Today’s article outlines the best classes for Vampires in ESO, delving into their unique strengths and synergies with the Vampire skill line and theme. While any class can work, we’ll highlight which ones excel as Vampires while addressing any class-specific weaknesses that can be fixed by being Vampires.
Let’s dive into the shadows of Tamriel! Making wise choices in selecting the best vampire classes is crucial for maximizing your DPS potential in the Elder Scrolls Online universe.
How To Play A Vampire In ESO
Vampirism in The Elder Scrolls Online universe is favored by many gamers for its roleplaying flare, especially if you come from playing Skyrim. However, Vampirism in ESO can also greatly enhance gameplay with passives like Unnatural Movement and Dark Stalker, allowing you to get around Tamriel undetected. Undeath is a crucial passive damage mitigation tool, often used in challenging encounters like Flame-Herald Bahsei from Rockgrove, and absolutely essential in PVP builds.
With the changes to Arterial Burst and Blood for Blood in Update 41: Scions of Ithelia, Vampire builds become viable for classes that lack a strong spammable in their kit or struggle with sustain issues. This applies to both solo and group content, and in PVE and PVP scenarios.
And don’t forget, Mist Form offers more speed to classes that lack good mobility tools in their kit, which is particularly beneficial in PVP scenarios, serving as an alternative to Race Against Time from the Psijic skill line.
Elder Scrolls Online Best Class for Vampire Explained
The best Vampire classes in ESO are:
1. Nightblade
Nightblade stands out as the best choice for embracing the Vampire archetype in ESO. Its thematic synergy with the blood and shadow aspects of vampirism, particularly evident in the Siphoning skill line, where certain skills cost health and animations align with Vampire abilities and aesthetic, makes it the perfect fit for roleplaying a blood-thirsty assassin lurking in the shadows.
By nature, Nightblade excels in stealth with Shadowy Disguise in its class kit, fitting seamlessly into the vampire lore. The skill is also a way to proc the Strike from the Shadows passive for extra burst damage as you run into an encounter.
The permanent Minor Expedition buff granted for slotting Concealed Weapon as well as Vampire skill line passives like Unnatural Movement, which grants invisibility while sprinting and reduces sprint cost by 50%, and Dark Stalker, allowing you to sneak at a moment’s notice and at full speed, make Nightblade a formidable thief and the easiest questing class.
In addition to this, the Nightblade class mitigates the additional skill cost incurred by vampirism with its innately good sustain, cost-efficient ultimate, and insane ultimate generation. This also means that it takes less time to transform into an unstoppable Swarming Scion, should you decide to play with the Vampire ultimate.
Following the nerf to Concealed Weapon, you may find Arterial Burst to be a potent spammable for melee Magicka Nightblades in group content due to the guaranteed Haemorrhaging status effect recently added to it.
Nightblades also excel at healing as they deal damage, perfect when draining health with Simmering Frenzy or maintaining low health for enhanced damage with abilities like Blood for Blood or Arterial Burst. This synergy pairs seamlessly with sets like Titanborn Strength and True-Sworn Fury.
In other words, Nightblades perfectly embody the cunning and elusive nature of vampires, showcasing quite high dps potential, and the synergy between vampirism and the class makes Vampire Nightblade the absolute best and most devastating ganker and bomber in PVP, without doubt.
Check out our ultimate Nightblade Vampire Build!
2. Necromancer
Just like Nightblade, the Necromancer class blends seamlessly with the Vampire aesthetic in ESO: it aligns with the undead theme of the Necromancer class, creating a cohesive and immersive experience. Vampirism also allows you to delve deeper into the forbidden magic of Tamriel, since, as a Necromancer, you are already accustomed to a class-kit full of illegal skills. Vampire skills are therefore a logical extension of your character’s dark practices, allowing you to become a creature of the night that commands legions of undead thralls.
The Necromancer class boasts excellent ultimate generation with Necrotic Potency, ensuring that the increased ultimate cost associated with the various stages of Vampirism does not hinder its ability to keep good uptimes on Major Vulnerability with Glacial Colossus, or to transform into an unkillable Ravenous Goliath or Swarming Scion.
Additionally, Necromancers typically rely on difficult Damage-Over-Time (DOT) rotations due to the lack of a strong class spammable and to fully leverage their Rapid Rot passive. However, becoming a Vampire allows you to use Arterial Burst, giving you access to a potent melee spammable that also synergizes well with the Necromancer’s DOT-focused playstyle, since the introduction of the guaranteed stacking Haemorrhaging DOT. Using Arterial Burst as a Magicka spammable also alleviates Stamina sustain issues the Necromancer class tends to struggle with, especially since competitive damage builds now have to run Blighted Blastbones. As of Update 41: Scions of Ithelia, Vampire Necromancers now stand as a good damage option for endgame content too, dummy-parsing on par with other classes and still bringing a lot of valuable buffs and debuffs.
In solo play, you can further simplify sustain by using the Blood for Blood morph instead since Necromancer’s DOTs, combined with the Pale Order ring, make it effortless to regain health despite the spammable’s health-cost.
Another beneficial aspect of being a Vampire Necromancer is the utility of Blood Mist. This skill proves valuable due to the Necromancer’s inherent lack of mobility, particularly in PVP, but also provides valuable healing in solo content. Blood Mist also applies a DOT effect on you, which helps stacking the Azureblight set for big explosions in Area-Of-Effect (AOE) encounters, both in group content or in the Infinite Archive. Additionally, the visual effect of summoning undead minions amidst a swirling sea of blood is simply pretty cool.
Finally, the Undeath passive further enhances Vampire Necromancer’s damage mitigation, one of their most contributing aspects to effectively tanking damage, making you very hard to kill by stacking mitigation you already have from Deaden Pain and Spirit Guardian. This makes one bar heavy attack Vampire Necromancer builds powerful and extremely forgiving to play across all content.
Check out this Vampire Necro Build to help you get started!
3. Warden
As the druid and summoner class, Warden also embodies the essence of a vampire, as a cold-blooded predator from the wilds, in perfect harmony with its animal companions. The ice magic theme of the Warden class complements the beast archetype too, evoking the ice-cold skin of vampires and the snowy realm of Western Skyrim, adding to the thematic immersion of the class and even adding high DPS potential.
Because the Warden class already struggles with sustain, the additional cost brought by Vampire stages is something to keep an eye on. However, vampirism can bring a lot of added benefits to Wardens. Firstly, health-costing abilities like Blood for Blood can prove beneficial, particularly in solo play, as they mitigate some of the class’s sustain issues while offering a potent spammable option, which the class lacks. This is often utilized in speed runs and burst strategies in Veteran Hard-Mode dungeons. Additionally, this allows Warden Vampires to have a powerful melee spammable while still wielding an ice staff, therefore maximizing the benefits of the Piercing Cold passive. They can also alternate it with casts of Frost Reach with a Master’s Ice Staff, providing a strong damaging option, alleviating the class’s weakness and offering a unique playstyle. Finally, the claw animation from Arterial Burst and Blood for Blood perfectly matches the Wild Guardian’s attacks, making you one with your bear summon.
With an abundance of healing abilities like Leeching Vines and Lotus Blossom, Warden Vampires can easily keep themselves alive while casting health-costing skills such as Blood for Blood and Simmering Frenzy. Additionally, Wardens typically possess larger health pools due to access to Minor Toughness, reducing the risk associated with draining their health with Simmering Frenzy for increased damage. This also means Wardens risk less while staying at 50% health in order to fully utilize the bonus damage and guaranteed critical hits from Arterial Burst. This is further enhanced by the Warden’s critical damage bonuses from the Advanced Species passive and easy access to Minor Brittle, due to favoring ice staves.
Even without wielding an ice staff, Wardens can use a Bleed Warden build, capitalizing on the recent change to Arterial Burst/Blood for Blood and the stacking Haemorrhaging status effect. This synergy suits the thematic aspect of a blood-sucking Vampire well, especially considering Warden has access to more bleed damage than any other class, allowing for effective use of sets like Dro’Zakar’s Claws or Blooddrinker.
Finally, Warden Vampires can stealthily stalk their victim thanks to the Dark Stalker passive and the ability to cast Bird of Prey without coming out of sneak, providing a 30% speed boost.
Check out our Powerful Vampire Warden Build here.
4. Dragonknight
Dragonknights, while slightly less roleplay-friendly due to Vampires’ weakness to fire, still offer great benefits to desire, particularly in combination with the Tanking role.
The Undeath passive renders Dragonknights nearly invincible in PVE and PVP, especially coupled with their burst heal, Coagulating Blood, which becomes more potent at lower health.
Additionally, the Vampiric Drain skill opens up a niche playstyle focused on ultimate generation. When paired with specific sets, Dragonknights can stay in their Magma Shell ultimate indefinitely, making them unkillable in challenging content like the Infinite Archive, potentially extending their runs endlessly.
In a DPS role, Dragonknight Vampires can adopt aggressive playstyles with Burning Embers, in order to capitalize on Simmering Frenzy’s health-draining mechanic and the class’s access to Minor Brutality to boost weapon damage significantly.
Check out our powerful Dragonknight Vampire tank build!
The Final Word
We hope this list was helpful in your Vampire journey within The Elder Scrolls Online. Remember that this guide is just a starting point to give you ideas on various classes and builds, but any class and build can work with the Vampire playstyle if you put in the effort, so don’t neglect your Sorcerer, Templar or Arcanist just because they didn’t make the top of this list! Your class individually makes a huge difference in how you play a Vampire, and every class in ESO is viable.
