ESO Classes in Elder Scrolls Online are pre-made character roles equipped with skills that players are free to gear out towards their intended purpose within an adventuring party. Most traditional MMOs have restrictive class skills, which are a subset of your weapon choice, but ESO provides a lot more freedom for players to tailor their builds for any role with any class. The game also features Skill Points, allowing for the player to create specific builds around specific attributes.
If you need a detailed guide for beginners, please see this article.
- A fifth class, called the Warden was added with the Morrowind Chapter on June 6th, 2017.
- A sixth class, the Necromancer, was added with the Elsweyr Chapter on June 4th, 2019 and Jack is the best with this character.
- A seventh class, the Arcanist, was added with the Necrom Chapter on June 5th, 2023
How to pick your ESO class
All classes in ESO are viable in all roles, although some classes have an innate capacity for excellence in certain scenarios. Since all classes can equip any light / medium or heavy Armor Set, and upgrade the skill lines for any Weapon, Class Skills are the main differentiator for builds and roles.
When making a build, you will generally select to be
- Magicka (typically ranged heals or dps),
- Stamina (melee or bows dps or tank) or
- Health (tanking) class. (This is the only thing Arran can play cause he's noob)
You could want to become a magicka tank, which becomes harder to accomplish and thus the class you select will determine your performance. The specific skill lines associated for every class are then the deciding factor when making your build. Make sure to also think of the right Races to match your desired bonuses.
ESO Class Roles
These are some suggested roles / focus for the classes. These are subjective observations and players can make any class/role work, however we have looked at the most unique abilities of a class to determine what role that class is naturally more inclined to. Templars, for example, have powerful healing skills in their class line. Dragon Knights have high survivability so they are naturally tankier.
| Stam DPS | Magicka DPS | Tanking | Healing | |
| Dragonknight | Good | Excellent | Excellent | Poor |
| Necromancer | Good | Excellent |
Excellent | Good |
| Nightblade | Good | Good | Good | Good |
| Sorcerer | Good | Excellent | Good | Poor |
| Templar | Good | Excellent | Poor | Excellent |
| Arcanist | Excellent | Excellent | Good | Good |
| Warden | Good | Good | Good | Excellent |
ESO Classes
Dragonknight
Use the ancient Akaviri martial arts tradition of battle-spirit to gain powerful buffs and deal fire damage
Nightblade
Use stealth, luck and cunning to deal devastating criticals and master physical and magic damage
Necromancer
Warden
Become one with nature and harvest its powers for healing and damage with unique frost abilities
Class Role Suggestions
| PVE DPS | PVP DPS | HEAL | TANK | |
| Magicka | Arcanist, Dragonknight, Sorcerer, Templar | Arcanist, Dragonknight, Nightblade, Sorcerer, Templar | Arcanist, Necromancer, Nightblade, Templar, Warden | Dragonknight, Necromancer, Sorcerer, Warden |
| Stamina | Arcanist, Sorcerer, Templar | Arcanist, Dragonknight, Nightblade, Sorcerer | Necromancer, Templar, Warden | Arcanist, Dragonknight, Necromancer, Warden |
| Health | n/a | n/a | n/a | Arcanist, Dragonknight, Necromancer, Sorcerer, Warden |
AnonymousWhy is Templar tank considered good and Sorc tank poor? I've cleared all vet trials with a sorc tank. vAS+2 and vCR+1 as well. Warden is also an EXCELLENT tank, and NB has nice dmg mitigation but lacks a burst selfheal. I'd say Templar is the worst tank. This should be updated, there is not alot of useful tanking info out there for newer players. Sure DK is BiS but.. boring ;)
- Anonymous
I have a level 50 DK and she is great for self healing and gaining ultimate really fast. Her DPS is nothing to shake a fist at either. I tend to move around a lot with my characters to avoid being hit when possible which in general reduces the damage I take but also increases the time it takes to take an enemy down. In general with my DK I rarely have to heal. I also have a night blade who deals nice dps but I find she needs to heal more because I can't steal health from enemies and she also does not gain ultimate like my DK does. I can go a really long time before I have enough ultimate to use an attack where as with my DK I seem to be able to use an ultimate attack multiple times in a boss fight (and I am only doing delves and quests solo so short fights).
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So according to this, necromancer is just better than any other class, speaking of statistics, right?
- Anonymous
why putting necromancer exellent for stamina dps on top but at the bottom not putting in any stamina dps?
- Anonymous
Tank NB isn't "poor". Is "good". Templar tank is "poor". Stamina warden is "good" not "excellent". Stam NB dps is poor for me. Not good heal, problems with survivability and resources. Magicka is better than "good", maybe "excellent" in good hands. Magicka templar is also "excellent" not "good".
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I would honestly but Nightblade to "Good" as a tank (most hardcore vSS HM main tanks are nightblades) and templar to Poor (good mitigation, but lacks health scaling healing ability that could be used as an effective self heal).
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- Anonymous
the necromancer does not have elemental powers it only has undead summoning capabillity
- Anonymous
How can i change my class without restarting the whole game with a new character
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
The necromancer still uses the nightblade icon. Might wanna update that
“Templar Magicka DPS: Good” *Laughs in Sweeping Jabs and Radiant Oppression*
- Anonymous
Everyone who reads this article, read it and leave, because comments are usually useless on a trusted source, and you should ignore all this and play the freaking game. So please ignore this comment unless you understand what I'm telling you, because you would be going to actually experience the game for yourself.
- Anonymous
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You guys are retarded. Suggestions are to ease the game for scrubs that can only play games that the playerbase can offer them guides to using a class the most effective way. Not everyone is a curious cat and good at mmos. I play with guide junkies. So you guys and your "I'm offended" post can shove one up your... You snowflakes.
- Anonymous
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It's a shame that there's only 4 classes. I kinda like lots to choose from.
- Anonymous
hehehe
Dragonknight and Templar have the same armor
This amuses me
- Anonymous
Wow this is the worst wiki!! I want to know about the classes in detail, not what you think I should choose!!
- Anonymous
im building bosmer (wood elf) nightblade destruction staff/bow (just for cripling attacks) wielder wearing light armour and doing just fine. those suggestions are nonsense.
- Anonymous
please remove those suggestions every one should play what ever he/she wants and every class can be the best with each race
- Anonymous
Class Roles and Race Suggestions should be removed due to the nature of the skills/builds in this game. Every class can play every role with every race well if not better than some of the suggestions here i.e. Breton Dragon Knight Healer would be a VERY good character.
- Anonymous
I played that game in the third grade and cried after i shot sandy, and this game is still worse
- Anonymous
People must be crazy. RPG experience A, Graphics A+, multiplayer I haven't touched much, Co-oping is fun.Seriously even if you do compare this to Skyrim or Oblivion I'm honestly not disappointed. They literally just hijacked everything I love about Elder Scrolls and put it into a huge open beautiful world with other real players in it. What's not to love? :D Best game I've played all year. And thank you for all your hard work developers and for not nickle and diming me (allowing me to purchase content permanently instead of through subscription)
So what do I play if I want to use magic and melee? It seems you are forced to either go magicka or stamina, combining the two is a very bad idea. And most classes have quite few stamina morphs, which means you are very starved for options. That's pretty limiting and ultimately boring.
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