t know when to move out of bad AoE’s or mechanics. So you as the player must make this a priority.
Combat: You’ll want to start the combat first, while your companion will stay out of enemy range and deal damage to the enemies from the distance. Just like players, companions have multiple buffs and AoE synergies. So stay close enough to your companion to receive those buffs, but don’t too close, so your companion will be safe behind you.
Ranged DPS: Make sure Ember will always stay at a safe distance. She is less likely to die in combat as a ranged damage dealer.
Provide shield and healing: Every class or combat style has some type of shield or damage reduction. Pick at least one extra shield or protection skill for your companion. This small bit of protection will help your companion survive. That’s why the armor skill line is so vital to prioritise and use. You may slot extra off healing ability to help your companion survive.
Make companion your own! These tips can help you out but the end result is up to you. Experiment, try things outside of the box and meta ideas. You’ll be surprised at just how effective these things can be. Thanks for reading!
More ESO Articles, Guides and Builds
Thank you for reading the ESO Ember Ranged DPS builds guide! Check out more companion builds and a comprehensive companion guide and video. Also, consider watching me on Twitch, feel free to ask me questions about my builds and games I play or check out my YouTube Channel.
