Elder Scrolls Online Classes

There are six available classes in The Elder Scrolls Online: Templar, Dragonknight, Sorcerer, Nightblade, Necromancer, and Warden. Each class is unique and differs in the style of play. If you struggle with picking up one of the classes try to determine your style of play first. It may turn out to be very helpful for beginner players.

Table of contents

1. FAQ
2. Class skills
3. Classes
4. Best race and class choice
5. Our overall recommendations.

FAQ

Which class is the best?

There is no best class, they all have their strengths and weaknesses that change all the time. Choose that one that suits your preferences, play style and seems to be the most enjoyable. What's more, The Elder Scrolls Online classes are very flexible in comparison to other MMORPG.

Can I change my class during the game?

You can change your race, name, skill point allocation and stats, but you can't change your class. That's why a decision about picking your class is so important.

Does race have an influence on a class?

Yes, races have their unique passive abilities, that fits better with some classes. I'm going to explain it later. But, yes race choice makes a difference.

Class skills

Class skill plays a very important role in the development of your character. They determine your play style. Every class has their own skills that in total provide 18 active abilities and 12 passive abilities. Numbers of combinations created from different skills are limitless, that makes every character unique. Class skills are very similar to the skill trees in other MMO's. Under every class description, I have given skill lines for specific classes and their destination. Let's move to classes.

Classes

Templar

Overall description: Templar is some type of Paladin in comparison to other MMO's. He obtains strong healing and support abilities very helpful in group fights. He is rather characterized by a defensive style of play, but as I have said, classes in the Elder Scrolls Online are very flexible, so Paladin can also become strong DPS. The best choice if you would like to become a stronger tank or healer.

Skill Lines for Templar:

• Address Spear: Strong DPS.
• Dawn's Wrath: Support.
• Restoring Light: Healer and also good Tank.

Dragonknight

Overall description: Much more aggressive play style. Dragonknight can deal a good amount of DPS and obtains a lot of fire like abilities. This is a melee fighting class, mostly using two-handed weapons. In my opinion, he's very similar to the typical warrior class, but with additional magic skills. Dragonknight can also play a role as a tank character.

Skill Lines for Dragonknight:

• Ardent Flame: Good fire damage over time and a lot of crowd control abilities.
• Draconic Power: Strong Tank with good "Area of Effect" skills.

• Earthen Heart: Tank and a good amount of CC.

Read our ESO DragonKnight Build in our other article.

Sorcerer

Overall description: Sorcerer is a very powerful DPS with strong magic abilities. His abilities are offensive and also defensive to protect him from unwanted damage and keep him alive. Mostly he fights with a staff. Sorcerers have also cool ability to summon minions. Sorcerer uses light armor because of its benefits specialized for them. Pick sorcerer if you prefer dealing strong magic damage from a distance or heal your allies.

Skill Lines for Sorcerer:

• Storm Calling: Strong damage and good crowd control abilities.
• Dark Magic: Generally support line.
• Daedric Summoning: Mainly for DPS.

Nightblade

Overall description: Nightblade mostly relies on stealth, in other MMO's this class is very often called rouge class. What characterizes him is a very aggressive play style. He mostly uses blades or a bow. This class uses medium armor that guarantees good movement and decent protection. This is a typical sneaky character with very strong damage. If you like to sling, hide and kill with very powerful melee attacks, this class is for you.

Skill Lines for Nightblade:

• Assassination: A lot of damage and debuffs.
• Shadow: Similar to Assassination, but with AoE abilities.
• Siphoning: Support line.

Warden

Overall description: Warden is the newest class that came out with Morrowind expansion. This is mostly nature-based class with strong support abilities. Wardens are also tough, what makes them not easy to kill, what's more, they can summon animals to fight for their side. Wardens very often use one-handed weapons and shields, so you have to like fights in the close range with strong abilities. However, if you would like to play more like support, Wardens also can fit into this style of play by using Green Balance Skill Line.

Skill Lines for Warden:

• Winter's Embrace: Good Tank.
• Green Balance: Healer.
• Animal Companions: Strong DPS.

Necromancer

Necromancer is the newest class added to Elder Scrolls Online in June 2019 along with the Elsweyr expansion. It is available only for those, who purchased it. As the name would suggest, Necromancers are fighting with summons, whether it's a bone and flesh shield, Living Death magic, or other body reanimation abilities.

Skill lines for Necromancer:

- Bone Tyrant,
- Living Death,
- Grave Lord.

Best race and class choice

Every race has its own unique passive ability, some of them suit better with different classes. For instance, Dunmer would be the best for Dragonknight because of his racial bonus to fire damage.

Bosmer should be the best for Nightblade if only he is using a bow, but for more sneaky play style Khajiit would work even better because of his racial bonus that increases stealth radius.

For Sorcerer I prefer Altmer because of his bonus to magic stats.

Templar is very strong when combined with Altmer or Breton. Magic resistance and good defensive abilities.

Warden works well with High Elf for Magicka build or Khajiit to increase stamina.

For Necromancer Stamina DPS build you want to choose Khajiit or Redguard, as these races influence Stamina values. For magicka DPS, Altmer will be the best option. You should go Nord or Argonian for tanking.

Our overall recommendations

If you would like to play as a tank pick: Dragonknight, because of his strong Earthen Heart Skill Line.

If you would like to play as a support class pick: Templar, because of his good healing abilities.

If you would like to play as a DPS class pick: Sorcerer or Nightblade