Your Class is Just a Starting Point
When you create your character in The Elder Scrolls Online, you'll be asked to choose one of four classes: Dragonknight, Templar, Sorcerer, or Nightblade. But don't let it stress you out. This is an Elder Scrolls game, afterall, which means your character customization is much more natural than just selecting a premade class, like in other MMOs. Choosing the right class gets you started down the right road for you, but there's still plenty of room for customization later. What you choose to do in the gamehow you fight and what you fight withwill change and refine your skills as you play. However, your class choice does give you access to three unique skill trees that you can choose to invest in if you want to. Or you can just stick with the plethora of neutral skill trees for weapons, armors, and races. So let's get started on the right foot and pick the right class for you!
Dragonknight
A weapons-focused brawler that loves to bash facesand occasionally light them on fire with magic. Choose This Class If You Want To.. - Get in the middle of a fight and scrap with everyone. - Stay alive longer than most. - Roleplay being a draaaaagooooon! Skill Trees - Ardent Flame: Embrace your inner-dragon to burninate all of your enemies with flame weapons, breaths, and spikeable banners. - Draconic Power: Don the legendary durability of dragons to boost your defenses and debuff enemies trying to take you down. - Earthen Heart: Represent the protective side of dragons by buffing allies and ensuring you're always there to help them. Pro Tips - The hearty racesRedguard, Orc, Nord, and Imperialall have access to powerful racial skills that'll boost your survivability in extended periods of combat. For damage dealing, Dark Elves' dual-wielding and fire damage bonuses are very appealing. - For ultimate survivability, be sure to level your heavy armor and shield skills. - If you want to play defensively, invest your stat points into Health and Stamina. If you want to melt face, invest in Magicka and spam those Ardent Flame spells!
Templar
A light-wielding knight that wades into battle with tons of tools and plenty of playstyle options. Choose This Class If You Want To... - Wield holy magic for a righteous cause. - Have the flexibility to play in many different ways. - Focus on magic spells without sacrificing durability. Skill Trees - Aedric Spear: Use a burning spear to sweep large areas and wreak havoc on the battlefield. - Dawn's Wrath: Outsmart enemies by teaming up with allies to dish out death from afar. - Restoring Light: Keep allies alive and fighting with powerful healing spells. Pro Tips - Races that give Magicka bonusesBreton and High Elfwork great for the spell-heavy Templars. Argonians also make excellent healers and Imperials make excellent tanks. - Templars are team players. Even if you're focused on dealing damage, you should still try to support your allies, because you're just so good at it! - No matter which style you choose, you'll want to invest heavily in Magicka to ensure you can always cast your spells when you need them.
Sorcerer
A destructive spell-caster who wields all manner of combat magic to demolish their foes. Choose This Class If You Want To... - Focus on casting spells and using magic from a long distance away. - Summon pets that fight alongside you, so you're never alone. - Become a lightning rod of death that blasts baddies with electricity, which is freakin' awesome. Skill Trees - Storm Calling: Lash out with lightning, but keep it close to protect you if you're forced into close-range combat. - Daedric Summoning: Let friendly monsters do the work while you keep yourself alive and dream about loot. - Dark Magic: Curse and debuff enemies, keeping them in check for your allies to destroy easily. Pro Tips - The races with Magicka benefitsBreton and High Elfare also great for Sorcerers. Different from Templars, though, is that the Dark Elves also fit in nicely here with their bonus to fire damage. - This is the one class that lets you mostly ignore weapons (outside of equipping an appropriate staff), so focus all of your stat points into Magicka. - Avoid that heavy armor stuff and stick with light armor, which provides a lot of bonuses to your Magicka (instead of Health, Stamina, or Armor).
Nightblade
A sneaky assassin that wants to avoid a fair fight and, instead, ambush enemies when they least suspect it. Choose This Class If You Want To... - Steal enough cheese wheels to fill your entire home floor-to-ceiling. - Sneak around the battlefield and catch your victims off-guard. - Only be a damage dealer. Like, forever. Skill Trees - Assassination: Pick one target that you want to die, and make sure that they doas quickly and painfully as possible. - Shadow: The closest to non-DPS that Nightblade's get, you'll make sure that your victims can't escape and won't see youor your alliescoming for them. - Siphoning: Drain power from your enemies to boost your own attacks and spells. Pro Tips - Wood Elves and Khajiit both get nice bonuses to stealth, making them a perfect choice if you want to emphasize the sneakier side of Nightblades. The survival perks from any of the burlier races will help keep this flimsy class alive and swinging. - Nightblades will usually need to invest in both Magicka and Stamina. More than any other class, they have few free points to invest into Health. So don't to expect to be taking hits on the frontlines without some help. - Because of their diverse offensive options, Nightblades can wear any type of armor they want. But light armor is best for spell-heavy builds and medium armor is best for weapon-heavy builds.
Have Fun!
I know at least one of you just skipped straight to the end, hoping for an easy answer. Well, here you go! These are a few of my favorite options, ready for plagiarizing! - Wood Elf Nightblade (Siphoning): Use a long-range bow and rely on DoTs and life drains to burn down your enemies while they try to catch up to you. - Dark Elf Dragonknight (Ardent Flame): Get in close with dual weapons and fire spells to decimate everything around you. - Argonian Templar (Restoring Light): Make friends easily. As the most effective healer in the land, you'll be greeted with cheers wherever you go. - Breton Sorcerer (Daedric Summoning): A straightforward solo-play expert, this combo gives you some tankiness and plenty of pets to help you succeed on your own. But don't take my word for it! Pick up The Elder Scrolls Online for console right now and try out the classes and races for yourself. If you find a combination you love, jump back here and post it in the comments to help out your fellow gamers. No matter what you choose, you can succeed in Tamrieland that's the best part. So have fun experimenting with new builds!
"It makes me sick": Skyrim modder with 475,000 downloads, fed up with "daily harassment," abandons modding after "thousands of hours" of work on what she calls "the most advanced follower to ever exist"
Former The Elder Scrolls Online lead says Bethesda was such an amazing partner that it was harder to make a WoW-free MMO than it was to make a good Elder Scrolls MMO
