Best Subclassing Combinations for ESO – Powerful Subclasses

Welcome to our Best Subclassing Combinations for ESO article on the most impactful subclass combinations on the Elder Scrolls Online (ESO) Update 46! The introduction of subclassing is a game-changer, fundamentally altering character builds and meta strategies across all roles: Damage Dealers, Healers, and Tanks.

With subclassing, the focus shifts to leveraging specific passives and abilities from across the game to achieve optimal stats, provide crucial group buffs, and maximize survivability or damage output. Let’s explore the top subclass choices and powerful subclass combinations that can help you achieve peak performance across different types of content in ESO.

To keep this article relatively short and easy to read, we have included links to each of the subclass combinations detailing Subclass Skill Lines, Skills, and the buffs they bring.

More: View All ESO Builds, as well as our ESO Subclassing Optimized Builds.

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Table of Contents:

• Best DPS Subclass combinations
  • ESO Update 46 Meta DPS Subclass: Arcanist, Nightblade, Templar
  • ESO High AOE Damage Subclass Combination: Arcanist, Nightblade, Necromancer
  • ESO Damage over time DPS Subclass Combination: Necromancer, Nightblade, Dragonknight 
• Best Tank Subclass Combinations
  • Dragonknight, Warden, Arcanist: The top U46 Tank Subclass Combination
  • ESO Necromancer, Dragonknight, Arcanist Tank: High Ultimate Generation Subclassing Combination
  • ESO Nightblade, Dragonknight, Arcanist Tank: Supreme Sustain & Utility Subclassing Combination
• Best Healer Subclass Combinations
  • Nightblade, Warden, Templar
  • Nightblade, Arcanist, Sorcerer

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Best DPS Subclass Combinations in ESO

The concept of “Best DPS Subclass Combinations” centers on strategically combining skill lines from different classes to maximize damage output through powerful passives and abilities, especially for end game content. While single-class builds can still clear all content, subclassing can be seen as mandatory for achieving the highest levels of performance like scoreboard pushing.

It’s worth noting that the Arcanist’s Herald of the Tome skill line is a top-tier choice, featuring high-damage abilities such as Fatecarver, which has impressive AoE potential, and provides significant damage and penetration passives. Being an Arcanist base class is particularly advantageous for Beam setups due to the  Arcanist Class Mastery on  Banner Bearer, which reliably generates Crux.

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ESO Update 46 Meta DPS Subclass: Arcanist, Nightblade, Templar

Build: ESO DPS Arcanist Subclassing Build with Nightblade + Templar.

This combination of Arcanist, Nightblade, Templar subclasses in ESO allows you to cherry-pick some of the strongest damage-boosting passives and skills from their class lines. Choosing these skill lines leverage the strong penetration and core DPS abilities of Arcanists Herald of the Tome skill line (especially the Fatecarver Beam), the critical chance, critical damage, and passive damage boosts from Nightblades Assassination skill line, and the powerful passive effects from Templars Aedric Spear skill line that contribute direct damage with Burning Light, general offensive and defensive stats from Balanced Warrior, and crucial critical damage that can influence group buffing strategies Piercing Spear.

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ESO High AOE DPS Subclass Combination: Arcanist, Nightblade, Necromancer

Together, the Arcanist, Nightblade, and Necromancer Subclasses form a formidable damage-dealing package. This combination brings together the essential crit chance and crit damage buffs and valuable passive damage from Nightblades Assassination skill line, the powerful area damage and key passives for penetration and crit damage fromArcanists Herald of the Tome skill line, and strong damage-over-time buffs, execute crit, utility skills like Blighted Blastbones, and the Glacial Colossus ultimate from NecromancersGrave Lord skill line. Slotting a Grave Lord skill can provide additional penetration through the Dismember passive when needed.

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ESO Damage over time Subclass Combination: Necromancer, Nightblade, Dragonknight 

This combination of Necromancer, Nightblade, Dragonknight subclass brings together powerful Damage Over Time effects (DOTs)  fromGrave Lord and Ardent Flame, exceptional passives from all three, especially Assassination for crit and Grave Lord/Ardent Flame for DOTs), strong spammable option ( Molten Whip,), potent ultimate choices ( Glacial Colossus, Standard of Might,  Incapacitating Strike ), and useful debuffs like AOE Major Breach and Minor Vulnerability ( Unnerving Boneyard) and Major Vulnerability   Glacial Colossus).

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Best Tank Subclass Combinations in ESO

The best tank combination in ESO is highly dependent on the specific encounter’s requirements and the overall group composition to ensure all necessary buffs, debuffs, and utilities are covered. While the optimal setups will be highly situational, key lines like Winter’s Embrace, Earthen Heart, Soldier of Apocrypha, Siphoning, Bone Tyrant, Daedric Summoning, and Restoring Light appear poised to form the backbone of future tanking builds.

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Dragonknight, Warden, Arcanist: The top U46 Tank Subclass Combination

Build: ESO Tank Dragonknight Subclassing Build with Arcanist + Warden.

This Dragonknight, Warden, Arcanist Tank Subclassing combination in ESO is basically a buff machine, providing both Major and Minor Resolve to your group. Arcanists Soldier of Apocrypha  skill line offers excellent survivability and provides Minor Resolve and Minor Evasion buff for the group. Winters Embrace offers strong self-heals, block mitigation, and group utility like Major Resolve through Expansive Frost Cloak. Dragonknights Earthen Heart skill line is a source for the unique Stagger debuff.

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ESO Necromancer, Dragonknight, Arcanist Tank: High Ultimate Generation Subclassing Combination

Build: ESO Tank Necromancer Subclassing Build with Dragonknight + Arcanist.

Combination of Necromancer, Dragonknight, and Arcanist subclassing skill lines in ESO are among the stronger options for tanking. The Necromancer’s Bone Tyrant skill line boosts survivability and offers insane ultimate generation with Necrotic Potency, while the Disdain Harm passive provides an extremely good 15% reduction in damage taken from damage over time. The Arcanist’s Soldier of Apocrypha  skill line is an extremely good tank skill line for survivability, offering powerful damage shields and self-heals like Runeguard of Still Waters. It also provides notable group support through passives that apply Minor Resolve, Minor Protection, and Minor Evasion buff. The Dragonknight’s Earthen Heart skil line is considered a staple skill line, contributing the unique Stagger debuff which increases enemy damage taken.

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ESO Nightblade, Dragonknight, Arcanist Tank: Supreme Sustain & Utility Subclassing Combination

The Nightblade Siphoning line is exceptional for its amazing resource sustain, particularly aiding blocking and is the best line for ultimate generation through the Catalyst passive which grants 30 ultimate upon consuming a potion. This synergy between personal resource sustain and ultimate generation from Siphoning skill line, formidable defense and group protection from Soldier of Apocrypha  skill line, and core debuff/resource management from Earthen Heart skill line makes this a very strong and versatile tanking combination, often split between trial tanks.

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Best Healer Subclass Combinations in ESO

Similarly to tanks, there isn’t a single, universally optimal subclassing healer setup in ESO. With subclassing, healers should choose skill lines that provide essential buffs and ultimate generation. You can pick the Nord race for its Stalwart passive to boost healer ultimate generation even more.

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Nightblade, Warden, Templar: A Powerful and Versatile Subclass Healer for Update 46

Build: ESO Healer Warden Subclassing Build with Templar + Nightblade.

Combining subclass skill lines from Nightblade, Warden, Templar creates a healer capable of excelling in multiple areas. Nightblades  Siphoning lays the foundation for incredible ultimate generation, allowing frequent use of powerful ultimate abilities like Aggressive Horn or Barrier. Wardens  Green Balance provides essential group healing and defensive buffs like Minor Toughness. Templars Restoring Light complements this with strong AoE healing, the ability to cleanse harmful effects (Extended Ritual), provide sustain buffs, and even offer some defensive utility. This subclass combination allows your healer to generate ultimate at a high rate while also covering core healing responsibilities and providing important group buffs that might not be consistently sourced from other roles in the evolving Update 46 meta. This is a versatile subclass combination for a healer that is suitable for various content, including veteran dungeons and initial hard mode trial clears.

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Nightblade, Arcanist, Sorcerer Subclass Healer – The Ultimate Machine

By stacking both ultimate generation and cost reduction, the Nightblade, Arcanist, Sorcerer Subclassing healer can accumulate ultimate quickly and spend less of it per cast. Together,  Siphoning, Curative Runeforms and Daedric Summoning skill lines, combined with gear sets like Blessings of Potentates and the Shieldmaster Champion Point, and the use of reduced potion cooldown glyphs, allow a healer to drastically reduce the cost of key ultimates and generate ultimate at a high rate.

This differs from builds focused on generating ultimate for sets requiring higher thresholds, instead prioritizing the frequency of ultimate use for direct group support via powerful ultimate effects like Barrier which can save your group in tough situations. For example, combining Siphoning, Daedric Summoning, Curative Runeforms, Potentates, and Shieldmaster can reduce the cost of Barrier from 250 to around 143 ultimate.

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We hope you enjoyed reading this ESO Best Subclassing Combinations for ESO – Powerful Subclasses article! If you have questions or want to report an error, you can join our ESO Community Partner Discord.

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