Powerful SOLO Magicka Sorcerer Build for ESO (Elder Scrolls Online)

• Solo Setup
  • Gear (Setup 1,2,3)
  • Skills
  • Champion Points
  • Important Info (Food, Mundus, Race, Potions, Passives, Attributes)
• Resource Management
• Rotation
• Bad Habits
• Vateshran Hollows & Maelstrom Arena Setup
• Endless Archive Setup
• Gameplay
• Update Log

Welcome to the “SOLO Sorcerer” Magicka Sorcerer Build for PvE in ESO (Elder Scrolls Online). This build is optimized for solo play. Make sure to bookmark the link as I will keep updating the build for each new Update of ESO. You can find more Sorcerer content on the website:

• Magicka Sorcerer Beginner Guide (Read first new playes)
• Magicka Sorcerer Beginner 160CP Build
• Magicka Sorcerer Build (META)
• 2 Pet Heavy Attack Build
• One Bar Magicka Sorcerer Build

The Magicka Solo Sorcerer build is specifically designed for SOLO play. You can play this build in Overland, Dungeons and Arenas (normal and veteran). I also made sure to give you a few gear choices below because it is not always easy to get the right gear in ESO.

Sorcerers have a pretty easy time compared to other classes soloing stuff because they have Hardened Ward, which applies a huge shield to yourself and your pets that bolster your health. In addition, we also have Critical Surge in our toolkit that boosts our damage and also heals us for quite a lot!

• Solo Build for Normal & Veteran Dungeons
• Solo Build for Overland
• Solo Build for Maelstrom and Vateshran Hollows
• Easy to get Gear & Advanced Setups
• Big Shields
• Strong Self Healing
• Powerful Damage

Solo Sorcerer Setup

5x Perf. False God, 5x Mother’s Sorrow, 1x Pale Order, 1x Swarm Mother on a High Elf with Clockwork Citrus Filet.

• Unbuffed: Out of combat, pet and buff food active.
• Buffed: In combat, pet, buff food, Major Sorcery, Major Prophecy, Minor Prophecy and Weapon Damage enchantment active.

Gear Solo Magicka Sorcerer

I have chosen a double Lightning destruction staff setup with this build because it is easier to set enemies off balance and you can also get some splash AoE damage on Lightning heavy attacks. With Lightning heavy attacks you can also regain resources easier because it is easier to keep the attack focused on a mob due to the channeled attack. If you prefer a fire staff, go for it.

If you want to see more viable gear options I recommend reading the Magicka DPS Gear Sets Article which explains all of the sets in detail.

• Setup 1 Most Optimal Setup
• Setup 2 Easy to get Gear
• Setup 3 Beginner Setup

Gear Setup 1

• Monster Set: We are only using a one-piece Monster Set because we have the Ring of the Pale Order Mythic item equipped. The reason we use Swarm Mother is simple, it provides us with extra stats for both Magicka and Stamina. It has a double bonus compared to most other one-piece monster sets.
• False God’s Devotion: False God’s Devotion is very powerful in both the imperfect and perfect versions, I can highly recommend this set. You can farm it fairly easily in normal mode Sunspire.
• Ring of the Pale Order: The Mythic item Ring of the Pale Order provides us with a lot of extra passive healing as long as we deal damage.
• No Ring of the Pale Order? You can also keep using 2x Iceheart like before.

Gear Setup 2

This setup is easier to acquire and also has more defensive stats compared to the first one, which means it’s safer to play. Once again, make sure to use the Iceheart Monster Set, it really makes a huge difference in terms of defense, it procs very easily and gives you a huge shield that absorbs a lot of damage.

Both Necropotence and Mother’s Sorrow can be farmed in their respective Overland zones or you can also buy them via the Guild Store. It would be preferable if you get the gear with the divine trait, but you can also use any other trait, you will not lose that much power. And non-divine gear pieces are usually very cheap to buy.

You can get a Mother’s Sorrow Lightning staff fairly easily through a quest item (Argonian Muck Minder of Mother’s Sorrow – Unique Item). The quest is called “The Saving of Silent Mire“.

Gear Setup 3 Beginner

1. You can buy blue gear (random trait) from the store for a very cheap price or farm these sets: Necropotence and Mother’s Sorrow. You don’t need to get the best traits right away, more important is that you have the full sets.
2. You can obtain a Lightning Mother’s Sorrow Staff very easily through a quest in Deshaan. I made a video about this a while ago: How to get a Mother’s Sorrow Staff for free.

Where can I get the gear?

False God’s Devotion: Sunspire
Perfected False God’s Devotion: vet Sunspire
Ring of the Pale Order Antiquities
Necropotence: Rivenspire Overland, Guildtrader
Mother’s Sorrow: Deshaan Overland, Guildtrader
Tzogvin’s Warband: Frostvault Dungeon
Swarm Mother: vSpindleclutch 1
Iceheart: Head: Direfrost Keep, Shoulder: Glirion Undaunted Chest
Magnus’ Gift: Craftable in Rivenspire, Greenshade, Shadowfen

IMPORTANT: You can get a Lightning Mother’s Sorrow Staff by doing a simple quest, that way you earn the staff! You will receive the “Argonian Muck Minder of Mother’s Sorrow” from the Quest in Silent Mire, Deshaan.

Skills Solo Magicka Sorcerer

• If you want more heals you could replace the Volatile Familiar with the Summon Twilight Matriarch skill to get some extra burst heals, though usually Critical Surge is enough.
• Your main spammable is Crystal Fragments.

Skill explanation:

• Hardened Ward: Your main defensive ability, as long as you keep your shield up enemies can not damage your health. (Useful Guides: How do Shields Work?, How do Shields Scale?)
• Consuming Trap: Single Target DoT that you need to keep on the enemy, every time someone dies affected by this, you gain a huge amount of resources.
• Crystal Fragments: Use this only when it procs, that way you can use it without cast time and it costs less and deals more damage. it also procs the Exploitation passive to get some extra Spell Critical.
• Critical Surge: This is your main heal, if you keep this skill up in combination with your shields you should not really die unless you get one shot.
• Volatile Familiar: The Familiar has a lot of AoE damage and can also aggro some of the monsters.
• Shooting Star Ultimate: If you have a lot of stacked mobs, you can use this to deal with really good AoE damage and also regain Ultimates for each enemy hit.
• Unstable Wall of Elements: Your main AoE ability, has to be on the ground all the time.
• Mystic Orb: Deals high DoT damage to enemies around it, always apply this when you reapply Unstable Wall of Elements.
• Boundless Storm: Deals small damage ticks and gives you major resistance. Plus if you use it you can also gain a speed buff to run faster.
• Elemental Susceptibility: Apply this on big monsters and bosses, applies debuff to enemies increasing your damage and also applies status effects.
• Greater Storm Attronach: This is your Single Target Ultimate, use it whenever you fight a boss.

Champion Points for Solo Magicka Sorcerer

Important Info for Solo Magicka Sorcerer

Let’s take at some more important stuff to make the build complete for the Solo Magicka Sorcerer Build.

Buff-food

You have the option between two different buff foods/drinks for this build. It is crucial that you use either one of these because they give very important stats, health, magick and magicka recovery. You can use the more expensive Clockwork Citrus Filet or the less expensive version Witchmother’s Potent Brew. The difference between both is very small, I only use the expensive one for very difficult content to get a tiny bit more stats. Otherwise I always use the less expensive version to save money.

Info: If you click on the URL you will get directed to a detailed page of the buff food/drink where you can see the prices too.

Clockwork Citrus Filet
(Max Health, Max Magicka, Magicka Recovery, Health Recovery)

Witchmother’s Potent Brew
(Max Health, Max Magicka, Magicka Recovery)

Gear Setup 2 & 3

Because we need to get sustain from somewhere else if we do not have False God’s Devotion, I recommend using the Witchmother’s Potent Brew on Gear Setup 2 & 3. You can buy this very cheap in the guild stores or even ask people to give you some.

Mundus Stone

The Lover Mundus Stone is the best choice for this setup, it increases our overall spell penetration, which boosts our damage. You can also visit the Mundus Stone Overview Page for additional information regarding all the Mundus Stones.

The Lover Mundus Stone (Increased Spell Penetration)

Race

All Magicka-based races work with this setup. More about each race can be found on the racial overview page.

High Elf
Breton
Dark Elf
Argonian
Khajiit
Orc

Potions

We already get Major Sorcerery 20% Spell damage buff through Critical Surge, therefore you could use Essence of Spell Critical potions. You can also use the normal potions, but then you will loose out on Major Prophecy, 12% Spell crit. If you are going to use normal potions, you could slot Inner Light to gain the Major Prophecy buff instead.

Essence of Spell Critical Potion
(Spell-crit, Magicka, Health)
(Columbine, Ladys Smock, Water Hyacinth)

Essence of Magicka Potion
(Magicka)
(Bought in Guild Stores, cheap price)

Important: Make sure to get alchemy to level 50 to unlock the Medicinal Use passive. That way you can keep up the buffs of potions a 100% of the time.

Passives

• Dark Magic: Unholy Knowledge, Blood Magic, Persistence, Exploitation
• Daedric Summoning: Rebate, Power Stone, Daedric Protection, Expert Summoner
• Storm Calling: Capacitor, Energized, Amplitude, Expert Mage
• Destruction Staff: Tri Focus, Penetrating Magic, Elemental Force, Ancient Knowledge, Destruction Expert
• Light Armor: Grace, Evocation, Spell Warding, Prodigy, Concentration
• Undaunted: Undaunted Command, Undaunted Mettle
• Racial: All
• Alchemy: Medicinal Use

Attributes

All into Magicka

Resource Management

Heavy Attacks are your best friend, they restore a huge amount of resources, when an enemy is set off-balance you get twice the amount of resources back from a heavy attack! Because we use a Lightning staff, we will also deal AoE damage with our Heavy Attacks.

Consuming Trap restores a whooping 7000 Magicka if an enemy dies, I usually apply this on a low Health enemy, so once he dies I will get a huge resource boost.

Potions, I use them every 45 seconds to boost my Magicka, don’t forget the alchemy Medicinal Use passive to increase the duration of your potions.

• Heavy Attacks
• Consuming Trap
• Potions

The False God’s Devotion set also returns a lot of Magicka every time an enemy dies. You can get this set from normal Sunspire, it is very easy to obtain. If you don’t have it, I recommend using the Witchmother’s Potent Brew to gain more Magicka Recovery, like explained in the buff-food section.

Rotation

For this kind of setup, there is not a fixed rotation at all, your main goal should always be to stay alive and you do that by keeping up your shield and healing abilities.

1. Critical Surge is your main healing ability, you have to keep this up a 100% of the time.
2. Boundless Storm has to also be up a 100% of the time, this skill gives Major Resolve, increasing your resistances by a lot, which is a lot of damage mitigation. In addition, you also gain a short speed boost.
3. Hardened Ward is your main defensive ability, I always recommend keeping the shield up in combat.
4. Elemental Susceptibility should always be applied on the enemy, it increases your damage and also adds status effects to the enemy.
5. Summon Volatile Familiar, Unstable Wall of Elements and Mystic Orb are your three AoE damage over time effects that you have to keep up all the time.
6. Consuming Trap is your Single Target damage over time effect and also your biggest sustain boost. If you place this on an almost-dead enemy, it will restore around 7000 Magicka!
7. Crystal Fragments is your spammable, once you did all the above and you still have time, you can use this skill to attack the enemy.

You have to weave Light Attacks between all the abilities, Light Attacks deal a lot of damage and also proc Weapon Enchantments, if you want to learn more check out this guide here: “Weaving Beginner Guide”.

Bad Habits

• Often players forget their back bar, which has a lot of important damage abilities and debuffs/buffs on it. Make sure to get used to weapon swap all the time.
• Keep up your Hardened Ward shield 24/7, that way your health can never really be damaged. In most of the gameplay that you can watch from my Sorcerer, you will see that I keep up this shield almost all the time.
• Always keep moving your character around, if you just stand on the ground you take unnecessary damage from melee monsters, that damage can easily be avoided by kiting.

Vateshran Hollows & Maelstrom Arena Setup

Magicka Sorcerer Vateshran Hollows & Maelstrom Arena Build Setup.

• For specific tips and tricks please check out the Vateshran Hollows Guide and the Maelstrom Arena Guide which explains everything in detail.
• Ring of the Pale Order provides a lot of extra healing, I recommend getting this Mythic item, it makes the arena a lot easier.
• If you don’t have access to Mythic items, please use the gear setups above.

Gear Setup

Skills

A good mix between AoE and Single Target damage. Always keep your buffs/debuffs active.

Other

Everything else stays the same as shown here in this build.

Endless Archive Setup for Solo Magicka Sorcerer Build

Here you can find a setup that works well inside ESO’s Endless Archive when you play solo with the Solo Magicka Sorcerer Build. Make sure to read the ESO Endless Archive Guide to understand what is going on inside the archive.

• Endless Archive gets progressively harder
• You need to know boss mechanics, otherwise one-shots will occur often.
• Understanding how the Endless Archive works is important
• If you get stuck, change gear or skills and try again.

Gear Setup

Inside the Endless Archive, we recommend running the following setup for our Solo Magicka Sorcerer Build: 5x Whorl of Depths (Frontbar), 5x Pillar of Nirn (Backbar), 1x Ring of Pale Order, 2x Iceheart. All the sets are procing automatically, therefore you won’t have to worry about keeping track of any of them. This is great, that way we can focus more on the combat and our abilities.

Skills

A good mix between AoE and Single Target damage. Always keep your buffs/debuffs active.

Buff-Food

If you have sustain issues then it is recommended to use the Ghastly Eye Bowl buff food because it gives us a huge amount of Magicka Recovery and Max Magicka, but your Health will be lower. If you don’t have sustain issues, then it is recommended to use the Clockwork Citrus Filet or the less expensive version Witchmother’s Potent Brew.

Gameplay

A few gameplay videos of the Solo Magicka Sorcerer Build.

Vateshran Hollows Solo Arena (Veteran) Full Run

Please check out the Vateshran Hollows Guide for tips and tricks. If you want to know what kind of gear drops in Vateshran hollows, you can check out the full list here.

Solo Veteran Cradle of Shadows with Hardmode

If you want to learn more about Cradle Of Shadows, you can visit the Cradle Of Shadows overview page.

Solo Red Petal Bastion Dungeon Run

You can learn more about the Red Petal Bastion Dungeon on the Red Petal Bastion overview page.

Solo Unhallowed Grave Gameplay

If you want to learn more about Unhallowed Grave, you can visit the Unhallowed Grave overview page.

Solo Lair of Maarselok Gameplay

If you want to learn more about the Lair of Maarselok, you can visit the Lair of Maarselok overview page.

Solo Moongrave Fane Gameplay

If you want to learn more about Moongrave Fane, you can visit the Moongrave Fane overview page.

Update Log

19.10.2019 Updated the build for the Dragonhold DLC.
18.03.2020 Updated the build for the HARROWSTORM DLC.
14.05.2020 Updated the build for the GREYMOOR CHAPTER.
22.10.2020 Updated the build for the MARKARTH DLC, Greymoor Chapter.
05.03.2021 Updated the Build for the FLAMES OF AMBITION DLC, Blackwood Chapter.
25.05.2021 Updated the Build for the BLACKWOOD CHAPTER.
09.08.2021 Updated the Build for the WAKING FLAME DLC, Blackwood Chapter.
13.10.2021 Updated the Build for the DEADLANDS DLC, Blackwood Chapter.
04.03.2022 Updated the Buil for the ASCENDING TIDE DLC, High Isle Chapter.
13.05.2022 Updated the Build for the HIGH ISLE CHAPTER.
03.08.2022 Updated the Build for the LOST DEPTHS DLC, High Isle Chapter.
24.10.2022 Updated the Build for the FIRESONG DLC, High Isle Chapter.
08.03.2023 Updated the Build for the SCRIBES OF FATE DLC, Necrom Chapter.
01.06.2023 Updated the Build for the ESO NECROM CHAPTER.
23.10.2023 Updated the Build for Update 40.
08.03.2024 Updated the Build for the Scions of Ithelia DLC Update 41, Gold Road Chapter.