There are seven classes in The Elder Scrolls Online, including the newly added class, Arcanist. Which classes are better for PvP in the game now? MalcolM's tier list will be helpful for people who are looking for a proper class to play PvP.
D Tier
Necromancer
Necromancers have decent survivability, offering a burst heal and good passive damage reduction, but they lack damage. Also, they don't have a good crowd-control (CC) option, leaving most Necromancer builds relying on Agony Totem or Dawnbreaker as their only CC. Although the Grave Grasp has got the buff some time ago, it is still not enough to make it valuable.
The Necromancer class can survive and tank decently well, and luckily, it can make up for its lack of damage by using the current proc set meta with sets like Master dual wield, Vateshran ice staff, Dragon's Appetite, Maarselok, and Zaan.
Moreover, the Necromancer's toolkit is not very strong, which is also why the class doesn't go any higher than the D tier.
C Tier
Templar
The Templar offers an easy but nothing special setup, which is quick to learn but difficult to get good at. Like the Necromancer, it offers good healing, especially when the Templar can hold their ground in a specific spot. The problem is that the damage is pretty lackluster in practice, despite most Templar builds being able to push high spell damage stats. Recently, its Power of the Light or Purifying Light has received some significant buffs, but that still couldn't make the Templar any more than mediocre in PvP.
The signature spammable, Biting Jabs or Puncturing Sweep, deals a mediocre amount of damage that is easily avoided by Major Evasion. Therefore, the main build goal for Templars is to create burst via sets.
The Templar class has three general setups: Magika-focused melee setup, hybrid melee setup, and ranged setup. The melee setups usually consist of Rallying Cry, Mechanical Acuity, and Balorgh. Two of these sets create a burst, and players are pretty much locked into using these.
The Ranged setups have perks of their own, with the combination of Meteor, Javelin, and Radiant Oppression. Still, using block is preferable, as this burst requires an ultimate, so you better make it count. The commonly used sets are Rallying Cry and Wretched Vitality. With all these, Templars can be a viable class, especially in group contests.
Among the mentioned skills, Radiant Oppression is the most helpful for the Templar. It is an easy and undodgeable ranged execute that holds the crown over all the other execute skills in the game.
B Tier
Sorcerer
The Sorcerer offers a very mobile and versatile toolkit with varying effectiveness, depending on whether you play with a Magicka or hybrid version.
Magicka Sorcerer is the weaker of the Sorcerer setups but is still playable after receiving some buffs. Hybrid and Stamina setups are the strongest Sorcerer versions that use the class toolkit, most often in conjunction with proc sets for an effective setup with excellent pressure and mobility. Those proc sets would be the same as what has been mentioned for Necromancer.
A Tier
Arcanist
The Arcanist is the newest class that has been out for a few months. While its visual and auditive design is nice, it does not outshine the latter classes in this list. Interestingly, this is the first time a new class is not an S tier on release and gets a place in the A tier instead.
Defense is the best part of its toolkit because it has excellent health scaling healing. This means it's possible to build high health and still keep some of the highest healing in the game.
However, as an Arcanist, you could take a lot of risks, especially with Runeguard of Freedom, and it simply takes more damage to take down the target with 40K health.
Also, the active skills of the Arcanist cost a lot of resources, making this class a little difficult to sustain at times.
Furthermore, this class has some high-damage skills with Fatecarver. But in practice, this burst skill does not hit moving players due to the late aiming and the natural server position desync. The only way to hit the skill is if an enemy is not moving due to being rooted, stunned, or stuck in an enclosed space. This forces many Arcanist builds to resort to proc sets to carry their damage instead.
Warden
Wardens is a good class that is best played with a Stamina polar setup, stacking high health for survivability and relying on two-handed builds. There are also frost Wardens, which form a rather unique and fun play style, where you try to apply a lot of pressure, using frost damage abilities and Warden abilities.
This class can be extremely easy to play defensively, especially with a high-health build, which is very forgiving when making mistakes.
Offensively, this class is a little more tricky to play. You make a burst with a second hit of Deep Fissure, which has a long delay. Dizzying Swing has some peculiar mechanics to it as well, and it requires getting good at timing the second hit of Deep Fissure with damage abilities, such as a stun from Dizzying Swing, a partially charged two-handed heavy attack, or Dawnbreaker. By doing that, you would get one of the highest area-of-effect bursts achievable in the game, and that also gives you great survivability.
Unsurprisingly, you could run proc sets to deal a lot of prolonged damage, together with some class skills and the same Deep Fissure and Dawnbreaker burst combination.
S Tier
Dragonknight
Dragonknight builds are pretty good at everything, offering healing, resistance, sustain, and damage.
The damage is provided through some excellent class skills and ultimates. However, Dragonknights lack some mobility as its mobility skill, Protective Plate, only has snare and root immunity. But it is possible to build mobility with Race Against Time, Elusive Mist, or Swift jewelry.
Players who focus on fighting in closed areas can also make excellent use of Cinder Storm, which reduces the enemy's mobility rather than increasing their own.
Builds that use the common metal sets with Bloodspawn and Daedric Trickery are the most popular. These sets are good for survivability but also significantly boost ultimate generation. That goes hand in hand with the Dragonknight's passive, Battle Roar, which gives Magicka and Stamina back on ultimate use. That means you will get to use Corrosive Armor or Dragon Leap more often, which is an excellent ultimate, and also get a lot of sustain from the high ultimate generation.
The Dragonknight is one of the few classes that has good damage over time pressure without needing to use proc sets. On top of that, it has some of the highest single-target bursts as well. If you've ever encountered Dragonknights using a setup with Mechanical Acuity, Corrosive Armor, and Molten Whip, it's an experience that is hard to forget.
The Dragonknight's survivability is procured by the sets, and they get burst heal from Coagulating Blood, and extra healing from Vigor and Shattering Rocks. This is a hybridized build option for this class. Dragonknight is another class that this setup works very well with, and the sustained pressure from class skills and proc sets is unparalleled. Therefore, the Dragonknight is one of the best classes for PvP.
Nightblade
The Nightblade class has everything you could wish for, making choosing skills for the build feel like entering a candy store. All parts of a build, including the damage, healing, sustain, and mobility, are covered by this class's own skills. You can lean into this buy using most class skills in your Nightblade builds, or you can spice it up by adding proc sets or trying a build like a bow Nightblade, or a ranged Magicka Nightblade.
The best way to run this class is with a brawler build, which uses the extremely high burst damage of the class with a tankier setup in terms of resistance and healing.
Offensively, this class offers a cheap single target burst ultimate, a strong AoE burst ult, the strongest hitting burst skill, and one of the best melee spammables in the game. Defensively, not only do the Nightblades have some of the best burst heals and heals over time, but they also have one of the best mobility toolkits with Shadowy Disguise and Shadow Image.
That is the latest class tier list for PvP content in The Elder Scrolls Online. If you found MalcolM's content helpful, please give this video a thumbs up and subscribe to his channel.
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