Hyperioxes
Hyperioxes

Bow Solo Build - ESO Guide

Solo Two Bar Stamina Subclass Warden Sorcerer Nightblade
Up to date for: Update 49 - 7th May 2026
Last changed: Update 47 - 7th May 2026

This build is capable of soloing every Veteran dungeon that doesn't have a specific mechanic that requires multiple people. It's also capable of soloing most Hard Mode dungeons, and with some adjustments even the more difficult ones.

In this guide I'll be regularly using the terms Regular and Difficult. Regular refers to content that is intended to be solo-ed (such as Maelstrom Arena or Vateshran Arena) and to any overland content such as World Bosses, Dolmens, Dragons, Volcanic Vents, Harrowstorms, Mirrormoor Incursions, etc. Majority of dungeon fights will also fall under that category. Difficult refers to extremely difficult dungeon fights.

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Subclassing

Combination

Assassination
Nightblade
Animal Companions
Warden
Storm Calling
Sorcerer

This build uses Nightblade's Assassination, Warden's Animal Companions and Sorcerer's Storm Calling skill lines. Your base class does not matter.

Assassination provides a lot of Critical Chance and Critical Damage with its passives and grants us access to extremely strong skills like Merciless Resolve and Soul Harvest

Animal Companions skill line is crucial because in this Bow build we do not have access to Elemental Susceptibility and Elemental Blockade so we need a different source of Major Breach and Minor Breach, and that source will be the Deep Fissure skill from Animal Companions skill line. It also grants us access to Bull Netch which grants a damage boost, sustain and purges debuffs.

Storm Calling is a skill line with decent passives that's also going to give us access to the Major Resolve buff through the Hurricane skill.

Skill Setups

Base Setup

A base setup that will work for most situations and which should be your starting point when making situational setups

Front Bar Back Bar
Slot 1: Focused Aim Slot 1: Hurricane
Slot 2: Deep Fissure Slot 2: Poison Injection
Slot 3: Merciless Resolve Slot 3: Bull Netch
Slot 4: Killer's Blade Slot 4: Endless Hail
Slot 5: Bird of Prey Slot 5: Barbed Trap
Ultimate: Soul Harvest Ultimate: Shooting Star
  • Focused Aim - a ranged spammable with massive range that applies Sundered status effect
  • Deep Fissure - deals a lot of damage per cast, provides around 9,000 penetration by debuffing enemies with both Major and Minor Breach and provides 5% Critical Damage through the Advanced Species passive
  • Merciless Resolve - an ability that will cause your Light Attacks to generate stacks. You can spend 5 stacks to fire a powerful arrow that also heals you if you're in Melee range. It also grants you Major Savagery and Prophecy
  • Killer's Blade - an execute you should switch to when your enemy is below 30% Max Health
  • Bird of Prey - passively provides Minor Berserk which increases your damage done by 5%. It also provides 5% Critical Damage through the Advanced Species passive and it can be used for a movement speed burst and snare removal
  • Soul Harvest - a cheap ultimate that increases target's damage taken from you by 20%. This is the ultimate you should use in Single Target fights. Having it slotted will also cause you to regain 10 Ultimate whenever you deal a final blow against an enemy
  • Hurricane - a skill that deals a lot of damage per cast and grants you Major Resolve buff increasing your armor by 5948
  • Poison Injection - a strong DoT which deals increased damage against low health enemies
  • Bull Netch - gives Stamina back over time, grants Major Brutality and Major Sorcery, and every 5 seconds either removes one negative effect or, if none is removed, increases your damage done by 5% for 5 seconds. It also provides 5% Critical Damage through the Advanced Species passive.
  • Endless Hail - a ground DoT which will apply your Weapon Damage enchantment
  • Barbed Trap - a DoT that will also apply Hemorrhage status effect at the start and grant you Minor Force buff, increasing your Critical Damage by 10%
  • Shooting Star - an ultimate that deals damage in an AoE, leaves a ground DoT and grants you Ultimate for each enemy hit with the initial blast, up to 6 enemies. Use it in AoE fights or when you start fights with high amount of Ultimate stored up

Poison Injection is the first skill that has to go when you need to slot something situational, unless the situational skill specifically says that it's replacing something else. If it has to be a frontbarred skill then the first skill that has to go is Killer's Blade

  • Critical Surge - a very strong self heal. It can also be used as your main source of healing before you obtain the Ring of the Pale Order Mythic
  • Resolving Vigor - use it for more difficult fights where the pressure is constant and thus you need the Minor Resolve. It can also be used in fights with invulnerability phases where you can't heal with Ring of the Pale Order , Reaving Blows or Critical Surge
  • Soul Burst ( , , ) - AoE DoT which grants you Minor Courage, increasing your Weapon and Spell Damage by 215. Use it in fights where you need more AoE damage.
  • Silver Leash - a chain ability that you can slot in trash packs to stack enemies and get through them faster
  • Ulfsild's Contingency ( , , ) - a replacement for Barbed Trap in fights where you need more damage mitigation. It's a delayed AoE damage that also grants you 8% damage reduction for 8 seconds and Minor Force for 22 seconds, which increases your Critical Damage by 10%. You should recast it every 8 seconds when under pressure and every 22 seconds otherwise
  • Revealing Flare - slot it for more difficult fights where you need more damage mitigation. It's a skill that passively grants Major Protection, reducing your damage taken by 10%. It will also trigger the Magicka Aid passive, which increases Magicka Recovery by 10%
  • Acid Spray - a decent AoE DoT for when you need more AoE damage
  • Precognition - an ultimate that breaks you out of some otherwise unavoidable stuns, you'll need it to get around some mechanics which are otherwise impossible or very difficult to solo, like for example Inferno's Hold in Zaan the Scalecaller fight

Priority List

This is just a list of priorities. Simply recast abilities when they run out and follow this list of priorities when there are multiple things to refresh

Pre-buff

These abilities can be pre-cast before entering combat

Final Setups

A few examples of final setups you could end up with after applying the situational skills to the base setup

A setup for dealing with trash packs

Front Bar Back Bar
Slot 1: Focused Aim Slot 1: Hurricane
Slot 2: Deep Fissure Slot 2: Silver Leash
Slot 3: Merciless Resolve Slot 3: Bull Netch
Slot 4: Acid Spray Slot 4: Endless Hail
Slot 5: Bird of Prey Slot 5: Ulfsild's Contingency
Ultimate: Soul Harvest Ultimate: Shooting Star

What Changes

Changes compared to the Base Setup

Passives

Class

Weapon

Armor

Guild

Alliance War

Racial

Craft

Class - Assassination

Master AssassinMaster Assassin - High Priority

ExecutionerExecutioner - High Priority

Pressure PointsPressure Points - High Priority

HemorrhageHemorrhage - High Priority

Gear

Base Setup

A base setup that will work for most situations and which should be your starting point when making situational setups

Switching gear for trash packs isn't worth it unless you're using gear-swap addons

Default setup

Gear Slot Set Weight/Type Trait Enchantment
HeadHead Slimecraw Medium Divines Stamina
ShouldersShoulders Ansuul's Torment Medium Divines Stamina
ChestChest Ansuul's Torment Medium Divines Stamina
HandsHands Ansuul's Torment Medium Divines Stamina
BeltBelt Tide-Born Wildstalker Light Divines Stamina
LegsLegs Ansuul's Torment Medium Divines Stamina
BootsBoots Ansuul's Torment Medium Divines Stamina
NecklaceNecklace Tide-Born Wildstalker Jewelry Bloodthirsty Increase Physical Harm
RingRing Tide-Born Wildstalker Jewelry Bloodthirsty Increase Physical Harm
RingRing Ring of the Pale Order Jewelry Bloodthirsty Increase Physical Harm
Frontbar Main HandFrontbar Main Hand Tide-Born Wildstalker Bow Precise Shock
Backbar Main HandBackbar Main Hand Thunderous Volley Bow Infused Weapon Damage

If you want to switch to a situational set it's best to replace Ansuul's Torment if the situational set you're getting has a Minor Slayer line, and replace Tide-Born Wildstalker otherwise. When replacing Tide-Born Wildstalker with a Medium armor set, change your Slimecraw head-piece to Light armor type.

For example, a default setup for trash packs would replace Ansuul's Torment with Sul-Xan's Torment

Gear that can be stronger than the setup from the table in specific situations or when specific circumstances are present

  • Sul-Xan's Torment - the best set for trash packs and for bosses that regularly spawn smaller adds
  • Order's Wrath - better than Ansuul's Torment in Overland content where you don't benefit from the Minor Slayer and penetration bonus lines
  • Vestments of Olorime - provides 430 Weapon and Spell Damage, 5% damage reduction from Minor Aegis and can be back-barred without losing anything, allowing for much more flexibility with gear. It's the ideal set for more difficult fights
  • Roksa the Warped - a monster set which provides a lot of sustain. You'll only have space for it when back-barring Vestments of Olorime
  • Armor of the Trainee - 1 piece bonus of this set provides 1454 max health. It also comes in any weight so we can use it on the chest piece, which combined with the Reinforced trait will provide a lot of armor

Gear that is easier to obtain and can be used while you work towards the best gear

Crafted

All of these are tradable and can be bought from other players

No Overland, Dungeon or Trial gear is listed as the Crafted options are superior.

Final Setups

A few examples of final setups you could end up with after applying situational rules to the base setup

This is the crafted gear setup you can start with

Gear Slot Set Weight/Type Trait Enchantment
HeadHead Tide-Born Wildstalker Medium Training / Divines Stamina
ShouldersShoulders Tide-Born Wildstalker Medium Training / Divines Stamina
ChestChest Order's Wrath Heavy / Medium Training / Reinforced Stamina
HandsHands Order's Wrath Medium Training / Divines Stamina
BeltBelt Order's Wrath Light Training / Divines Stamina
LegsLegs Order's Wrath Medium Training / Divines Stamina
BootsBoots Order's Wrath Medium Training / Divines Stamina
NecklaceNecklace Tide-Born Wildstalker Jewelry Bloodthirsty Increase Physical Harm
RingRing Tide-Born Wildstalker Jewelry Bloodthirsty Increase Physical Harm
RingRing Tide-Born Wildstalker Jewelry Bloodthirsty Increase Physical Harm
Frontbar Main HandFrontbar Main Hand Assassin's Guile Bow Precise Shock
Backbar Main HandBackbar Main Hand Assassin's Guile Bow Infused Weapon Damage

The weight distribution of the setup from the table is 1 Heavy 5 Medium 1 Light so that you can start leveling up all your armor skill lines. Once you transition to Regular setup you'll be using 6 Medium 1 Light most of the time, switching to 1 Heavy 5 Medium 1 Light only against more difficult fights

The setup in the table uses only crafted gear, but if you already own parts of the Regular setup like Ring of the Pale Order you can start using them immediately

If you want to Solo some difficult content without Ring of the Pale Order you'll have to switch to Critical Surge or add Reaving Blows to your CP setup

What Changes

Additional Info

  • Use Training traits if you're still leveling. If you're already max level and have enough Champion Points you can instead use Divines
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Champion Points

WarfareWarfare
Master-at-Arms
6% Direct Damage
Slotted
Deadly Aim
6% Single Target Damage
Slotted
Fighting Finesse
8% Critical Damage and Healing
Slotted
Wrathful Strikes
205 Weapon and Spell Damage added to damaging skills
Slotted
More Mitigation
When soloing extremely difficult dungeons you should replace Wrathful Strikes and Fighting Finesse with 2 of the 4 mitigation CPs (Ironclad, Duelist's Rebuff, Enduring Resolve, Unassailable)
More Healing
Reaving Blows is another decent Blue CP for when you need more HPS
FitnessFitness
Boundless Vitality
1400 Max Health
Slotted
Bloody Renewal
1500 Stamina on kills
Slotted
Rejuvenation
90 Health, Stamina and Magicka Recovery
Slotted
Fortified
1731 armor
Slotted
Block Mitigation
Use Bracing Anchor in fights where you have to block a lot attacks and where you don't have to move that much
Movement Speed
Use Celerity in fights where you have to move a lot
Craft Craft
Steed's Blessing
20% Movement Speed out of combat
Extremely useful utility
Quality of Life
Green Champion Points don't affect Combat, choose whatever Quality of Life you prefer

Race

For solo you need both damage and survivability, so every race brings something to the table, but these two stand out as the best options for damage and survivability respectively

Khajiit
Best for Damage
Khajiit
Why pick this
The strongest race for solo damage. Critical Damage is one of the most valuable stats in Solo play and Khajiits get 12% of it from Feline Ambush passive.
Feline Ambush Feline Ambush 12% Critical Damage
Lunar Blessings Lunar Blessings 915 Max Health, Stamina and Magicka
Robustness Robustness 90 Health, Stamina, Magicka Recovery
Nord
Best for Survivability
Nord
Why pick this
The tankiest race. Nord is also what I use for soloing Veteran Hard Mode DLC Dungeons. Rugged provides around 5-7% damage mitigation (depending on your current armor), making difficult content significantly more forgiving without sacrificing much damage.
Rugged Rugged 2600 armor
Stalwart Stalwart 1500 Max Stamina, 0.5 Ultimate per second
Resist Frost Resist Frost 1000 Max Health, 4620 Frost Resistance

Mundus

  • Instanced

    2744 Penetration(4489 with 7 )
    Use for instanced content. It increases your Penetration
  • Overland

    5.53% Critical Chance(9.04% with 7 )
    Use for overland content. It increases your Critical Chance
  • Difficult Content

    2744 Armor(4489 with 7 )
    Consider switching for extremely difficult dungeons. It increases your Armor

Attributes

For most content you should put all 64 points into Stamina. For difficult content you should devote as many attribute points as necessary to Health - for some content you'll be able to get away with 32 Health 32 Stamina, for the extremely difficult stuff you'll need 64 Health.

Health
0
Stamina
64
Magicka
0
All points into Stamina. Use it for most content
Health
32
Stamina
32
Magicka
0
Split evenly between Health and Stamina. Use this whenever you start to struggle
Health
64
Stamina
0
Magicka
0
All points into Health. Use this for very difficult fights

Food

Your sustain can vary greatly because it's impacted by your armor weight composition, your race and how much blocking/dodge rolling you're required to do in a certain fight. Choose the food with more Stamina Recovery if you can't sustain

  • Default

    Max Health +5,395 Max Stamina +4,936
    The default option.
  • Sustain

    Max Health +5,395 Stamina Recovery +493
    Use it when you need more Stamina Recovery.
  • Sustain

    Max Health +4,312 Health Recovery +406 Stamina Recovery +369 Magicka Recovery +369
    Use it when you can't sustain your Magicka skills.
    Cheaper alternative
    Difference Max Health +3,927 −385 Health Recovery — −406 Stamina Recovery +357 −12 Magicka Recovery +357 −12

Potions

  • Default

    Restore Health Restore Stamina Restore Magicka
    Most of the time you should use Tri-Stat potions (Restore Health, Restore Stamina, Restore Magicka). They'll greatly improve your sustain.
    Craft with: Columbine Bugloss Mountain Flower
  • Situational

    Restore Magicka Restore Stamina
    There are better potions but they're expensive. Heroism potions (Heroism, Restore Stamina, Restore Magicka) can provide a 100% uptime on Minor Heroism buff which generates ultimate, but they're extremely expensive.
    Craft with: Dragon Rheum Dragon's Blood Columbine

Parses

All parses are recorded on the 6 million Target Dummy

Regular Setup
70.9k DPS
Crafted Setup
67.6k DPS
Regular Setup
70.9kDPS
6mil Skeleton Dummy
Patch
Update 47
Armor
1 Light / 6 Medium
Gear Setup
Regular
Skill Setup
Regular
Potion
Essence of Magicka
Food
Braised Rabbit with Spring Vegetables
Mundus
The Lover
Race
Nord
Regular parse using Regular setup, Essence of Magicka and Braised Rabbit with Spring Vegetables.
CMX Parse
Bow Solo CMX parse - Regular setup
CMX Setup
Bow Solo CMX setup - Regular setup
Recording of the 69.2k parse (Update 46)
Parse recording
Crafted Setup
67.6kDPS
6mil Skeleton Dummy
Patch
Update 46
Armor
1 Light / 6 Medium
Gear Setup
Crafted Only
Skill Setup
Regular
Potion
Essence of Magicka
Food
Braised Rabbit with Spring Vegetables
Mundus
The Lover
Race
Nord
Crafted parse using Crafted Only gear, Essence of Magicka and Braised Rabbit with Spring Vegetables.
CMX Parse
Bow Solo CMX parse - Crafted setup
CMX Setup
Bow Solo CMX setup - Crafted setup

Gameplay

Scalecaller Peak
Dungeon
Falkreath Hold
Dungeon
Scalecaller Peak
Dungeon Veteran Hard Mode
Falkreath Hold
Dungeon Veteran Hard Mode
Scalecaller Peak Veteran Hard Mode Log
Patch: Update 46
Falkreath Hold Veteran Hard Mode Log
Patch: Update 46

FAQ

No, you don't need a different setup. Use the base skills and the Regular gear setup from this guide for both Maelstrom Arena and Vateshran Hollows.

Builds ESO Solo Builds ESO solo builds proven to clear Veteran Hard Mode DLC Dungeons. Tested with recordings and logs. Covers all classes and playstyles.


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