Best Armor Sets for Solo in ESO
Welcome to Hack The Minotaur's top picks for the best solo armor sets in The Elder Scrolls Online. Attempting to solo world bosses, veteran solo arenas, and veteran group dungeons can be a major challenge, so having these sets will make a big difference whether you need better survival, damage, or sustain.
Best Survival Sets for Solo
Survivability is one of the keys to playing solo, especially to completing difficult solo content. Below are some sets that provide automatic damage shield and passive healing, making surviving tricky encounters much easier.
Hexo's Ward
Hexo's Ward is a medium Overland set from the Deadlands DLC. Not only does it have great offensive stats for both Stamina and Magicka builds, but it also has a massively powerful damage shield that procs automatically as long as you're doing damage. The shield can be buffed with Champion Points, so it's super strong and very helpful for completing difficult solo content.
Winter's Respite
Winter's Respite is a light armor set from the Overland zone of Western Skyrim. For those who may not know, Overland sets can also be purchased from Guild Traders, so you can buy gold for ESO and get some of these sets very easily.
Winter's Respite gives you a passive healing circle that constantly tops off your health, making survival easy. All you need is some ground effect, such as a Templar's Ritual or Nightblade's Twisting Path, to proc this and get that extra heal coming in.
Prayer Shawl
Prayer Shawl is a light armor dungeon set from either Spindleclutch I or Spindleclutch II. Keep in mind that many dungeon sets like this can be farmed solo, especially on normal difficulty, so it's not that hard to get if you want it.
Prayer Shawl is another great damage shield set, and it has a very short two-second cooldown on the shield, meaning as soon as an enemy breaks through, you can get up another shield immediately. This shield also stacks with other shields like damage shield skills or the Hexo's Ward set. I use both this set and Hexo's Ward on my Nova shield solo Templar build, making my character unkillable.
Beekeeper's Gear
Beekeeper is an Overland set that gives you passive health recovery. It offers about 900 health recovery and can be buffed further with Champion Points, or any potion that restores health.
Health recovery is a great thing to add to your build if you find yourself dying too much. Extra health recovery comes automatically and saves you from death. With its help, you don't need to do anything to receive health back, and it just gets added to your character every two seconds, similar to a passive heal, which is especially helpful if you're getting stunned or knocked back.
Best Damage Sets for Solo
A good balance of damage and survival is important when soloing in ESO because it helps you kill things quicker and progress faster. Also, in certain dungeons and solo arenas, the mechanics get harder the longer you spend on killing something. Therefore, speccing entirely into survival isn't usually what you want to do. Balance is key, and I always try to use at least one damage-focused set on any solo build.
Mother's Sorrow
Mother's Sorrow is one of the best sets in the game. Not only does it have great damage stats, but it's also easy to get. Mother's Sorrow is an Overland set from Deshaan, so it's easy to farm yourself, or you can also find it fairly cheap on Guild Traders.
Mother's Sorrow is 100% focused on Critical Chance, which is a great stat for damage and self-healing. Moreover, since Update 32, this set can even be used on Stamina or hybrid builds with some success. So if you don't have this fantastic set yet, you need to work on adding this to your collection.
Briarheart
Briarheart is a medium armor gear set found in the zone of Wrothgar. This set gives you a ton of stats when it procs and offers lots of Weapon and Spell Damage. It also provides a bit of passive healing when you do damage, which is great for playing solo.
Medusa
Medusa is similar to Mother's Sorrow but gives you an added benefit of free Minor Force buff, which is especially helpful on solo builds. With this buff, you can save a bar slot, save some resources, and save time in your rotation by putting this important buff on your gear set instead of casting it.
Medusa is a heavy armor set that comes from the Arx Corinium dungeon, which can be soloed on the Normal version, and it is even easier to do if you use a Companion for help.
Spinner's Garments & Spriggan's Thorns
Spinner's Garments and Spriggan's Thorns are two very similar sets that focus on Weapon and Spell Damage and Offensive Penetration. The Penetration stat is also important in ESO because it allows your attacks to bypass a portion of your enemy's armor, letting those skills do more damage than they would have previously.
Note that you can also get some penetration from wearing light armor from the Lover Mundus Stone or by using a skill with the Breach debuff. But even with all those factored in, you may be able to see improved damage with either one of these sets.
Spinner's Garments and Spriggan's Thorns are also Overland sets commonly sold on Guild Traders, allowing you to add them to your collection easily.
Deadly Strike
Deadly Strike is a set that will be helpful for damage-over-time builds. This medium armor set affects all DoT skills, both Stamina and Magicka based, so it's a great option for any solo build that has a fair amount of those DoT abilities. I recommend Deadly Strike, especially for Templars, Dragonknights, and Necromancers.
The primary way to get the Deadly Strike set is by spending Alliance Points in Cyrodiil, but if you don't PvP, don't worry. It can still be found often for cheap on Guild Traders as it is a tradable set.
Best Sustain Sets for Solo
Sustain Sets will be a great option for your solo build if you find yourself constantly running out of resources before a fight is over and are struggling to maintain your rotation.
False God's Devotion & Vicious Serpent
God's Devotion and Vicious Serpent are two of the best sustained sets in the game for Magicka and Stamina builds, respectively. I don't typically recommend these sets for solo players or beginners because they come from Trials, but they are so powerful for soloing content that I had to include them in this list.
They are not necessary for you, but if you are really looking to min-max your scores in veteran Maelstrom Arena or veteran Vateshran Hollows, having these sets are about the easiest way to do that.
Overwhelming Surge
Overwhelming Surge is a light armor dungeon set that comes from the zone of Tempest Island. This is one of my favorite sets for Magicka builds because it deals damage and restores Magicka simultaneously, and it also has some solid 2-4 piece bonuses for offensive stats.
Essence Thief
Essence Thief is a powerful sustain, healing, and damage set for Stamina builds. The set also adds some unique gameplay elements: it puts a ball on the ground that you need to track down and then step on to get the effect, and when you do, the sustain and the damage just come rolling in. I love using this set for my Werewolf builds, but it's great on nearly any Stamina build that you can think of.
Best Monster Sets for Solo
Iceheart
Usually, my go-to set for solo builds is the Iceheart from Direfrost Keep. This fantastic set gives you extra Critical Chance on the one-piece, plus bonus damage and the damage shield on the two-piece bonus. Damage shields can be scaled up with buffs like the Bastion CP star, making it even stronger. The fact that you can get all of these from a two-piece set is just amazing, so I recommend collecting this set in as many ways as possible.
Chokethorn
You might think of Chokethorn as more for Healers, but it's an amazing set for a solo build as well. The heal on the set is incredibly strong, and the fact that it's also a passive heal you don't need to cast yourself makes it even better. As long as you have at least one basic heal on your build, you can easily proc this buff on yourself, which then increases your self-healing and survival by a ton.
Sellistrix
Sellistrix is very helpful for grinding experience or quickly clearing through dungeons. The reason for that is it very easily procs a knockdown stun on enemies within a pretty large AoE, meaning you can take down full groups of enemies at once, allowing you to do more damage to them without taking damage yourself.
Note that world bosses or dungeon and arena bosses are immune to stuns, so you may want to swap this out for those specific enemies.
Domihaus
Domihaus not only does solid damage but also gives you a ton of additional stats. The one-piece bonus gives you both Stamina and Magicka, and the two-piece bonus provides you with extra Weapon and Spell Damage when the set procs. Because of all the stats, this set is great for any Stamina, Magicka, or even hybrid setup.
Best Mythic Sets for Solo
You want to focus on two Mythic items if you plan on soloing a lot in The Elder Scrolls Online: Ring of the Pale Order and Gaze of Sithis.
Ring of the Pale Order
Ring of the Pale Order is an excellent item for any build in the game. This item heals you when you deal damage, similar to how Sorcerers can heal themselves with a Critical Surge skill. Ring of the Pale Order has no cooldown, so the more consistently you do damage, the more healing you get, and the bigger damage numbers you do, the bigger your heals become.
Ring of the Pale Order is an excellent option for any solo build. Combine this mythic with a few solid heal-over-time skills, and you will be unkillable, making it easier to solo veteran Maelstrom or veteran Vateshran Hollows.
Gaze of Sithis
Gaze of Sithis is one of the best defensive items for both PvE and PvP builds. This one-piece item has some of the biggest stat bonuses in the game by far, including bonus health, health recovery, and a lot of extra armor. In short, this set is a very good way to increase the overall survivability of any character.
Best Crafted Sets for Solo
The nice thing about Crafting is that you don't need to spend as much time farming gear drops, and you can craft these sets in any weight and any Trait you need for your build. Don’t forget that you can also buy Crafted sets for ESO with real cash.
New Moon Acolyte
New Moon Acolyte is a staple in my collection for solo builds. This set provides tons of Weapon and Spell Damage, Critical Chance, and Offensive Penetration, though there is a 5% increased cost of active abilities. It's very easy to offset that cost increase with things like class or racial passives or just by putting a simple reduced cost Glyph on your jewelry.
Hunding's Rage & Law of Julianos
Hunding's Rage and Law of Julianos are two sets that are similar to the New Moon Acolyte with a bit less damage but without the cost increase of abilities. So these are great for beginners. Also, if you're having some sustain issues on your build, you'll want to consider one of these.
Vampire's Kiss
Vampire's Kiss is one of the best beginner and leveling sets available in the game right now. It heals you for a massive amount of healing over time for every enemy you kill, so it will be great for grinding experience with very little downtime, as long as you have a decent amount of enemies to kill to sustain that healing effect.
Torug's Pact
Torug's Pact is one of my favorite classic base-game sets. This set greatly increases the potency of your front and back bar weapon Glyphs, which can be pretty powerful, depending on which Glyphs you choose to use. I like to use this set with an Infused damage shield Glyph on the front bar and an Infused Weapon and Spell Damage Glyph on the back bar. This way, you'll get tons of extra damage and a free and quick cooldown damage shield, which will be an excellent combination for any solo build in the game.
Those are the best solo armor sets in ESO. If you want to learn more ESO tips and tricks for solo, make sure to check out Hack The Minotaur's previous videos or the guides shared by a professional MMO currency site – MmoGah.
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