ESO Necromancer Subclasses Build – Subclassing Optimized

Updated: Update 46, Seasons of the Worm Cult
Classes: Necromancer + Dragonknight +  Arcanist
Role: Tank PVE

Welcome to the ESO Necromancer Subclasses Build Tank Guide! This page is your go-to resource for building and optimizing a Necromancer class tank focused on subclassing in ESO. Make sure to bookmark it. Like all my ESO Builds, it will be regularly updated to reflect balance changes, gear updates, and new content.

This ESO Tank Subclassing Build combines Necromancer, Dragonknight, and Arcanist together.

Table of Contents for Necromancer Subclassing Build:

1. Necromancer Subclassing Playstyle & Stats
2. Tank Gear Setups
   1. Beginner Gear
   2. Advanced Gear
   3. Best-in-Slot Gear
3. Skill Setups & Rotation
   1. Main Skill Setup
4. Recommended Passives
5. Scribing Skills (Optional)
6. Mythic Set Options (Oakensoul, Death Dealer, Wild Hunt)
7. Champion Points & Optimization
   1. Champion Points Allocation
   2. Attribute Distribution
   3. Mundus Stone
   4. Optimal Races
   5. Consumables (Food & Potions)
8. Alternative Skill-Lines for Subclassing on Necromancer
9. Resource Management & Sustain Tips
10. Outfit Style & Fashion Showcase
11. Update Log

ESO Necromancer Subclassing Build Playstyle & Stats

• Image 1: Unbuffed, with Best-in-Slot gear setup with Orzorga’s Smoked Bear Haunch food.
• Image 2: Fully buffed, with Best-in-Slot gear setup with Orzorga’s Smoked Bear Haunch food.

The ESO Tank Necroamancer Subclassing Build specializes in surviving by itself while also being able to support and heal to a certain degree. This allows you to survive no matter what happens while also being able to help your teammates.

• Build Role: Tank PVE
• Difficulty: Intermediate
• Subclasses: Necromancer + Dragonknight +  Arcanist
• Skill-Lines:  Bone Tyrant (Necro), Earthen Heart (Dragonknight), and Soldier of Apocrypha (Arcanist).
• Gear Progression: Beginner, Advanced, and Best in Slot.
• Skill Loadouts: Main Skill Setup.
• Mythic Options: Ring of the Wild Hunt, Death Dealer’s Fete, Oakensoul Ring.

It’s crucial to understand that a build is only truly complete when paired with the right Consumables, Mundus Stone, and Champion Point setup. These elements significantly impact your overall performance and can make a major difference in both damage and survivability.

If you are new to tanking, please read our Tanking Beginner Guide for ESO and the Advanced Tanking Guide for ESO.

More Subclassing Guides:

• All Subclassing Builds and Guides
• How to unlock the Subclassing Quest in ESO
• The Ultimate Subclassing Guide – How It Works
• How to prepare for Subclassing in ESO
• Subclassing Power Leveling Guide for ESO

Our 3 Skill-Lines for the ESO Necromancer Subclasses Build

For this build, we are using the following skill lines:  Bone Tyrant (Necro), Earthen Heart (Dragonknight), and Soldier of Apocrypha (Arcanist).

•  Bone Tyrant (Necromancer) – Powerful skills and tanking passives.
• Earthen Heart (Dragonknight) – Powerful skills and sustain passives. Godmode ultimate.
• Soldier of Apocrypha (Arcanist) – Strong skills and passives.

You can view the Alternative Skill-Line Options section for a few other good recommended combinations for the ESO Necromancer Subclasses Build.

Gear Setups

The ESO Tank Necromancer Subclassing Build comes with three gear setups. A beginner, advanced, and endgame gear setup. The beginner gear is all crafted gear, you can simply ask a guild member to craft these items for you to increase your power level as a new player. Also, see the ESO Grind Guide for tips on leveling up fast. The Advanced setup requires you to get some dungeon/world gear, and the endgame setup has items from all sources of the game!

• Beginner Gear (Craftable only)
• Advanced Gear
• Best-In-Slot Gear

Please note that there are a lot of good, viable ESO Tank Sets that you can use depending on your situation.

Beginner Gear

Our Beginner Gear only includes craftable sets. I recommend replacing these sets with any of the advanced gear items as soon as possible.

Gear	Set	Weight	Trait	Enchantment
Chest	Fortified Brass	Heavy	Reinforced	Prismatic Defense
Belt	Fortified Brass	Heavy	Sturdy	Health
Shoes	Fortified Brass	Heavy	Sturdy	Health
Pants	Fortified Brass	Heavy	Infused	Prismatic Defense
Hands	Fortified Brass	Heavy	Sturdy	Health
Head	Druid’s Braid	Light	Infused	Prismatic Defense
Shoulder	Druid’s Braid	Medium	Sturdy	Health
Necklace	Druid’s Braid	Jewelry	Infused	Prismatic Recovery
Ring	Druid’s Braid	Jewelry	Infused	Prismatic Recovery
Ring	Druid’s Braid	Jewelry	Infused	Reduce Spell Cost
Weapon 1H	Druid’s Braid	1H-Weap	Decisive	Hardening
Off-Hand Shield	Druid’s Braid	Shield	Sturdy	Prismatic Defense
Weapon 2 Destro	Druid’s Braid	Frost Staff	Infused	Crusher

Where can I get the gear?

Fortified Brass: Craftable
Druid’s Braid: Craftable

Advanced Gear

Our Advanced Gear only includes craftable, overland, dungeon, and arena gear. These are generally easier to get.

Gear	Set	Weight	Trait	Enchantment
Chest	Turning Tide	Heavy	Reinforced	Prismatic Defense
Belt	Turning Tide	Heavy	Sturdy	Health
Shoes	Turning Tide	Heavy	Sturdy	Health
Pants	Turning Tide	Heavy	Infused	Prismatic Defense
Hands	Turning Tide	Heavy	Sturdy	Health
Head	Tremorscale	Light	Infused	Prismatic Defense
Shoulder	Tremorscale	Medium	Sturdy	Health
Necklace	Powerful Assault	Jewelry	Infused	Prismatic Recovery
Ring	Powerful Assault	Jewelry	Infused	Prismatic Recovery
Ring	Powerful Assault	Jewelry	Infused	Reduce Spell Cost
Weapon 1H	Druid’s Braid	1H-Weap	Decisive	Hardening
Off-Hand Shield	Druid’s Braid	Shield	Sturdy	Prismatic Defense
Weapon 2 Destro	Powerful Assault	Frost Staff	Infused	Crusher

Where can I get the gear?

Turning Tide: Shipwright’s Regret Dungeon
Powerful Assault: Tel Var Merchant
Druid’s Braid: Craftable
Tremorscale: vet Volenfell Dungeon

Best-in-Slot Gear

For our Best-in-Slot Gear for the ESO Necromancer Subclassing Tank Build, we are using very powerful sets. It is important to understand that there are plenty of good ESO Tanking sets. Below is one of the great set combos that you can use with this build:

• Perf. Lucent Echoes: When you have more than 50% health, boosts group damage; when you have less than 50% health, boosts your damage reduction against monsters by 20%.
• Powerful Assault: This is used on the back bar and triggers with Echoing Vigor. It boosts the damage of the group.
• Perf. Defensive Position: Restores magicka when you reflect or absorb a spell via Defensive Stance.
• Archdruid Devyric: When you deal damage with a Heavy Attack, an AoE appears and applies Major Vulnerability, increasing the damage you deal to enemies.

Gear	Set	Weight	Trait	Enchantment
Chest	Perf. Lucent Echoes	Heavy	Reinforced	Prismatic Defense
Belt	Perf. Lucent Echoes	Heavy	Sturdy	Health
Shoes	Perf. Lucent Echoes	Heavy	Sturdy	Health
Pants	Perf. Lucent Echoes	Heavy	Infused	Prismatic Defense
Hands	Perf. Lucent Echoes	Heavy	Sturdy	Health
Head	Archdruid Devyric	Light	Infused	Prismatic Defense
Shoulder	Archdruid Devyric	Medium	Sturdy	Health
Necklace	Powerful Assault	Jewelry	Infused	Prismatic Recovery
Ring	Powerful Assault	Jewelry	Infused	Prismatic Recovery
Ring	Powerful Assault	Jewelry	Infused	Reduce Spell Cost
Weapon 1H	Perf. Defensive Position	1H-Weap	Decisive	Hardening
Off-Hand Shield	Perf. Defensive Position	Shield	Sturdy	Prismatic Defense
Weapon 2 Destro	Powerful Assault	Frost Staff	Infused	Crusher

Where can I get the gear?

Perf. Lucent Echoes: vet Lucent Citadel
Powerful Assault: Tel Var Merchant
Perf. Defensive Position: Asylum Sanctorium
Archdruid Devyric: Earthen Root Enclave Dungeon

Skill Setups & Rotation Tips

Skill-Lines used:  Bone Tyrant (Necro), Earthen Heart (Dragonknight), and Soldier of Apocrypha (Arcanist).

For our Skills for the ESO Necromancer Tank Build, we have our primary main skill setup that is perfect for most situations. If you want to see viable Scribing skills, please view the Scribing section of the subclassing build.

For more clarity about Mythics, read the Mythic Set Options Explained section of the Tank Necromancer Subclasses Build for ESO.

Main Skill Setup

You are free to swap out any skill if you have a better fit for whatever content you play.

• Hungry Scythe – Strong AoE heal if you hit multiple enemies, scales of Max HP.
• Necrotic Potency – Absorb corpses to generate ultimate. Insane ultimate generation possible with this.
• Pierce Armor – A melee taunt that applies Major and Minor Breach, greatly reducing enemy resistances.
• Defensive Stance – Absorbs a projectile, increases block damage, and reduces block cost. Also activates Perf. Defensive Position.
• Igneous Shield – Applies a damage shield to yourself and allies. Applies Major Mending, increasing your healing received.
• Magma Armor (Ultimate) – Panic button ultimate. Once activated, you take no more damage for a few seconds.
• Elemental Blockade – Grants damage shield, snares enemies and procs our backbar weapon enchantment.
• Runeguard of Still Waters – Applies Minor Resolve to you and group members, immobilizes enemies. You gain Minor Protection.
• Inner Rage – A ranged taunt, low cost.
• Beckoning Armor – Grants Major Resolve and pulls in ranged attackers, providing both defense and battlefield control.
• Echoing Vigor – Stamina-based HoT that heals yourself and nearby allies over time. This is used to proc the Powerful Assault set.
• Aggressive Horn (Ultimate) – Grants Major Force and max stats; critical for burst windows.

The goal of your tank build is to keep up the buffs, debuffs and keep yourself alive with shields and healing. Additionally, make sure to read the Recommended Passives section carefully. A lot of passives are activated by using skills.

Recommended Passives

• Earthen Heart: Eternal Mountain, Battle Roar, Mountain’s Blessing, Helping Hands
• Soldier of Apocrypha: Circumvented Fate, Implacable Outcome, Aegis of the Unseen, Wellspring of the Abyss
• Bone Tyrant: Death Gleaning, Disdain Harm, Health Averice, Last Gasp
• One Hand and Shield: Fortress, Sword and Board, Deadly Bash, Deflect Bolts, Battlefield Mobility
• Destruction Staff: Penetrating Magic, Elemental Force, Ancient Knowledge, Destruction Expert (Note: Do not activate Tri Focus passive)
• Heavy Armor: Resolve, Constitution, Juggernaut, Revitalize, Rapid Mending
• Medium Armor: If you have spare skill points, max out this skill line too.
• Light Armor: If you have spare skill points, max out this skill line too.
• Undaunted: Undaunted Command, Undaunted Mettle
• Racial: All
• Alchemy: Medicinal Use

Scribing Skills – Optional Setup for the Subclassing Necromancer

Our Necromancer Tank Subclasses Build in ESO has plenty of Scribing skills to choose from that are actually useful. Here are a few combinations that are great fro tanks.

Scribing Simulator: You can test out any scribing skill combination with the ESO Scribing Simulator.

Good Tanking Scribing Skills

• Goading Throw – Ranged taunt, heals you and debuffs enemy with Major Maim, reducing their damage done.
• Heroic Torch – Generates ultimate points for you and group. Also grants Minor Heroism, increasing ultimate generation.
• Leashing Soul – Ranged taunt, pulls enemy to you. Restores resources, applies Major Cowardice to enemy, reducing their damage done.
• Warding Burst – Shields you and allies, generates ultimate and applies Minor Courage, increasing damage for the group.
• Warding Contingency – Grants a damage shield to you or an ally. Reduces damage taken. Grants Minor Intellect and Minor Endurance, increasing recovery.
• Chilling Trample – Deals frost damage, applies Concussion, Sundered, and Hemorrhaging status effects. Grants Major Heroism, increasing ultimate regeneration.

Tip: Click on the Modified Skill URL in the table to see the combination in the Scribing Simulator.

Base Skill	Modified Skill	Focus	Signature	Affix
Shield Throw	Goading Throw	Taunt	Sage’s Remedy	Maim
Torchbearer	Heroic Torch	Generate Ultimate	Gladiator’s Tenacity	Heroism
Wield Soul	Leashing Soul	Pull	Druid’s Resurgence	Cowardice
Soul Burst	Warding Burst	Damage Shield	Anchorite’s Potency	Courage
Ulfsild’s Contingency	Warding Contingency	Damage Shield	Gladiator’s Tenacity	Intellect and Endurance
Trample	Chilling Trample	Frost Damage	Assassin’s Misery	Heroism

Necromancer Tank Skills Setup with Scribing

Here is the most optimal setup when you include Scribing skills on the Necromancer Tank Subclassing Build.

• Swap Inner Rage for Leashing Soul. Leashing Soul taunts and pulls the enemy to you. Restores some resources and debuffs the enemy with Major Cowardice, reducing the damage they do.

Mythic Set Options

With the ESO Tank Necromancer Subclasses Build, you have a few options on what Mythic item you can use, all have their strengths and weaknesses.

Generally, I don’t recommend running a Mythic with this Tank build because the power we get from other set effects is more important. However, here are a few options you can test out for niche applications: Ring of the Wild Hunt, Death Dealer’s Fete, Oakensoul Ring.

Here is a quick summary of the different pros and cons of each Mythic item for our subclassing tank build.

Mythic	Pros	Cons	Best Use Case
Ring of the Wild Hunt	Increases Movement Speed by a lot Kite enemies or AoEs more effectively. Quickly reposition in fights where boss mechanics demand movement Pull scattered adds faster during trash pulls.	Apart from speed, no other real benefit.	Dungeons Trials
Death Dealer’s Fete	Huge boost to all stats HP/STAM/MAG Great in long fights	Slow ramp up, takes 60 seconds to reach its full effect. Falls off quickly if you aren’t in combat.	Veteran Dungeons Veteran Trials
Oakensoul Ring	Simple and beginner-friendly Grants Major/Minor buffs automatically No micromanaging buffs	Most buffs can be easily obtained from other sources Limits yourself to 1 bar.	Open World Easy Dungeons Veteran Dungeons

Champion Points & Optimization

In this section of the ESO Necromancer Subclasses Build, we are going to take a look at important info for things that are often overlooked when replicating a build. Most often, players forgot to use the correct Consumables. These can make or break a build because they provide immense buffs to the character.

1. Champion Points Allocation
2. Attribute Distribution
3. Mundus Stone
4. Optimal Races
5. Consumables (Food & Potions)

Recommended Champion Points Allocation

Champion Points increase the power level of your build tremendously. Therefore, it is recommended to reach 918 Champion Points as fast as possible. Once you reach this level, you will be able to slot most of the important perks in all trees. It caps out at around 1656 though. You can read my ESO Powerleveling Guide to optimize farming Champion Points for the ESO Necromancer Subclasses Build.

In the table below, you see all the slottable Champion Point perks that you have to run with this setup to optimize our damage.

View the full Champion Points spec: Champion Points Setup for the Necromancer Subclassing Build.

Craft	Warfare	Fitness
Steed’s Blessing	Enduring Resolve	Boundless Vitality
Free choice	Duelist’s Rebuff	Celereity
Free choice	Unassailable	Fortified
Free choice	Ironclad	Bastion

Explanation of each slotable Perk:

Craft

•  Steed’s Blessing – Increases your out-of-combat Movement Speed by 20%.

Warfare

• Enduring Resolve – Reduces your damage taken by 6% against damage-over-time attacks.
• Duelist’s Rebuff – Reduces your damage taken by 6% against single-target attacks.
• Unassailable – Reduces your damage taken by 6% against area of effect attacks.
• Ironclad – Reduces your damage taken by 6% against direct damage attacks.

Fitness

• Boundless Vitality – Grants 1400 Max Health.
• Celereity – Increases your movement speed by 10%.
• Fortified – Grants 1731 Armor.
• Bastion – Increases the effectiveness of your damage shields by 15%.

Attribute Distribution

We are distributing our attribute points like this: 30 HP, 20 Magicka, 14 stamina.

Important: Whatever you do, your stamina needs to be slightly higher than your magicka on any tank build. Because the synergy of Energy Orb restores whatever resource has a higher max. Stamina is more important than magicka because if you fail to block because you are out of stamina, you will most likely be defeated.

30 Points
20 Points
14 Points

Best Mundus Stone for the Necromancer Subclassing Build

You generally have two good options when it comes to tanking. The Lord Mundus Stone (Extra HP) to The Atronach Mundus Stone (Magicka Recovery). For an overview of all the Mundus Stones in ESO you can check out the Mundus Stone Overview Page.

Because we have a lot of magicka based abilities, I recommend using The Atronach Mundus Stone.

Best if you don’t need extra HP

• The Atronach Mundus Stone (Magicka Recovery)
  • Increases Magicka recovery by 310
    With 7 Divine armor pieces:

    Increases Magicka recovery by 507

Best if you need extra HP

• The Lord Mundus Stone (Max Health)
  • Increases Maximum Health by 2225
    With 7 Divine armor pieces:

    Increases Maximum Health by 3639

Best Races for the Necromancer Subclassing Build (Tank)

There are a few good options for races for any tanking build. But hands down Nord outshines every other race. It simply has the best tanking passives you can wish for, as you will see below. Extra health and Stamina, ultimate gen and extra resistance, basically the full package. Imperial and Argonian are also solid choices.

• Nord – Best defensive play and also has good stamina-based passives & extra ult gen.
  • Resist Frost – Increases your Max Health by 1000 and Frost Resistance by 4620.
  • Stalwart – Increases your Max Stamina by 1500. When you take damage, you gain 5 Ultimate. This effect can occur once every 10 seconds.
  • Rugged – Increases your Physical and Spell Resistance by 2600.
• Imperial – High Health and Stamina with a 6% cost reduction to all abilities. Flexible and sustain-friendly, especially effective for tank and PvP builds.
  •  Tough – Increases your Max Health by 2000.
  • Imperial Mettle – Increases your Max Stamina by 2000.
  • Red Diamond – Reduces the cost of all your abilities by 6%.
• Argonian – High survivability and bonus healing, good for solo play.
  • Life Mender – Increases your healing done by 6%.
  • Argonian Resistance – Increases your Max Health by 1000 and your Disease and Poison Resistance by 2310.
  • Resourceful – Increases your Max Magicka and Max Stamina by 1000. When you drink a potion, you restore 3125 Health, Magicka, and Stamina.

Consumables (Food & Potions)

Food and Potions are important for every build, they give insane stat boosts and valuable buffs. You can buy all of these from any of the Guild Stores or craft them yourself.

Food Options

You have a few different options as a Necromancer Subclassing Tank in ESO when it comes to buff food. Here you mostly have to decide whether you want more max stats or more recovery. I prefer to play with Orzorga’s Smoked Bear Haunch because it gives me a lot of extra recovery that I need to not run out of magicka for my skills.

Best Food for Max HP + HP/MAG/STAM REGEN

Orzorga’s Smoked Bear Haunch (Check Price) – Increase Max Health by 4312, Health Recovery by 406 and Stamina and Magicka Recovery by 369 for 2 hours.

• Cheap Alternative: Jewels of Misrule (Check Price) – Increase Stamina and Magicka Recovery by 357 and Max Health by 3927 for 2 hours. These effects are scaled based on your level.

Best Food for Max resources HP/STAM/MAG

Bewitched Sugar Skulls (Check Price) – Increase Max Health by 4620, Max Stamina and Magicka by 4250, and Health Recovery by 462 for 2 hours. These effects are scaled based on your level.

• Cheap Alternative: Longfin Pasty with Melon Sauce (Check Price) – Increase Max Health by 4462 and Max Magicka and Max Stamina by 4105 for 2 hours.

You can find a full list of all buff foods in the ESO Buff Food and Drinks Database.

Potions

In The Elder Scrolls Online, potions are a vital part of any build, especially for tanks. They inject a considerable amount of resources and recovery into your character when activated. This allows you to increase your survivability by a huge margin if timed correctly.

Best Potion

•  Essence of Health “Tri-Stat”  
  • Check Price: scroll down, it needs to say Restore Health, Restore Magicka, Restore Stamina
  • Combine Columbine, Bugloss, and Mountain Flower.

Cheap Alternative

• Crown Tri-Restoration Potion
  • This is the same potion as Essence of Health “Tri-Stat”.
  • You get these from daily login rewards and crown crates.

Alternative Skill-Lines for Subclassing on Necro Tank

Our current ESO Necromancer Subclasses Build utilizes one Necromancer, one Dragonknight, and one Arcanist skill-line:  Bone Tyrant (Necro), Earthen Heart (Dragonknight), and Soldier of Apocrypha (Arcanist).

Below you will find a few other variants that will work with this Subclassing Necromancer Tank Build.

Build	Skill-line 1	Skill-line 2	Skill-line 3
Current Build	Bone Tyrant (Necro)	Earthen Heart (Dragonknight)	Soldier of Apocrypha (Arcanist)
Build Variant 1	Bone Tyrant (Necro)	Soldier of Apocrypha (Arcanist)	Winter’s Embrace (Warden)
Build Variant 2	Bone Tyrant (Necro)	Winter’s Embrace (Warden)	Earthen Heart (Dragonknight)

Resource Management & Sustain Tips

Resource management doesn’t sound interesting, but it is the key to success if you want to play a tank in ESO. Our Necromancer Tank Subclasses Build has a lot of sustain tools that it can use.

• Heavy Attacks restore a big amount of stamina; if you hit an off-balanced enemy, it gives twice the amount back. You don’t need to permablock; try to find time to do Heavy Attacks in your rotation.
• Potions: We constantly use Potions with this build, which will inject extra resources every 45 seconds.
• Synergies: Healers often provide Synergies that restore resources, activate the synergy. (Example: Energy Orb Synergy)
• Buff-Food: If necessary, select a food that provides extra recovery.
•   Battle Roar: Returns resources when we use an Ultimate.
• Helping Hands passive returns Stamina when we use the Igneous Shield.
• Death Gleaning restores resources when an enemy dies.

Necromancer Subclassing Outfit Style & Fashion Showcase

If you would like to replicate the Outfit I used for this ESO Necromancer Subclassing Build, here is all the info you will need!

Update Log for the ESO Necromancer Subclasses Build Tank

The Update Log for the ESO Necromancer Subclasses Build shows all major changes (updates) made to the build since its launch.

10.04.2025 Added the Template for the Build.
21.05.2025 Added the Subclassing Tank Necromancer Build for ESO’s update 46, Seasons of the Worm Cult Part 1.