ESO HYBRID CLASS Guide

What’s The Best Hybrid Class In The Elder Scrolls Online?

There are nearly infinite ways to build your character in The Elder Scrolls Online, whether you enjoy Solo Builds, Group Builds, PVP or PVE Content, there is something for everyone! Hybrid Builds are also a unique way to play in ESO, mixing Magicka and Stamina abilities together to create truly powerful combinations that are 100% NOT META! Read on to learn more about each class in The Elder Scrolls Online and how it can be used to create some amazing hybrid fighters.

6 – The Necromancer

Let’s start with what I think is by far the most challenging class to play in ESO, the Necromancer. Now to be clear, we’re not saying that the Necromancer class is bad to play, in fact, this class can be a fantastic choice for both PVE and PVP content in both solo and group situations. However, the Necromancer in my opinion is still the most difficult in terms of building a strong Hybrid character due to its many limitations. We’ll get more into the challenges in just a minute, but let’s touch on some of the good things first.

Necromancer Pros

First, Necromancers have some of the best ultimates in the game. Frozen Colossus and Pestilent Colossus are both fantastic in nearly all situations and don’t forget you can also become basically unkillable using the Bone Goliath ultimate so there’s some really powerful options here. Even more than that, I would say that Necromancers have probably the best class passives in ESO in terms of raw power and stats. For example, Last Gasp gives your build an extra 1250 health at all times. That’s really good! Then you have Undead Confederate which gives you a flat 200 Magicka and Stamina recovery bonus as long as you have a summon active. You also have Death Knell which increases your Critical Chance, Dismember which increases your Penetration and Rapid Rot which increases your DOT Damage. So, as you can see, overall the passives that the Necromancer has access to are insanely good.

Necromancer Cons

So why have I ranked the Necromancer class last on our list of the Best Hybrid Classes in ESO? The biggest limitation for Necros is their lack of important buffs. At the point of creating this list, Necromancers are still the only class in the game that does not have a class skill in their kit that grants them Major Sorcery and Major Brutality. In addition, there is no Necromancer skill that grants the major critical chance buffs either, that being Major Savagry and Major Prophecy. So you can see, right out the gate Necromancers are at a disadvantage and are forced to look outside of the box to get these important buffs instead of just having them included automatically on their most used skills like other classes tend to have.

Necromancer skills are also generally more difficult to use and maintain, especially for beginner and intermediate players. One issue here is that the buffs that Necros need like Spirit Mender and Skeletal Armor seem to have shorter durations – sometimes less than 20 seconds. This is also true of their DOT skills like Boneyard which is only 10 seconds and both morphs of Siphon which are 12 seconds. Other classes generally have longer-lasting buffs and dots, morph options that increase the duration of the skill, or passive skills that those durations by a few extra seconds – and the necromancer has none of those.

Necromancers also have more complicated skills compared to most other classes where some require a corpse on the ground in order to cast the skill or make the best use of it, which definitely takes some practice and getting used to. Again, not a bad thing necessarily, just more challenging compared to other classes in the game. In the future I would love to see some buffs for this class – make those skill morphs more unique and put Major Brutality and Major Sorcery somewhere on those class skills.

Necromancer Hybrid Builds

5 – The Sorcerer

Coming in at Number 5 we have the Sorcerer Class. Sorcerer is a good class but similar to the Necromancer we just looked at, they also suffer from some identity issues that limit your gameplay options when it comes to building a Hybrid, particularly when it comes to choosing skill morphs.

Sorcerer Pros

First, let’s start with the good. When I think of Sorcerer I think of Speed, Survivability, and Self-Healing. This is true regardless of which morph options you choose for the Sorcerer class so you can always count on a fast-paced play style with good survivability no matter how you build your Sorc which is great. Their class self-healing skill called Critical Surge is your main Staple survival skill and should be used on all Sorcerer builds, but it’s particularly good for Solo play.

Sorcerers also have some of my favorite passives in the game with great healing through the Blood Magic passive, cost reduction through Unholy Knowledge, massive reduced Ultimate cost with Power Stone, increased Shock and Physical damage which is perfect for Hybrids through Capacitor and many more. In short, Sorcerers have a fantastic base toolkit to get things done in ESO.

Sorcerer Cons

As far as limitations go, Sorcerers just don’t have as many powerful morph options as our higher ranked classes do. This is where I struggled with building my own Hybrid Sorcerer a few weeks ago. In many cases for the Sorcerer class, one morph option just wasn’t worth using at all or was too difficult to fit into the build even if the skill was good.

Let’s use the Crystal Fragments skill as an example. This skill is amazing! While slotted, using other Magic abilities allows you to proc it for increased damage and lower cost, plus you get a big chunk of passive healing through the Blood Magic passive we mentioned earlier. I want to use this skill so badly on other weapon based builds like a Bow Sorc or Two-Handed Sorc for a true for a true bow-mage or battle-mage playstyle, but in cases like this where you are mostly casting Stamina abilities you’ll never get that Frag Proc since it depends on Magicka skills. It’d be nice to change this skill up somehow so any Sorcerer build can use it reliably.

Then we have the Bound Armaments skill which looks good on paper – you stack up four Spectral Daggers which you can then release for some extra damage, plus you get bonus Stamina and Light Attack damage while slotted but again this skill just falls a bit flat. The damage from the four daggers is bad, sometimes less than one normal spammable skill and the stacking mechanic and rebuffing feel clunky.

Overall, I would say as a class the Sorcerer has a good base to build on, is extremely fun to play and great for new players due to its simplicity, but once you start really diving into the theory crafting you’ll notice a lack of good options that might be disappointing. Fun build, but limited.

4 – The Warden

Moving on to number 4 on our list: the Warden class. The Warden is fairly middle of the road when it comes to creating Hybrid builds in ESO. It does have some of the same issues with its morph options not being entirely unique, similar to the Necromancer class, but it does have more Stamina morph options than the Sorcerer which is good.

Warden Pros

As far as positives go, Wardens have some of the best buffs in the game for hybrids. They have all the standards buffs you would need including Major Sorcery or Major Brutality for damage and Major Prophecy and Major Savagery for Critical Chance. The Warden is also the only class that has built-in Minor Berserk thanks to the Bird Of Prey skill, so you have a ton of options in your toolkit. This also means you can run almost entirely class skills on a Warden if you want to and even use tri-stat potions for a bit of extra sustain.

Wardens are a strong defensive and survival-focused class with fantastic passive and active skills for both healing and armor. In terms of healing, wardens can get passive healing from their Animal Companion skills, healing when they light attack from skills Green Lotus or Lotus Blossom and healing when they take damage from Living Trellis. This combined with their Ice Fortress armor buff which also provides Minor Protection makes the warden an extremely good class for PVP or Solo PVE content.

Warden Cons

So why is the Warden number 4 instead of number 1, well they’re still missing a lot in my opinion. One miss as far as I’m concerned is their class ultimates. The Bear Ultimate while a great idea in theory suffers from some major identity issues. Both morph options are hardly different from each other in terms of their functionality, the “damage” morph does less damage than the other due to Warden passives and you have to double bar the ultimate, so forget about using any additional utility or passive type ultimates if you want the bear. Warden’s healing trees ultimate has been nerfed in the past and is only a shadow of its former self and while Permafrost can be a powerful defensive ultimate especially in PVP it’s very lacking in the damage department.

This is also just opinion but I feel like Warden’s are also one of the most gear dependent classes in the game, and if you don’t have good gear like trials sets or arena weapons then the damage and sustain on this class feels not as strong as others. For example if you want to build an Ice Mage hybrid with a frost staff and bow you can totally do that on a warden, but to really make it shine it helps to use the Frostbite set for extra frost damage and especially the Master’s Destruction staff while using Frost Clench. With those two gear sets the build absolutely slaps, but without them it will be less than average.

In summary, the warden class has better buff access than necromancers and better morph options than sorcerers helping to move them up this list, but their issues with damage and sustain can make them a challenge to build a good hybrid setup if you don’t have access to the best gear in the game.

Warden Hybrid Builds

3 – The Nightblade

Moving on to number 3 on our list, one of my personal favorite classes in the game: the Nightblade class.

Nightblade Pros

So what’s good about the Nightblade? Well, there’s three things that really stand out to me: that’s damage, sustain and self-healing. All three of these elements are very important in ESO and make the Nightblade a powerhouse class when it comes to solo or group play in both PVE and PVP content.

Starting with healing, Nightblade’s have some great healing skills like Swallow Soul and Sap Essence in the Siphoning Skill Line and Dark Cloak and Refreshing Path in the Shadow Skill Line. In terms of Sustain Nightblades can use Leeching Strikes or Siphoning Attacks to gain resources and healing and the damage for this class is just insane. Big burst damage from Relentless Focus and Merciless Resolve can be further buffed by the Nightblade’s burst ultimate Incapaciting Strike or Soul Harvest.

Nightblades also have very strong passives, particularly in the Assassination skill line where they gain a lot more offensive potential and sustain and the Siphoning skill line where they get tons of Ultimate generation.

Nightblade Cons

The limitations of the Nightblade class are similar to the Sorcerer, namely that most of the “good” skills are all Magicka based. Nightblades and Sorcerers both have relatively few Stamina based morphs when compared to other classes. Now this may not be a problem for you based on how you like to play, but for me it just felt like I was somewhat limited when building out a Hybrid Nightblade. Basically you can build a blood mage with melee weapons or a blood mage archer and that’s about it. Both are insane, great builds by the way, and I have both of those up on my channel but it’s hard to do more than that with the Hybrid nightblade because the morph options just don’t allow you to do much more than that.

I will also say in terms of difficulty the Nightblade does rank towards the top of the list with the Necromancer for having more complicated skills and rotations when compared to other classes. Skills like Relentless Focus and Merciless Resolve or Leeching Strikes and Siphoning Attacks require very consistent light attack weaving to be truly effective which can be hard for some players starting out, plus Nightblades are the only class without a true Armor skill. Instead their Armor buff comes from the Shadow Barrier passive which needs to be properly maintained by casting Shadow abilities otherwise your build becomes very squishy very fast.

In summary, Nightblades can make for very strong Hybrid builds if you take the time to learn all of the skills completely, can light attack weave flawlessly and keep your buffs and rotation going perfectly. And if you like playing a Blood Mage they’re great for that too.

Nightblade Hybrid Builds

2 – The Templar

Well, if you’ve seen my channel before and are familiar with the builds I create you may surprised that this particular class is not number 1. Remember this list is more about hybrid builds than anything else, and while Templars are certainly top tier in other categories such as solo builds, healing and even PVP builds they do have some issues that still need addressing for a true hybrid setup which we’ll talk about in a minute.

Templar Pros

First what’s good about the Templar? Well, at the top of that list is certainly survivability and self-healing. Templars have the ultimate GOAT ability in eso for dealing damage known as puncturing sweep, an AOE damage skill that heals you back the more damage you do. Templars have equally powerful AOE, ground based heal over time skills like channeled focus or rune focus, extended ritual, purifying light and living dark. Templars also have one of the best burst heals in the game with either Breath Of Life for group content or Honor the Dead for solo content, so you can see if healing is what you like then Templar will definitely be the top on your list of classes.

Templar Cons

What keeps Templar out of the number 1 slot for this list? Well, first is their lack of useful Stamina morph options. Don’t get me wrong, over time the Templar class has gotten a handful of powerful Stamina morphs but these still pale in comparison to the Templar’s incredible Magicka-based skills. Let’s use Puncturing Sweep vs Biting Jabs for example. Now for most builds including solo builds, PVP builds and even group content Puncturing Sweep is a much more desirable morph option because it heals you back. Self-healing is always good no matter what. All that Biting Jabs gives in comparison is Major Brutality and Sorcery – which is certainly good as far as buffs go, but is it better than the best self-healing dps skill in the game?

Other than that most Templar abilities do not have a stamina morph or if they do it’s not super useful. The exception to this is certainly Repentance which is a must have for Stamina sustain and Restoring focus for sustain and healing, but everything else in the Templar toolkit is very Magicka heavy. This can lead to balance and sustain issues if you are trying to build out a Hybrid set up and I think it gives you less options overall when theorycrafting your build.

Templar Hybrid Builds

1 – The Dragonknight

The Number 1 class when it comes to Hybrid Builds in The Elder Scrolls Online is definitely the Dragonknight, and I’m really excited that DKs are in this position right now. With some small tweaks here and there by the developers over the past 2 years or so the Dragonknight class has gotten so much better. It’s really an amazing class for any content you want to do in ESO whether its PVE or PVP, solo or group content, and as a Hybrid this is the blueprint class as far as I’m concerned.

Dragonknight Pros

Self-healing on the Dragonknight class has been buffed significantly in this most current patch with the Burning Embers skill now healing you over time instead of just when the skill is cast. This of course gets combined with the Dragonknight’s many other healing abilities which will now scale with your highest offensive stat, letting you stack Magicka or Stamina and heal equally as effective.

Defense and survivability has always been a characteristic of the Dragonknight class and this is still great but Sustain has also seen quite a few buffs on this class in recent history. This is really the key to the Dragonknight and why I’ve ranked them higher than any other class because sustain on a Hybrid Build is life or death – you have to sustain both your Stamina and your Magicka equally well and DK’s have multiple options for this. First they have the Combustion Passive which gives them Stamina or Magicka sustain based on status effects. Burning will result in 1000 Magicka back and poison 1000 Stamina. This is huge! Then you have an even better sustain passive in Battle Roar which gives you Stamina, Magicka and Health back based when casting Ultimates!

You can also get all the basic buffs you need on DK’s including increased damage and critical chance, which opens up your build to using tri-stat potions for even better hybrid sustain. When you alternate tri-stat potions with using Ultimates and the sustain you get from Battle Roar the Dragonknight cannot run out of resources – it’s most impossible.

Dragonknight Cons

Now this class is not perfect, but the issues are small when compared to the other classes on this list. For one, Dragonknights are similar to Templars in that they do lack strong Stamina morph options. This is more of an issue with ESO’s initial class system design as you see this pretty much across the board in all 4 of the game’s release classes. They have more Magicka morphs than Stamina morphs. You can get around this though with weapon skills or guild skills if you need to. Beyond that though, everything else I see from the dragonknight is positive especially in this current patch.

Dragonknight Hybrid Builds

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